The Dare Collection September 2018. Stefanie London

this morning,” he says with a wink. “It’s parked out back. Kate and I will call for a car to get home.”

      “What makes you think I won’t fail again?” I ask.

      Nikolai shakes his head. “It’s time I admit that I failed Victoria, too. I knew she was unhappy but refused to believe she could want anything other than what she was being offered—the chance to be queen. The monarchy is important, but it took me a long time to learn that other things rank as high.”

      I chuckle. “Are you about to lecture me on the merits of true love?”

      He removes the surgical gloves and crosses his arms.

      “You’re the one living out the legend of Maximus and Calista,” he said. “Go rescue your queen, but please avoid the whole Lovers’ Leap part of the story.”

      I grip the key in my palm. “I’ll never get past the Nightgardin gates in a fucking race car,” I say. “They’ll hear me a mile away.”

      Nikolai’s phone buzzes, and he pulls it from his jacket pocket. He laughs softly as he reads the text, then turns the screen to face me. It’s a text from X.

      Please inform Prince Damien that alternate transportation awaits him at the Rosegate and Nightgardin border. Good luck and Godspeed.

      “How the hell did he—?”

      “You know better than to question the inimitable skills of a man called X,” Nikolai interrupts.

      “Thank you, brother,” I tell him, and then I’m out the door, racing for the stairwell because fuck if I’ll step into an elevator again.

      And then I’m behind the wheel—a place that used to spell death and destruction, or at least my wish for them. I start the engine with renewed purpose, then glance in the mirror to check my brother’s handiwork.

      I am beaten, bloodied and scarred—marked with reminders of the mistakes I’ve made.

      But I am no longer broken without repair, not if Juliet still believes in me. I just have to get to her in time.

      Good thing I know how to drive fast.

      Juliet

      A brown mouse furtively runs along the stable wall in the direction of the burlap feed bag in the corner. Normally the sight would fill me with fear, send me screaming in the opposite direction. But now I can’t even muster the energy to watch it climb up to feast inside the oats. It turns out there are far worse fears to face in this world than a marshmallow-sized rodent.

      And tonight I shall be subjected to them all.

      Nightgardin has never signed on to any international treaty banning torture. Despite decades of intense lobbying from human rights groups, the monarchy has steadfastly maintained the position that no outside body will ever regulate the kingdom’s operations. We are ruled by direct reign, although I had privately planned to make changes when I took the throne, to ensure our small country looked forward and embraced change.

      But I never had a chance. My mother plans to rule forever.

      A furious tear slides down my cheek, echoing the trickle of blood coursing down each forearm as I tear the flesh from my wrists. I won’t be able to instill any progressive changes. I can’t even free myself from these stupid ropes pinning my hands above my head.

      There’s a tightening in my abdomen, a spasm of contracting muscles. It can’t be the baby stirring as it’s still far too small, but it’s a persistent sensation.

      A flicker.

      A flame.

      As much as I want to give up hope and try to prepare for the horror to come, I can’t ignore the little warmth.

      It’s love. Love for Damien. Love for the child we created in three nights of passion. Love for the potential we hold if only there is a way.

      Even in all this darkness, love—a fantasy I never believed to be real—still exists.

      I suck a shuddering gulp of air deep into my lungs and set my jaw. I have no idea how I will survive this night, but I have to try to believe. Even if the Black Watch does take my life in a few short hours, it can’t take the power of this love from me.

      And that has to count for something.

      A heavy march of combat boots on flagstones draws closer. They halt outside the stable.

      Boom! Boom! Boom! comes the bang of a drum, the execution drum.

      Four Black Watch soldiers enter my stable, their faces obscured by black ski masks. I’ve heard stories of Nightgardin public executions. They aren’t common, saved only for those who commit the worst offenses against the state. There were a few in my childhood, but I was never allowed to watch. At the time, I thought my parents were trying to protect my innocence. Now I realize that they simply didn’t want me in public. I was the princess intended to be kept out of sight and out of mind.

      I wince when one of the guards removes a sharp blade from a scabbard, but they won’t hurt me away from the lights and cameras. Instead, he cuts my bonds and my arms collapse against my sides like two sacks of potatoes.

      “She put up quite a fight earlier,” one tells the man beside him. “Sent Captain Augustin to the hospital to get stitches.”

      I can’t restrain a smile at that news.

      “We could muzzle her,” one growls.

      The biggest one steps forward and cracks his knuckles. “Or knock her teeth out.”

      “Enough.” A fifth man enters the stable. He’s got a puckered empty hole where his left eye should be and a large angry scar that distorts half of his face. “You have your orders. The princess is to be left unharmed until the broadcast begins.”

      Ah yes. There is a twisted ritual to my death. Protocols must be preserved.

      The man with the missing eye reaches out to grab my arm, and I spit in his face.

      I won’t make this easy.

      But he throws me over his shoulder as if I weigh nothing and begins striding away. Loratio, my stallion, stomps and huffs as I pass, but to no avail. I beat on the man’s back and shoulders, but I might as well be caressing him for as much as it seems to bother him.

      Minutes later, we come to a stop beneath a platform draped in purple velvet and bearing the Nightgardin crest. Upon it are two high-backed chairs, one occupied and one empty. My mother is dressed head to toe in white, her face somber, her hair tied in a severe knot. She looks as pure and merciless as the Old Testament God.

      She rises and steps forward. “Good people of Nightgardin, it is with a heavy heart that we gather here on this evening to bear witness to what happens to those who betray the kingdom. No one is above the law, from the farmer in the fields to our very own princess in the palace. A crime against the state is a crime against us all, and the penalty for treason is...death. Princess Juliet, as the Queen of Nightgardin, I condemn you to one hundred lashes for your crimes. After which your body will be burned, living or dead, in an attempt at purification. May God have mercy on your soul.”

      The drum beats three times, and she takes her seat on a high throne. My father isn’t there. He must not have yielded. Perhaps he will burn tomorrow night.

      The crowd is utterly silent. I feel the heat of thousands of eyes on my body. The quiet will not last long. I won’t be able to endure one hundred lashes, let alone fire, in silence. But I will not give my mother the show she desires.

      “A word, Mother,” I call out, and the crowd stirs. They aren’t expecting this. No one talks back to the queen in our kingdom. “You might burn my body tonight, but there is a flame that you’ll never be able to extinguish, that of the love that I bear for my husband, Damien, Prince of Edenvale, and our unborn child whose life you will snuff out as well. Some fires burn too bright. May God have mercy on your soul for trying to stop true love.”

      The