Princess in Peril. Rachelle McCalla

the Royal House of Lydia has never given over control of the country. It is my royal duty—”

      “It’s your duty to stay alive.” As he held her tightly, he felt some of the fight leave her. “You can’t reclaim the throne if you’re dead. If you let me get you out of here, we can negotiate your rightful return to the throne.”

      “How can I run from my people like a coward?”

      “Your only other option is to face near-certain death. Who will defend your people then?”

      He felt her war with that decision as he held her, his arms still firmly rooting her in place lest she suddenly take off up the stairs.

      Finally she told him in a determined voice, “I still don’t trust you.”

      “It doesn’t matter if you trust me. All I ask is that you allow me to protect you.”

      A huff erupted from her nose, and her chin lifted off from where it had come to rest on his shoulder. “Have I made it that difficult for you?”

      “You did seem determined to stay in the car long enough for the insurgents to hit it.”

      “If you would have told me about the catacombs earlier—”

      “I didn’t know you didn’t know,” he defended. He relaxed his hold enough to let her move half an arm’s length away but no farther. He still didn’t trust her any more than she trusted him. “There may be moments up ahead when I don’t have time to explain everything. Whether you trust me or not, you need to follow my lead. If I have to stop and argue with you at every turn, it will give the insurgents an unfair advantage. I fear we must move very quickly.”

      Her shoulders rose and fell under his hands as she took a deep breath. “Up the stairs in darkness, through the cathedral and then what?”

      “The U.S. Embassy is across the street. They should be able to help us get out of the country.”

      Isabelle was silent. Levi could tell she was weighing her response. Based on the background information he’d been given, he could guess at what might be the cause of her silence.

      “I know you don’t care for the American ambassador,” Levi began.

      “Stephanos Valli remains in this country solely to retain the good will of the American government. If it were up to me, he would never be allowed to set foot in Lydia again.” Her words seethed with barely repressed anger.

      “We need the Americans to help us get you out of the country alive. If Valli was headed to the state dinner, it’s likely he won’t be anywhere near the embassy. His staff can get us out of the country.” Levi had never met Stephanos Valli, but he understood that the American ambassador had Lydian ancestry and ties to the most powerful people in their area of the Mediterranean. Valli had negotiated the engagement of the princess to one of those people, a billionaire businessman named Tyrone Spiteri. The engagement had ended in scandal. Levi had never been told the details, but he understood Isabelle’s bitterness toward the ambassador for his hand in such an embarrassing experience.

      And Isabelle obviously wasn’t ready to risk an encounter with Valli, though it had been two years since her engagement to Tyrone Spiteri had ended. “I have many friends who could possibly help us,” she suggested.

      “Do you know them better than you knew Alfred?”

      She tensed, and Levi could feel her head shaking regretfully in the darkness.

      “I suppose,” she whispered softly, “we can’t trust anyone because we can’t be sure of whose side they’re on.”

      “The Americans should be trustworthy.”

      “Perhaps.” For a moment she sounded overwhelmed, but she seemed to draw quickly from that royal well of strength. “Let’s get moving then. I still intend to find a first aid kit if we can.”

      Levi was impressed with how quickly she made up her mind and how silently she made her way up the stairs. He counted seven, eight, nine steps before his head knocked into something solid.

      “Stop,” he whispered quietly as a breath while moving to shield her head.

      His burned fingers were momentarily squeezed between her high-piled hair and the obstruction. Tears sprang to his eyes but he stifled an exclamation. Finding her ear beside him, he whispered, “There’s an obstruction above us. It may be a trap door. I’m going to try to lift up.”

      He eased his shoulders up against it, but even when he began to apply greater force, nothing budged.

      “Does it have a latch of some sort?” Isabelle whispered back. He could feel her hands skirt past him in the darkness, and a moment later he heard a soft click. “Try it now,” she whispered.

      This time when Levi applied pressure upward, the ceiling moved silently, though the space above seemed to be just as dark as the tunnel they’d come from. With only a slight rustle from her evening gown, Isabelle slid through the opening, and Levi followed after her, closing the door softly after they were both out.

      Isabelle’s hand traveled up his arm, and he felt her fingers tug on his earlobe. At her prompt he leaned down and she whispered silently into his ear. “Should I try my light?”

      Feeling for her hands, he covered the light, then nodded. “Go ahead.”

      The light came on and slowly he allowed more of its miniscule glow to shine. The two of them looked around at the statues and marble plaques, their blank-eyed stone faces deeply shadowed.

      Isabelle shivered at the sight of the stone faces, whose forms hid the ancient bones of her ancestors. “The mausoleum,” she whispered. They’d toured it once when she was very young, but no one had been buried under the cathedral in several generations, so she’d had no cause to visit it again. Her sole impression was that it was a frightening place cluttered with dead upon dead, which seemed to go on forever.

      But then, she’d been only about eight years old when she’d made that tour. Surely it wouldn’t be so frightening now that she was twenty-four.

      Her light dimmed, and she snapped the phone shut again. Although complete darkness shrouded everything from her sight, she was acutely aware of the looming stone figures and tried not to imagine their blank eyes staring back at her through the darkness. She had to remember that the insurgent threat against her was far more real than her fears of the dark and the dead.

      “Do you know your way around in here?” Levi asked in a hushed whisper.

      “No. Do you?”

      “I’ve never been down here before.”

      “I visited once, but it was a long time ago. All I really remember is … “ The memories stumbled through her mind, tripping over themselves like the patent-leather shoes she and her sister had worn as they traveled hand-in-hand through the tour, nearly running in the end, chased by fear, wanting only to find the sunlight. She stepped instinctively closer to Levi, the only human figure in the room who lived and breathed. “I didn’t like it.”

      “Do you know which way we should go?”

      Isabelle searched the long-buried memory, sorting through the fright to find some tidbit that could help them. “We came in through the back of the church and came out at the front. The mausoleum runs the length of the cathedral, with family crypts branching off on either side.” She pulled his tuxedo jacket more tightly around her. “Most of these bones are more than a thousand years old. No was has been buried here in generations.”

      “So we should try to find the central hallway?”

      “That much shouldn’t be difficult. Then we go one way or the other. The trick will be not to get sidetracked, or we could end up wandering around here—” Her voice broke off as she heard a distant boom, the first sound to penetrate the deathly stillness.

      “The trick will be to avoid detection.” Levi’s words were spoken in a near-silent