LITMIR.BIZ

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you know there is a drug that will make a man tell everything? His every secret? It’s called Sodium Amytal. Have you ever heard of it, Your Royal Highness?”

      It was a head game, now, a sparring of minds. Owen was aware if he answered he was conceding to his captor’s rules that he was expected to answer him, and that if he didn’t answer, the stakes could be upped. Jordan. He swallowed his pride.

      “No, I haven’t heard of that drug,” Owen said tersely.

      “No?” He nodded slightly acknowledging the younger man’s concession. “Well, princes don’t dabble in the dirty stuff, do they? No, they cut ribbons and dance at galas and ride the fall hunt. Though I will admit your strength took me and my men by surprise. But be warned, the drug can make even the strongest man, even a man who can withstand great physical punishment, babble like a baby. I could know everything about your Jordan in very short order.”

      “Okay,” Owen said harshly, “I hear you.”

      “I’m glad that you do.” The man rose to his feet. “I think this session is ended for today. Tomorrow I will have some questions. About the diamonds.”

      “Diamonds?” Owen echoed, completely baffled.

      “If you give me any more trouble, be warned, I will not punish you. I will find the girl. Do you understand that?”

      Owen thought the threat was empty. For one thing, if he made another escape attempt, he fully intended to succeed. But if he did not, how could he tell his captor where Jordan was when he had no idea himself? On the other hand, somewhere in his mind, there were probably clues to her whereabouts. He remembered, uneasily, she was from Wintergreen, Connecticut.

      “Do you understand?” he was asked again with soft, but unmistakable menace.

      “Yes.”

      “Good. It’s important that we understand each other. Satisfactory answers to the questions I have will also be beneficial to Jordan.”

      Owen detested himself that he had revealed an Achilles’ heel so easily.

      “I’ll leave your dinner here on the floor where you threw it. If you get hungry enough, it may begin to look appetizing to you, though it’s been slightly trampled now. Of course, I am unable to attest to the cleanliness of my men’s boots.”

      Owen struggled with his fresh fury, the abject humiliation of finding himself being totally in this despicable despot’s power. He managed to turn over on his side, turn his back to his tormentor.

      “Bon appetit, Your Royal Highness.”

      It was not until he heard the door lock behind him that Owen allowed himself the luxury of a groan.

      His whole body was throbbing. Owen would have liked to inspect his knuckles, as it felt like one of them was split open. And touch his face to check the swelling in his cheek, the bleeding from his lip. But his arms were trussed tightly behind his back. He contented himself with laying his hurt cheek against the cold floor.

      His bid for freedom had not only failed, it had made the next attempt harder. Perhaps impossible. What if another attempt meant danger to Jordan Ashbury, wherever she was?

      The floor seemed harder and colder by the second. Owen steeled his mind to the discomfort, refused to acknowledge the niggle of hunger that had begun in the bottom of his belly.

      He had cried her name in the night.

      Jordan.

      He closed his eyes, and she danced across his memory and came to him. He remembered her running across the sand beside the ocean in the moonlight, her blond hair streaming behind her, the sparkle in her eyes putting the stars to shame. He remembered when he kissed her, that first time, her lips and skin had tasted of the salt in the moist sea air that shrouded them.

      The memory made him groan again, a pain deeper than the physical pain he was in.

      Because from the start he had known one truth: a relationship with her was impossible.

      Impossible.

      Impossible to resist. Impossible to control.

      And in the end, just plain impossible, his life and hers too far apart, a chasm between worlds too huge to be leaped.

      There was rough laughter outside his door. Changing of the guard. He tried to figure out what time it was, but then gave up. Instead, he closed his eyes and gave into the simple pleasure of remembering her speaking his name.

      Or what she thought was his name.

      He wondered, wearily, if they were going to kill him, these captors. It was the first time he had allowed himself to consider that possible outcome to his kidnapping.

      He knew it did not bode well that his captor had allowed him to look at his face, had carelessly revealed the tattoo on his arm.

      Looking his mortality in the face, Owen had a moment of illumination, a clarity of thought he had never experienced before.

      He was aware, suddenly, that he had let go of the one thing in life that he should have treated as most precious.

      He did what he had not allowed himself to do for five years. He allowed himself to remember her. He allowed himself to wish things could have been different.

      He had been eighteen the summer of his rebellion.

      Eighteen and aware that he was more likely than his twin brother, Dylan, to be chosen to be king one day.

      What had it been about being eighteen that had made truths of which he had always been aware seem suddenly unbearable?

      He had always known his life would not be his own.

      He had always known that every decision regarding his life and every detail affecting his life would be carefully orchestrated, not to meet his needs, but to meet the needs of his small island nation of Penwyck.

      He had always known that the most important decisions of his life, including whom he would one day marry, would largely be influenced by others.

      At eighteen, he had seen his life unfolding before him, a prison he could not escape. He could see now they were grooming him to be king, and not his brother Dylan. He could see how it hurt Dylan, and he had hated a system that would make one brother seem to have more value than another, just because he had different gifts.

      Owen was strong and fast and smart. Dylan was those things, too, but not to the same extent. And Dylan had quiet strengths of his own that were largely overlooked because Owen was a “package” that the public adored. Tall, dark and handsome, the fact that he was good-looking and athletic played a part in the manufacture of a fairy tale that the people of Penwyck delighted in believing. Sometimes Owen was uncomfortably aware of his image being manipulated more than Dylan’s, his acceptance as the future monarch of the small island being worked on in subtle and not-so-subtle ways all the time.

      Most men, Owen knew, had to find their destiny. He had been born to his.

      At eighteen, he accepted that. But he also realized he had some trading power. And the trade he insisted on was that he have a summer of freedom—one summer in the United States—before he came back and devoted himself and his life totally to the destiny he had been born to. In exchange for one summer he promised he would return to Penwyck without argument and ready and willing to assume his adult role in the affairs of state.

      Even with that promise, he had to fight hard. It was the first time he came face-to-face with the implacable strength of his own warrior spirit.

      He found it to be a part of himself that he enjoyed thoroughly.

      Disguised, drilled in his assumed identity until he could recite it in his sleep, under oath not to reveal his true self to anyone, under any circumstances, Owen was finally allowed, albeit reluctantly by his parents, and especially by the Royal Elite Team, to go off completely on his own for what was supposed to be a five week program for gifted political science students at the world-renowned Smedley Institute

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