LITMIR.BIZ

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gripped the steering wheel, trying to ignore the sound. To make matters worse, Jonathan was humming tunelessly, thumping his stuffed duck against the car door. He clenched his teeth, summoning inner strength. You are the lion. The hunter that strikes in the night. You have the patience of the leopard in the tree.

      Thump. Thump. Flip. La-la-la.

      I’m not a thrice-damned cab driver. Another few hours, and he’d be alone again. Breathe deeply. No, then he smelled tasty woman. Open a window. Yeah, that was it.

      This was his nightmare. Once before, he had been responsible for a woman and her young. The Knights of Vidon had destroyed them. And I tore the first Nicholas Ferrel and his animals to pieces in retribution. The centuries that followed had been a bloodbath, an endless feud of vampire against slayer as one act of violence demanded payback, then another.

      But Mark had taken a different path since then, one of healing instead of death. He desperately wanted to stay on it.

      Bree stopped turning pages, gazing out the window again. Her long fingers gripped the magazine so hard the tendons stood out along the backs of her hands. “You don’t think anyone’s following us now, do you?”

      Mark cleared his throat. “Not that I’ve seen.”

      “What have you seen?”

      “Two logging trucks and a pickup full of produce. Unless the gunmen are disguised as squash, we’re safe for the time being.”

      “Good.” The word was as packed full of meaning as her glance had been. “It’s been a while since I had a few hours.”

      He looked over at her. He was wearing dark glasses despite the tinted windshield, and they washed the color out of her, leaving her in shades of gray. “You mean a few hours to not worry?”

      She gave a quick, rueful smile. “To worry about one thing at a time. To focus on normal mom things, like breakfast. Clean clothes. I’ve been carrying this magazine around for weeks and haven’t got past the first ten pages. Getting to read it feels like a scandalous luxury.”

      Something made Mark glance in the rearview mirror. Jonathan was watching his mother, picking up every word. Mark wondered how much of it he understood. Probably everything. Kids in trouble grew up fast. Maybe princelings on the lam grew even faster.

      “Where’s Jonathan’s father in all this?” he asked.

      “Nowhere.” Bree said it quickly, opening up the magazine again. The word was the next best thing to a slamming door.

      Mark watched the road, keeping his face turned straight ahead. They were getting near the ferry that would take them to Seattle. He should start laying a little groundwork to prepare Bree for the safe house. “It’s a lot, raising a child on your own.”

      “Sure it is. But you do it, whether you’re ready or not.” Her voice was quietly matter-of-fact.

      “The guy’s a prince. He can afford child support.”

      Her hands froze midflip. “You know who I am.”

      Got you. Mark shifted his hands on the steering wheel, as if closing his grip on more than the car. “I figured it out.”

      “How?” She pulled herself straighter in the seat. “How did you know?”

      “I have a good memory for faces.” Which was true, though he’d made no connection between this woman and the celebutante who’d graced Crown Prince Kyle’s arm four years ago. But now that he’d met Bree, there was no chance he’d ever forget her.

      She slumped. “Sue me. I had my fifteen minutes of fame.”

      “You weren’t the last girl Kyle showed a good time.” There had been others, including the infamous Brandi Snap, who had nearly wrecked Prince Kyle’s engagement to the much-beloved Princess Amelie of Marcari. “Does Kyle know about Jonathan?”

      She gave him a dirty look. “They’ve never met.”

      “That’s not what I asked.”

      “Oh, but everyone knows about him, don’t they?” Her tone was steely enough to draw blood. “I worked hard to keep a low profile for a long time. Lived my life, raised my son. Then one day the paparazzi must have been having a slow week, because all of a sudden it was all over the papers—the prince’s bimbo had a baby.”

      “Is that who you think is after you?”

      “Photographers shoot with cameras, not guns.” She toyed with the edges of the magazine, riffling the pages. “And Kyle isn’t the one giving the order to chase us. He’s a good guy, prince or not.”

      Mark was inclined to agree. As one of the Horsemen, he had crossed paths with the crowned heads of several kingdoms, including Prince Kyle. He’d seemed pretty levelheaded—but the fact that he’d had this woman and then let her get away—well, that was just foolish.

      Mark turned her story over in his mind, still trying to match the glittering arm candy with the serious, frightened young woman next to him. “Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. A royal court is a well-oiled machine. Kyle is only one piece of it.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “He might be a nice guy, but there are plenty of people at court who aren’t. It’s not just all parties and polo. Vidon has been at war with its neighbors off and on since the Crusades.”

      “But he always knew he would marry Princess Amelie from the kingdom next door. Their families have been fighting forever. He wanted to end the war and, from what he said, so did she. Marriage would unite Marcari and Vidon.”

      Her matter-of-fact tone surprised him. “You don’t mind that he’s marrying another woman?”

      She shrugged. “He’s a prince. He has to marry a princess. Besides, we were just friends.”

      Just friends. Not the statement he’d expected, but relief eased his shoulders. A silence fell over the car for a moment, leaving only the sound of the road and Jonathan’s aimless humming. Mark struggled to tune it out. Whatever kept the kid from talking, it wasn’t his vocal cords.

      They passed through a tiny hamlet that was nothing but a gas station and a place that sold pies. A bored-looking horse swished flies and stared morosely over a broken-down fence. Mark checked the rearview mirror. Still no one tailing them.

      “Your son can still be used as a pawn, even if he’s not a legitimate heir.”

      Bree snapped the magazine shut. “He’s not the heir. He’s not Kyle’s. I wish people would believe me.”

      “There are people who might benefit from saying he is.”

      “Seriously?” she scoffed. “These are tiny kingdoms. Nice, lots of Mediterranean beaches and all that, but Texas could swallow them both and leave room for snacks.”

      “Neither country is big, but the income from tourism, especially gambling, is huge.”

      “Still, how would kidnapping Jonathan help anyone?”

      Mark wondered how much he should say, but decided she deserved the straight goods. “Not everyone wants the match between Vidon and Marcari. Their feud is so old, it’s become a way of life for some people. Even a means of making money.”

      And then there was the whole supernatural issue. Amelie’s father, the king of Marcari, had an old alliance with the vampires. The Company and the Horsemen had his personal support. But right next door, the vampire-slaying Knights of Vidon had kept the feud between the two nations alive—and had most recently left a fan letter in Mark’s bedroom.

      Which meant the his-and-hers sets of gunmen were probably the same people. Mark had to get her to the safe house, whether she liked it or not. He turned to Bree, who was biting her nails.

      “Think about it,” Mark said softly. “What if people believed Jonathan

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