LITMIR.BIZ

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off to sleep. She woke after daylight to the sound of birds twittering in the forest: her alarm clock. Brit had given it to her a couple of Christmases ago. It made nature sounds instead of beeping or buzzing. Elli reached over and punched the off button. The cats were already off the bed and racing down the hall.

      And the Viking…

      All she could see from the head of the bed was the edge of his blankets. “Uh, Hauk?”

      No answer.

      He’d proven last night that he could hear her even if she didn’t make a sound. So he must be up, or he would have answered. She pushed back the covers and scrambled to the bottom of the bed, where she found his blankets neatly folded, his pillow on top of the stack.

      Boots, belt and man were gone.

      Could it be? Had he really left—due to second thoughts on her father’s part, maybe? Had Osrik beeped him late in the night, told Hauk to back off, that his daughter had given her word and the king had decided to trust her to find her way to Gullandria on her own?

      The idea warmed her heart. Her father had faced a basic truth, apparently. He’d seen that in order to begin healing the awful breach in their family, he must trust, first and foremost, he must—

      “You called for me?”

      Hauk stood in the doorway to the hall, bare-chested, a half beard of shaving cream frothed over one sculpted cheek. She couldn’t help gaping at his shoulders and arms, so big and hard, the muscles bulging and taut, the skin so tan and perfect, except for the occasional white ridge of scar tissue.

      And his chest…

      It was covered with beautiful, savage tattoos.

      A lightning bolt like the one in his right palm, only much bigger, zigzagged across his bulging pectorals. Dragons and vines twisted and twined around it—and around the sword and dagger tattooed above and below it. The tail of the largest dragon trailed down his solar plexus to his navel.

      His belly took her breath away. She’d never seen one like it—at least not outside of ab-machine infomercials and superhero video games.

      Elli gulped and dragged her gaze up to meet those watching eyes. “Uh. Yes.” Carefully, tugging on her sleep shirt that had ridden up much too high, she rocked back so she sat on her knees. She tipped her chin to a proud angle and tried to look dignified, though she knew her cheeks were tomato-red. “I… didn’t see you,” she stuttered lamely. “I was wondering where you’d gone.”

      He lifted an eyebrow and held up a thoroughly modern cartridge-type razor. She stared at it for a moment, thinking that it looked toylike and strange in his big hand. But what had she expected, that he’d shave with his black-handled knife?

      “As you see, I am here. Anything else?”

      “No. That’s all.” She gave him a backhanded wave of dismissal. “Go on and, uh, finish up.”

      Elli dressed and made breakfast for both of them. Once they’d cleared off the table, she returned to the bedroom, Hauk close behind. He sat in the corner chair as she unpacked her suitcase.

      When she was finished, she set it, empty, back against the wall.

      “When will you pack?”

      She looked at him, surprised to hear his voice. He’d said hardly a word since she’d called him, half-shaved, from the bathroom earlier. “I’ll get to it. I have plenty of time.”

      He didn’t say anything more, but she knew he didn’t like it, that it bugged him, big-time, to think she might insist on hanging around in Sacramento till the last possible minute on Thursday. Baby-sitting a princess was not his idea of a good time and he wanted to get it over and done with, ASAP.

      Too bad. Let him be bugged. Let him wait and wonder when she would end their constant togetherness and agree to get on the plane for Gullandria. It might be petty—really, really small of her, to torture him when he was only following orders.

      But he ought to know better than to follow such orders as the ones her father had given him. He ought to stand up and say, My lord, I’m taking a pass on playing watchdog to your daughter. It’s beneath me and beneath her and I’m not going to do it.

      He hadn’t said that, or anything like it. So let him sleep at the foot of her bed and stand by the bathroom door whenever she went in there and march along beside her if she dared to go outside. Served him right, as far as she was concerned.

      Elli called a girlfriend, Barb Ferris, at the insurance office where Barb worked. She made that call on speakerphone, at Hauk’s insistence that he be able to hear both sides of her conversation.

      Barb agreed to water Elli’s plants, to bring in her mail and newspapers and keep an eye on her apartment. Barb even offered to feed Doodles and Diablo, but Elli said she’d get back to her on that. She was hoping to get her mother to take the cats. Barb said sure, she’d tell the other girls that Elli was taking off for a few weeks and would miss their girls’ night out on Friday. When Barb asked her what was up, Elli said it was a family issue.

      “Honest, Barb. It’s nothing too serious. I’ll be back in three weeks. Thanks a bunch for helping me out.”

      Next, Elli called Ned Handly, her date for Saturday night. Ned was a doctor, in family practice. They’d met through a mutual friend and Saturday would have been their second date. Hauk stood a couple of feet away, wearing his usual carved-granite expression, as she told Ned she was going away for a while.

      Ned said, with real regret, “I was looking forward to this weekend.”

      Elli glared at Hauk. You’d think he’d have the courtesy to let her break her date in peace. But no. He had to loom right beside her, listening to every word, every disappointed sigh.

      “I was, too,” Elli told Ned. “I hope you’ll give me a rain check.”

      “I thought you’d never ask. A family trip, huh?” Elli had given him no details—and not because the stone-faced Viking standing next to her might not approve. News like this would travel fast, and she wanted to be the one to break it to her mother.

      Her friends often used her title teasingly, calling her “the princess,” and “Your Highness.” They all thought she was so wonderfully unusual, one of three triplet princesses, her estranged father a king in some faraway northern land. As soon as one of them heard she was off for a visit to Gullandria, they’d burn up the phone lines sharing the scoop. Her mother might get wind of it before tonight. Someone might even let something drop to the tabloids.

      Then the stinky stuff would really hit the fan.

      So she was keeping the details to herself. “Yes, a family thing. But I’ll give you a call as soon as I get back.”

      “Elli?”

      “Hmm?”

      “You take care.”

      “I will.” She disconnected the call and wrinkled her nose at the big guy in black. “Well, now, wasn’t that innocuous and aren’t you glad you heard every word?”

      Hauk said nothing. He just stood there, waiting for her to make her next move.

      She realized she didn’t have a move. No one had called from the school or the district, so presumably the sub had been contacted and was, at that moment, teaching Elli’s morning class, managing just fine with the lesson plans Elli had left open on her desk.

      Except for packing and dealing with her mother, Elli was ready to go.

      And it was only ten in the morning—ten in the morning on Tuesday. She looked at Hauk, who gazed steadily back at her.

      Elli sighed. “Oh, Hauk. What in the world am I going to do with you?”

      “Pack your belongings,” he suggested softly. “His Majesty’s jet awaits you. As soon as you’ve spoken

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