Page 6 of Stolen Princess's Secret

For good or for ill, she was coming home and fully prepared to wield any scrap of power her identity afforded her.

‘I’m ready, Ildris. For whatever comes next.’ She watched the hawk soar, ribbons trailing, and hoped that if the owner of the hawk was Tomas, that he had not forgotten her. That he, of all people, would keep an open heart and mind. She had such sweet memories of him.

His boyish face in the firelight. His youthful voice as he’d stumbled over unfamiliar words as he read from books way too advanced for him. His hidey-holes and his smiles when he was absolutely certain no one else was looking.

It would take more than a lifetime before she ever forgot the fine mind and tender heart of her very first friend.

It took the riders what seemed like half a lifetime but in reality was measured by hours before they reached the outer walls of the fortress. There they had dismounted to shed layers of clothing and weapons. Rifles and scimitars, daggers and even the woman’s hairpins. A dark plait had fallen to her waist in the absence of those lethal fasteners. She’d turned slowly in a circle, her arms out wide and her movements graceful. She and her companion were stating with vivid clarity that they were entering unarmed.

The stately, ceremonial nature of their approach had set people on edge. Cas had arrived by helicopter. Sophia had been safely stashed away inside the fortress and security was on full alert. The mysterious travellers were making their final approach, on foot, towards the stable doors.

‘Let them come,’ Casimir had commanded. ‘No one is to ride out to meet them.’

The tension behind Tomas’s eyes was excruciating. What were they even doing, adhering so closely to the old ways when they had all sorts of technology that could help to identify them without actually letting them in? It was as if time had slowed and hope had risen and reason had unequivocally left the building.

The stables were as they’d ever been. Twenty stalls capable of holding three or four horses apiece ran either side of a large central square. The square was covered in sawdust and the stable hands kept it immaculate. Huge wooden doors stood sentry on opposite sides of the square. Doors strong enough to hold invaders out rather than horses in.

Tomas stood in the centre of the sawdust square alongside Ana, with Cas on her other side. The stable master, stable hands and a company of guards took up other positions as Cas finally ordered the opening of the outer doors to let the visitors in.

The male rider entered first, leading his horse. He picked Casimir out of the crowd and steadily approached.

‘Your Majesty,’ he said with the click of his heels and a swift bow. ‘It’s been a long time.’

‘Welcome, Lord Ildris of the North.’ Cas clearly knew the man by sight, even if Tomas didn’t. ‘Who’s your companion?’

The northerner waited a beat, as if taking a deep breath. ‘She’s the negotiator you requested and speaks for the people of the north and for herself. A future for a future, Your Majesty. Delivered to you in good faith.’

The woman entered the stables, swift and sure, and the horses and dogs followed, and Tomas knew who she was even before she lifted her eyes and made it a foregone conclusion. Her eyes were the same shape and colour as Casimir’s. Same as Sophia’s. The eyes of the royal family of Byzenmaach.

‘Hello, Cas,’ she offered quietly and then her gaze flickered sideways, passing over Ana to rest squarely on him. ‘And Tomas. You’re the falconer here now?’

He had no words. He could barely remember to breathe, so it was fortunate that Ana answered for him. ‘Yes, he is.’

‘I thought so.’ She smiled as if they’d just shared a joke, but he could find no smile for her in return. He was too busy fighting a horde of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. Astonishment. Disbelief. Anger. Relief. Where had she been these past twenty years or more?

And then Ana said something to Cas in Russian and then Cas was striding across the floor and pulling his sister into an embrace that left no one in any doubt of the depth of his supposed loss, or his joy at finding her alive.

‘You were right, Tomas,’ Ana murmured, and maybe he should have stuck around but he’d had enough of this day and all the drama, and if he was going to break down, he wanted to do it in private.

He turned on his heel and left without a word. Back to the house he’d been born and raised in, shedding his clothes as he headed for the shower and the tap that brought the icy underground river water into the homes of those living here, to be heated by a furnace and pushed through pipes so it could beat down on a man’s head, hot and strong or icy cold and anything in between. A pleasure or a punishment, and today he chose the latter, standing beneath the stinging, icy spray far longer than was wise in an effort to wash away his confusion.

Claudia of Byzenmaach was dead. He’d mourned her. They all had. Her absence had coloured their lives.

Did the impossibly beautiful woman who stood there, so regal and composed, have any idea of the sorrow she’d left behind? Where had she been all those years? What atrocities had she endured? And to single him out. To remember his name and greet him like an old friend. She’d stood, magnificent and defiant, so impossibly alive and begging him with her eyes to acknowledge her existence...

Emotion after emotion broke over him. Confusion. Resentment. Rage. Where was it all coming from?

He didn’t want to be drowning in emotions. Get a grip.

He was a man of firm control, not seething, unruly compulsions. A simple man, a falconer. Nothing more and nothing less. There would be no befriending the returned princess of Byzenmaach. No trying to protect her, no welcoming her home. Definitely no regarding her as an impossibly desirable woman capable of setting his body alight at a glance. He wanted nothing to do with her. Nothing!

He was not getting caught up in Princess Claudia of Byzenmaach’s blast radius ever again.

CHAPTER TWO

CLAUDIA COULDN’T SLEEP, and it had nothing to do with the warm and heartfelt reception she’d received from her brother and his family. Maybe it had something to do with the adrenaline-filled day and the capture of her senses as she’d built new memories over old ones and tracked all the changes that had occurred to people and possessions. Mostly, her wakefulness had to do with a certain falconer with an impossibly beautiful masculine face, eyes of darkest brown and stern lips that spoke of sensuality under rigid control.

Tomas had been standing there with Ana and Cas as she’d entered the stables and he’d known who she was in an instant. She’d seen it in his eyes—a kaleidoscope of feelings she hadn’t possibly been able to decipher in such a short time before her attention had been forced elsewhere.

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