Page 68 of Crown of Thorns
“No. She knows I’ll find her.”
“Eventually.”
“No,” I corrected him. “She knows I’ll find her immediately.”
“That’s ridiculous unless you have her tagged like a polar bear,” he says. When I just raise an eyebrow he corrects his opinion. “That’s genius. Well, where is she now? Look.”
I slip my phone out of my pocket and pull up the app. She went to the ladies’ room more than twenty minutes ago and she’s still there now. Her tracker is blinking but it’s not moving at all. Shit. I have to get to her.
“Something’s wrong,” I tell him. “She’s been inthere for ages and she’s not moving. Find Leo.”
“On it,” is all he says before he’s moving. Before Jake was president, he was a navy seal, so I can trust him to complete the mission. Besides, I helped him with a mission of his own not too long ago.
I move through the crowd as quickly as I can without alerting anyone, I make my way out of our wedding reception and down the hall to the ladies’ room where an out of order sign has been placed in front of the door.
Fuck!
“Stella!” I shout, pounding my fist on the door. “Stella, I’m coming in!”
When I push open the door, my heart seizes in my chest just as Jake and Leo push in beside me. Laying on her back with her eyes open and unseeing, Stella’s beautiful face is swelling. I’ve seen this recently, she’s been stung by a bee this shouldn’t be happening inside my own fucking house.
I drop to my knees and feel for a pulse, it’s there, but it’s faint. “Call an ambulance!” I shout.
“It’s on the way, sir,” Leo says. “Here’s her bag.”
He hands me the small evening bag she was carrying to conceal her EpiPens and I rip it open and grab one. I shove the skirt of her gown out of the way and jab the needle into her milky thigh, the medicine depressing into her body but it’s not enough.
I grab the second one and jab it into her other thigh and pray that she doesn’t leave me. I’ve only just foundher, just made her mine. I knew that there were threats inside our own home and I didn’t tell her. This is all my fault.
As the second hit of epinephrine hits her bloodstream she gasps, and her eyes fly open.
Thank God.
“God save the Queen,” Leo says.
My sentiments exactly.
Epilogue
War
Stella
“Rhys,” I gasp as my eyes open. The beeping indicates that I’m in a hospital again, but I’m not. I look around and realize I must be in some part of the castle, only it’s made up like a hospital room. “What happened?”
“You’re going to be all right, hen,” he says. “You were stung by a bee—”
Suddenly, it all comes back to me. The lip gloss, the bee venom, the plans to kill me.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Aye, you were, you had a reaction,” he says.
“I had a reaction, but I wasn’t stung by a bee,” I tell him. “You have to listen to me. Please.”
“All right.”
“Lady Thomley and I overheard the earl tell thequeen to get rid of me the other night,” I tell him. “She said I had to be quiet and not tell anyone what I’d heard because the earl is dangerous.”
