Page 25 of American Prince (New Camelot Trilogy 2)
Rape.
God, that word. It hung like a fog over the Carpathian mountains during the war, this ever-constant violation ripping through the towns and villages Melwas claimed. The faces of those women—some of them barely budded past childhood—dirty and tear-stained and blank. We’d go in and get them medical help, assure them they were safe, but they still shied away from us, flinched at our male voices. Ash and I had made sexual assault a key issue during the campaign for exactly that reason. For all the women we were too late for.
I won’t be too late for Greer.
Greer’s face is almost as blank as the ones I remember from the war. She has her forehead pressed to the glass and I see her taking slow, deliberate breaths, as if she has to remind herself how to breathe, how to keep her body working.
And then he touches her again, one hand on her throat and the other hand on her cunt. He squeezes and a tear slips out from under those long, dark lashes of hers.
I’m to my feet before Wu can stop me, moving out of the cover of trees to the lodge, and I’m almost to the service door before he catches up to me. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he demands in a low voice. “What happened to the plan?”
“Fuck the plan,” I snarl. “I’m going in there before he hurts her.”
“Getting killed isn’t going to help—”
“Boys,” Gareth’s voice comes in over the earpiece. “Melwas is leaving.”
“What?” I ask.
“He’s leaving the room. They bound her with tape and gagged her and turned off the lights. Now he’s going upstairs with his men…it looks like they’re going out the front door. They must have heard about our little diversion back at the capital.”
We hear a car engine start, then a second, then a third, the cracking of tires over branches and gravel.
“How many men are left that you can see?” I ask Gareth.
“One by the front door,” she replies. “And I think one stayed outside Mrs. Colchester’s room.”
Wu looks at me. “Two? Could we be that lucky?”
“If he thinks the perimeter has enough security…if he thinks there’s no way we’d know about this place…” I close my eyes for second, thinking. “I can handle two men. You two stay out here, out of sight. If you don’t hear from me, or if the First Lady and I aren’t out within an hour, then you’ll know you need to re-evaluate the plan.”
“Just like old times, eh?” Wu says as he hands me a handgun. The cool weight of it in my hand is both familiar and strange, a familiarity that belonged to another man, another life. And for a moment, I wonder if Greer’s captivity is my karma. If happiness will always be denied me for all the terrible things I’ve done, all the lives I took in the name of war or freedom or loyalty.
“Just like old times,” I say as I tuck the handgun away and Wu hands me a rifle. I level it at the door’s lock and shoot.
I took out the first man by the front door as silently as possible, a silent, choking struggle until he went limp in my arms. I didn’t kill him, even though there was a part of me that itched to, that itched to kill anyone who had any part in this plan to hurt Greer. I didn’t stop myself because I knew it was wrong, though, I stopped myself because Ash wouldn’t want it. Not only would it be worse for us if we were caught, but Ash hated taking lives. Hated it.
And I hated the feeling after, the guilt, the post-battle misery, and I had no urge to experience that feeling again after all these years. So I simply choked the man until he was unconscious and bound and gagged him with the zip-ties and tape I had with me for just that purpose.
And now I wait close to Greer’s door for the second man to come nearer…nearer still…until I can hear his breath from the corner I hide behind, and I give him the same treatment I gave the first. I’m tempted to plunge right into Greer’s room after I finish with him, but I force myself to be more circumspect. I search the other floors, the other rooms, confirming that there is no other hired muscle lurking around.
“House is clear,” I tell Gareth and Wu through the small mic connected to my earpiece. “Both the guards are taken care of. I’m going in for Mrs. Colchester now.”
“Understood,” Wu says. “Gareth and I are working our way back down to the gate at the entrance to the property to check for guards there, disabling what security systems we can. We’ll signal you if there’s any change or if Melwas returns—otherwise we’ll wait for you at our rendezvous point just outside the fence.”
I click off the mic and go back to the second floor, to the room that holds Greer. And as I slide the deadbolt away from its slot and open the door, I notice my hands are shaking. Shaking when they were so steady earlier, steady with the gun, steady as I fought those men.
I suppose it’s adrenaline or relief. I suppose it’s love.
The door opens, sending a long rectangle of light across the dark bedroom. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, to take in the large room and the canopy bed and the low, slender shape on top of it. And just as I register silk and pale hair, Greer moves into my gaze, rolling from the darkness into the light.
She winces at the brightness of it, but she doesn’t speak, and I remember she’s gagged. Gagged and bound, the silver duct tape striking a discordant note against all that red silk.
Discordant…but pleasing.
What happens next happens in the space of a mere second or two, the pump of a heart, the blink of an eye: I step forward, ready to speak, ready to cut away her bonds, ready to cradle her—ready to wipe as much of this nightmare away from her as I can—but as I do, my shadow falls across her body.
And so there is Greer, her eyes finally fluttering open to see me, her first expression not of welcome or relief but of panic, and she moves, like she’s trying to put distance between us, nearly thrashing in desperation. A wrenching sound comes from her—she’s crying, and her cries are muffled by the gag. I realize that she can’t see my face yet, that I’m merely a male silhouette coming to her in the dark.
