Heir in Exile (Royals Book 3) Page 8

  Sander's jaw tightened.

  “See?” Aksel said. “I told you. Even you cannot dismiss the resemblance.”

  Sander said nothing. He stared at the photo as the implications washed over him like an incoming tsunami. The throne was not his to fight for. Not according to the laws in Latvala. Not according to the laws in many countries, for that matter, existing under a Monarchy. Bastards did not step up to rule before natural born, legitimate children, of which Aksel and Helina had three.

  Of all the secrets he knew his father and Helina to keep, this was the most staggering on a personal level. Disappointment at never knowing—really knowing—his mother put a temporary ache in his gut.

  “Well. Hasn't this just gotten even more interesting,” Mattias said. He sounded smug, confident and all but gloated at the turn of events.

  Sander snarled at him.

  Aksel's mouth trembled with a smile he managed to curtail. “I did try to tell you yesterday, Sander. Now...what will you do? Save face in front of millions and retreat in exile, as I have commanded? Or expose your true heritage to the world in a vain attempt to keep what the council and legislators will not allow you to keep?”

  Try as he might, Sander could not come up with a reasonable argument at the moment. He handed the photo back. Helina accepted it and slid it into the envelope. Instead of keeping it, she laid it on the chair Sander stood next to. Indicating it was his to have. He was sure this wasn't the only copy.

  “I need time to come to a decision,” Sander said. He didn't want to make a hasty move without thinking everything through.

  “Unfortunately, time is not something I am willing to give you,” Aksel said.

  “Of course not,” Sander said, a growl in his voice. “You want to force me to do it now so that you can start covering your tracks one way or another.”

  Aksel said nothing and did not deny it.

  “What if I won't decide right this minute?” Sander said.

  “Then I'll choose for you. Either way, when you depart this room, you will be headed for exile. Take the path of least resistance, that's my advice,” Aksel said. He paced behind Helina's chair, the edge of his cape dragging the ground.

  “What I don't understand,” Sander said, looking at Helina. “Is why you went along with it in the beginning. You are not that kind of compassionate woman, and I know as well as I'm standing here that your jealousy must have known no bounds. Yet you took me in—why?”

  Confronted so bluntly, Helina at first did not reply. She glanced down at her hands.

  Sander took that to mean he was right, that something else had driven her to accept her husband's bastard son. For the life of him, he could not figure out what it was. Perhaps Aksel had threatened her. Maybe, Sander thought, they had tried to have a child of their own and she hadn't then conceived, leaving Aksel panicked about an heir. It explained why he had wanted to keep Sander under his roof, why he pressed Helina into making Sander her own.

  “She did it for me,” Aksel said, stepping in. “Because I asked her to.”

  “Or forced her to?” Sander countered.

  “Asked her to. You were a healthy, strong child and regardless of who your mother was, you are still of my blood. As you so succinctly pointed out.”

  “Yes, I can see how much that means to you now,” Sander retorted with a snort. Blood didn't mean so much to Aksel when he had three other heirs to fall back on.

  Aksel lifted a shoulder in careless abandon. “Kings do what they must. I am protecting the throne, our bloodline, at all costs.”

  “Yet you were ready to seat me in your place, a bastard by all accounts,” Sander said.

  “No one would have ever known the difference. And let's face it, Sander. The people love you. It was a risk worth taking. Had you not been of my blood, then of course I would have never allowed Helina to keep you.”

  “It's a bitter pill, is it not, brother?” Mattias said. He rocked back and forth on the soles of his polished shoes, looking for all the world a man quite satisfied with the turn his life had just taken.

  “Hush,” Sander snarled at Mattias before looking back to the King. “I will not announce my exile to the people of this country. If you want me gone, then I'm gone, but I will not be going before the public on television.”

  “So be it,” Aksel said. He raised his voice. “Guards!”

  Six security members swarmed into the room.

  “Remove Sander from the palace. From Latvala altogether. Drop him in the Caribbean at the holding on Barbados. He is not to leave the island for the next two weeks while this sorts itself out. He is now in exile,” Aksel said. He added, “Your phones and bank cards will not work once you leave here. The money in your accounts revert back to the crown upon exile, as I am sure you're aware. If you have money in offshore accounts, that's what you'll have to use if you need something while you're in Barbados. If you decide to immerse yourself into the dregs of 'normal' life, you are required to have security at all times. I won't be paying out ransom money because you were careless enough to get snatched off the street.”

  Sander cut a look over his shoulder at the approaching guards. “Do not touch me.”

  Several guards hesitated, glancing between Aksel and Sander.

  “Also, send someone for the other little guest. Be rid of it once and for all,” Aksel added. With a flick of his fingers, he set the guards into motion once more.

  Sander, alarmed at what the latter order meant, suddenly felt sure Aksel had discovered Chey was in the country. That was why he'd been stalling all this time. Gathering intelligence, closing the noose around everyone's neck. Sander dared not look at Mattias to convey his thoughts. He knew Mattias would alert Chey at the soonest possible second.

  Turning on a heel, Sander strode from the parlor without goodbyes or a reply to anyone. The sooner he was gone, the faster Mattias could warn Chey.

  The guards flanked him in the hallway, providing tight security as he left the palace for the last time.

  Chapter Nine

  Chey studied the pictures and foreign words in a magazine she found near the couch. It kept her mind busy to try and learn a little of the Latvalan tongue in her down time. Just past noon, she saw flurries turn into all out snowfall, the flakes spiraling faster beyond the windows.

  Rising from the chair, she walked over and peered out the crack in the curtains. The sky looked ominous and foreboding, promising to dump copious amounts of the white stuff before dark.

  Just then, the phone went off. She retraced her steps back to the table and picked the cell up. A text message flashed across the screen.

  Leave the house immediately.

  Chey read it again. Alarm sent a rash of goosebumps down her arms under the protective hoodie and made the back of her head tingle. Shoving the phone into the front pocket of her jeans, she yanked the coat off the back of the chair, pushed her arms through the sleeves, and zipped it up the front. Swinging the strap of the duffel bag over her head, she let it settle at a slant across her body so her hands would be free. Picking up the gun next, she checked the safety and slid it into the pocket of the coat. Last, she pulled a beanie over her head for extra protection against the cold. Grabbing one extra bottle of water from the fridge, Chey turned off the lights and exited the house, closing the door behind her.

  Wary of being caught, she jogged off the porch and into the snow, relieved that she could still make her way across the ground without too much struggle. A condition that wouldn't last with the speed the snow was falling.

  Less than ten yards into the woods, she heard the distant sound of an engine. Startled, she gasped and increased her speed, brushing limbs out of her way with her hands. Mattias wouldn't have warned her to leave if he or Sander had been able to reach her first. The incoming vehicle must be guards or police or the military.

  When she glanced behind to see if she could see the clearing she'd left minutes ago, Chey spied the tracks she was leaving behind in the snow.

 
It would lead them right to her.

  Cursing under her breath, she lengthened her stride and started looking for a way to make the trail harder to follow. Several patches of ground under the heavier boughs of trees lacked any snow at all, and she headed into those small swathes of needles, dead leaves and other debris. She feigned leaving the patch in another direction, backtracked, then hopped to another bald spot, hoping anyone getting this far would think she diverted and went the other way.

  It was the best she could do. Hurrying through the canopy, protected from the worst of the wind and snow at the moment, she made her way further from the cabin, listening all the while for sounds of someone in pursuit.

  Please, please let them think someone drove me away.

  Then, somewhere behind her, she thought she heard a shout. Pausing mid-step, she twisted to look behind her. Uncovering her ears from under the beanie, she listened again. Panic made her breath come in shallower puffs.

  Another faint shout echoed through the woods.

  They were coming. The men in pursuit had found her trail leading into the woods and they were not far behind.

  Pulling the beanie down, she started ahead, once more attempting to lose the trail by passing through bald patches and back into the snow another direction. In the open areas where branches didn't overlap, snow fell harder. The wind kicked up, too, reducing visibility to less than thirty feet.

  Well, if she couldn't see, then her pursuers couldn't see either. Maybe the new snowfall would obliterate her tracks, making it that much harder to find her.

  In short order, Chey's world narrowed down to a distance of feet rather than yards. She darted this way and that, losing all sense of direction. Warning bells cautioned her not to keep going without checking the GPS on the phone. She might wind up in the endless forests and rough terrain Sander once told her about. In that vast wilderness, she would be exposed to wildlife as well as the weather, a combination that could prove deadly if she was out in it too long.

  Pausing to get her breath, she leaned against a tree and pulled the phone out of her pocket. She pulled up the map utility and caught a glimpse that said she was headed East when suddenly the map flickered and froze. It appeared the GPS had ceased to work, probably because of the storm.

  Chey hissed, turned the phone off to preserve the battery, and was about to lurch forward away from the tree when she heard the snap of twigs somewhere beyond the other side of the trunk. She couldn't decide how close or far it was. Either way she stilled, holding her breath, wondering how in the hell they had found her this fast.

  Sliding the gun from her coat, she thumbed the safety off. Would she really be able to shoot? It's your life or theirs. They won't hesitate to end you where you stand. Are you just going to allow them to without a fight?

  No, she decided. She wouldn't. Swinging out from behind the tree, bringing the gun up level to the ground, she sought a target. Twenty-odd feet away, a deer, as frozen with surprise as she, suddenly leaped high to the left, bounding through the underbrush in a panicked, zig-zag pattern.

  A deer. It was just a deer. Chey searched the immediate area anyway, watching for shadows that were not a natural part of the terrain. She saw nothing else move, heard no shouts or voices.

  Sliding the safety into place, she pocketed the weapon and continued on. She pulled gloves out of the duffel and slid them over her hands, unable to stand the biting cold turning the tips red any longer.

  For the next hour and a half, she traversed the woods, single-minded in her desire to put as much distance between herself and anyone still following. Inevitably, after checking the phone several times to find the GPS was still out, she had to admit she was lost. The weather had deteriorated to a step above blizzard conditions, and she knew by nightfall that her circumstances were going to become dire. She couldn't survive out here in a blizzard. Determined to find some sort of shelter, she pressed on.

  Forty minutes later, Chey stumbled out of the forest. To her surprise, a high wall loomed fifty feet ahead, marking the perimeter of some sort of building. The shape of a large home, or an Inn, could be seen above the wall itself. Several lights burned in high windows and smoke streamed out of a chimney. It appeared to be an older structure, perhaps made of stone like the castle.

  The stream of smoke was familiar, though Chey couldn't figure out why. Just now, she was more concerned with finding shelter out of the storm than anything, and this place seemed her best shot. Crossing the clearing toward the wall, she began searching for a way in. It was too tall to climb over, even with the help of a tree.

  Thirty feet down, she came upon a bramble bush sitting next to an iron gate. Approaching with wary caution, Chey peered through the bars of the gate and felt around for a latch.

  Beyond, the warmth of the structure beckoned. The lowest level was well lit, with almost every window spilling warm light through the panes. It reminded Chey more of an old girl's school or orphanage than it did a house. With its many levels and obvious large square footage, it could have once been a mental ward or other institution.

  To Chey's surprise, she found no lock in the latch. Undoing the mechanism, she eased the gate open, cringing when a hinge screeched. Moving slower, she eased inside and closed it with less noise. Pausing to get her bearings, she tried to decide whether to go around to the front door and plead for a room, or find another, less noticeable way in to hide away for the night. If the people were loyal to the King, and if Aksel had put out her picture on the television or some such thing, then she might find herself right back where she started.

  No, she decided, caution was the best option.

  Creeping along the back acreage, which was considerable, she sought a basement door or some other out building. There were several trees inside the walled barrier, too, which provided a little cover as she went. A back door nestled into the structure under an overhang, closed against the encroaching evening. It was a main entrance or exit, not preferable for her needs.

  It was so cold now that Chey couldn't feel the end of her nose or her chin. Ahead, she spotted a slanting set of stairs leading down into what must be a basement. Hoping against hope, she headed that way, using the cover of trees until she came even with the stairs. Darkness was only a half hour away, if that, and she was running out of options. This had to be a way in.

  Checking the yard and windows, Chey stepped out from behind the trees and ran toward the stairs. Thankful for the railing attached to the low wall, she held on while traversing the slippery steps to the bottom. There she found a small alcove hidden under part of the building with a door that proved to be locked when she tried the handle. Stifling a curse, she felt around the top of the door frame for a key. It was a long shot, and Chey wasn't surprised when she came up empty.

  The alcove at least provided protection from falling snow, but not the cold, which meant she needed to get inside somehow. Using her shoulder, she banged against the door, counting on the building being too big and the basement being vacant to hide the noise. She bounced off with no luck and tried again, this time with more force. Closed tight, made of heavy wood, the door didn't budge.

  Exhausted from her long trek in bad weather, Chey leaned on the wood for a second and got her breath. Her bones ached, her stomach demanded food and water, and she was sure that if she didn't get the door open, she might die in the alcove of exposure.

  Stepping back, she kicked at the door near the lock. A hard, sharp kick that rewarded her with a slight splintering sound. Two more kicks was all it took to bust the latch. The door creaked inward.

  Chey put her shoulder against it and opened it further, stepping into the gloom.

  . . .

  The basement, this section of it anyway, looked to be used only on rare occasions. There was a large pile of cut firewood against the far wall, several benches with remnants of craft projects on the surface, and a few metal tool chests half as tall as Chey. Bins that appeared to have holiday decorations lined another wall, each marked by the col
or of the lid.

  Squinting into the shadows, Chey figured the basement to be as big as her apartment back in Seattle, with several doors leading to different sections and one that, miraculously, opened onto a bathroom. With extreme caution, she explored the basic layout, finding the space clean if dull. The concrete floor lacked dirt or debris, which told Chey that someone came down here at least once a month to sweep.

  The small bathroom, with only a sink, a toilet and a cupboard was in working order. Chey took care of business quickly, glad to have some relief where that was concerned. After drying her hands on a few paper towels, she exited the bathroom and sought a pile of moving blankets to raid. She dragged one into a shady recessed area and curled down on it, desiring a buffer between her body and the cold cement. Bringing the duffel bag around to her lap, she eased the zipper open and rooted around for water. She'd consumed one bottle during her trek; three remained. Gulping half the contents, she set it aside and ripped into one of the trail bars, hugging her arms around her while she chewed. It was cold down here. Not as cold as the outside, but frigid enough to make Chey wonder how much protection the basement would provide. The hem of her jeans was wet and unlikely to dry unless she found some place a little warmer.

  For now she ate, consuming a piece of beef jerky after the trail bar. Stuffing any trash back into the duffel bag, she zipped it closed and wrapped her arms around herself, desperate to chase the chill away. Wary of discovery, Chey found it difficult to sleep. She knew she needed to rest while she could, before going back on the run. It was daunting when someone upstairs might decide on a whim to visit this part of the basement. The thought of being at fate's mercy wasn't an enticing one.

  Chey wondered where Sander and Mattias were. What happened that they sent her fleeing from the safety of the cabin? She imagined all manner of horror, compliments of the King. Aksel must have had some other trick up his sleeve like the brothers thought. Chey didn't know whether to head for the coast or to stay lost for another few days in the forest region. If the storm persisted, it would make travel, and survival, difficult. As soon as the weather cleared enough, she should be able to raise the GPS and find her way to the shore. The question was whether Aksel knew she was here—which seemed likely, considering the voices she'd heard in pursuit—and would be waiting, anticipating her arrival in the busier coastal cities.