Stolen Kisses (The Princess & Her Thief #1)

Stolen Kisses (The Princess & Her Thief #1)

By Jacki Sensal

~ 1 ~

SAbrI

Flames lick urgently at my heels. My boots scuff over the settling ash and crunch through embers. I give another yank against the tight grip on my arm, but it doesn’t budge. Gathering all the strength in my body, I pull desperately backward, but my foot catches on a smoldering beam—the world shifts as I stumble.

“Please.” The man pulling me slows just enough to help me regain my balance. “We have to keep going, Your Highness.”

“N-no—” my words twist into a cough as my lungs fight the putrid air. “We can’t go—not yet!”

I glance back, straining to see through the smog, but my nursemaid’s home has vanished; the village streets have been swallowed by a churning storm of black smoke and cinder. Long tongues of fire lick through the rising clouds. From within the chaos comes the horrible echo of muffled screams.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but some shadows seem darker than the others. They slide through the steaming wreckage, silent among the calamity. I can feel their eyes on me.

It’s terrifying, but I squeeze my small hands into fists and suck in a breath of ash-filled air.

“A-Anya!” I call, taking a shaky step back toward the nightmare. The captain’s grip tightens, pulling me to a stop. “Anya, Tinny!”

“Princess,” he urges, and it’s clear that he’s forcing patience into his words despite the dire situation. “I’m sorry, but we have to go. Now.”

“No!” I cry, pushing back against his hold on my arm. I refuse to leave while they’re still in the village and in danger; Anya would never forgive me. “Not without them!”

The captain drops to a knee, bringing us almost eye-to-eye. He places an iron-tight grip on my arms. I can tell it’s meant to be stabilizing, but I already feel trapped and this isn’t helping.

His face is smeared with ash and taut with stress, the premature lines on his brow deepened by determination and something sadder. “Listen to me—”

A horrible creak from the house next to us cuts his words short. The captain pushes his body in front of mine, blocking the explosive wave of hot air that assaults us as the building crumbles to the ground.

His shoulders shake with effort as he pulls back, and the pain on his face is immense. The severity of the situation hits me worse than any physical blow. My tears dry up instantly, stolen from me before they can fall.

“We have to go,” he coughs. His voice is weaker than I’ve ever heard it. The determination in his gray eyes is changing into something else. “I’m sorry.”

Everything hurts. I’ve never felt desperation like this before. “Plea—”

There’s a swift pressure on the back of my neck. The blackness takes me before the pain hits.

My vision swims and sweeps out—from this new perspective, I can see the unconscious version of my younger self hoisted on the captain’s shoulder. He breaks into a run, one hand keeping my body secure while the other fruitlessly tries to keep the ash and loose cinders at bay.

From the flaming ruins of the village, the shadows begin to take form. Their long hands scratch at the captain as he flees. Flames turn to licking tongues, screams into horrifying laughter. Sparks leaping into the air become eyes—watching and waiting long after we vanish into the smoke.

The darkness sweeps in from the edges, swallowing me whole. I feel a scream rise, burning like smoke in my throat. It claws inside my chest, but no matter how I struggle, I can’t get it out.

Anya!

The pressure becomes too much; darkness explodes into light.

- - - - -

I jerk awake, pushing myself back and off the table. Paper scatters into the air as my hands fly instinctively to my neck. My chest rises and falls rapidly; I tug back my collar and pull at the thin silver chain. The heart charm dangling at the end comes obediently to my hand.

Another nightmare.

I sigh. The metal is cool and reassuring in my fingers—it must have been resting on the table when I fell asleep.

“Your Highness.”

The voice catches me off guard. I quickly mask my surprise as I look up.

“Pardon the intrusion.” The captain—older and slightly more decorated with medals—is holding the tent flap up. His somber gray eyes sweep over the table, lingering on the scattered papers. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” Brushing remnants of sleep from my face, I tuck my long curls over my shoulders and slip the necklace back into my shirt as I reorganize the papers. “I was just reviewing the letters from Duke Tarnsmend and his husband.”

“I see.” The captain’s expression softens. He ducks his head to step inside the tent and the candlelight smooths the salt-and-pepper of his coarse beard. “That’s valiant of you, but perhaps you ought to get some rest before we move out?”

“We must be prepared,” I say. I set a stack of papers by the corner of the map. They were mostly letters of complaint—at least three for each one of the Duke’s attacked caravans—but some contained brief accounts from witnesses. It’s not a lot, but we don’t have much to go on in the first place. “This mission is risky enough as it is; I don’t want to put you or any of the others in extra danger if it can be avoided.”

“The company appreciates your concern.” He tips his head slightly and I know what he’s going to say before the words come out of his mouth. “But you ought to worry more about yourself, too.”

“Captain Irvien,” I say, in the same way I always do when the captain toes the line between caring and overbearing. “Thank you. I’m grateful for your diligence and your care.” I pull myself up, hoping the many nights spent pouring over smudged ink don’t leak into my voice of authority. I level the most regal gaze manageable. “But I can do this—I have to do this.”

Like clockwork, the captain dips into a wordless bow.

I return to the letters, reshuffling the already perfect pile one more time.

It’s not a lie about being grateful. Yes, I’m still hurt by what happened in the village that day, but the injuries weren’t physical—I survived the attack thanks to Captain Irvien. He’s watched over me diligently since I was born, perhaps sometimes a bit too much so. It only became worse after my father passed and left me as the sole heir to the Melsbrand Kingdom.

He needs to stop hovering—I’m not a child anymore.

If I’m supposed to take over from the Council and rule the country, then the very least I should be able to do is shut down one criminal organization.

Plus, he should understand why I need to do this. He was there that day, too.

“If I may, Your Highness.” The captain straightens up from his bow but keeps his head lowered deferentially. “Now that we have the base surrounded, we’re not in any rush. Might we consider a siege tactic, instead?”

I ease my chair back and stand. The muscles in my legs are tight from sitting on the hard wood for so long, but I don’t show it.

“I’m afraid we can’t afford to risk it,” I reply.

We’ve been tracking the Thieves’ Guild for years. Each time I have them in my grasp, the trail slips away like cold water through my fingers. Every lead we catch winds me further and further until it eventually drops off at a dead end. The intel about this base had been a miraculous stroke of luck, and a pricey one at that.

Still, a high cost is worth it if it yields an equally large reward.

If the intel was right and the Thief Lord themself was currently based in these ruins, it would be worth every gold coin spent and more.

I realize I’m tensing up; I quickly force myself to relax. Shaking a crook from my neck—no doubt from my unconventional sleeping spot—I add, “The more time they have to plan, the more we lose our advantage.”

My armor is resting on its stand beside the table. The gilded plate hangs on its rack, ready and waiting as I step toward it. “We’ll strike as soon as we get the signal.” I glance back at the captain. “Speaking of which, since you’re here, can I assume you have something to report? Or were you just checking on me?”

I try to keep my tone neutral. The captain’s worrying can be tedious, yes, but I know he has my best interests at heart.

“Of course.” He glances up. “The front line says we have the base surrounded. Scouts have found what they believe is the main door inside.”

“Excellent.” I school my features into calm determination. “Tell the advanced unit. We move immediately.”

“I don’t suppose I could convince you to wait here while we—”

“You cannot.”

The captain dips his head. Tired determination deepens the lines on his forehead. “As you wish, Your Highness. I will inform them at once.”

The tent flap falls shut, leaving me in quiet solitude. I shake the tension from my arms. Piece by piece, I lift my armor from its display, slipping it on and working the ties to hold it in place.

As if I could sit this one out.

My gaze falls to the map on the table. Candlelight flickers over the rough sketch of the northern hills. The small needle marking the ruins catches the light, a glimmer of cold silver against the yellowed parchment.

Through the efforts of the Crown, the Thieves’ Guild has been steadily losing power over the past seven years. There hasn’t been a village ravished since that day. Still, the complaint letters about ransacked caravans and stolen property continue to flow. Several prominent nobles at court are getting increasingly aggravated about their missing goods.

Although the Council hadn’t been thrilled with my proposition, wiping out the Thieves’ Guild would both appease the nobles whose caravans had been stolen from and whose trade routes had been plunged into peril and show the commoners that the Crown will protect them.

But this isn’t entirely out of duty to my country—after all, justice can also be a noble-looking cloak wrapped over a deeper goal. My grudge against the Thieves’ Guild is personal.

I’m here for revenge.

My gaze dips, following inky rivers and gliding over rolling black hills to the out-skirting villages around the palace. There’s one rather inconspicuous place with no markings—no mapmaker has drawn it for years.

I resist the urge to bite my lip as I fasten the ties of my armor.

The nightmares shifted slightly from one night to the next, but the memory of the village burning is scalded into my mind forever. It can’t be erased like it has been from the maps. How could it be? When the echoes of loss are etched so deeply. I lost so much—my nursemaid Tinny, the house that felt more like home than the palace, and, most of all, my best friend.

All because a group of thieves got a bit too bold.

I reach up to where the necklace hangs beneath her breastplate.

It’s time to pay back what was stolen. Judgment day has come.

“I’ll get them for what they did to you, Anya,” I vow to my empty tent. “Just wait and see.”

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