Chapter Two #2
Swan royalty lives a long time, and each King has ruled from two hundred to sixteen hundred years.
Some were killed for the crown, others garnered enough love and respect to die of old age, or voluntarily hand it over to their sons when they knew it was time.
I’ve personally taught the oldest swan lore to the past seven kings, and had a hand in training the past four.
And now, I’d taught the first Swan Princess I’ve ever known to exist without brothers.
I’d been in love before, many times, and recognized the signs. I loved her, and now she’d come to me for help. This was going to get complicated.
I called Nathan and told him, “I need to go off the grid to handle something. You’re in charge until I get back.”
“Tell me you aren’t helping her.”
I needed to walk a fine line between not lying to him while not giving him the truth. Nathan needed plausible deniability, and I needed to not break trust with my best friend. “I told the truth this morning. When they told me, I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know this morning.”
I stayed quiet, and he muttered “Fuck,” under his breath, and then said, “Okay. Be safe. See you on the other side.”
I turned my phone off and slid it into a sleeve that would make sure no cell signals reached it.
I pulled my emergency burner phone from the glove compartment, removed it from the sleeve, put the battery in, booted it, and opened the app that would allow me an encrypted conversation with the President of the Atlanta chapter of the Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club.
Bud answered with, “Give me a second to step away from this crowd. Since you’re using the app, I’m assuming you want privacy.”
“I do.”
Sophia whispered from the back seat, “They’ll be listening. Government contacts. Be careful, Aaron.”
“I know,” I told her. Our gazes met in the rear-view mirror as I moved the phone away from my mouth and covered the microphone. “It’s encrypted, safe to talk. I know what I’m doing.”
Two minutes later, Bud said, “Okay. I’m in a shielded room with white noise going from one speaker and music in another. I’m guessing this has something to do with the missing Princess?”
“The royal family knows we’re close. They sent an eagle to talk to me in person this morning, I’m sure needing to smell me when I heard the news.
I knew nothing of it, passed the test, but now…
” I hesitated, unwilling to give him more information than he needed.
Bud might need to be able to honestly say he didn’t know where she was at some point, too.
“Point is, they’ll be watching my hacker, so I can’t task him with gathering and relaying information. He’s good at hiding, but it’s a risk I don’t want to take. I need a hacker who can stay invisible and who they won’t be watching.”
“Brain grew up in the pack and was once bound. You comfortable with him?”
I’d met Brain a number of times and knew he was a strong werewolf.
I was also certain he’d obliterated the pack bonds and was now what most considered a lone wolf, though I knew better.
The Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club was made up of the werewolves who couldn’t handle the totalitarian aspects of living under an alpha.
They had a president who acted as alpha in many ways, but the club was run as a democracy and they weren’t metaphysically bound with no choice but to obey.
Legally, they were considered lone wolves, but in reality they were closer than pack-wolves, in some ways.
“Yeah,” I told Bud. “I’m comfortable with him.”
“Fair warning — I know you’re calling in a marker with me to get him, but Brain’s gonna want his own marker from you to do this.
He’ll probably offer to bring Duke along, which’ll give you two wolves at your back, but those two are planning to open a chapter in Chattanooga, so be prepared for them to call in their favor sooner rather than later. ”
“Not a problem. Lots of spies are in the air as well as on the ground, so it’ll be better if they’re on crotch rockets dressed like yuppies trying to be badass. Head them toward Franklin, North Carolina, and make sure I can get them with this app.”
“Brain’ll set it up so if you call me you’ll get him. If you need me he can patch you through.”
When I hung up, Sophia said, “I’m dressed, we should keep moving and not look like we’re hiding.”
I nodded, put the car into gear, and pulled out. “You’ve been missing nearly twenty hours, and I’m guessing it’s been almost two days since you slept.”
“I stopped above Macon for maybe an hour, it’s hard to judge time as a swan, but I was exhausted and had to rest. I nodded off, but don’t think I slept more than twenty minutes.”
She’d made it all the way with only one stop? The first time she’d ever flown? I was impressed, but we’d talk about her strength and purpose — and what she was running from — later.
“Lie down, Soph, and get some sleep. We need to talk but it can wait.”
She shook her head, her tired gaze meeting mine in the rear-view mirror again. “I’ll lay down, but only so I can’t be seen. I have ten or fifteen minutes of talking in me before I crash, I think.”
“Okay, what’s your plan?”
She stretched out on the seat and told me, “I have five possible plans, depending on how much you’re willing to help, and whether what I feel for you is the same now that I’m an adult.”
I knew she’d hear my heart skip a beat, but I didn’t try to hide it. “What you feel for me?”
“I’ve had a crush on you since I was old enough to have those kinds of feelings, and before that, you were the only person in my life who let me truly be who I am.
Maybe it isn’t real, in which case I just need help getting to the hawks and offering my fealty, as well as knowledge of the inner workings of the swans and eagles. ”
It wasn’t a bad plan. The hawks were in a bit of a stalemate with the eagles at the moment, and taking in the Princess would mean a shift back to active war, but would also give them a chance to have the upper hand over the eagles for the first time in centuries.
I had to ask, though, “And if the hawks turn you down?”
“Then I go to the crows. They have larger numbers and there isn’t a doubt in my mind the King will jump at the chance to hurt my father by stealing his daughter.”
She was right, but… “How bad were things at home for this to be a better solution, Soph?”
I could smell her pain as well as hear it in her voice. “We don’t have time for that conversation right now. I’ll tell you, but later, okay?”
“Okay, other plans? Tell me your best-case scenario.”
“Oh, that’s the fantasy one, which would be plan number six, not listed with the other five because while it’s possible, it isn’t exactly probable.”
I smiled. “Let’s hear it, anyway. Indulge me.”
She sat up and once again met my gaze in the rearview mirror, her eyes resolute, her chin held high.
“In that one, you decide you can’t live without me, take my virginity, and make me yours.
You’re some kind of bird species with energy close enough to mine we can join our powers and become a ruling couple, and you either take over the swans, or stand behind me and help me become Queen for real, so no one can ever own me again. ”
I watched her in the mirror with respect. She’d told me this as Princess Sophia, her voice strong, not the least bit meek, and I owed her an honest response.
“I adored you as a toddler, and when it came time to teach you, my time with you was the highlight of my week. You’re in my heart, Sophia, but I knew we could never be.
With what you’re telling me now, I’m no longer seeing it as an impossibility, but we have hours and hours of conversation before we can make that decision.
I care for you enough it’s probably safe to say I love you, though at this time it isn’t romantic love.
” I shook my head. “When royalty’s involved, love isn’t enough.
You need to have strategy, Princess, and a way to convince the rest of the world to let you be. ”
Sophia sighed and laid back down, and her drowsy voice told me she wasn’t far from sleep. “I trust you to keep me safe until I’m rested and figure out what I need to do next. Thank you. I know the risk you’re taking.”
Sophia had been raised to be queen, and to never show emotion.
I knew it’d taken every bit of courage in her to admit the things she’d told me, so I didn’t take her businesslike manner personally.
She’d let me know she cared for me with words, if not tone.
She wasn’t just here because of the promise I’d made, but because of the way she felt about me.
I gentled my voice and hoped to soothe her.
“Sleep, Sophia. We should arrive at our destination in a little over two hours. A high-ranking eagle visited me this morning to give me the news of your escape, but must’ve been convinced I knew nothing of it, otherwise they’d have been watching my office and captured you when you arrived.
Still, it’s only a matter of time before someone puts together my absence with yours, at which point they’ll be searching for both of us — especially if it hasn’t rained by then and they pick up your scent in the woods.
No one will expect me on these particular back roads, though.
They’ll search my known safe houses first, so we have more than enough time to get where we’re going. ”
“Who did you call for help?”
“Lone wolves. One is a super-genius with crazy hacking skills, because I need someone who can keep an eye on things for me in the virtual world while I handle the physical world.”
Her breathing evened out, and she was asleep.
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