Nothing to See Here (Royal Rebels #1)

Chapter 1

I loathe Prince Hendrik. From his cocky smile to his wealth and privilege, I loathe him with everything I have in me and am likely to loathe him for the rest of my life because there’s no way he’ll ever change.

Unfortunately, my hatred is rather inconvenient because he is likely the only person in all of Candora who can help me do my job.

More unfortunate, he’s also likely the only person who knows where I am right now.

“Just relax,” I tell myself and gulp down a breath. The pep talk isn’t doing much, considering the walls are so close around me that I can’t stretch my arms out to their full length, but I try it anyway.

When I used the light of my cell phone to look around a few seconds ago, there was nothing but stone and mortar around me, so now I’m closing my eyes and trying not to panic.

“Stay calm, and you can figure a way out of this.”

There has to be a way. Hendrik wouldn’t have left me in here if there wasn’t. He’s infuriating, but he’s not cruel.

A few more whispered reminders of that, and my breaths come more evenly. My heart rate starts to calm.

Maybe it was too much to hope that Prince Hendrik would grow out of his grudges.

As a younger brother of the Queen of Candora, he should, in theory, be used to exhibiting decorum and politeness no matter his feelings.

The man has lived the royal life for twenty-eight years, after all, which should be plenty of practice to counteract one silly little mistake from our past.

But nothing is ever enough for Hendrik Alverra.

I check my phone once more, gritting my teeth when it still has no signal.

Of course it doesn’t. The walls in this wing of the palace are far too thick for anything to pass through them, something I discovered a year ago when I turned down a promotion and instead became the queen’s temporary protection agent.

In the eight months I worked with her, I learned every inch of the palace, down to its many secrets.

Except, apparently, this one.

“You can’t call for help,” I tell myself, “so what can you do?”

Forcing a deep breath, I turn on my flashlight and examine the door I came through. ‘Door’ is a loose term, given it looks exactly like the rest of the space. But this wall moved once to let me in; there must be a way to make it move again.

I run my fingers along every possible seam, cursing the prince as I go.

The competition was a decade ago, and it isn’t my fault that our professors gave me higher scores; I fought hard to get top marks.

Surely by now Hendrik should understand the sacrifice it was to defer the prize to him when I needed the scholarship and recommendation to get me my dream job.

Then again, that sacrifice is likely why he still hates me. Hendrik is obsessed with winning, and top of our class is something he technically didn’t earn, no matter what the rest of Candora thinks.

He only won because I stepped back.

“You’re a prince,” I tell him, grumbling the words. “When will you learn to be content with what you have?”

Maybe I should ask myself the same question. Since leaving the queen’s employ a few months ago, getting back into the swing of things with the RIA has been an uphill battle, in no small part because Virek, the man who took the promotion that I turned down is…

Well, he’s an idiot. Not actually—he wouldn’t have gotten the job if he was incompetent—but I could do his job so much better than he can. Unfortunately, I gave up that job, and I should be trying to settle into my old role instead of fighting Virek’s methods at every turn.

Easier said than done.

The same as with convincing Prince Hendrik to help me.

That feels like an impossible task unless he finds the will to have some rational adult conversation instead of playing childish pranks.

But no, he distracted me with his stupid charming grin and said we should take a shortcut to the sitting room, and I thought nothing of it.

That grin should have been my first clue that he was up to something.

The second clue was when he opened a secret door I’d never seen before, despite my hours spent exploring the palace.

And the third, the one that finally signaled the impending danger, was Hendrik gesturing for me to walk ahead of him with his hand on the door.

I only took two steps into the space before I put together that it was a trap, but by then it was too late. He closed the door, locking me in a pitch-dark four-by-four room with no visible way out.

I’ve only been in here for a few minutes, but if I hadn’t trained to stay calm in situations like this, I would be panicking. Fifteen-year-old Astrid would be in pieces, pounding on the door and begging for freedom.

Twenty-nine-year-old Astrid is afraid of nothing. I have to be, as a senior agent for the Royal Intelligence Agency who someday might get another chance at becoming the head of Internal Investigations.

While I don’t regret agreeing to Queen Freya’s request to serve as her temporary bodyguard, things would have turned out better if the timing had been different.

If I hadn’t been offered the promotion almost the same time the queen asked for my help.

I followed my gut, choosing the crown over the job I’d worked toward for seven years, hoping the promotion would be waiting for me when I was no longer needed in the palace.

It wasn’t.

And now I’m stuck taking orders from someone who can do the job well enough but lacks instinct.

“It’s your fault,” I tell Prince Hendrik, as if he might hear me through the walls. “If you would just agree to become an agent, I might have the leverage I need to replace Virek.”

I tilt my head, studying the door again. Leverage. Pushing against the door or finding some sort of mechanism has gotten me nowhere, which means I’m not using my strengths to my advantage.

My whole career centers around information. What makes me good at what I do is my ability to know when to use the information I have.

Though I have no idea if anyone can hear me, I take a deep breath and shout, “Hendrik Magnus Stellan Alverra! If you don’t let me out in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to tell your mother about the time you snuck the Duke of Rensvik’s daughter through your bedroom win—”

A crack appears in the corner, and the wall swings out, filling my little prison with near-blinding light.

Stomping forward, I head straight for the blond-haired prince waiting on the other side and smirk when he backs into the far wall to avoid me. “Have you had your fun?” I demand, narrowing my eyes at him and poking my finger into his firm chest. “Can we be adults now?”

Though his expression lacks the fear I wish he’d feel, he doesn’t look especially amused either. “Always, Agent Storme,” he says gently.

And that’s when I realize. Hex is never gentle.

“Aleksander,” I say, stepping back a pace.

Vitte, the princes look far too alike, though I’m blaming my mistake on the fact that I just spent several minutes in a dark stone box.

I also rarely see one of them without the other; when they’re standing next to each other, I can usually tell them apart. “Forgive me.”

He lifts a single shoulder in a shrug, still pressed against the wall. “I’m sorry you caught Hex on a bad day.”

“Don’t make excuses for your brother. He doesn’t deserve it.”

Cocking his head, he lifts the corner of his mouth in a muted smile.

Where Hendrik is brash and expressive, his twin is more reserved and far more difficult to read.

Despite living at the palace for more than half a year, I don’t know him well.

Of course I don’t, with the way his brother actively avoids me whenever I’m around.

Aleksander does the same by default because the princes rarely do anything individually.

“Are you alright?” Aleksander asks.

I exhale sharply, then take another breath, using this one to relax my body as I let it out of my lungs slowly. “Never better.”

“If he’d told me sooner, I would have—”

“He sent you to rescue me?” Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel much better about the situation.

Aleksander shrugs and glances down the empty corridor. His guilt is clear, but he’s not the one who trapped me. No, that was all his arrogant, childish twin. “Would you really have told our mother about Rensvik’s daughter if I hadn’t let you out?” he asks after a moment.

Now that I’m free, I feel a little childish myself for threatening to divulge a secret that has nothing to do with me. It makes me no better than Hendrik. “Maybe. He would deserve the truth coming out.”

“Maybe,” Aleksander repeats with some amusement. “Hex is out in the courtyard, if you still want to talk to him.”

“Want and need are two different things, Your Highness.” I sigh and take a step, pausing to look at him one more time. “Thank you. For freeing me.”

He nods once. “There’s a loose stone on the bottom left side that frees the latch.”

While I appreciate the information, I have no plans to let Prince Hendrik outsmart me again.

As Aleksander said, I find Hendrik in the brightly lit courtyard where the Palace Guard spend their days training.

Most of the guards are on duty around the palace grounds or have gone in for the night, so Hendrik is on his own in the corner.

To my dismay—or maybe delight—he’s missing his shirt, which means the golden skin of his torso is on full display as he pulls back the string of a bow and fires an arrow at a target at least sixty meters away.

Were he anyone else, archery wouldn’t be considered a useful skill given its lack of modern application, but the prince’s talent is unmatched.

Just as those muscles are unmatched.