Chapter 1 #3
“The faster you help me find the culprit,” I say carefully, “the sooner Candora is safe again. The sooner your sister is safe. I need you on this, Hex.”
As he exhales, his lips lift in a small, resigned smile that makes my stomach clench in anticipation. He’s going to agree. How can he not?
His smile grows, and he leans close enough that I shiver beneath his icy blue gaze. “Not a chance, Storme.” With that, he tosses the bow to the ground and starts heading for the palace like he didn’t metaphorically punch me in the gut.
I hate him. I hate that I need him. I hate that I can’t stop admiring him as he stalks away. “Why?” I shout, my voice breaking because I can’t hold back my frustration as I stomp after him. “Why are you so stupidly stubborn?”
He doesn’t look back. “Because I’m not some piece of meat you can dangle on a string as bait.”
“Are you really so selfish that you’ll let your countrymen rise against the crown—against your own sister?”
Stopping so quickly that I nearly collide with him, he spins so we’re face-to-face.
His eyes are the only parts of him that show his anger, and even his words come out calm as he says, “I never said I think the antis should win. Freya is exactly what this country needs to thrive. But I won’t be paraded around like a fool. Not by you. Not again.”
He turns and heads toward the nearest door as I stand dumbfounded.
I never paraded him around, no matter what he thinks.
In fact, I was very clear that our professors should act as though Hendrik had earned the best marks from the start so he wouldn’t have to face the humiliation of losing to me.
I gave him exactly what he wanted, and he chose to take it as an insult when he figured out what I’d done.
That isn’t my fault! If he’s really going to hold that day over my head like this, then…
The solution comes to me so quickly that it leaves me dizzy. Or maybe that’s because I promised myself I would never say the words that come out of my mouth: “You owe me, Alverra.”
He stops dead. And when he turns his head to look at me, his expression an unnatural mixture of shock and horror, I wonder if I made a mistake. “What did you say?”
Swallowing, I hold my head high. “You heard me. I’m calling in the favor you owe me.”
His whole body turns now, every movement slow and controlled as he takes a step closer. “Are you sure you want to do that, Storme? This is the only favor you get.”
I know that. I’ve been holding on to this favor for almost a decade, and a no-questions-asked favor from a prince of Candora isn’t the sort of thing a girl carries lightly. If I continue forward, I’ll be playing all my cards and putting my future in his hands, and he’s too smart not to know that.
But I’m desperate.
The only way I’m going to be able to stay at the heart of this investigation is to prove that I belong there, which I can’t do if I can’t get closer to the nobility.
Virek doesn’t have a better plan, and I can’t be the reason Candora’s monarchy falls to anarchists.
Not when I can do something to stop all of this.
“Yes, Hex. I’m cashing in for a month of missions.”
He folds his arms. “You can have a week.”
“Two weeks. I’ll accept nothing less.” I take a steadying breath and check the courtyard to make sure we’re still alone.
“One of our agents has been tracking the money moving to the anti-royalists, and the payments have been increasing in frequency. If the pattern holds, something big is going down before the month’s end.
Either you agree to help me for the next two weeks, starting tomorrow, or your favor still stands. ”
“Tomorrow,” he mutters. Everything in his body language says he wants to refuse.
His clenched hands, straining arms, tight jaw.
But for all the effort he’s made to avoid me, he knows me too well to think I won’t come up with something far worse than what I’m asking for now if he refuses.
This is his best chance to free himself from a debt he only owes me in the first place because he was raised to be honorable.
I never asked for the favor all those years ago, but he gave it. And he’s not one to break a promise.
He swallows, his expression hardening but not quite hiding the way his thoughts seem to be spinning. Calculating. He glances at the palace walls, up at the dark sky, then finally at me again as he clenches his jaw, looking almost pained. He can’t say no, and he knows it.
“Fine,” he says on an exhale, then shakes my hand with a grimace. “You get a Prince of Candora for the next two weeks, and I get to walk away when it’s all over. Your favor will be spent, and I will get peace.”
I hold back a sigh of relief. “I’ll text you the time and address for your briefing,” I tell him, slipping my hand free and heading for the garage where my motorbike is parked.
I make a plan as I walk, all the while doing my best to ignore the uncomfortable tingle in my palm, an aftereffect of touching a man I can’t get out of my head.
Save the crown, I tell myself, and then figure out how to get over your crush.
Priorities.