Protecting the Princess. Rachelle McCalla
the royal motorcade?”
Kirk remained silent as he tied a complicated knot that held the rope taut.
“My father is the head of the military.” She tried to sort out what had happened, as though it was a game of hide-and-seek like they’d played as children, and if she could just solve the riddle, her family would reappear. “You said you’d heard rumors. An uprising?” She followed him back as he unlocked the rudder, aligning the small boat with their altered course. “Kirk—talk to me. What do you know?”
“Nothing for certain.” He took the steps down to the cabin and ducked out of sight.
Infuriating. The silent man would yield no more answers today than he had six years before when she’d asked him about her brother. She followed him below, but rather than answer her question, he stepped past her and went back on deck, still busy sailing the boat.
“Kirk!” She followed him back into the open air.
“Shh!” This time his face bent so close to hers their foreheads nearly touched. “I told you to keep your voice down.”
Stasi glanced around at the open sea. Yes, there were boats in the area, but they were far enough away and none of them seemed to be paying them any extra attention, and it was unlikely they’d be able to hear her unless they were listening closely.
But what if they were listening closely?
Chastened, she gripped her stomach before it could spasm again. “Kirk, please.” Her voice trembled slightly, but she didn’t care. “I don’t understand what happened. My family—” She gulped a breath, her words cutting in and out in a high squeak of emotion. “I don’t know what happened to my family. I don’t know where we’re going or who’s after me.” Tears flowed freely at the thought of her family members being injured or killed. “I don’t even know if I can trust you.”
“You can trust me. Have I ever hurt you before?”
“You took my brother away.”
“I didn’t take him away. He left. I simply kept my promise not to tell anyone where he went.”
“So Thaddeus is alive?”
“He was last I checked.”
Stasi nodded, though Kirk’s words did little to reassure her. She’d never understood why her brother would go away and not give them any proof of his survival. Another sorrowful spasm racked her stomach, and she moaned.
“Here.” Kirk extended a silver-wrapped piece of gum toward her. “Peppermint. To settle your stomach.”
“Thank you.” Stasi doubted the little stick of gum could overcome the unsettling effects of all she’d witnessed, but she appreciated his gesture. She popped the gum into her mouth, thinking if Thaddeus really was alive, she wasn’t completely alone.
Kirk altered the course of the boat again, weaving them in between small islands. “You can trust me. I didn’t betray your brother, not even during his murder trial. And I won’t betray you.”
“What does that mean?” She held his arm, a thick, strong one, feeling his muscles flex as he worked the ropes of his one-man sailboat. “You didn’t betray my brother?”
The chameleon color of his hazel eyes picked up the bloodred of the sunset, its deadly hue an ill portent that stained his words. “I promised your brother that I would keep his whereabouts a secret from everyone.”
“Thad wanted you to hide him?”
“Yes.” Kirk turned his back to her, busy with the tasks of sailing the craft in a zigzagging pattern through the islands. Stasi studied his back, for the first time considering her brother’s disappearance from this new angle he’d shown her.
Perhaps Kirk was a man of integrity after all. Perhaps he was actually the bravest, most honorable person through that whole messy trial. He’d taken the stand and insisted that Thaddeus wasn’t dead, but to every demand for proof, he’d simply responded, “I can’t tell you.”
It had driven her father nearly mad. She’d been present for much of it, furious with Kirk through almost all of it, but at the same time, she’d sensed there was something more to the story just below the surface, if only Kirk would break his infuriating silence.
The man seemed determined never to tell more than was absolutely necessary. But she needed answers, now more than ever. “Where are we headed?”
“Dorsi.”
Stasi startled. “But it’s forbidden. It’s dangerous.”
“Not as dangerous as what’s behind us.”
She absorbed his words. He had a decent point there. “But—”
“It’s the last place anyone will come to look for us. Everyone knows to visit the Island of Dorsi is to take your life into your own hands.”
“And for good reason. No one has ever visited Dorsi and returned alive.”
“I have.”
Stasi stepped back with the sway of the boat and shook her head slowly. “Travel to the Island of Dorsi has been banned for nearly a century. The walls are crumbling away and there are land mines everywhere.”
“For the record—” Kirk’s face bore a smile that was just enough of a smirk to irritate her “—I’ve been visiting Dorsi for over a decade and never witnessed a crumbling wall or any falling rocks that I did not personally dislodge. And as far as I can tell there is no substance behind the rumor about the land mines. I suspect your grandfather’s government didn’t want to deal with the liability of tourists visiting the island. If they came in droves, they really could start the walls crumbling. The land mine story was likely invented to keep people away.”
The smirk had faded from his lips, replaced by a serious expression. “For our sakes—” his tone grew solemn “—I’m quite glad they did. Now, I’ve got to bring the boat in, and it’s tricky enough in full daylight, so in this darkness you’ll have to excuse me.”
While Kirk focused on steering the boat toward the island, which loomed ominously above the water in the waning light of the setting sun, Stasi stood back and tried to absorb all he’d told her.
He’d been visiting the island for over a decade? She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to visit the dangerous place, let alone return there. As she watched, the boat pulled closer through the lapping waves. Kirk guided the craft past jagged rocks and the signs warning them in various languages and morbid pictographs just what might happen if one ventured too close.
She shuddered as the rocks slid by. It seemed likely they would hit one, but Kirk’s steady hands never faltered, and the boat slid past rock after rock. The sun spilled its dying light over the sea, and in its red glow Stasi spotted the narrow inlet Kirk had pointed them toward.
To her amazement, the nimble sailboat slipped into the restricted space, past rocky cliffs that protected a secret cove, traveling around a bend to where a soft, sandy beach stretched out behind the rocky promontory, beyond the sight of anyone traveling past the island.
“How did you know this was here?” She followed Kirk as far as the rail. Then Kirk hopped out of the boat with a rope, splashing through the shallow water and pulling the prow onto the sand before securing the rope tightly around a large jutting rock.
“Thad was always curious about the place. He found a book in the king’s library that had a map. It was a few centuries old, so we didn’t know if any of this would still exist. But obviously, it does.” He stood beside the boat and reached his arms out toward her.
Stasi hesitated. She knew he was only offering to help her down, and she appreciated his thoughtfulness, but she was wary of having contact with the man she’d spent so long despising. In spite of his reassurances, she still wasn’t certain he was someone she wanted to trust.