I spit in his face. I had no clue where that courage came from, but I was so disgusted by him that I couldn't stop myself. I spit directly in his eyes.
He reared back and wiped it off with his shirt. "You fucking whore," he roared. He cut me down my right thigh and I screamed. "You're going to regret ever coming to this country. I'm going to carve you into pieces, you invading bitch."
"You're insane," I said, biting back tears. The pain in my leg was intense.
"No," he said. "I'm a fucking patriot. I'm saving this country by ruining you."
I struggled, but it didn't do anything. He came toward me, laughing the whole time. As his knives rose, I heard the door behind me open.
Corvin cocked his head as someone spoke to him in Starklandian. He replied and then looked back at me. "To be continued," he said, and then he left.
I let out a sob once he was gone. That bastard cut my leg open, and I was betting he was going to do worse. I shouldn't have pushed him like that.
I needed to survive this. Trip was going to come, and he was going to save me. So what if I said some lies on camera? Trip would get here before they had a chance to even use the footage.
But what if he didn't? I couldn't see how what I said would really matter. I was nobody, absolutely nobody in all of this, and yet suddenly I'd been shoved into the center of the conflict.
I took deep breaths, trying to steady myself. The cut on my leg wasn't deep, but it was very, very painful. I could only imagine what it would feel like if he turned those horrible knives against the rest of me. I'd be torn to pieces, and I'd be left a screaming wreck on the floor.
I couldn't last. I couldn't do this. I couldn't let a man cut me to pieces.
And then I realized something. I had said out loud that I was in love with Trip. I'd never said that before, or even admitted it to myself.
It was true, though. I found that feeling deep inside me, glowing in my chest, giving me the strength to fight, the strength to spit in the face of pain and terror. It was love for Trip, love for a man I couldn't stand, love for a man who made me feel things physically and more that I never could have imagined.
I was in love. I began to half laugh, half cry as the realization shook my entire core. I was in love with Trip. I was in love with the king of Starkland.
Suddenly, my laughter was cut short as a deep tremor tore through the floor. My chair shook so violently that I was flung to the side.
My shoulder and head smashed onto the floor, and I screamed.
34
TRIP
I paced across the situation room, anger and frustration rolling through me.
"Update me," I ordered Max.
"They will arrive here within the hour," he said simply.
It had been too long since Bryce had disappeared. The army had been recalled and they were on their way back to the estate. There were reports that the rebel army nearby was moving away, back toward the south, probably trying to link up with their main forces. If that was true, pulling my men back was the right call, kidnapping or not. It could have been a more serious trap.
I sighed. "Get them here faster."
"I will do what I can," Max said, and he disappeared.
As far as we could tell, Nicolai Corvin was actually Freddy Adub, a native of the real Corvin's village. We didn't know much about Adub, aside from the fact that he grew up poor and was likely working for Corvin when Corvin actually died.
Bryce was in the hands of some politically motivated madman and we barely knew anything about him. That was one downside of Starkland: We weren't that great at keeping records, and the records we did keep were very general. I didn't know what motivated Corvin besides the rebellion or what had made him turn to the rebels to begin with. My men were hunting down leads in his home village, but that could take days to bear fruit, and I didn't have days.
I had hours at best. Otherwise, something bad could happen to Bryce, and soon.
There was a knock at the door. "Come," I called.
Al stepped inside. "Sir," he said, "I have good news."
"That's very welcome right now," I said, sighing.
He sat down and connected a storage device to the computer system. He used the touch pad and pulled up a video. "One of the drones caught this." It was grainy and dark, but it was clearly a black van driving down one of the back service roads.
"What is that?" I asked.
"I think it's Corvin," he said. "This isn't authorized. It's one of our vans, but it was supposed to have left hours ago, according to the logs at least."
"Where does it go?"
"The drone didn't follow it beyond the property," he said. "They're not programmed to do that."
"So we lost them?"
"Not exactly." He did some more typing and then another screen pulled up. It was another grainy, top-down view of a road with forest on either side. Al got up and pointed. "Here," he said. "This is the van."
"Satellite?"
"Yes," Al said. "We managed to find their exhaust signature and linked them up with their tire tracks."
"Good." I nodded. "Very good. Now I see why my father invested so heavily in technology."
"It's very useful," Al agreed. He scanned through a series of imagines that all followed the van as it moved down a heavily wooded road.
"What is all this?" I asked.
"It's your land, technically," he said. "You own most of the forest land around here, or at least the crown does. It's kept pristine as a park. Locals hike there."
"Where did they go?"
"Here," he said, and he flipped to one more image.
It was a series of connected buildings. It was hard to tell what exactly it was from the grainy image, but I got the sense that it was large and industrial. There was a central building with a few structures connected to it, forming spokes coming from a hub.
"What am I looking at?" I asked him.
"I did some research. Apparently this is an old warehouse."
"They're in there," I said simply.
"Yes, they are."
"How far away is it?"
Al paused. "Not far, sir," he said.
"How far?"
"That structure is maybe a half hour drive from here."
"What?" I asked him, outraged. "They're a half hour from here?"
"Yes," he admitted. "They could have driven all night, but instead they went there."
"They're trying to hide right under my nose," I said, getting angrier and angrier. "They're trying to embarrass us, Al."
"It seems that way to me, too, Your Highness."
I clenched my hands into fists and had to take a deep breath to keep from destroying something. I wanted to lash out, but I knew I had to keep myself under control. My people looked to me to be a leader in times like this, and I needed to show them that I was capable of stepping up.
"Gather our men," I said to Al.
"The army hasn't arrived yet," he said.
"Everyone left is coming."
He nodded. "That will leave the estate unguarded."
"Leave a few token men behind to watch over the place, but yes, we're taking the bulk of anyone left."
"Very well, sir." He stood up.
"And, Al? Prepare my bio suit. I'm coming."
He simply nodded, bowed, and then left.
I paced about the room, anger warring with the need to get out and get moving immediately. I knew we couldn't strike this second, since we had to get everyone together and prepared. It was probably wisest to wait for the return of the army, but they were hours out and Corvin was so close.
I couldn't risk him moving Bryce. I had to strike now, even if it was a trap.
Truthfully, the rebels were getting more and more arrogant with every passing day. They thought they could defeat my men in the field, and so they took greater and greater risks in order to embarrass the crown.
But that stopped here. They weren't winning another battle, and they definitely weren't keeping my woman.
Those fucking bastards were going to pay with their lives.
Not long later, Al returned with the bio suit. It was essentially protective armor plus some strength-augmenting features. It made me fast, strong, and resistant to bullets. Best of all, it was lightweight and easy to wear and use.
Behind Al, though, was Maximillian. "Your Highness," he said.
"Save it, Max," I answered. "Corvin is a half hour away, hiding out right under our fucking noses. I'm going. We need every man we can get."
He nodded and smiled. "Very good, Your Highness."
"You're not trying to talk me out of it?"
"Not at all," he said. "I came to ask if I could join you."
I laughed and gestured at Al. "Get him a suit. We're going to go lay waste to these fucking bastards."
Al nodded, and for the first time since Bryce had been taken, I felt good.
I was making a choice. I was risking my own life for her, and possibly my reputation as the king. But that didn't matter to me.
Bryce's safety was the most important thing to me, and I was going to act on that feeling.