Chapter One
The guard stood blocking her way, which was a nuisance.
“I need to see the prisoner,” Jayla said in her most cool, commanding tone. “I am sure you recognize me.”
“Yes, of course, Princess.” The young soldier’s skin had taken on a dusky hue but he stood firm. “But please understand, my…my orders are—”
She cut off the stammered refusal. “To deny the daughter of your sovereign a request?”
“No, of course not. But…that is…well, I am not supposed to let anyone—”
“Open the door, please.”
Normally, she didn’t play the haughty highborn very well, but apparently desperation brought out the best—or worst—in her. What she was doing at the moment bordered on subversion and was at the least breaking about several dozen laws.
All for one infuriating male who had a knack for causing trouble not only for himself, but for others. Why she even bothered…
The guard turned and quickly scanned the code imprinted on his hand to open the door. Jayla hoped she looked composed as she stepped past the young soldier, but it was anyone’s guess. She was more suited to intellectual pursuits than intrigue.
Unlike Damon. When it came to complications, he was a master.
Her first thought was that he looked far too comfortable for someone who had been caught in a flagrant act of what was considered treason and incarcerated without so much as a trial. He sat in a careless sprawl on the single cot provided, his eyes half-closed as he watched her enter, a lock of dark, unruly hair spilling over his brow. The rest of the cubicle was sterile, with gray walls, a polished floor, and nothing more than a not very private entrance to a cleansing room without a door.
A prison cell. She’d worried all along his rebellious activities would lead him to exactly this place.
They merely looked at each other for a moment. Then one side of his mouth quirked upward. “It took you long enough, Jay. Nice of you to stop by. Quite a place I’ve got here, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t be too encouraged by my arrival,” she said as calmly as possible. “My mother doesn’t know I’m here.”
“She wouldn’t approve, I’m sure.” He shifted his athletic, tall body. Just a fraction, but she knew him, and it was enough for her to tell he wasn’t as nonchalant as he seemed. “My father probably wouldn’t either.”
“For the first time in our lives, we agree on something.” There was no place for a visitor to sit—since there weren’t supposed to be visitors—so she stayed on her feet. Convention asserted itself even in this extremity for Damon rose politely, though he hardly need be a courtier when he’d been thrown in prison because her family disliked his political views.
“I am not going to back down,” he said softly, the lethal tone of his voice one she’d heard before, but never with such terrifying implications. “If that’s why you’re here, forget it.”
Didn’t he realize he needed to back down?
He was disturbingly attractive. It was something she’d become gradually aware of as they had gotten older, the gangly child who had once been shorter than her by several inches now so tall the top of her head barely reached his shoulder, his face matured into sculpted lines and clean angles, his dark eyes holding the intensity of a full adult male.
“Did I ask you to back down?” Jayla feigned a nonchalance she didn’t feel. He had no idea how grave it all was. Or worse, if he did, he didn’t care. Even his father, her mother’s chief advisor, disapproved of his son’s actions and hadn’t stepped in to free him.
Damon had to cooperate.
There was a short silence, and then he shrugged. “No. Good point. If that isn’t your purpose, why are you here?”
“To help you. Not,” she added with censure in her voice, “that I am convinced you deserve it.”
“Ah, my prim Jay.” Despite his less than auspicious circumstances, Damon laughed. “You never change. It is almost like the time I put a sand beetle in your bed. I remember you came to me with it in a silver goblet, and handed it over as if gifting me with a precious object.”