Cooper moved in and locked the deadbolt. Lan saw red. His heart pounded. His fists clenched. Fuck, he had to get control of himself. He would check on Alea, then he was going to take apart some reporters. He would rip a couple of heads off and mount them at the end of the hallway, and maybe the next set of vultures wouldn't be so eager to knock on their door.
"Don't." Dane pulled him back.
"I'll do it quietly."
"You can't. They're reporters. Do you forget who we are? I don't just mean our names. Now we're both the princess's guards and her lovers. You can't beat the shit out of people anymore. Everything we do reflects on her. Ultimately, we represent the sheikh and his family. Let Law handle it."
Fuck. He hadn't thought about that. He forced himself to calm down. Never once during his pursuit of Alea had he thought about the dark side of royalty being his problem if he actually caught her. This was her life, and if he wanted her, it had to be his, too. He would have to put up with all the questions, the reporters, and the constant speculation. Oh fuck … Dane was smart; he could handle it. Cooper was charming enough to slide by. But he'd just about walked out into the hallway and started tearing reporters up. It would have all been caught on camera for the world to see. Shit!
Lan looked up, and Alea was staring right at him, her dark eyes burning a hole through him as though she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Lea?"
"That's the way it's always going to be now." She wouldn't look him in the eyes. Her face had flushed, her hands trembling slightly. "You won't be able to have a normal life if you're with me."
His stomach sank. God, why hadn't he just slammed the door? "I don't want a normal life."
"That's just the start, Lan. They will come at you every day. They'll drag you down with me," she said, her voice tight.
"Lea, come on. Let's dry your hair." Cooper reached for her hand and started to lead her back to the bathroom.
She walked with him, her head held at that regal angle she used for state appearances.
Damn it. He started to go after her. He had to explain … what? That he was sorry he'd nearly started a new scandal for the entire royal family and made things much worse for her?
"Don't." Dane stood in his way. "Let Coop handle her right now. You need to decide."
He hated the fact that Cooper was with her and not him. "I nearly fucked everything up."
"You should have known this was going to happen. You've been guarding this family for over a year. You know how the press can be."
He did, but he'd never been in the middle of it. He'd never had all that attention focused on him.
Dane frowned. "What did you think would happen? What do you think is going to happen when we marry her?"
"I think I'm going to have to get a grip on my temper. But they said some horrible things about our girl. How can I not defend her?" He needed to get a fucking grip and wrap his head around it all.
Dane took a long breath and held his hands up, backing away slightly. "We have to find new ways to defend her because lashing out will only make things worse. Sorry, man. I think we're all on edge. We need to back off and reconvene after we've gotten her safely back to Bezakistan."
Lan nodded. He could still hear the reporters clamoring outside the door, and over it all, Law's shouts. "I wish they'd never found us."
Dane's shoulders slumped. "Me, too, man. Me, too."
* * * *
Alea felt numb as she was led into Tal's office. She'd pretended to sleep all the way home, keeping her eyes closed and ignoring the conversations around her.
But all she could hear in her head was those reporters and all she could see was the look of horror on Lan's face as he'd realized what he'd really gotten mixed up in.
She'd managed to read some of the press surrounding her disappearance, despite Dane and Cooper's attempts to prevent it.
They were calling her all sorts of names. And despite the fact that it had been tradition in Bezakistan for hundreds of years for brothers to share a wife, her men weren't being considered brothers. Because they shared no blood, the press seemed to think they could deem their relationship kinky rather than traditional and savage it.
And who had even told them they had a relationship in the first place? Who the hell was this palace source they kept talking to?
And the worst part was the girl from the brothel recounting all the ways Alea had failed. According to Brittany Hahn, she was worse than a coward. The girl was telling the world that Alea had actually participated in the other women's torture to spare herself. It was a lie, but she still saw those women in her nightmares, their eyes pleading with her to help. She hadn't tortured them, but she hadn't been able to save them either. Had she tried hard enough?