Page 3 of His Realm

The trick was to move the king, because there was no one other than Varic who was as strong and fast as Messina Maedoc. But the question became, what would get his attention? What could I do that would get him to come to me?

I did the only thing I could think of: I pretended to choke. Loudly. People gasped around me.

“Are you all right?”

It sounded bad, but I made it worse.

Loosening the wolf mask I had on, letting it fall to the ground and crack—a high-end piece of Venetian art that was probably worth thousands—I doubled over and did my very best Gollum impression. I would have made Andy Serkis proud.

“Clear a path,” the king thundered, and he was suddenly at my side from across the room, using that same supernatural speed his son had, hand on my back, bending over to try and see my face. “Jason,” he gasped, worry in his voice. “Breathe, son.”

Straightening fast, I took hold of his biceps. “There are assassins here, Your Majesty,” I informed him and then shoved him behind me, pivoting to face the threat at the same time the crowd surged around us and a dagger caught my left bicep.

“The king is in danger!” I roared as a second assailant and a third, who was carrying what looked like a machete but I was certain was something else, tried to get through me to my soon-to-be father-in-law.

Even in the heavy robes I had on, I could still move, so I grabbed one of the attackers by the hair and smashed his face into a column. It didn’t do anything but stun him. I wasn’t as strong as a vampyr on any given day, but as I wasn’t completely human, I at least pushed him off-balance, flipping him over my back to the floor, where several others grabbed hold of him. The one with the machete would have caught me in the side of the neck, but I kicked him in the abdomen, which sent him stumbling back into our sovereign. Messina Maedoc was not old and soft; he was powerful and deadly and grabbed the assailant’s head in both hands and wrenched it from his shoulders.

Nothing killed a party like blood spewing everywhere, splattering me and the king, and there was screaming and shouting and a mass evacuation as a fourth and fifth attacker rushed us. The fifth one looked behind him at another who’d bolted for the door.

“Protect the king,” I bellowed, and other members of the dene, the nobility, surged around him, powerful dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses, barons and baronesses, all ready to protect their lord. The fifth assassin was quickly apprehended and literally torn apart.

Hurling off my outer robes, moving through the crowd to get outside the ballroom so I could charge after the fleeing assassin, still ripping off clothes, I was down to a long-sleeve silken shirt, a belt, and riding pants tucked into knee-high boots. It was a stupid outfit, and I’d felt ridiculous when I was getting dressed, but it all clung to my body and moved with me, making running easier.

The fact that I could keep pace with a vampyr was impressive and would not have been possible without the blood of my prince coursing through my veins. He’d first altered how much my heart could pump so that I could always feed him, and then, due to a few close calls and life-and-death situations, he’d had to infuse me with some of his own. As a result, I was stronger and faster than a normal man, which was extremely beneficial at the moment.

Careening around corners, rushing by others, when the person I was chasing ran toward the open atrium, I swore, knowing we were headed outside. It made sense to get lost in the crowds near the heavy touristic areas of Valletta, the capital city of Malta, where the palace was located.

But things had changed in the past year at the palace, and though I knew I was right and the assassins had scouted the layout and recorded the comings and goings of servants and guards alike, they had apparently not been there long enough to see what occurred during an event held at court when the prince was not in attendance.

Varic had ordered all entrances and exits heavily guarded during times when others might use something like a ball to try and gain access to the palace, and even more security was added when he was away. Since the events of the previous year when the king’s rajan had plotted against him and nearly succeeded, the prince was taking no chances with his father’s safety, and more so, honestly, with mine. Varic loved his father, but it was a relationship fraught with regret and pride, bitterness and anger. When you lived thousands of years, it was a lot of time to harbor grudges and allow many things to be left unsaid. Forgiveness fell by the wayside, as did apologies and real and imagined slights. Varic didn’t have any of those issues with me. For me, his love was pure and untainted, which meant that when he was gone, no one came in or out of the palace without someone having eyes on them. Right now, with people screaming that there had been an attack on the king, there was no way in hell the assassin was going out the front door.

I was thrilled that the assassin was stuck in the palace. Outside, in the sprawling city of Valletta, he would have become lost in the local and tourist human population. Inside, he would be easier to catch, though sealing all the exits and going through every nook and cranny could take weeks.

Two years ago, if someone had said to me that vampyrs were real and I would be mated to their prince, I would have told them they were nuts and should probably seek psychiatric help as soon as possible. But vampyrs were real, Varic Maedoc was their crown prince, and I was his consort. None of that was in question. What needed answers was why someone was trying to kill Varic’s father.

The assassin took the stairs up to the second floor, and I was right on his heels, now with others joining the pursuit.

Down the long, wide corridor we went, him using the scary vampyr speed, me behind him, arms pumping, legs eating up the marble under my feet, not closing the distance but not losing any either. It became harder to hold the sustained sprint, to breathe with my lungs on fire and my muscles screaming at me to stop before they cramped up and locked.

I prayed he didn’t veer and take the stairs to either the right or left but would instead race on toward where the hallway dead-ended at a wall of windows. When the white marble became black-veined under my feet, because we were crossing into Varic’s wing of the palace that was now mine as well, I cried out in relief even as my right leg buckled and I flew forward, headfirst toward the marble.

Bracing, throwing my arms in front of my face, there was a jerk, like a parachute opening, the hard jolt before the floating along with a rush of air across the face.

Focusing, I found my hendr, my champion, Zev, holding me under the armpits, setting me gently on the ground.

“Gross,” he muttered, wiping his hands on his pants. I was sweating buckets, after all, and my pits were probably dripping.

I couldn’t even check and see where the assailant was, the muscles in my right leg twisted so hard that I screamed despite myself.

Zev went down on one knee, pulled off my boot and sock, and put a hand under my calf to straighten my leg. He used his other hand to push my toes back, flattening my foot.

The pain remained, and then Dae-Jung was there, leaning me back so I was lying flat on the cold marble as Zev continued to brace my leg.

“The assassin,” I ground out.

Zev tipped his head sideways, and I saw the vampyr sprawled out a few feet from me.

“Is he dead?”