Any Price (2 page)

“Good,”
he continued.
“We don’t have to go over my qualifications. I know the name Boc. If he’s in charge, primary target will be U.S. soil. We are practice. If you leave, I
will
let the proper people know about you. You are their best hope of avoiding the same attack there.”

Kenna sucked in a sharp breath. She was no longer aware of standing in the crowd as she stared at the harshly handsome monarch and knew he would do exactly what he said. Period clothing should have tamed the impact of this man. Lace and silk simply emphasized the big-cat quality of every lithe movement, the savage beauty of his features. He was a warrior who sat a throne.

And he had the look of a hero. His eyes were already dark, but lush lashes added perpetual shadows, hiding any emotion they might show. Chiseled cheek bones and an aristocratic nose above a chin so firm she’d bet he could use it as a club. The only softness on his face were mobile lips and above his forehead where a thick pelt of deep chocolate hair invited her fingers. At six foot four, he just looked like he ate kittens for breakfast and bunnies for lunch.

“Are you threatening me?”

“I’m telling you what your options are,”
he countered in her mind. Lore paused as Yuri leaned down to whisper in his ear. He quickly wrote instructions on another sheet of paper and handed it to Yuri.

Kenna backed a step as the king held her in his grasp by will alone. She could feel it and wasn’t sure what that meant. At least he believed her. He seemed to be directing people, and she had to assume they were taking whatever action this sort of thing required. It was her first time trying to save the world.

“All right,”
she sent, unsure what she meant by that. Was she agreeing with him or just acknowledging how unaware she was of how things worked?

“Good,”
he approved.
“We will start at the hotel and see if we can track them from there. You will go with the protection detail.”

Kenna backed up another step and bumped into an immovable object. Glancing behind her, she found a large man smiling down at her. She hadn’t thought it was possible to go another step into terror and still breathe.

“Kenna,”
Lore instantly invaded her mind with the warmth he’d been pushing across their connection for the last three days.
“Thomas is there to protect you, as are the other three men. You must get out of the crowd, baby. We have no way of knowing if there is anyone else present who can detect this type of connection. Please relax, you’re safe.”

It took Lore’s assurance for Kenna to back down the terror and feel the man standing behind her. Reading people didn’t always mean listening to thoughts. It was mostly knowledge of their base-level emotional intentions. This fellow was naturally cheerful and there wasn’t a hint of threat directed at her. He possessed sandy-blond hair and smiling hazel eyes, but the close-cut look about him made her immediately think military.

“Please come with me, miss,” Thomas said politely as his hand gently closed around her elbow. His accent was a soft burr to otherwise perfect English.

She relaxed right up until the next thought crossed her mind.
“You’re kidnapping me?”
Kenna asked the king, not bothering to respond to the man holding her arm.

“No. I’m providing protection. The terrorists are not in this crowd?”
he asked briskly. She thought this was a kidnapping? Little darlin’ had no fuckin’ clue what men like him did when they were about the business of kidnapping. Well good, she shouldn’t. He was about to make damn sure she never learned.

“No! Hey, wait! How is this different from kidnapping?”
Kenna wanted to know as three other equally large males joined the big man, forming a virtual wall of moving muscle that swept her out of the crowd.

“No one puts a bag over your head and stuffs you in a van,”
Lore answered dryly, leaving off the rest of what might happen to pretty little things in that situation.

The fast-moving men had her around the corner and at a car.
“Lore,”
she used his name for the first time, obviously too frightened to address him any other way than how she thought of him
. “Tell me again why it’s safe for me to get in a car with strange men who are taking me to an unknown location. How this doesn’t make me crazy. Lie to me if you have to.”

Something dark stirred low in his belly as she disappeared from view. The men with her were professionals doing exactly what he’d directed them to. Aggressive possessiveness, there was no time for that crap.

“First, I will never, ever lie to you, baby girl. They are taking you to the palace. Don’t be afraid, I promise you’re safe. I will come for you as soon as I can.”

Kenna latched on to the deep voice and the relief it gave. The jumbled confusion of so many thoughts and emotions bombarding her this week was overwhelming. Three days ago Kenna’s head had pounded with information swamping her in a shocking barrage as she cleared the airport. When Lore’s voice had cut across it, there was relief. Remaining open to his mind acted like climbing aboard a lifeboat in a sea of chaos, allowing her to float through the information instead of being buffeted by it. So that’s exactly what she’d done until somehow he’d charmed her into answering him last night.

This visit hadn’t been her choice. She’d had misgivings from the moment she’d heard about this place on that dark night filled with unbelievable stories, Grandmother’s stories. The last thing Grandmother asked her to do, even if it was slightly morbid, considering who Grandmother said she was, made it an obligation.

Not exactly rocket science to pin down the reason she let him manipulate her. He was just so confident about what to do next. After three days of overwhelming physic development followed by hearing people plotting mass destruction, his calm decisiveness was an extreme relief.

His position had a lot to do with it too. He had to be responsible, didn’t he? King and stuff, it meant he was a good person. He’d been a SEAL too. All of which added up to a lovely public record and absolutely no reason not to just trot along like the good little woman. Except there were those other reasons too.

The dirt-stupid reasons that she was refusing to think about right now. At this age, developing a crush on someone she’d only seen in photographs had to be a sure sign of being an idiot. That was before she landed and found the man in her head. That voice, richly textured in deep tones, could not be mistaken. Hearing the first sentence of his opening ceremony address was all it took to identify her mental lifeboat captain. It wasn’t right for a guy to be that sexy while tossing about commands interspersed with endearments. Apparently her subconscious had already dressed him in the red tights and cape, convinced he was here to save the day.

Moving away from his compelling gaze should have decreased the surprising new level of his grip on her. Kenna found the opposite was the case. The car sped away from the crowd, passing the public entrance to the castle and cruising through a much smaller gate. The distance didn’t make a whit of difference. Somehow she could feel him and it was so bone-deep comforting.

Lore excused himself from the presentation of patents as soon as she was in the vehicle and away from the scene. His ability to remain in contact with her on a low level surprised him, but it was no more unusual than every other damn thing he was faced with at the moment. He needed her safe.

Rare, talented and supremely unaware of what she wielded added up to major shit-storm potential. He wasn’t going to allow things to get to that point. The bomb business was just another flavor of the extreme danger pretty baby was in.

“Meet us in the war room,” Lore barked into the radio connecting him to Thomas. “Take Miss MacKelsey there now. See to her needs as you would mine.”

* * * * *

Forty minutes later a door opened deep in the castle.

Kenna jerked to her feet as the door shut behind Lore and his companion. “Seriously? The bomb suit? You can’t do this. You’re the king, surely you can send someone else.”

Lore strode across the room, paying no attention to her words. His hands grasped her shoulders as he stopped in front of her, his eyes searching her face. “Are you okay?”

Kenna frowned up at him. “I’m fine! What are you doing in the vest? You have people who can do this. Kings do not disarm bombs.”

Kenna’s hands naturally rose to his chest, her face turned up in distress. She spoke in jerky statements as she tried to deal with a brand new bit of crazy.

Seeing that suit on him was a shock, but the panic response confused her. Why? It made no sense since she didn’t really know him.

“There isn’t anyone else close enough who can,” Lore stated as his thumbs caressed slender shoulders. “The Israelis have a good team. It will take too long for them to get here. The U.S. has one at Ramstein in Germany, but again, we can’t wait several hours. This is what I was trained to do, it’s the job.”

Lore’s focus on the trembling yet outraged little body between his hands was consuming but suddenly much more comfortable. Touching her added a richer dimension to their communication. He could feel how deeply she objected to his doing the job.

Her hands rested lightly on his broad chest. Of course she wasn’t really petting him. That would be wrong. Kenna frowned up at the big, confident man who had driven her past polite conversation two days ago. “You act like it’s a simple chore. Lore, this is way dangerous. Do you know where the bomb is already?”

There was no distance between them, no titles, no class lines, not even the polite detachment of near strangers as he held her, his focus narrowed on her. They were a man and a woman, perhaps even as basic as male and female of the species. Everything else had evaporated in the deeply personal contact of telepathic communication.

The tiny tremors zipping down her torso and pooling behind her pelvic bone had nothing to do with exhaustion. His hands holding her firmly while thumbs caressed gently were the guilty originators. Or it might be the all the heavy muscle straining toward her. Her body was rolling out the welcome mat in the damp heat between her legs, the tight tingle of her breasts. If it could have there would be sparklers pointing at private flesh, flashing welcome.

“We have location. I’m the only professional present. Kenna, this is pretty much a third-world country,” he explained. “We don’t have the resources Americans take for granted. If we have one professional for whatever the job is, we’re damn lucky. There are no backup systems, no redundant fail-safe. This time, I’m the only professional with the specialized training and experience. Everyone works in a society this poor. Everyone.”

He suddenly smiled into her anxious face. His voice rumbled in a purr as his head bent closer to her. “I know what I’m doing, but thanks for the concern, baby girl.”

Her mouth formed a little O of surprise as his head sank to her in slow motion. She knew what he was doing. Knew exactly what he really wanted to do as a thought flashed across their connection that had nothing to do with bombs. It was so quickly ended that she knew he had not meant to send it. His attention to detail in that thought was astonishing, considering he’d never seen her naked. She should be offended or shocked. At the very least embarrassed. Being turned-on was just wrong, and Kenna was very wrong. His thought had included fascinating visual details about himself. She was extremely wrong…yep, wrong.

Their lips barely touched and Kenna shuddered in anticipation as his moved over her.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said into her mouth.

“What?” The word slurred a bit. Talking was not what her lips should be doing right now.

He moved in that liquid-steel way of his, and now one of his hands gripped her low on her hip, almost but not quite cupping her ass, pulling her into his body. His other forearm supported her back as he held her head in his palm. She was plastered against him, her lips under his mouth and he was talking. That wasn’t right. He was supposed to be kissing. She was sure of it.

“Please don’t try to leave before we can talk privately.” The deep tone of his voice was so tantalizingly male, just like every other seductive inch of him, and her senses swam through the testosterone in lazy bliss. She did notice that he’d commanded her to stay, very nicely but still, the word “try” implied she’d not succeed if she attempted escape.

“Not going,” Kenna mumbled. Why were they talking? His lips rested on hers and Kenna’s womb clenched. The involuntary reaction forced a moan up her throat. “Should I be trying to find them?”

His lips lifted fractionally. “You’re the gorgeous woman who’s staying out of harm’s way,” he stated firmly. “Do not attempt any such thing.”

Kenna’s eyes slid shut. “I’m gorgeous?” Okay, now they were getting somewhere. The kissing would start soon.

She felt his lips smile on hers. “Yeah.”

She waited for it, waited… Nothing.

His mouth was on her very-willing lips. He said she was beautiful, and she knew exactly how he meant that, yet still no kissing. Her eyes opened to stare into that compelling male gaze. Damn man was going to make her argue for it. “Since you’re not going to kiss me and give me an excuse to ignore all the commanding, let me go,” she murmured back.

“Or what?” he grinned over her lips.