Heir in Exile (17 page)

Galvanized into motion, she hit the following door, the last in this row on this side of the hall. She went in a little too fast, albeit quiet, and scanned the space while her mind raced.

Straddling a chair backwards, a man sat near his window, the glow of the moon bathing his disfigured features. Arms laced across the back of the seat, he stared pensively out the panes, spine relaxed into a slight curve, feet on the ground. He was fully clothed, from a flannel over a tee-shirt to heavy tread boots.

The split second glimpse of the man in repose vanished when he popped up straight and looked at the door. At
her.
Chey knew this was the man she needed. Struck again by just how much he resembled Sander, she had no time to dwell on it before the man frowned and clipped out a word in his native tongue.

Questioning her, no doubt, over why she'd just barged in his room with no knock, no warning.

Chey hadn't expected to find him fully coherent and alert. Panic made it hard to think. Rushing him would end up badly for her, she knew that without being told. He would overpower her in a second. Just like Sander. Chey was no physical match for this man.

He cut another word out, sitting up even straighter.

You're lingering too long! Think, think, think! Do something! Make a plan. Figure it out.

While she ranted at herself, the man pushed up out of the chair.

That was all it took. Chey pivoted and ran down the hallway, looking ahead to the dark doorway on her right where she'd hidden the first time. If she could duck in there, maybe he would run by, give up searching eventually, and she could sneak back when he went to sleep—eventually—and get her sample.

He was quick. Too quick. Chey felt him closing the distance and gave up on the idea of hiding. She hit the stairs and went down as fast as she dared. Panting terrified breaths, she didn't give up on a plan, was too determined to get answers for Sander. There had to be a way to salvage the situation.

At least the man hadn't called out for guards.

Hitting the first floor at a run, she veered down the hallway toward the door to the basement. She felt fingers graze her shoulder and almost screamed.

He was
right
behind her. She wouldn't make it to the basement without him catching her. Darting to the stairwell, she wrenched the door open. He grasped her elbow with another curt word on his tongue.

Chey wrenched free, grappling with him, nearly losing her footing as she went down the basement stairs.

And then she
did
lose her footing, balance going askew as she flew forward, hands out to brace her fall.

No one had to tell her this was going to be a hard, devastating landing.

Chapter Thirteen

The steel band of an arm caught her around the ribs and prevented Chey from taking a header to the cement floor. Surprised at the almost gentle way he handled her, she regained her feet with his help, bumbled down the final steps and turned around when he released her.

This close, she could see the sunken eye socket, the caved in part of his forehead. His cheek on that side also looked a little funny, though his mouth was fine, as was his jaw and chin on both sides.

Regardless of all that, she still had the impression that it was Sander bearing down on her instead of a strange man.

He cut another few curt words into the air, appearing puzzled.

Chey couldn't believe he wasn't calling down guards or attacking her for trespassing.
Get the sample! Get pieces of hair, or prick his arm and gather the blood!

“I'm not here to hurt anyone, I promise, I just--” Chey's explanation died when the man darted a look past her shoulder. His prominent eye gleamed, narrowed.

Someone was behind her.

Chey knew it because her sixth sense had also kicked in, sending chills over her skin and the hair up on the back of her neck. She yelped when a pair of strong arms wrapped around her.

“You're in more trouble than you can even imagine,” Sander said at her ear. Then he broke into his mother tongue, addressing the stranger.

Gasping, Chey looked back and up. Sander's distinct scent swamped her even as the familiar shape of his body imprinted itself on her back. She glanced between the men, easing in Sander's arms until she stood on her own merit.

“I thought you were in Barbados!” Chey couldn't believe Sander was standing there in the basement with her. Had he been lying about his location the whole time? He gave her a brief, withering look that sent hackles of anger up in place of the chills. Any other time, Chey would have lit into him.

Face to face, there was no denying these men were related. They stared at each other while the stranger returned a calm, somewhat bemused sounding reply to Sander.

“Do you speak English?” Sander asked.

“Yes,” the man replied. His accent was heavier than Sander's, voice raspy and low.

Chey tugged at the hem of her jacket while attempting to calm the frantic pace of her heart.

“I am Sander--”

“I know who you are,” the man said. “I am called Laur.”

“Good, Laur. Then you must realize we are somehow related,” Sander said, extending his hand.

The stranger clasped it and shook, still staring hard at Sander's face. “I have known a long while, even though they try to hide it from me.”

Sander shook and released. “Yes, they have hidden it from...everyone. This is Chey—who is
not
supposed to be here.”

Chey tightened her lips and glared at Sander a moment before turning a tentative smile on Laur. “Sorry about all this skulking around. I believed it necessary.”

Laur extended a hand to shake with her as well. He seemed so much like a gentle giant, capable of doing mass damage if you rubbed him the wrong way.

“Chey,” he said. “I take no offense.”

Chey shook his hand. “Laur. You might have if I'd had time to pluck some hairs out of your head or pricked you to take a blood sample.”

At least she was honest. Chey felt Sander's ire grow by leaps and bounds. She refused to look at him.

“For what reason?” Laur asked.

“We don't have a lot of time. To make a long story short—we would like to find out if you are Queen Helina and King Aksel's son. Their
real
firstborn. For that, we need a hair or blood sample--”

“Or saliva. That would be easiest,” Chey interjected. She sensed Sander boring a look into the side of her head, and she returned a haughty, irritated glare of her own.

The gleam of his blue eyes promised retribution.

“I am willing,” Laur said, inadvertently interrupting the stare down.

“Thank you,” Sander said, returning his attention to his likely brother. “Once we find out for certain and deal with other problems arising from all this, perhaps you would do me the honor of visiting my house for a longer, less clandestine conversation.”

“I have everything we need.” Chey fished out the swabs and the baggie.

“I would be pleased, and I will say nothing of your visit here this evening,” Laur replied.

Chey was struck by how cultured he seemed despite everything else. She extended two swabs. “Just take each one and smear the tip along the underside of your lip.”

“Thank you,” Sander said. “Discretion is imperative for
everyone's
safety.”

Chey knew without being told that Sander was gently warning Laur that he could be in danger as well. If the King and Queen thought news would get out over Laur's birthright, would they take steps to eliminate him? She shuddered at the thought.

Laur took the swabs from her fingers and followed her directions exactly. Chey opened the baggie for Laur to drop the swabs in. Once he did, she sealed the baggie, rolled it up around the swabs, and stuck it back into the fanny pack.

This entire ordeal was turning out much different than Chey expected.

“I understand.” The gravity in Laur's reply suggested he understood what Sander said, and also what Sander did not say.

“Excellent. As much as I would like to stay, I know there are guards here. We must be away before the alarm is raised,” Sander said, hooking his fingers under the crook of Chey's elbow. “I look forward to the next time, Laur.”

“As I. Should the guards rise, I will distract them,” he said, following Sander and Chey to the busted basement door. He touched the splintered edge and glanced at Chey.

She gave him a contrite little smile that vanished the second Sander 'escorted' her outside.

The men traded a few more words in their own tongue. Then Sander hustled her by the elbow to the outer wall, through the iron gate and away from the building. They went low and fast, coming upon Mattias and another two guards waiting in the trees.

Well. That was just fabulous. The whole lot of them were in on it. Chey withheld any blistering diatribe while they jogged overland in the direction of the parked SUV. A cramp developed low in her stomach halfway there, but she refused to stop or even pause. Hell would have to freeze over before she would show one ounce of weakness.

She wasn't surprised to see another SUV from Mattias's house parked behind the one she'd borrowed. It inflamed her further to know they must have realized she would make an attempt and simply followed her here or however it was they found her. She opened the back door when Sander reached to do the same and climbed in without his help. Just before the door closed, she heard him snarl a low noise of discontent and frustration.

Good. Now he knew how she felt.

A few minutes later, with guards driving both SUVs, they were on the road back to Mattias's.

. . .

“What
were
you thinking?” Sander thundered the second they entered the house through the side garage door.

Chey's mouth opened in disbelief that he didn't wait for Mattias and the guards to properly disperse—which they did immediately following the bellow—before shouting at her.

“Why did you
lie?
How dare you--”

“Yet, it was all right for you to lie to Mattias?” Sander made quotation marks with his fingers in lieu of trying to mimic her voice. “I'm tired, I think I'll go up to bed.” He dropped the finger quotes. “Was that not what you said? Which was a lie, when you were planning to leave all along.”

Furious, Chey yanked off her coat and the blasted fanny pack. Mattias had possession of the swabs in preparation for having them sent to a lab for testing. She tossed her things onto an extra chair sitting against a wall as they stormed through the house. “You should have taken me more seriously, then! I'm not completely helpless--”

“And yet had Laur not been the man he is, or had I not been there to back you up, you would have been in a world of hurt!” Sander rounded on her in the foyer, before they ever reached the stairs.

Chey, fists at her sides, glared at him. “Stop interrupting me! You were supposed to be in Barbados.
Exiled.
Yet here you are, magically back in Latvala.”

“I
was
in Barbados. Then I boarded a private plane for Latvala because I had no intentions of living under house arrest while my father wreaks havoc here. When we had our little video conference, I was already more than halfway home.” He towered over her, blue eyes glinting with fury.

“You could have said something! Maybe I wouldn't have rushed out to try and help
you,”
she said, jabbing a finger into his chest, “get your blood samples or hair roots or whatever else.”

“What matters is that you completely disobeyed me--”

“Don't talk to me about obeying. I'm not a dog,” she hissed. “All you had to do was tell me you were almost home and I wouldn't have gone out there.”

“Yes you would. You would have done the exact same thing. Using my return is a cheap excuse,” he growled. “When I tell you not to do something, it's for a damn good reason!”

Seething, Chey got on her tiptoes. It was the only way she could go nose to nose with him, though it still wouldn't have worked if he didn't have his head bent down like that. “You don't know what I would or wouldn't have done. Even something more along the lines of,
I really don't want you to go, Chey,
would have had a much bigger impact on me than your imperious 'No.'”

“I disagree,” he said in a silky tone. “I think you would have gone no matter what. Any argument I made, or pleas, would have fallen on deaf ears. 'No' was just the more expedient way to express my feelings about you taking off by yourself on some hair brained mission that could have gotten you killed!”

By the end, the silkiness had given away to a sandpaper rasp. He reached inside his pocket and pulled out her journal entry from upstairs. The one she'd stuffed into the nightstand after Mattias knocked on her door.