Page 9 of Captured

“My father’s, most directly.”Straighten your spine. Smile.“He certainly paid a lot of attention to me, but I was a little girl when we first met, and a bit excitable. I was an easy target.” She waved toward the box. “Still am, I guess.”

“Do not apologize for your fear. It’s there for a reason.” Dimitri’s gruff absolution hit Lauren exactly the wrong way. The panic she always endured when it came to Henry Smithson clawed at the back of her throat, urging her to tell him the truth, but her ingrained sense of self-preservation smacked it back. Now, she needed to get out of there. To do that, she merely had to play to Dimitri’s expectations.

“Thank you.” She smiled and deliberately made it quavery, moving her hand to her hair as if to swat away some imaginary wisp. “I—oh, should I stay for the king? I feel so silly.”

“Not at all.” Dimitri gestured to one of the staff members, another female, who stepped quickly to Lauren’s side.

“Come with me, Miss Grant. I’ll take you to your rooms.”

“Thank you—I...” Too much? Too little?Get out of here, urged a voice in her head. She didn’t know how well Dimitri had studied her over the past few days, but the captain wasn’t a complete idiot. Surely he could read people’s emotions and know the ones that resonated the strongest. And surely her fear was pinging off the radar.

She turned to the staff member, smiling broadly. “That would be lovely,” she said, forcing herself to slow down, to modulate her voice despite the impact of the alcohol and her own fear making her want to shout. She couldn’t look again at Dimitri, though. Instead, she left the foyer without a backward glance.

Her heart pounded all the way back to the guest chambers, where she, Emmaline, Nicki, and Fran all shared an extended guest suite. When she approached, she heard their voices, and she steadied herself further. Usually the sound of her friends’laughter would have been soothing to her, presaging a carefree respite. Not today, though. Not when her mind was reeling. They’d know too much, pepper her with questions. She didn’t want to face them.

Impulsively, she put out a hand and stopped the attendant. “Thank you, but—is there someplace I could go to be alone for a little while? I don’t want to worry my friends, but I...I’m not feeling too well.”

The training of the palace attendant was evident as she nodded, completely unperturbed by Lauren’s request or by her trembling hand. “Of course, Miss Grant. We have a lovely sitting room down the corridor. When you are feeling more yourself, you may retire to your suite at your leisure. Would that be acceptable?”

“Of course—yes. Thank you.” Lauren closed her hands into fists to keep from crying, a reaction completely out of step with the attendant’s words. She was still a little drunk, was all. She was overreacting. She needed to pull it together.

The room was as advertised. Small, cozy, and quiet, it seemed a lovely oasis as the attendant stepped quickly across the room and turned on two low-light lamps. There was a long couch and two chairs in front of a gas fireplace, which the attendant helpfully turned on despite the fact that it was early summer. A cheery flame leapt up in the grate, and Lauren’s knees wobbled a little. One of the chairs had a cotton throw folded over it, and she angled for it now. Vertigo struck her hard, but she steadied herself enough to turn and thank the attendant.

“No problem at all, Miss Grant.” The woman bowed and left the room as quietly as she’d entered it, and Lauren practically dove for the chair, pulling the soft blanket around her with shaking hands.

For a long minute, she stared at the fire climbing in the grate. Then she pawed at her purse, snapping it open long enough to pull out the phone. She didn’t need to dial anyone, though.

The text was waiting for her.

How I’ve missed you.

Six

Dimitri strode through the halls of the palace, fury arrowing through him. Fury atwhat, he wasn’t sure, but he had a whole lot of mad going on.

The American sure knew how to pick her freaks.

Henry Smithson wasn’t merely a friend of her family’s. He was a friend of just about every royal and moneyed family in the civilized world. Hell, King Jasen knew him, though he’d also confirmed that neither he nor the queen had ever received packages from the man. Certainly nothing in such a distinctive box.

That wasn’t even the worst of it, though. The ONSF had a dossier on Smithson an inch thick, same as it did on any moneyed mortal who dedicated themselves in service to a Greek god. In Smithson’s case, the billionaire financier had chosen a particularly nasty deity to don the toga for: Typhon, god of monsters. Yeah, him. Even though Zeus had long ago beat Typhon’s snake-dripping ass well into the ground, the tempest-loving creeper god still had his groupies, and Smithson was apparently a big fan.

Funny how it was the second time in a single day that Dimitri had been forced to think about Typhon and his minions. He wasn’t a fan of coincidences like that.

To the king’s recollection, Henry Smithson was in his late thirties, fit and athletic, and an avowed bachelor. He’d apparently been part of the Grants’ inner circle since he was a young man, but now was richer than Croesus all on his own. There’d been some speculation in the media that he was finally considering marriage and family life, but by all accounts, he was currently sailing around the world on his yacht called, because of course it was: Typhon I.

Smooth.

Dimitri chewed on the logistics required to deliver the package to the palace. Even if Smithson had seen the media blitz on Kristos, Emmaline, and the rest of the girls, he would’ve had to scramble to get a package here the same day that Lauren had returned to the castle. And the package was empty, so how could he have known that Lauren would see it?

There’d been no note, only the crisp handwriting on the card that had accompanied the package addressed to King Jasen. There’d also been nothing to suggest that the box had come from Smithson. It had arrived by special courier, unwrapped, like a birthday present carried in by a family friend. The only notation from the concierge was to follow up with the courier service the next day on what the intended contents had been. Theft was suspected, but as it had arrived at the palace already empty, it wasn’t as high a priority. It could wait until the following day.

Dimitri couldn’t wait, though. Not if the gods were involved.

Typhon may have been an outcast of Olympus, banished beneath Mt. Etna for eternity, but he still stirred up the seas with the best of them. Known for gifting his minions with fabulous wealth, power and the toys, he cast a long and dangerous shadow. Ordinarily, humans were smart enough to accept suchgifts and enjoy them circumspectly, taking care not to attract the interest of the deity who’d so casually transformed their families with generational wealth. But occasionally, humans sought more attention from the gods.

They usually got it.

And that invariably meant trouble.

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