Page 52 of Royal Guard

But we’d thrown all of our phones away. Emerik had to waste vital seconds manually dialing on the hotel phone. “I’m calling Aleksander,” he muttered as the number rang. “He’ll be there.”

All of us were staring at the screen, scared to watch, scared to look away. I was dimly aware that I’d grabbed Garrett’s hand and was squeezing it.

“Code red!”snapped Emerik into the phone. “Assassin in the room! Evacuate the King!”

He put the phone on speaker and we could hear the rustle of cloth and muffled voices. Long seconds ticked by. “Hurry!”snapped Emerik.

“I’m sorry!” Aleksander sounded out of breath. “I’m in a crowd, trying to get to a guard!” More muffled voices. I imagined him trying to fight through the tightly-packed bodies.Hurry! Please hurry!

And then we saw the guards on stage suddenly jerk to attention and run to my father. Aleksander musthave finally delivered the message. They grabbed the King under the arms and rushed him away from the podium—

A crimson flower erupted on his chest as a gunshot echoed through the room.

37

GARRETT

Kristina gavea strangled moan of horror. Her legs buckled and she would have fallen if I hadn’t looped an arm around her waist. I held her as we stared at the screen. The King was being carried off stage, his body limp. Then the news program cut to a white-faced news anchor in the studio.

I realized Aleksander, the advisor, was still on the phone. We could hear him sayingOh my God, oh my God,over and over again. Then he said he’d call from the hospital and he was gone.

And then we had to wait, powerless and desperate. I sat Kristina down on the couch and gripped her hand. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through. At least I’d been able to rush my dad to the hospital, todosomething. She was stuck thousands of miles away.

After ten minutes that felt like ten weeks, Aleksander called. The King was alive and inemergency surgery. The shooter had somehow slipped away, but they’d found his rifle. “It was my fault,” he kept saying. “I was too slow.”

Kristina hushed him. “You did everything you could.”

Almost an hour went by and then the screen lit up with a video call. I knew the woman must be in her fifties, but she looked no more than forty. Not a single strand of gray dared to break the pitch-black of her shoulder-length hair. Her blue business jacket and skirt were immaculately styled and cut to show off her ruthlessly-toned figure. I could see traces of Kristina in her eyes, although the princess looked much more like her father. But even if the resemblance hadn’t been there, I’d have known who she was from the way everyone bowed. “Your Majesty,”they all said in unison.

“He’s still in surgery,” the Queen told Kristina. Unlike the King, she didn’t bother to acknowledge the staff, or me. “I’ve had the top specialists flown in but it’ll be a while before we know anything.” Her voice barely trembled and, though I could see a hint of tears at the corners of her eyes, it was as if they were imprisoned behind glass. She would notallow herself to show weakness.

The Queen glanced at me and her eyes narrowed. When I followed her gaze, I realized she was glaring at our joined hands.Shit!

“Mother, this is Mr. Buchanan,” said Kristina. “The man who’s been protecting me.”

The Queen’s nod was quick and sharp as a scalpel. “Thank you,” she said, but her eyes seared into me as if she wanted to burn me off the face of the earth. When she ended the call, my stomach was knotted.She knows. Or suspects.And it wasn’t like the distrust I’d felt from Emerik. The Queen seemed to actually hate me, just because I was a commoner. It was a brutal reminder of the gulf between me and the princess. I glanced at Kristina’s troubled face. She was so much more like her father, trusting and kind. I tried to imagine what it must have been like, growing up with a mother that cold and hard. Had she always been like that?

My stomach lurched. What if she hadn’t? What if becoming queen had done that to her? Was that what Kristina would be like, when she eventually took power?

We had to wait another hour for the next update. This time it was Aleksander and, after the Queen, it was a relief to see his friendly face. But the news he had wasn’t good. “The bullet only clipped his heart: he moved just in time to save him. And the surgery went well. But…” He sighed. “He’s lapsed into a coma. The doctors don’t know when he will regain consciousness....”—he pressed his lips tight together—”... or even if he will.”

Kristina nodded, her lower lip trembling.

“Whatisclear is that this isn’t some simple act of revenge by an extremist group. They tried to assassinate you, now they’ve moved on to your father. This is an act of war by Garmania. They’re trying to wipe out the royal line, to destabilize our country.”

“To what end?” croaked Kristina. From the way she said it, she already knew the answer.

“So that they can invade again,” said Aleksander.

Kristina nodded and ended the call. Then she hunched forward in her seat, almost curling herself into a ball, and began to sob. I reached for her, but sheshook her head:give me a minute.I retreated to the hallway.

And found Emerik standing there, arms crossed. It was the first time we’d been alone together that morning and I recognized the look he was giving me. It was the same look Katie Wagner’s brother had given me in high school when I’d asked her out.You hurt her,it said,and I’ll kill you.

I gave him a slow, deliberate nod to show I understood. Then I made a pot of coffee for everyone. They were doing their best to hide it, for Kristina’s sake, but they were shaken: this was theirKing.He seemed like a really decent guy, despite being a politician. Hell, I’d only spoken to him once and even I liked him.

While the coffee brewed, I called the hospital for an update on my dad. No change. The bullets had done so much damage that, at his age, he’d be in critical condition for days or even weeks.I should be with him, dammit.But I couldn’t leave her, not now.

I tried to figure out what we should do. We knew now what the assassins had done after we’d finally plugged the leak and lost them in Texas. They’d flown to Lakovia to assassinate the King. They must have false passports, or the FBI would have stopped them at the airport. More evidence that someone high up was helping them.

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