Page 4 of Iron Unicorn

Daphne would never fail to amaze me. How had I survived so many years of friendship with her? “I swear, that woman would sell me for a penny if that penny bought her a new horse.”

The queen laughed. “That’s not far off from the truth, as it took her cousin bribing her before she’d leave you. Pat helped a little, too. They’ll have a good day, and we’ll head to Dallas in the next little while. Mostly, I thought you might want a few minutes to regain your bearings before you decided to investigate your new suit and find your new phone. Your old one is in New York. We left it on the ground. We also ditched your wallet with credit cards, too, but we stole your cash and identification.”

“How kind of you,” I stated in my driest tone.

“We needed to make your disappearance look good. How else could we convince the New York RPS they needed to get their act together? It’s so many birds with a single stone. But, as I’m such a cruel and tyrannical queen, I’ll let you pick a horse from our sales barn before we put them up on auction. You’re due for a new horse, and New York hasn’t learned the wonders of mounting all RPS agents yet. I’m sure Rachel will help them get there once she discovers how amazing horses are.”

The last thing I needed was even more animals being added to the New York menagerie. My queen’s eclectic collection of cats, rats, tigers, and service dogs required an entire team to care for. I added to the problem, as I’d received word from a big cat rehab they had a pair of cheetahs who needed humans and were suitable for joining the tigers in caring for a pair of touchy monarchs.

“The cheetahs are going to be an issue,” I muttered.

“Ah, them. There’s no issue. Little Rachel is ready to intercept them, as they found your papers for their acquisition on your desk. She cried when she realized you’d been working on bringing them to the palace to join her tigers. It was happy crying, much to Ethan’s relief. The trip to England did her a great deal of good, although I suspect you need to have your blood pressure checked.”

Had I been in New York, I would have taken myself to the clinic for that purpose. Thus far, my queen hadn’t managed to do more than spike my blood pressure a little on a bad day, although I was on watch for future problems. Once a week, someone in the RPS assaulted me with a blood pressure cuff to make sure my health remained stable. It amused me everyone in the RPS assumed I would have trouble wrangling a bunch of rowdy New Yorkers.

Thus far, the New Yorkers tended to flinch if they earned my irritation. I had no idea what my wrath would do to them. I worried I’d give the entire lot of them heart attacks if I raised my voice.

“Should I be irritated or wrathful with the New York RPS when I return, Jessica?”

“Victory is mine!” the Texan queen declared.

“I’m not working right now, and I find it’s easier to make pesky kings and queens do what I want when I use their names,” I retorted.

“And just like that, victory has become defeat,” Queen Jessica replied with laughter in her voice. “Go with quietly disappointed. You don’t want to terrify the New York RPS agents, and Alfred told me you intimidate the hell out of them on a bad day. I’m not sure why. You’re the definition of professional.”

“I haven’t figured it out, either. Perhaps they’re waiting for some mystical axe to fall? They failed my queen rather spectacularly. They failed the entire family. But taking them to the chopping block serves no purpose. The damage is done, and the whole point is to fix the problems rather than make new ones.”

“Their previous monarchs held them to an entirely different standard. You’re determined to make them the best of the best—and they have big shoes to fill. They’re used to their charges doing all the work. How many have washed out so far?”

“A few, but not as many as I thought would. Most of them retired before I made it to New York,” I admitted. “And then I put out an aid request from the entire Royal States to get her a solid detail. About half the active agents are imports. There just isn’t enough time to train New Yorkers to be good agents quickly enough.”

“That’s what Pat said, and that’s why he wanted to grab you. He wanted the agents to understand they had a long way to go. We were in and out in around a minute. Daphne had more fun than she should have getting the jump on you, though. She vaulted right over the wall where we grabbed you, had you down and out in ten seconds flat with the suggested move we wanted to try, and we used a ladder to haul you over the wall with some rope. We handled examining you in our rusty white van we’d procured just for the adventure.”

They would. All of them. “You found a rusty white van?”

“I wanted to write ‘free candy’ on the side, but Pat told me we had to pretend to be dignified kidnappers. But the rusty white van part was his idea. And we all dressed in black with face shrouds. Someone will be able to identify Daphne is female because of her breasts, as she refused to wrap them for our outing. She was feeling feminine.”

Ah. Her Edward must have been around. “And what did Edward think of the adventure?”

“He got to drive the van, so he was really excited. It was his first time driving in New York. We told him to pretend it was a stolen van.”

“Was it stolen?”

The queen giggled. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

I bowed my head. “You stole a rusty white van?”

“The owner didn’t mind, especially when I promised some yams and chicken at a later date.”

While the Texan queen used her king’s yams and chicken as a bribe often, she only did it when she knew the person and was comfortable with them—and they were comfortable with her. I debated the situation, wondering who in New York owned a rusty white van.

The answer both amused and worried me. “Prince Ian?”

One day, I would understand why he operated a junkyard on the mainland, a perfect place for them to go in and out and run their kidnapping gig.

“He was the one who called Pat, worried about his sister’s security. Considering Ian made it out of the palace without anyone knowing, he was right to worry. He’s having himself a sulk.”

Damned concentrated empaths. I worried about the prince’s rather severe case of adoration for the target of his concentrated bond, but until one of them made a move, my hands were tied. “I already arranged for the woman to come to the palace to work in close proximity with him. Her starting date is in a week. She had personal matters to attend to before coming to the palace. She’s doing it as a favor for Rachel, who was always kind to her—and well, she’s an empath, too.”

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