Page 5 of His Runaway Princess

They would, however, know Ryker hadn’t just abandoned his post and decided not to return.

With that accomplished, he shut down the tablet and returned it to his bag, all while being careful not to disturb the sleeping princess.

On his personal tablet, he opened a local news site, just to see if anything had been leaked about her. He didn’t see anything, which relieved him.

A loud clanging sound caught his attention as well as Princess Amalia’s.

She sat up suddenly, looking around in wide-eyed fear. “Where am I?”

“On the ferry in Ravenzario,” he told her with a smile. “I do believe we’re almost to the dock.”

She blinked a couple of times. “Of course. And you’re...”

Ryker found the way she squinted her eyes closed and wrinkled her nose in concentration adorable.

“Ryder? Riley? Ribbon?”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you actually know someone named Ribbon?”

“No, but It’s an R name. Close enough.”

“It’s an Rword,but I don’t think it’s an R name. And I’m Ryker.”

“Yes. But that’s not your given name is it?”

“No. My given name is James Thomas Drasil.”

She tilted her head. “How do you get Ryker from James Thomas?”

“Well... my parents were Trekkies.”

The princess blinked. “What is a Trekkie? Someone who goes on treks?”

He laughed again. “No. They’re what you’d call Star Trek nerds. James is for James Tiberious Kirk, captain of the Star Ship Enterprise in the original series. Thomas for William Thomas Riker from The Next Generation. That’s also where my preferred name comes from, only they spelled it with a y instead of an i. So Ryker it is.”

“Interesting. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an episode and might have seen one of the movies. I am aware of them, of course, but would never have put all of that together.” As she spoke, she folded his jacket neatly then handed it to him.

“Most people wouldn’t. That’s part of why they named me the way they did. They argued over what my name should be. My dad wanted Riker as a first name. This was the compromise. I could still use either my first or middle name if I wanted to without it being something like Tiberious. All of our animals had Star Trek names, too.” He stretched his legs out in front of him, while his eyes never stopped sweeping the interior of the ferry.

She laughed. A full laugh, not one of the I’m-a-princess-trying-to-be-polite laughs he’d heard all too often from Princess Genevieve and her family. “Oh, do tell!”

Before he could, the bell clanged again, indicating their arrival. “I’ll fill you in later.” Standing, he held out a hand to help her to her feet. As they started to walk, he tucked her hand inside his elbow. “Just to be on the safe side,” he told her quietly as the other man stood, glared at them, and wobbled his way toward the exit much too cleanly and easily for him to actually be drunk.

With a deep breath, Ryker led the princess out a different door.

He wanted to be off the ferry long before that man.

It likely wouldn’t keep their next location a secret for long, but he’d do whatever he could to make it a little more difficult for them.

Whoevertheywere.

* * *

Why didAmalia find it so easy to trust Ryker? It didn’t make any sense.

From the time she was young, it had been reiterated to her that she couldn’t trust anyone, not really.

They were either after her for political reasons, or for the fame that could come with being friends with a princess, or whatever else they could get from a relationship of any kind with her.

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