Page 85 of A Girl and HER Prince
It was time to stop running away and become active participants in their lives.
She stuffed the gun into a leather knapsack and collected the flares before picking up what was left of the muslin sail. Patting Steve’s nose, she headed outside with her mischievous shadow trailing after her.
The morning was gray and wet from the rain last night. Clasping the muslin around her shoulders for warmth, she stared over the cloudy horizon, watching for boats in the distance. She didn’t blame their friends for thinking they hadn’t survived the dive and especially not after that deadly storm, but wouldn’t they return for their bodies?
They would! Today would be the day. Their salvation was near.
Her bare feet slid through the cold, wet sand. The muslin snapped around her like the sail it was meant to be. Last night, it had been high tide when the sea had spit them back out onto the shore. The beach stretched out farther now. The tall grass where they’d landed was now far from the waves that rolled in and out like fingers scraping over the sand.
Crabs scurried past her toes. Her fingers tightened on the flares before she stuffed them into the leather knapsack with the gun. Those would make for a good breakfast. After everything that had happened yesterday, she was starving, and Venice would need to build up his strength if they were going to take on any of his homicidal relatives.
She rushed forward, only stopping when she saw the leather-covered book in the tall grass ahead. That had been the ledger that Venice had claimed would take down his uncle. He’d tossed it into the grass after he’d discovered it was too drenched to do much good.
She scooped up the book, flipping through it. A photograph wedged in between the pages slipped out and she caught it before the wind did.
The colors of the water-damaged picture dripped into a mass of blackness in the corner that still wasn’t dried, and yet the photograph was intact enough to show the face of a breathtakingly beautiful woman standing next to a military man.
Livvy studied the two. The man, she realized, was almost a duplicate of Venice with his firm jaw and deep-set hazel Tyndarian eyes. Was this his uncle? He was handsome, though the hard lines on his face revealed a coldness that was nothing like Venice’s caring expression. His uncle clutched to the woman’s waist like she was his hostage.
She was attempting a smile.
In an instant, she recognized the dark-haired woman as the one whose portrait hung in the hallway between the bathroom and the bedroom where Livvy had stayed in the mansion. Livvy had been touched by the haunting sadness in the woman’s face when she’d seen her depiction back then too. The artist hadn’t attempted to hide it.
Who was this woman? How was she connected to Venice’s uncle? Livvy’s gaze traveled up the mountain to where the Paradise in the Clouds floated in its faraway perch like a hawk waiting to pounce. She didn’t know Venice’s family tree well enough to know if this tragic figure was his treacherous aunt who’d plotted alongside his uncle for his country’s downfall or someone else?
The woman seemed more victim than predator. Livvy wasn’t sure where that thought had come from, except for the desperation she’d read in her face.
Livvy absentmindedly leaned against her little pet donkey as she looked up at the home of Venice’s worst enemies, and almost as if it were a mirage, the light in one of the rooms went on.
She stepped back with a strangled sound of surprise. They were home! Livvy still clutched to the picture, doing her best to edge up against a boulder so she wouldn’t be seen from anyone above. Was it too late? Had they?
She threw the remnant of the sail over her hair, watching more lights come on through the house until it shone like a beacon through the murky morning.
This was so bad!
Still clutching the photograph, she noticed the writing on the back was mostly faded away, although she could read what little of it was left in the corner:“… and so I wish you well, Atreus, my love. Happy travels, Clysta.”
Was that a name she should know?
A female voice sounded from the bluffs above, so clear it was almost eerie: “Steve? BamBam? Ronnie? Where are you?”
Livvy stuffed the picture into her knapsack and, tugging the donkey with her to use as a shield from the newcomers above, hurried away to find Venice.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“We’re getting off this island in the morning.”
The words repeated through his dreams as he tried to force himself awake. Did Livvy know a way out or was that just wishful thinking?
His consciousness drifted to that radio he’d dropped in the cavern. It had a range of thirty kilometers. It could double as a satellite phone if it wasn’t stuck below sea level beneath a deep wall of rock. He could see the rocks where that radio had fallen in his mind’s eye. It would never run out of battery. He could just crank it up… but how could he get to it?
The squealing door woke him up an instant later, evaporating the vision of the oxygen tank and Livvy’s other equipment they’d left at the bottom of those bluffs near the lagoon.
“Venice!” Livvy whispered hoarsely.
The fear in her voice was enough to startle him out of his cozy little nest. He was up on his feet, grabbing for a plank of wood as a weapon, almost knocking BamBam in the side with his elbow.
“They’re back!” she said. “Your uncle!”
