Page 62 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy
Peder’s eyes drifted to Polly, who never left Bris’s side—the beautiful Tirrojan woman looked like a guardian angel despite her mud-stained work clothes, her dark hair tied back in a wet ponytail. The woman had kept a low profile around Achilles ever since the attack had happened on her watch, but she hovered like a sentinel near her queen.
Did he detect some romantic interest in Peder’s lingering gaze? How fitting—both men mooning over women who didn’t seem to need them. And what could Achilles possibly offer Bris? A big fat nothing! Her brother was right to warn her off. And her father? He cared nothing for her.
“Maggie got most of the children evacuated,” Bris shouted over the storm, her voice tight with emotion. She’d worked tirelessly to find enough boats to get them all to safety. “But some of the families…” She gestured helplessly toward thesubmerged section where some of the poorest families lived, crammed next to that pathetic excuse for a school.
That’s where her heart lay, and he’d do everything in his power to keep that building intact. The makeshift dam they were constructing seemed pitiful against the relentless surge of muddy water carrying debris—broken furniture, tree branches, pieces of people’s lives swept away by the current.
No matter how many sandbags they stacked, no matter how they reinforced the ancient stones, the water kept rising. They were powerless against the punishing torrent hammering down from the black sky. He couldn’t stop the storm, like he was powerless against the relentless flood of affection growing for his wife.
“You have to leave now!” Phoenix appeared through the driving rain like an angry water sprite, his usually immaculate uniform now wrinkled and water-stained. He approached Peder, his arms flailing. “This is madness—putting Her Royal Highness in such danger!”
Had he truly mistaken Peder for Achilles in the chaos? Achilles felt a flash of dark amusement at the error. “Over here,” he called, waving the flustered chancellor over and sparing poor Peder a lecture that Achilles richly deserved. He’d tried reasoning with Bris earlier, knowing it was a losing battle from the start.
Now she sidestepped Phoenix completely, unaffected by his lectures in the least. “Your Royal Highness, you must return to the palace immediately!” Phoenix commanded with growing desperation.
Her face was set with that familiar stubborn expression, accompanied by that defiant bounce in her step that he’d always noticed when she purposely danced around her father’s angry barks.
“Give it up,” Achilles told the chancellor. What could the man do? Order the guards to drag away their queen, kicking and screaming? That wouldn’t end well for anyone.
“This is completely unacceptable! A lady of your station in life has no business being out here in these floods!”
Phoenix knew nothing about the woman his country would elevate to the throne. Bris wouldn’t abandon her people—she was like Achilles in that way. It hurt her more to sit idly by, wringing her hands in worry, than knowing firsthand what their people faced, even if it meant being in that same danger.
Achilles set a steady hand on the chancellor’s trembling shoulder. “I’ll take her away when it gets truly dangerous.”
Phoenix brushed him away with a violent hiss. “That time is now! You foreigners know nothing about these floods!”
Achilles stiffened at the deliberate insult. Foreigners? Turning from the outraged man, he grabbed another sandbag and hurled it against the wall with more force than necessary. Was this why the chancellor treated them with such obvious disdain? Did he have more suitable candidates for the throne than these uppity outsiders? “It’s better than knowing the danger exists and doing nothing to stop it,” he growled.
Letting out a howl of frustrated anger, Phoenix actually grabbed a sandbag from a nearby Tirrojan worker and, surprisingly, joined the desperate effort. His pale eyes glittered with contempt as he worked. “You completely disregarded my authority again,” he lectured, the rhythm of his movements matching Achilles’s frenzied pace. “You violated all established protocols.”
Achilles’s lip curled, partly from exertion, partly from scorn as he positioned another sandbag. There was no protocol for this—no emergency preparation for a common flood, and now they had to jump into action before it grew into something too massive to control. He leaned closer to Phoenix, close enough tobe heard over the driving rain. “When are you going to learn? Foreigners aren’t great at following rules.”
“No, you aren’t!” The reminder seemed to outrage the older man even more, though his scowls didn’t slow his work. “And it will get you killed!” The muscles under his soaked coat strained as he heaved another sandbag against the wall. “Everything you do is reckless! Even talking to that terrorist! I hope you’re not fool enough to believe a word from his lying mouth!”
Achilles’s ears burned at the reminder of his conversation with the mysterious O Skia. Of course, spies had been monitoring every word, but he hadn’t expected Phoenix to be so open about it. “Listening through keyholes again?”
The chancellor’s expression darkened, and with a sharp gesture, he dismissed Peder and Polly from earshot. The two retreated down the stone steps, huddling under the shelter of an overhanging roof. “That man is a master of deception,” Phoenix hissed. “Everything he told you about—about…”
“My father?”
“Yes! The Shadow isn’t to be trusted!” Phoenix’s voice rose above the storm. “If you believe a single word from that liar, then you’re an even bigger fool than you’ve proven yourself to be.”
“Funny… that’s exactly what he said about you.”
Phoenix went completely still. For a charged moment, it looked like the man might blow his top and throw a punch. He was spared an undignified brawl when a man in palace livery appeared at Phoenix’s elbow, whispering urgently in his ear. The chancellor’s face went rigid with alarm, and he stepped away to take what looked like an emergency call, his voice too low to hear over the storm as he moved down the stone steps with his phone.
A deep rumble shook the ground beneath their feet, and the next second, a section of the retaining wall buckled outward, ancient stones cascading into the churning water below. The remaining workers scrambled to higher ground as water surgedthrough the new breach. Achilles’s eyes immediately shot to Bris. “Time to get out of here!”
“No, no!” she cried, pointing through the rain. “Look! The school!”
They’d buy her another one! With what money? Didn’t matter—their lives were worth more than any building, but Bris was already splashing down the stone steps toward the little red structure. His heart seized with terror. “Get back here!”
Glancing around, he saw their security team had melted away to safer positions with the other rescue workers, and Phoenix had vanished as quickly as he’d appeared with his backup crew. What happened to all that talk about keeping his charges safe?
Dropping his sandbag, Achilles vaulted over the barrier of canvas and sand to chase after Bris. Her delicate shoulders moved with the rhythm of half-running, half-wading through floodwater that was rising by the minute.
Through the driving rain, he saw what had truly caught her attention—a small figure huddled against the school’s bright wall, clutching something precious to his thin chest.
