Page 118 of The Promised Prince
Amidst the chaos, he remembered the man with the white and black hair.
“The shooter! Get the shooter!” Trev tried to twist his body back around to see, but they continued to yank him toward the exit.
“Officer Vestry has him,” a guard spoke through breathless pants.
They turned a corner, leaving the pandemonium of the great hall behind. The men ahead of him rushed down the hall with Seran’s seemingly lifeless body—her white train, dyed a crimson red, trailing behind them. Farther ahead, his father, King Bryant, and Queen Mariele ran, surrounded by a group of guards tugging at their arms to keep them moving.
“You’ve been hit,” the guard said as they burst through the door of the closest safe room.
“I’m fine! Help the princess!” Trev’s voice was loud, matching the yells of everyone else in the room.
He tried to get to where they had lain her body on a table, but there were guards everywhere surrounding her.
The guard who dragged him there pushed him back, away from Seran. “We need to look at your arm.”
Trev yelled at him, “Let me help her!” He covered his wound with his other hand.
“There’s nothing you can do for her right now.” The guard tried to reason with him as he pushed him down into a chair and pulled off Trev’s suit jacket. He rolled his sleeve up to look at the wound. “It’s clear. The bullet nicked the side of your arm and went clean out,” he said, ripping his shirt fabric and tying it around Trev’s arm.
Clean out and into Seran’s chest.
The shock started to set in as the crowd of people worked furiously around Seran, cutting her dress, trying to reach where the bullet had entered.
The palace doctors appeared with a new team of people to help. Queen Mariele cried into King Bryant’s shoulder, who seemed crippled by his daughter’s injuries. King Carver paced nearby, emphatically giving orders to his guards.
“We need to get her to the medic hall!” One of the doctors shouted above the commotion.
“Is it safe to move her?” King Bryant asked, putting his hand to his chest.
“We have no choice. She’ll die here if we don’t operate.” The doctor didn’t wait for a response. Instead, he shouted instructions for how they were going to move her to the medic room.
Trev stood abruptly to follow but was stopped by one of the medics. “We have to see to your arm.” The fabric the guard had tied around his arm was already stained with blood.
Trev reluctantly sat down again. A dull pain ached through his arm with each thread of the medic’s needle. He couldn’t get over the fact that the bullet that had gone through his arm was now lodged somewhere in Seran’s chest.
“Is everyone okay?” Drake asked, entering the room in haste.
King Bryant’s voice was solemn. “They just took Seran to the medic hall. She needs surgery.”
Queen Mariele let out a yelp before burying her head into the king’s chest once again.
“What’s going on out there?” King Carver’s voice was panicked. He didn’t even try to act concerned for Seran.
Drake put his hands up in front of everyone as if attempting to calm them down. “I took down the shooter. The other guards have the hall surrounded, and everyone is being questioned.” He looked at Trev. “If you hadn’t noticed the shooter first, I wouldn’t have known where the shots were coming from. I saw you look at him before you jumped in front of Seran.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Trev stammered. “I didn’t have my gun on me.” His stomach dropped, thinking back to that moment. Why would he think to put a gun in his boot on his wedding day?
“What you did was enough,” Drake said reassuringly. “Is she going to be okay?”
Bryant shook his head like he was trying to keep his growing distress in check. “We don’t know.”
“Do we know anything about the shooter and why he did this?” His father looked to Drake, wanting more answers.
“I shot him, and he didn’t make it. I did a quick check of his pockets, and there wasn’t anything there to identify him. He isn’t anyone that I recognize from the palace or city. I would have remembered hair like that.”
“I’m sure Adler is behind this,” King Carver said, fury in his voice. “Who else would do such a thing?”
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