Page 104 of The Stolen Princess
“Dawsick is dead, and the princess is gone.”
“What?” The men around the fire stood.
Drake checked his horse. The stallion was still there. Behind him, Grady and Kase rushed to the shack, looking over Dawsick’s body while Portlend ran to the river, calling out for Winslow.
Drake walked past all the other shacks, checking their horses. All of them were accounted for. Then he came to the end where Kase’s personal transporter had been parked.
He closed his eyes. A sinking feeling wrapped around him.
He turned over his shoulder, looking out to the distance.
“Where did you go, Myka?”
27
Myka
The afternoon sun lowered in the sky as Myka rode aggressively on. She was almost to Tolsten House. She didn’t know what to expect or how to handle Commander Stoddard and his lies. Why would he say that her father had told her where the weapons were?
Her mind went over the last few days she had spent with her father. Everything had been normal. There hadn’t been any hidden conversations or clues that he was trying to tell her something. Even their last morning together had been as normal as could be expected from someone with a high fever. He had been delusional, reminiscing about all the times they had played together in the woods.
Her heart stopped, and her hands gripped the handlebars.
The woods.
Her father had said he needed to tell her something. He had said to never forget the woods. Was he trying to tell her that that was where the weapons were? Her mind exploded with a thousand memories of waiting in the woods for her father to come. He had always come from the same direction. Never from Tolsten House. It hadn’t seemed odd to Myka back then, but now it all made sense. He had come back from somewhere in the woods. That’s where the weapons had to be. She had thought that she had scoured the woods, growing up at Tolsten House. How could she have missed them? And if she did know where they were, what was she going to do about it?
She turned the PT, heading for Rommel and Joett’s house. If she was about to stumble upon deadly weapons, she was going to need some help, and Rommel was the only person she could trust.
An hour later, Myka knocked hard on Rommel and Joett’s door. Her heart pounded, and she felt breathless.
The door opened.
“Myka?” Joett’s eyes shot up in surprise as she looked over her disheveled hair, dirt-ridden face, and strange clothes. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
“Drake and the other operatives kidnapped me. They’ve been holding me hostage for the last week, and I finally escaped last night.” That was a lot of information to throw at someone. Judging by the look on Joett’s face, she probably should have started with a simple hello.
Rommel came from the kitchen, swinging the door open wider. “The operatives kidnapped you?” He reached out, dragging her into a hug. “How could they? Are you all right?” He pulled back to get a better look at her.
“I’m okay.”
He wrapped her in his arms again. “What happened?”
Myka shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m home.”
He patted the back of her head. “You are home, sweetie. This is where you belong.”
Myka cried in Rommel’s arms for what seemed like forever. When she finally pulled back, his own fresh tears rolled down his face, disappearing into his white beard.
“I promise we had no idea they were going to do that.” His pleading voice told Myka that what he’d said was true.
“I know. Drake told me that.”
Joett pulled her to the couch. “We would never do that to you.”
Myka looked at Rommel. “Drake said that you were helping him get the weapons.”
“I was, but I never would have helped them if I had known it would put you in danger. I thought that they would go after King Adler or the weapons. Not you.”
