American Prince
“You said you trusted me,” says my king.
“I said I’d try.”
We stare again, the crack between our feet widening and widening. “Melwas won’t stop,” I say, “not until you stop him.”
“There are ways to stop him other than war, Embry. Other than sending in black ops for assassination.”
“I just don’t understand,” I say with real heat now, running my hand through my hair. “Don’t you care? Don’t you love her? Didn’t you swear to protect her? And yet over and over again—”
“I will do what I think is right,” he interrupts. “And you are my Vice President, and therefore you will do as I say.”
I stare at him like I’m seeing him for the first time. The strong nose and sharp cheeks, the square jaw and green eyes. The stubbornness, the resolute set of his shoulders. He won’t be moved. Despite the abduction, the video, Leo’s death, this attack—he won’t be moved.
“For fuck’s sake, Ash, if this isn’t going to convince you to act, what will?”
“Do you think so little of me that you think I’m choosing to be passive out of cowardice? Or complacency? You can’t trust that I’m trying to work for a safer solution?”
A few months ago, I wouldn’t have even thought before I answered. And now…
“I don’t fucking know anymore. Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of your term? Your next term? We just sit back and wait for Carpathia to come for us? What if it’s not just Greer next time? What if it’s a real terror attack? What if it’s an invasion of one of our allies? What then?”
His eyes narrow. “What are you implying, Embry?”
I say it. I say it because I’m scared for Greer, because I’m angry for Greer, because Ash is too fucking stubborn to listen for even just a second to what I’m trying to say. To the growing sense I have that Melwas won’t be satisfied by only coming after Greer, that he will be coming after all of us soon.
“I think you’re weak.”
It feels good and awful to say it, a weight off my chest but crushed glass in my mouth.
His jaw goes tight, his eyes flare, and the crack between us widens and deepens, on and on and on. And then we’re at the cemetery, the door being opened for us, cutting the moment short.
“I should find Greer,” he says finally, and if I thought his voice was burned gravel before, it’s nothing like now. “Goodbye, Embry.”
“Goodbye, Ash.”
And when I watch him go, something raw and determined chews its way through my thoughts, an idea so hurtful and vindictive that I would never allow it to nest in my right mind. But nevertheless, it sinks its teeth into my thoughts, bites deep into the part of me that loves Greer so fiercely I can’t breathe, bites into the part of me that once thought war was a grand adventure.
When I find Abilene and stand by her side during the service, I know I appear serene on the outside, a politician playing nice at a funeral for the sake of his friend’s wife. But on the inside, I am bullets and teeth and harm. I am scorched earth. I am a knight who will do anything on his quest to save his queen.
I text my sister in the car on the way home from the cemetery.
Call me. It’s important.
26
Embry
before
No one could be more cruel than Senator Morgan Leffey when she was in the mood.
No one.
And so I didn’t know what to expect when I knocked at the door of her Georgetown row house the day after Jenny Colchester’s funeral. I didn’t know if I’d find my sister upset or regretful or angry, I didn’t even know if she’d consent to see me. What I did know was that I didn’t care. Family protects family, Vivienne Moore always said, but Ash was my family too. And after what Morgan did to him yesterday, I felt the need to do some protecting.
Morgan answered the door herself, the picture of “Thirty-Something Senator at Leisure” in her bare feet and sleeveless silk blouse and nine-hundred dollar slacks. She tossed the loose braid of raven hair over her shoulder when she saw me. “If this is about the funeral…”
“Let me in.”
She studied me for a minute, then sighed and stepped aside for me to walk inside. I didn’t wait for her to invite me to sit; I went right to her sitting room and sat in the overstuffed chair I knew was her favorite, sprawling into it with lazy hostility.
She sighed again, this time sinking down into an uncomfortable Queen Anne chair and crossing her legs. “Just say it.”
“When did you learn?”
She raised her eyebrows, as if that wasn’t what what she expected me to ask first. “I didn’t know in Carpathia, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I stared at her, peering deep into those green eyes…the same complicated shade of green that Ash had. They had the same black hair, the same full mouths. The same regal bearing. “I can’t believe I never saw it before, how much you resemble each other.”
She snorted. “I didn’t see it either, so don’t blame yourself.”
“Trust me, I’m not.”
She didn’t even blink at my biting tone, and I didn’t blink at her non-reaction. “So when did you learn?” I asked again.
She looked away, the morning light slanting across her face. “I always knew Mother had another baby. A brother. Father made sure I remembered that, so I would I never forget that Penley Luther killed my mother.”