The Princess Tied - Cari Silverwood Page 0,2

Despite his several discouraging words, it followed him and was still bounding at his heels when he reached the gatehouse of the palace grounds. He now wore a pair of very dark spectacles. The spectacle maker had fortuitously possessed some pre-ground dark glass and had popped the lenses into place on the spot.

The guards refused him entry.

“But I am the brother of the groom. I am John—” His throat seized up, and the next words were not his, well, not exactly his, even though he did speak them. “… the Wickerman.”

“No,” they repeated, adjusting their grips on their pikes while frowning.

Their bright red-and-white uniforms bounced glare off his eyeballs, despite his new lenses.

John took a few steps backward. Coarse hair brushed his ankles and pants legs—the fluff ball was down there.

The tall metal gates with the spear-shaped finials at the top remained shut. The road beyond them led straight to the palace itself, that monstrosity of turreted towers, white walls, and sky-scraping brickwork. The roofing tiles of those turrets were purple.

The designer should have been knifed in the kidneys, in John’s subtle opinion.

The fluff ball squeaked up at him then ruffed. He glanced down and watched as it sniffed the same place on his pants.

“You’re right. We need to get in there.” Somehow this mutt had joined him, and he hadn’t even asked for applications. “I suppose I could just kill my way in?”

Ruff cocked his head.

And… he wasn’t quite sure Ruff was even a he. Far too much hair. Too scruffy.

“Correct, the princess would not like that, but stuff her. Even if my bro wanted to really stuff her, with his sausage.”

He walked a little further from the gatehouse. Ruff followed. So much hair there, he would swear he couldn’t see its legs move. Or any paws. The creature sort of glided, and occasionally it bounced.

“Did you say love?” It hadn’t but he wanted to argue. “True love? Hah! She’s an uptight, too clever, snooty piece of the noble class…”

Ruff whined at him.

“Yes, I am a member of the nobility too. But poor and useless at it.”

Kill them all?

The guards looked nervous and shuffled their feet and pikes.

Calm. Calm. John counted to one hundred.

There really was no time to waste. His brother was in dire trouble.

And so, he, THE HERO took a deep breath, and another one, then he killed his way in. To his credit, he did a detour around the gate guards. Sometimes, he found it distasteful to kill people he knew.

Okay, scratch that dream.

He turned, looked the gate guards up and down, slowly, so they knew he was not a man to be rushed. “Who do I have to speak with to get a pass?” he asked them.

“The advisor to the realm and ex-chancellor of the exchequer,” the left-hand one said, tersely. “He’s down the street. The big red building. If you hurry, he might not have left for home yet.”

“Thank you.” John bowed.

He hurried, and the man was indeed about to leave, but thirty minutes later he was back at the gate with a pass, then he was through and walking down that road, up the stairs, and into the palace. Passed from guard to valet to guard to maid to guard, he was patient. By the time he was ushered through a door into a small foyer, he had counted to one hundred a hundred times. At some point, probably by the front steps, Ruff had vanished.

If he and Xander had been identical twins, he might have tricked his way in, instead of this crap.

“This is the princess’s study, sir.” The maid opened the double doors then stayed in the entrance, with her back to the frame, her hands folded meekly to her front. Two guards, armed with swords, stood at attention on either side of the door.

John went through. The princess sat in a window seat, half a mile across the room.

The corridors of the palace he’d travelled were quiet, with not a scream to be heard. A pity. His insides were gnawing at themselves in worry over Xander. His hand itched for the sword and daggers he’d had to leave with the majordomo at the palace entrance.

He stalked across, his tread silent on the thick rugs.

The day drew to a close. The shadows grew long. The high white curtains concealing the windows leading to a balcony were partially closed but swayed in a breeze. The ceiling in here was of average height, for royalty. Fall while plastering it, and you would break