Amelia Autin - McKinnon's Royal Mission

“Don’t apologize,” Liam told them when the two bodyguards stiffly began to do so as he and Alec entered the princess’s sitting room. “You did the right thing,” he said, pitching his voice to carry over the noise. “What’s the situation? Has anyone seen anything?”

Alec left the room for a minute, then the raucous alarm was mercifully turned off. When he returned he said, “The passive alarms didn’t go off. I noticed that right off the bat. So whoever or whatever set off the active alarm didn’t come from outside the estate.”

Both Alec and Liam focused on the princess, who’d been drawn from her bed by her bodyguards and spirited into her sitting room, and was perched in an armchair in the corner of the room farthest from the window, surrounded by three of her bodyguards. She was still in her nightdress, but someone had handed her a silk dressing gown in a deep shade of peach, which she had quickly wrapped around her person. And her long hair had been bundled up, tidily out of the way. Alec glanced around and asked abruptly, “Does anyone know what set off the alarm?”

No one answered at first. The Zakharians in the room turned to the princess, and she shook her head, taking charge in a calm and composed manner. “I do not know,” she replied in a steady voice. “I do not think it was one of us.”

Liam already had his cell phone out and was pressing a speed dial button. Everyone was startled when a cell phone rang nearby, and all eyes were drawn to the doorway from the bedroom into the sitting room, to the tall man who suddenly stood there as if he’d materialized out of the darkness.

“I set it off,” Trace said in his deep voice, as he casually silenced his cell phone and leaned against the doorjamb, his gun safely in its shoulder holster. But there was nothing casual in the way he took in the status of the room, and he nodded approvingly to himself. Everyone had reacted exactly as they should. The princess’s bodyguards had quickly moved her from her bedroom to the safest, most defensible place in the sitting room, and were shielding her with their bodies. Alec, who had the duty today, had responded promptly. His brother, Liam, who Trace had known was sleeping in the guest house even though he wasn’t on duty, had also responded exactly as Trace had hoped—guarding the princess wasn’t the kind of job where a man was ever really “off the clock,” not if he was anywhere around her.

And the princess? She obviously wasn’t hysterical. She wasn’t even frightened by the alarm, not that he could see anyway, just alert and wary. And that surprised him. Somehow he’d thought she’d be the weak link, terrified at the potential threat, and he grudgingly gave her points for remaining cool under duress. He wondered if this was the first time she’d ever faced this kind of situation, or if there had been attempts on her life before. There hadn’t been anything about that in her dossier, but then he’d already realized the State Department’s dossier on her was woefully incomplete.

Both Alec and Liam had holstered their weapons at Trace’s initial statement, and now Alec said with a touch of humor in his voice, “Fire drill?”

“Yeah.” Trace straightened and walked farther into the room, heading right for the princess. “I’m sorry,” he told her gently, “but it was necessary. I had to be sure everyone knew what to do in an emergency. Your men and mine.”

She stood up, and her bodyguards deferentially moved to one side. She tightened her belt around her waist with a decided snap, then she looked up into Trace’s eyes. “It was a test?” she asked levelly.

“Yes.”

Her next question was unexpected. “Did we pass?”

“With flying colors.” When her brows drew together, questioning what he meant by that proverbial phrase, he explained, “Honorably successful.”

“Ahhh.” She nodded as comprehension dawned. “Good.” She tore her gaze away from his and glanced around the room at everyone there. “Does this mean we can all go back to sleep now?”

Trace couldn’t help it, a smile tugged at his mouth as she asked the question in a practical, no-nonsense tone. “Yes, ma’am,” he told her, for once not using the word princess. “Everyone can stand down.” Before she could ask, he added, “That means suspend and relax from an alert state of readiness. Return to normal. And since it’s—” he glanced at his watch “—two-fifteen in the morning, yes, everyone can go back to sleep.”

Everyone but me, he thought, but didn’t say. He had a report to write. And since the report would no doubt end up in the hands of the king of Zakhar, passed along by the State Department, it needed to be thorough...and reassuring.

* * *

From a short distance away, the three armed men treading in the shadows of the estate’s perimeter had heard the alarm go off. They circled back to their prearranged meeting point, shot questioning glances at each other, then shrugged their shoulders without speaking a word. They were as certain as they could be that no one had breached the estate’s walls—if anyone had attempted that they would have known—and none of them had set off the alarm.

There was little or no movement around the estate that they could see from their vantage point, even with the advanced technology that night-vision goggles provided. And though the men were prepared to disappear if necessary—considering the amount of illegal equipment they carried—no police responded to the alarm. That was a telling point. All three men noted the time, the exact responses...and the lack thereof. These details would be included in their report, which would be forwarded up the chain of command.

Their orders were clear, although none of the men knew the exact reason behind them. But they didn’t need to know. As were all the men who worked in their organization, they were intensely, militarily devoted to the man at the top. They believed. Arrest and incarceration was a definite possibility, but it wasn’t one that concerned them unduly.

Shortly thereafter the alarm was silenced. When the estate had finally settled down and the normal night sounds returned, the men resumed their catlike stalking from a distance, notating each potential weakness in the estate’s defenses for future use.

* * *

On the first day of the semester Mara woke early, with a sense of excitement barely contained. Today she would begin teaching again, but this time things would be different. For the past two years she had taught at the University of Zakhar in the capital city of Drago. She was a good teacher—she knew it—but she had never been able to fit in. Everyone at the University of Zakhar had known who she was. The faculty hadn’t been able to separate the princess from the professor, not to mention her students. Everyone there had kept her at a distance, just as she’d been isolated at Oxford. That wasn’t going to happen this time. Not if she could help it.

Ever since she could remember her secret dream had been to be an ordinary woman. Not a princess. Not an icon. And certainly not someone whose face and life story were used to sell magazines. And such stories! She made an expression of distaste at the memories of the fictional stories—all supposedly true—that had been written about her over the years. Andre had told her not to read them because they upset her so much, but she’d never been able to resist. It was almost a morbid fascination. Then she would throw the magazine against the wall, or rip the pages into tiny fragments, muttering dire threats she wished she could carry out. If only the world knew the truth! No one would want to read about her real life, so the tabloids were forced to make things up.

But that was all behind her now, and Mara hummed to herself as she dressed. She had taken note of what the women professors at the university here wore, and had gone shopping with a vengeance. No one at school except the president of the university and the dean of her college knew that Her Serene Highness Princess Mara Theodora and Dr. Mara Marianescu were one and the same person. Mara was determined to keep it that way, even though it meant camouflaging herself by wearing clothes bought off the rack and donning eyeglasses with plain glass lenses instead of prescription ones she didn’t need. All her adult life she had downplayed her looks; preferring to remain in the background rather than stand out. Now she was glad of it. Most people saw only what they expected to see. And even though her photograph had been plastered across the pages of magazines for years, no one would expect to see her here in Boulder, a simple math professor in a university that ranked in the top hundred in the US, but not in the top ten or even the top fifty.