I guess Harry isn’t coming to my room tonight, which is fine. The man probably needs a rest and my magic will never settle if we keep going at it like rabbits. A giggle escapes me but it is okay, there is no one here.
I love how physically intimate Harry and I have become. Now I just need to get him to talk to me. Open up and express feelings. I know it’s going to take time. Harry is a British duke. Communicating his feelings isn’t really in his wheelhouse. I’m going to have to teach him. And then everything is going to be wonderful.
Grinning, I close my laptop and pop it on the bedside table. Wriggling down into the comfy covers makes me feel all kinds of content. Life is good.
I drift off to sleep with a smile on my face, only to be awoken with a start by a hand over my mouth. My eyes fly open to find gray eyes staring down at me from a face framed by long blond hair.
“Eban?” I say in muffled bewilderment.
He smiles and removes his hand, freeing me to scramble up to a sitting position. My cousin is dressed all in black and inexplicably in my bedchamber in the middle of the night.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes. “Rescuing you, you dolt!”
I can only stare. Rescuing me? From what? So slowly that it’s almost painful, my stunned brain cells start to work. I used to think Harry was an asshole. I had been scared to marry him because of his reputation. His reputation of assaulting a vessel.
Eban, even though exiled from society and living with his bodyguard boyfriend, would have heard of my wedding. Eban, who is my friend. A friend I helped rescue from kidnappers. A friend who is far too kind to stand by while I am suffering.
Except I’m not suffering. Harry isn’t evil or cruel. Just a little troubled.
“I don’t need rescuing,” I say numbly.
A cold breeze from my open window makes me shiver. Eban doesn’t look convinced by my words. The only look on his face is one of pity.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” he whispers. “But we need to go, right now.”
He grabs my arm and pulls me out of bed and towards the window. I’m wearing my old comfy Star Wars pajamas and it’s horribly embarrassing. I wouldn’t have minded Harry seeing them, mostly because I suspect he would find them cute, but I don’t want anyone else to see.
A head pops up in my window. Nearly frightening the life out of me, but then I recognize who it is.
“Bastion!” I squeal in delight.
“Hi, Kiddo,” he grins.
Despite the circumstances, it’s great to see Eban’s bodyguard-turned-boyfriend. I’d love to have a catch-up and find out all about their new life together. I just need to get them to stop trying to steal me away in the middle of the night. But Eban is frightfully strong and is pulling me relentlessly towards Bastion, as much as I am trying to resist. I need to think of something to say, something that they will believe and not think is Stockholm Syndrome. And I need to think of it right now.
“Unhand my vessel,” Harry’s deep voice rumbles from behind me.
Oh crap, this isn’t good. I don’t want to be kidnapped, but I really don’t want Harry to hurt my friends. Eban whirls, taking me with him. Harry is standing just inside my door. He is wearing gray pajama trousers and a dark silk robe. His wonderful chest is on display. Even in a time like this, it’s very distracting.
Harry summons his magic, and I step in front of Eban. If everyone would just calm down for one minute, but Harry looks utterly wounded and betrayed by my protective gesture, and he lifts his hand to cast a spell, but then suddenly he crumples lifeless to the floor.
“Harry!” I screech, but Eban is holding me tight and won’t let me go to him.
Someone else climbs through my window. Lord Garrington? The man whose vessel Harry attacked. This is the very opposite of good. Garrington strides over to Harry’s helpless body.
“Leave him alone!” I try to say but no sounds come out of my mouth. Not content with knocking Harry out, the bastard has now put a silence spell on me!
“Now what do we do?” hisses Eban, sounding alarmed.
Garrington frowns as he looks down at Harry. “Take him with us.”
“That wasn’t part of the plan!” says Eban.
“This one being noisy and uncooperative wasn’t part of the plan either,” says Garrington with a shrug.
I’ve never been so indignant in all my life. Excuse me? Break into my bedchamber in the middle of the night and try to abduct me and somehow I’m at fault? I know they mean well, they think they are saving me. But honestly, the cheek of it.
