Nattie slipped past the remaining guard, her movements quick and deliberate. She hurried toward me, closing the space like it had been unbearable for her to be away. Her arms wrapped tightly around my neck.
My heart swelled as I wrapped my arms around her. I hadn’t been wrong about our connection. It hadn’t been one-sided. But…how would it work if she was royalty?
Nattie pulled back slightly, her teary eyes searching mine. “You came to Belvaria… However did you find me?”
“That is a question I would like the answer to as well,” the guard said, clasping his hands in front of him as he spun to face me.
“Uhhh, lucky guess,” I said, not wanting to give up Alex and Ava for their involvement.
“Wrong answer, doctor,” Nadia said as she rose from her seat at the desk, her voice low and laced with steel. “Now, you have two choices. You can tell me how you found her, or I can have the pleasure of extracting the truth from you.”
Extracting it from me?Seriously? What was this, a spy movie?
Nattie shot her sister a wide-eyed look. “Nadia, stop.”
She shifted her gaze back to me, her features softening as she gave my chest a gentle rub. “It’s all right. You can tell us.”
Her British accent still sounded odd to me.
“Uhhh,” I murmured, my eyes going from Nadia to Nattie’s guard, then back to Nattie, “I don’t want to get anyone thrown back in the dungeon.”
“No one is going to the dungeon,” she answered, her hand still pressed against my chest.
“That remains to be seen,” the guard answered.
“Stefan, please,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“Stefan is correct. It defies the odds. I would like to know how this happened. Particularly with Nikolai back in the country.”
Who was Nikolai, I wondered.
“We tracked her phone,” Alex piped in from across the room. “Or rather the burner phone she had since I’m pretty certain that wasn’t her real phone.”
“Right,” Ava added with a nod. “Would someone mind telling us what’s going on here? It’s been a whirlwind since your guards hauled us off of our plane.”
“For landing here without a flight plan or any known reason,” Nadia shot back. “We were well within our rights to detain you.”
“Stop,” Nattie said with a shake of her head. “They were merely trying to help. They assumed me a battered woman. And then someone shot at us, and I disappeared.”
“After I got knocked out. Nattie, I was so afraid that something bad had happened to you.” I rubbed her arms, still trying to wrap my mind around the turn of events.
“Except you’re not a battered woman.” Ava crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes. “So, what was the game? Just a queen out for a little fun?”
“How dare you speak to her that way?” Nadia said.
“It’s fine,” Nattie retorted as her sister glowered at Ava. “They deserve an explanation. And no, I was not a queen out joyriding. The situation here is–“
“None of your business,” Nadia interrupted. “At least, not yet.”
“Nadia—“ Nattie began when her sister flicked a hand through the air.
“You understand that she is Queen Regent, and that there must be protocols in place to protect her. Surely, you do not wish us to break them. So, you have no objection to us vetting you properly.”
I licked my lips, wondering what that meant. Would the trouble I’d brought to New Orleans when I’d arrived be held against me?
Nattie heaved a sigh, shaking her head.
“Actually,” I said, trying to buy myself time and information, “I really don’t know what a Queen Regent is, so I don’t fully understand?”
