CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ryu was in the midst of a dream. In it, he had a sister – a perfectly rational situation, to his dream-addled brain – and his sister was getting married to Emica. The ceremony was elaborate, but instead of being in the Temple of the Goddess, like most royal weddings, they were all standing in the Temple of Odin, a large, gothic-style building in the south of Azrahn. Not only that, but all of the guests were dressed very oddly. King Sou was wearing a Nalmagian robe. Queen Elise was dressed in an Arctesian gown. And all the attendants were dressed as pirates, a huge, creaking ship rocking to and fro at the entrance to the temple.
“You need to go now,” his sister was telling him, though they hadn’t yet even said their vows. “The bees are coming.”
A buzzing sound filled Ryu’s ears, and then an earth-shattering boom. He looked up and saw huge cracks appear in the ceiling of the temple. The bees would be coming through the roof, he suddenly knew, and he looked around for somewhere to hide…
Ryu jerked awake, sitting bolt upright in bed as that thundering boom suddenly crossed the threshold from dream into reality. His bedroom door was open, he realised a split second later, and his heart leapt in his chest as he registered the hulking man standing in the doorway…
The man moved as quick as a bolt of lightning, a firm hand suddenly clamped down over Ryu’s mouth.
“Quiet,” Kentario hissed into his ear, the scent of him registering an instant before his voice did. “The palace is under attack. I need you to get dressed. Right now.” He dragged Ryu out of bed, the blankets tumbling to the floor as he struggled to get his legs untangled and doing their job of holding him up. “Something black. And warm. We need to get out of here.”
Years of training had Ryu tugging on pants and searching through his drawers for a sweater, even as his mind raced. “What’s going on?” he asked,keeping his voice to a whisper. Kentario had already retreated to the door, standing guard with his gun drawn. “This isn’t some stupid prank, is it?”
Kentario turned to stare at him, his eyes dark in the dim light from beyond the bedroom door. “Your parents are dead,” he informed Ryu. “I don’t know if this is an assassination or a revolution, but you and I are getting the fuck out of here. Put some shoes on!”
A moment passed that seemed like an eternity. Dead? His parents were dead? But then his body moved, hands reaching for black boots, his legs lifting helpfully to step into them. His fingers did up the laces, though his hands felt completely numb, and then he was at the door beside Kentario. He almost wished he hadn’t asked…
“Stay behind me,” Kentario ordered. They made a hasty path to the front door of the apartment, precious moments spent listening to the sounds outside in the hall. It was silent, so Kentario opened the door, edging out into the hallway.
“Upstairs! The apartments are up here,” a voice yelled, earning a string of curses from Kentario. He grabbed Ryu by the shoulder, all but dragging him across the hall.
“In here,” he snapped, punching in a code to open the door into the apartment opposite the royal suite. In days gone by, the small, single bedroom flat had been used by Ryu’s nurse, and by the nurses of countless generations of royals before that. Kentario made the point of closing the door to the royal apartment behind them in an attempt to disguise the fact that they’d just left.
But simply being in a different apartment was not going to save them for long. Kentario dashed over to the windows. A quick check confirmed what Ryu already knew; there was no access to the ground from here. Outside in the hallway, heavy footsteps signalled their attackers coming closer.
“In here,” Kentario said, shoving Ryu into the next room. It was the bedroom, and he threw open the closet. Though the apartment had long been empty, the closet was still used to store old clothes – coats for winter, gowns that had gone out of fashion. “Get in. Cover yourself with a coat or two.”
“Are you serious?” It sounded like the most absurd hiding place. Surely the attackers wouldn’t be fooled by something so simple as a well-placed coat?
“We’re out of options! There are too many of them. I’ll fight them if I have to, but that’s not going to go well for either of us.”
Not knowing what else to do, Ryu slid into the closet, taking refuge behind a long winter coat. It covered his entire body, all the way down to his boots, and by tugging a nearby gown a little closer, even his feetdisappeared from view. Kentario squeezed himself in beside Ryu and closed the door, the sudden darkness feeling claustrophobic and cloying.
Out in the hallway, thuds sounded, as the men presumably tried to break down the door to the royal apartment. A thunderous crack came a few seconds later, and Ryu could only assume they’d succeeded.
The silence that followed lasted only a minute or two. “He’s not here,” a voice said. “Check the rest of the rooms. Leave no fucking stone unturned. I want that whelp dead!”
If Ryu had had any doubts about the reality of the situation, they vanished with that horrifying pronouncement. His entire body froze, even his breath coming shallow and silent. Goddess above, he was going to die tonight. He knew it with every fibre of his being…
“In here! There’s another apartment!” A crash signalled that the door to their hiding place had just been breached. Ryu felt Kentario’s hand find his in the darkness, his powerful grip squeezing Ryu’s shaking fingers. He returned the grip, pouring all his terror into that one point of contact between them. A faint scent reached his nose, fragrant and woody – typically used by an alpha who was trying to soothe an agitated omega, and Ryu allowed the scent to calm him a fraction. Kentario would never let them take him while his bodyguard was still alive. But somehow, the thought of Kentario dying was even more horrifying than the idea of his own death.
A light came on in the bedroom, the glow dim but clear around the edges of the closet door.
Then the door of the closet itself was flung open. Ryu stopped breathing entirely.Odin, God of Destruction, he prayed fervently, abandoning even the protection of the Goddess as death began knocking at his metaphorical door.Kill these men. Take them to your underworld to be punished for their treason. I will lay sacrifices at your altar if you spare my and Kentario’s lives.
Ryu couldn’t see what the man who’d opened the door was doing. He focused on remaining perfectly still, his life now dependant on whoever was searching for them overlooking the minor hints that the clothes had been recently disturbed.
A second passed. An eternity of waiting. Another second ticked by. Time dragged, like a boulder being towed uphill by a field mouse. How long had the door been open? Had he seen them? Kentario was a lot bigger than him. Had he managed to hide himself?
The door closed. “He’s not here,” an angry voice declared. “Check the next apartment. And the ones downstairs. He can’t have got far.”
Thumping footsteps retreated. Ryu clung to Kentario’s hand, not willing to move until his bodyguard gave the all-clear. How the hell were they going to get out of here? Every exit to the building required them to godown the stairs, where the attackers were heading to raid the apartments on the lower floor.
Kentario waited, far longer than Ryu would have dared. His own priorities were to simply get the hell out of here, not wait around to see if the men came back.
Finally, though, Kentario moved, firstly to let go of Ryu’s hand. His first instinct was to grab it back again, but reason prevailed. If there were actually any more people out in the hallway, Kentario would need both hands to fight them.
