Her brow furrowed. “Your jaw looks like it’s irritated.”
“Not the only part of me irritated right now.”
“You took the antibiotics?”
“It’s fine.”
Her gaze darted over his face, tightening, and her intelligence shone again as she tilted her head. “I didn’t see the medicine bottle in our tent. Where…?” Her brows lifted, then knotted again. “Please tell me you didn’t leave the antibiotics at the clinic.” Now she frowned. “No, you had them when we left. I saw them in your hand…”
Owen caught her hand. “Nouri,” he said, using her Arabic name to remind her there were a lot of ears listening. “I’m fine.” Besides, the team was out there. He’d get Dade to give him a shot of something once they were safely away. “It’ll be fine.”
Hours droned by, his muscles straining with each tick of the proverbial clock. He got out of the Cruiser every chance he had. They hiked for a while to a secluded location where giraffes glided and plucked vegetation from cliff walls.
This…surely this was it.
Surreptitiously, he paced the little inlet, a sanctuary from the rest of the preserve, searching high and low for any sign of the team. Watching the grass for Rawlins. His heart climbed into his throat when he noticed a discoloration a dozen paces off. He made his way over and toed the area. “Crow?” he rasped. When no answer came, he tried again. “Crow!” His boot pushed to the ground, and he grunted. Where on earth were th?—
“Your stitches do not look well.”
The voice of the crown prince whipped Owen around and jammed his heart in his throat. Had Maaz heard him calling for Crow? Belatedly, he recalled the prince’s words, which pushed his thoughts to the subtle throb of the stitches. “Yeah, sweat’s irritating them.”
The six-one crown prince considered him. “Did they not give you medicine?”
That look of concern was almost convincing. “The kidnappers interrupted check-out.” Though certain this location was the perfect spot for the extraction, the last thing Owen wanted was for the crown prince to discover the team. Or vice versa.
He tried to go around the prince, but the royal blocked his path with a slight shift to the side. That’s when he noticed Maaz’s inscrutable expression. “Something wrong?”
“My cousin wants Nouri.”
Holy fields of fire and nuclear bombs. “Rayan.” There was no way in this world Owen would let that happen. When Maaz nodded an affirmation of the name, Owen did not have a response save for clenched fists. “Why are you telling me? I’m just her bodyguard.”
“You are in the way.”
A sick sense of satisfaction coursed through Owen. Being in the way was not something he would alter. At least, not willingly. Thank goodness he had a trump card to overrule anything the princes put to him. “The king hired me to protect her. I’m not going anywhere without his command.”
“I know,” Maaz said quietly, and then…there was something in his dark eyes and the twitch of his black beard that gave pause as he edged closer.
Was he threatening him? Owen had pretty solid close-quarters skills, but it wasn’t just the crown prince he’d have to face—there would also be the other princes and whatever wildlife got lured in by the chaos.
“The driver,” the prince said, glancing to the side, as if making sure they were not being watched or overheard, “I believe he was paid to leave you.”
The driver who left them on the side of the road…
Was the crown prince confessing? “What makes you think that?”
Narrowing his eyes, Maaz stared at him with near-black irises that were a bottomless pit. “You already suspect that.”
“I said as much when we returned to camp, but you didn’t answer my question.” Owen had nothing to lose. Someone was already trying to kill him and Leighton.
The crown prince never broke eye contact in the seconds that took on the weight of minutes, if not hours, before he finally lifted his palm and showed him something.
Owen glanced down. Horror clawed up his spine at what he saw—the comms piece!
Unable to take a breath, to swallow, or even speak, Owen stared at it. Son of a freak-fried biscuit. Was this the prince’s way of calling him out? Trying to see how he’d react? Was this a trap laid for him to careen into?
There was something in the prince’s eyes—a knowing. No, not just a knowing, but a promise of violence. “I found this in camp.” Neutrality drenched deceptively calm words. “Do you recognize it?”
Ka-booom! That was the sound of Owen’s entire world imploding.
