The Rebel King

and clear!

But…there was this…roan she was lying on…kissing. And his mouth tasted good, tasted faintly of wine…and felt warm and firm and enthusiastic, and-after the first shocked seconds- oh, so skillful. Still tangled with his, her lips formed a smile.

Then, slowly, even a bit reluctantly, she separated her mouth from his and gazed down at him, searching for the words to tell him how grateful she was. Searching for a way to say thank you. And good- bye.

But… when she lowered her head to touch his lips again in sweet farewell, she felt his body grow hard and quiver with wiry strength…and his arms were around her now, and she felt his head lift and his muscles surge and a moment later she was lying on her back and his weight was pressing down on her and his face was filling the sky above her, blotting out the pale Paris night. She felt his arms tight around her and his heartbeat thumping off-beat against hers. And she thought…

Foolish Rhia! Stupid-stupid to play with fire this way!

Her panic lasted only a moment. She was still in control- of course she was. She could stop this any time she chose. The arms holding her prisoner were masterful but not brutal; the eyes burning down into hers were angry, yes, but bright with questions rather than lust.

What was that? What the hell do you call that? she heard him demand in a croaking, unexpectedly young voice.

And somewhere deep inside her she felt a smile shiver free and bubble up through her chest and emerge with a whispered sigh: Serendipity

He gave a brief huff that might have been wonder or merely acknowledgment, then lowered his mouth to hers for one quick, hard kiss, a kiss that left her with throbbing lips and racing heart and a strange humming in her chest. Then he rolled his weight off of her to lie on his back with one arm across his eyes. She felt his body shake with silent laughter.

For one insane moment she thought of staying right there. Wondered what a kiss like that might possibly lead to, and who this young man was who could have a strange woman drop on him from out of the sky and not only keep his cool and play along in her game with life-and-death stakes, but laugh about it afterward. But Harrington was a few yards away in the next room, undoubtedly on the phone to the French police and the British embassy at that very moment. She couldn'tcount on her good luck holding forever. She didn't know how Corbett Lazlo felt about bailing his agents out of jail-in her case, a second time- but she didn't care to find out, not on her first solo assignment.

She sat up, patted her savior's shoulder and breathlessly muttered. Thanks-I don't know who you are, but I definitely owe you one. Then she rose, stepped over his body and slipped through the balcony door, moving quickly and nimbly as she always did…moving as if her legs weren't shaky and her stomach jittering with the aftereffects of a kiss she knew even then she was never going to forget…

'You did say you owed me one,' Nikolas said, his voice an amused rumble against her chest. 'Although I've never been quite clear on what for, exactly.'

'Oh, nothing much,' Rhia said grudgingly. 'Just possibly my life. Definitely my career.'

'Ah-I see. Then I would be correct in surmising that what you were doing in that hotel room was something similar to what I found you doing in mine this evening?'

She tried to squirm, then thought better of it. 'Well…yes. I guess you could say that.' She focused her eyes on the lock of dark hair that swept across his brow like a blackbird's wing. Studying the silky, glossy blackness of it, she found herself smiling. 'But somehow…I don't think that gentleman would have cooked me supper and offered me his bed.'

'Hmm…foolish man.'

The lock of hair brushed her forehead like a whispered command, and obediently her eyelids fluttered closed. She felt the warmth of his breath flow over her lips, and her heart gave a crazy leap, gave a foolish, giddy leap, like a smitten schoolgirl's. Her breath caught; unable to help herself, she lifted to him, searching again for that clever, clever mouth. He chuckled; his lips hovered…brushed…nipped…teased. Her stomach dropped sickeningly as she felt herself lifted on a wave of desire, like a roller coaster when it shoots up…up…up to the crest…just before it begins its heart-stopping plunge back down. Down…toward certain disaster.

But, as she teetered there, waiting for the plunge, breathless with exhilaration, trembling with desire, she felt a heartbeat thumping against her palm. And she realized that, without any recollection of having done so, she'd placed her hand against his chest like a barrier.

Roller-coastering emotions bumped and careened over realizations and fears and screeched to a halt just short of panic. My God, what am I doing? I can't…

'Nikolas-wait.' she gasped. 'I can't…do this.'

'Mmm… why not?' The soft words tickled her lips and his tongue lightly soothed them. 'It's not like we haven't done this before.'

'That was…different. There was a reason…circumstances.' And I was young, then. Reckless! Her voice went breathy with panic. 'And I didn't know…who you were.'

His laughter was dry with irony. 'So…it's okay to kiss a stranger, but not a prince? And you wonder why I'm not exactly thrilled at the thought of being one?'

And he rolled away from her, leaving her just as jangled and shaky as she had been on that memorable night so long ago.

He jerked the tangled blanket aside and got up, and she barely had time to register the fact that he was wearing a pair of black silk boxers that rode low on narrow hips, before he leaned down to brush her forehead with his lips. 'Don't get up, luv. I'll take the couch.'

He was walking away from her when she fought her way free of the half of the blanket that still cocooned her. 'No way. Dammitm I'm not letting-'

He turned back, put his hands on her shoulders and gently but firmly pushed her down onto the bed. clucking to her as he did so like a mother hen to a wayward chick. 'Don't get excited. I promise I won't run off while you're sleeping. In fact, I give you my word on it-how's that?'

She eyed him warily, not trusting that smile or the gleam in those pewter-gray eyes, not for a second. 'Word of a king?'

His smile vanished. 'No,' he said coldly as he straightened up, 'Word of honor. My honor.'

He turned and strode from the room. And in that moment, in her opinion-boxers and all-had never looked more like a king.

Chapter 4

Word of honor. My honor.

Nikolas lay awake, listening to those words whisper in his mind like ghost voices in an empty castle. The words had meant something, once. So had the words of the man who raised him, the man who had been like a father to him. The man who had taught him all he knew about honor. About duty. About love of country.

And hatred of tyrants. Hatred of kings in particular, and of one king. Henry Weston of Silvershire, specifically.

Silas Donovan. The man's face flashed before his mind's eye like a slide show on fast forward, in all the ways he'd come to know it in his thirty years. True, it was a hard face in many ways, austere and forbidding, with a mouth that seldom smiled and eyes that often glittered with the light of fanaticism. The man Nik had called simply Uncle had never been warm or affectionate, or even particularly kind. And yet, in his way, he'd been good to Nikolas. Among many other things. Silas had taught him strength, discipline and a willingness to sacrifice and dedicate his life to a cause greater than himself. He had taught him so well, in fact, that Nikolas couldn't remember a time in his life when he'd ever been free of the burden of responsibility Silas had placed on his shoulders. A time when he'd been allowed to be just a lad: young, carefree, with a whole world of bright