His Princess (A Royal Romance)(6)

They both look at me, and freeze.

A man I can’t see speaks in a low voice. I barely recognize the words. It’s a harsher, more guttural version of the Solkovian tongue. A different dialect.

Then it hits me. He’s speaking Kosztylan.

“Penny, what are you doing here?” Brad booms.

He looks around, like he expects someone to jump out.

More Kosztylan commands shout from behind me. I swallow hard and turn around to find a thin man with dark circles under his eyes and an assault rifle in his hands, gesturing toward me with the barrel of his gun.

A thousand scenarios run through the back of my head, all of them bad. Very bad.

“Get in the truck, Penny.”

I have a gun pointed at me. I don’t have much of a choice.

Brad offers me a hand. I take it. I flop down on one of the crates while the truck starts to move, and yank my hand away from his.

“What the f*ck is going on?”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“No shit, Brad. Start talking.”

“We’re helping take some food across the border into Kosztyla,” Melissa pipes up. “It’s for the resistance. Also medical supplies.”

“You stole them from camp?”

“No,” she says, her voice wavering.

“The Church has been using our missions in Solkovia to funnel supplies to the Kosztylan resistance. They’re hard-pressed and almost wiped out. The oppression of the—”

“Are you f*cking kidding me?” I snap. “If the army catches you doing this, they’ll arrest you and you’ll end up in prison in Solkovia. That doesn’t sound like fun. For any of us. If the Kosztylans catch us, we could be executed.”

“We won’t be caught. I’ve been doing this for years.”

I look at them both.

“Fine, you can be crazy. Melissa, I can’t believe you involved yourself in something like this.”

“They need our help.”

“You talked her into this, didn’t you?” I say to Brad, ignoring her.

“She asked me what I was doing. I told her the truth.”

I let out a long, heavy sigh. “How far is it to the border?”

“About an hour, then half an hour to the camp. They’re in the mountains, in a pass.”

“Great. We’re going to die.”

“We’re not going to die. I’ve done this before.”

“Right, sure you have, Rambo. I’ve seen this movie. I know how it ends. They’ll burn a tire around your neck and pass us around the camp.”

Melissa tenses up.

“They’re not like that. They’re freedom fighters opposing a brutal totalitarian regime. Every man and woman in that camp is risking their lives for freedom. We have a sacred duty support them however we can.”

“You do. I didn’t sign up to be a soldier. I’m a teacher. I’m not helping anyone fight a war.”

“You’re going to have to keep quiet about this.”

“I’m going to talk to the elders.”

“The elders know. The church is using the missions to funnel supplies, I told you.”

“Then I’m calling the State Department. If the Kosztylans find out what you’re doing, they’ll wipe the camp off the map and no one will lift a finger to stop them. You’re putting all of those women and children in danger, Brad. You may have volunteered yourself for suicide missions, but you have no right to involve everyone else without their knowledge or consent.”

Brad snorts. “Half the people in the village are refugees, or have family across the border. What, do you think me and Melissa do all this ourselves?”

“How many times have you done this?” I say, turning to her.

“Um, once,” she chirps. “This being the one time.”

“You trust him to take you over the border into one of the most totalitarian regimes on the planet? Are you that horny?”

“It’s not like that!” She grabs his arm. “We have a real connection. When Brad’s term is up he’s coming back to America with me and we’re getting married. I was going to invite you.”

She turns up her nose, like the invite is withdrawn.

Idiots.

I hold on to the crates as the truck bounces and jounces along, maybe twenty miles an hour. Slow enough that I’m tempted to jump and make a run back to camp, fast enough that I don’t dare, knowing I’ll break a leg or worse. Ending up out here in the middle of the night, crippled, would be a bad time.

There are wolves out here, and the followers of the Old Way talk about worse things I’d rather not believe in, but riding in the open back of a pickup truck through the dead of night toward the Carpathian Mountains, it’s easy to believe the dead walk and feast on the essence of the living. They have some creepy legends in their folklore.

I guess you get really creative when you’re imagining the things that can eat you out here.

The mountains get closer and closer, filling up the sky. The ground just juts upward all at once, and the truck swerves onto a track that cuts a gentler path up the slope, sawing back and forth to level out a bit. The driver is aggressive, and I have to hold on hard. Brad holds Melissa tight against him and grips the rail on the side of the bed with white knuckles.