Page 41 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy (Spies and Royals #4)

“My brave sheep,” he said softly, though he seemed to be addressing Bris—Achilles certainly hadn’t done anything heroic tonight. The opposite, actually. He’d been a reckless fool.

Flip. Yiorgos, now bundled in his own blanket, found the soggy World War II chapter.

Queen Cassandra II had refused Nazi demands for passage through Tirrojan territory, leading fierce mountain resistance that helped delay Axis operations in the Balkans.

The royal family had never fled, instead establishing command bunkers in the ancient citadel tunnels.

Nestor glanced at the illustrated page, now an abstract mess where the colors had run wild.

“Ah yes, those old passages… most of them are sealed now for safety reasons.” He nodded toward worn stone steps leading down to the crypts below.

“We had to close the main entrances years ago. Too dangerous—can’t have unauthorized people reaching the palace with nefarious purposes. ”

Even if they weren’t sealed off, Achilles supposed the underground tunnels wouldn’t do them any good now.

They’d be flooded in this storm. The priest pushed the last blanket into his empty hand.

Achilles knew exactly what he’d do with it.

The first blanket hadn’t stopped her violent shivering, and he couldn’t wrap this second layer around her shoulders fast enough.

“No,” she murmured through chattering teeth. “Use it on yourself.”

“Not a chance—I’m the jerk who nearly got you killed. The least I can do is make sure you don’t freeze to death because of my stupidity.”

She turned to study his face, her lips still trembling from the cold, her small hands finding his larger ones and holding tight. “You’re—you’re doing it again…” she whispered.

He leaned closer to hear. “What?”

“Punishing yourself because you think you’ve been—been bad or something. Stop it!”

His heart clenched, realizing she’d caught him on his path of self-destruction again. But if he didn’t hold himself accountable, who would? Someone had to maintain standards, keep him in line after all his failures.

“I chose to be out there,” she said firmly. “Remember that!”

And once again she was attempting to spare his feelings.

His heart softened as he gazed down at her, wishing desperately that their evening had ended with stolen kisses and whispered confessions instead of this disaster that had turned everything upside down.

The truth was, he’d follow her into Hades itself if she asked it of him.

Unable to resist, he traced his thumb along her muddy jawline, wiping away streaks of dirt. “You’re too good for me,” he murmured.

He meant it more than she could ever know—her father had forced him to do what he’d been too much of a coward to do himself—go after the woman of his dreams, but he’d stayed back for good reason. How could he not be the anchor who dragged her down?

Flip.

Achilles’s heart leaped into his throat when he glanced down at the page. The next chapter heading practically screamed at him:

“General Peleus and Project C.I.R.C.E.”

General Peleus led the military campaign during Operation C.I.R.C.E. on the Island of Aeaea, where rebel forces had established strongholds among civilian populations.

They’d put his father in a children’s textbook?

Achilles snatched it without thinking, his hands shaking as he scanned the damning text.

C.I.R.C.E.—Coastal Island Resource Conservation Effort.

Initially successful in his mission, General Peleus became increasingly unstable and began defying direct orders from command.

His refusal to eliminate the remaining rebel positions resulted in the massacre of loyal Tirrojan soldiers under his command.

Only years later did the intelligence services uncover the full scope of this betrayal.

There it was in black and white—blurred from water damage, and still he could make out the accusations against his father laid out as historical fact. He felt sick.

Military investigators later discovered evidence that the Duke of Peleus had been compromised by enemy sympathizers and was actively sabotaging crown operations.

The civilian casualties on Aeaea were the direct result of Peleus’s treasonous actions and failure to follow protocol, though he successfully concealed his crimes… .

The rest was lost in a water-stained mess.

He could barely breathe. Was his father a monster?

Was this why Chises had ordered his assassination—to eliminate a threat to national security?

O Skia had said that Peleus had betrayed his best friend, his family, his wife.

Had that betrayal happened during Project C.I.R.C.E.

? It seemed crazy that his father was truly at fault for the massacre of innocent Tirrojan soldiers and civilians from Aeaea?

No, these were lies printed up by the Tirrojan government as propaganda.

And yet… O Skia clearly blamed his father for something vicious.

Achilles’s hands trembled as he gripped the textbook, rain from his soaked hair dripping onto the pages.

Was his father, the great General Peleus himself, actually responsible for Aeaea’s current warlike state that drained their country of vital resources?

He didn’t know what to believe. What was truth? What was propaganda?

He swallowed against his raw throat. Bris’s fingers found his—her eyes moved from the text and ran worriedly to him. How much of this had she known? She’d bought the textbooks—had she read them?

“My father wouldn’t…” The words died on his tongue. He didn’t know who the man was. This terrible legacy could very well be his bloodline.

Was this why Bris’s father hated him? Memories of Chises Mnon’s narrowed eyes flooded back—always sharp, always wary, forever disapproving of the boy he’d raised as a favor to the man who supposedly was his best friend… and wasn’t.

Why would Bris’s father ever have taken him in?

A nobody really—the son of a traitor? He wished they’d never bothered, except for one precious exception: this woman beside him who looked at him like he was worth saving.

She watched him now, her beautiful Tyndarian eyes glistening with unshed tears as her gaze went from him to those awful accusations.

She clamped fingers over the textbook, ready to pry it away. “Let me have it. Please.”

He refused to let go.

Nestor cleared his throat nervously. “Your mother grew up in my congregation—a good woman. She became a star, sold millions of records, but underneath all that fame was just a girl with a beautiful voice and a good heart. I had the honor of marrying her to your father long ago in the old church.”

Bris looked desperate to steer the conversation away from the painful revelations. “Did they marry here?” she asked, gesturing at the soaring Gothic arches around them.

“No… this was long ago. I was assigned to another parish at the time.”

Achilles’s attention sharpened as pieces of his family’s puzzle began falling into place. He already knew where his mother was from, but after reading his father’s horrific history, if they’d met at her birthplace, their courtship took on sinister new meaning. “The Island of Aeaea?”

Nestor practically choked on his response. “I’ve been assigned to many parishes throughout my career… always moving with the military chaplain corps.” He swallowed nervously, his eyes darting away. “I’m not entirely sure which church it was exactly. Isn’t that strange how memory fails?”

How could Nestor possibly forget such a significant detail? Was it treasonous to admit connections to the epicenter of their country’s rebellion? The priest was hiding something.

“My mother was from Aeaea,” Achilles said firmly. He’d force this evasive holy man to own up to the truth.

“Oh, was she?” Nestor said with an airy shrug. “It was so many years ago, really.” Impossible that he’d forget such an important detail even so. Did the priest have legitimate reasons for concealing these connections, or had the lies become so habitual he barely noticed them anymore?

Nestor’s round face flushed red with embarrassment under Achilles’s piercing stare, though he still brazenly tried to cover up his slip. “I only meant to say that after everything that’s happened, your mother’s heart was always in the right place.”

Was it? Or had Clysta been the one to convince his father to betray his people?

O Skia’s cryptic warning about loving too well and dancing too close to the fire suddenly carried horrible new meaning.

The agony that resulted from that union hammered his next question into a blunt knife. “How did they meet?”

Nestor waved the subject away, too quickly, too frantically to be believable. “That’s a story for another day, one that I’m not entirely familiar with.”

Liar! If the man was truly loyal to the crown, he’d share every detail he knew with his future queen and her consort. Achilles felt his muscles coil with sudden menace, suspicion crystallizing into something harder and more dangerous.

If Nestor was part of some rebel network, what was he capable of? His mind raced back to the chained man in the palace dungeon—O Skia claimed to know the truth but demanded loyalty as payment. How far would Achilles go to pay that price?

If it meant saving Bris… anything.

It was too late! What did they really know about Nestor beyond his clerical collar? Nothing, only that Bris had been attacked practically on the priest’s doorstep. They’d walked directly into enemy hands.

Another crash of thunder rocked the cathedral walls, making them vibrate. The storm showed no mercy. Water began seeping under the heavy wooden doors, dark streams spreading across the stone floor. They were trapped, and it would only get worse as the flood continued rising.

The ancient stones seemed to whisper of other storms weathered, other desperate souls sheltered within these walls, but tonight felt different—charged with an ominous energy that made Achilles’s skin crawl.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, warning bells screamed out, having nothing to do with the storm raging outside.

His gaze drifted to Nestor, noting how the priest’s kindly demeanor seemed somehow less genuine, his movements more calculated. They were completely exposed here, cut off from anyone who could help them.

If Nestor wanted to strike at the future queen, tonight would give him the perfect opportunity.