Page 42 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy (Spies and Royals #4)

Chapter Twenty

W as Achilles awake or asleep?

This was the first time since marrying him that he’d actually cuddled her while she slept. Bris stretched out on the wooden pew, resting her head on his lap. Of course, where else could he go? There would be no midnight swims for him… unless he thought to jump out into the flood to escape her.

But no… he’d wanted to make their marriage real.

Was he just parroting what she’d said, or was it true?

Did he still feel the same way? Nothing could tear her away from trying to save the townspeople’s lives, not protocol, not Phoenix, nor the pleadings from her lady-in-waiting.

Worst of all, she’d ignored Achilles’s repeated calls for caution until he was proven right.

They couldn’t race against time—they couldn’t procrastinate their fate.

Nothing they’d done had stopped Ilion from falling.

She cradled Yiorgos’ trembling form. If she hadn’t gone, they wouldn’t have rescued this small child.

Was he the only one they’d saved? The boy’s head lolled from side to side, finding her arm, then Achilles’s knee, then her stomach, turning into a human heater while he burrowed closer.

He let out a sad cry in his sleep. She ran her fingers down his back while she drifted in and out of consciousness.

Perhaps a few days earlier, the thought of stretching out on the hard oak, shaking from the cold and sleeping in her wet clothes might have seemed impossible, but the exhaustion was too much to fight.

Poor Achilles! He couldn’t be doing any better! His arms kept her from rolling off the pew—they were strong, comforting, and the spoiled princess she’d become didn’t deserve his pity.

Where was Polly? Peder? If anything had happened to them, she’d be solely responsible. Bris’s dreams were full of water and death. And the pain in Achilles’s eyes haunted her still. He blamed himself—for what? Not keeping her in line?

His breaths were slow, measured… and definitely awake. “Where are you going?” his sleep-deprived grumble proved her right, jolting her further awake and echoing through the church on a whisper.

“To find a radio.” Nestor kept his voice low, likely to keep anyone else from waking up. Too late for that. “The water’s getting higher. It isn’t safe for any of us here… especially our queen-to-be.”

Achilles turned silent. Without opening her eyes, she could almost see the self-revulsion on her husband’s face as she listened to the priest’s steps scrape haltingly across the chapel floor.

Achilles’s hands tightened over her. He’d turned into a guard dog after reading about his father’s betrayal on the island of Aeaea.

Punishing himself again? This time for what his father did.

Propaganda was a wicked sword—distract the people with a common enemy, mold public opinion for their benefit, but if General Peleus was indeed executed on her father’s orders, could this be the reason? Why else would her father turn on his best friend like that… if he had… well, had he?

Enough of this! She didn’t know the past, and certainly couldn’t control it…

or the present, tragically. How could she, of all people, be put in charge of nearly 3.

8 million citizens when she was such a mess at managing her own heart?

She just wanted to be a normal girl in love with a man—a man who desperately needed what comfort she could give him.

The door closed behind Nestor, and she reached over to pat her husband’s knee. “Achilles?” Her head lifted, her hair catching under his fingers. “It’s not your fault what happened on Aeaea.”

The darkness of eyes glistening under the candlelight caught hers—not full of pain like she’d imagined, but a storm of urgency.

“I need you to listen to me,” he said. The panic he tried to hide in his voice immediately put her on high alert.

“We have to leave before Nestor returns to finish us off.”

She jumped in surprise. What was he talking about? Achilles pulled her closer. “He’s going for a weapon; I’ll bet my life on it.”

Was she still dreaming? Nestor was no assassin! “He’s going for a rad—”

“He’s a Myrdon sympathizer. You heard what he said earlier—he officiated my parents’ wedding—my mother is from Aeaea, and he was there too. The revolution started on that island, and he is on intimate terms with all the players…”

“That doesn’t mean…”

“Then why would he try to cover it up? There’s no way he can’t remember that he headed the congregation in Aeaea. He’s lying to us.”

She was running out of excuses, and with that, her peace of mind. Her heart crashed through her frozen limbs in an icy chill as she recalled all that was said.

Achilles’s voice broke through her cold daze: “We need to sneak to his boat and get out of here.”

And leave the priest without a way out of here in the middle of a dangerous flood? What if they were wrong about him? He could die out here. “Absolutely not!” Achilles was letting his lack of sleep overtake his reason.

Frustration danced across his expression. Once again, she was turning to Queen Do-What-She-Wants. Had she learned nothing from earlier? She could take his appeals seriously, at the very least. “Why save us in the first place?” she asked. “Nestor could’ve just left us to die!”

The door opened. Nestor was back. He’d explain all this… except the steps coming for them were heavy this time, purposeful, hurried.

Was something wrong? She pushed her head over the pew to look through the shadowy chapel, seconds before Achilles shoved her back. “Down!”

Gunshots echoed through the cathedral. Splinters exploded against the pew as Achilles forced her against the ground, throwing his body over hers.

Yiorgas woke up with a startled shout, caught underneath her arms. He clutched his textbook, crying out.

She hugged him closer, not sure how any of them would escape this alive!

She’d been wrong again, and this time it would cost them their lives!

They needed a way out, but how? Where? The footsteps moved closer.

Their attacker had the advantage with the weapon and was taking his sweet time getting to them.

Bris spotted the stone stairs beside them descending into the darkness.

Nestor had mentioned something about the passageways being sealed, but at least this could buy them more time. What choice did they have?

“The steps!” she shouted to Achilles.

He made a sound that was half groan, half resolve.

His hand against her back gripped her harder, and he pushed her towards the stairs with Yiorgas.

They crawled through the pews. Her heart ran a wild staccato through her chest like Chopin’s Minute Waltz she’d been forced to play in those hated childhood recitals.

The frantic tempo filled her ears, even as her every sense was trained on the steps moving steadily closer, but not firing.

The shadows shrouded her and Achilles’s progress through the pews.

The flickering candles not providing enough light to reveal their precise location.

Was the gunman preserving his bullets, or was he afraid of hitting the wrong target?

Breaking through the pews and into the open, they had seconds to reach the stairs before they were hunted down.

Achilles’s hand on her back kept her in place.

He crouched a moment, slipping something from his back pocket.

She glimpsed the cracked screen of his phone before he flung it across the room.

The heavy tech crashed against the brass candelabra, sending candles and metal crashing to the stone floor.

Their attacker rushed for the noise, falling for the decoy.

They moved across the cobbled floor. Their only advantage was the dim lighting, but as soon as they reached the stone staircase, she realized that could easily turn fatal the instant they plunged into the darkness.

The walls cut off the flickering candles from the cathedral above them, and after a few more steps, the passageway going below had turned pitch black.

One wrong move on these steep stairs and they’d plummet to their deaths or make a sound that would send their attacker after them.

Her hand grappled with the walls on either side of them until she couldn’t take anymore and reached for her phone.

The lit screen was enough to see where they were going, the beam slanting past Yiorgas’ big brown eyes.

Achilles snatched her phone from her. “He’ll see you!

” he hissed under his breath. And it didn’t escape her notice that he still used the light—because getting down the stairs was impossible without some aid.

That only meant one thing: the maddening man was purposely making himself the target instead.

There was no time to argue. They wound down the circular flight, making at least three full rotations before their pursuer’s footsteps scraped above them in an ominous echo. This time the gunman was running at full speed. He had the weapon. The advantage. Their direction.

They no longer had to stay quiet. Not knowing where the stairs led, they scrambled down the worn stones and splashed into ankle-deep water…

the next step took them to their knees, then to their thighs.

She hoisted Yiorgas into her arms and took one last step and realized there were no more.

Thankfully! They’d reached the ground level.

Her cellphone light scraped past tombs, revealing a horrifying scene. Stone sarcophagi jutted from the dark water like sleeping giants, carved faces of long-dead Tirrojan nobles staring blindly through the murk. They were in an ancient burial chamber.