Page 48 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

“Drive, asshole.” My captor’s energy dances through their words, sparking off their skin.

The van picks up speed. The driver is quietly freaking out, muttering under his breath. A mage, judging by his energy.

What feels like silk ties are twined around my wrists, then ankles. But instead of being harshly slammed to the floor — as I had been in the one other kidnapping attempt that had gotten this far in my youth — my would-be kidnapper scoops me up into his lap as he sits down.

His breath is warm, inviting, on my neck. “Gotcha, Princess.”

An American accent.

“Oh, fuck, this is such a bad idea!” the mage cries from the driver’s seat. “This was not the plan.”

“I’m improvising.” A deep, contented purr rattles through my captor’s chest.

“Radek,” I say, annoyed that it’s taken me this long to identify the lynx shifter from the Landenberg bond group. Granted, though we danced last night, I’ve really only had three brief conversations with him.

That means the driver is Lukas.

I shake my head, unable to stop myself from grinning behind what I assume is a silk scarf obscuring my sight. “There is no way Tereza signed off on a kidnapping.”

“Courting games,” Radek purrs playfully. “She’ll be happy when we deliver a princess to her.”

Lukas mutters something from the front that sounds like, “Fucking cats …”

My hands are lightly bound enough — I’m pretty certain Radek hasn’t even bothered knotting the ties — that I can reach up to shove the cloth up and off my eyes .

In sharp contrast to his golden-toned brown skin, Radek’s eyes glow softly yellow as he grins down at me. His dark golden-brown hair curls wildly over his forehead. “You haven’t paid the ransom yet, Princess.”

“And what is that?” I ask, trying to hide my amusement. Given my personal and family history, kidnapping me is completely inappropriate. I really shouldn’t be encouraging it.

He tilts his head as if he has to think about it. “A kiss?”

“We’re going to fucking die,” Lukas mutters from the front.

I glance beyond the brown-haired mage gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled hands. Out the front window, I can see we’re still on the service lane but well past the stables now. The van is steadily speeding toward the small forest that spreads across this side of the property.

“You won’t hurt us, will you, violet-eyed Mirth?” Radek asks.

His abruptly serious tone and casual use of my nickname startles me enough that it draws my attention back to him. “Of course not.”

He cuddles me slightly tighter, gaze flicking to my mouth. “Now you already owe me for the blindfold. But three kisses will get you out of the other bindings as well.”

“This was the plan!?” Lukas shouts. “You can’t just kidnap a fucking princess! And I’m going to be executed right along with you.”

Radek chuffs in a very catlike way. “Tell the uptight asshole that he’s overreacting.”

I can’t help but admire the lynx shifter’s utter confidence. “Just don’t take me past the property boundary.”

“The boundary?” Lukas asks. The road we’re on is suddenly swallowed up by tall, thin trees as the mage drives us into the forest .

“You didn’t feel it on the way in?”

“We didn’t come this way.”

Right. Of course they didn’t. “I’m not certain where it’s anchored. I haven’t ridden in these woods for —”

“What the fuck is that!” Lukas shouts, outright panicking. His gaze flicks between the rearview mirror and his side mirrors.

I have to completely twist in Radek’s lap in order to look out the back windows. The lynx shifter holds me steady around my hips.

All I can see is the damp road stretching through the dense woods.

“What?” Radek asks.

Lukas hits the accelerator. “In the trees, on the left.”

Radek stiffens, spotting whatever is bothering the mage before I do. But even when I finally do see it, I don’t know what I’m looking at.

It’s huge, even among the towering conifers. Dark furred and on four legs.

“What kind of wolf shifter is that?” Radek asks, but before anyone can answer him, he snarls at Lukas, “Faster! Fuck …”

“I don’t know the road,” Lukas protests, even as the van surges forward, tires momentarily spinning out on the wet pavement.

“Is that one of your guards?” Radek asks. Shifting me gently until I’m on the seat beside him, he stretches his arm across me, crowding me back.

The wolf shifter — larger than any natural wolf and massively fanged — crosses out from the forest, veering directly onto the road to chase us. It’s falling behind, but not by much.

“Fuck,” Radek mutters, impressed. “He’s fucking fast.”

We blow past the far edge of the forest. Fallow fields abruptly stretch to the edge of the lake on the left and to the base of the mountain on our right.

“Wait!” I cry. “The boundary!”

“Sorry, Princess, but there’s no fucking way we’re letting that beast catch up —”

The van passes through the boundary ward. Lukas shouts right before I feel the anchored essence also slipping over me.

It lingers as if tasting my power. Identifying me.

“Oh, fuck,” I whisper, fear momentarily freezing me in place. Then I’m scrambling, trying to find a seatbelt. “We have to strap in.”

Radek’s head is lowered, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace as he gazes out the back windows at the wolf still chasing the van. His features aren’t quite human anymore, though he’s still protectively caging me back against the bench seat.

I press futilely at his shoulder. “Radek! Where are the seatbelts!?”

It’s too late.

I hear the boom first — a mass of energy displaced. It boxes my ears even within the vehicle.

Then the backlash from the displacement hits the speeding van from the front.

Lukas shouts, slamming futilely on the brakes.

Radek wraps himself around me, crushing me to him protectively.

The van skids on the wet pavement, swerving sharply right.

Then we’re airborne. Rolling.

In the moment of weightlessness at the top of that roll, I struggle to contain the essence lashing through me, inside me, as my own energy explodes, demanding freedom, demanding to respond to the threat .

Then the van stills in midair.

Radek and I crash down. Still curled around me, the lynx shifter takes the brunt of the fall.

As gently as such a thing can be accomplished, the van is lowered to the road and twisted until it once again faces forward.

The engine is dead.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck …” Lukas pants, still gripping the wheel and staring out the front window. He apparently had his seatbelt on.

My father, purple eyes blazing and one hand held forward, walks directly up the center of the road. Toward us.

Radek loosens his grip on me. Somehow managing to not completely panic, he very wisely slices suddenly clawed fingers through the silk ties on my ankles.

“Just be calm,” I say. “Let me talk to him —”

Something hits the back of the van hard enough to dent the metal doors and shove the vehicle forward. Thankfully, Lukas still has his foot crammed on the brake pedal.

Since I’m neither a shifter nor a telekinetic like the livid awry still stalking toward us, I go flying, slamming into the back of the front passenger seat and falling to the floor.

My shoulder and right hip take the brunt of the fall. I’m unable to completely suppress a pained cry.

“Fuck!” Radek shouts, reaching for me.

The back doors of the van buckle and then are torn off from the outside.

Suddenly, there’s an enraged shifter in the back of the van with us— in his ridiculously large wolf form.

He completely fills the space, snarling viciously as he hooks Radek with a huge, wickedly clawed front paw, then tosses him out the opening he’s just torn in the back of the van.

Radek is only partially transformed as he hits the road hard and rolls out of my sight.

The wolf hunkers over me, blocking my view of anything but his huge, dark-gray-furred chest and legs. He bares vicious teeth at Lukas over my head.

Lukas shrieks. Then, apparently more scared of the rampaging wolf than my father, the mage flings himself out of the van.

The wolf notes him fleeing with a derisive snort and narrowed eyes. Then he lowers his head and pins me with a bright-blue gaze. Cobalt blue.

I don’t remember his wolf form being quite so large. But then, I’ve never been in a position to cower underneath him.

I shove at his massive furred shoulder. “Back off, Bolan.”

He pins his ears back and snarls at me. Then, keeping me pressed against the back of the seat, he starts nosing at me.

I know he’s checking whether I’m hurt, but I’m still ridiculously and overwhelmingly mad at him. I’m perpetually mad at him.

“Stop it, stop it, asshole! I wasn’t hurt until you showed up!”

He rears back.

Glaring at him, I get my hands unwrapped. I was right about the silk tie not being knotted. “It was a courting game! You knew it was! You are such a fucking prick, Ollie! Why are you here? Why are you even here?”

Aware that I’m being irrational and that it’s not fair to scream questions at him when he can’t answer me, I shove at his shoulder again.

He shifts back just enough for me to get my feet under me.

Then I shove at his chest, over and over again, until he backs step by step out of the van.

Metal creaks under his weight, crumpling under his claws.

I climb out of the van.

My father has Radek and Lukas wrapped in his essence, his telekinesis. The mage and the lynx shifter are on their knees at the edge of the road, hands cinched behind them, heads bowed.

“It was a game!” I cry, repeating myself though I have no doubt my father already heard me screaming at Bolan.

I try to dart forward, but Bolan instantly shoulder-checks me to hold me back.

And I know, I know I’m still being utterly irrational, but I pummel my fists against his broad back, yelling, “They’re fucking restrained by the most fucking powerful telekinetic in the fucking world!

What the fuck do you think they could do to me right now? ”

Bolan huffs.

My father sighs. The two of them share a look.

I go still.