Page 12 of The Falcon and the Flame (The Birds: On Her Majesty’s Sapphic Secret Service #2)
Chapter Seven
I t was her—the singer she’d seen in Evelyn Knight’s club.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was doing here.
Zynara’s recent trip to London had been a dull business matter—government ministers and CEOs, some lucrative deals discussed, and a short visit to see her cousin, Alexandra. The Queen of England.
And an old friend named Evelyn Knight.
Evelyn had taken her to the kind of dive they’d used to hang out in back in the day—back when Zynara was studying at Cambridge.
She’d met Evelyn completely by chance all those years ago on a weekend when she was evading her father’s bodyguards and sneaking onto the train to head down to London.
Her father sent the private jet every Friday, but Zynara had just wanted some freedom.
No palaces, no security, no paparazzi—just a dark club somewhere and some loud music.
Maybe some pretty girl who didn’t know who she was to flirt with.
Maybe even wake up in the girl’s bed and walk away in the thin London dawn, hands in her pockets, a world of possibilities in front of her.
Maybe find Evelyn and do something irresponsible. Something free.
It had taken her far too long to figure out that meeting Evelyn hadn’t been by chance at all—it had been a calculated and strategic move on Eveyn’s part to get close to her, to position herself within her affections and win her trust. Evelyn Knight wasn’t, and hadn’t ever been, a fellow student at Cambridge.
Zynara blamed her father at first.
“I don’t need another bodyguard following me around. Even one cunningly disguised as a friend,” she’d whined.
The Q’sar had simply watched her with that calm, patient gravity she always wished she could emulate and never could, and waited for her to calm down.
“This one isn’t ours, binti.”
Zynara exploded all over again. “You’re allowing the British to spy on me?”
“Your aunt just wants to see that you’re safe. She promised your mother.” He was so gentle.
There was no comeback to that. Her aunt, at the time, had been Queen Margaret of England. Zynara’s mother had died when she was thirteen.
So, she tolerated Evelyn Knight and did her best to ignore her father’s smugness when they actually became friends.
Evelyn showed Zynara another side of London, one directly opposite the side she knew with the palace and the halls of power.
The Blackcroft side of the Thames was wilder, lawless.
Evelyn taught Zynara how to disappear into it, and that gave her the freedom to be who she wanted to be away from royal expectations.
They’d had a bit of fun together, but Evelyn and Zynara were very similar personalities. They soon realised they’d tear each other apart in bed—unless they had someone else to play with.
It had been a fun few years.
These days, it was clear Evelyn had mellowed.
A smooth jazz club instead of a grinding beat at 3am in a nightclub?
The same woman on her arm more than two meetings running?
Zynara would have had to be blind not to realise that was all down to the luscious Rose Martin at Evelyn’s side.
Evelyn had found her kryptonite—and Zynara fought down jealousy.
Oh, not for Rose herself, but for the contentment Evelyn obviously found.
A fucking spy had found love. Zynara had long ago accepted there would never be anything like that for her. She was royalty. The kind of girls who wanted Zynara only wanted her for her title.
And then she’d seen her.
The woman was singing some ancient Frank Sinatra hit—the type of music Zynara regularly teased Sami for—and she was captivating.
She was… ripe.
Zynara always had her pick of the prettiest women in her brother’s harem.
They were hot, eager, artificial-looking things with incredible legs and perky boob jobs—not that Zynara had a problem with that—but this woman was lush .
There was a fullness to her curves, a softness Zynara could see herself pressing her fingers into.
Temptation in the swell of her hips. Tits she could fall into—fuck—welcoming eyes that threatened to drown her.
And her voice! She sang from somewhere deep inside her—trite words about love that mocked Zynara’s empty, lonely life, all mixed up with glorious tones that made her want to both back the woman against a wall and bite her lower lip, and hush her sorrows into the hollow under her chin.
Press her lips to her throat and let that love hum against her own hopeless need—
Zynara blinked. Where had that come from?
She didn’t need this. The girl was young. Just like the others, she told herself. A singer in a club. Nobody.
But Evelyn was a tease. She made her look again.
The singer was playful. Cheeky. Zynara was accustomed to that.
All her brother’s bunnies gave playful a try—until Zynara whipped it out of them, irritated to be reduced to a cliche like that.
Every woman she’d ever slept with was much the same—they played a part, becoming who they thought the princess might like.
It was always hard to tell who was using who.
There was a slim chance this one was different. She sang like an angel, after all. And the longer Zynara looked, the more she saw. There was something fierce about her. Fiery. Something that might protect Zynara’s heart rather than cash it in for jewels and expensive gifts.
She shook off Evelyn’s teasing. Zynara was too busy for shit like that.
But the singer stuck in her mind.
And now here she was.
Here she was in the middle of Zynara’s city—in the middle of her Green Futures Alliance summit. In the middle, it seemed, of her brother’s harem.
Zynara stifled a sigh.
Of course.
Who was playing her this time? Malik? MI6? The bloody queen of England?
Or her own wishful thinking?
“She’s just your type.”
“I’m not even looking at her.”
“Liar.”
Sami had a smug expression on his face, and Zynara carefully watched the room, as expressionless as she knew how to be.
Diplomats and moguls murmured around her, trading pleasantries and promises of business.
They had the power to shape the future or stall it, and the stakes were high.
For Zynara especially so—she needed to charm these people, win them, and keep Ain Zargiers at the forefront of science, development and the energy revolution.
It was imperative work, but it was politics—and it didn’t stop her from being bored out of her mind.
She pointedly didn’t look in the direction of Malik’s crowd where the singer would be, but her brother’s laughter boomed and her head turned against her will. Malik had his own little audience of oil execs, fossil fuel lobbyists, a smattering of sycophants—and his women.
Sami was right. Charlotte Finch was exactly her type. So utterly perfect it was almost as if someone had known and stacked her brother’s harem against her.
She was a walking cliche—legs for days, tottering on those ridiculous heels, a slip of a dress that was barely decent and brushing sensational thighs.
The woman put her hand on her hip and Zynara couldn’t tear her eyes away from the curve of her waist, then lush breasts she wanted to bite.
She had a smile that was almost genuine too—though Zynara didn’t kid herself.
Everyone smiled at the Qasira. And those curls—an incredible halo that framed eyes loaded with an irresistible level of sass.
Zynara’s weakness.
But then the woman had opened her mouth.
Zynara sighed. The prettiest ones were always stupid.
“She checks out,” Sami said. “She’s peddling some backstory about studying for a business degree. We can run with that, if it amuses her, but she works for British intelligence. She’ll tell you she met Malik’s recruiter dancing in a nightclub.”
“MI6 is watching Malik?”
“Kind of.”
She gave Sami a look. He smiled serenely back.
“She’s safe to play with, Niz. Have some fun. I’ll send you her file.”
“No need.”
Sami Habash wasn’t just her best friend—he was her bishop, knight and rook in the game of survival that doubled as life in the palace.
As Chief of Palace Intelligence, his role wasn’t sanctioned by the government or any official department.
Rayan had set the role up before he died, and the night he did, Sami came to her and explained it all.
He worked solely for the heir to the throne, and his job was simple in description and daunting in execution—protect the heir from threats, both external and internal.
That meant knowing who whispered in the halls, who lingered too long in the Q’sar’s presence, and who the hell Malik dragged into his gaudy circus of a party house.
“I’m not the heir,” Zynara told him, days after her brother died and she’d relinquished her claim to the throne. “You should be serving Malik.”
“Never going to happen,” Sami said, and he’d never wavered on that.
His network was vast, quiet and efficient.
Files on every guest in the palace passed through his hands—background checks, surveillance reports, psych profiles.
His reach extended from the capital’s bustling markets to the shady corners of international intelligence.
He knew everything , even when Zynara didn’t.
She trusted him completely.
He chuckled, then grimaced when he clocked her negativity. “Wait. No need because you trust me, or no need because you’re not interested?”
“I’m not interested.”
“Liar,” he said again. He nudged her elbow. “You’re still watching her.”
Zynara huffed in exasperation, immediately annoyed at herself for the reaction. She wasn’t easily distracted, but this one— Charlotte Finch —this one had a presence.