The Missing Monarch (15 page)

“You would have hated it.” His lips nipped her nose.

“But
we would have been together.” She nuzzled him lightly.

Thad felt a pinch of regret. “We can’t go back and undo the
past.”

“What about the future?”

“That depends a lot on what happens with Octavian.”

“Does it?”

He wanted to tell her that of course it did, but her question
made him pause. He planted anther gentle kiss on her cheek. “I’ve been telling
myself
that if I get close to you, Octavian will use my feelings against me.
I’ve been afraid to allow myself to feel what I already feel, because he could
use that to hurt us.”

When he paused, Monica asked quietly, “What
do
you feel?”

“I feel afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of losing you again. Of losing Peter before I’ve even had a
chance to get to know him, and then losing
your love because I’m the one who
endangered our son. I’m the one who couldn’t keep Octavian away from him.”

Monica was quiet for a very long time. Finally, as though she’d
thought it over for some time and reached a conclusion, she lifted her face just
high enough so that she could see into his eyes. “Don’t sacrifice the present
for a future that may never come. When
you do that, Octavian wins twice.”

Then, almost as if she didn’t want to face him after speaking
her mind, she struggled to her feet. “We should get going.”

The brief rest must have been enough to clear her head, because
Thad quickly realized he was going to have to hurry to keep up with his wife. As
they plodded along in silence, Thad contemplated what Monica had said.

He’d given up six years in hopes of keeping Octavian at bay,
but while he’d been hiding out, his enemy had been plotting and conspiring,
endangering the very loved ones Thad had gone into hiding to protect. Thad had
given up six years—missing out on his son’s birth and early childhood—all to
avoid a scenario that had ended up happening anyway.

Running away hadn’t helped.

His body ached from his battle with Octavian’s men. His legs
were sore from running, and he was exhausted. With each painful footfall, Thad’s
determination grew.

He wasn’t going to run away again. In fact, he wasn’t going to
let Octavian get away at all this time. It wasn’t enough just to hope that
somehow he might get his son back. He
had
to get his
son back.
And then he’d make certain all of Octavian’s schemes were ended for
good.

When they reached the pile of crumbling rocks where he’d been
nearly buried earlier, Thad and Monica stopped and drank the rest of the bottled
water.

“How’s your arm?” he asked.

“I think it’s broken,” she admitted. “But I’ll need an X-ray to
be sure. What time is it?”

Thad pulled out
his phone to check the time. It was just after
six in the morning. Thad froze. “Wait a second.”

“What?”

He tore the battery from the phone, and the screen went
dead.

“What did you do that for?”

“I was wondering how Octavian’s men found me on the island. I
pulled out my phone to check the time. The helicopter arrived within half an
hour.”

“You think
Octavian is using your phone to somehow track your
movements?”

“I don’t know. But you asked how his plane found us in Alaska—I
had my phone on me then, too. He may have tapped into the satellite system to
follow me. Petrela said Octavian always seems to know where people are. Don’t
phones have some kind of GPS inside them?”

“But how would he access that information?”

Thad thought about the satellite that he’d seen in the sky. He
stuffed the dead phone back into his pocket. “He has his ways. Never
underestimate Octavian.”

He picked up the scepter from where he’d placed it on the pile
of rocks, and Monica reached toward it almost reverently before withdrawing her
hand, as though unsure whether she was allowed to touch it.

“It’s
okay.” He handed it to her. “Take a look.”

“This is the thing everyone’s been willing to kill and die
for?” She examined it with wide eyes. “It’s beautiful, but still...”

“It’s not the scepter, but the symbolism behind it and the
authority of the document inside.”

“Is it waterproof?” she asked, then blushed. “I don’t suppose
it matters, but when you were outnumbered
on the island, I thought perhaps you
should throw it into the sea. But the water would get inside and ruin the paper,
wouldn’t it?”

“It was made well over a thousand years ago, long before
waterproof technology,” Thad answered, then emitted a sigh that was almost a
chuckle. “But come to think of it, I believe we put the document in a plastic
zipper bag the last time
we had it out.”

Monica let out a laugh. “The most precious document in Lydia,
stored inside a zipper bag.” She handed the scepter back to him.

“The most precious relic in Lydia.” Thad rolled the scepter
over in his hands. “I had dreamed one day of passing it along to my son.”

“Peter would love to be king.”

Startled, Thad recalled they’d been interrupted when she was
relating what their son knew about him. They’d never gotten around to finishing
that conversation. “What have you told him about me?”

“Nothing about the king part—I didn’t think that would be wise,
in light of your instructions to tell no one of our association with you. I
wouldn’t want the details leaking out during playgroup.” She shook her head.
“But about
you?
Yes, Peter knows all about you. He’s
got your picture by his bed, you know. He prays for you every night before he
goes to sleep.”

Thad suddenly found it difficult to speak. “What does he
pray?”

“That God would watch over you. That he’d get to meet you
someday.” Her voice went soft, and unshed tears twinkled in her eyes. “I wish
you would have told me who you
were before we married. You were hiding from me
even then. Not on the edge of the earth, but you were hiding part of yourself
from me.”

Her depth of understanding frightened him, but the lack of
condemnation in her voice frightened him even more, twinkling like a glimmer of
hope in the darkness. He’d moved his face closer to hers, and now placed a
gentle kiss on her
forehead. “You were happy without me.”

“For Peter’s sake I told myself to be happy, but I missed you.”
A tear dropped from her cheek to the dry stones.

Thad watched it fall. His throat felt thick. He pulled Monica
against him gently, taking care with her arm. “I missed you, too. So much. I
missed out on Peter’s childhood. He doesn’t know me.”

Monica met his eyes in
the dim glimmer of the flashlight’s
beam. “Peter loves you.”

“He doesn’t know me,” Thad repeated.

“True. But he loves you just the same.”

“I suppose he’ll only be disappointed once he meets me.”

“No. He’ll only be disappointed if you run away again.”

Thad stayed silent for a long time. It hurt to hear what Monica
had to say, but she’d earned the right to say
it, and he knew he deserved to
hear it. Like picking at a healing scab, curiosity drove him to prod further. “I
thought if I hid myself from you, then you wouldn’t truly know me, and it
wouldn’t really hurt when you left.”

He sucked in a ragged breath, still marveling that after six
years he could finally hold her in his arms. “Not only did I suffer the pain of
our
separation, but I’ve spent the last six years regretting that I had never
fully shared my secrets with you. All those years we were friends, even during
our whirlwind romance, I was never fully there.”

“You were already in hiding.” Monica rose shakily to her feet,
favoring her injured arm. “You’re in hiding still.”

Thad stood beside her. “I don’t want to hide anymore.”

Her eyes fell on the scepter, and he looked at it, too,
tightening his grip around the staff. They still had a journey ahead of them.
They still had to get Peter back from Octavian, and keep Lydia from the madman’s
grasp. And he had no idea how they were going to accomplish it.

“I’m tired. It’s already morning. We should get moving,” Monica
whispered.

Thad nodded
and plodded after her, the scepter in his hand
weighing him down almost as much as the heaviness in his heart. He wanted to
hold Monica and never let her go. But before he could do that, he had to get
Peter back.

* * *

They found his siblings gathering in the family dining
room for breakfast. To Thad’s surprise, an older couple sat among them, leaping
up the
moment Monica entered the room.

“Mom? Dad?” Monica’s mouth dropped, but as she stumbled toward
them her smile grew. “How did you get here?”

“We took a flight the moment you said our grandson’s
disappearance had to do with all the news you’d been watching about the upheaval
in the kingdom of Lydia,” Richard Miller pronounced, scowling at Thad as he
leaned toward his
wife. “You’re right, darling. The picture on Peter’s
nightstand does bear remarkable resemblance to the missing Lydian prince.”

“Are you all right?” Sheila Miller reached toward Monica with
open arms, but stepped back when her daughter grabbed her broken arm and
winced.

“My arm—” she looked at her father, who was a doctor “—I think
it may be broken.”

“Then we’ll
have to get you to a hospital,” Richard Miller
stated with authority, casting a stern look at Thad.

For a moment, Thad thought about apologizing for leaving Monica
alone and pregnant so many years before and for the connections that had
resulted in Peter’s kidnapping. The fact that her arm was likely broken didn’t
help matters. But Monica’s parents appeared as though they
were ready to take
her to the hospital that very moment, and Thad knew a proper apology would take
time, as would proper introductions.

“Shall we head for the hospital now?” Richard asked Monica.

“Yes. We need to hurry so I can get back here.” She looked at
Thad, her eyes brimming with understanding and—could it be?—love. If that’s what
he saw there, he knew he didn’t
deserve it.

He brushed a gentle kiss across her forehead as she stepped
past him.

* * *

Thad handed over the scepter to his brother.

Alec gave him a wry smile. “I was shot and tortured for this.”
He rolled it between his hands, inspecting the crown-shaped head.

“Keep it safe.” Ravenous, Thad peeled a banana and took a bite.
“Has anything happened while I
was gone?”

Levi cleared his throat. “My father’s been looking into
Octavian’s holdings. He forwarded me a list of some of the companies Octavian
controls.”

Thad took the sheaf of papers from his sister’s fiancé and
flipped through them, spotting the name of his satellite phone provider. He
shared his suspicions with the others. “Octavian’s men caught up to me the
moment I got my hands on the scepter. I figured he must have tracked me through
my phone, but I didn’t know how.”

“If he owns the satellites, which it appears he does, he could
follow your phone with tremendous precision,” Levi confirmed.

“I’ve taken the battery out. Will that stop him?”

“It should.”

“That’s something, at least. What time is it?”

“Nearly
seven o’clock.” Stasi consulted a bracelet-style watch
on her wrist. “We have just over five hours until the exchange. Why don’t you go
take a shower? You look terrible.”

Thad caught his reflection in a mirror hanging on the opposite
wall. His sister was right. He didn’t want his little boy to see him for the
first time looking like this. Peter was already likely to be
frightened enough.
“I’ll take a quick shower and change clothes. Then I want to meet back
here.”

“To plot our strategy?” Alec clarified.

“Yes.” Thad swallowed. He’d told Monica he was tired of
hiding—from her, and from God. “And to pray.”

* * *

Monica fought against the heavy veil of sleep. She
needed to protect Peter. She needed to support Thad. There wasn’t
time for rest.
Granted, they’d put her under while they reset the bone in her arm, but she’d
roused enough to drink a sip of something fruity her mother had held for her.
Surely an hour or more had passed. She needed to get back to the palace. She
couldn’t be late.

What was happening now?

Opening her eyes with effort, Monica looked around the small
recovery room
for any sign of her parents. Where were they?

Had they left her? They wouldn’t leave her alone—not unless
something more important had come up. But what could be more important at this
point? Only the exchange with Octavian, but that wasn’t until noon.

Wait—what if it
was
noon already?
She’d told her parents of all that had happened, and stressed the importance of
getting back to the palace well ahead of noon. Surely her parents hadn’t left
her to rest and miss the exchange!

A jolt of fear shot through her, and she opened her eyes
wide.

There was someone in her room after all. With effort, Monica
managed to turn her head slightly to one side. The broad-shouldered figure
reminded her of Thad, but she quickly realized it wasn’t
him.

“General Petrela?” Her voice sounded surprisingly weak.

He’d brought a wheelchair in and parked it next to her bed. “I
told you earlier you need to trust me. We have to go.”

“Without my parents? Where are they? Where are we going?”

Suddenly he reached for her, and she instinctively pulled away,
but his arms encircled her in spite of her feeble resistance. Was
he trying to
kidnap her?

“You had the chance to come nicely. I don’t have time to
explain.”

Still groggy, Monica pushed at him, and tried to protest, but
the general covered her mouth with a scented cloth like the one her kidnappers
had used when they’d taken her during her morning run. No! She held her breath
and tried to fight, to cry out, to stop him from
taking her away. Then she
choked on her breath and everything went dark again.