Taylor was my responsibility until she could take care of herself, and I wasn’t letting her out of my sight until I knew she was safe.
“Put her down on the cot so the doctor can have a look,” our guide directed.
There was no door on the makeshift structure, so I strode right in and put Taylor onto what looked like a clean, sanitary sheet on a cot. An older man stood inside the tent, apparently waiting for his patient.
“Aren’t you the doctor?” I asked as I looked at the man who had come to greet us and escort us to the tent.
“Sadly, no,” he answered from the doorway. “But I wanted to be here when you arrived. I hate the fact that she was hurt while she was on Lanian soil. I approved that exploration. I thought your team would be perfectly safe.”
I stepped away so the doctor could work, but Jax and I watched what was happening from right outside the tent.
I finally studied the man who had brought us here, wondering if he was actually Lanian. The guy sounded like a Brit, but jeans and T-shirt aside, he looked a hell of a lot like… “And who might you be?” I questioned gutturally.
Since Lania was initially made up of a melting pot of people from different countries of origin, not unlike the United States, it was sometimes hard to identify a Lanian strictly by their physical appearance.
However, they had developed a native language, and his accent was most definitely not Lanian.
He grinned. “I’m Crown Prince Niklaos, but please call me Nick. I’m not exactly a fan of formal titles.”
Okay, so he was the Lanian ruler, just like I’d suspected. I’d seen pictures of him, but I’d never seen a live interview.
“It would have been nice if you’d actually gone in to rescue her before she was half dead if you’re that damn sorry,” I snapped.
“I would have, mate, but it’s a big country. We’ve been trying to locate the rebel camp since we got news of the kidnapping. Unfortunately, we still have to do it the old way, and hunt for them, since we don’t have all of the fancy military advances you have in the States. Not yet, anyway. Marshall just called me a few hours ago, and told me to meet you here so we could get the rebel location from you. We’ll deal with them now that you have your last hostage out. I certainly didn’t turn my back on your team. We just didn’t find them soon enough,” Nick said tersely. “It makes me ill just to see her in this condition, and to be sending a dead body back to the States.”
The guy really did sound disgusted, and he was so sincere that I couldn’t really argue with his conviction that he would have tried to rescue my team if he could have done it.
“If you’re Lanian, why do you sound so British?” Jax asked in a cautious voice.
Nick went on to tell us that he’d been educated in the UK, and had spent most of his life there until his father had become unable to rule any longer.
His dad was still alive, but demented, so Nick had returned to Lania to take up his responsibilities several years ago.
“My father had made my mother a promise before she died,” Nick explained. “I was a young child, and she hadn’t wanted me to grow up in the middle of a revolution. So I was sent off to boarding school in the UK, and then to college there.”
The guy was young, probably a few years younger than I was, and he’d already been in charge of an entire nation for several years? “How did it feel to be back in Lania after you’d been gone for so long?” I asked.
Nick let out a sigh. “Confining,” he admitted. “I have to fight against my advisors and the royal council constantly. They were used to working with my father, and most of them still see me as the little prince. My father wanted democracy, but wasn’t so keen on progress. His advisors are the same way. There’s way too many customs that need to be relegated to the past, and much more progress to make, but that’s easier said than done.”
“You’ll get there,” I encouraged. “Maybe it’s time to hire new advisors,” I suggested.
Obviously, Nick had been responsible for trying to modernize the country. Maybe he didn’t have an elite team or the