Catastrophic Attraction - Eve Langlais Page 0,12
the curled-up shape of his daughter.
“How did she get there?” He frowned and glanced at the ceiling. Cast out his senses and located the panicking guards who’d just realized the princess was missing. Two remained behind to toss the room; the other pair came running to tell him. Tell him what? That they never even knew she was gone?
“The little princess is smart. When the other golem came through the window, she went right for the ventilation shaft.”
“What other golem?” he almost bellowed.
The door to his room slammed open, and the guards, faces flushed, blurted, “Your Highness.”
He never let them finish. “I have the princess. Get out and fetch Titan. Now!”
They did an about-face and ran.
“Don’t yell at them. Not their fault you and the kid sleep in rooms with no bars. Might as well hang out a sign. Come and get your tasty bait.” Casey shook her head.
The scowl on his face was because she was right. He’d been foolish. He’d have bars installed on all the windows before the day was done. He moved to gaze at his daughter, looking for signs of injury. She slept too hard to be natural. “She was drugged.”
“She was. You got the monster with the mental dampener and she got the one with the sleepy time spell. At least she got away and made it to safety before falling asleep.”
“And the golem?” he asked.
She snorted. “Are you really going to ask?”
“How did she get there?”
Casey pointed to a spot on the wall near the floor where a grill sat half open. “Through that.”
“A ventilation shaft?” The very idea she’d wedged herself in the walls almost stopped his heart.
“Smart little princess. She hightailed it in there, and it was too small for the golem to follow. Me, too.” She grimaced down at her body.
It drew his eye to her trim figure in her slim-fitting ensemble. He once more glanced at his daughter nestled in the wardrobe. “How did you know she’d come to my room? She could have gone anywhere in the castle.”
“I asked myself, where would the princess go to feel safe? Which means you got lucky.”
“Why lucky?”
“Because if her daddy isn’t the first person she seeks when in trouble, then maybe that man shouldn’t be king.”
A threat. From a woman who barely reached his chin.
A woman he’d let believe, for the moment, that she dealt with someone benign. She’d soon learn. Except when he poked at her mind, he got nothing. His daughter he could feel. The guards in the hall, too, if he stretched, but not the woman right in front of him.
How was she blunting his power? He focused, ready to blast her with it—
“Meow.”
Sachi rose from the clothes by Charlotte and stretched. He’d never even noticed her tiny body in there. She leapt from the cabinet and wound herself around Casey’s legs. She even purred, which calmed him.
Casey looked down. “There’s a cat in your room.”
When she raised the knife with intent, he yelled, “Don’t you dare kill her.”
That brought a smirk. “Wasn’t planning to.”
He frowned. “Was this another test?”
“Maybe.”
“And how many more are you going to make me pass?”
She shrugged. “As many as it takes.”
“I don’t need your approval.”
“Actually, you kind of do.”
“Or what? What will you do if you don’t like me?”
“Finish what the golem started.” She sounded brash. Tough. But he had to wonder. Was it all bluff?
Since he couldn’t peek inside her mind to find out, he asked, “If you’re such an expert assassin and judge of character, then how is it the Emerald queen lived so long? By all accounts, she was a true despot. Yet, you, a citizen of Emerald, never killed her.”
Casey’s lips truly stretched as she smiled. “Because, unlike you, she didn’t leave herself so open. She lived in a domed city guarded by Centurions. She rarely left, and when she did, it was under guise.”
“I don’t intend to live like a prisoner in my own home.”
“Then you shouldn’t have become king. Kings will always have enemies.”
“Are you my enemy?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” The arrogance was stunning.
Sexy, too. Unlike many around him, she didn’t fawn or even seem impressed.
The door slammed open, and Titan rushed in, frazzled, wild eyed, and flushed.
“Roark, I heard about Char—” Titan paused as he took them in, standing close enough to show they conversed. “Casey? How did you get in here? What’s going on?”
“Just meeting my new boss,” Casey advised. “And doing what I was asked to do. Guarding the princess.” She jerked a thumb