Royal Elite: Leander (8 page)

A long minute passed in silence. Then Chey said, “I will. I'll find him and send him home. Let me go and take care of this.”

“All right. Be careful. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Wynn ended the call and stared balefully at the beautiful forest. The serenity failed to calm her pounding heart. There was no way she was leaving before Leander got here. No way she was flying back to Latvala to wait and see if he lived or died. Nathaniel might not want her at the house, and perhaps he was right in thinking Leander wouldn't want her there, either, but she refused to be anywhere else until she knew Leander's fate.

Striding back to the car, she got on the road heading north. Now that she had a signal, she decided to find the first restaurant, tourist spot or lodging that came along. The second Chey called to tell her Leander was on his way, she would circle back to Nathaniel's and meet Leander there.

She didn't care who liked it.

Leander smudged another bead of sweat away from his temple. As the day grew long, and the sun rose higher, the temperature inched into the low three digits. Kneeling near the same window, he brought the binoculars to his eyes again and took stock of the streets.

Bikes, cars, and pedestrians buzzed along the thoroughfare and sidewalks, resembling a busy bee hive. Many pedestrians, natives of the country, wore headgear or scarves of one type or another to combat the heat. He could imagine how hot it must be in direct line of the sun, considering the sweltering conditions in the shade. Leander wished they could open the windows to provide at least a little breeze, but anyone paying close attention from Kristo's building would notice that kind of change. Considering this structure had been abandoned long ago, the difference might give the game away.

On hold until further notice, all any of the Elite could do was keep a close watch on things.

Scanning the faces in front of the building, Leander ticked his binoculars further down the sidewalk, always on the alert for someone acting suspicious.

What he didn't expect to see, however, was a familiar dark head a block away from Kristo's holding place. His haunches tightened as he raised up two inches to give him a better shot.

The woman—and there was no doubt it was a woman, with the curves contained in her jeans and pressing against a plain tee—turned around, one hand up to shield her eyes. Even past the partial block of the profile, Leander would have known her anywhere.

Chey.

It couldn't be. Four men surrounded her, a casual but alert quartet of guards that Leander recognized from Kallaster castle.

“
Damnit!”
He spit the curse with a vehemence that nearly threw his balance off.

“What's wrong?” Ahsan, who had been also keeping watch out a window while Mattias and Sander patrolled the lower floors, waiting for word, cut a glance toward Leander.

“It's Chey. For the love of
God,
she's down there.” Leander eased to the side of the window, then smoothly rose to a stand. Hearing Ahsan bark a quiet curse, Leander wasted no time creeping through the door and into the hallway, where he felt safer standing upright.

“Sander!” Leander maintained control of the hoarse shout, so the noise didn't penetrate any shattered windows and leak outside, where anyone might hear. He darted along the hallway, then descended the stairs.

No reply. Sander and Mattias were probably all the way on the lowest level.

Boots thudding on the steps, he held on to the binoculars with one hand and kept the other free to snatch a weapon from a holster if need be.

“Sander!” Leander bit back another curse. What the devil was Chey doing
here,
of all places? In one fell swoop, the woman turned the entire operation on its ear. In his mind, he started racing through scenarios. If Chey got too close to Kristo's place of capture, if
Chey
became the captured, if Sander lost his head and got into the line of fire. Separately, he also started coming up with alternate plans for each scenario as he thought of it, so his reaction time would be less.

Hitting the bottom level at a run, Leander speared glances left and right along the hallways. Down here, with the outside world right beyond the walls, he lowered his voice to a hiss. “Sander!”

Rounding out of a room halfway down the hall, body tense and alert, Sander headed his way. In a similar low voice as Leander, he asked, “What?”

Mattias appeared at the far end of the hall, phone to his ear.

“Chey's here,” Leander said once he was in easy speaking distance.

“
What?
What do you mean, Chey's here?” In that instant, Sander's body tensed, hands flexing in and out of fists.

“I saw her through the binos. She's on the damn sidewalk with four guards, about a block down. Did you tell her we were here?” Even as he asked it, Leander knew better. Sander might not go on every mission with the rest of the Elite, but he was highly trained and excellently skilled. He wouldn't make that kind of grave mistake. Not unless it was a part of the grand plan, which Leander would have been told about.

“Of course not. And if I go outside like this, it'll set off Kristo's guards.” Sander's jaw flexed.

“All right, I just got information—what's wrong?” Mattias arrived looking distracted by his call, which promptly changed to concern once he saw Sander's face.

“Chey's here. About a block down on the sidewalk, with four guards,” Sander said, filling Mattias in.

“Why is she here?” Mattias asked.

“We don't know yet, and we're dressed for combat, so we can't just go waltzing out there in front of everyone. I brought a change of clothes, but--”

Sander cut Leander off. “Do it. Go change right now, and get over there as fast as you can. Mattias, stay down here and guard the doors.”

No one asked questions. Leander darted for the stairs and pounded up each flight, Sander right behind him. Time was of critical essence. Should Chey decide to wander toward Kristo's building, all bets and plans for the day were off. They would switch to a recovery mission—for Chey.

Going in low, Leander made his way to his pack, setting the binoculars on the floor. Crouching, he divested himself of belts and holsters and weapons so he could get his vest and shirt off.

“Keep the pants, Leander, we'll have to risk it. There's no time. Just change the shirt,” Sander said, coming in low and hugging the wall. He circled around to Ahsan's left side and eased to a stand.

“She's still in the same spot she was when Leander left,” Ahsan said, looking through a pair of binoculars. “It seems as if they're lost or looking for something.”

Sander brought up his own pair of binoculars and sighted in. “My god. What is she thinking.”

Pulling a gray tee shirt on, Leander stuffed a gun into the back waistband of his pants and added another two magazines to a front thigh pocket. He couldn't go out there unarmed.

Leaving Ahsan and Sander to track Chey, Leander slithered out of the room and bound down the stairs. Pushing open the main level door, he stepped outside. Once in the sun, his entire demeanor changed. Gone was the skulking and sneaking. He walked like he had a right to be there, as normal and unobtrusive as anyone else. Shoulders square, chin level to the ground, he set a brisk but not frantic pace behind the buildings, using the cover to keep hidden until he absolutely had to get in the open. Cutting through an alley a block down, judging that to be roughly where he'd seen Chey last, Leander prepared himself for action.

If all went well, he would have an unharmed Chey in his possession within minutes.

. . .

Wynn curled up in a booth in the Redwood Cafe, a quaint coffee shop catering mostly to tourists. Unable to do anything but wait for Chey's call—and fret over Leander—she sought refuge out of the sun in a place she wouldn't lose her signal. The cafe itself, constructed of redwood (already fallen trees, the cafe management made sure to note) with a metal roof and tables covered with beige linen, was busy with an influx of tourists. Wynn engaged in harmless people watching, one knee jiggling restlessly under the drape of the tablecloth. She couldn't sit still, couldn't stop herself from relentlessly going over her conversation with Nathaniel.

The man wasn't what she'd pictured whenever she'd thought about Leander's father. For one reason or another, she thought of a cunning, sharp looking man better suited to the cover of a GQ magazine than what she'd found at the house deep in the redwoods. Leander was cut from that cloth, of the cunning kind, with stealth and intelligence in spades. He was also handsome enough to grace the cover of any magazine. While she couldn't account for Nathaniel's smarts—she didn't even know what he did for a living—he seemed the polar opposite of Leander. Quieter, less outgoing, prone to seriousness.

In the next breath, she chided herself for making assumptions. People were often not what they appeared on the outside, or on the first meeting. Maybe Nathaniel was more like Leander than she knew.

Picking up her phone from the table top, she checked for messages. Even though it hadn't chimed or beeped at her, she checked anyway. Every hour that went by, Wynn grew a little more nervous. It was another hour closer to the day Leander would no longer be alive.

“Excuse me, Miss. Would you like a refill on your coffee?” Red mouthed with short brown hair, the waitress cocked her head expectantly, a stainless steel pot dangling over the table. Over Wynn's forgotten, cold mug.

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” Wynn turned the phone off and gave the waitress what she hoped passed for a polite smile.

“Did you wanna look at the lunch menu yet? Or--”

“Not yet, no thank you. I'm waiting on someone, I hope that's okay.” Wynn felt like she needed to explain her somewhat extended stay in the cafe. Many tourists came and went; few lingered longer than a half hour.

“Wait as long as you want, sweetheart.” The waitress winked, flirting, then sashayed off to make the same offer to another patron at the long bar.

Wynn's bangs ruffled when she exhaled. Her knee twitched and jiggled.

The very last thing she needed was more caffeine.

Wynn picked up the mug anyway.

. . .

A bicycle pulling a short cart full of cabbage nearly ran Leander over. In the nick of time, reflexes honed to a fine point with the surge of adrenaline, Leander twisted out of the way. The biker called back a scathing stream of Turkish and kept going, losing only one cabbage along the way. Five boys with dusty feet, sticks in their hands, dropped their toys and rushed to claim the downed vegetable.

At the curb, Leander brought Chey and her escorts into his sights. She was pretty much in the same spot, hand still shielding her eyes while she scanned the streets and sidewalks. What the hell was she doing?

Waiting for a break in traffic, Leander wandered across, resisting the urge to hurry. The sun beat mercilessly down, forcing heat up from the asphalt that he felt through the soles of his boots.

“Leander!” Chey suddenly spotted him and broke from the circle of guards.

Leander hissed a curse beneath his breath. It was impossible for those holding Kristo to hear Chey this far away, but he cringed inside nevertheless.

Coming up fast, straight on, Leander gently but firmly grasped her elbow and guided her back the way he'd come.

“Don't talk, just walk. Not too fast, act like everything's normal. Whatever you're here for, wait until later to explain.” It took a great amount of effort not to break into a run with the queen of Latvala. “And call off your guards before they give us away,” he said, voice dipping close to a growl. He could see their shadows, hurrying behind like ducks in a row, when he cut a look down and back.

The damn guards were going to blow the whole thing.

“Stay back,” Chey said over her shoulder.

Leander glanced again in time to see the line of men falter at first, then fall back. Nothing conspicuous about that at all, no sir. He muffled his curses as he escorted Chey into the alley, anxious to get her into Sander's care.

And as if thought made the man appear, Sander turned the corner of the alley at the other end, decked out in his black clothing though he'd lost the vest and the obvious weapons. Leander knew Sander wouldn't leave the hotel without some kind of lethal protection, especially without backup.

This was a terrible situation. The king and queen of Latvala in an alley in Ankara, with only him as protection.

Leander hustled Chey along once they'd dipped into shadow, and passed her off to Sander when they were side by side. He turned to check behind and then in front, one hand hovering near his hip. Closer to his weapon. Exposed and in the open, Sander and Chey were now prime targets.

“Sander--”

“Shh. Not now. Let's get under cover,” Sander said to Chey. His tone brooked no argument.

Chey gusted a breath of impatience but said nothing more.

Debris crunched under the soles of their shoes as they traversed the alley to the end. Leander checked behind, then went ahead, taking point coming out into the open. He squinted against the sun, posture once more relaxed, although his muscles were tense and tight.

Leading the way behind the line of buildings, Leander saw movement from the door of their abandoned complex and his fingers twitched with the desire to draw a weapon. Likely it was Ahsan or Mattias there to provide another angle of cover.

Ahsan stepped into the sun, fully dressed and fully armed, holding the door so the trio could slip inside.

Breathing easier, Leander headed for the stairs, leaving Chey to explain to Sander just what she was doing there. Mattias was up on the fourth floor alone, keeping watch of Kristo's building.

“No, wait! Leander!”

Leander paused on the third step and glanced back. “What's up, Chey?”

“What the hell are you doing here, Chey?” Sander said, frowning.

“That's what I've been trying to say. I'm here to get Leander. Or at least give him an urgent message.”

“You came all this way to give him a message? Do you realize what kind of danger you put yourself and those men in?” Sander said, gearing up to the next level of anger.