Her Last Protector

Drew responded to the name as if it were his own. In the ways that mattered, the name was his. The man once known as Drew Canady had become a ghost from another lifetime. A life so long gone, he had almost forgotten. Almost. Not quite.

Turning, he watched the grizzled old man muscle through the crowd, broad shoulders forging a path through the mourners, face split with a gap-toothed grin. The logger, a man named Vlas, had befriended Drew back when he had been a stranger among strangers in this mountain village of Alba Luncă.

“You guard the princess as closely as you once guarded a lighthearted girl.” Vlas clapped Drew on the back.

Drew glanced at the woman walking behind the casket cart—graceful and dressed head to toe in white, from the fur ushanka on her head to the hiking boots on her feet. She looked appropriately austere for a funeral, colorless but for the flushed cheeks and wisps of caramel-colored hair lifting on the wind, her expression as brittle as the weather.

“That’s what they pay me to do.” His breath clashed with the morning air in a frigid burst.

Princess Mirela of Ninsele hadn’t been that lighthearted girl for a very long time.

Not since the years before his princess had come out of hiding. One minute she had been the girl he’d been hired to protect, a girl who loved to run barefoot through the meadows in spring.

Now she was the ruler of this mountain kingdom, and a very desirable woman. When he looked at her, he didn’t see Princess Mirela, last royal of the House of Selskala. He saw past the woman who engaged the media with intelligence and grace, who handled foreign diplomats skillfully and didn’t retreat when facing revolutionaries and thugs who would bully her to sidestep justice. He didn’t see the woman the media had nicknamed “Mirie of Alba Luncă,” a princess who had long hidden among commoners.

Drew saw only the laughing woman he had devoted so many years to protecting.

The woman who rarely made an appearance anymore.

He didn’t share the thought with Vlas, who had once been a friend. Long ago, he and the old logger had stood around the bonfire in the square, sharing opinions and flasks of făţată. Now they trudged uphill in an early-morning funeral procession. Nearly a mile of icy dirt road. In minus-twelve degree weather. The people of Alba Luncă were Spartans.

At least Drew wasn’t carrying the casket or digging the grave in frozen earth. He had retreated far enough to assess the procession perimeter but still had his eyes on his target. He had been in lockstep with Mirie for more than fifteen years. “The princess seems pleased to be back,” Vlas said.

Drew wouldn’t go that far. Mirie was burying her nanny, the woman who had saved her life during a coup when the royal family was executed. Geta Bobescue had hidden the eight-year-old princess in this obscure village. With the help of a retired royal guard, she protected Mirie during the decade-long civil war and prepared her for the day the dictator was overthrown. That day had come six years ago. Mirie had been plucked from Alba Luncă and taken to the capital city of Briere to rule her kingdom.

She hadn’t been back since.

Geta’s funeral was a bittersweet reason to return. This visit also posed an unnecessary risk. But Mirie hadn’t considered the risk to herself enough reason to forsake the task of burying her nanny.

Fortunately this funeral procession wasn’t a fast-moving train. It wound through the village slowly, people adhering to the crowd like filings on a magnet with each shop they passed, each house and alley. This parade of mourners was intent, like Mirie, upon honoring its dead. And enjoying the charity meal that would come after the burial. That was tradition.

Drew scanned each newcomer and kept a watch on the rooftops, balconies and doorways, assessing potential threats. He needed to get a lock on everyone who ventured near Mirie.

The Ninsele Royal Protection Guard, known as the NRPG, was the branch of military charged with the princess’s protection. Right now guards were posted throughout the village, but once the procession moved beyond the gate, the terrain would be nearly impossible to secure. Drew would be the first line of defense. He was always the first line of defense.

“Her Royal Highness tried to return before Geta died, but it wasn’t possible,” he said. Not with all the preparations to host representatives from the European Commission, who would be arriving in Ninsele in a matter of weeks.

A historic first step that was attracting global attention.

“Geta was at peace. She called the priest and received absolution and the Eucharist. She didn’t expect the princess to return even for the funeral.” Vlas withdrew an envelope from his coat pocket. “This is why I chased you down. And this.” His face split into another grin as he pulled out a leather flask.

Drew accepted the envelope, which had been addressed in a shaky scrawl with the princess’s formal title. Slipping the envelope into the pocket inside his coat’s lining, he asked, “You want me to deliver this letter to Her Royal Highness?”

“Eventually. When you think she is strong enough to be reminded of the past and her losses. Deathbed request.” Vlas took a deep swig after uncorking the flask. “Geta worried about the girl. She told me you would know when best to pass along her words. Give the girl time to grieve.”

Drew scanned the crowd around Mirie again, ready to intervene at any sign of a threat. People were keeping their distance, which made his job easier.

The envelope was sealed. Geta would never burden Mirie without good reason. No one knew better how deeply the loss of her family had affected the young princess.

Drew wished he could allow the contents to remain private, but that wasn’t his choice. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Secrets, Drei? That girl was Geta’s only secret.” Vlas motioned to Drew with the flask. “Go on. It’ll warm you up. She’ll be safe. We protect her as we always have.”

The villagers had done that. In the past when the princess’s existence had been fodder for conspiracy theorists, the people of Alba Luncă had claimed her as their own. Of course they hadn’t known she was a princess. Back then she had simply been a military officer’s daughter orphaned in the coup. That explanation justified the privileges and protection Mirie had enjoyed growing up in a rural village—the additional tutors, the bodyguard.

No one had questioned the facts then, and no one remembered them now. Mirie belonged to Alba Luncă. Period. A princess had lived among commoners. She belonged to these people now even more than she had then. No wonder the paparazzi never left her alone. Mirie’s story had captured the imaginations of a world that wanted to believe in happy endings.

Drew was determined to make sure Mirie got hers.

“As much as I’d like to accept your hospitality, my friend, I’ll have to pass,” he said. “I’ll make sure she gets this letter at the best possible time.”

There would be no good time. Mirie was barely twenty-five years old. She had royal obligation to a country violently split in its regard for the monarchy. Her days were filled with duty as she worked with the Crown Council to win the support of the European Commission to become an acceding country into the European Union and provide Ninsele with a future.

Whether the people wanted that future or not.

Many didn’t, but in a life filled with enemies, the one foe that had gotten close was the one Drew couldn’t fight.

Time.

He glanced at Mirie again, her hand resting on the casket as if she didn’t want her nanny to be alone. Her head was bowed low beneath the fur ushanka, and Drew could tell she was fighting back tears. He wished she’d had the chance to come back and say goodbye one last time.

She might be surrounded by people every moment of every day. Ministers and military officers. People who served. People who clung. People who schemed. People who wanted her to succeed. People who wanted her dead.

But her last connection to family lay in that casket.

Drew understood why Geta had been worried. He also knew why she had wanted him to decide when to turn over the letter. She had faith in his ability to protect Mirie—from physical as well as emotional threats. Protecting Mirie was his job.

One of them, anyway.

But no one in Ninsele knew about his other job. Never once during all these years had Drew given anyone a reason to suspect he wasn’t exactly who he claimed to be.

Drei Timko, Romanian close-protection guard.

No one had any idea that he was actually Drew Canady, a sleeper operative for Excelsior, a United States national security agency.

* * *

“YOU WILL CAST down the branches to mark her passing. You who were loved by her as a granddaughter would be.”

Grateful for this honor, Mirie accepted an armful of fir branches from the village elder council that stood as ceremonial guard around the grave containing Bunică’s casket.

Grandmother.

Geta Bobescue may not have been blood related, but she had become many things to Mirie during their years together. Protector. Confidant. Mentor. Savior in so many ways. Bunică had helped Mirie make sense of the senseless tragedy that had upended her life and helped her find strength. It had been there as promised, buried deep inside. But above all, Bunică had been a last flicker of love when all other flames had sputtered out.

Now she was gone, too.

“Peace, my beloved Bunică,” Mirie whispered.