A Guiding Light Read online

  “Draft it, show me where to sign,” she ordered.

  Ian cleared his throat. “I’ll ride shotgun on Veronica’s filing. Mark me down as a supporter of her claim and an executor of justice. If I can get a shot at the bastard, I’ll fry him to a crisp on her behalf. As a supporter of her claim, if I land the kill, it counts as hers.”

  “Easily done. Any other clauses you’d like included?”

  “Can I sign to verify that I’m in partnership with her filing?” I asked.

  “Of course, sir. That would definitely help streamline approval.”

  “Also verify I’m in support of that marriage claim. Perhaps underline that.”

  “While that’s not necessary to include in the filing, I’ll include your mutual interest in marriage.”

  Dr. Stanton chuckled. “At least there’s some good coming out of this mess.”

  Truer words had never been spoken, and I hoped that things wouldn’t get worse before they got better, although I expected they would.

  They always did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It took Daniel almost an hour to draft the second filing, and as though the world held its breath waiting to see what would become of North Dakota’s rebellion, the five approvals Veronica needed came within ten minutes of Daniel submitting the paperwork.

  Montana led the charge, New York came a close second, Alaska offered to send its queen to help knock heads together, California offered to send a collection of agents to help with the transition, and Hawaii surprised us all, confirming it had five agents on the way to assist and bring an notarized copy of both approved filings.

  “Hawaii’s approval might be the most valuable one of all,” Daniel admitted. “Its branch of the RPS is stellar, it has a history of refusing to become involved with petty issues, and when it decides to throw its weight around, it means business. Hawaiian approval will send a very clear message—and Hawaii has authorized their response to be broadcast through North Dakotan media.”

  “For however long the media remains online before the king censors them,” I replied. “Dr. Stanton? How long will it take to get the documentation to the news outlets?”

  “Less than five minutes. Can you email me the material to be sent to the media, Daniel?”

  “On it.”

  Stifling a yawn, I leaned against Veronica, contemplating if I wanted to stretch out on the couch, which would involve evicting Ian. Deciding it was too much effort, I relaxed against her while she used my laptop, browsing websites for the latest news on the developing rebellion.

  “You’re about ready for your next dose of painkillers, aren’t you?” she asked, stopping her work to ruffle my hair. “You’ve had a rough time of it lately. After this mess is over, it’ll get better, I promise.”

  “How is me having to run an entire kingdom better?”

  “I’d be helping you do it.”

  “That’s a very good consolation prize, but I’m still going to be saddled with running the kingdom.”

  “You’ll be able to handle it.”

  “I can probably even handle it with minimal whining, too.”

  “Some whining is allowed. You’ve been displaced a lot since this started. You probably thought you were off the hook. Well, you were wrong. You were never off the hook. I was just biding my time before I could claim you.”

  Ian sighed. “If you’re going to flirt, can you wait until after I leave? Please? Hey, Zach? When do we get to leave, anyway?”

  The RPS agent didn’t look amused. “You don’t get to leave. At best, you’ll be relocated down the hall. We’re still working out the logistics. The riots have intensified enough it’s not safe to move.”

  “Anything else we should know that the media isn’t telling us?” the New Yorker complained. “I’m going to die of boredom. Peter, tell Zach I’m going to die of boredom if I have to stay penned in here. If they start flirting, I’ll lose my mind.”

  “I miss having privacy,” I complained.

  Ian sighed. “Me, too.”

  Veronica regarded us with a cool disdain. “Anything else you’d like to get off your chest, Ian? How about you, Adam?”

  “These bruises.”

  “Don’t get shot again, then. Ian?”

  “I’m really good at lighting things on fire. We have approval. Let’s go light something on fire.”

  “Burning the castle down should be a last resort, not the opening volley,” Veronica replied, shaking her head. “Be serious.”

  “I am being serious. We have approval. Let’s go deal with your father so you and Adam can get on with your lives and get this rebellion under control. The sooner it ends, the less damage there’ll be to your infrastructure. The castle is as good as razed. That’s just reality. The people aren’t going to be happy until they get their way. The castle is the physical representation of the rulership. It’s going to burn. It would be better if we’re the one burning it, that way, when you rebuild it later, you’ll likely have more public support for the project. Also, it’ll be easier to get approval for the project if you broke the castle giving them what they want.”

  “No,” every RPS agent in the room announced.

  Their immediate denial broke me, and I gave up on any pretense of dignity and stretched across Veronica’s lap, laughing so hard I hiccupped.

  “Don’t worry about it, Your Highness,” Dr. Stanton said, her tone amused. “As you thought, he’s due for his next dose of painkillers and is likely overtired. It wouldn’t go amiss if you were to feed him dinner, evict the New Yorker to his own room, and get him tucked into bed. I was initially going to suggest he meet with his parents tonight to do basic testing for his talent and see if we need to take precautions, but it might be wise to wait until the morning.”

  Veronica sighed. “It’s probably better to do it tonight. He’ll get anxious.”

  The thought of being in the same room with my parents was enough to make me sweat. I took several deep breaths to control my reaction. “Can I delegate this? Ian can be my double for this.”

  “As I said, he’ll get anxious. Just get it over with. You can’t avoid them forever, Adam. They’re a part of the elite court. They’re going to be underfoot. They’re not going to hurt you, not with me around,” Veronica promised. “I might not have much in the way of offensive talents, but I pack a punch. They aren’t stupid enough to cross me.”

  “She means a literal punch. Usually, she’s this quiet, perfect princess, but then she loses her temper and plays a nasty game of fisticuffs. If she looks mad enough to hit you, retreat.”

  “Maybe if you hadn’t kept running your mouth, Ian, I wouldn’t have had to knock the sense back into you.”

  “As I said, if she looks mad enough to hit you, retreat.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Fine, I’ll deal with my parents, but I get to pick dinner tonight.”

  Everyone glared at me, and Dr. Stanton sighed. “Can I talk you into a potato to go with your steak?”

  I wasn’t going to ask how she’d guessed I was going to ask for steak, and I considered her request. “If it’s covered in butter, cheese, bacon, and sour cream, you have a deal.”

  Plans never worked out, although I didn’t mind failure when it involved napping with my head pillowed on Veronica’s lap. While certain coherency had been a requirement for meeting with my parents, I had no objections to my unwanted dessert of tiny white pills knocking me flat. Veronica enjoyed running her fingers through my hair almost as much as I did, right up until she located the spot where the back of my head had smacked into the mall floor.

  My yelp startled her along with everyone else, and if the tender spot she’d touched hadn’t sparked a headache, I might’ve been amused by the RPS agents and their vehement cursing.

  “Adam?”

  The alarm in Veronica’s voice helped ignore the sting her touch caused. “I’m fine. While I’m hardheaded, I think the floor won this round.”

  “Shit.” Veronica prodded the spo
t she found. “There’s definitely a bump. Dr. Stanton? Is there supposed to be a bump?”

  “I was worried he might have a concussion when I saw the video, but he hasn’t demonstrated any significant symptoms. Getting him to a hospital right now for scanning won’t be easy—and would make him an easy target. He’s probably fine, but we’ll keep an eye on him.”

  “You sound more coherent now,” Veronica murmured, returning to running her fingers through my hair, careful to avoid the tender spot. “Your parents are here. We’ve been discussing your potential talents. They reviewed the video, and your father confirmed it’s probable you’ve inherited his talent. He’s also concerned you inherited your mother’s, too. His talent never produces the equivalent of localized earthquakes, and we’ve gotten several confirmations there were tremors. That’s something your mother can do. Dr. Stanton took your other suppressor off; she’s giving it to Marshal, and since you’ve had a flare, she wants to see how you react without the suppressor again. She brought the incremental set if you need it, since you’re more sensitive to your talent being suppressed than my brother is.”

  “Ain’t that just fucking spectacular.”

  “And dangerous,” my father said. “We’re here to make sure you don’t hurt yourself or others.”

  I tensed, and Veronica shifted her hand to the back of my neck, her grip both massaging and keeping me from launching off the couch to find the nearest escape route. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “I was going to shoot your woman with a blank to see what you’d do, but after seeing the video, I decided against it. We’re going to do a different experiment to confirm whether you have your mother’s talent. Before you get upset and complain, it’s necessary. If you are confirmed to have your mother’s talent, you need to start training it. It’s unlikely you’ll have a strong talent, not developing this late, but it doesn’t take much to make your mother’s talent dangerous at best. Mine’s dangerous enough, but I need to be more proactive in its use. Frankly, you shouldn’t have been able to redirect bullets without training; I can do it, but I’ve been practicing for a long time, and I go to the gun range to keep my skills honed. You don’t have that benefit.”

  “Avoiding accidental detonation of explosives is important,” my mother added.

  I considered going back to sleep to avoid the conversation with my parents. Discussing fledgling talents—the same talents that had lost me Veronica in the first place—was last on my list of things I wanted to do in my life, but I lacked any choice in the matter.

  However much I disliked it, they were right. Their talents numbered among those needing to be carefully controlled. Creating a disaster because I wanted to avoid them wasn’t something I’d be able to live with. Sighing, I lurched upright, shook my head and rolled my shoulders, and grimaced at the creak of my stiff joints.

  Veronica scooted closer, nudging me until I turned so she could massage my neck and shoulders. If given a choice, I would’ve slumped back onto the couch and let her do whatever she wanted with me, but the presence of an audience kept me seated upright. “Please tell me there’s a very short crash course on how to avoid accidental detonations so I can go back to sleep.”

  Laughing, Veronica dug her fingers into my shoulders and worked the muscles, hard enough I grimaced. “You’re so cranky when you’re tired. You’re going to need a chiropractor at the rate you’re going.”

  “What’s another doctor added to the mix? Instead of a financial monopoly, I’m going to hoard physicians.”

  “And you seem to develop an odd sense of humor when you’re tense.”

  My mother dropped onto the nearby armchair with a grunt, propped her feet onto the coffee table, and stretched. “I’m going to be blunt and honest with you, Adam, and you’re not going to like a single word I’m about to say. The longer I think about it, the happier I am you were kicked out when you were young and impressionable. Had you stayed, it’s entirely possible you would’ve become an equal tyrant to the bastard on the throne. No offense meant to you, Veronica.”

  “None taken. It’s better he hears, and while I dislike having been separated from him, I agree with you. My father’s toxic. He’s been trying to get me to become his loyal puppet for years. If he hadn’t sent Adam away, he might’ve gotten what he wanted.”

  As the thought had occurred to me, I shrugged. “I understand that. I’m angry, not unreasonable.”

  Veronica snorted. “You can be quite unreasonable, Adam. And you’re not even all that angry. You’re anxious and a little annoyed. My father? Now he makes you angry. You’re understandably hesitant and untrusting, but you’re not angry.”

  Had I been a wiser man, I would’ve recognized a woman on her own was dangerous, but that when they ganged together, they were a formidable foe, one I had little chance against. I wasn’t sure what Veronica’s goal was, but I hesitated long enough to think about it.

  She was right.

  Her father made my blood boil. My parents just made me want to retreat and hide beneath a bed.

  “Which one of you is the latent empath? I have words for you,” I complained.

  My parents pointed at each other.

  “Seriously? Seriously? Both of you?”

  My father stepped forward to stand behind my mother’s armchair, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Magic has a mind of its own, I think. Unlike you with Veronica, your mother and I weren’t exactly friends when we married. We made it work, and over time, that changed. Maybe we just wanted to make the most of our situation. Hell, maybe we just wanted to beat the odds and be happy. We only have enough of an empathy talent to bond. On a good day, we can pick up only the strongest of emotions from each other. When you bonded to Veronica from day one, we thought you’d be all right. We had no idea the king would go mad from his ambition. We don’t like what happened, but of all the options, it might’ve been for the best.”

  If I spoke, I’d say something I’d ultimately regret, so I kept my mouth firmly closed. My parents being bonded, however weak, changed nothing while changing everything. In time, if they stuck around, we might even come to an understanding.

  As a teenager and young adult, I hadn’t considered if my parents had hidden motivations for ensuring I stayed out of sight and out of mind. The thought of their talents in the king’s hands worried me enough I could almost forgive them for what they’d done—no, what they’d allowed to have happen.

  The king had forced their hand, but the more I thought about it, other reasons had ensured their cooperation. I was their son, but if I developed their talents to full strength, I would’ve become a weapon for the king’s use.

  I could think of many ways the king could use the threat of my parents’ talents to threaten others.

  “All right,” I conceded. “The king having your talents under his control wouldn’t be good. You’re terrifying enough on your own. One person with both of your talents is…” I shrugged. “Unwise at best. What sort of idiot would want you two having a kid?”

  My mother sighed, lifted her hand, and massaged the bridge of her nose. “Your grandmother on my side of the family wanted a business arrangement with your grandfather on your father’s side of the family. Your grandfather thought it would be interesting if there was a viable offensive talent in the family line, one outside of the royals. It would’ve put the North Dakotan elite in a better bargaining position. None of us anticipated that the king would actually want you for Veronica. Since you’d bonded with her from the first time you saw her, we didn’t want to run any risk of you being separated, so we agreed to the betrothal. What we didn’t want to happen did; the king became impatient to further secure his hold on the throne. He’s always viewed his own children as a threat to his reign. You didn’t cooperate in the way he wanted—you were simply too serious about being a good king for Veronica, so he couldn’t control you.”

  “Of course I was serious!”

  My mother arched a brow, angled her head so she could give m
e her worst look over her hand, and replied, “Adam, from the day you discovered reading, you were an insufferable bookworm with a perfectionist streak. The thought of disappointing Veronica was enough to make you sick, and frankly, young man, I’d rather not have to clean up vomit from my carpets ever again. Unfortunately, for some reason I still can’t fathom, we thought it was a good idea to have more children. When you have children, you will discover for yourself the wonders of vomit.”

  My face burned red at my mother’s blatant revelation over my childhood anxieties. “Mother!”

  “He got so anxious he threw up?” Veronica demanded, and her eagerness, probably to learn more about my every failing, shivered through me. “That explains so much. Dr. Stanton? I don’t think those anxiety issues have gone away.”

  “Positive reinforcement through your bond should help resolve many of his anxiety issues, but if you really think he needs yet another specialist, I’ll look into it. It isn’t uncommon for monarchs to develop anxiety, although they usually wait until after their coronation to have substantial troubles. Agent Porter?”

  Daniel shook his head. “Our normal protocol isn’t an option right now. Once this issue is resolved, I’ll send you the RPS guidelines on how we deal with anxiety and psychological issues in monarchs. Of course, it’s Montana’s policies, but I can pull down the policies for other kingdoms if you’d like. I suspect North Dakota’s guidelines are below par.”

  “Obviously,” my doctor muttered. “Assuming Her Royal Highness agrees, I’m going to permit the one test to confirm if Adam has your talent, Mrs. Penshire. As you’re aware of the potential consequences, you’ll be responsible for any damages to the hotel. Please try to keep the experiments harmless, but I’m aware another flare is a possibility.”

  “A rather high one,” my mother replied, her tone wry. “The beads I’ll use don’t have much explosive capability, but should they detonate, I’m afraid you’ll lose some hair and might get some minor burns. We’ll use earplugs as a precaution, Your Highness.”