Carrying The King's Pride. Jennifer Hayward
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alive from that drop. They are working to recover his body now.”
“And Kostas,” Nik grated. “He survived?”
Abram nodded. “He was a car length behind. He saw the whole thing happen.”
A red rage blurred his vision, mixing with the agony that gripped his insides to form a deadly, potent storm. He got up and walked blindly to the windows, the spectacular skyline of Manhattan unfolding in front of him.
All he could see was red.
The clink of crystal sounded behind him. Abram came to stand beside him and pressed a glass of whiskey into his hand. Nik raised it to his mouth and took a long swig. When he had emptied half the glass, his aide cleared his throat. “There is more.”
More? How could there be more?
“Your father took the news of the accident badly. He has suffered a severe heart attack. The doctors are holding out hope he will survive, but it’s touch and go.”
A complete sense of unreality enveloped him. His fingers gripped the glass tighter. “What is his condition?”
“He is in surgery now. We’ll know more in a few hours.”
He lifted the tumbler to his lips with a jerky movement and downed another long swallow. The fire the potent liquor lit in his insides wasn’t enough to make the reality of losing both his father and his brother in one day in any way conceivable. His father was too strong, too vigorous to let such a thing fell him. It could not happen. Not when their estrangement ate at his insides like a slow-moving disease.
He flicked a look at his aide. “The jet is ready?”
Abram nodded. “Carlos is waiting downstairs to drive you to the airfield. I thought you might want to gather some things. I will stay behind and take care of the outstanding details, cancel your commitments, then join you in Akathinia.”
Nik nodded. Abram melted into the shadows.
Alone at the window, Nik looked out at Manhattan sprawled in front of him, his brother’s voice, crystal clear on the phone the night before, filling his head. Athamos had sounded vital, belligerent. Alive. Despite the different philosophical viewpoints he and his brother had held, despite the wedges that had been driven between them in the past few years as Athamos had prepared to take over from his father as king, they had loved each other deeply.
It was inconceivable he was dead.
The sense of unreality blanketing him thickened into a dark fog with only one thought breaking through. He was now heir to the throne. He would be king.
It was a role he had never expected to have, never wanted. He had been happy to allow Athamos to take the spotlight while he did his part in New York to make Akathinia the thriving, successful nation that it was. Happy to keep his distance from the wounds of the past.
But fate had other plans for him and his brother...
Sorrow and rage gripped his heart, engulfing him like the inescapable gale force winds of the meltemia that ravaged the Akathinian shores without warning or mercy. His hand tightened around the glass as the storm swept over him, immersing him in its turbulent fury until all he could see was red.
Abram’s horrified gasp split the air. He followed his aide’s gaze down to his bleeding hand, the shattered remains of the glass strewn across the carpet. The dark splatter that seeped into the plush cream carpet seemed like the stain on his heart that would never be removed.
* * *
Nik reached his father’s bedside at noon the following day. Exhausted from an overnight trip during which he hadn’t slept, worry for his father consuming him, he pulled a chair up to the king’s bedside in the sterilized white hospital room and closed the fingers of his unbandaged hand around his father’s gnarled, wrinkled one.
The king’s shock of white hair contrasted vividly with his olive skin, but his complexion was far too pale for Nik’s liking.
“Pateras.”
Light blue eyes, identical to his own, opened to focus on him.
“Nikandros.”
He squeezed his father’s hand as the king opened his mouth and then closed it. A tear escaped his father’s eyes and slid down his weathered cheek. The weight of a thousand disagreements, a thousand regrets crowded Nik’s heart.
He bent and pressed his lips to his father’s leathery cheek. “I know.”
King Gregorios shut his eyes. When he opened them again, a fierce determination burned in their depths. “Idas will never get what he wants.”
An answering fury stirred to life inside of him. “He will never take Akathinia. But if he is behind Athamos’s death, he will pay for it.”
“It was no accident,” his father bit out. “Idas and his son want to provoke us into a conflict so they can use it as an excuse to swallow us up to cover their own inadequacies.”
He was well aware of the reason Carnelia wanted Akathinia back in the fold, but he sought to keep a rational head. “The grudge between Athamos and Kostas has been going on for years. We need the facts.”
The king’s mouth curled. “Kostas is his father’s errand boy.”
Nik raked a hand through his hair. “The Carnelian military is twice the size of ours. Akathinia is prospering, but we cannot match what they have built up, even to defend ourselves.”
His father nodded. “We have made an economic alliance with the Agiero family to acquire the resources we need. Athamos was to marry the Countess of Agiero to tie the two families together. The announcement was imminent.”
His head reeled. A marriage had been in the works while Athamos had been carrying on an affair with another woman? Why had his brother not mentioned it to him?
His father fixed his steely blue gaze on him. “I will never rule again. You will marry the countess once you are coronated king. Cement the alliance.”
He swallowed hard, all of it too much to process. His father’s gaze sharpened on his face. “You must be a leader now, Nikandros. As strong as your brother was. The time has come to step up to your responsibilities.”
His responsibilities? Hadn’t he been bankrolling this nation with his work in New York? Hadn’t he made Akathinia the talk of the Mediterranean—the place to visit—where almost every one of his people had a job? Antagonism heated his skin. What had it taken, five, six sentences for his father to start drawing comparisons between him and his brother? Unfavorable comparisons.
His father and Athamos had always been in lockstep, their philosophies on life and ruling at polar opposites of his own. He was progressive, rooted in his experiences abroad; they remained stuck in the past, preferring to cling to outdated tradition.
He had always been the afterthought. The prince embedded in New York, quietly building the fortunes of his country while his father and brother took the credit.
His desire to make peace with his father faded on a surge of antagonism. Always it was like this.
The machine at the side of the bed started beeping. Nik lifted a wary eye to it. “You must rest,” he told his father. “You are weak. You need to recuperate.”
His father sank back against the pillows and closed his eyes. Nik released his hand and stood up. To battle the enemy was one thing. Locking horns with his father another campaign entirely. The latter could prove to be a far more stubborn, drawn-out war of wills.
SOFÍ A WAS CONSCIOUS of the fact that chocolate was emotional gratification of the highest level, emotional gratification that would dissipate as rapidly as it left her bloodstream. But since nothing else was working, she was giving it her best