Stranded with the Prince Page 14

  “There’s no need for this. We can both walk off this island,” Lazlo said, trying to reason.

  “Me walking in chains?” The man shook his head.

  “What do you want?” Lazlo pretended that he was willing to negotiate.

  “You give back the radio and toss me the gun. And I’ll let your girlfriend live.”

  Lazlo’s blood ran cold. Then reason gained the upper hand. Roberto had to be bluffing. The overhang at Painted Rocks protected their shelter. Finding it was nearly impossible unless someone knew exactly where it was.

  “She looked pretty sick. You better hurry.” The man sneered.

  And Lazlo knew that he spoke the truth. He wouldn’t know that Milda was sick unless he’d seen her. And if he’d seen her…

  The gun jerked in Lazlo’s hand before he steadied it. “What have you done to her?”

  “LAZLO!” MILDA SCREAMED again, her face pushed up into the gap above her. It wasn’t big enough for her to stick her head out and see, but she figured her voice carried better if she shouted straight through the hole. Still, there was no response. She’d been shouting for so long that her voice was hoarse; but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t give up, even knowing that the surrounding trees trapped the sound, and that he would only hear her if, for some reason, he accidentally came this way.

  And they never came to this part of the island. The valley was locked between two hills, without a view of the beach. It was too far from their shelter at Painted Rocks, too far from the creek.

  She lay down on the bottom to catch her breath. Her fingertips were bleeding, her arms sore from the effort she’d been putting into moving the stone lid, to no avail.

  She was buried alive, in a two-thousand-year-old coffin. And it was definitely some kind of sarcophagus. Enough sunlight filtered through for her to see the images carved along the walls. These were not as eroded by the weather as the ones outside. Faces of ancient gods and funeral processions decorated every inch.

  Thank God, the grave robbers who’d long ago stolen anything that might have been valuable had also taken the body. At least she wasn’t lying on someone’s dry bones. But being locked in still freaked her out in every possible way.

  The lid seemed immovable. Even Roberto could only shift it by using a branch for leverage. She had no tool to help her. However, she’d had some time to rest now. And her stomach was no longer as sick as the day before. She felt some of her strength returning.

  She certainly had plenty of time to think. What could she use to help herself? There was absolutely nothing in there, save some dry leaves. She was looking straight up through the gap as she racked her brain. She saw storm clouds above and wished it would rain. Then she could push her face in the gap and drink.

  Then another thought occurred to her. If they had one of those Mediterranean downpours, could water fill up the sarcophagus? She didn’t fancy drowning.

  Like she didn’t have enough to worry about already.

  Adrenaline shot through her, jump-starting her thinking. Maybe she could use her legs. Her leg muscles were much stronger than the ones in her arms. According to a Pilates teacher client of hers, the thigh muscles were one of the strongest in the human body. Milda bent her knees and set the bottom of her feet against the lid, then thought better of it and took off her sandals, thinking that she might be able to get better traction barefoot.

  She pushed. Grunted. Nothing. She doubled her efforts until her thigh muscles burned and she felt like her bones were going to snap under the strain. When she thought she couldn’t possibly keep up the effort any longer, she pushed harder yet. And then the stone lid moved, even if it was a small fraction of an inch.

  Unfortunately, that small movement tilted the corner at the top into the sarcophagus. She caught her breath, desperately trying to support the weight, knowing she didn’t stand a chance. But an inch or so below the top, the edge of a carving inside caught the slab.

  Not that she could afford a sigh of relief.

  That miniscule ledge wasn’t going to hold a slab that weighed a ton. Not for long. In fact, she could already see the stone cracking.

  And when that chunk broke, the lid would slide lower, tipping in. Sweat rolled down her face, her throat going dry, her heart racing as she realized that all that weight could come down on her at any moment.

  “Lazlo!” she screamed, hoping more than ever that he’d be in time to save her.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Take me to her.” Lazlo pointed his gun straight at Roberto’s heart.

  The thought of Milda being tied up somewhere in the woods, hurting and scared, was unbearable. As many times as he had tried to cajole, threaten or bribe her into going back home in the past five months, now he had a hard time picturing his life without her. Along the way, she had become a constant in his life. He might have even enjoyed their game of trying to outplay each other, their verbal sparring, her wry humor, the way she never gave up, not for a second.

  “You will take me to her immediately.”

  “And if I don’t?” Roberto sneered. “You’ll never find her without me.” Then he repeated his own demands. “Put down your gun and step away from it. Por favor, señor,” he mocked.

  And after a long moment, Lazlo nodded. He lowered the gun, but then brought it back up again immediately, shooting for Roberto’s right wrist. Except that Roberto must have expected some move on Lazlo’s part, because the man dove to the side, squeezing off a shot of his own.

  But he dove exactly the wrong way.

  Lazlo lunged toward the falling body, swept the gun out of Roberto’s limp hand. Blood ran out of the man’s chest, from the bullet hole that went straight through his heart.

  Time stopped as he watched that bright blood running down the man’s clothes.

  “Where is she?” Lazlo demanded as dark fear rose inside him, fear the likes of which he hadn’t known existed. He’d always prided himself on being the cavalier, easygoing prince. Professional racing had been taken from him, so he’d been determined to enjoy what the rest of life could offer. He wasn’t the type to get worked up over every little thing. Except Milda had gone from being a minor annoyance in his life to something else. She was important to him. The most important thing he ever stood to lose. The realization was staggering.

  So they’d fought in the past. Fought a lot. That didn’t mean she wasn’t his match in every way. “Where is she?”

  Roberto only looked at him with hate in his eyes. He understood that he was dying. He understood it and knew what that meant for Milda. A taunting smile came to his lips.

  Lazlo pressed the heel of his hand against the hole in the man’s chest. “Don’t you dare die, you bloody bastard. You hear me?”

  But as Roberto’s eyes rolled back and his breathing ceased with a violent shudder, he knew the man on the ground would never again hear anything. He stepped away from the body, staring for a moment, trying to wrap his mind around what had just happened. Then he sprung into action.

  He wiped the blood off his hand, caring little about the smears on his pants leg, grabbed the extra gun and shoved it into his belt along with his own. He put away the knife, too, then took the radio from Roberto and turned the dial as he ran toward the Painted Rocks. When he found the security channel he knew was monitored 24/7, he immediately sent a message.

  “This is Phoenix,” he said, using his security code name. Each member of the royal family had one. “I need assistance. I repeat. I need assistance immediately. Over.” No need to give his location. Royal Security would already have that. He couldn’t put it by the Freedom Council that they, too, had somehow found a way to monitor radio transmissions. He didn’t want them to know that he was in trouble and arrive before help did.

  Barely a second passed before the response came. “Roger that. Assistance is on the way. Hang in there, Phoenix. Over.”

  “I need search-and-rescue helicopters. Over.” He ran down the hillside at full speed, small rocks rolling beneath his feet
. He took care not to lose his balance, but no longer needed to worry about making too much noise.

  “You got it. Over.”

  “A full medical team. Over.”

  “Sending it immediately. Anything else? Over.”

  “Hurry. Over and out.” He clipped the handheld unit onto his belt and kept running, a million things crossing his mind. A million ways she could have been hurt. A million fears that he could be too late.

  “Milda!” he shouted every hundred meters or so.

  But no response came.

  He kept himself in good shape, but even so, he was breathing hard by the time he reached their shelter. He’d put everything he had into the mad dash to reach her.

  But the crevice under the overhang was empty. No sign of struggle, no blood. He looked around carefully. No bullet holes in the rocks. That gave him hope. There was a fair chance that Milda was still alive. But where was she?

  He thought of Roberto coming from the valley, and after drinking from their water supplies and grabbing a bottle for Milda, he began running that way. She could be tied to a rock in the punishing heat, for all he knew. He had no idea what kind of shape he was going to find her in.

  He kept calling her name, but didn’t slow until he reached the valley. Here he made a more careful inspection, called her name more often, waited in silence for long minutes, so that he could hear her answer even if her voice was weak.

  Since he hadn’t seen her from his vantage point on the top of the hill when he’d spotted Roberto, he guessed that she might be hidden in the woods, so he searched the thick of the forest first.

  Nothing.

  The thought occurred to him that she might be gagged, which sent a chill down his spine. If she couldn’t respond, it might take days to find her on the island, even with a rescue team. And in this heat without a drop of water…

  He made radio contact again. “This is Phoenix. I want canine rescue, thermal goggles and night-vision goggles. Over.”

  “On the rescue chopper already. Over.”

  “I appreciate it. Over and out.” He kept moving, searching the woods. “Milda!” he called out, over and over again.

  But no response came and he didn’t see any obvious tracks on the ground. Except—

  He bent and picked up a reddish bead he’d thought to be a small pebble at first. Then he looked at it more carefully. And up ahead, on the path made by wild animals, he soon found another. A green one. His heart sped. Milda’s love beads.

  Having to look for them slowed him considerably—they were nearly invisible amid the gravel and fallen leaves, but at least he knew he was going in the right direction, bless her brave heart and her always working brain. The fact that the beads were small and hard to see had worked in her favor. Roberto had never noticed her leaving a trail.

  He followed the beads for over a mile before he could find no more. Was she here?

  “Milda!”

  No response came.

  He searched every nook and cranny within a few hundred feet. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Could be she simply ran out of beads. The more he thought about it, the more likely that seemed. Her bracelet couldn’t last forever.

  Still, she could be here somewhere in the valley. Or Roberto had simply brought her this way, toward some other destination. There were a million hiding places on the island. The caves—not that he knew where they were—those Etruscan wells, the scattered ruins.

  He’d seen ruins near where he’d spotted Roberto coming out of the valley. But where were those ruins now? The trees around him limited his field of vision considerably. He strode as fast as he could to reach higher ground, so he could figure out where, exactly, that he was in relation to those ruins in the valley.

  Twenty minutes passed by the time he reached a high enough spot that wasn’t covered by trees, allowing him to see farther than a few hundred meters. Man-made boulders dotted the landscape up ahead, to the east. That was all he needed to know. He was on his way.

  The sound of several choppers came from the air before he reached his destination. He didn’t even pause. He kept pushing forward. He could see one chopper disappear over the hill, probably touching down on the beach.

  He grabbed the radio. “This is Phoenix. Send one rescue team to the valley, to the old ruins. The rest of them should comb the island and keep an eye out for a woman, possibly injured. Over.”

  “Roger that. Over.”

  “Thank you. Over and out.”

  He was at the ruins at last—and realized that he’d made a mistake. The boulders stood in solemn solitude. Nobody was tied to anything here. Any old buildings that might have stood in this place at one point had long ago fallen to the ground, the ruins too demolished by time and weather to hide anyone.

  Anger coursed through him for messing up, for wasting precious time. On the heels of that anger came worry all over again. His gut said he was running out of time. She’d been sick to start with, and dehydrated since she couldn’t keep anything down. She’d been out here for at least three hours now, in this heat. The climate was much different from mainland Valtria, where it was tempered by the presence of the Alps. Here, in the middle of summer and without any protection, a heat stroke was a serious risk.

  He turned to leave, but something slowed him for a second. He saw no hope. “Milda!” he shouted anyway.

  The hillside echoed his voice, nearly drowning out the weak response. “I’m here.”

  Then another frenetic moment came when he couldn’t pinpoint where her voice was coming from.

  “Where are you?”

  “In a sarcophagus.” The words came from behind a boulder.

  He walked in the direction of her voice and spotted a stone chest. That’s when he saw her slim fingers sliding through the crack at the top, and his heart about stopped from the sudden rush of relief. And then he was touching those fingers.

  “I’ll get you out of there. Don’t worry.”

  Milda yelled, “Wait!” at the exact moment he realized the precarious position of the stone top.

  Sweat beaded on his upper lip. From the gouge in the inside carvings, it was obvious that the lid had tipped in at one point and was slowly sliding toward Milda. If he’d gotten here any later, she would have been crushed to death. And that could still happen if he made the wrong move.

  “Okay, I see it.” He needed to lift that corner before he could do anything else.

  “Get a strong branch,” she suggested. “For leverage.”

  One lay by his feet, but it was too short.

  “I’ll be back.” He darted across the uneven ground to the edge of the woods and immediately found a branch that was the right length, but too old and worm-eaten. It easily broke into pieces as he tested it.

  “Hurry,” came her voice from behind him, too weak for his liking.

  “I’m working on it.” He grabbed a sapling and heaved, straining his muscles to the tearing point. But he did pull the thing up, roots and all.

  He wedged it under the top as soon as he got back to the stone coffin, leaned on the free end with all his weight. The top barely moved a millimeter. The sapling was too young, bending easily.

  “I’ll help,” Milda grunted as scraping sounds came from below.

  “Don’t hurt yourself.” He applied as much power as he could, feeling the veins in his temples bulging.

  At last, the top came up a full centimeter. Twenty more and they would be in the clear. “Push again,” he instructed.

  And Milda did.

  A helicopter hovered above, dropping a line some distance away from them. He would have radioed to tell them to bring the line closer so he could tie the stone slab to it, but he couldn’t let up pressure now, or the slab would definitely fall on Milda. He kept all his focus on her, fighting for every precious centimeter, barely paying any attention to the men who slid toward the ground from the hovering chopper.

  Then the slab was up and supported over the side. He collapsed against the stone coffin, his lun
gs heaving for air. Milda was panting below. He could only see part of her face. Although the lid was up now, she was still trapped inside.

  “Need a hand with that?” Istvan said as he came running. “How the hell did she get in there? What happened here?”

  “Careful.” He didn’t want his brothers rushing in to rescue her, with that wild thirst of adventure that ran deep in the blood of each. And they didn’t understand the precarious position Milda was in. “I’ll explain later.”

  “Take it easy.” Benedek, his twin, came to stand next to them. “This is a very unstable situation.” Assessing that fact only took a glance. He wasn’t the best architect in the country for nothing. “Nobody touch anything until I have a look and figure something out.”

  Janos and Arpad came last. The brothers exchanged glances. For the first time in a long time, the Brotherhood of the Crown, a secret society of some historical significance, was together again.

  And Lazlo relaxed a small degree.

  One order after another came from Benedek, until he had everyone aligned to his liking. “When I say push, try to push and lift at the same time.” He looked at the slab again, running his fingers over it. “I don’t think the stone is going to crack, as long as we do this right.”

  Lazlo drew his lungs full. “We better work this right, then,” he added.

  Benedek took his place. “Push.”

  At first nothing happened. Then the stone wobbled. Milda let out a startled yelp. But eventually, between the six of them, the stone lid slid aside at last.

  Then he was pushing his brothers out of the way and scooping her out of there. She was sweaty and dirty, her hair wild, her eyes squinting against the harsh morning light. She was the only woman he wanted, the only one he would ever need.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and buried her face in the crook of his neck. It was a small gesture of trust, but that she would seek comfort from him made his heart soar. This was what he wanted—to hold her and protect her forever.

  Istvan brought over the stretcher the chopper had lowered. She looked up, cringed. And Lazlo shook his head. “I’ll carry her to the beach.” He didn’t want to let her out of his arms for a second.