Chapter 10

“How much of a problem is this going to be? Smithson, I mean. And what is Typhon’s role in any of this?”

“We don’t know that he has a role.” Dimitri looked evenly back at the queen, who was scowling at him. It made her look, if possible, more majestic, but it was still not an expression he enjoyed having leveled at him.

“To quote Kristos, ‘bullshit.’ What aren’t you telling me?” She shook her head to stave off his denial, then checked her watch. “Walk with me. Stefan is getting the guest list from Raptis. If I’d been briefed of this disturbing package in a timely manner and the possibility that anyone under the influence of Typhon was looking to infiltrate the royal court, I could have ensured this party didn’t happen. Now it would seem awkward to cancel it.”

He winced as he followed her out into the hallway, then fell into step alongside her. “King Jasen didn’t want you to be alarmed. There’s been nothing to prove that the box was intended malevolently in any way, or even that it’s attached to Smithson.”

“Nothing except that poor girl’s face. My God, Dimitri, are we actually debating this? I’ve barely met Lauren Grant, but I know the girl maintains her public profile with the severity of a drill sergeant. Yet here she looked like she was about to faint. What has that man done to scare her so deeply?”

Dimitri blew out a long breath. “We don’t know. According to preliminary data, Henry Smithson is a long-time friend of the Grants. He was mentored by Lauren’s father for the first several years of his professional life, and he has been a mainstay at their public events for the past fifteen years. Nothing more.”

“Lauren would have been a child when that started?” She sniffed. “And now he’s romantically attached to her? That’s obscene.”

“We don’t know that either,” Dimitri countered. “From all indications?—”

“Well, she reacted in the manner of someone being stalked, so it’s a pretty good supposition. No.” She shook her head. “Even if his intentions are honorable, even if his affiliation with Typhon is just the whimsy of a billionaire idiot with more money than sense, Smithson is far too old for her. I don’t care how rich he is. And there’s something about this that feels...exceptionally wrong to me. I don’t like it.”

Dimitri didn’t miss the shift in his monarch’s expression, and he kept his face carefully neutral. Queen Catherine was notorious for her matchmaking wiles, but he wasn’t engaged in this assignment to keep the American away from an eager pursuer. And he certainly wasn’t trying to cock-block some idiot future husband for a bored blonde. His dedication was to the royal family, but he had his limits. “Again, so far, we’ve had no proof to link the empty box to Smithson. And it is, in the end, just an empty box.”

“Fair enough.” Queen Catherine huffed in irritation. “It makes me nervous, though. Raptis has attended many state dinners where Smithson was our guest. If Smithson’s on the list for the event tonight, I can’t very well ask Raptis to uninvite the man.”

“And you think he is?” Dimitri felt his blood quicken. If he could see the man in person, he could look for clearer evidence that Smithson was a true Typhon acolyte, beyond just slapping the god’s name on his boats. The sapphires and diamonds. The ink. The brands. Typhon’s followers had grown more discreet over time, but they all had their tells.

“It’s all too likely. Raptis is always interested in currying money. And Smithson has money.” She worried the beaded necklace triple draped around her neck. “Smithson has also been nothing but proper in all his dealings with us. When did he name his yachts—and do they have those names painted on them in any sort of obvious way? If so, that has to be recent. He was here at the New Year celebration, and none of my briefings included that. Typhon himself hasn’t left Olympus, but there are so many monster gods...could one of them have slipped through without us knowing, then breached the borders of O?ros long enough to connect with Smithson?” She waved an agitated hand. “We’ve been distracted since Ari’s disappearance. It could have happened.”

Dimitri grimaced. “I’ll find out.” He hadn’t been here at the New Year’s celebration. He’d been buried in the military with Kristos. At the time, he’d been happy to be away from the royal family, but had that been a mistake? Had he left them vulnerable when they needed him most? “There’s something else, too. I found one of Typon’s monsters in the grotto last night, harassing a nymph.”

“You intervened?” Catherine stopped short, turning to drill him with a glare that brooked no bullshit. “Tell me the nymph was unharmed.”

“I did, and she was. I threw them both in to a pool.”

“Excellent.” She smiled. “But...you’re sure he was a monster god?”

“Very low level, but yes.” Dimitri shrugged. “If it’d been a servant of any of the other gods, I wouldn’t bring it to your attention. But I don’t like the trend here.”

“Agreed. It could be nothing, but it could be something we need to watch.” Catherine started walking again. “You’re going to have to protect Lauren personally, Dimitri. I mean that. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“What?” Dimitri scowled at her profile. “Your Maj?—”

“Oh, dispense with the Majesty nonsense, I beg you. Jasen isn’t here, and I don’t have time for the formality. I’m worried about the girl, and I don’t do well with worry. It’s my least favorite occupation.”

“But I won’t be here long enough to protect her, at least not beyond the event Wednesday. Cyril has me slotted?—”

“And I’m saying that the most important need of this family, at this exact moment, is to avoid a scandal of any sort. Especially since we’ve been catapulted onto the public stage with Kristos and Emmaline’s engagement. All eyes are on us, and on the king. It’s an unexpected boon, but it doesn’t come without its headaches.”

Dimitri shook his head, disbelieving his own ears. “Your Maj—Catherine, I’m a captain of the ONSF, not some kind of hired-out bodyguard.”

“You’ve protected every member of the royal family when the need dictated—and for quite some time.”

“Yes, I have,” he countered. “But Lauren Grant isn’t part of the royal family. She’s a guest in a highly public location. We have people for that.” They turned sharply down another corridor, this one flanked by two attendants who bowed to the queen. She nodded back graciously, then swept forward, picking up her pace.

“We do have people for that,” she said, her words decisive. “And one of those people is you, who, if I am not mistaken, took an oath to be bound to serve whatever your monarch commands. Or did I miss a clause in that arrangement? You did agree to it quite some time ago.”

Dimitri gritted his teeth. Queen Catherine had a way of making the most high-handed request seem like it was your sworn duty, and here she was doing it again. “I will, of course, do whatever the Crown requests,” he said curtly as they turned into the conference room.

Stefan Mihal, O?ros’s top diplomat and half-cousin to the royal princes, stood at the head of the table, staring at a file folder, but he wasn’t alone. It was the first time in a while that Dimitri was actually glad to see the royal family’s chief advisor, Cyril Gerou. Maybe he could talk some reason into the queen.

Cyril’s face was neutral. Stefan’s was as well, but then again, Stefan defaulted to neutral. The royal ambassador glanced up when the queen entered the room, bowed perfunctorily, then held up the file. “You’re correct in your assumption, Your Majesty.”

“You could go with Aunt Catherine, you know. Keeping up appearances, and all that,” the queen said, turning to accept a similar file folder from an attendant who’d appeared at their side. She scanned the document. “Oh my.”

“Yes.” Dimitri frowned at them both as Stefan kept talking. “Smithson has been invited to the event.”

A black bolt of anger and anticipation surged up inside Dimitri, unexpected but brief. “Then, fair enough,” he said. “Lauren doesn’t go to the party. Problem solved.”

“Not solved so neatly as that, regrettably,” Stefan replied, apparently unperturbed by the queen’s grimace. “In addition to inviting Smithson, the ambitious Raptis has invited his good friends, Lauren’s parents. By happy coincidence, all three of them are traveling on the Smithson yacht at this time, though there was no indication Raptis knew this when he extended the invitation. The lot of them are expected in port Wednesday morning.”

Dimitri’s scowled. “Your information is better than mine.”

“Not better,” Stefan corrected. “Merely more current. While you were on duty today, the inquiries we made into the whereabouts of the Grants yielded far more fruit than our initial research on Smithson. The Grants apparently are not nearly as diligent about their personal security as their host, or simply prefer to keep a more public presence.”

“So Lauren has to attend,” the queen said, tossing the file on the table. “Her parents will be there. We can’t very well keep her from her parents.”

“She could leave the country,” Dimitri put in, which earned him a thin smile from Stefan, and scowls from Cyril and the queen. “Look, I shouldn’t be in the middle of this. And I’m not equipped to play babysitter at a fancy dress party. That’s his job.” He poked his finger toward Stefan.

To his credit, Stefan didn’t deny it. “We could dress him up, but enough people know Dimitri as a captain of the ONSF. It would arouse suspicion to have him so close to Lauren.”

“You’re going,” the queen snapped before Dimitri could jump in. Cyril blinked, clearly startled at her royal vehemence, but she didn’t back down. “She trusts him,” she said to Cyril.

“She what?” Dimitri stared at her. “You can’t be serious.” He sent a longing look to Cyril, but the advisor looked as shocked as he felt. “I’m due?—”

“We can make arrangements for that,” Cyril said, lifting his hand to quell words that Dimitri wouldn’t easily be able to take back. Catherine was his monarch, even when she was being ridiculous. The only one who could override her command was Jasen, and he wasn’t here to lend his voice. “Stefan will take the first line of defense for Ms. Grant, should she need any, and with any luck, she will not. Dimitri will be on hand to monitor the girl from a distance, but more importantly, to monitor Smithson.”

He stared at Dimitri. “Somehow, that box got into the palace without going through any normal channels. It wasn’t on the scheduled delivery manifest from the local couriers, and there was no record of it entering the country, let alone the palace. We were lucky, you could say, that it didn’t contain more than air.”

“No record? But the video feed showed a truck?—”

“Unscheduled. The regular driver wasn’t anywhere near the palace when that truck entered the drive. And the man who was driving it isn’t showing up on any of our databases.”

“Hired help,” said Stefan dismissively. “A one-time hire at that. The box would have tripped our sensors, except there was nothing to trip, since it was empty. It exposes a low-tech weakness in our security if nothing else. Something we’ll need to address.”

“And the names of Smithson’s yachts?” the queen demanded, squaring her shoulders at Cyril’s and Stefan’s surprise. “He calls them the Typhon I and II now. Lauren shared that.”

Cyril spoke first. “Typhon hasn’t been anywhere near the gates.”

“But he rules over everything that slithers!” Catherine snapped right back, with unusual sharpness. “And don’t even get me started on the shapeshifters he commands. It wouldn’t be so hard for one of them to escape, especially if we weren’t looking for it. Plus—Dimitri, tell them.”

Dimitri grimaced as Stefan and Cyril turned to him. “There was a disturbance in the gardens last night. A low-level monster god harassing a nymph. I separated them, chased the dickhead back into Olympus, but he was one of Typhon’s, and he mouthed off.”

He hadn’t told Catherine about this part, but Cyril needed to know, and the advisor nodded subtly for him to continue.

“Nothing specific, just the usual rhetoric of one day the gods would rise, and we’d be sorry for thinking we could control them.”

Stefan snorted. “They’ve been saying that for a thousand years.”

“Agreed. But given this Smithson guy…”

“We have to treat it seriously,” Cyril finished for him. “Even if Typhon is merely attempting a show of strength, it’s one we need to match. I agree with the queen, captain. You’ll need to be on hand for the party to watch over Ms. Grant.”

“Of course, sir.” Dimitri’s head had started to pound. He’d have to pull it together around the blonde. Keep his focus on the mission and only the mission. “So, Wednesday night, then. How long will she be at the event?”

“Three hours, max,” Cyril said. “We won’t be alerting Raptis of our concerns. You’ll be there as part of the detail for Kristos, in the background. The party will have dining, dancing, a speech, then all guests will depart.”

“I’ll tell Lauren. She’ll want to be prepared—” The queen turned to him unexpectedly. “Unless you’d rather speak with her, Dimitri?”

No chance in hell would that be a good idea. “Be my guest.”

He had his own battles to wage to make this assignment work. And none of them involved getting anywhere near Lauren Grant.