Chapter 1

1

Thala

The pomp parade was grating on my last nerve. I had better things to do than sit in a fancy limousine on the way to a movie premiere featuring a politically correct version of my country's history.

"Stop sulking, Thala," my sister, Queen Amadea, admonished. "This is more important."

"You know how I feel about the Hollywood production. It's an insult," I shot back.

Venusstea was a country whose rich culture included the Scythians rumored to be descendants of the real Amazonians of legend. To add to that legend, we were a monarchy with a matriarchal line of succession. I was a general in the royal guard, but being a landlocked state and protected by our allies, Romania and Ukraine, there was little need for my military expertise. Instead, my combat skills entertained the tourists. Tourism was one of Venusstea's leading sources of revenue. A part of me wanted this movie to bomb at the box office and it was totally for selfish reasons.

"We've had enough discussion of this at parliament," my sister said.

"An energy summit is happening in New York right this moment. We should have been part of that conversation."

"You say you don't want our country exploited," Amadea said derisively. "Yet you're willing to let money-hungry corporations pillage our natural resources."

"You don't know that."

"I know enough."

"You haven't even looked at the proposal."

The sound of throat clearing interrupted what could be our hundredth argument on the subject. Amadea's head of security, Ramsay, was sitting beside the driver.

"We'll be at the theater in five minutes, Your Highnesses," he said.

There was a warning in his tone that raised my hackles. And it had nothing to do with my sister carrying on a secret affair with him. That was none of my business. She deserved to be happy. Shackled by her duties as queen, she and Ramsay could never marry. Not unless laws were changed. And since she wanted to keep up with the idealized version of Venusstea, that a Queen should be only matched to a descendant with royal bloodlines, Ramsay would forever be her lover. But that was not the point of my dislike for him. He kept interrupting when there was a subject my sister didn't want to discuss. As a bodyguard, he was overstepping.

"Is that your way of telling us we should paste fake smiles on our faces, Ramsay?"

He exchanged glances with Amadea. Both gave a shake of their heads and sighed.

"Oh, fun. Treat me like a petulant child, both of you." I was twenty-nine. As the spare heir, I spent my childhood being trained to become a protector of our realm. Spartan-like training. Like my nomadic ancestors, I excelled in horse riding and was skilled with the double ax. A bitter taste saturated my tongue whenever I thought these skills I had honed since adolescence were only good for scripted battles meant for a circus.

"That's not it, but now is not the time to give the queen grief about your royal duties."

"Ramsay," Amadea said in warning.

"You dare speak to me that way?" I challenged. "You forget your place, guard."

"Forgive me, Your Highness." He was looking at Amadea when he said this before facing front.

My sister turned to me. "Please, Thala. I won't ask you for any more favors. Let's just get through this premiere?"

The pleading in my sister's gaze made me relent. Sometimes, I wondered if Amadea was too gentle to rule. At thirty-four, she was too wrapped up in the romanticism of our realm, more so with Ramsay at her side. My mouth twisted in derision. Good thing I was the logical one.

I nodded briefly and patted her hand, then returned my gaze to the passing scenery of Los Angeles. I'd been here before. All concrete jungle and traffic, and everyone seemed to have perfect skin. The perfect body.

I was no stranger to the glamorous lifestyle. My sister and I had our fair share of finishing school. I was the hybrid heir. Comfortable in both gown and armor. But the body-hugging creation I was wearing to the War Maiden premiere had been gold-sequined to death. I was afraid any sudden movement of mine would become an explosion of sparkly gold circles.

Before our Los Angeles itinerary, we attended the first day of the global energy summit in New York. I might have indulged in bread and butter, in hamburgers and steaks, and pasta in Alfredo sauce. Because of the physical exertions of my guard unit, we had a royal fitness department that oversaw our regimented diet. The sluggishness in my body after an indulgence of this artery-clogging food without corresponding exercise might have contributed to my bad mood today.

I refused to use an indoor gym. I longed to ride my Andalusian horse Prince. I called him Prince because I'd resigned myself to the fact that my standards were too high for any man to meet. And I wouldn't wish my high standards on any man.

And like Amadea, the laws required me to marry a blue blood. My nose twitched in disdain at the marriage prospects the matchmakers paraded before me in recent years. I'd rather be known as the spinster princess than join myself in matrimony to pasty-faced European royals.

Although I knew I'd been called the ice princess behind my back, I didn't care.

The limo soon pulled into a melee of flashing lights and people.

Our advance security was already doing crowd control.

"Are you ready, Your Highnesses?" Ramsay asked.

"Yes," my sister replied, glancing at me, a small smile forming on her lips. "Thala?"

"I'm ready." I grinned at her. And her small smile grew into a smile that reached her eyes.

As much as Amadea and I had our disagreements, there was nothing that made me happier than when I saw genuine joy in her eyes.

So when my door opened and Ramsay helped us out of the vehicle, I did my part.

I waved at the crowd and did my required poses. Two security agents flanked my sides. In my heels, I was a tad over six feet and towered above them.

To the crowd, I was the Amazonian princess of legend.

I knew when to tamp down my misgivings about the premiere. I knew when to put on a face of solidarity. And I knew when to play my part as a royal of Venusstea.

Hank

The last place I wanted to be was at a Hollywood premiere. I'd been working as a CIA operative for almost five years but had gone nomad in the last two. I missed the guys, and the day of my return to LA, Levi, who was a former SEAL like I was, dragged me to the Hollywood premiere of War Maiden .

Even I had heard of the movie touted to have an obscene budget for sets and special effects. There'd been rumors circulating about the tiny kingdom of Venusstea, so I was curious about its monarchs. Although I heard it was an insult to refer to it as a kingdom because only queens had been its rulers.

"She's so pretty," Ashley, Levi's eight-year-old daughter, said. The rest of the gang had gone inside and taken their seats, but she wanted to see the princess and queen arrive.

"And she looks so tall. She's taller than her bodyguards."

"That's the princess, baby girl, not the queen," Levi said.

"Duh, I know. I like her more. She's badass like Wonder Woman."

We found a spot on the balcony where we observed the arrival of the royals. Well-heeled and well-dressed people milled around the area. I dusted off my tuxedo that I'd stashed in one of the CIA houses in LA.

The woman who stepped out of the limo dwarfed most of the people around her. Her shoulders were squared and chin held high. She walked with confidence. The cameras flashed and she posed with her sister, the queen. Their features were indiscernible from my vantage point. Both had medium brown hair streaked with blonde. The queen's lipstick was bloodred, and she had creamy skin. In contrast, Princess Thala's tanned skin complemented the golden gown that loved her curves. Her arms were bare with defined muscles.

"They call her the ice princess, but she looks nothing like Elsa," Ashley informed me. And I'd babysat them enough to know who Elsa was as much as I knew the words to the song's chorus of that movie. "It's her eyes. They're almost silver gray." She glanced up at her dad. "Can we get closer, Daddy? Like after the movie?"

"I don't know, baby girl. We can ask Mom."

"Kelly did the special effects on the movie, right?" I asked.

It was Ashley who answered, "Well, duh, of course Mom did. Why else do you think we got front-row seats?"

Levi's daughter was quite a smartass. I caught the laughter in my friend's eyes, grinned, and gave a shake of my head.

"Well, what else can you tell me about her since you seem to know her very well?"

"She's a general."

"No shit?"

Levi cleared his throat.

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously?"

"They do fight reenactments," Ashley said. "Mom showed me her videos. She was on her horse, Prince."

Prince. How generic. That would explain her tan if she did the reenactments and rode a horse. A general. Interesting. Most monarchial countries depended on tourism, but the mountains surrounding Venusstea were rich in natural resources and a mineral recently prized for manufacturing electronic devices.

Ashley turned to me. "I want to vacation in Venusstea and see it."

"The mountains?"

She looked at me strangely. "No, silly. The fights. See the princess and her horse."

"Oh, yeah, right."

Levi raised a brow at me, used to me thinking a few steps ahead. I know he'd gotten the briefing about Venusstea too. The CIA wouldn't be concerned if a country had no bearing in geopolitics. I worked in the underworld for the past two years and, even there, it was important to maintain a balance of power.

My phone pinged so loudly, Ashley scowled at me.

"You need to turn that off. That's rude."

Levi chuckled. "He knows, Ash."

I turned the screen to Levi. "Gotta take this."

"Be quick about it," Levi told me as he took Ashley's hand to head back into the theater. "You know where we are."

"Yeah, I'll find you."

My phone stopped ringing, but I knew the caller was going to call again. He was persistent like that.

I was right.

When I was in a hallway near the facilities, it rang again.

"Hey, G."

"Enjoying the premiere?" Garrison asked.

John Garrison was our team's CIA handler. "Team" was a loose term. We were contractors. I hadn't worked for the CIA lately since I'd been on the trail of human traffickers. Ever since that mission in Vegas where we rescued a dozen kids, a fire had been lit under my ass to do more. So I used my hacking skills and joined a network of online vigilantes. But I had to return to California to take care of personal business, and when Garrison found out, he told me he could use some help. And in typical Garrison fashion, he was scarce about the details except the directive to show my ass at the Hollywood premiere with Levi and his family.

"It hasn't started yet. You need me elsewhere?"

Any excuse to get me out of this monkey suit and behind a computer screen.

"No. I need you to keep an eye on Queen Amadea and her sister. I'm sending you another brief."

"Okay, why?"

"There's chatter about a coup while the royals are in the U.S."

"Are we giving them asylum?"

"We're not thinking that far yet. It's just chatter. From what I gleaned, Venusstea's army is loyal to the princess."

"You mean the queen?"

"No. Princess Thala. She's a general in their military."

"So I've heard. I thought that was just a title to use for tourism."

John chuckled. "Are you not impressed? Have you seen her?"

"Yeah, at a distance. So you're saying if she was back in Venusstea, she'd be the most likely culprit to stage a coup?"

"Not sure. There are other female members of the House of Targen in the line of succession but the oldest is only nine. Not saying their parents or guardians wouldn't try anything. We're just working circumstantial right now. The prime minister, their brother, is in New York attending the energy summit, but from our intel, he's been in secret meetings with the oligarchs interested in Venusstea's mountainside."

"The minerals."

"Yup."

"Got it. I'll monitor. Levi's row is a couple up from the royals. Does he know this?"

"He does now."

Garrison and I exchanged a chuckle. Levi had become such a family man. Since he and Kelly got back together, he'd worked so hard to be more present with his family, only accepting short-duration missions, and he was rarely away from LA.

"Okay, later, man." I ended the call.

As I made my way back into the theater, I moved along the perimeter to keep an eye out. I recognized a bunch of popular celebrities. A sea of black tuxedos and a dazzling display of evening wear all faded when the royals made their appearance. The queen and her sister commanded undisputed attention. Maybe it was the way the crowd had parted like the Red Sea on the red carpet. The royals weren't wearing any tiaras, but there was an aura about them. An aura that spoke of old glamour and even something deeper. Ancient. That they were descendants of Amazonian legend. It certainly clicked with the Hollywood craze for superheroes.

My eyes clocked her security and checked it quickly against the information Garrison had sent me.

Rameses Ramsay. Worked for Venusstea for the past four years. Former Special Forces and mercenary. He had worked for several high-profile African warlords before taking over the queen's security.

Interesting.

My phone buzzed with a text from Levi.

Levi

Why are you still standing there?

Doing something for G.

Levi appeared to scroll through his phone, then gave a shake of his head. Even from this distance, I could feel his displeasure.

I made my way to their row. Ashley spotted me and waved me over excitedly. I crossed four people getting into my seat beside Levi. The theater only had one level but was divided into three sections, so it'd be easy to move around the area.

When I sat beside Levi, he leaned into me. "A coup? Is Garrison serious?"

Both of us craned our necks to watch the approaching royals. They were led to the middle section, nowhere near us, but I guessed we were close enough. My eyes returned to Princess Thala. I couldn't get a read on her. From my years working for the CIA, gathering intel, forming profiles, I had good instincts about people, but apparently, not with this princess.

I was coming into this op with no preconceived notions of her except ones formed from the fandom of an eight-year-old. I found Thala Targen more interesting than the queen. And I couldn't wait to dig into her and the House of Targen.