Shane had to hand it to the pink sweater, because Sara didn’t so much as raise a hand to her face to acknowledge the strike. He, on the other hand, lurched out of his seat with the intention of charging Fawn, stopping only when the pilot extended his arm meaningfully, sharpening his aim. Shane honestly wasn’t sure what he’d planned to do when he’d reacted as he had. He’d certainly never considered himself to be the kind of man capable of striking a woman. But he also knew there was no way in hell he’d let anyone get away with hitting Sara Wallington.
Not unless, you know, they pulled a gun on him.
Sara extended an arm across the aisle to stop Shane from going too far, even before he stopped himself. “It’s all right,” she told him.
“The hell it is,” he retorted, still poised for attack, his entire body humming with the adrenaline that pumped through it. He couldn’t begin to understand what was going on, but the danger was clear, and he was naturally itching to do something about it. The problem was he just couldn’t imagine what to do that wouldn’t end up with a gunshot wound to either him or Sara, or both, one that might potentially be fatal.
“It’s pointless to fight them,” Sara said, clearly speaking to Shane. “They outnumber us, and they’ll kill us both without a thought.”
“Indeed we will,” Fawn said, angling her gun on Sara again.
Which, Shane had to admit, was infinitely more effective in keeping him at bay than pointing a gun at him was, something Fawn obviously realized. Dammit.
“In fact,” she added, “I don’t see why we need to keep you alive anyway. We have the diamonds we came after, after all.”
“Fawn!” the pilot rasped. “You stupid git! Don’t say another word!”
The flight attendant looked properly chastened, but a bitter fire still burned in her eyes.
“Diamonds?” Sara asked. “I’ve never known the Black Knights to take an interest in fine jewelry.”
Evidently unable to keep herself quiet, Fawn piped up again, “They’re to finance—”
“Fawn!” the pilot interjected once more. “Shut your trap.”
“Yes, do, please, Fawn,” Sara cajoled. “You’re becoming tedious.”
Fawn doubled her fist and raised her hand once more, and Shane prepared to spring forward to… Do something in retaliation. But the other flight attendant tugged Fawn backward, nudging her behind himself, and took her place instead.
“Sit,” the pilot told Sara as if he were speaking to a cowering spaniel. “Sit, Miss Wallington, or die. And if you die, then where will that leave the future king of Penwyck, eh?”
“I’m not the future king,” Shane quickly pointed out. “I’m just a construction worker from SoCal who’d rather be surfing.”
The man turned his attention to Shane and grinned an evil little smile. “Well, we don’t know that for sure, now, do we? And neither do the king and queen. Oh, you have value to us, Mr. Cordello. You have no idea how much. Now return to your seats,” the man repeated. “We’ll be landing shortly.”
“Where?” Sara demanded.
He chuckled. “As if we’d tell you.” Then he smiled. “All right. Not Penwyck. There. That should narrow it down for you.”
“And what will happen when we get there?” Sara commanded.
The man’s smile broadened. “You ask too many questions, Miss Wallington. You and Mr. Cordello are safe for the time being, provided you do exactly as you are told and don’t try to escape. But if you try anything improper, we will kill you.” He turned his icy gaze on Shane then, too. “Both of you. In the world of the Black Knights, all people are created equal, whether they be a mere student or heir to the throne.”
“Meaning all life is equally cheap to you,” Sara said flatly.
In reply, the man only turned his gaze back to her and smiled that grim smile again.
And somehow Shane knew that none of it was true. Not that the Black Knights were activists. Not that all people were created equal in their world. Not that their cause was a noble one. Not that he and Sara were safe.
And not that Sara was a mere student, either. He just wished he knew for sure who—and what—she really was.
Sara wasn’t surprised when she exited the jet approximately two hours later—with her hands bound behind her back and her cheek throbbing from where the ferocious Fawn had struck her—to find that they had landed on a deserted, poorly lit tarmac out in the middle of nowhere. Of course, she couldn’t be positive that two hours had passed, but she was reasonably sure that was how long they had remained in flight after the hijacking. She’d been forced to guesstimate the passage of time, as the Black Knights had taken her watch. And her pearls. And her textbooks. And her purse and luggage. And her shoes.
Strangely, it was the textbooks about which she was most concerned. She did hope the Black Knights didn’t examine them too closely. And she hoped she got them back eventually. They’d been frightfully expensive.
She had only been able to guess at what their final destination might be, as well, though she had done her best to gauge the jet’s direction at one point by opening the screen over the window beside her seat and noting the position of the moon and stars. Unfortunately, one of the terrorists had seen what she was doing—hence her tied hands—and had slammed the screen back down again. Before he’d managed to do so, however, Sara had been able to discern with some confidence that they had been heading southeast. Which would have put them in Spain, or perhaps Portugal.
Nevertheless, with it being night, she had been unable to determine anything in the landscape that might have proven to be a landmark—no mountains, no shorelines, no lakes, nothing. The air was cooler and crisper than what she was accustomed to, not to mention surprisingly windy, leading her to believe they were at a higher elevation than one might find in Penwyck. But with so many variables in place, she honestly couldn’t say with any real certainty where they were.
Of one thing, however, she was completely certain: she and Shane could be dead by dawn if they didn’t behave exactly as they were told.
The Black Knights were a nasty group, completely without morals or scruples. They wouldn’t balk at killing a young student or a man who might be king. They wouldn’t balk at killing anyone. Over the last decade, they’d been responsible for a number of assassination attempts on King Morgan, and numerous episodes of political sabotage. Oh, they’d started off as a small faction of seemingly ineffective upstarts, but it hadn’t been long before they’d organized into a formidable enemy of the crown. They were even suspected of kidnapping Prince Owen of Penwyck, and Sara couldn’t help wondering now just how deeply their involvement had run in a number of other intrigues that had plagued the royal family over the years. Certainly they were capable of just about anything.
Her right cheek throbbed again, reminding her that she probably had a very impressive black eye by now. Honestly, she wouldn’t have thought the tittering Fawn would have even known how to make a fist, let alone use one. Just the first of many mistakes that Sara now realized she had been making since leaving L.A. The first had been in trusting that the crew who boarded Her Majesty’s jet in L.A. were the same ones who regularly flew with
