Royal (Terk’s Guardians #9)

Chapter 12

J anna dozed, half asleep, curled up against Royal’s shoulder for the journey. When they took a turn onto a slightly rougher road, which she recognized all too well, she opened her eyes and sat up to see the massive castle looming in the distance. “Well,” she murmured, “I’d forgotten how grandiose this place was.”

“That’s right,” Calum noted. “You saw it before we ever bought it, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “I considered buying it because I was looking to hide away,” she muttered. “But it was really too big for me to take on. Then I was here that day to speak with Terk, to get his help, before we headed out to find you.”

“It’s really too big for any of us,” Rick noted, with a laugh. “Yet we seem to be doing our best to fill it.”

She looked at him and nodded. “Yes, you’re about to have daughters.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” He was clearly against knowing all that. “None of that. A man gets to have his own personal life, you know? And gets to have some surprises.”

“It’s not even a surprise,” she declared, looking at him. “You already knew.”

He burst out laughing. “Oh, you’ll have fun when you get settled among us. It might surprise you to realize that you aren’t alone and that a lot of people just like you are there.”

“That’s one of the reasons I would be interested in involving myself with you guys. It’s probably the only reason, if I’m honest.”

Rick gave a shout of laughter from the front seat. “See? You’re really growing on me. And I much prefer that to the hard-ass, stay-away attitude I had to deal with for the whole op.”

“Hey, I wasn’t hard to deal with,” Janna protested. “I just didn’t have a whole lot to offer.”

“And that was the problem,” Rick noted. “You were somebody we dragged along, which will never go down well in my book.”

“Yeah, so deal with it,” she murmured.

“I did,” he said. “And, since it all came out right, we’re good. I presume you don’t want to go on ops on a regular basis.”

“God, no,” she muttered. “Leave me at home any day. It really works better for me.”

“Good to know,” Rick teased. “Considering how much chaos will soon hit us all at home, with all the babies due about the same time, and with you only five minutes up the road, don’t be surprised if you get shamed into helping.”

“Helping with what?” she asked, looking at him.

“Hell, I don’t know, but, if you have any inclination toward kids, we’re about to be inundated with a whole pile of them.”

“Two are coming fairly quickly,” Janna shared. “I wonder if Terk knows.”

Calum turned and looked at her. “How quickly?”

She shrugged, just as the other vehicle whipped past them at a speed that was inadvisable at best. “I think it’s pretty safe to say very soon”—she pointed—“seeing as how… that’s Terk driving, right?” And the vehicle continued to accelerate ahead of them, leaving them all in the dust.

Rick gave a shout and hit the gas pedal. “Wouldn’t he let us know?” he asked. “We might be able to help.”

She laughed at him. “Ain’t nobody going to help right now, guys. This is his wife’s job,” Janna explained, with a gentle smile. “Besides, the healers are there already. Nothing you can do.”

She looked back at Royal. “Expect your energy to drop. Bruce’s too,” she warned him. “They’re all on board helping Celia.” She stopped and then asked in confusion, “I don’t know where that name came from, but it is Celia, isn’t it? Is that the name?”

“Yes,” Calum confirmed, looking at her with a nod of approval. “That’s Terk’s partner.”

“Right.” Then Janna sighed. “She’s been to hell and back too, hasn’t she?”

He gave her the gentlest of smiles. “Yes, many of the women have.”

“Right. So we all just need to let it go and to start fresh.”

“That would be a great idea,” he murmured, “for you too.”

“Sounds good to me.” Then she stopped and looked over at the men, frowning. “ Uh-oh . So, guys, this has nothing to do with Terk…”

“What?”

“I feel very much like danger’s right around the corner.”

“Danger for us?” Royal asked Janna. “I’m not getting anything about the pregnancy.… Yet something feels off.”

At that warning, Rick, who was driving, turned the wheel of his vehicle hard, and they were flung against the side as he came to a hard stop even as the vehicle still rocked back and forth. Right in front of them appeared a helicopter, landing just out of sight in the trees.

Two people appeared, heading toward them.

Janna thought she recognized them. “Isn’t that the two drivers from the kidnapping site?” she whispered, staring at them.

“Yeah,” Calum and Rick both affirmed. “Somehow they got ahold of a helicopter and came along. Now the question is, what do they want from us?”

“It ain’t good,” Royal said, his voice coming out in a gasp. “She’s right. My energy is sagging rapidly. Damn, you don’t realize how much other people are helping you until they remove the help.”

“They’re only removing it because they need it for Celia,” Janna said, looking at him.

“Oh, I get it,” he said. “And, if she needs it, that’s where it needs to go. But right now,” he whispered, “I won’t be any help.” And with that he fell back against the seat beside Bruce, and his eyes rolled up into the back of his head, as the lights went out on both of them.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she cried out, even as she watched the two men coming toward them.

Her guys didn’t have weapons, and she didn’t know if it was safe to think that this would be more of a pleasant visit than those previous ones, but she didn’t like anything about this. “I can’t let them take Royal or Bruce,” she cried out.

“Easy,” Rick muttered, “let’s figure out what’s going on first.”

“What, and let them shoot us?”

He looked at her and added, “I put up a guard. Just calm down.”

She nodded slowly, her breath coming out in rapid puffs, as the two men approached them.

After the men withdrew handcuffs, they ordered everyone to step out of the vehicle.

She looked at Rick and asked, “Yeah, now what?”

“Now we’ll get out,” Rick replied.

Calum and Riff got out and stepped up to the men and stared. “What’s the problem?”

A conversation was had that she couldn’t hear and wasn’t even sure what language it was in.

Rick looked at her. “You got any ideas?”

“Yeah, sure. How about I just blast them into tomorrow?”

He gave a snort. “How about something a whole lot less violent?”

“Royal is the one who could do that.” She reached over and gave Royal a nudge and sensed energy swirling around on the inside of the vehicle. “I think he already is.”

She watched as Calum appeared to have some sort of confused conversation with the two men, but he returned to the vehicle, leaving Riff to continue talks with the two men.

Calum kept his voice low as he explained, “I’m not sure what is going on. They’re arguing about just getting back into the helicopter and leaving, but they first wanted to take us with them. They keep changing their minds and are going back and forth. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“It’s Royal,” she piped up. “Even though he’s out for the count—or maybe he’s out because of this energy work—he’s trying to affect their decision-making.”

“In that case we need to give him energy so he can fully do this,” Rick stated, laying a hand on Royal’s shin. A snap of energy filled the vehicle. Then Calum added his hand to Royal’s knee as well, and, linked like that, they surged more and more energy into Royal. Even as they watched the energy flow visible in the vehicle, they kept an eye on the men outside, talking to Riff, who appeared to come to a final decision and, with a nod, those two men got back into the helicopter.

“Please tell me that I shouldn’t crash that helicopter,” she murmured, “because that’s what I want to do.”

“We only crash things if we have to,” Rick stated. “I’m not sure what all that was about. It seemed to be mixed messages all around.”

“I suspect that’s Royal attempting to help but getting in the way.”

“What’s to stop them from coming back?”

“That depends on where they’re going and what they’re supposed to be doing right now because, if they go home without their prisoners,” Rick stated, his tone hard, even as she could see energy pulse stronger and stronger into Royal’s leg, “they will have their own problems to deal with.”

“Right,” Janna agreed. “I guess blowing up the helicopter won’t help, will it?”

“No, it won’t, and the Russians might take it the wrong way.”

“What if it blew up on the way back to London?”

At that, both men turned and looked at her. “Can you do that?”

“I don’t know.” She gave a harsh laugh. “But to keep Royal safe, all of us safe,” she added, “I would definitely try my hardest.”

Rick smiled at her. “We appreciate the warrior attitude, but we’re not trying to start a war with another country, and, as long as these two guys leave us alone right now, we will leave them alone.”

“Fine,” she muttered, as the helicopter slowly lifted into the air and flew away. She let out a hard breath and looked over to see Royal’s eyes open, staring at her. “Nice job,” she said gently. “We really do need to talk.”

He gave a ghost of a smile. “Yeah, but in order to have that happen, I really need some rest.”

And, with that, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

*

Royal woke up again as they pulled up into the long driveway before the huge castle looming ahead.

He stared at it, then looked over at her. “I just figured it out. No way you could make a whole vehicle move, so you just use a metal part, as a conductor of energy. You focused your energy on the metal accelerator pedal.”

She gave him a ghost of a smile and then a clipped nod as they all got out and headed for the huge front entrance to the castle. “Yes, that is the gist of it.” The other men stared at her, then shook their heads and kept on walking. “Is that wrong?”

“No, not at all,” Royal said. “I was trying to figure it out because it’s not as if energy travels wildly for no reason, and for you to get the vehicles themselves moving is a whole different deal. However, because metal is a conductor, focusing on one essential metal part makes a whole lot more sense.” Royal grinned, pleased at having figured that out.

“It was important to you to figure it out, wasn’t it?”

He laughed. “I just wanted to understand it. I’m sure these guys do too.”

She shrugged. “It’s just basic mechanics.”

“I know, and that’s the genius part of it,” he said, with a delighted smile.

They were still talking about it as they walked up to the front of the castle. When they entered, they were met with complete silence.

Janna was prepared for it. “Remember how fast Terk was driving when he raced ahead of us?”

At that, the men looked around, and Rick got an odd look in his gaze. He looked over at Calum and said in a panic, “I’ll be back in a minute.” With that, he quickly disappeared.

Calum walked into the huge kitchen and announced, “I’m putting on some coffee, and then we’ll show you guys to your rooms.”

“Are you sure you have rooms for us?” Janna asked. “I know this place is massive, but it needed a ton of work, from what I can remember.”

“We’ve done nothing but work on it,” Calum replied. “Sometimes getting away on missions is nice because we can escape the noise for a bit.”

She nodded and smiled at that. “I couldn’t imagine living among all that noise and disarray. I absolutely loved this castle, but the whole scope of things was a bit too much for me.”

“And that’s good,” Calum said, “because that left it available for us.”

She sat down at the table, looked over at a still very exhausted Royal. “Will you make it?”

“I will, but I do need to crash soon.” He looked ghostly. “I see you had people take Bruce inside but I really want to check up on him.”

“Rick’s probably gone to see where everybody’s at and what’s going on, although I could have told him without his having to do that.”

“Tell me what?” Rick asked, as he rejoined them.

“That Celia’s gone into labor,” Janna replied, “but it’s too early.”

He looked at her and frowned, “Are you sure it’s too early?”

She nodded. “It’s… it’s not that it’s too early because she’s got multiple births, so maybe that’s what I’m getting.”

“Yes, she’s carrying multiples,” Rick confirmed. “Almost everybody here is.”

She frowned at him.

He nodded. “It must have something to do with the energy. Nobody was particularly aware of the cumulative effect of how energy works when we’re all together with partners, who have their own energy skills,” he explained, giving her a crooked grin.

“Wow,” she murmured. “That must have been a shock.”

“It absolutely was, a good one in many ways, but it’s the second time around that we should be incredibly careful about.”

Janna started to giggle.

He glared at her and muttered, “It’s not funny.”

“It’s absolutely hilarious,” she said, “because that is funny, you must admit, and more so that I’m not part of it.” And then she laughed again.

“Unless you want to be part of it,” he noted with a pointed look.

She sighed. “I don’t know if I could go through that again.”

“A heart condition is not guaranteed to happen with a second one,” he pointed out. “In fact, it’s quite rare to repeat within siblings, I’d think.”

“It is rare,” she agreed, “but, once you’ve lost one,… it’s so hard to even think about going through that again, knowing you could lose another one.”

“Yet you wouldn’t be alone this time,” Rick noted. “And I’m sure that could make all the difference in the world.”

“It sure could,” she muttered. “I don’t know. I’ll,… I’ll see. I’m definitely not at that stage just yet.”

At that, he frowned at her. “None of us were either. But the more you hang around this place, that energy just seems to fly through the air.”

She started to laugh and laugh. “And that’s the thing about being part of a community. A , we get to talk about this and realize that it is something that needs to be discussed, and, B , there is that knock-on effect, isn’t there?”

“Absolutely,” Rick confirmed.

Just then Terk walked into the kitchen, looking a little more ragged than she’d seen him before. She gave him a big grin. “How is the soon-to-be-daddy doing?”

He sighed. “She’s not necessarily in labor right now,” he shared cautiously.

“No, and it’s pretty early. I was saying that to them just now. It seems to be too early, but then I realized you’re dealing with multiple births, so, in that case, it’s not so early.”

He nodded. “We’re still waiting to see whether this is false labor or not,” he added. “I just don’t understand how this isn’t something the body can just turn around and do.”

“Oh, the body can absolutely turn around and do it, and does,” Janna stated, again with a chuckle. “But it also does it in its own timeframe, not yours. You’re used to controlling everything, and this is something you’ll have to let go of and just let it be. Some things you simply cannot control.”

His lips quirked. “Yeah, so I’ve been told.”

She burst out laughing. “A time for you and a time for her, and definitely it’s a special time for both of you.” Janna nodded. “But this is definitely something that the babies and her body get to control, not you.”

“On that note, let’s get you up to your rooms, so Royal can crash. He looks more than a little worse for the wear.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty tired,” she muttered, “but we do need to bring you up to date on the Russians and the helo…” It took more than a moment but when done and, with Terk’s help, Royal got to his feet, and they moved him over to an elevator.

She looked at it and asked curiously, “There wasn’t an elevator here before.”

“No, and it’s one of those things that we put in fairly quickly, once we realized we had all these rather large bellies happening,” Terk shared, with a sigh. “It was supposed to be a development for a year down the road, but…”

She flashed him a big grin. “Smart decision,” she said, with a cheeky smile as they went up.

He led them to a door at the far end of the hallway.

“You sure you’ve got room for us right now?” Janna asked.

“We sure do, and, until this guy is back on his feet, I wouldn’t suggest you hurry off on your own.”

“Right, he needs rest,” she agreed, “and, if your healers have anything to share about the healing or some tips that I can use to help him, I would appreciate it.”

“We’ll get into that discussion as soon as we get an assessment on Bruce, which is happening right now, while Celia’s contractions have calmed down,” he told her. “I guess we’ll need to get some training system in place. I’ve just realized that we may not have enough healers.”

“Yet it must be enough,” Janna noted calmly, squeezing his hand. “Just because you think you always have enough energy, it’s really channelers that you need.”

He looked at her and then flashed a big grin. “See? That’s exactly what we need.… More people who really understand energy.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, I finally figured out how she made those vehicles jump forward,” Royal told Terk, with a half chuckle. “Believe me that made me feel a whole lot better.”

“You mean, using her energy to conduct a metal part?” Terk asked, with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah.” Royal sighed. “I didn’t get that at first. Metal is a conductor, and her affinity with metal is how she can motivate it.”

“Yep, and nobody ever sees it that way, but it’s one of the easiest things to bend to your will,” Terk noted. “And it’s not even so much about bending it to your will as it’s a superhighway to do what you need to do. I’m just glad she thought of it.”

“Me too,” Janna muttered.

They walked into a small apartment, self-contained, and she looked around in admiration. “Wow, you guys have really done a lot of work here.”

“We had quite a bit of help in the beginning, getting things organized,” Terk said. “And I admit, some people still come back and forth to give us a hand to sort this out, as we work on new projects,” he murmured. “But, for the most part, we’ve now got several guest apartments. Plus, we’re always finishing up new apartments for new people, so this one is yours for the time being.” He helped Royal lay down on the bed and frowned at him.

“I’m fine,” Royal said. “Go on. I’ll be okay. If I get coffee when I wake up and food and a shower later, I think I’ll be feeling a ton better.”

“Yeah, you can have all that,” Terk said. “This apartment should be stocked, ready for you, but we might need to grab you some towels downstairs. Coffee’s downstairs too.” Terk turned and looked at Janna, and she nodded.

“I’ll come back down with you and grab some, but I want him to sleep first.”

Royal smiled at her. “As long as you come right back, that’s not a problem. I’ll just stay right here and crash. I am done in.” And, much to her amazement, he closed his eyes, and, within seconds, they heard his deep, calm breathing.