Chapter 2

ARMANO POV

She was loud.

Even in the suffocating silence of the private hangar, where the air smelled of jet fuel, ozone, and the biting cold of a Washington winter, she was loud. It wasn't her voice—she hadn't spoken a word since the Secret Service agent handed her over to me like a unstable isotope. It was her presence. It was the violent clash of that emerald silk against the industrial grey of the tarmac. It was the sharp, aggressive click of her heels on the metal gangplank, each step a declaration of war.

I stood at the entrance of the Royal Regalian transport jet, my hands clasped behind my back. I rolled my left shoulder, feeling the familiar, grinding ache in the joint—a souvenir from a sniper's bullet in Kandahar three years ago. The pain was a constant companion, a low-level hum that kept me awake when I should be sleeping and reminded me that I was still alive when I should be dead. It was my flaw, perhaps. I didn't know how to stop. I didn't know how to rest.

I watched her approach. She was shivering, though the night air was thick and humid. Her arms were wrapped tight around her midsection, a defensive posture. Her makeup was smudged—black mascara tracks cutting through the heavy foundation she wore like war paint.

This was the Disaster Daughter. The girl who had nearly burned down the White House with her carelessness. The girl who was going to be my Queen, whether she liked it or not.

She looked like a child playing dress-up in a corpse’s clothes. And yet, there was a spark in her eyes. A defiance that hadn't been extinguished by the blackmail or the betrayal. It was irritating. It was distracting.

She reached the top of the stairs and stopped, looking up at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but the gaze was sharp. It felt like she was dissecting me, peeling back the uniform to see the scar tissue underneath.

"Watch your step, Ms. Forbes," I said. My voice was flat. Empty. It was the voice I used with subordinates and hostages.

She paused, her lip curling. "Drop the 'Ms. Forbes,' shark. I’m not your constituent anymore."

She pushed past me, her shoulder brushing my chest. The contact was fleeting, accidental, but it sent a jolt through the rigid stillness of my body. I stiffened, my muscles locking down. She smelled of tequila, expensive perfume, and something distinctively floral—like crushed gardenias. It was a scent that didn't belong in a war zone. It didn't belong in my world. It was too soft. Too inviting.

I followed her into the cabin, forcing my breathing to remain steady. "Get comfortable. The flight is eight hours."

She threw herself into the nearest leather chair, sprawling with deliberate insolence. She kicked her heels off, letting them thud onto the plush carpet. "Comfortable? Right. Does this tin can have a minibar, or do I have to gnaw on the upholstery for sustenance?"

"Water," I said, gesturing to the flight attendant who stood stiffly near the galley. "Nothing else. You need to be sober when we land."

She laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. "Sober? Why? Is the Prince a teetotaler? Does he faint at the sight of a woman who can hold her liquor?"

I didn't answer. I took my seat opposite her, pulling a tablet from my jacket pocket. I had reports to read. Security protocols. The status of the border skirmishes with Cian’s forces. I needed to focus on the stability of the Kingdom, not on the chaotic mess of a woman sitting six feet away.

"It’s Armano, by the way," I said, not looking up from the screen. The silence was grating on me. I preferred noise I could control. "My name."

I felt her gaze shift to me. "Excuse me?"

"You called me 'shark' earlier," I said, scrolling through a dossier on Cian’s latest artillery movements. "And the President referred to me as Ambassador. That is a diplomatic fiction. My name is Armano Sanchez. Captain of the Royal Guard. You will address me as such, or as 'Captain.' I am not your friend, Ms. Forbes. I am your escort."

"Armano," she repeated. She tested the weight of it, rolling it around her mouth like a stone she was deciding whether to skip or throw. "Sounds pretentious. Does it mean anything?"

"It means soldier," I said curtly. "Which is what I am. Which is what you would do well to remember."

"Right," she scoffed, shifting in her seat. "Captain Armano. The Soldier. Do you have a last name, or is Sanchez part of the title?"

"It is my name."

"Boring," she concluded. "I’ll stick with 'Shark.' It suits you better. All teeth and no soul."

I looked up then. I met her eyes, letting the mask slip for just a fraction of a second. I let her see the coldness. The emptiness.

"I have plenty of soul, Ms. Forbes," I said quietly. "It’s just stained with things you wouldn't understand."

She blinked, the air rushing out of her sails. For a moment, the sarcasm faltered, and she looked at me—really looked at me. She saw the scar on my temple, the one that disappeared into my hairline. She saw the tension in my hands, the way my thumb constantly rubbed against the index finger of my right hand—a nervous tic I couldn't break, a phantom sensation of a trigger I didn't want to pull.

"Good to know," she whispered, turning away to stare out the window. "I'll add 'damaged' to the list of adjectives. Right next to 'kidnapper.'"

I returned to my tablet, but the words blurred.

She was fidgeting. Picking at the cuticles of her nails until they bled. Tapping her foot against the metal leg of the table. The energy coming off her was frantic, a high-frequency vibration that rattled the carefully curated silence of the cabin.

I hated it. I craved order. I craved silence. The chaos of her existence was an intrusion.

"Stop," I said, my voice sharper than I intended.

She froze, her eyes narrowing. "Stop what? Existing? Breathing? Sorry, I’ll try to do better. Maybe I can learn to hold my breath for eight hours. Would that make you happy, Captain?"

"The noise," I said, staring at the dossier but not reading it. "The movement. You are projecting anxiety. It is... inefficient. It disruptes the environment."

"It's called a nervous tic, you robot," she snapped. "I just found out I’m being sold into a royal marriage to a stranger. I’m currently calculating the odds of me throwing myself out of the emergency exit without hitting a wing on the way down."

"You won't," I said, my tone dismissive. "The doors are sealed. And you have a survival instinct buried somewhere beneath all that attitude. I saw it in your father’s office."

"You mean when you threatened me?" She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a hiss. "When you told me you’d leak those videos? That wasn't survival, Armano. That was me realizing I was trapped in a cage with a monster."

I swiveled my head slowly. "A monster protects his own. Regalia is mine. The King is mine. And now, by extension, so are you."

"I am not a 'thing' to be owned," she spat.

"No," I agreed, looking at her mouth—soft, pink, trembling with rage—and then forcing my eyes back to hers. "You are a responsibility. And one I intend to discharge with extreme efficiency."

She looked away, pressing her forehead against the plastic of the window.

The engines roared to life, a low rumble that vibrated through the floorboards and into the soles of my boots. As the plane accelerated, pinning us back into our seats, I saw her hand tighten around the armrest. Her knuckles turned the color of bone.

She was terrified.

And she was trying desperately to hide it. She used sarcasm like a shield, like a distract mechanism, but underneath, she was just a girl who was lost.

I had seen fear in many forms. I had seen it on the faces of soldiers in the trenches. I had seen it in the eyes of dying men. But this was different. It wasn't a fear of death. It was a fear of the unknown. A fear of losing control. It made her human.

It made her a liability.

***

Two hours into the flight, the Atlantic Ocean a black void beneath us, the atmosphere shifted.

We hit a pocket of turbulence without warning.

The plane dropped. Not a gentle bob, but a violent, stomach-churning plunge. The tea service rattled. The cabin lights flickered, dying for a second before flaring back to life with an emergency hum.

Most people gasp. Most people reach for their rosaries or their oxycodone.

Marigold screamed.

It was a short, sharp sound, cut off as she slammed her hand over her mouth. Her eyes went wide, saucer-like, fixed on the trembling window pane. The plane groaned, metal straining against the wind, and dropped again, a sickening freefall that yanked at the harness.

She wasn't the sarcastic socialite anymore. She wasn't the "Disaster Daughter." She was a girl who was afraid of falling. Her mask had shattered.

I unbuckled my seatbelt.

Common sense dictated I stay seated. Protocol dictated I secure myself and monitor the instrumentation. My training dictated I assess the threat and remain calm.

But my body moved on its own, a reflex I hadn't trained for and couldn't suppress. A traitorous, soft instinct.

I crossed the aisle in two long strides and dropped into the seat next to her as the plane bucked again, the wings shuddering violently.

"Look at me," I commanded. My voice was steady, cutting through the roar of the wind.

She shook her head, her breathing coming in short, ragged gasps. She was hyperventilating. "No. No, no, no. I can't. I hate this. I hate flying. It’s unnatural. It’s a metal tube defying gravity and it’s going to kill us. I can feel it. It’s going to break apart."

"Marigold." I reached out, covering her hand where it gripped the armrest.

Her skin was ice-cold. Her pulse hammered against my palm, a frantic, bird-like rhythm that seemed to echo in my own blood.

She flinched at my touch, trying to pull away, panic overriding her pride. But I held firm. Not hard enough to bruise, but firm enough to ground her. To anchor her.

"Look at me," I said again, softer this time. I squeezed her hand, forcing her to feel the warmth. "The plane is designed to withstand aerodynamic stress levels that would tear a commercial airliner apart. This is a military hull, Ms. Forbes. It is armored. It is reinforced."

Slowly, reluctantly, she turned her head.

Her eyes were swimming with tears, unshed and bright. The mascara was running again, streaking her cheeks like dark war paint. In this moment, stripped of her wit and her defenses, she was... devastating.

It hit me with the force of a physical blow. The sheer magnetic pull of her. It wasn't just beauty; it was fire. She burned with a life that I had extinguished in myself years ago. She was chaos and noise and feeling, and I was a void.

I should have been annoyed. I should have been focused on the safety of the flight. Instead, I was distracted by the curve of her eyelashes and the scent of gardenias that seemed to cling to my skin.

"Focus on my voice," I ordered. "Breathe in. Count to four. Breathe out."

She tried to obey, her chest hitching. "I... I can't."

"Yes, you can." I shifted closer, our knees brushing. The contact was electric. "You are a Forbes. You are stubborn and difficult and you have survived worse than a little turbulence."

"A little?" she squeaked as the plane pitched left.

"I have flown in hurricanes," I said, staring into her eyes, refusing to let her look away. "I have landed on carriers in the middle of the night with engines on fire. This is nothing."

"You don't know that," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You don't know anything. You’re just a guard. Just a shark."

"I am a man who knows exactly what this aircraft can do," I corrected her. "And I am telling you, we are not going down."

She stared at me, searching my face for a lie. For the calculation she expected to find. All she saw was the resolve. And perhaps, something else. A flicker of the man beneath the uniform.

"Do you promise?" she asked, the words slipping out before she could stop them. It was a childish question. A question for a father, not a jailer.

Something tightened in my chest. A phantom limb I didn't know I had. I felt the weight of her hand in mine, the trust she was forced to give me, and I hated how much I wanted to deserve it.

"I promise," I said.

The plane leveled out. The roar of the engines settled back into a steady hum. The violent shaking ceased, replaced by a gentle, rhythmic vibration.

We stayed like that for a long moment.

My hand was still covering hers. Her skin was warming up, thawing under my touch. I could feel the delicate bones of her fingers, the softness of her palm. I should have pulled away. I should have returned to my seat and my reports. The crisis was over. The asset was safe.

But I didn't.

I looked at her lips, slightly parted, still catching her breath. I looked at the curve of her neck, exposed by the messy updo that was beginning to fall apart. I wanted to touch her hair. I wanted to see if it was as soft as it looked.

For the first time in a decade, I felt something other than duty. I felt a spark of curiosity. A dangerous, treacherous interest in the person beneath the title.

It was a problem. A complication I did not need.

Marigold seemed to realize it too. Her gaze dropped to my mouth, then snapped back up to my eyes. The fear was gone, replaced by a dawning confusion. A flicker of heat. She realized I was close. Too close.

She pulled her hand away slowly, her fingers brushing against my palm. The loss of contact felt like a burn.

"You have warm hands," she murmured, clearing her throat. She looked away, grabbing a bottle of water from the table and twisting the cap off with unnecessary force. "For a cold-blooded killer."

I sat back, putting the necessary distance between us. The sudden gap felt like a chasm. I clasped my hands in my lap, hiding the tingling sensation that lingered on my skin. I rubbed my thumb against my index finger again, trying to scrub away the feeling of her.

"It is circulation, Ms. Forbes. Biology."

"Right," she said, taking a long drink. "Biology."

She fell silent after that. She didn't make any more jokes. She didn't insult me. She just watched the clouds, her knees pulled up to her chest, hugging herself.

I watched her.

I watched the way the cabin lights cast shadows across her face. I watched the rise and fall of her chest. I remembered the feel of her pulse against my thumb.

I had thought transporting her would be a chore. A necessary evil for the good of Regalia. A simple extraction mission.

I was wrong.

Marigold Forbes wasn't a package. She wasn't a pawn.

She was a distraction. A variable I hadn't accounted for. A beautiful, chaos-inducing liability.

I needed to be harder. Better. I needed to remember that my loyalty was to the Crown, not to the girl wearing it.

"Get ready," I said, my voice rougher than I intended, snapping the tension. "We are beginning our descent."

She looked at me, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. Brave, defiant, terrified. "Good. Because I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to burn it down."

I looked out the window. The darkness of the ocean had given way to the jagged, unforgiving silhouette of the coastline. The sprawling, ancient stone walls of the Castle Regalia jutted out of the cliffside like a weapon, black against the grey sky.

She had no idea.

She thought she was walking into a political cage. She thought she was just marrying a Prince.

She was walking into a graveyard. A kingdom built on bones and blood.

And I was the only thing standing between her and the dark.

I just hoped I wouldn't be the one to extinguish her light.