“No! It’s the truth. He said he’d be back soon.”

He exchanged a look with Baltimore, pondering Nicolette’s words. What was John up to? Clearly something he didn’t want anybody to know about, something he couldn’t even trust his lover with. As if he were afraid that somebody could torture the information out of her.

“Fine,” he finally said. “I believe you.”

A sigh of relief rolled over the human’s lips.

Abel chuckled as he looked back at her. “But it changes nothing about your fate.” He reveled in the panic that returned to Nicolette’s eyes, the shudder that wracked her body, and the smell of fear that leaked from her pores. “Let’s go on a little trip.”

He released her and straightened, addressing Baltimore. “Take her and lock her up.”

His guard nodded and approached amidst the woman’s protests.

“No, please! No!”

Abel ignored her. Instead his eyes fell on a cell phone that lay on the coffee table. He snatched it. “And then let’s find out how much John loves you.”

And he hoped that John didn’t simply see Nicolette as a momentary distraction, but actually had feelings for her. Feelings that would provide Abel with leverage.

9

“I want to see her first,” Cain demanded, looking at John.

Cain, his friends from Scanguards, and John stood in an abandoned shack a few miles from the palace, which was located about a half hour north of New Orleans. John had brought them to this wooded area, avoiding any guard posts that may have alerted the palace security team to their approach.

“I have to caution you,” John said. “If I bring you to her, you can’t let her know that you remember nothing. You have to be careful what you admit to her.”

Cain looked past him. “I know that. Nobody can know that I suffer from amnesia.” It would undermine his position, should John’s claim be substantiated. Nobody wanted a king who was clueless. “Not even Faye. But I need to talk to her in private before we go in.”

“What do you mean to accomplish by that?” Haven asked, putting his hand on Cain’s forearm. “What if she gives away that you’re back and gives your enemies time to prepare? I’d rather we go in without them knowing in advance that we’re coming. It gives us the element of surprise.”

Cain stared at his colleague, appreciating his advice. But this was something he had to do. “Faye will be the most likely person in the entire palace to be able to corroborate John’s story. No offense, John.” Despite everything that John had told him, he needed proof of who he was before he marched back into his old life.

“None taken. You were always a cautious man. At least that hasn’t changed.”

“Besides, I need to know whether she’s still . . . with me,” he said, instead of saying what he really wanted to know: whether she still loved him or had turned her affections over to Abel.

“Very well,” Haven conceded. “But how are you going to arrange a meeting with her without anybody knowing?”

“It won’t be a problem,” John claimed, before Cain could answer. “There are secret tunnels underneath the property.”

Cain raised an eyebrow. “Tunnels?”

“It’s an old plantation, and the owners had the slaves build tunnels underneath it. A precaution when the civil war broke out,” John explained. “Once the tunnels were built, the master killed all the slaves involved in the construction, making sure there was nobody left who knew of their existence but him and his foreman.”

“Who knows of the tunnels?” Cain wanted to know.

“Only a select few.”

“Abel?”

John shook his head. “You and I. Though it’s possible that you told Faye, but I can’t know that for sure. You never said anything to me. But we have to assume since you were going to make her your queen, you would have told her about the tunnels.”

“How come only you and I know about the tunnels? Why not Abel?”

“The first leader of the king’s guard was a descendent of the plantation’s foreman. He passed the knowledge on. And now it is passed on from the leader of the king’s guard to whoever becomes king. And Abel isn’t king yet.”

“Does he suspect that there are tunnels?”

“No. Though he knows that the leader of the guard will pass all he knows to the new king after the coronation. He must assume that there are things only I know.”

“Good, we’ll take the tunnels. Thomas will come with us. The rest will stay here,” Cain ordered.