Princess Ever After

TWENTY-EIGHT





From the peace of an evening song to mob-riot pandemonium in the span of one breath.

The news of the ruling hit the pub like a tidal wave, exploding over them, knocking them back, then flowing out of the pub with such force, taking the patrons with it. The court’s ruling touched the festering debate in the Hessen people. Even those with no previous opinion were suddenly rabid and vocal.


For Tanner, panic. He’d lost Regina. One moment, he was standing by her, his hand resting gently on her leg. The next, he was pinned against a booth, unable to move. And he could no longer see her in the melee.

“Regina!”

The wave knocked him forward and sucked him out of the pub into the streets, and he was running with the stampede. He didn’t have eyes on Nigel or Jace either, and he prayed one of them had the princess.

“Regina!” The noise shoved his call back to his lips.

He searched for her red head among the crowd, the hot, sticky air pocketing between the rioters, making it hard to breathe. Then he saw her burnished tresses not far ahead.

Calling for her over and over, he jammed, cut, shoved, and pushed his way forward. When he reached her, he cupped his hand on her shoulder. “This way. Come with me.”

The woman screamed, spinning round, jack-hammering Tanner with her fist, dragging a sharp ring across the top of his eye.

“Get off of me.”

Falling back, Tanner pressed his hand to his face, a slithering pain shooting from his eye to the back of his head. He buckled forward, reaching blindly for something, anything, to grab on to. But his feet were caught . . . stumbling . . . tripping.

Floating white orbs flashed and popped in his eye. Finally, his palm landed flat against a streetlamp and he pulled himself upright.

The street noise was deafening. The voices, the horns, the shouts. When he heard an explosion, his heart nearly stopped.

He had to find Regina.

Warm blood oozed down his cheek. He yanked his handkerchief from his breast pocket and pressed it to his wound. A breeze freshened the air from the stench of terror, the sweat and smoke swirling around him. He jumped onto the base of a lamppost.

Lord, help me find her. Not for me. For her. For Hessenberg. Please. Keep her safe.

If he were Regina, where would he go? Think, think . . . Peace began to whisper through his thoughts.

To the car? No, she’d not be able to push against the riot, which was moving with tidal force toward the park.

Melinda House was between here and the park, as was St. John’s and Loudermilk’s Bakery. Places she knew.

Still clinging to the lamppost, Tanner yanked his phone from his pocket, trying to dial Nigel while the mob slammed against his legs and back.

But the security officer didn’t answer. He tried Jace to no avail, then Clarence, who also did not answer.

Tanner left a harried message for Clarence to rouse the entire security team and search for the princess among the rioters, throughout the downtown to the bay to the edges of the city.

Then, jumping down from the lamppost, he ran along the edge of the riot, weaving in and out of the fray, making his way toward St. John’s.

He launched up the portico steps two at a time and burst into the church foyer.

“Regina!”

Through the nave doors and down the thick, carpeted aisle, his footsteps like muffled thunder.

“Regina!” His voice boomeranged around the arched, trumpeted rafters.

At the altar, he stopped running, stopped flitting and panicking, stooping forward with his hands on his knees, filling his lungs. A small drop of blood dotted his shoe.

“Come on, Lord, come on.” The pressure of his prayer intensified the pain around his eye and sent a burning sear over his scalp. “Please . . .”

Tanner wiped the blood from around his eye with his coat sleeve as his phone buzzed in his pocket.

“Louis. Louis, please tell me Regina is with you.”

“I was hoping she was with you. Nigel and Jace rang the office. Said she got swept up in the riot and they lost the princess.”

Tanner exhaled, angry, frustrated. “She’s out there, Louis. Alone and exposed.”

“It’s not good, Tanner. There was an explosion. The details are sketchy, but there’s at least two fatalities.”

Tanner dropped to his knees at the altar as he hung up, breaking the last cords of his deal with God, pleading with him for help. Regina needed him.

Above all, Tanner needed him.



The crowd moved whitewater fast, roaring, swollen with the rains of passion. Terrified, Reggie went limp and flowed with the force of the riot, bodies smashing against bodies, and tried to stay on her feet.

If she tripped or stumbled, or landed on the cobblestone street, she’d never get up. She’d be trampled.

Loud. The throng was so loud. She couldn’t think. Or breathe. Her pulsing adrenaline was beginning to wane, and her legs had become like soft rubber. She felt weak and helpless to keep from eventually falling headlong onto the ground.

Someone smashed into her from behind. Stumbling, tripping, she grabbed at air, searching for something, someone to hold on to. But there was nothing. Tanner.

A broad, strong hand caught hers, snatching her to her feet. Reggie inhaled the fragrance of flour and vanilla instead of Tanner’s scent of rustic floral and spices.

“Hang on to me, miss. You fall, you’ll never get up.” A young man, dressed in white, with a chocolate-stained apron wrapped around his narrow body, anchored her against him.

She tried to work her legs. Weak, so weak. Next to her a woman stumbled and went down.

“Help her . . .” Reggie leaned away from the man. “We . . . have to . . .”

“Keep running. If we stop, we’ll be lost.” The baker manhandled someone crossing in front of them, a foghorn in his hand. “Looks like we’re heading to the park.”

The park grass muffled the stampede and, for the first time, Reggie heard the shrill call of police whistles. There was another explosion, and the rioters ducked with a collective awe, smoke billowing over them. Then they rose up and resumed the shouting and running and general frothing of the soul.

The baker tripped but Reggie steadied him. “Come on, we’re in this together.”

SWAT teams with shields and helmets were now running with the riot, surging through people. Flares rocketed, piercing the coming night with fire. Voices rose in a cacophony of spiking and heated sounds with no one message piercing through.

The baker paused with a pinched expression. “I can’t find a way out.”

Reggie glanced back, into the dark face of the mounting riot, her heart a tight fist in her chest. A scream billowed between her ribs and Reggie felt certain that in the next breath, she’d begin flailing, slamming her fists into guts and faces.

Anything to get out of here.

A princess is defined not by her title alone but by how she lives her life.

Another push from behind. A foot smashed down on hers.

Do something, Reggie. Lord, peace! We need your peace.

Sing the song.

The idea hit fast, almost desperate, then settled in her mind.

A smoke bomb exploded in the middle of the park, polluting the air, stinging Reggie’s lungs.

But instead of diffusing the rioters, the tactic only infused them with energy.

Sing the song.

Reggie spotted a park bench and cut a path through the crowd, dragging the baker along with her, Gram’s melody louder and louder in her soul. “Help me up.”

“Stand on the bench? Are you out of your mind, miss?”

“Probably.” Trembling with the ebb and flow of adrenaline, Reggie pressed her hand on his shoulder and launched up onto the bench, facing the riot gathering in the park.

This was crazy. How were they going to hear her? One weak, thin voice against the noise?

Sing the song.

Then, drawing a deep breath, remembering her choir teacher’s admonition to sing from her diaphragm, she sang with her very last breath of courage.

“Moonlight, sunshine, waves against . . . upon . . . the shore . . .”

Her voice warbled, but in her ears, the riot frenzy shifted down a notch.

“La, la, la, la we’re going to the shore.

“La, la, la, la to dance once more.

“No more worries, no more cares.

“We’ll sleep in peace tonight under the stars so fair.”

If the craziness ebbed at all, it flowed again the moment she stopped singing. So Reggie took a breath and began again. In faith.

“Moonlight, sunshine, waves upon the shore . . .”