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the future held for her. Or for them . Not once had he let her know he was hoping to be a part of her future and Jake’s.
    Jake was the one to speak. “I trust Luka with my life. If Syla needs help, we both need to know what’s going on.”
    “Syla?” Betinsa asked. “Should I tell them my news as well?”
    Syla gave her a curt nod.
    Betinsa took a deep breath before speaking. “I have come to get you. You must return to Trilan. I am sorry to say that your father is dead.”

Chapter 7
     
    “I have to go back,” Syla insisted, not at all surprised that both of her men were shooting daggers at her with their eyes.
    How could they possibly understand? All they thought about was her and keeping her safe here in Montana. She had much more on her mind— much, much more.
    Her people needed her. There was no way in the universe she was leaving Trilan in the hands of Thama and her despicable son. She was so concerned with her world she couldn’t even let the heartache of losing her father in. Not yet. Not until she put things to right.
    “There is more,” Betinsa said.
    “What more could there be?” Jake asked, raking his fingers through his dark hair. He was so agitated he couldn’t seem to stand still, pacing back and forth like a wild animal in a cage.
    “It’s about the treason charges,” Luka said, instead of asking. “Thama wanted to be sure Syla was out of the picture entirely before she did away with the old man. Am I right?”
    “Thama a bitch may be,” Syla said, knitting her brows. “But murder my father?” She shook her head. “Not she would even sink so low.”
    “Don’t be naïve, honey,” Luka insisted. “This is just the last of her master plan—hers and that bastard son of hers. Don’t you see? She didn’t marry your father because she loved him—she was after power. Probably always had been from the time she came to court.”
    While Syla hated Thama, she couldn’t believe anyone would be that cold, that calculating. That soulless.
    When her mother died, Syla had tried to console her father, but the man was in such a deep depression, she feared he might never claw his way back out. She’d even been concerned he might be suicidal. Then Thama had made the first bold move and begun to make advances to the king. To have a woman as beautiful as Thama pursue him had been the perfect salve for his broken heart. Syla had never questioned Thama’s motives because she’d been so damned grateful to see him happy once again.
    Time and distance—and charges of treason—made Syla view things in an entirely different light. Thama had been downright predatory in putting herself in the king’s path. Every time the man had left his suites, there she was, as though she needed him to see her every hour of every day. Always touching him. Always whispering secrets only they shared in his ear.
    Could Luka be right? Could Thama really have murdered the king?
    “I must return,” she insisted, knowing in her heart, it was the only way to save her people from that winsome snake in the grass.
    “So they can execute you the minute you set foot on your planet?” Jake gave his head a shake. “No fucking way, Syla.”
    “No fucking way,” Luka echoed.
    “There is more,” Betinsa said.
    Syla wasn’t sure she could take much “more.” Although she knew she was being rude, she gestured for Betinsa to keep speaking, tired of this whole nightmare coming out in bits and pieces.
    “There is a royalist force forming against your stepmother. They have reached out to my husband Drake to ask that you come back to Trilan. They want to put you on the throne.”
    Luka put his hands on his hips. “What they want is to get you killed. They’re a bunch of rebels, and Thama has enough power now to crush them like an egg.”
    “They wish me to rule? They wish me to follow my father on his throne?” Syla asked. While she’d known the Trilani people loved her father and her mother, she’d never realized that