Playboy Princes (Royals of Arbon Academy, #2)(86)

Jordan grabbed me at the same time as Rafe, both of them shoving me back into the courtyard, then dragging me as far from the walls as possible. Once in the middle of the open space, they tugged me to the ground and covered me with their bodies while the whole world continued to shake and shudder beneath us.

"It's an earthquake," Rafe shouted to be heard over the rumble and crash of breaking objects. "I think."

"How is that even possible?" I demanded, huddling under their warmth and trying to get a grip on my anxiety. "Do the Switzerlands get earthquakes often?"

There was a pause, neither one of them replying for a beat, and the earth continued jostling us around like a washing machine. Then...

"Nothing's impossible," Jordan said, sounding full of dread and resignation.

A deafening crash sounded, and the whole world went dark.





Chapter 36





When the sound receded, it became eerily silent. The air around us was thick and dusty, making me cough and choke when I sucked a too-deep breath, and I pushed the boys off me in a desperate bid for more oxygen.

"Violet," Rafe rasped, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I replied, not even pausing to check if I was, in fact, okay. Fine white powder coated every surface, including us, and I gasped when I saw what I'd come from. The whole east side wall of the courtyard—the exterior wall to the corridor I'd just watched Swiss guards drag Alex down—was gone. Or... not gone so much as it had completely collapsed. A section of an upper level of the stone palace had collapsed and crushed the lower level. Chunks of rock and plaster the size of people had landed a scarce few feet from us. Had they hit us... I shuddered to think. Broken spine, crushed skull...

"Jordan?" I exclaimed, tearing my eyes away from the closest hunk of debris. "Where's Jordan?"

"Here," came his groaned reply. Somehow he'd ended up behind a topiary horse and was slowly picking himself out. I breathed a sigh of relief, noting nothing more than superficial scrapes on his face and hands.

"What the fuck just happened?" I asked the two of them as if they had any answers for the cataclysmic event we'd just experienced. Thank fuck we hadn't been indoors, or it all could have ended so much worse.

“Natural disaster technology,” Rafe said, voice flat. “My mom was right.”

Shit, and I finally had my answer from that day. It was bad. Very fucking bad.

I sucked in a sharp gasp. "Mattie and Nolan! Rafe, your dad!" I scrambled to my feet, and white plaster powder sloshed off my huge skirts in waves.

Rafe caught me before I could tear across the debris, heading in the general direction of where the ballroom had been only a few moments before. “What are you doing?” I snapped, trying to wrench my arm free. “Our friends are in there. Your father!” I waved at Jordan. “Even Meghan.” Thank God his parents hadn’t been able to make it.

Rafe growled and got right into my face. “I fucking know that, and I’m worried too. But running in there without thought is going to get you killed. And that’s not happening on my watch.”

“We can’t lose you, Violet,” Jordan said. “You need to stay with us, just in case there’s another quake.”

I huffed. “Okay, fine. But I’m not staying here.”

“Never said we were,” Rafe replied as he wrapped his hand around my right one, Jordan took my left one, and they started dragging me along a different path than the one I’d been about to take.

I noticed that they stuck to the middle of the space, away from large objects, and their faces were alert as they looked around constantly.

“So this natural disaster technology,” I whispered, “it created this? This… earthquake?”

How was that possible?

“Maybe it was a bomb...” I mean, an explosion could rattle the land and walls like that. Surely.

Rafe shook his head, leading us through an archway to the main wing, half the stone of the doorway now lying on the ground. My heels caught on the rocks as I wished for flat shoes.

“It was definitely an earthquake,” he said softly, pausing briefly before moving again. “And since the damage looks to be focused right where the ball was, this was definitely man-made. ”

I spluttered, and Jordan covered my mouth quickly, no doubt to shut my stupid ass up. They’d just told me this was an attack, and I was reacting poorly.

So I pulled myself together, focusing like I’d done so many times in the past when the world went to shit.

“What else can this technology create?” I asked in a low voice, managing to sound calm.

Rafe took a second to meet my eyes, and his were, unsurprisingly, very dark. “In theory: tornados, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, floods. You name it, there’s supposedly been something invented to unnaturally set forth the disaster. All monarchies are aware of this, but until this moment, it was assumed to be nothing more than a resistance rumor.”

The area where the ball had been was just ahead, and my heart galloped at the sight. Rafe was right; it had been focused there. Everything was in shambles. Half the walls looked to have been blown out, the floor was broken, and there was no way I could make it across in these fucking heels. But I was going to try because people I loved were in there.