“Time for bed.”
“If I’m in the hammock, where will you sleep?”
“On the floor.” It wouldn’t be the most uncomfortable place I’d slept. Though I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight; someone had to guard her.
“You gave up everything to help me, Thorn. I’m not making you give up your hammock.”
I ignored her comment as we returned to the only place to sleep that didn’t also house a dozen horny sailors, or one disgusting captain.
Kavin sat inside the cabin, a lantern glowing softly as he read. He leaned back as young men do, balancing on the rear legs of the rickety wooden chair, but sat up when we entered, sketching a slight bow in Roya’s direction. He had remained in the cabin almost all day, so I’d only had time to do a cursory inspection of his belongings. On the surface, he seemed relatively safe. Slightly naïve.
“Roya, take the bed,” he said, “You take the hammock, Thorn. I’ll wake you in four hours for your shift.”
Roya was almost dead on her feet, but she frowned adorably. “Shifts? But the men on this ship are all Betas.”
“You don’t have to be an Alpha to see how beautiful you are, little queen,” I murmured.
“Dreaming,” she mumbled.
“Hmm?” I nudged her to the bed, and she fell onto it, almost asleep already.
But she roused enough to say, “Must be dreaming. Thorn’s never nice.”
Kavin shot me a stern look that demanded an explanation. He hadn’t earned one yet.
“Thanks for taking first shift,” I said, and slung myself into the hammock. He nodded and kept reading.
After four hours, I tapped him on the shoulder. “Your turn.”
He blew out the lantern, but murmured as he climbed up, “Tomorrow night, you should sleep while I’m awake. I swear on her life that I will not harm her, or you, so long as you stand as her protector.” He hesitated. “If you fall, I will guard her, even if it means my life. She is sacred; she is one of the very last Omegas. I will never allow harm to come to her.” His voice was filled with youthful fervor and passion.
He'd do well to keep that passion far from my girl.
I wouldn’t trust him, no matter what he vowed. I’d learned long ago no one could be trusted when it came down to the final choice, the last note of the song, the gasp before the end.
Everyone chose themselves over others. Stood on the backs of the dying to reach the prize, never thinking of offering a hand up.
I didn’t trust Kavin. But I didn’t think he had bad intentions, even if he stared at Roya with a little too much hunger in his gaze. I might sleep tomorrow.
I stared out the small window and watched the constellations wheel by as the ship sailed on toward Mirren, and my death.
THORN
Roya rummaged through the pockets of her cloak, cataloguing her weapons and packets of herbs, the cabin thick with her orange blossom scent, though neither of us spoke of it. We had learned long before not to speak of her attraction, although no words were needed.
Her bloom sank into my skin in such close quarters, and stayed there, teasing me until I felt half-drunk most days. Her gaze was every bit as hazed as my mind when, from time to time, our eyes would meet. I took to pulling the hood of my assassin’s cloak even lower over my face, and watching her from its cover like some predator stalking an unsuspecting meal.
“That garrote wire looks rusty,” I noted, glancing up from the Starlakian text on Omega reproductive health that the young Alpha had been reading the night before. It was fascinating, and terrifying. The mistakes I might have made with Roya, if I hadn’t refused her advances when she was sixteen… I shivered. “I have oil in my fourth inner right pocket if you need.”
“Thanks.” She collected it from my cloak, her fingers moving gently over the waterproofed cloth before oiling her wire, re-spooling it, and putting everything back. She moved on to her blades, polishing them, and then to the small, stoppered vials and the sealed packets of antidotes that went along with them.
Her collection was meager, compared to my own. But then again, she hadn’t been allowed to graduate, so she hadn’t received the gift her lead instructor had prepared for her.
I’d spent a significant amount on that gift. It was probably still in my room back at the Guild training grounds, lying wrapped on my bed: a true assassin’s cloak, filled with everything a teacher was allowed to give his student.
My only student, though claiming her as my charge had nearly been the death of both of us. I smiled inside my hood, remembering the day I’d accepted her as mine.
The young Omega stared up at me with blue eyes that should have been the same as every other woman on the abandoned estate. She shook out her glossy blonde hair, the shade identical to at least ten of the other twenty-three souls I’d foolishly agreed to rescue from King Milian’s harem while Milian and his men were marching to Rimholt to depose the rightful king.
