“—and yarrow root. Where did you learn this?”
“It’s my thing,” was all she said. In thirty minutes, I was feverish but alive. The other women had taken me in and undressed me, making sure the bites were available for treatment, while the parts a young girl didn’t need to see were covered.
She knew as much as I did about treating snakebites. “How?” I mumbled, the foul tea she’d made contributing to my torpor.
“I was afraid,” she said. “Always afraid. Being a child in Milian’s harem couldn’t keep me safe. There were men who… who didn’t care if I was old enough. I’m not strong, so I learned what I could from a castle apothecary, the servants, this one visiting duchess from Mirren who was on her seventh husband, and V-Valerie...” She bit off a sob. “She gave herself up for me, just the other day, when that monster Farthan took her.”
She shook off her sadness, dabbing more paste on my bites, then covering that with clay and wrapping it with cloth. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I want to be dangerous. I want to learn as much as I can, so men like Farthan never get their hands on me or my sisters again. All I need is a teacher.” Her small white teeth shone in the flickering firelight as she bared them in a half-smile, half-growl.
“I’ll teach you,” I promised. “If I live through the night, I’ll be your teacher.”
“So, I may have to kill Kavin.” Her voice brought me out of the memory.
Kill Kavin? I had gone through his possessions, and found nothing that alarmed me. He had clothing, a few dozen goldani, a sword and pair of small daggers, a small pouch of cut gemstones, his impressive collection of texts on Omegas—including one on sexual techniques with some very interesting, dog-eared pages—and the hairbrush and mirror. Maybe Roya had caught something I had missed.
“He took my herbs,” she said with a huff. “The new ones.”
Relaxing, I made a noncommittal sound. It hadn’t been Kavin, but me, two days ago when she was out of the cabin, after I’d read the side effects. Infertility wasn’t one of them, which had surprised me. In fact, when an Omega took those herbs, according to the book I’d read, it only delayed her heats and made her incredibly fertile when they finally came. When they did surface, the heats were violent and unpredictable, lasting for weeks. In the past, some Omegas who had taken similar herbs for too long had died, their hearts unable to keep up with their bodies’ demands.
I wouldn’t tell Roya that yet, although I knew I would have to at some point. I didn’t want to frighten her more than she was. The looming specter of an uncontrollable sexual frenzy wouldn’t help her keep focused as we ran for our lives.
No, I threw them away to protect her life, and I would defend that decision to my own death. But if I was honest with myself, I hadn’t told her what I had done because I didn’t want her legendary temper unleashed on me. She could use any one of a dozen herbs she had on her person to inflict explosive diarrhea on me. I wouldn’t put it past her.
“Can you get them back, Thorn?” Roya asked, obviously not for the first time, judging by her annoyed tone.
“I agree with him, actually. You shouldn’t take them now.”
I didn’t look up, but I could almost hear her eyes rolling. “Yeah, that’s a great idea, Thorn. I’m a twenty-two-year-old Omega who’s never fully matured, stuck for weeks on a boat with a teenaged Alpha and my dad as the only sexual options when, not if, I go into heat. Not the best plan.”
I fought the growl in my chest. “I’m not your father.”
“That’s what you heard? Whatever, you might as well be.”
I was always in control, so I wasn’t certain how I had suddenly crossed the room and taken her neck in my hand, pressing her back against the wall, until it had already happened. I squeezed my fingers gently around her throat, watching her pupils bloom as I stared into her shocked face. How could she think I saw her as my child? Was she really that blind to my desire?
“I am not your father, Roya. I am not family.”
Her eyes went from uncertain and slightly fearful to hurt. “Yeah, I know, I’m nobody to you. Not even your student anymore. Never fear, I won’t break your little rule.” She sniffed. “Even if you’re breaking it right now yourself.”
“That fucking rule,” I murmured, feeling her pulse racing under my hand. I leaned in, inhaling the wash of orange blossom and green grass and heat that wafted from her exposed skin. “You know why I made it?”
Her expression went flat. “Yeah, I annoyed you to death. I showed up in your room and made a fool of myself over you one too many times.”
“Wrong.” I sucked in a breath so full, I could taste her on the back of my tongue. “I made that rule because if I didn’t, I was going to fuck you every day for the last four years, Roya. Ever since you were a few months shy of nineteen, still a child in so many ways. Whether or not that made me a very bad man. Whether or not you were ready. Whether or not you even wanted that from me.” I set my teeth against the soft skin on her neck, and let them slide down, loving the sound of her gasp, the bloom of floral musk that was so thick it might drown us both.
“I made that rule because my job was to teach you. But what I wanted to do, every day after I smelled you, after you came to my bed… was claim you.”
ROYA
Oh, my Goddess. Oh, my blessed, beloved, prayer-answering Goddess, it was finally happening.
The No Touching rule was so broken, it was invisible. Like a grain of sand. Like a drop of rain dissolving into the ocean.
Thorn’s teeth scraped on my neck, and I shivered. He smelled of leather and almonds, and I wanted my teeth on him as well.
Then I felt something else—wetness on my thigh, a drop of…notrain. What in the world? Another droplet slid down my upper thigh from my…
Panic flooded my fuzzy brain. “Um, I have to go,” I said, pushing him away. Pushing him away, as he tried tokissme…What was I doing?
