I stood, looked down at him with a small smile, and pulled back one foot. Then I kicked him as hard as I could in the balls.
“Fucking Alphas!” I shouted to the Goddess as I left him groaning in the sand, my coconut-laden cloak dragging behind me as I stalked away. “The next one who says he wants me because I’m some Goddess-damned magical Omega won’t live to regret it!”
ROYA
Sound traveled extremely well on the small island. When I returned to the huts, none of the Alphas would make eye contact. Even the two Beta crewmen avoided me.
When Icarus finally dragged himself to the site, cradling his injured balls, they all looked at me like I’d murdered a nursery full of small babies. I didn’t bother speaking to any of them except Thorn, who acted like they were all being ridiculous.
I heard him remonstrating with Kavin when they thought I was too far away to hear. “He may have saved us, but if Roya attacked him, you should consider what he did to merit such an action.”
That made me feel even worse. Icarus hadn’t done anything wrong—well, not technically. It was just that I was so disappointed in him. In his wyvern self, too. Was that really why he had been drawn to me—my scent? Something I had no control over, a part of me I would erase if I could?
I stalked out to the beach, watching the waves roll in. Eventually someone joined me. I snarled, thinking it would be Icarus… but it was Altair.
“What has stolen your smile, Omega?”
“That,” I managed to say without cursing. “That word.”
“Omega?” he repeated, then went still. “Ah, I see.”
“What do you see?” I knew my voice was waspish, and that he had done nothing to merit my ire, but I was just so angry. When would someone want me, love me, for something other than my face and my scent? Beyond frustrated, I asked the question out loud.
Altair hummed. “Of course. You feel you have been reduced to your Omega traits. You fear that when men meet you, all they notice is your beauty, your enchanting aroma. What you could be for them, not who you are in yourself.”
“Isn’t that what you see?” I snapped. “You’re an Alpha, aren’t you? Not that you look like one.” Goddess, that was mean. It wasn’t his fault he was malnourished.
He didn’t even flinch at the insult. “I am, yes. But I was also in a similar situation. My mother died and suddenly all I was, was the heir. The prince, the one who would inherit… or who had to be kept from the same. I wasn’t allowed friends, only tutors, cronies of my uncle. When servants got close to me, they were removed. I don’t know how to make friends, to do the sorts of tasks men take for granted.” He waved a hand in the general direction of the huts. “They know how to hunt and build fires. How to be Alphas. When I was very young, I had some freedom. But for the most part, I was kept alone and educated for a different life.” He gazed out at the horizon.
“I cannot find my feet here, and when these men look at me, they see what I have been made, what was forced upon me. A useless princeling, with no skills to survive in the real world. While you, who should be a similar sort of creature, are everything I cannot be. Strong, brave, deadly. You saved me, saved us all. You threw yourself naked into the ocean, sacrificing yourself for others. You have the regard of a deadly assassin, a warrior, and a wyvern, a prince of his kind.
“They may look at you and see an Omega, but you are much, much more. While I am not.” He let out a sour laugh. “I am nothing, apart from an heir to a stolen throne.”
Goddess, now I felt so guilty. “Altair, you are not… nothing.” I didn’t know how to fix this.
He tried to keep his tone light and playful, but a thread of deep pain was woven through it. “What am I then?” He sat, and I plopped down next to him, knowing he was probably too weak to stand.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I don’t know much about you. Tell me something. What do you like?”
He let out a disconsolate sigh. “My father and mother were mated in the ancient ways, so when she died, he was also gone within days. I was raised by the palace staff. Before my schooling, I would go fishing with Roan, one of the royal chefs, and his family. They took me out in a boat, and we caught great beasts. Swordfish, grouper.” A smile danced across his face. “Once, Roan’s uncle said he saw merfolk out at sea, but he was so drunk at that point, I’m pretty sure it was the rum speaking.”
“What else?” I tried to watch him inconspicuously. He was much too thin for his height, but the planes of his face were unmistakably noble. My fingers itched to reach out and trace the lines of his jaw, his nose, his forehead. Even sunburnt and weak, he looked like an angel, his dark lashes fanning on his cheekbones, his brow regal. He was so beautiful it made my chest hurt.
After a long moment of silence, he cleared his throat and muttered, “I sing.”
I hadn’t expected that. “You sing?”
“Yes.” He ducked his head. “I loved singing when I was younger. When I was sent to Mirren for schooling, I had a music tutor who… taught me things.” His face colored, and I suppressed a snarl at the implication that the “things” he learned hadn’t all been musical in nature. “I wasn’t good at flirting, but I could get girls to look at me, and sometimes more, if I sang to them.” He waggled his eyebrows, and I punched his shoulder lightly. “After I started growing weak…” He stopped, grinding his teeth.
I reached out and took his hand. “You weren’t growing weak. You were being poisoned.”
“I should have suspected earlier. It was my fault I was trapped there for so long.” He sighed. “My fault so many of my subjects died trying to protect me.”
“No.” I squeezed his fingers, and his dark gaze met mine. “I was a prisoner of King Milian, as were all my friends. Was it our fault? Should we have found a way to escape? I promise you, many made the attempt. They all died, and not cleanly. There is nothing good that can come from blaming the victims of a cruel tyrant. All you can do is try, once you are free, to make sure no one is ever treated in the way you were. And be very certain the one who hurt you doesn’t have the power—or the breath—to hurt anyone else.”
The warm wind from the brilliant turquoise sea before us carried the scent of salt and reminded me of the smells of the Omega Suite, the harem. So much salt had soaked into the pillows at night, the only time we let ourselves cry, that the whole place had smelled vaguely of the ocean.
“Is that why you studied the arts of death?” I could tell the answer to this question was important to him, somehow. “To protect others?”
