“Yes,” Icarus murmured. “I see that you return her regard.” I flinched, unaware I had shown any reaction.
“I cannot be with her,” I said at last. “I’m Anathema. I need to find a place for her, make sure she’s safe, and disappear, so they don’t get their hands on her when they catch up with me.”
He closed his eyes. “You know I’m wyvern. My brother Talon and I are some of the only ones left of our kind. We are possessive, Alphas both as man and beast. Roya is… She is my sky bond. That makes it hard to control my wyvern around her. Especially after I made an error in judgment.” I lifted an eyebrow and waited. “The other day, I admitted I smelled her, out at sea. She thinks I only want her because—”
“Because she’s an Omega.” I smirked. “You earned that one. It’s her greatest fear, that she will never be loved for herself.”
We sat quietly for a moment, and I felt myself softening toward the man. He had been waiting decades for Roya, if what he said about wyvern mating was accurate. If wyverns were monogamous as well, then Roya, Altair, and Kavin’s play these past days must be driving him to madness.
“In the Guild, they taught us a bit about your kind.” I didn’t say they had taught us the best ways to disable and kill them if any were ever found, but he must have read it in my face. Wyverns were fierce predators, deeply protective, and nearly indestructible. As his mate, she would be safe. “Do you plan to court her?” If he planned to do anything less, I would use some of those obsolete wyvern-killing techniques.
He laughed and leaned back next to me. “It’s not something I ever dreamed I’d have to do. To have a sky bond was a fantasy I thought would never be realized. Then it happened, but she was unaware of the link between us. I wasn’t prepared for her reaction. For her.”
“Kavin is a scholar of Omegas from Starlak. He said she’s been sending a lure—not a scent, but something like it—to attract Alphas who can protect her before her first heat.”
“Her firstheat?” He leaned forward. “I thought Kavin’s feat was impressive, to set her aside for the moment. But you and she were together for much longer. How did you resist?”
“Easily.” I shook my head. “For a long while, at least. I met her when she was sixteen, a child. I honored that.”
“She is no child now, Thorn.”
His eyes saw too much in mine; I shuttered my gaze and lay back on the mat. He waited, and I sighed. “I know it. By the time I saw how magnificent a woman she was, it was too late.”
We spoke for hours, me telling him the story of Wulfram and the Guildmaster, the subsequent life debt that I now held, and dozens of assorted tales about Roya growing up. He poured out measures of rum for us both, which we mixed in coconut shells with fruit juice as the heat of the afternoon wore on.
“Why are you a pirate, Icarus? Your brother is the king. Did you offend him?”
“He offended me,” he slurred. “Asshole took the first girl I ever kissed.”
“Took her?”
“Mated her. I wasn’t in love or anythin’. We were good friends, grew up together. Didn’t know she was an Omega at all, she never smelled like much around me. One day after she’d turned eighteen, Talon comes home from a campaign, scents her, and says she’s his sky bond. He picks her up, flies off with her. But she didn’t know what was happening, was afraid. He didn’t care. Asshole took her anyway.”
“He raped her?”
“Omega, remember? You know they can’t be raped, not in that way. Still, something happened. Talon was raging by the time he left her alone.”
The hut filled with an ominous silence. “The next day, his best friend tried to do what Talon did and worse. Tied her, cut her. She broke her arms trying to escape.” Icarus cursed, and I nodded in agreement. “Rabbas was much stronger than me, older. I couldn’t win. So I helped her onto a ship and fought him while she fled. He almost killed me.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen. Wrennie was only eighteen by a few weeks. When Talon came back, Rabbas told him I’d had her. My asshole brother believed him, said there was proof. Believed I would do such a thing to little Wrennie. To my own brother, to take his sky bond. Even though he never deserved her.” His shoulders quaked with emotion. I handed him the rum and he took a long swallow. “Her ship sank in a storm. Talon never forgave me. Never got over her. She was lost.”
“Killed?”
“No,” he mumbled. “Pretty sure she’s still alive, if he was right about the bond. Sky bonds can’t live if their mate dies. If Talon passes, Rabbas will take the throne and execute me faster than flame can sear.” We both drank a bit more, until Icarus slurred something that chilled my blood.
“And now I’m supposed to take Roya to the bastard. Can’t stay here many more days. He’ll come for her, probably in a week. Fuck. How’m I gonna give her up to ‘im in a week?”
I kept my breathing even, didn’t let myself respond, but with one hand, I reached over to the cloak Roya had left with me and fished out the small vial of sedative solution she kept in the fifth left inner pocket. While his eyes were closed, I added some to his cup, hoping it would work on a wyvern the same way as it would a man.
“Why would you take her?” I pretended to swallow a huge gulp of my own rum, which prompted him to drink as well. “She’s your sky bond, right? Don’t give her up.”
He didn’t answer for a while, just drank. Finally, he sighed. “Have to. He’s still m’king. His orders aren’t like… suggestions, you know? It’s my life, and m’crew’s as well if I don’t answer him.” That explained the two sailors’ growing disquiet as we’d lingered here.
“But why? Why does he want her?”
“After Wrennie left, he made a deal with Havira’s queen. She promised him a new Omega to marry. But the one they sent got taken and killed. By Milian, can you believe?”
