I stilled. “He said he didn’t know he was mated. How did he not put it together?”
“Maybe he did know. He had to have a mirror somewhere.” Icarus shrugged. “Maybe it took seeing me. When he saw me on the beach, I think he realized. He told me I looked like our father.”
I hummed, not really listening as I moved around the room, gathering up the supplies I would need. My cloak would be better, but it was still above deck. For now, I could make do.
He watched me unwind the picture wire, then rehang the picture on the nail. I moved to the lantern, taking the metal pieces I could use, then slipped only one fork into my waistband – nickingallthe cutlery would be too obvious.
I had just started opening the drawers to the chest when Icarus spoke again. “Thorn drugged me. Why?”
“Possibly because of this.” I gestured to the room we were in. “He suspected you were handing me over to Talon.”
“I was trying to explain that I wouldn’t,” he said, letting out a desolate laugh. “I was going to, before I knew…”
“That you were my—what was it?—sky bond? Yes, I heard. Whatever you think a sky bond is, I don’t want to be yours if this is how they’re treated.” I shook my head, like I could shake away the pain. “I sure as hell don’t want to be one, if how your brother treated his is considered acceptable. That poor girl.”
“I am so sorry. I didn’t know he would take you like that. I had hoped to return to Wyngel alone and tell him what had happened. The brother I knew would understand. He wouldn’t steal my mate from me.”
Mate? That would happen the same day I made a perfect soufflé.
“I’ve got news for you, Icarus. That man is not the brother you knew. He’s broken in a very dangerous way.” I thought back to King Milian’s wild rages, his insistence on owning Omegas. “Know this: I will kill him if he doesn’t let me go.”
“I will, too,” he said quietly. “You are everything to me. Whether or not you allow me to be near you, I will spend my life in service to you.”
“Goddess, if I had a goldani for every man who’d said something similar today, I could buy ten new dresses.”
“You wear dresses?” His obvious disbelief struck me as funny, and I rolled my eyes.
“Yes, Icarus. I wear dresses sometimes, and I dance, and like pretty jewels. But I also like poisons and sharp, shiny things.”
He slid down the wall and sat beside me. “Is it wrong that I think it’s sexy? That you just went around the room and stripped away weapons only you would have noticed?”
“It’s not wrong,” I said, trying not to smile. “It might not be healthy. But whatever floats your pirate ship.”
The silence between us stretched full of memories. His hands on me, his mouth. His eyes, when his wyvern had risen inside him, pushing him to take me as their mate. He had wanted me.
Or had he? We had only met a few days ago, and no matter how strong the connection between us felt, all he wanted me for was some metaphysical connection. A fairy tale he’d dreamed about coming true.
It was the same one I’d grown up with. Except I had been taught every day of my childhood that I wasn’t the perfect princess I was supposed to be. I was a failure, and broken.
“My wyvern is tearing me apart inside, Roya,” Icarus said, his voice raw. “He’s never been so angry. He says I allowed my brother to harm you. That I don’t deserve you.”
“He’s right. You betrayed me. I don’t know how you can ever convince me you’re not a total rat bastard.”
Icarus choked off a laugh—or was it a sob?—and slumped even lower. “I always thought my life was cursed. Now I know it’s true. The woman I love hates me.”
“Love?” It was my turn to laugh. “Icarus, you can’t love me. You don’t even know me. What’s my favorite food? What do I do when I’m nervous? What makes me happy? What’s my worst flaw?”
Silence. Then, “You’re right. I don’t know you. Will you tell me some of those things? My wyvern insists you’re his sky bond. But I don’t even know who your parents are.”
Here on this ship, on the way to my enemy’s homeland, it felt like all the reason for secrecy were gone. I spoke the words I had never said out loud. “King Milian was my father. He raped my mother, and I was the result. I grew up in a harem of Failed Omegas: women he and his father had bred, hoping to find the right lines to breed another Omega into existence. They knew next to nothing about Omegas, though. Never suspected I would turn out to be one. Right after the Great Plagues, libraries across the continent were ransacked, and all the texts and information about Omegas was taken. Even storybooks, so that the only remaining records were tales told to children.” The books Kavin had were a treasure worth more than gold to the type of Alphas who were obsessed with Omegas.
I should have seen the hint that he was connected to Wulfram. Had Thorn known? I shook the nagging question away.
“So Milian experimented. His trials and errors were me and my sisters. My family.” My heart ached, thinking of how far I was from Valerie. Would I ever see her again? Would I be able to ask her the question that had floated in my mind since our parting?
“The woman I think of as my mother is known as the Queen of Death,” I said quietly. Saying it, I felt something move into place in my heart: an acceptance of a deep truth I’d always known, that I wasn’t an orphan.
Even if someday, someone else claimed to have given birth to me, Valerie had been my mother in every way that mattered. She had fiercely protected me, even though doing so cost her more than anyone should give.
