“I don’t want to be pretty,” I explained calmly. Well, not calmly. I was yelling, and waving my cut off braid in one hand. “All they see is this stupid hair and face. I want to be powerful.”
“You want to use weapons?” Thorn asked. Of course, he’d gone straight to the heart of my rage. The boys in my group had said a girl couldn’t use a sword. They’d been right—I’d dropped the weapon I’d been assigned ten times that day in training, my arms too weak to drill for more than a few minutes. Of course, when I’d argued I could use any sword I wanted, they’d pointed out some smaller “swords” that they thought I could handle, grabbing their crotches.
I had a feeling if I told Thorn that, they might find themselves without any swords at all, so I stayed quiet. But the constant harassment had gotten to me. Maybe without my long blonde hair, I would look more like a boy. Maybe then they would treat me like a real trainee.
“Yes,” I sneered at last. “I want to use weapons. But I suck at swords.”
“Your hair is a weapon,” he said thoughtfully, walking around me. “Your hair, your face, everything about you. It’s all a weapon. A lure. A trap. Your beauty is a hidden snare.”
“That’s just my Omega outside,” I protested.
“No,” Thorn replied. “Watch.” He straightened up, his shoulders swelling, chest rising, and suddenly an obvious air of danger surrounded him. I swallowed nervously. But before I could ask what he was doing, he slumped down, letting his cloak slip to one side in a slovenly way, twisting a leg out to look lazy or casual, and made small sniveling noises, like he had hay fever. Nothing about him spoke of danger. In fact, if I hadn’t known it was Thorn, I would have let my eyes gloss right over him on the street.
He looked harmless.
Before I could blink, Thorn had a knife in his hand and had cut a hank of hair off the braid I still held. “Do you understand?” he asked. I nodded hesitantly. “When I was younger, I wasn’t as tall as some of the other Alphas. I wasn’t as strong at first. I’m not as good looking—”
I started to protest, but he shushed me.
“No, Roya. You see, I thought it was a weakness until I realized being able to blend in, make myself inconspicuous, harmless, was my best weapon.” He tucked the hair he’d cut off into his pocket. “Your best weapon…”
“Is poison,” I interrupted. “I already know enough to kill all those stupid boys.”
“No, little queen,” he said, his voice dark. “Your best weapon is the one the Goddess gave you. That terrible, powerful beauty. Someday, when men look at you, they will lose their minds. They will say things in front of you they shouldn’t, trust you when they should run screaming. For now, I will teach you to use weapons you can hold in your hands. But you must also learn to wield the weapons you wear every day. Lure them in, little queen. Lull them. And when all they can see is your face…”
Something sharp pricked my neck, waking me from the spell he had cast with his words. His knife was at my throat, and I saw a shadow of a smile under his hood.
“Then you make them pay for not seeing how powerful you really are.”
I hadn’t believed him then—that my face could lull men into utter stupidity—but he had been right all along. I had hypnotized Gullen and his men with my boobs. And now, all it had taken was some batted eyelashes to convince a sailor to bring me my cloak, as I was chilled from the sea air.
“Thank you so much for letting me cook, Bru—I mean, Branton,” I simpered. Icarus was pretending to sleep in our locked cabin, and Branton the Brute had allowed me, after quite a few tear-filled pleas, to make myself some food in the ship’s mess. I had left the cloak in the room, but had tucked some special vials in my pants pockets and armpits.
I gently ran my hands over the top of a pile of brown eggs that filled a basket on the floor, while the ship’s cook and Branton watched with matching pained expressions.
Because they weren’t watching the eggs. I had taken a moment to tie the loose ends of my shirt up and under my breasts, and had even subtly dabbed a tiny bit of drinking water on the places where my nipples showed through the cotton. They stared at those dark spots like they expected them to burst free at any moment. I took a deep breath, and both men adjusted themselves.
I was sort of disappointed in the Brute. This was Talon’s right-hand Alpha? He was supposed to be guarding. Well, my nipples would be well guarded, indeed.
“I love to cook,” I sighed breathily and leaned forward, letting my elbows rest on the table and my shirt gape wide at the top. The men nodded, their mouths hanging slack. “Do you think... Talon seemed so angry, but he said I was supposed to mate with him.”
“Mate?” the cook repeated, wiping the corner of his mouth.
“Yes. I’ve never… you know. I’ve never done that before. I want to make him happy, you see? I thought maybe I could cook something for him. I could make something special… something sweet, maybe.”
“A dessert?”
I hummed. “An egg custard?” The cook shook away his confusion, blustered a bit, then started gathering the ingredients I would need. I had tried to make this before, so I knew the recipe, but the cook saw how much trouble I was having and stepped in. He never noticed when I tipped the vial of ambersol into the cooling custard and stirred it.
I made it strong, not knowing how much Talon might eat. But in quantity, it made the victim lapse into a coma, giving the appearance of imminent death. The antidote was simple: a mixture of papaya seed, two more esoteric herbs I had in my cloak, and a few trips to the toilet a day later to eject the whole mess. In small amounts, though, it caused intestinal distress within an hour.
I smiled with as much innocence as I could, batting my infernally long lashes as I fed a spoonful into the cook’s mouth, and then the guard’s. “Delicious,” the cook declared, and called Talon into the ship’s dining cabin for the meal.
Not two hours later, Branton the Brute and the cook were vomiting their insides up in a locked privy, and Talon was slumped over the table. It was time for Icarus to play his part in front of the crew. He wouldn’t tear my clothing or rough me up, no matter how much I insisted, so I had to do my best on my own.
Icarus burst out of the cabin, dragging his brother’s body behind him with one hand, and pushing me in front of him with the other. He threw me down on the deck, still holding the unconscious Talon. The sailors nearby shouted, and a few drew weapons.
“Stop,” he shouted. “Your king, my brother, has been poisoned by this Omega witch.”
