Maybe I’ll hold it long enough that I’ll suffocate and die.
“Hey.”
Lochlan’s voice. I ignore him, too.
“You need to eat,” he calls.
A tear rolls out of my eye, making a path across my cheek.
I bite the side of my tongue until the pain chases away my emotion, and then I duck my face into the blanket and swipe the tear off.
The last time I cried, I was in a cell, too. I was on my knees, facing my brother.
“You didn’t eat anything yesterday,” Lochlan is saying. “Wes—youneedto eat.”
Wes.I hate that he calls me that. He started doing it when wewashed up onshore, so the pirates wouldn’t know I was the prince, but the name reminds me too much of everything I’ve lost.
I have to duck my face into the blanket again.
“Hey.” His voice is closer, right behind me. “Get up.”
I don’t want to get up. My throat is still tight and my eyes are hot and I want him to go away.
Lochlan pokes me in the shoulder. “Get up.Eat.”
I grit my teeth. “Leave me alone.”
“No.” He pokes me again. “Stop wallowing and get up.”
“I’m not wallowing.”
I am absolutely wallowing.
This time he tugs at my shoulder. “Stop being a baby,” he says. “Get up, Wes.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Fine.” His voice drops, and it sounds like he’s crouching behind me, leaning in. “Get up,Corrick.”
My given name sounds like an insult. “Go away.”
“No.” He smacks me on the back of the head,hard.
It’s so startling that I whip around, throwing the blanket back. I inhale to snap at him, but he’s ready for it. He claps me on the ear like I’m a child, sending me sprawling a little. “That’s right,” he taunts. “Move, Cory.”
That does it. I growl and launch myself at him with enough force that he goes skidding into the dirt. I try to swing a fist, but he dodges most of my blows, and we roll, grappling for purchase, snarling with anger.
But he’s right that I haven’t been eating, and he’s able to pin me to the ground a lot more easily than I’d like. He straddles my waist and puts an arm across my neck until it’s hard to breathe, and he’s bearing down on one arm so I can’t swing at him anymore.
I have the pleasure of seeing blood on his lip, though. I strain against his hold and wonder if he’ll break my neck.
He glares down at me, panting. “Lord, you fight like a wildcat. Are you ready to eat now?”
“Get off me,” I grind out. Blood is bitter on my tongue.
“Breakfast?”
“Go to hell, Lochlan.”
