“No.” A brief hesitation. “My brother goes there.”
There were plenty of schools in the middle quarter. He would have to be more specific. Still, that was a piece of information I hadn’t known.
“A brother, you say? How interesting.”
“How is that interesting?” Rourke said defensively.
I smiled. “I have two brothers. Younger. Are you an older brother, Rourke?”
He ground out the word. “Yes.”
“There’s something we have in common,” I said airily, like we’d made a great discovery together.
He grunted, not looking at me. He was still scanning the buildings. From the furrow of confusion in his brow I understood two things: one, that he wasn’t used to the area, and two, that he had no clue where this school was.
“What is your brother’s name?” I asked.
He forced himself to meet my gaze. “Amos Rourke,” he said quietly.
I made a mental note of that. I gave him one more moment to fruitlessly look at the buildings before I said, “Come along.”
There was a single second of hesitation before Rourke relented to the tautness of the leash, then followed without a fuss.
Things got interesting when we ascended to the upper quarter. The streets, which were full of upbeat conversations, came to a dead silence when we exited the elevator. At the same time, I noticed Rourke’s eyes going wide, overwhelmed. If the upper quarter was a shock to him, he might lose his mind when he saw the palace.
As we walked by, my subjects apparently forgot all their manners and stared in open shock. I expected such rudeness from the lower people, but not citizens of the upper quarter. It was uncouth. If I wasn’t in a hurry to get home, I might have stopped to remind them of their standing.
They’d all seemed to have lost their tongues. Nobody said a word as I passed them with my alpha in hand. It was, frankly, a little grating.
I stopped in front of a handful of omegas who were gawking. They were so stunned that they didn’t even bow their heads in respect when I turned my gaze on them.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, loud and clear enough for the whole street to hear.
That knocked some sense into them. They immediately bowed, but were still tongue-tied when they spoke.
“Y-your Highness, good afternoon, it’s just that—”
“The alpha, he simply took us off guard is all—”
“Yes, that’s it, you Highness, we’re simply not used to seeing such a—er, that is to say, a specimen of, er—”
Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Rourke narrow his eyes. He made no attempt to show respect to these upper quarter omegas. He stood tall and proud with his shoulders rolled back. His gaze was high, not dropped to the ground. It was bold of him, I had to admit. If he wasn’t with me, I suspected a knight would have been on him immediately.
The omegas were still stammering.
“Of course, if it’syouralpha, Your Highness, that’s acceptable—no, more than acceptable, it’s wonderful—”
“Yes, not like that Eugene Woods andhisalpha—”
At the mention of Woods, Rourke perked up, his face flashing with recognition. That was interesting. I’d have to probe him about that later.
I cut off their stupid babbling. “So, gentlemen, you’re saying that it’s not forbidden for the prince to purchase an alpha from the alpha market?”
They went slack jawed, unaware of how to react to this breach of social etiquette. Woods had been condemned for this very same thing recently, but Woods was not the prince. I stood before them as the future king. The same laws forbidding mating down obviously did not apply to me. And—not that it was any of their business—but I hadn’t conducted anymatingyet. I was simply a prince on a stroll with my purchase. They had no ground to stand on.
“No, sir, absolutely not!”
“Yes, highness, we support your decision without question!”
