“I left him back on palace grounds,” I replied.
“Oh. It just seemed like you were rather close, is all,” Woods said. Sounding a bit embarrassed, he added, “He was very quick to protect you. I was under the impression—”
“What impression?” I demanded, cutting him off.
“Er, nevermind, Your Highness.”
“Wait, you can’t be talking about Rourke, right?” Bjorn asked before letting out a laugh. “There’s no way he’d act like that.”
“He did, Bjorn,” Woods told him. “I was there when it happened. He leapt to defend the prince without any regard to his own safety.”
I couldn’t even process the fact that Woods was acting likehehadn’t been the one to assault me. I was too busy thinking about Bjorn’s open disbelief.
“No way,” Bjorn said with a laugh. “The Rourke I know hates all omegas except his younger brother. Um, no offense. And just so you know, I don’t feel that way, Your Highness,” he added with an apologetic glance.
I was overwhelmed. Rourke hated omegas? I didn’t think Bjorn was lying, and in any case, he had no reason to. Bjorn and Rourke had spent months together in the market, and Bjorn probably knew him better in ways that I didn’t.
But if Rourke hated omegas—including me—then why had he saved me that day? And what had he gained from it except a brief kiss followed by punishment?
I shut my eyes and let out a long, thin sigh. My skull felt like it was full of cotton. Thinking about the kiss made my chest throb. If I stood in the privacy of my own room, I might have let out a frustrated sob.
But this was no time to let my guard down. I’d gotten the information I needed from Woods and Bjorn, and now all I needed to do was piece the puzzle together.
“Give me that book,” I said to Woods.
“Here. You can keep it.”
Bjorn frowned in confusion. “Um, am I free to go home with Eugene, or…?”
“Oh, I’m actually under house arrest,” Woods said with a chuckle, like it was suddenly funny to him.
“Yes, go,” I said hurriedly. “If any knights give you trouble, just tell them you have the prince’s blessing.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” Woods said, his eyes brimming with tears.
The happy couple left. I frantically flipped to the page about the pomegranate. My eyes stopped for a moment on the two Therianthrope Gods, one representing Fertility and the other Virility.
There was a passage beside the picture.
The Godof Fertility found his one true mate,
The God of Virility, blessed to him by fate,
And as fate would have it,
His mate’s kiss tasted of pomegranate,
He knew at once this was true love,
And howled it to the heavens above,
The God of Fertility thought:
“No pup of mine shall ever be alone,
Thus, I bless their maws with a fruit well-known,”
My eyes widened.There was a second part of the passage—one that Woods had not described to me.
