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“That’s actually why we’re here,” said Devlin, pushing past me and into the office.
Starks got to his feet, practically knocking over his desk chair. “Your Highness, I didn’t realize that—” He rubbed his forehead, probably because he was realizing that it was his fucking job to know where the alpha princes were, and that admitting he hadn’t been keeping tabs of them wasn’t an intelligent thing to do. “I’m very sorry, sir,” he said, chagrined.
“Eleri Cardiff is with him,” I said. “You were aware of that?”
“No,” said Starks. “We saw there was a woman on the back of the bike with him, but she had a helmet on and we didn’t even think it could possibly be her.” He looked at Devlin. “She’s always with you.”
“Well, she’s with him,” said Devlin.
“And we need to find her,” said Rohan, crowding into the doorway.
“Oh, you’re here, too,” said Starks faintly. “W-well, we have everyone out looking for him. We haven’t picked him up on CCTV at the Point of Water exit, which means he must have gotten off the highway before that—”
“What if he went into the mountains?” I said.
“We don’t think he did,” said Starks. “That is, I don’t think so, but Griffin, who used to work with his mother Princess Emily, says that she had a house up there that he inherited. But I’ve worked in this division with Prince Sinclair for four years, and I’ve never seen him go up there—”
“That’s where he is,” said Devlin, walking out of the office.
“Are you sure?” I called after him.
“Get the address,” he said, stalking off, Rohan falling in behind him.
“I really don’t think he went there,” said Starks to me.
“Give me the address anyway,” I said.
eleri
I FELT ODDLY calm when I found Sinclair on the back patio, smoking and looking out over the pool.
He glanced up at me when I came outside, then he looked away.
I approached him, and I felt—for the first time—as if I was no longer under some awful spell in his presence, as if something dark and dangerous between us had been dissipated. I stopped, standing next to him.
He offered me his pack of smokes.
“No, thank you,” I said.
He put them back in his pocket.
It was quiet.
The pool was beautifully landscaped and sparklingly clean. I wondered who was keeping it up. Did Sinclair come out here and swim in it? The water was clear and perfect, inviting. I had a thought that maybe I’d just strip off my dress and go swimming. It seemed like an utterly crazy thing to do, but the day had been utterly crazy already.
“Once,” said Sinclair, “when I was maybe seventeen, I was in Arenze.” That was another country, further south in a warm climate. “I got free of my security detail and went to this party at some actress’s house. There were people there who worked in movies and there were musicians there, and everyone was doing cocaine and I got wasted and took some pills. I don’t even know what they were, but they made me yawn and stumble and lose time. I came to myself totally naked on this bed. I was straddling this guy’s face and he was sucking me off. I was facing the headboard of the bed, holding onto it. And there was this other guy behind me. He had this really deep voice, and he was kissing my neck, and I remember feeling the scratch of his facial hair on my bare shoulders. I could feel that he was trying to get his cock into my ass, but he was kind of slipping around. There was lube, at least. He was just saying, ‘Relax, relax.’ And I was fucking relaxed because I was on all kinds of drugs and I was getting my dick sucked and then…”
I waited.
“Anyway, it felt like someone split me open with a hot fucking poker or something,” Sinclair said, taking a thoughtful drag of his cigarette. “I screamed. I struggled. I told him to stop, and he didn’t. He got me by the back of the neck and slammed my face into the headboard and just fucked me.”
I licked my lips.
“So, uh, it’s really not cool that I did that to you,” he said, rueful. “I didn’t… that’s not who I am, omega.” He glanced at me. “Sometimes, I guess I’m not sure if I’m a good person or not, but there are lines that I don’t cross. I mean…” He smoked, thinking about it. “That’s not true, actually. There are lines I think I’m not going to cross, and then I get into situations and I find myself crossing them. It’s like, in those moments, I split. Part of me is horrified and the other part of me is numb. And that keeps happening and then… I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’m just a big, splintered mess, I guess.”
I let out a breath. “That man raped you.”
He smoked, nodding. “Yeah.”
