Page 21 of Omega’s Fealty

But he doesn’t really want me. It’s just chemistry. Anything we do will be based on that.

That and him trying to find a way to connect with me so he can make his escape.

I can’t fault him for it. It’s what I would do and he’s an intelligent man. I can see it in the way he looks at me. There’s a lot going on behind that pretty face.

And oh my god, is it pretty.

That is the whole problem, right there. A face like that has never once looked at a man like me and it never will, not for real. Whatever he is doing in there with those eyes, he is doing it because I have the keys.

Okay. Maybe I’m not being fair. Maybe part of his motivation is also this insane involuntary chemical reaction.

The point is that it is not real. That means I need to stay away.

That, and the fact that the people who took him won’t hesitate to kill me if I reduce the value of their cargo.

I sit on the upturned crate in the hold with my back to his door and wait for morning.

I don’t sleep. I listen to him instead. He doesn’t sleep either. I can hear him shifting on the plywood, the bottle, the blankets, and every so often a sound that goes through me like a hook.

Around four, the sounds change.

I don’t know what I am listening to at first. Then I do. He is being sick. Hard, from the sound of it, and again, and again. The sweet vanilla smell that has been leaking out under the door thins out and goes sour.

What is that? A heat should not make him throw up.

Then he groans, followed by a long panting sound, and I am at the door with the keys before I have finished thinking about it.

The smell hits me first. Vomit and fever-sweat and under that, faint now, him.

He is on his side against the far wall with the bucket pulled over. He is wearing his underwear and nothing else in the freezing winter air. He is shaking so hard the blankets he has half over him are moving on their own.

“Hey.”

He doesn’t look up, but he blinks twice, confused.

I get down next to him. His skin, when I put the back of my hand against his neck, is wrong.

It is hot and clammy at the same time, and his pulse under my fingers is going like something small and trapped.

“Hey. Highness. Look at me.”

He looks. It takes him a second to find my face.

“Banks,” he says.

I have never wanted to hit myself in the mouth before. That’s not my name. It shouldn’t matter. I should be pleased that’s what he’s calling me. Instead it makes me want to break in half.

“How many did you take?”

“Two.” His teeth are chattering; it comes out in pieces. “Two. Like you said. I was going to take the — the morning ones—”

“Don’t.” I find the blister strip on the floor and put it in my pocket where neither of us can get at it.

Maybe it was the tablets. Maybe it wasn’t, but I think it was. You pay a thousand dollars for pills from a man in a parking lot then you’re paying for what you get. There’s no quality control. Maybe they’re doing what they’re supposed to. Maybe they’re rat poison.

There are six left. Six tablets of god knows what. It was stupid to get them. I told myself he’d be fine because I needed him to be fine.

My pretty prince bends up around his stomach and retches and nothing comes.