Page 34 of Omega’s Fealty

Under my hand, Roan’s heart changes pace. He is awake. He does not say anything. His hand moves up my spine and stops at the back of my neck, on the other side from the mark, and stays there.

“Hurts?” he says.

“Yes.”

“Mine too.” He sounds pleased about it.

I laugh. It hurts my throat. My voice is gone. I shouted it away somewhere in the last days.

He shifts under me, reaching for something, and there is a scrape and a click and a small flame. A lighter. He finds the lantern by touch and fills it from a can, and the light comes up yellow and I see him.

His hair is flat on one side and standing up on the other. His beard has gone well past stubble and he is so gorgeous that I lean in and kiss him before I realize that I am.

I draw back, wanting to look at him again.

There is a mark on his neck at the join of the shoulder, dark red and wet-looking at the edges, and I want to put my mouth on it again.

He sees me looking. He puts two fingers on it.

“Yours,” he says.

“Yes.”

He sits up, taking me with him, so I am in his lap with the blankets around us both. The box is freezing. I did not notice while it was happening. I notice now.

“We have to talk about what happens next,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“How long has it been? Since I came in here?”

He thinks about it. “Eight days. Nine, maybe. I lost one in there somewhere.” He looks at me. “The job was two weeks. That’s how long they said I needed to stay here. But they might come earlier.”

“So we have five days at most.”

“Yeah. Whoever’s paying could show up whenever they want. Sully said a truck. That’s all I know.”

Sully. I file the name.

“And when the truck comes?”

“They load you. They pay me.” He does not look away when he says it. “Or they don’t pay me. I’ve been thinking they don’t.”

I nod. I had already worked that part out. He knows too much. He is the only person outside their own crew who has seen me.

Men who steal princes do not leave evidence walking around afterward.

“Then you were always going to have to run,” I say.

“Yeah. I got as far as the key in the ignition on the first night.” He rubs his face. “Didn’t. Somebody had to feed you.”

I put that away with the rest of it.

He doesn’t argue. He is looking at me as he did when he took the cuffs off, as if I am not what he expected.

“We need to go,” he says. “We should have left last night, but now is better. We can’t wait. I don’t know where I’ll take you but we can work that out on the way.”

He runs his thumb over the mark on my neck. “This was foolish of us. It limits our options.”