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Kenosi leaned down to look me in the eye. “Do you think the king will force Beau?”
“It would be out of character,” I conceded. “But mages are power, and power makes people do strange things.”
Kenosi nodded thoughtfully as he went back to cleaning my wound. “Then we will have to make certain your king remembers that his power has limits.”
I didn’t know how he meant to do that, but somehow, looking up at him, calm and certain, I thought he would succeed.
CHAPTER21
BEAU
The palace on Thorzan was like an entirely different world from the lab I’d been trapped in for weeks. Everything was sumptuous and stone, vines growing everywhere, lush gardens.
Weird, that the queen put an arm around me and edged me away from the bright flowers, warning that I “shouldn’t risk wandering the gardens alone.”
Vorian had spoken with soft reverence about the dangers of Thorzan, so my plan was to let that one lie. Mental note: don’t touch anything too pretty.
Except, you know, a big alien hybrid I’d gone and gotten attached to.
Queen Rochelle was kind. She took me somewhere private. The baths were hot, the food was delicious. None of it mattered. My body felt hollow and cold, my heart out there running around in the jungle without me, searching for a guy who’d taken one look at what I had to offer and run the other way.
He’d looked at me with fear and despair, and he’d left. There was no reason for me to stay in Crux’s lab after that, but it still felt like I’d done the wrong thing, coming here. Like he wouldn’t be able to find me.
As if he even wanted me anymore.
Still, food and a warm bath helped some. The agony that gripped my chest when I’d thought I was alone had eased some, and the robe that Rochelle had given me to wrap up in when I was finished was soft and long and—
And damn it, if I could catch Vorian’s eye when I was rocking the sad beige mod look, I could’ve done wonders with the deep pink robe and a few minutes in one of the luxurious palace beds.
Fuck everything. I shouldn’t have been thinking about winning Vorian over, tricking him into caring about me again.
Lucas was a mage, and Vorian—Vorian was the kind of guy who’d gone and sat in the light of their sacred star over and over, all to get more power. I couldn’t give him that. I couldn’t give him anything.
And there right when I needed him to be the perfect representation of all that I lacked, Lucas knocked on the door and stuck his head inside.
“Beau?” he called softly, looking past the screen that blocked the view of the tub from the door.
“I’m here,” I said. “And decent.”
His lips twitched, just one corner, and he wandered over. “And completely miserable?”
I laughed weakly. “Not completely.”
That was a lie if I’d ever told one.
“Has Maria been by yet?”
I blinked. I’d gone through the motions of letting her take my measurements in something like a haze, but she’d come by, quick and efficient, and promised she’d bring me something I could wear first thing in the morning.
She was behind, what with having to outfit a whole host of new humans who’d decided to stay on Thorzan and were no longer under Crux’s thumb.
“Yeah. Yeah, she was really nice.”
“She’s great,” Lucas agreed. “You’re going to look ah-mazing in whatever she makes. Everything here’s so bright and awesome.”
He grinned broadly. It was obvious he was trying to make me feel better. But his clotheswerenice. He looked every bit the prince’s boyfriend. Mate? Mage? Whatever the heck aliens called them.
Even on Earth, I wasn’t sure I’d know the right title for a guy shacking up with royalty on a permanent basis.
