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“And that matters to you?”
“Yes.” Oliver swallowed. “Immensely.”
Patrick stared at him for a few more moments, then nodded slowly. Oliver’s chest started to loosen, but then Patrick smiled grimly. “Well, don’t worry then. He won’t use it.”
And then he pushed past Oliver and out the door.
“Patrick.” Oliver slammed the door open to chase him. “Patrick!”
But Patrick was striding fast down the hall, and Oliver wasn’t about to make a scene. He stopped in the doorway, watching the human’s broad back as he left, hands clammy and head spinning. He won’t use it.
“What the hell was that, Oliver?” Oliver’s eyes refocused on Dominic standing outside the meeting room with his bodyguard and Garin. Oliver swallowed, glanced one last time down the hall to see Patrick disappearing around a corner, and then scowled at Dominic.
“I should be asking you that.” He gestured at the room they had held the meeting in and kept his glare on Dominic as the four of them started back to the transport. “What sort of sick thing was that?”
“What?” Dominic’s jaw dropped in genuine surprise.
“What sort of fucked up person makes something like that?” Oliver pressed. “Tests something like?”
Dominic stopped in his tracks and stared at him. For a moment, Oliver thought he saw real hurt in his eyes, but it was gone in an instant. “Fuck you, Oliver. Since when do you care about our experiments? How dare you call me—You know what, no.” Dominic held up a hand. “I don’t care. Just fuck you.”
And then he kept walking, hand still up as he walked past Oliver as though to keep himself from seeing Oliver’s face.
Oliver inhaled deeply before following. Fuck him, indeed.
He won’t use it.
Patrick’s words sat like lead in Oliver’s stomach. No, more like titanium or tungsten. Something immutable, immalleable, and undeniable.
The more Oliver tried to convince himself that Patrick didn’t mean what Oliver thought he meant, the more he became sure.
Chapter Eight
Oliver stood under the hot spray of the shower until the rhythmic pounding of the water numbed his shoulders. Finally, he reached out and turned it off. Hot water wasn’t going to save him from his anxiety this time. It turned out being clean didn’t make everything all better, even with his silk washcloths and earth lavender soaps.
He stepped out, dried, and slicked his hair back from his face. He never had taken that picture his father wanted, and now the scrape over his cheek was an unsightly minor wound, red in the center and surrounded by the pale white of dead skin. He tilted his head back and forth and looked at himself in the mirror.
Oliver Turner.
The face in the mirror looked much the same, but the only thing that felt familiar about himself was the unease in his stomach. Everything had started to tilt when he’d seen that disappointed look in Mal’ik’s eyes. And then Oliver had finished flipping his world upside down just an hour ago, in his father’s office.
He could still change his mind.
Oliver looked at himself a second longer in the mirror and then shook his head and returned to his bedroom.
He couldn’t.
He opened his wardrobe and paused. He ran his hands over all the fine fabrics. He really did love his clothes. Then he picked out his outfit: formal enough for a political dinner that in part was to celebrate and seal the fantastically lucrative deal between the Turner family corporation and the Klah’Eel empire, and yet somber enough to show that he did still remember that this was about war.
He paired it with a heavy pendant that was a bit out of style now but the right size. He was glad he hadn’t gotten rid of it, though he’d considered it several times. Something about the fine filigree of silver along its outside had always persuaded him to keep it.
He checked his pendant, his pockets, his data tablet, that his boots were tied. Everything was orderly and in place. He looked around his room and swallowed. He felt certain he was forgetting something or that he should bring more. He fingered his pendant and nodded decisively. There was nothing else.
He stepped out into the hallway and closed the door of his bedroom.
Garin stood outside his door. “Back down to Tava?”
“Have my brother and father left their ship yet?” Oliver was back on his personal ship to prepare for the dinner.
