Page 9 of The Girl Beneath the Sea

Third — and my hands go colder when I think it — I am going into an unexpected heat.

If it starts here, in this box, cuffed, with him on the other side of that door—

I don’t want to think about possibility number three.

Four. Every interviewer has had the same question. Has Your Highness been tested for a match? My answer: We have our own traditions.

The Americans are devoted to finding the perfect chemical match. They have documentaries, an enforced registry, couples on morning shows holding hands and crying.

Reinhardt curled his lip at that question when we practiced. “Nothing but vulgar pseudoscience,” he said.

But the alpha grabbed the doorframe.

He must be a professional and when that door swung open he took hold of the frame like the boat had rolled.

The bottles in his arms were clicking. He was as startled by me as I was by him. Whatever detonated in me detonated in him too.

I didn’t imagine it. I don’t imagine things. That’s always been too dangerous.

It should be comforting, and isn’t.

He is an alpha. He grew up among omegas, works among them, has presumably had every reaction a body can have.

He knows what this is. He will know if this is normal or not. I do not. I am in a weak negotiating position. He holds all the power and almost all the information.

Almost.

Information is what will get me out of here alive.

He is six and a half feet, or near it. Enormous.

I could not see his face, but I could see his eyes. They’re dark, brown, I think, though the lantern light made everything amber.

Work boots, old ones. Dark canvas jacket, no logos, no rings, no visible ink.

He is quiet on his feet for someone that size. He set the blankets down inside the door instead of throwing them, and he backed out without turning around, which is either training or courtesy.

And he smelled of coffee. Rich, dark, fresh-ground coffee. My head is full of it still.

They can hood me, mask him, move me in the dark. I would know that man blind in a crowd of thousands. I file that fact away. I haven’t seen him but I have scented him. I can recognize him again. That might not be a good thing.

The mask matters. Men who intend to kill you don’t trouble themselves to hide their faces. He is hiding his. Somebody plans for me to live.

I think further. That’s it. Everything I know about him. There will be more.

What else?

Water. I can hear open water, slapping against metal close to my ear. About half an hour ago, I heard an engine pass by and it was followed by the whole room leaning a sliver of a degree.

I’ve heard a horn, a long way off. I am on a boat. Moored — the lean is lazy, nothing like motion. It’ll be river, lake or a harbor. There isn’t constant noise so it isn’t a busy harbor.

Good. That is something.

Then I go back over the kidnapping.

There was no gunfire. No shouting, no brakes, no swerve. Nothing to hear, and I would have heard it.

Do I remember seeing the escort when we left? I don’t. I was reviewing my cue cards.