Page 65 of Omega’s Fealty

He looks at my neck again.

“That is his mark.”

“He bit me first,” I say. “If it matters.” Not like I can prove it.

The younger man says something rapidly, and the old man answers him in a couple of words and he shuts up.

“Do you know what that is?” the old man says to me. “What you have there?”

“It’s a bond mark.”

“It is his bond mark. On you. Given. Not taken.” He says it like he’s reading it off a page. “In my country an omega does not do that. They are not permitted, and they do not do it. When it is done—when it has been done, in the histories—the man who wears it is that omega’s man. Before his house. Before his king.” He breathes out through his nose. “You understand me. You are his. Whatever else you are.”

“Yes, I am.”

He nods, slowly, and looks at the floor between us for a while. Then he reaches into his coat and takes out a folding knife and comes over and cuts the tie off the back of my wrists behind my chair. My hands come around in front of me and I look at them. The dents are white and then red.

“My name is Havel,” he says. “I was the head of His Highness’s personal protection. I have been with him since he was a small boy.”

I know the name. It was on the forums. Where was his security? Where was the man who had been in every photograph of the prince since the prince was a child, one pace behind and to the left? Nobody knew.

I also notice the past tense. I was the head of His Highness’s personal protection. Not I am the head of His Highness’s personal protection.

“Where were you?” I say.

“We put His Highness in his car, following protocol. Same way that we always do. Our team was partly my men, partly the Prime Minister’s.

I was ready to follow in the motorcade, then I had a call through the radio saying that I was wanted at the consulate, immediately. I said I would go after we had escorted His Highness but—”

I watch him. It is the first time that his voice has sounded shaken.

“They said no. Then I argued.” He looks at the gun on the table like he’s not sure how it got there. “His Highness’s car was already moving. We did not have time to argue.”

He glances at the younger man who looks away. “Then Reinhardt’s men raised their guns.”

He doesn’t say what happened next. He doesn’t have to. He looks at the younger man whose mouth has thinned to a deep line.

“He and I came out of that garage. Nobody else did. The news called my men casualties of the abduction. Reinhardt’s office wrote that too.”

“You didn’t go to the Americans.”

“The Americans have been at the Prime Minister’s table every night of this visit. They let his men onto that boat first. I have seen the footage. So have you, I imagine.” He shakes his head. “No. We did not go to the Americans.”

“So who have you got?”

“The two of us. A man in the hotel. He is my wife’s friend’s son. I too have known him since he was a boy. He is loyal to me and loyal to the Prince. Reinhardt does not know that.” He almost smiles. “And now, it seems, we have you.”

I don’t say anything to that. My arm is throbbing and my hands are shaking, from the tie or the cold or from sitting in a kitchen with the first two people in a month who know what happened on that boat and don’t want me dead for it.

“Is he okay?” I say.

Havel looks at me. He looks sad.

“He is alive. He is well, as far as my person can tell me. He is kept in the suite and nobody is permitted to speak to him.” He pauses. “But that is not new. He has been locked in one suite or another his whole life. He is used to it.”

He’s quiet for a bit. Then he says, not quite to me, “He is more intelligent than any man in that hotel. Reinhardt included. So I have hopes. His Highness will play Reinhardt. I am sure of it. His Highness has never been given the chance to do anything, but he could achieve anything if he put his mind to it. It is treason for me to say so, but he would make a far better King than his father.”

Yeah. I know he’s smart. I never once thought he wasn’t.