Darcy chuckled. “You’ll have one less female causing problems. I think Surlock and I will hang out here. I have some work to do for him.”
Peter’s face fell. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “But we’ll visit later.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Surlock stepped closer to Darcy. “We’ll both see you later.” So what if Peter was interested in Annette. Surlock wanted to make sure Peter understood Darcy was not available.
After they left, Darcy turned to him. “And what exactly was that last remark supposed to mean?”
He looked at her with all the innocence he could muster. “What remark?”
“You know exactly what I mean—‘we’ll both see you later.’”
“Just that I don’t trust him alone with you,” he said casually enough, holding back what he really felt.
“Peter is only a friend.”
“You think so, but I’m still not convinced he believes that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sheesh, men can be so hardheaded.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You didn’t see how taken Peter was with Annette?”
He snorted. “I’ll withhold my judgment for now. I know what we saw, but he held back his feelings.”
She shook her head. “He’s been brought up to believe he’s better than everyone else. His parents wouldn’t approve of Annette, so Peter is fighting his attraction to her.”
“So you told me. I like Annette. Why wouldn’t his parents?”
“She doesn’t come from money. Peter’s family can be traced back for hundreds of years. They originally came from England. His father has a duke in his ancestral lineage.”
“A duke is important?”
She grinned. “It is to Peter’s parents. They think they’re royalty sometimes. No, they wouldn’t approve of Peter dating someone they thought was a lower-class citizen.”
“And your parents, would they disapprove of you dating someone like me? I have no background. What if I’m just a common man?”
Her eyelids lowered as she pressed close to him, her arms going around his neck. “You may be the poorest man on earth, but you’ll never be common.”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, nuzzling the side of her neck, then moving his lips to hers. He kissed her, reveling in her taste, absorbing her essence.
She rested her head against his chest when the kiss ended. Her breathing was ragged. The kiss had affected her as much as it had him. He wanted her. He wanted to remove each article of her clothing and mate with her.
Only one thing stopped him. He knew when he lost control, whatever was inside him took over. He couldn’t afford to lose control again. What if he was a monster? Would he harm Darcy? He couldn’t take that chance. He moved out of her arms.
“I’m not afraid,” she whispered.
He looked at her, glad he’d put some distance between them because it was difficult to resist her when she looked at him like that. He sucked in a deep breath and braced himself to fight the attraction.
“Until I know what happens to me when we mate, I think we should step away from an intimate relationship.” He could see the struggle going on inside her.
“Okay, fine,” she finally said. “I don’t like it, though.”
“But I’m right.”
She raised her arms, then let them fall back to her sides. “Yes, you’re right. I know that, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“I don’t like it, either.”
“Then we need to find out exactly who you are. We at least have a last name—Prince.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s better than nothing. And we know the place you come from is called New Symtaria and not just Symtaria. Let’s check on the computer and see what we can find.”
He only hoped this time they would be successful. No matter what his good intentions were, he wasn’t sure how long he could keep his promise not to mate with her. Darcy was too tempting. He should have led the way to the computer. It wasn’t helping that he couldn’t take his eyes off the gentle sway of her hips.
Darcy sat down at the computer and he breathed a sigh of relief as she typed “Surlock Prince” into the search engine, then scrolled down page after page. He pulled up a chair and sat beside her.
“There’s nothing listed,” he said.
“Which doesn’t mean a lot. It only means you haven’t done anything that would get you on the Internet. Obviously, you don’t have a webpage.”
He had no idea what she spoke about. Webpage? Again, everything seemed so unfamiliar.
“There’s nothing here,” she muttered, clicking on one site.
“Wait,” he said. “What’s that?” He pointed toward a stone structure.
She looked at it. “The castle?” She touched her finger to the screen to make sure that’s what he was talking about.
“Yes, the castle. It looks familiar.”
She slowly turned in her seat and stared at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.
“What?” he asked.
She swallowed hard. “I think we need to change the order of your name. It’s not Surlock Prince. I have a feeling it’s Prince Surlock.”
CHAPTER 19
Excoria yawned as she leaned against a tree and stared at the house. It was a beautiful home, very majestic. She bet it was cool inside. She hated this land, especially this place called Texas, where it was cool one day, then burning hot the next.
Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten today. Damn Nivla for not giving her money. He’d only been more cruel because she’d almost gotten sick on him, which was his fault, too. If she didn’t eat something soon, she wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on Prince Surlock.
That was another thing she had a problem with. Nivla had told his son, Ekon, to oversee Excoria and make sure Prince Surlock didn’t escape before they had a chance to capture him.
And where was Ekon?
Excoria knew. He was back at the warehouse sleeping. His father had made sure his son had a nice comfortable bed in which to lay his head while she still had the lumpy cot. He also had money and food. It wasn’t fair.
Besides, she loathed Ekon. He wasn’t hard to look upon, not like his fat father, but in a few years time she had no doubt he would be just as slovenly. A shudder of distaste ran through her.
She straightened when a man came around the corner. He carried a brown sack in one hand and a tool in the other. The breeze carried the aroma of what was in the sack over to her. Her mouth watered. It didn’t smell at all like the burrito, which had been pretty awful.
The man set the brown paper bag on a metal table and leaned the long wooden handle of the instrument against the chair opposite the one he sat in. Then he opened the bag.
Excoria gritted her teeth as she tried to hold back a moan.
“Hey, Ralph, Ms. Abernathy wants you to look at her sink. It’s leaking.”
The man frowned, then closed the bag as he stood up. “She’ll owe me another one of her peach-fried pies for this.” He walked off, leaving the bag on the table.
As soon as he rounded the corner, Excoria raced over and grabbed it, then ran past her hiding place as if her feet were on fire. She didn’t stop in case the man came back. By the gods, Nivla could not expect her to keep an eye on the prince under these circumstances.
When she was deep inside the cover of the woods, she sat on the ground, and leaned against a tree. She didn’t hurry. No, she slowly opened the bag, savoring the smell. The unknown aroma wafted up to her.
Her stomach rumbled as she brought out a biscuit of some kind with meat in the middle. She knew the earth food because she’d been here for a quite some time searching for impures. This particular food she’d seen before, but never eaten.
When she bit into the bread, she knew she’d never tasted anything like this, either. It practically melted in her mouth. She forced herself to eat slowly since she wasn’t sure when her next meal would be.
Even after she finished the bread with meat, her stomach felt as though it was hollow. There was a flaky crust pastry of some kind inside the sack. When she bit into it, fruit oozed out. Peach. They had peaches on New Symtaria and her mother had made sweets with them, but nothing that compared to this.