Page 40 of A Princess, Stolen
Everyone else looked from Nathan to me and back again. Even the man in the doorway.
“Do you have any saltines?” I finally asked cautiously, realizing that Nathan was more serious than I initially believed.
“Saltines?” He looked up, shocked. “Are you seasick?”
“Yes!” I lied quickly.
“You eat what’s in front of you, princess. You won’t receive any special treatment, understand? Again, there are no private chefs, no employees, and no one to wipe your ass.”
“What’s special about saltines?” I asked timidly, feeling anger rising inside me.
He couldn’t say anything to me. For a moment, I thought his face softened and he’d give in, but when he opened his mouth, he said, “You’re trying my patience. Be happy you’re not hanging on the bars anymore,” and then he said to the guy leaning in the doorway, “Don’t you have anything to do or why are you standing there like a gossip?”
Instead of leaving, the man with the mushroom skin hissed something in a foreign language that reminded me a bit of French.
I didn’t know what he’d said, but Nathan jumped up with his hands clenched. At first, I was afraid he was going to hit the other man, but he simply rained down a torrent of strange words on him that sounded like a warning.
The man with the spongy skin said something again that I didn’t understand and made a cutthroat gesture in my direction.
Nathan pushed him out of the room. “Get out of here, Mykonos!”
“What did he say?” I asked anxiously.You many enemies! You be careful!
“None of your business! Eat, now, because I don’t plan on sitting here forever.”
“I…I can’t.” This time, I blurted out the words violently and looked at him imploringly. He should understand that there was something I couldn’t say in front of the whole crew.
“Okay. So you can’t.” He stared at me for a while and seemed to be thinking about how to interpret my expression. Then he nodded to the men, and without saying a word, they all rose. Even Taurus, who was still eating, stuck his bread between histeeth. In silence, they took their plates and used cutlery, and left the room one by one. Since Troy was the last to leave the room, he looked at me intently and shook his head while nodding his chin toward Nathan.Don’t provoke him!is how I interpreted his look.
I nodded back almost imperceptibly.
Luckily, Nathan didn’t see it because he turned his back on me and closed the door. He stood in front of it with his arms crossed. Basically, he didn’t do anything; nothing that indicated any danger to me. He just stared at me intently. Maybe that was the reason my heart pounded wildly.
“I…I can’t eat that,” I stammered awkwardly.
He still said nothing.
I blinked. “You mustn’t tell anyone.”
“Tell them what?”
“What I’m about to tell you. Promise me.”
His lips grew thin, his gaze cool. “I can’t do that.”
“Please. It’s important. Vital to my survival. Remember your promise that nothing will happen to me here.” It was underhanded to mention the promise, but he didn’t know that Troy had told me about Lea and the bayous. He stared at me silently for a few seconds and his eyes narrowed. “Okay,” he finally said reluctantly, “I promise if it doesn’t jeopardize the plan.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then go ahead.”
“I’m allergic to all kinds of nuts and egg whites.” So, now I had revealed my best-kept secret to the man who held my life in his hands.
For a while, Nathan stood there as still as he had days ago when I had told him I had to use the bathroom. “You are allergic to egg white and nuts?” he asked slowly as if his mind refusedto formulate the sentence. Yes, almost as if he didn’t even know what an allergy was.
I nodded.
“That’s why you didn’t want to eat anything. Not even the cake.”
