That unexpected answer actually made her laugh out loud.
Caillen paused at the sound of the first real laugh he’d heard from her. It was a pure, light sound that made his cock twitch. Combine that with the way her eyes sparkled and he wished he could keep her laughing. It relaxed her features and made her absolutely irresistible. Damn, she was attractive and he hated that most of all. He didn’t want to feel anything for a woman. Especially not one from a world where men were considered beneath them and whose mother wanted him horsewhipped in the worst sort of way.
She wiped at her eyes. “I’m sure that’s not the real reason.”
“I promise you, it is.”
She shook her head. “You’re terrible.”
“Again, I’ve been called worse.” He brushed his hand over her head, checking for swelling. She winced as he touched the lump where she was bleeding. “Sorry.” He reached into his bag and dug out a chemical ice pack. He broke the seal, shook it and then handed it to her to put on the swelling. “The cut doesn’t appear to need stitches. Let’s get the swelling down and then I’ll put a coagulant on it.”
Desideria cocked a brow at his authoritative tone. “You’re a doctor too?”
He didn’t respond. By the look on his face, she could tell she’d inadvertently hit a nerve, though she had no idea how.
Ignoring her, he pulled back the leg of his pants to tend his own wound.
She watched in silent awe as he stopped the bleeding, cleaned and then wrapped it like a pro.
“How is it a prince knows so much about field dressing and medicine? You said you’d made runs into the Andarions’ territory. Were they mercy missions?”
He scowled at her. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
Scratching at the whiskers on his face, he snorted. “You must live under a rock on the most back-ass planet in the universe to have missed the news.”
She ignored his insult—it was so mild compared to what her family gave her that it didn’t even register. And for once, she actually agreed with his summation. Qillaq was rather backward compared to other worlds. “What news?”
“I was kidnapped when I was still a baby and raised as a pleb. I didn’t know I was a prince until a few months ago when a DNA test identified me.”
That stunned her. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
That explained the dichotomies she’d noticed. Why he held that feral quality to everything he did. His worn-out clothes and his ever changing syntax that went from royal dialect to street slang. “Were you shocked when they told you?”
“Still am. Not exactly something you expect to learn about yourself. Hey, kid, your parents weren’t your parents and by the way, did you know you’re a prince and heir to a major empire?”
Very true. And it also explained about his sisters. “Your sisters belonged to your adoptive parents?”
He fell silent as he returned to putting things back in the pack. After a few seconds he spoke again. “Don’t worry. I am housebroken. I might not be as refined as the rest of the aristocracy, but I won’t crap on the floor either.” His tone was dry and even. Still, she understood the pain thse words betrayed and knew why he’d said them.
Like her, others had been judging him.
“My people aren’t like the other aristos. Hence why I’m in the Guard. Nothing in my world is given to anyone. Everything is earned. It’s not how you start in life that matters. It’s how you finish.”
The look he passed to her was cold enough to make her shiver. “No, your people just accuse others of crimes they don’t commit.”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
He scoffed. “I’d like to believe you, but I don’t know you well enough for that. I’ve had people I trusted implicitly come at me. So you’ll have to forgive my mistrust.”
“Again, I understand. Trust, like everything else, has to be earned and I have yet to gain it. I get it.”
Caillen hesitated. He wanted to believe her. Yet he didn’t dare. Too many memories surged inside him. Partners who’d turned on him when he least expected it. “Friends” he’d put at his back who’d knifed him so hard he still felt the burn of it. Most of all was the bitch who continued to come at him for no good reason at all.
People were treacherous by nature. And Desideria was a stranger—one he was attracted to.
That made her deadlier than most.
He moved away from her. “I’ve got minimal food and water. Enough to hold us today. Tomorrow we’ll have to scavenge.”