Until today.
Seyn pursed his lips, glaring at Ksar’s profile and hating himself for his inability not to notice his uncompromising jawline and that little expanse of his neck visible above his cravat—or the curve of Ksar’s shoulders and biceps under his formal dark blue Ministry attire.
Having a libido sucked, Seyn concluded sulkily, reinforcing his mental shields.
It was a relief when they finally reached Harry’s rooms.
But Seyn’s relief didn’t last long.
The worry he’d felt for his friend had spiked again when he saw that Harry was still sitting on the couch. Had he actually been in that position for hours? To make things worse, Harry’s gaze was unfocused and distant, as if he wasn’t entirely there. It was blatantly obvious that something was very wrong with him, and Seyn felt another surge of anger at Ksar and Harry’s parents for not noticing such an obvious thing.
“Just look at him!” Seyn said. “It doesn’t even look like he’s moved from that couch since I left him in the morning! Can’t you see it’s not normal?”
Ksar followed him into the room with an unimpressed look on his face, as if he still thought Seyn was wasting his time.
“You shouldn’t have messed with his mind,” Seyn said. “You’re not a professional mind adept. No doubt you fucked it up and now he’s all weird and sickly!”
“I didn’t ‘fuck’ anything up, as you so eloquently put it,” Ksar said, but then he frowned, looking at Harry. “Harht?”
Harry stared at him without blinking. “What?” he said after a few moments, as if he had trouble grasping that he was being asked something.
“See?” Seyn said.
Ksar’s eyes narrowed. He studied Harry carefully.
“Borg’gorn, run a full medical scan on Prince Harht,” Ksar said.
Nothing prepared Seyn for what happened after that.
He listened numbly to Borg’gorn’s findings, barely contributing to the conversation.
While he had thought that there was something off about Harry, he had no idea how serious the situation actually was.
Harry was sick. Very, very sick. He was in real danger of losing his mind—he was in danger of dying. And there was nothing Seyn could do to help. He couldn’t even pretend to understand what his friend was going through. He’d completely forgotten that Harry’s body had different needs from his. He’d never really thought of the importance of the fact that Harry was a throwback. Throwbacks shared common traits with surl’kh’tu, a subspecies of ancient Calluvians that had a single mate throughout their lives. Being apart from his human was literally detrimental to Harry’s health.
Of course, as the cynical, skeptical asshole, Ksar was reluctant to believe Borg’gorn’s findings.
“Am I supposed to believe Harht can’t live without that Terran?” Ksar said, his tone like ice.
“As there are no precedents, I can only hypothesize,” Borg’gorn said. “But Prince Harht’s readings are most worrying. He may not necessarily die, but I do think his physical and mental health will keep deteriorating.” A pause. “May I speak freely, Prince Ksar?” Ksar gave a clipped nod and the AI continued, “I was going to inform you this evening that I had concerns about Prince Harht’s health. I have taken the liberty of observing the young prince since his return from Sol III. I have noticed that his concentration has been deteriorating at an alarming rate. Yesterday he spent six-point-three hours without moving, staring at nothing I could see. I had to say his name seven times to make him react. If the prince’s awareness of his surroundings keeps deteriorating at this rate, it is very likely that he will eventually fall into a comatose state, perhaps with a very limited awareness of his surroundings. I recommend daily injections of the surl’kh’tu hormone suppressants to make him more alert and focused, but it cannot be a long-term solution. Eventually they will stop working.”
“And you’re absolutely certain that the cause is the throwback gene?” Ksar said.
“There is always a margin for error, but I am ninety-nine-point-two percent certain,” Borg’gorn replied. “Besides the aforementioned hormone in his system, there are significant changes in the young prince’s herovixu, the area of the brain that is specific for throwbacks.”
Ksar’s lips folded into a thin line before his gaze fixed on Harry. “Talk to me, kid. Is it really that bad?”
Harry moistened his lips, his violet eyes the only color on his pale face. “I—I don’t know. I haven’t even noticed that I zone out for hours. But I feel...” He seemed to struggle gathering his thoughts. “I feel like there’s a hole in me that’s sucking me in from the inside out.”
Ksar’s face was like stone. “And that’s because of him? The Terran?”
Harry flinched, curling into himself, as if even the mention of his human hurt him. “Does it matter?” he said, barely moving his lips.
Ksar bored his eyes into his brother’s bowed head, and Seyn shivered. Although it wasn’t directed at him, he could feel the force of Ksar’s telepathy as Ksar examined Harry’s mind.