“Of course not. I know that.”
She put more effort into her smile, and it occurred to him that the expression would likely have fooled anyone who wasn’t looking closely.
Hewaslooking closely. “But...?” he asked.
She sighed. “But what does a queen need a PhD in biological systems for?”
He was still searching for an answer when she distracted him once again.
“Look! Another warbler. A female, I think.”
He obediently turned in the direction she pointed and smiled when he caught sight of the small, unassuming brown head.
“Females are even more difficult to spot than males,” she squealed. “We’re lucky we’re here at the beginning of the mating season.”
“You know quite a lot about our little warblers.”
She shook her head. “Not the warbler, actually. Just this particular bio-system. I was the only scholar at the university in over a decade to focus on Cyranese ecosystems. It was never as sexy as studying the famous ones, like the Great Barrier Reef or the Amazon, but my father always encouraged me to value my home and work for ‘the good of Cyrano...’”
Her voice trailed off as they both followed the thought to its conclusion.
Her father’s meaning and motivation were clear now, and they both knew that he had gone far beyond simply being an encouraging parent, but for the first time Zayn didn’t resent the man.
“It certainly doesn’t hurt for a monarch to have a deep understanding of the nation in their charge.”
She cringed, saying, “You don’t have to pretend when it’s just the two of us. We both know I’m no monarch.”
Zayn raised a brow. “I believe there’s a small island nation which would disagree.”
Instead of rising to his bait, she doubled down. “But we both know I’m a fraud.”
“How do you come to say that?” he asked.
“I’m a scholar. Not a queen.”
“As far as I understand, being a queen entails inheriting or marrying into a throne—the second of which you have done.”
“I’m an imposter.”
He didn’t reply, scanning the scrub and the grasses that covered the ground around them, and smiling when he saw a cluster of the plants he was looking for. Four small stalks stuck out of the ground, each bearing leaves of shiny dark green, growing in sets of three. Crouching down, he reached toward the plants on the left.
Mina opened her mouth to protest and he stopped, his finger just inches from the leaves.
“The wax leaf sand thistle. Now, here is an imposter,” he said. “As I’m sure you know, Dr. Aldaba, this plant nefariously mimics its companion here, the wax leaf sugar sap, growing in the same conditions and showcasing almost identical foliage. But, whereas the wax leaf sugar sap is both a delectable treat for the spotted fallow deer that live on the island, and an important nitrogen fixer for the soil, the wax leaf sand thistle is bitter to the deer and known for stripping the earth. It mimics the sugar sap for its own benefit—using the deer to spread its seeds, while offering them nothing but a stinging mouth in return.” He rocked back on his heels before adding, “We don’t know each other well, Mina, but I don’t get the impression that you are a person out to take without giving back.”
Leaning back further, to take her in, he noted the cracks in her inscrutable expression, her desire to believe him warring with her natural skepticism.
When her eyes widened and rounded, he thought desire had won out—until she shouted, “Watch out!” just before he felt a sharp stinging pain in the fleshy side of his palm as his hand brushed too close to the thistle.
The burn of it was immediate—another feature of the sand thistle was its shockingly powerful prick, often likened to that of a bee sting.
Mina acted instantly, dropping her pack to crouch down and begin searching the undergrowth. Zayn distracted himself from the swelling throb in his hand by watching her move. It didn’t matter that he had no idea what she was doing, or that she wore baggy jeans and his shirt, there was something erotic about her in that position.
She found whatever she was looking for with an, “Aha!” and was at his side an instant later. “Give me your hand.”
Her command was absolute. She had no thought that she might be disobeyed, and he found a silly half-grin lifting the corner of his mouth at her authority, even through the discomfort of obliging her.
She shoved the bunch of leaves he now saw she had collected into her mouth and chewed, before slapping the gooey mess on the place where his hand had made contact with the thistle.