Turncoat by Megan Derr (the false prince series txt) 📕

"Sure." Dixie looked around, pulled over a stool from a nearby table, and sat down. "Got your ass kicked good, pintsize." No reply came, of course. Dixie sighed. "Music, relaxation mix." He looked around the room for something to do since he had no idea how to play nurse.

His gaze landed on Greg's phone. It was a newer model smart phone, but had taken quite the beating already. Why wasn't he surprised that Greg was hard on his electronics? Picking it up, Dixie rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Connect to smart phone, crack securities." The phone flared to life as his systems accessed it, which went rather quickly since Byron had clearly done the security and they recognized Dixie. Going silent, Dixie went through the phone to see what it had and could do, remembering how enamored Greg had seemed of Dixie's.

Modifying it wouldn't be hard. As tricked out as it already was, he wouldn't even have to add hardware, just software. Silently pulling what he needed from his archives, Dixie set to work.

A soft groan some time later nearly made him drop the phone. He set it on the table again, shunted all his downloading and tweaking to the background, and focused on Greg. Pale brown, gold-rimmed eyes stared fuzzily at him, a slight frown overtaking Greg's mouth. "What…"

"You're back at Byron's, pintsize," Dixie said. "Trouble likes to shadow you, no mistake. How ya feeling?"

"Like three guys beat the shit out of me." Greg winced, cautiously shifted his head around. "Whatever Byron gave me is wearing off, can I have more?"

Dixie silently texted the question to Byron, who promptly sent back an affirmative and what exactly to give him. "Good news: you get more drugs."

"Oh, thank god," Greg said with a whimper.

Chuckling, Dixie stood and went to the little table on the other side of the bed to pick up the bottle Byron had mentioned, measured out the dosage, and held out the cup. Greg lifted a hand to take it, but it was trembling so bad that Dixie shook his head. Setting the medicine aside, he gingerly helped Greg sit up, then retrieved the medicine and held it to his lips. "Careful now. Wouldn't this be easier via injection?"

"No needles!" Greg gasped out, then licked away blood as the split in his bottom lip reopened.

"Okay, okay, simmer down." Dixie got the medicine in him then gently set him down again and pulled the blanket back up. "No fan of needles, huh?"

Greg shuddered, closed his eyes. "No. I got sick once, meteor lung. They didn't stop stabbing me for what felt like days."

"I've heard about that, was fortunate enough to ever see or suffer it." Thanks to life as a slave to G.O.D., there wasn't much in the way of disease that could touch him, not even meteor lung, which was one more nasty legacy of the damned crash. "Don't worry. If we have to use needles, we'll make sure you're asleep first. Go back to sleep, pintsize."

"I'm not pin…" Greg slumped as sleep got the better of him, lips still parted on the unfinished protest. Dixie got out a tissue and dabbed away the blood on his lips, lingered a moment staring, feeling the slightly too warm skin.

Shaking himself, he pulled away and discarded the bloodied tissue, then scooped up Greg's phone to finish mucking with it.

Byron pinged him a short time later, and Dixie set the phone aside again. He looked at Greg, checked him over, weirdly reluctant to leave. Guilt, likely: he still hadn't managed to apologize. He reached out—then snatched his hand back, realizing he was going to do something as fucking stupid as brush away a stray lock of hair. Honestly.

He needed a damned vacation before he lost his fool mind. Not that people like him ever really got vacations. Skimming over the monitors watching Greg, Dixie spun away and headed downstairs.

Byron was at the kitchen table, along with platters loaded with burgers and fries. Dixie's stomach rumbled. He grabbed a plate from the cabinet, sat down and filled it with food. He picked up one of the burgers and took a bite, not quite moaning at the taste of beef, cheese, and bacon. "I always forget how damned well you can cook when you can be bothered to do it."

"Cooking isn't hard. You build cars; you could throw together a burger if you really wanted."

"Why do it when you will eventually?" Dixie asked with a grin.

Byron rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I think I've pieced together what happened to Greg, though it took some rooting around." He took a bite of burger, then some fries, and Dixie was about ready to kill him when Byron finally said, "Going through deleted messages, he was hired by a local piece of shit known as Rat."

"Charming."

"Rat hired him to steal a painting, but when Whisker showed up, three guys were waiting to jump him. Near as I can tell, they were waiting for Rat."

"I see," Dixie said. "That's a shitty fucking thing to do to a person. We going rat hunting? 'Cause I wouldn't object."

Byron's mouth curved in his dark faerie prince smile that seemed to say humans are my favorite toy. "No need for hunting. I pointed the cops straight to him. That was part of the reason I took so long putting the story together. Distracted by a side quest, as it were. Anyway, he's in custody right now. If you insist on more than that, shining knight, do it on your own time."

"If this ain't my own time, you better start paying me," Dixie said and wolfed down a few fries, chased them with the beer at his elbow. "So I guess our plans to steal a Mason Chip got set back a few weeks."

Byron shrugged. "The way my plans are going, it wasn't going to happen for a few months anyway. I have a short list of options, and I'm liking number three the best.