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Maybe that was the point. To show me what a fool I’d been. How easily he had drawn me in. And how willing I was to be drawn in again.
I would have sacrificed everything for him. And he had been using me.
Apparently he and I could still touch each other. Of course that would be how things worked. I couldn’t hug the people I wanted to touch but the man I most wanted to stab could prevent me from wrapping my hands around his throat.
Everyone else had gone back to their regular lives and I felt like I had been pushed out to sea on a tiny raft that didn’t have a rudder, paddles, or a sail. I was going to drift along until the waves took me down.
She had no idea. “The earth between us has been scorched and salted so badly that nothing else can grow. If at one point there was a flame, now there is nothing left but dying embers.” Her hands stilled. “But embers mean that the fire is still there. It can be revived. You only have to breathe on them to bring them back to life. And the tiniest of embers can create the mightiest of flames.”
I’d been so careful about not touching him that when our palms pressed together, and his fingers wrapped around my hand, I almost jumped. That spark was there. An ember still glowing with heat, waiting for a small puff of air to bring it back to life. My skin flamed up everywhere that he touched me.
But as he held on to me, all I could think about was how that hand had touched parts of me that no other man ever had.
I wondered if this would ever stop. If my brain would be able to convince my body that he was a liar and a monster and that the goddess was trying to ruin my life by putting that kind of dark soul into a beautiful package.
There was a time when I would have sold my soul to see him this way.
It wasn’t just the chicken blood and decorated bed or the fact that I was sharing it with a man. A man I very much wanted to kill. No, it was the feeling that everything had been taken from me and I didn’t know how to get it back. How to start doing things my way again, making decisions because I wanted to and not because someone else had forced me to.
Why had he stroked my skin? Were his actions intentional? Perhaps he thought he might bring me under his control, find a way to use physicality to bend me to his will. I would not be so easy to manage. Nor would I allow my husband to ignore me. Maybe I wasn’t beautiful but I was strong and loyal and clever and a thousand other good things.
I’d once asked Io what happened to acolytes who broke their vows of celibacy and she’d told me the women were buried alive. This feeling of being pressed against him made me think it might have been worth it.
“If you play with fire, you are begging to get burned,” he said gruffly as his arms tightened, pulling me even closer against him. “I’ve already been burned.” I intended for the words to be angry, but instead I sounded like I was yearning.
I had prayed for friendship. And I was grateful that it was being offered to me.
“What?” the man asked with a laugh. “She’s a kitchen maid. This is what she’s for.” The man put out his hand, and Thrax said, “Do. Not. Touch. Her.”
YES. YES.
Then he smiled a real smile at me and it was like an arrow straight to my heart, piercing through the scales of hurt and anger, and I remembered how truly handsome Alexandros was. I didn’t want to think of him this way, but it was still happening.
I might have wanted him dead but he had a fantastic mouth.
So many lines like this one had me laughing
Alexandros looked far too amused. I itched to slap that expression off his face. And then soothe him with soft kisses. There was something seriously wrong with me.
Why wasn’t she understanding what had actually happened? “He did that to trick me. Beguile me. Seduce me into agreeing with his scheme.” “He could have tricked you just as easily and left his tongue in his own mouth.”
“No one tricked you,” he murmured, his warm breath heating my sensitized lips. “And if I were seducing you, wife, you would know it.”
I took my hands away. I wanted what she had. For some inexplicable reason I ached for it. My mind was filled again with the vision of me pregnant and Alexandros holding me, cradling my stomach. That would never be. I didn’t know why I kept imagining it, but I needed it to stop.
I saw him soften, the way the tension left his body. Then I saw what looked like hunger in his eyes. Desire. “Lia.” I heard anguish. A warning. And a promise that made me shiver. He looked as if he intended to devour me, and I knew that despite all my resolutions to be strong, I would welcome it.
“You’ve become friendly with Dolion.” He still had that flat, bored intonation in his voice, and if I hadn’t been paying such close attention to him, I might have missed the other thing I heard. Jealousy.
Then he brushed his lips against my cheek with a soft kiss and I wanted to melt.
“I don’t understand your relationship,” she said. “I feel like you two use violence as a substitute for intimacy.”
What a friend 🤣
Right then the door flew off its hinges, skidding along the floor. Xander stepped into the room and I had never seen him this angry. He burned with glorious, righteous wrath, here to mete out divine punishment to anyone who dared oppose him. “Get away from my wife!” he roared.
Then Xander was there, pulling me into his arms. As if he knew exactly what I needed. I laid my head against his shoulder and he held me close to his side while he lay on his back. His lips brushed against my forehead and he murmured, “Go to sleep.”
“You called me Xander.” He breathed the words out softly. “That’s your name,” I said.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt as safe, as cared for, as protected, as I did in this moment. My last thought before I drifted off was that lying in Xander’s arms made me feel like I had come home.
Ugh 😩😩😩
“What did I tell you about playing with fire?” I heard desire in his voice and it made me shudder. “I am already flame-kissed. I can handle being burned.”
His expression changed. “I will not share you with any man. You belong to me. The sooner you realize that, the better. I will kill anyone who touches you.” “You have no claim over me.” I did not mean the words I was saying. My body wanted him. Only him.
Did that make me a hypocrite? That I justified my own lying but condemned his? Her words forced me to consider her statement that he and I were more alike than I wanted to admit.
It had been so long since someone had held me this way to comfort me. I should have been stronger. I should have pushed him away, but I chose a different path. I cried while my chest ached, my eyes burned, and my head throbbed.
“What?” Ahyana asked in an incredulous tone, as if I’d taken leave of my senses. Then she started laughing. “Lia, sometimes I worry that I’m somehow going to wind up pregnant from the way that he looks at you!”
The friends in this book are top tier
“Spar with me,” the prince said. “What?” “You have angry energy you need to burn off. I know a couple of ways to do that but only one I think you’ll agree to. Let’s fight.”
My mind raced, trying to figure out his angle, what he hoped to accomplish by doing this. What game he could be playing. But I couldn’t think of a single thing. Why would he give me his mother’s legacy?
I studied the planes and lines of his face. I drank him in. I would have given my whole soul to remain here forever and watch him sleep.
🥺
He didn’t question what my plan was and just said, “Yes. Let’s go.” As if he trusted me.
That heated moment stretched out between us and I forgot how to breathe as I waited. This was beyond foolish. I wasn’t just playing with fire. I was inviting it to consume me.
When I stopped in front of them, Thrax immediately turned to Xander and said, “You poor bastard.”
This is one of my favorite moments
“What are you doing here?” It was a ridiculous question. This was his bedroom. But the way that he looked at me . . . I was worried my dress was going to catch fire.
Then he did something that surprised me. He began to undo the knots, one by one. Gently, slowly, carefully. The way that a new husband was supposed to after getting married to show his devotion. I couldn’t help but remember how he’d used a knife to quickly cut through my laces on our wedding night. How scared and out of control I’d felt then. I didn’t feel scared now, but I did feel every bit as out of control. He was being soft and kind and appealing and I didn’t know how to deal with it.
“Your high priestess is not in the room with us now. And those other things don’t matter when it comes to us and what we do to each other. You forget that I know how fiery you are, how much passion simmers just beneath the surface. The sounds you make when I’m kissing you, how much you enjoy pleasure. I think about it often. Too often. It fills my thoughts even when I should be doing other things. That you are my wife and I cannot be with you because of an oath you made.”
“I can’t believe that you’ve ever once thought that I didn’t want you. The morning after our wedding, when you got out of the bath, your hair dripping, the sheet clinging to you, every part of you so clearly outlined, you were like the goddess herself emerging from the deeps. If it were not blasphemy, I would have fallen to my knees and worshipped you. Carried you back to our bed and buried myself deep inside you, over and over again.”
“There are men like that everywhere,” he said. “I’m not one of them. I will bring you pleasure upon pleasure first before I seek my own. And mine will be much enhanced because of how much you’ve already enjoyed it.”
This man. He could demand everything from me and I would give it to him.
“Do you need to hear everything I admire about you? How delighted I am by your cunning and clever mind, how you constantly surprise me even when I think I know exactly what you’re thinking? How much I respect your kindness and generosity, your loyalty, your bravery, your devotion to those you care about? Your selflessness? How I adore your insatiable curiosity and appetites? It’s not just your body that I want. I would have it along with your mind, your heart, and your soul.”
“You only have to ask,” Xander said as he struggled with another knot. “I would kill for you. Lay waste to nations. Let the world burn, if you wanted it.”
Why is he the best 🫠
“Lia. Yield to me,” he said. Those words did unspeakable things to me, making me recall our shared dreams, remembering how much I had wanted him. I swallowed once, twice. I nodded.
“I want to coax out all your fire, bring your heat to life,” he said. “So that I can drown in it. Watch you burn and then let you burn me.”
