The Curse that Binds (Bewitched #2.5)

by Laura Thalassa

No, little witch, he finally says. I hear his ominous laugh. You won’t be marrying anyone besides me. His voice is confident and uncompromising. I am coming for you. I will leave tomorrow at first light, and I will get there before a wedding takes place.

“Hello, my amage,” he says in Sarmatian, the sound drawing out goose bumps. When he speaks to me, the roughness in his voice gentles. “My eyes have waited years to see you.” His gaze deepens. “But it was worth the wait.”

I kneel before him and reach for his face, only pausing a finger span away. “Can I touch you?” He makes an amused sound. “I rode for two months so that I might feel your embrace.” His eyes dance like fire. “Of course you can touch me.”

Roxi, he cautions softly, like I am a skittish horse. His gaze drops to where my hands white-knuckle the railing, then to the bloody arena beyond. If this is about marrying me, we can burn the document. I—I will leave you alone. Just please step away from the stadium’s edge. I am deeply, deeply alarmed by Memnon’s words, but at the moment, not even that is enough to deter me. Some magical instinct has taken root.

“My injuries are fine, though I wouldn’t protest if you kissed my scars, just to make them feel better.” There’s mischief in his eyes, and I push at him, laughing lightly. “I bet you would like that.” “I would,” he agrees, a grin spreading across his face. “I promise I would kiss you back anywhere you asked.” “Oh, is that right?” I say jokingly. “Anywhere I’d like?” His expression grows serious. Molten. “Anywhere.”

“Gods, I forgot what a bossy teacher you can be,” I mutter. Memnon steps in close. “Would you like me to supplicate myself before you later? Would that make you feel better about my demands of you now? Because for you, Roxi, and you alone, I would. I might even enjoy it…”

I can’t stop the smile that comes then. I wonder if people have died like this—intoxicated on their own happiness. It would not be half so bad an ending. Much better than Cleopatra’s exit, an asp bite to her breast, her heart already broken. Much better to die at the peak of love.

“You have done well for yourself, Memnon,” Eislyn says, gazing around at his war room when I come striding in. The space is painted an appropriate bloody red, and on the nearby shelf are several of Memnon’s skull cups—very macabre, very somber, and very much appreciated by the creepy fairy appraising them.

“Memnon,” I say, alarmed as he lays me out against the cold marble. My diadem tumbles from my head, hitting the marble altar before clattering to the ground. Memnon pulls out of me entirely so he can, using his hands and magic, flip me onto my stomach, leaving my upper body draped across the cold altar while the bottom of my torso hangs off it. He leans over me. “Yes?” he whispers against my ear, nipping at it. I breathe in sharply. “We cannot do this—not on the altar.” “Why not?” he asks, grabbing my hips and lifting them. Even if these Roman gods are not our own… “This is a holy place.” “Yes,” Memnon agrees. “And this is a holy act too.”

The Dacian king’s eyes narrow on Memnon. “Years I have waited to exact my revenge on you for my father’s and brother’s and nephew’s deaths. I will carve out your entrails and ruin your wife in front of your dying carcass.” Those are the wrong words to say. They always are.