Page 83 of Thief of Hearts

My eyebrows furrowed. He had just gone out of his way to win my favor. “Why did you change your mind?”

“Because I decided to do the right thing instead of the selfish one.”

Zain didn’t get to decide that for me. I could make my own choices. Perhaps I needed to remind him of what existed between us.

I tugged at his hands, walking backward. “I know that you’ve fantasized about me. Now here I am. Ready to make all your fantasies come true.”

“You should go to bed, Basileia.”

“I intend to,” I said with a smile. Then I turned and put him on the bed. He sat on the edge but I pushed him so that he was lying flat. I crawled over him and sat on top of him.

“What have you thought about?” I asked. “What have you imagined? This is what I’ve imagined.” I rocked my hips against his and he made a strangled sound. “Something just like this, only with far less clothing.”

He tried to get up but I grabbed his arms and held them against the bed. I bowed my head to kiss him but he turned his face away.

His voice was calm and deadly sounding. “Basileia, let me up. I don’t want to do this.”

A part of me wanted to refuse. To keep going.

“I want you to stop.”

Those words pierced the haze in my head and I realized what I was doing. I was appalled. I was behaving like . . . an Epirian. Trying to steal something that wasn’t being offered.

“Invara Pothos,” I said and scrambled off him. All those amorous feelings immediately fled and I felt ill. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Zain. I never should have . . . I’m so sorry.”

“You were . . . caught up. I understand. It’s fine.” He kept his gaze averted.

A queasy sensation roiled in my stomach and I thought I might actually vomit.

That aspect . . . it was like I had left my body and had only just returned. As if someone else had been in charge of me and the decisions I made. I didn’t like it. Lia and her adelphia had never mentioned this.

“I’m going to bed,” he said. He pulled his blanket over himself and turned away from me. I got into my cot, careful not to dislodge Dagger.

How could I apologize? How could I ever make this right? It could have been so much worse if I hadn’t been able to regain control from that aspect . . .

I had hurt someone that I cared about.

“Zain, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond.

How could I have thought that aspect would be the less dangerous of the two?

I was never calling on Invara’s magic again.

It took me hours to fall asleep. I was so disgusted with myself and my actions and riddled with guilt that I couldn’t keep from running our entire encounter through my mind over and over again and wishing that I could do things differently.

My one hope was that he and I would be able to talk this out in the morning. That we really would be able to part as friends.

I must have fallen asleep at some point because I was in my dream with the goddess again.

Only this time she couldn’t speak. Her lips moved and I could see what she was attempting to say.

What she always said.

Win.

Why couldn’t she speak it aloud? And why hadn’t her message changed? I had done as she’d asked and won the entire tournament. I didn’t understand why she kept giving me the same instructions.