Page 91 of Thief of Hearts

“Theogenes,” Zain said, cutting me off. The same name he had used in the tournament.

“And he is my manservant,” I finished.

The Dracanians laughed again and began talking to each other quickly in their native tongue.

I leaned in toward Zain. “I thought we were going to talk our way out of this.”

“We’re still alive, aren’t we? And headed to Epirius instead of their ships.”

“Please allow us to pack your belongings for you,” the man said to us.

Pack our belongings. Ha. We were never going to see any of this again. The other nine Dracanians started going through our things, discussing what they found in their language.

As furious as I still was with Zain for taking the diviner stone from me, a part of me was glad that it was gone and wouldn’t land in Dracanian hands.

They were excited when they found the bag of gold and my golden laurel crown. Which, now that I thought about it, probably helped to sell the story that I was Lia.

The only thing she and I had in common with our appearance was our red hair. And while she was taller than most women, I was taller than most men. Including all of the Dracanians.

“What is this?” one of the Dracanians asked with a heavy accent as he pulled something out of one of Zain’s saddlebags.

I glared at Zain. “You brought Dagger?”

“That is my dog,” Zain said, completely ignoring me. “He is stupid and useless. He only has value to me.”

“It is so scrawny we could not even sell it for meat,” another man commented. “And it is a terrible guard dog. It did not alert you to our coming.”

The man threw Dagger at Zain, and he caught his dog easily. Dagger made a whining noise, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Zain scratched behind his ears and soothed him.

“How do we know she’s really the queen of Ilion?” someone asked.

“She has red hair and we saw her coming from Ilion. She’s not Thracian,” the leader said. “She doesn’t have any tattoos. Besides, what do we care if she’s lying? We’ll get our reward either way.”

How hard could it be to pretend to be Lia? I would just have to say “by the goddess” and “savior” repeatedly and make cow eyes whenever I talked about Xander. While I normally hated lying, I thought this would be one situation where it would be fine. I didn’t want them going after Lia. What if they actually managed to lure her out of her palace somehow? This way I could keep her safe.

After they had stolen all our goods, they directed us out of the enclosure. They didn’t have their weapons out, but I knew one misstep and they would be. I was directed to a covered cart and told to sit in the back.

“A queen must ride in luxury,” the leader said, and again his men laughed. I didn’t know what had been in here before, but it smelled horrific. Like something had been slaughtered and the rotting corpse had been left in here for weeks.

Someone took Dagger out of Zain’s arms and threw the dog into the cart alongside me. Poor thing. I picked him up and patted his head. They tied Zain’s wrists together and attached that rope to the back of my cart.

They moved the group forward, and I saw the men who came out of hiding to join in. Zain had been right. There were dozens of them. I would have been able to hold my own for a while, but eventually I would have gotten overrun.

They were all on horses. Zain was the only one walking.

He stumbled slightly and then righted himself. I felt a pang of sympathy at his plight. I knew it couldn’t be easy. I admonished myself. He was reaping what he had sown.

It still made me feel bad for him, and I hated that.

I had been right in what I told my mother. There was only lust and everything else was just dressed up to make the lust seem more palatable. If I had remembered that, I wouldn’t be in this situation right now. Zain had blinded me with physical chemistry and his body and I’d let him. Even though I knew better.

I turned my head so that I wouldn’t see him. I hated the idea that I had ever imagined that I cared about him.

We traveled throughout the day, headed north, stopping infrequently to rest their horses, eat, drink, and relieve ourselves. I was the only woman in the company and it was humiliating to have one of them stand over me while I urinated.

Not that I had much urine—they’d given me barely any water. And it was so hot. I felt a thirst unlike any I had ever known. My throat burned from it.

To my surprise, they pushed on through the night. I tried to sleep but the cart was too bumpy and it was too hot.