Page 99 of Thief of Hearts

Then he moved up to the hollow in the back of my knee and lightly brushed his fingertips in and out of that spot, darting from one place to the next. I never knew where or when he would touch me and I accidentally let out a soft moan the next time he made contact.

“Are you all right, Queen Thalia?” Actos asked.

His interruption was so shocking that I slammed both of my knees into the tabletop as I attempted to regain control of myself. My heart beat so fast that it was painful. I could hear Zain laughing and I kicked him.

“Yes, fine,” I managed to say in a voice that sounded too breathy.

The king grinned, as if we were sharing in some sort of debauchery. “It seems you have chosen an excellent manservant.”

“Only the best,” I said with a fake smile.

“And how does your husband feel about that?”

Husband? Oh, right. I was supposed to be Lia. Zain’s touch had scrambled my brain. “What my husband doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

The king raised his wineglass to me. “That’s what I always say! That, and ‘the more the merrier.’ You two”—he snapped his fingers at girls sitting on pillows—“go and see if the queen requires your services.”

Foul man. They couldn’t have seen more than sixteen summers.

The two girls approached and knelt at my feet near Zain. “How may we serve you, Queen Thalia?”

Their dresses were see-through. They might as well have been naked. These poor girls. The one on the right tilted her head slightly and I saw the edge of a woad tattoo under her collar.

King Actos watched us closely. So I leaned down and kissed the girl’s cheek. “Are you Thracian?” I whispered.

She trembled. “Yes. We both are,” she whispered back.

“Are there others?”

“Four others.”

That was what I would do next. Whatever it was the king wanted could wait. I was going to find a way to free these girls. Before our first battle, every Thracian took a vow to never leave one of our own behind.

I would not leave them in his vile clutches.

“Thank you for your kind offer, King Actos, but Theogenes is all I need.” The two girls stood and bowed their heads to me slightly and returned to their pillows.

“Your manservant must be very good, then. Do you ever lend him out?”

Goddess, what would Zain do if I said yes? I had to suppress a smile. “My apologies, but I am very jealous and very possessive.”

“Say no more—I understand. However, I am not the same. These two are available for your use at any time if you change your mind.”

I plastered another fake smile on my face and sat on my hands so that I wouldn’t stab him. Could I put the king on my list twice? Kill him, bring him back to life, and then kill him again?

Another course was brought out, and fortunately, the king finally got to the point.

“I have been told that you can speak with dragons, Queen Thalia.”

As far as I knew, she only spoke to her personal aether dragon, but Actos didn’t need to know that. “Yes.”

“I need your help, then.”

It would be inappropriate for me to tell him that I’d rather cut off my limbs and have someone drag my bleeding torso across a bed of hot coals than help him. “Oh?”

“There is something I need. Something in a cave in the middle of the Wastelands.”

“I don’t understand why that involves me.”