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She wanted his tongue in her mouth. And she wanted to see.
Lia dared.
The kiss was wine-flavored and heady. August didn’t wait to keep his promise. He pressed his tongue into her mouth to open and deepen the kiss. Lia wound her arms around his neck. He kissed a path from her mouth to her throat, then put his lips to her ear.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said.
“Of what?”
“The sea monster,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”
“Where?”
Before he could answer, the bottom fell out of her world.
PART TWO
Andromeda & Perseus
CHAPTER EIGHT
Lia stood in a room made all of stone, though how she got there she didn’t know. Stone floors. Stone walls. Stone firepit. Tapestries hung on the walls, but they were nothing like hers. The colors were bold and bright, but they were simple color blocks. No patterns. No people or creatures embroidered on them. Why was she dreaming about tapestries?
She knew the answer. She wasn’t dreaming about tapestries.
She wasn’t dreaming at all.
The stone blocks of the floor were warm under her bare feet and she felt the grit of sand between her toes. In the distance, not far at all, she heard the rush and roar of the sea.
Closer, far too close, she heard voices and footsteps approaching, sandals on stone. Had she ever heard that sound before? Wooden soles on rock floors? No. Yet, she recognized it immediately.
Lia walked to a window, which was nothing but a square cut out in the stone wall. There was no glass windowpane. Why was there no glass in the window?
Oh. She knew why.
Glass hadn’t been invented yet.
This should have terrified her, but it didn’t. What did terrify her had nothing to do with the glass.
She was going to die today.
And the footsteps approaching belonged to those who would carry her to her death.
But she would not be carried. Nor would she be dragged. She was the virgin daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia.
“I am Andromeda...” Lia said, and knew it was true. She was, somehow, that ancient princess. She wasn’t dreaming it. Nor was she hallucinating. A black ant peeked in her window, twitched his antennae left and right before marching onward up the side of the palace.
Was this real?
The sun was near to setting. It hung so low in the sky, if it had been an apple she could have picked it without having to stand on her toes. Or asking her father to pluck it for her as he had done a thousand times. And he would have bowed when he presented it to her, as if it were one of the golden apples of King Atlas. How did she know this? The man in her memory was dark of skin with a beaming smile that he wore only for his daughter. He still called her away from her sewing in the evenings to play draughts with him on the terrace by the sea. Men came to seek her hand in marriage and he welcomed them warmly, saying, “If I beat her at this game, you may have her as a bride. If she wins, however, I’m afraid she’ll have to stay a maid.”
Then he would lose on purpose.
No daughter in the world was more loved than she, Andromeda, by her father, Cepheus.
And perhaps that was what had made her mother say what she said...
They had entertained a desert prince one week ago, a handsome dark-skinned, amber-eyed suitor who’d made the mistake of saying to her mother, Queen Cassiopeia, “Princess Andromeda is the most beautiful lady in all the kingdom.”
