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CALISTAWOKEUPthe next morning and for a second couldn’t work out where she was.
The room was far bigger than the barracks she was used to and there was certainly a lot more furniture. A low couch against one wall and a dresser. A couple of side tables and then the bed she was lying in, big and wide and very comfortable. The walls were stone and there were a couple of paintings hanging on them, a rich, thick silk carpet on the stone floor...
And then memory came rushing back, of a small room with a fire flickering in the grate, the sparkle of smashed glass on the floor, and the taste of orange juice in her mouth. Dark eyes staring into hers revealing a will as formidable and immovable as a mountain.
Xerxes.
Marriage.
Calista sat bolt upright, feeling as if a bucket of ice water had been emptied over her head, the image of Xerxes informing her that, since she was carrying his heir, she’d be marrying him and that she didn’t have a choice about it, replaying over and over.
She still couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t got rid of her the way she’d feared he might, but she certainly hadn’t expected him to claim her hand in marriage. That had seemed unreal. It still did and she didn’t understand it.
She was a soldier in the palace guard. She didn’t come from wealth and her family wasn’t important. She was nothing, a nobody. And yet, he wanted to marry her, to break off an engagement that had already been agreed upon, and all because she was carrying his child?
It didn’t make any sense.
She wasn’t sure why she’d got so angry with him. But his calm and the way he’d taken her chin in his hand, looked at her with that flicker of deep gold in his eyes, had almost broken her tenuous control.
She’d almost laid hands on him, almost shoved him away. And he’d seemed to understand exactly where her temper had come from, his smile making her anger burn hotter and something else inside her tighten.
Her control had gone from tenuous to almost non-existent and she’d been seconds from kissing him. Seconds from rising up on her toes and covering his mocking mouth with hers. In that moment it had seemed like the most logical, most obvious way to handle the burning tangle of emotions inside her and to claim some of her own power back.
Except a deeper part of her knew—even if she hadn’t been fully conscious of it herself—that if she did that, it wouldn’t end there, and she’d seen the confirmation deep in the glittering darkness of his eyes. In the tension around them.
And so she’d managed to pull herself back, her heart hammering.
Then he’d left and she’d waited five minutes before jerking the door open, intending to go back to the barracks, grab her belongings and leave the palace immediately. To escape him, escape Itheus, and lose herself somewhere else—though quite where she hadn’t thought.
But the moment she’d pulled the door open, a couple of guards she didn’t recognise had materialised with instructions to escort her to one of the palace’s guest bedrooms. And it was clear that she had no choice in the matter.
By this stage, her hot rush of anger had gone as quickly as it had appeared, leaving her exhausted, and she didn’t have the energy to protest. She’d gone without a word to the guest bedroom provided, and as she’d entered she’d seen them station themselves outside the door; it was clear they were there not to protect her from people coming in, but to stop her from leaving.
She was, essentially, a prisoner.
She’d thought she wouldn’t sleep, that her anger at Xerxes and her fear of what was going to happen to the life she’d planned for herself would prevent her. But she’d run through a few of the disciplinary exercises she’d used back in basic training to calm herself down and get herself under control again. Then she’d lain down on the bed fully dressed...and the next minute she was awake and it was morning.
Her eyes felt gritty though and exhaustion had soaked into her bones. She still hadn’t quite processed how completely her life had changed in the space of a few hours. How she had been planning for a future promotion to the king’s guard, only to find herself ordered to marry the very prince she’d been guarding only a day or so ago.
It didn’t feel real.
Hauling herself out of bed still fully dressed, Calista went through into the en-suite bathroom and splashed some water onto her face, trying to work out what she was going to do now.
Because one thing was certain: she couldn’t marry the prince.
It wasn’t only the difference in their stations that made it impossible, it was also that Axios had her heart and she was dedicated to defending it. She didn’t want or need anything else in her life.
What about your child?
But she was saved from having to think about that as a knock came on the door and when she went to open it she found another couple of guards waiting outside. Again, they weren’t people she recognised, which was a relief, but then she was informed that she was to be escorted out to the palace’s helipad immediately, which wasn’t.
Her heart thumped painfully hard behind her breastbone, her confusion deepening as one of the guards went past her into the room and picked up the leather bag sitting at the end of the bed—a leather bag she hadn’t even noticed.
And there was no chance to even ask what it was, because then she was ushered out of the room and marched through the echoing stone corridors, down a flight of stairs, then outside into the sunshine. They followed a curving path lined with cypresses that led to the wide, flat area of the helipad, where a sleek, black helicopter waited, a man moving purposefully around it.
It wasn’t until she got closer that she realised the man was Xerxes and that he was making last-minute checks with the kind of casual competence that spoke of experience.
The guards approached the helicopter, and Xerxes spotted them, finishing up whatever check he was doing and coming to intercept them.
