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His gut churned as he remembered that in exchange for taking Marit home he would receive Aleksander’s shares. The thought made him feel nauseous. As if the night he had spent with Marit had payment. He’d meant what he’d said in London. If she wanted to escape, if she wanted her freedom, he would do everything in his power to make it happen.
I will always go back.
Something about the way she’d said it had reminded him of his mother and it had cut deeper, and darker, than he could ever have imagined. In his mind’s eye, he saw his mother’s large glistening eyes, the feel of her palm against his cheek.
The only way I’ll be safe is if he can never use you against me again. So don’t look for me. Don’t come for me.
And he couldn’t shake the feeling that when Marit left his life, this time he would be even more alone.
A cold sweat at his nape turned icy with a fresh blast of salty air, anchoring him in the present. When he felt a presence behind him he could have sworn that somehow the past was repeating itself.
Kyros came to stand beside him, less than a foot between them and closer than they’d been in over ten years. A silent roar of rage built inside of Lykos, thrashing and snarling and wanting out, the hurt from too many things in his past colliding in this one moment, but he had too much control to do so. Instead, the world would have seen two old friends perhaps, in a shared moment.
‘You’ve done incredibly well for yourself, Lykos.’
‘Yes, I have. But if you think for one moment your acknowledgement of that fact means anything to me then you are sorely mistaken.’ His pulse throbbed painfully in a throat that felt thick and sore.
‘I did you a great disservice when I asked you—’
‘Sent me.’
Kyros surrendered a sigh.‘Sent you,’the old man confirmed, ‘after Mariam.’
Lykos felt the weight of the blue-eyed gaze on his cheeks. Was Kyros taking in the changes that time had wrought, as Lykos had done in Norfolk a few months ago? He hadn’t liked how shaken he’d been to see the larger-than-life vibrant man from his youth with wrinkles, shocking white hair and a sadness in his eyes that had been for more than the loss of Althaia, his wife.
‘Lykos, I didn’t know. I had no idea that Mariam had a child.’
‘Why did you do it then? Why did you send me after her? What were you hoping to achieve? You had a wife, Agyros. She was sick and you had been with another woman.’
‘What drew me to Mariam—and Mariam to me—is between us,’ Kyros growled, the roar of an old tiger not yet done with the world. Inside, grief and hurt twisted in Lykos’s heart. ‘I told Althaia as soon as it had happened. But I shouldn’t have done it and I certainly shouldn’t have used you to track Mariam down. Lykos, even then, in a way I cannot explain, I loved both women. I thought that perhaps now you might finally understand how far we will go for the women we love...but perhaps not.’
Lykos’s jaw ached from how tightly he had clenched it. Kyros’s gaze burned into him and it took everything in his power not to react.
‘That, however, is not what I wanted to say.’
‘Oh, really? There’s more?’ Lykos cursed himself, knowing how childish he sounded, but he felt out of control, wild and frantic.This was what happened when you let emotions in, he warned himself. This was what happened when you let Marit in.
Kyros was frowning, as if finally sensing the unease within him. The old man went to place a hand on his shoulder. ‘Lykos—’
Lykos shook him off before the touch could connect and it seemed Kyros decided to keep whatever he’d been about to say to himself.
Kyros’s sigh seemed weary and weighted, even to Lykos’s ears. ‘No matter what has passed and what may come to pass in the future, if you allow it, I owe you an apology. I should never have asked you to do that. And I know that I let you down. I am sincerely sorry for that, Lykos.’
Lykos didn’t know how to respond. He’d spent so many years being angry at this man, resenting him and hating him sometimes. But now that he’d received the Kyros’s apology it didn’t quite mean what he’d thought it would.
‘It will take time, Lykos, but I promise you I’ll show you that I mean what I say. Having my daughter in my life...it has changed so much. And it’s reminded me of what I’ve missed. With you. But I understand if that’s not what you want. Just...’ Kyros seemed to run out of the energy that had driven him this far ‘...just keep it in mind.’
Kyros waited and after a beat longer than he’d probably expected, and less than Lykos had planned, he nodded, surrendering to a desire that he thought he’d buried a long time ago. A desire for family, for a home.
Marit watched Lykos with an older man who, she realised, was Kyros. She’d tried to look away, to give them the privacy they deserved, but she’d been too worried about Lykos. He’d brushed off Theron’s trick easily enough, but Marit hadn’t been fooled. From what Lykos had told her, being here would be incredibly difficult. Confronting Kyros? Inconceivable. Summer sat opposite her rocking Katy, unable to hide the glances she also sent in their direction.
‘So, how long have you known Lykos?’ Summer asked, making it sound like more than just polite conversation. The warmth in her was apparent, putting Marit at ease almost instantly. She reminded Marit a little of her sister Freya and the thought stung a little more than it should.
In the last few years they’d not spoken as often as they once had, with Marit unable to hide the resentment at the loss of Freya’s attention as she took on her royal duties. At the time it had reminded her too much of her parents. But now, faced with the same position, Maritunderstood. She understood each member of her family a little more. Understood the purpose and the bone-deep willingness to serve their country, making it hurt to think how selfishly and childishly she’d behaved. It was as if somehow, being seen by Lykos,feelingseen by him had enabled her to see herself more clearly. She shook the thought off, trying to find her way back to answering Summer’s question.
‘It feels like a lifetime,’ she answered, unsure how the other woman would react to the news that they’d only known each other a matter of days. But as she said the words she felt them as the truth. Only it was a different lifetime to the one that lay ahead of her, or even behind her, as if she had been allowed to slip into a parallel world before stepping up to do her duty.
‘He is a complicated man,’ Summer observed of Lykos.
