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He simply stopped and watched. Her eyes were on the blazing sunset meeting the darkening sea. It was hard to believe he’d ever taken her for a boy. She was so beautiful. Alluring and self-possessed with a curiosity for life that he’d never seen matched. She’d attempted to protect him,avengehim, when no one had since he’d been a boy.
And when she touched him, kissed him, came apart around him, he was transported to another world entirely. One where revenge didn’t matter at all.
He was desperate for her, and he didn’t understand. Had she cast a spell on him? Poisoned him? Because he wanted her naked and beneath him, but he also wanted to stand here and watch her for eternity.
It was the thought ofeternitythat had him moving forward, breaking this little moment of insanity, because he needed to know how her breakfast had gone, and keep her abreast of her next steps.
Because revenge was all that truly mattered here in Kalyva.
She looked over her shoulder at him, and everything in her expression lightened. She smiled as if she were happy to see him. As if she’d been waiting for him.
An echoing warmth bloomed within him, and it reminded him of his childhood here. Of that feeling of belonging, being so sure of his place. It had not mattered that he was a servant. There’d been little struggle. So much freedom.
And love.
And then everyone he loved had been murdered. Had betrayed him. How dare she bring that out in him again. Muddle all his revenge with this...this...feeling.
But she seemed clueless to the storm within him. “Were you successful?” she asked pleasantly.
He worked very hard to chain down his volatile emotions. To speak as pleasantly in return as she spoke to him. “Very. Everything is in place. We will agree to the DNA test the next time Diamandis presses the issue, and my men will ensure the results show a match with Diamandis. Did you do any work as Al today?”
Some of her smile dimmed at this, and she began to worry her bottom lip between her teeth. She looked back at the sea. “No. My meeting with the king was very short, but I think... There is no body,” she said, almost thoughtfully. “The king asked me to prove I was Zandra. I guess it could all be his own game, but he seemed...” She paused as if searching for the right word. “I think he’s afraid Icouldbe her, which means he knows that no body was ever found, doesn’t it? He seemed so genuinely angry, demanding I prove myself. I just don’t see how there is a body anyone knows of.”
Lysias wasn’t sure why he was surprised. He’d suspected this ever since Diamandis brought them to the palace. There was simply no reason if he wascertainZandra was dead. And still, it shocked him a bit to hear Alexandra confirm it because he’d still been suspicious of Diamandis playing a game.
“What did you mean at the beach yesterday?” she asked, turning her attention back to him. “When you said you knew she wasn’t with her siblings because you were there?”
He was already feeling volatile, nearly unhinged with a million battering emotions. Remembering that night would break the chain of his control. So he tried not toremember, only to repeat basic facts.
“I was in the palace that night,” he responded, as if by rote. “I knew Zandra was not with her siblings. She was in her own nursery. She might have been killed, but not with them.” It was not the full truth, but it was the only truth he wanted to live in.
Alexandra nodded thoughtfully. “Do you think I could be from here?” she asked, pointing down at the village below.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t really remember my life before Athens. Maybe I didn’t have one. But something about this place is so familiar and uncomfortable. If there was the upheaval of a coup or what have you, maybe I was here. Maybe that’s the source of my nightmares.” Her gaze moved from the sea to him. “Do you think it possible?”
With her, anything seemed possible. And since he knew firsthand the pain and suffering of that night, he would not put it past anyone to have nightmares and to have forgotten. Especially since she wouldn’t have been more than four herself.
He reached out, though he knew he shouldn’t, ran his hand over the silk of her hair. The way it burned with hints of red as the sun disappeared behind him. “I am falsifying the DNA results for the king, of course, but if you wish, I could run a real test. Anonymously. See if you match anyone. It is not a surety, as any relative would have to be in a system we run it through. But...it would be a chance.”
She stood very still, staring at him with wide eyes. “Really?”
“Of course,” he said roughly.
She leaned forward, reaching out to put her hands on his chest. Over his heart. She was searching his face. “Lysias...”
He saw something in her eyes, something soft. Dangerous. And he shook his head. He would not allow it. He would cut this off at the pass. “I have been clear, Alexandra,” he said stiffly.
“Yes. You’ve been clear,” she agreed. Easily and with no hint of hurt, but that only made him unreasonably angry. That she’d leave her hands over his heart. That she’d look up at him as if she understood him when he hadn’t even explained.
When no one could understand.
But she thought she did. He saw it there in the way she looked at him. She thought she sawhim, and he had to prove to her that she was wrong. It was a raging anger inside of him.
He curled his hand in her hair, used it as leverage to tip her head back, so she met his gaze head on. And she didn’t look away, didn’t struggle. She simply looked up at him. So calm. So sure.
“Everyone I have ever loved has died brutally or betrayed me,” he told her. Because shewouldunderstand. If he had to bellow it from the mountaintops. “I will never shackle myself to another. I will never let anyone have power over me again. I am the only power.”
