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Twelve beautiful flecks that stood out against her skin. Twelve times my lips had caressed them.
Those memories were ash now, buried in the recesses of my mind.
There was nothing left of the oldher—even less of the old me.
Yet as she nodded coolly at the gathered guests, lips moving with practiced words—greetings, compliments, pleasantries, and Goddess knows what else—my vision shifted, blurring past and present.
She still wore her hair in braids, except now there was no hint of frizz or flyaway curls. The twin braids lay flat against her scalp in a neat and fiery waterfall, curving around her ears and falling over her shoulders.
Tiny beads of pearls had been laced into her tresses, each gem glowing beautifully in the candlelit splendor of the ballroom. But nothing could compare to the flush of her skin and the compulsion of her gaze as she returned my stare with a cool, level look.
Eyes should not entrance. They should not compel. They should not call awake the Alpha in my chest. Yet my spirit stirred like a beast rearing back, ready to pounce.
“Olympia Summerstream,” I heard my voice echo in the cavernous room.
Her chin tilted downward for a fraction of a moment, acknowledging my greeting.
But it wasn’t enough.
I needed to know. Were there still twelve freckles across her nose? Hints of cinnamon in her deep cerulean eyes? Did she still smell like dark earth and spring water, everything that was pure and soft and much too good for me…
A gasp simmered over the crowd as I stood, parting with the throne for the first time that evening. The jacket shifted uncomfortably across my shoulders as I took a step down, then another, until I was facing her, our breaths mere inches apart.
Something in my brain misfired. Words failed. Thoughts were a mere shadow of a memory.
Because she was here, in my ballroom, rather than the dreams that bludgeoned me to bliss each night without the caution of reality.
“Welcome back,” I whispered, the soft breath of those words brushing her lips in a caress. “You’re so very brave to return.”
She gulped, the noise betraying her fear, her weakness. It stroked my ego in wondrous ways, the acrid scent of her trepidation sliding over me like a hit of ambrosia. Her features betrayed nothing.
Be afraid,Olly. Be very afraid.
My lips curled in a smile.
Chapter Five
Olympia
Oh, Goddess. Help me, please. Protect your child.
Zoei was coiled power—a walking mass of muscles.
A living, breathing weapon.
There was nothing soft about the woman she had become—a powerful King and a feared ruler.
Her gaze altered the gravity in the room—where the air had been cloying before, now it pressed down on me with the weight of a thousand suns.
She rose from her lazy perch on the throne, muscles shifting powerfully in tailored velvet trousers. I watched as the fabric clung to the tight muscles, cradling each quad perfectly as she took a step down, then another.
Our gazes collided. Hard, unrelenting green against malleable blue. It held me hostage, rooted to the spot as she moved with the easy grace of a predator. Zoei had always been gifted with a muscular frame, but she had honed it like a weapon in the years we’d been apart. I marveled at how impossibly broad her shoulders were, the jacket accentuating them perfectly.
Her dark hair was slicked back, neat as a spin, the short edges brushing the back of her collar. She always liked it that way—out of her eyes with no chance of distraction. It was a mild comfort that some aspects of her hadn’t changed.
Under the watchful eyes of the ballroom, she strode across the marble floor, pausing mere inches from me.
Unfair.
