Chapter Thirteen
Now all I could picture were the times when he and I had . . . aggressively kissed and the way he would sweat, which made his skin taste of salt. Something I probably should have found disgusting, but currently the idea of running my tongue along the strong cords of his neck made me lightheaded.
“Fine,” I said, standing up, hoping that he couldn’t tell how much I wanted to kiss him.
“As always, your enthusiasm is overwhelming,” he teased.
“Are you certain you want to do this?” I asked. “Maybe I’ll be the one making you sweat.”
“Doubtful,” he said with a grin. What had gotten into him?
“Swords?”
He took a few steps back and balled up his hands in front of his chest. “No. We’ll do hand-to-hand combat. Because you may find yourself in a situation where you’re unarmed and need to keep fighting. Ideally the best scenario would be if you’re armed and your opponent is not.”
I raised my own hands. “I don’t know if I could kill an unarmed person. That is so dishonorable.” Demaratus had drilled that into me. It was one of the reasons I hadn’t killed Lysimache. Not wanting to act out of anger, needing answers, and she was unarmed.
I had seriously considered it, though.
“Honor has its place, and I would argue with your Daemonian battle master that the battlefield is not one of them. Survival is the goal.”
It didn’t surprise me that Xander knew where I had learned that lesson. “Demaratus would make you run miles if you said something like that to him.”
The light in his eyes dimmed slightly. “Promise me that if you have to choose between honor and your life, you will always choose to live.”
“I promise,” I said, shaking my head. It was such a silly request. “Are you ready?”
“Always.”
“Dea Erinys,” I said and swung my right fist at him as the power surged through me.
Again, he was lit up like the sun.
He grabbed my arm and twisted me around, pulling my back to his front. “This seems familiar.”
What he didn’t realize was that he was currently feeding more power into me by touching me. I spun around and dropped, pulling him as I went and tossing him over my head. That caused him to flip over me while I got away.
He started laughing as he got up. “What was that?”
“You gave me more power.”
“How?”
“I told you about the light people emit and how we can use it.”
“And I do that?” he asked.
“Yes. You do. It’s not everyone—Ahyana and I tested it. It’s only specific people, and we’re not sure why. But you’re brighter than anyone else I’ve seen so far.”
“So you touch me and it makes you stronger?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting,” he said as he took a step toward me.
But I was ready for him. I punched him in the jaw hard enough that his head flew back.
I felt the sharp crack of pain in my own jawline.
I was about to apologize for hitting him so hard when I spotted his fist coming around on my left side.
I ducked out of the way, something I’d never been able to do with him before.
“You’re so fast,” he said admiringly.
“Annoying, isn’t it?”
He came toward me. “Annoying, fun—same thing.” He jabbed out so quickly that he almost got me.
I blocked his shot and then pivoted behind him.
I jumped onto his back and put my hands on his shoulders, pulling him down with me to the floor.
He turned at the last moment to take the brunt of the fall, allowing me to scramble on top of him.
I sat on his chest and pinned his arms down. “I win!”
“Trust me, I don’t feel like I’ve lost at all,” he said, his intense and amused gaze taking me in. My hands were flat against his forearms and I could feel power flowing into my palms.
“You’re not going to fight back?” I asked.
“Why would I?” The blatant invitation in his eyes had my heart beating violently in my chest as my breathing went shallow and uneven. “Although this hardly seems like a fair fight.”
“Aw, does the poor little prince not lose very often?” I teased, trying to tamp down my desire by covering it up with humor.
His eyes twinkled with delight. “I am neither poor nor little.”
He was correct on both counts. I was currently sitting on his massively broad chest, which proved his point.
“Do you feel it? As if you’re being drained?” I asked, needing to think about something else.
“A bit,” he said. “Not very much.”
“It wasn’t like that for me earlier. Maybe it’s because you’re goddess-blessed.”
Then the pain started.
It was duller than it had been the night before, but it came on suddenly. My arms went slack.
“What is it?” he asked, sliding his hands out from my grasp and resting them on my thighs. “Are you all right?”
“The pain.” I swallowed hard. I could manage this.
Xander took both of my hands and put one against his throat, the other on the exposed part of his chest so that I was still touching his skin. He returned his hands to my legs. “What do you need from me?” he asked.
“Talking helps. It distracts me.”
“Stay here and touch me and we’ll see how long you can bear it,” he said. “Who else has the light?”
“Um, my adelphia. You. Quynh’s baby.”
“I heard about that today,” he said carefully. “How did that make you feel? Finding out?”
“I’m happy for her.” His skin was so warm. He was slowly moving his hands back and forth, and I was certain he meant for it to be a soothing gesture but all he was doing was causing my skin to heat and prickle in response. “She’s going to be the best mother.”
“And believe it or not, Thrax will be an excellent father.”
I nodded. “But I was also . . .” Another wave of pain. It was starting to increase even with Xander’s light.
“What?” he prompted.
“I’m sad that I can never have that. Because of my vows.”
“Would you like that for yourself?”
“Yes,” I said far too quickly. Not wanting him to read too much into it, I said, “What about you? Have you thought of having a family?”
I was struck with the memory of him telling me he’d give me a dozen children if that was what I wanted, and I pushed it out of my head.
His hands came to a stop. “I’ll need to have children to secure the kingdom. But even if I didn’t, yes, I think I’d like to be a father.”
That caused a pang of sorrow so deep and sharp that it rivaled the pain I felt from the prolonged magic use.
“Keep talking,” I said through clenched teeth. “Tell me something I don’t know. Something secret.”
His expression turned serious. “I dream of you.”
“That isn’t a secret. I know that.”
“No. You talking about Quynh made me remember a dream I’ve had about you. You are pregnant with my baby. We’re in Locris, in that courtyard where we first met. And we’re happy.”
The air solidified in my lungs. That hadn’t been a dream. I’d been awake. There was no way he could have been a part of it.
But I’d never told anyone else about it. “When did you dream this?”
“The day of our wedding.”
Now I had to work hard to pull air into my chest. That was exactly when I’d had that vision. How had we shared that?
His expression was guarded, and I couldn’t make out what his tone meant as he kept talking. “There are other times that I dream of you walking with the goddess in fields of golden wheat, moving farther and farther away from me. I can’t reach you, no matter how hard I try.”
I’d had a dream like that as well—trying to get to him and not being able to. What did that mean? “They’re just dreams,” I said with a lump in my throat. “They don’t mean anything.”
I could tell that neither one of us believed that. Too many things were happening at once. My traitorous feelings rushed around inside me, exacerbating the pain. I let out a stifled moan.
“Breathe,” he said. “In and out. Is there a way for you to take more from me? Would that help?”
I didn’t know. I remembered Zalira talking about how she had thought of what she wanted, focused on it. I did that. I concentrated on his light and tried to pull it up into my hands, and then I imagined it spreading into my body and soothing every part that hurt.
“I think it’s working,” I said. “Tell me if it’s too much. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” he said. “You are doing so good.” He reached up to rest his right palm against my face and I leaned into him, closing my eyes.
He spoke again. “Thank you for sharing with me today. For telling me the things that you did. I know it hasn’t been easy for you to trust me.” There was a rough quality to his voice that made me open my eyes again.
“You’re welcome.”
He smiled slightly. “Your eyes are so green right now.”
“That’s what happens when we do magic. Io said it’s like the eye—” I clamped my lips together as an internal alarm sounded.
I had just been about to tell him about the eye of the goddess when I had been so careful.
What was wrong with me? “Like the goddess is with us and showing it through our eyes.”
If he picked up on what I’d just done, he didn’t convey it. “I suppose I didn’t notice yesterday because your eyes change colors depending on what you’re wearing.”
They did? I hadn’t realized that about myself. Growing up, I hadn’t been able to wear different colors, so my clothing had been some shade of beige or gray.
He moved his hand so that he could run his fingers through my hair. “The night of the festival, when you wore that green tunic, your eyes were such a bright green and . . .”
Now he was the one falling silent. This felt like extremely dangerous territory. I held my breath.
“It happens in our dreams, too,” he said. “Your eyes are always the shade they are now.”
They were? I hadn’t known that. Probably because I hadn’t spent time looking into mirrors in our dreams.
No, there was the one time in the cavern when I’d stood in front of a large green mirror asking to see my fate. I had seen my family, including my brother, Haemon, and had been focused on them. I hadn’t noticed the color of my eyes.
The main thing that dream had wanted to show me was Xander. Telling me that he was my fate. My true reflection. I felt so conflicted. I wanted so badly to just be selfish and give in to my desires.
“What are you thinking?” he asked. How did he always seem to know when I struggled with my attraction toward him?
“There are two terawolves inside me. And they are demanding completely opposite things. Both would consume me if given the chance. They would take over my life, and I’m not sure that I’m ready for either option. I want them but I can’t have both.”
“You can only choose one.” I heard the challenge in his voice.
“I can’t. Even if I want to.”
“You can,” he insisted.
The pain returned and I realized that it was because I was no longer drawing from him. As if I couldn’t let him inside any longer. I had to keep us apart.
“It hurts,” I said. And I wasn’t just talking about the pain from the magic. “I don’t know how long I can hold on.”
“You don’t have to. You can let go. I have you,” he said as he sat up, keeping me in his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck while he held me against his chest.
“Xander . . . I . . .” There was so much I wanted to say to him.
But I couldn’t.
“I know, Lia.” His words were so soft that I didn’t know if he had actually spoken them or if I’d only imagined them.
Instead of asking I took the coward’s way out. I didn’t turn the magic off and let it overwhelm me into oblivion.