Chapter 4
Liora
The front door slammed hard enough to rattle the old window frame.
Liora froze for a second, then crept toward the window and peeled back the curtain just enough to see outside. Hektor’s broad figure was already halfway down the walkway, and she could release the breath she’d been holding.
“Well,” she muttered to the empty room, letting the curtain fall back into place. “That went well.”
It hadn’t. Not even a little.
She leaned her forehead briefly against the cool glass. The quiet inside the house felt strange after the intense conversation between Hektor and Elian.
While she and Elian had gone back to Alindale, Vale Crossing’s capital, Zara and Hektor had gone to his home in Drakkoria.
And it had taken Hektor a week or so to fall in love with her sister and, somehow, impossibly, break her heart just as quickly.
Liora still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed that particular feat.
Something about duty. Something about Drakkon traditions.
Something about not wanting to bind Zara to a life she didn’t choose.
Zara’s response had been simple. She’d packed a bag and vanished back to their parents’ house in Santa Fe.
Liora pushed away from the window, rubbing her temples. “Well,” she sighed to herself, moving back toward the kitchen. “That was a disaster.”
Still…if she was being honest, the chaos had been a welcome distraction.
Because while everyone had been busy arguing about Zara and Hektor and emotional Drakkon declarations, no one had asked her any inconvenient questions.
Specifically, the one question she was very much avoiding. Like why she’d been unusually quiet since returning from Solkaris or why she had suddenly become very interested in researching ancient basilisk customs.
She leaned against the kitchen counter and stared at the notebook lying open in front of her. At the words written across the top of the page: Sacred Spring Binding Rituals.
She groaned softly and covered her face with both hands. “Still married,” she muttered through her fingers.
The words sounded ridiculous every time she said them. She lowered her hands and stared at the page again. Married. To a basilisk she’d met less than two hours before falling into a sacred spring with him.
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
And somehow—somehow—she still hadn’t told her siblings. Not Elian. Not Zara. She pushed off the counter and began pacing.
“I will tell them,” she said aloud.
Then she stopped. “Soon.”
Another pause. “Eventually.”
She sighed again, dragging a hand through her hair. She grabbed her notebook and flipped to a new page.
“Okay,” she told the empty kitchen. “New plan.”
Step one: figure out how to undo an accidental basilisk marriage.
Step two: maybe—maybe—tell her siblings before they found out another way.
She had just picked up a pen when a knock sounded on the door.
Liora froze. “Please tell me,” she said to no one in particular, “that he is not about to show up here.”
Then the knock came again.
Sharp.
Certain.
Her stomach dropped. “I’ll get it!” she called quickly, her voice louder than necessary as she hurried toward the door.
There was a muffled grunt from down the hall that might have been agreement, or might have been Elian ignoring her entirely, but she didn’t wait to find out.
She yanked the door open, and there he was.
Maldenis.
He looked exactly the same as the last time she’d seen him: tall, broad-shouldered, red hair catching the light. Still unfairly magnetic.
But today, there was something else in his expression.
Concern.
She stepped outside immediately and pulled the door shut behind her before Elian could wander out and ask inconvenient questions.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed under her breath.
Then she grabbed his arm, her fingers closing around him with more force than necessary, heat seeping through the fabric beneath her palm, and started walking down the path away from the building. “Keep moving,” she muttered.
Maldenis blinked but let himself be dragged along.
She could feel him behind her as they went, solid, unyielding, his weight steady behind her. He didn’t resist. Didn’t question. Just followed, like this was already familiar ground.
“Not this again,” she said under her breath.
“Oh, good,” he replied dryly. “You remember me.”
She shot him a glare over her shoulder. “Don’t push it.”
They moved another twenty feet before she finally stopped and spun around to face him.
Her hand slipped from his arm but not right away. Her grip loosened slowly, her fingers lingering for a fraction longer than necessary before she forced herself to let go.
“Why are you here?”
Maldenis folded his arms, studying her like he was still deciding how much trouble she was worth.
Liora didn’t step back. Even without her hold on him, the space between them stayed tight, charged. He shifted his weight slightly toward her, subtle but deliberate, and she felt it—felt the pull of it—like something trying to draw her in.
Her chin lifted a fraction in response, meeting his gaze head-on. The space between them had opened, but it didn’t feel like it. She was acutely aware of him. How his presence seemed to press in, draw her attention whether she want it to or not. She hated that he could still do that.
“My family is dishonored,” he said. “We’ve all been shunned.”
Liora stared at him. Then she shrugged. “Sucks for you.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” she said briskly. “Tragic. Truly. Thoughts and prayers.”
Maldenis’s mouth twitched. “You’re taking this remarkably well for someone who caused the problem.”
“Oh, I caused the problem?” she said, pointing at herself. “You were the one who brought me to the sacred marriage spring!”
“You asked for somewhere to swim.”
“You could have mentioned the whole marriage ritual thing!”
“I didn’t know!” he shot back.
She gave him a look so unimpressed it could have curdled milk.
Maldenis exhaled slowly through his nose. “My mother believes I deliberately bound myself to a human.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“It is now a political problem,” he said.
She groaned and rubbed her face. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because,” he said patiently, “you are half of the situation.”
“I did not sign up for a situation.”
“You jumped into a sacred spring with me.”
“I jumped into a spring with a hot basilisk,” she corrected sharply. “Details matter.”
Maldenis stared at her for a moment, then he actually laughed. That only irritated her more.
“This isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” he said.
“Your family is dishonored!”
“Yes,” he agreed calmly.
“And you’re laughing!”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
She threw her hands in the air. “Why are you here?”
“Because,” Maldenis leaned slightly closer, “my mother has decided that if I have bound myself to a human…she would like to meet the human.”
She blinked. “No.”
“She insists.”
“Still no.”
“You should come.”
“I will absolutely not come,” she said flatly.
Maldenis tilted his head, studying her with that same infuriatingly amused expression. “You’re afraid.”
“I am not afraid.”
“You are.”
“I am annoyed.”
“That too.”
She jabbed a finger toward him. “You cannot just show up here and drag me into basilisk family drama!”
“I’m not dragging you.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
He shrugged lightly. “Technically, you are my wife.”
She made a strangled noise. “Do not say that out loud!”
“Why?”
“Because my brother is inside!”
Maldenis glanced toward the building. “Ah.”
“Yes, ah,” she snapped.
He looked back at her, still far too calm for her liking. “My mother will keep asking questions,” he said.
“That sounds exhausting for you.”
“And eventually,” he continued, ignoring her, “she will come here instead.”
She froze. “You wouldn’t.”
Maldenis lifted a shoulder. “I might.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “You are the worst.”
“And yet,” he said with that infuriating grin returning, “you married me.”
“I did not marry you,” she hissed.
“According to an elder and an extremely sacred spring—”
She pointed down the street. “Leave.”
Maldenis didn’t move. Instead, he leaned a little closer, his gaze dropping and lingering for a beat on her lips before lifting back to her eyes.
“You owe me.”
Her eyes flashed. “I owe you?”
“You shoved me away the moment the elder showed up.”
“Yes, because apparently I accidentally married you!”
“And yet,” he said thoughtfully, “you didn’t seem too upset about coming minutes before that.”
Her face went pink. “That is irrelevant.”
“Is it?”
She crossed her arms. “Go back to Solkaris, Maldenis.”
“And tell my mother what?”
“That basically, your accidental human wife wants nothing to do with basilisk politics.”
He considered that, then shook his head. “She will not accept that.”
“Well, she’s going to have to.”
Maldenis sighed. “You are being very unhelpful.”
“You showed up uninvited.”
He studied her for another long moment. Then, maddeningly calm: “I can stay.”
Her eyes widened. “You cannot stay.”
“I can.”
“No, you absolutely cannot.”
He gestured casually toward the street. “Monsters are welcome here.”
“Yes, but not ones who accidentally married me!”
Maldenis smiled slowly. “Well,” he said, “that seems like something we should discuss.”
She groaned loudly and tipped her head back toward the sky. “Why,” she muttered, “did I get into that spring?”
Maldenis’s amusement faded, and for the first time since he’d shown up, the cocky ease slipped from his face. “Liora,” he said quietly. “Look.”
She crossed her arms tighter, already bracing herself.
“This is bigger than us.”
She snorted. “That’s what everyone says right before they try to drag someone else into their mess.”
“My family has lost standing because of this.” His jaw tightened, but he kept going. “The elders think I acted recklessly. Some think I did it deliberately.”
“Again,” she said dryly, “sucks for you.”
He exhaled slowly through his nose. “You don’t understand how basilisk houses work.”