Chapter 3
Salvatore
I was woken by the smoke of frankincense and myrrh, clinging heavy to the air like a priest’s prayer turned sour. And by the warmth of Helena’s body pressed against my chest.
The linen sheets were cool, foreign, soft against sweat-slick skin. Beneath us, the cedar bed groaned, its lion-pawed legs protesting, as if it too knew the weight we forced upon it was heavier than flesh.
A bronze lamp guttered on the table, its flame sputtering as though afraid to witness. The frescoed walls came alive in their glow—painted gods and beasts, their bright eyes fixed on me, silent judges of the blasphemy I’d wrapped myself in.
The ivory chest yawned open, silks spilling across the floor in jeweled cascades—garnet, lapis, gold. Among them, bracelets and rings glittered, gems throwing sparks of light like a thousand tiny, mocking lies.
Helena had collected them the way she collected men. Not for love. Not even for beauty. For conquest. Spoils, not treasures. Trophies she could discard once her hunger dulled.
I rubbed at my face, my skin still sheened with oil—the same she had poured into her palms last night, smoothing it across my chest, my throat, her fingers slow and deliberate, before she straddled me.
She moved with a priestess’ certainty, hips swaying, hair spilling over her shoulders like black silk, her breath heavy with wine and want.
She touched me with exquisite care, but it was not tenderness—it was ownership.
She took me the way she took everything else—languid, practiced, indulgent.
Her mouth had been sweet with pomegranate when it closed over mine. Her nails left trails across my ribs, sharp enough to sting, shallow enough to tease. She made me gasp, curse, beg—then silenced me with her body, pressing me under her like a tide that knew no mercy.
And when she was finished, she rolled away.
She always did and I hated it.
And still—I stayed.
On the table, a bronze mirror leaned against scattered kohl jars and toppled perfume bottles. I turned my head and caught its reflection.
A stranger looked back.
Not a man.
Not a brother.
A shadow with my face.
Salvatore, the silence whispered. You do not belong here.
But I smothered the voice beneath the perfume, beneath the warmth of her skin still lingering against mine.
Ah, the fruits of war.
I was lying in my brother’s bed.
With his wife.
Or rather—his widow.
A smile curved my lips—crooked, venomous.
Because sin tasted sweetest when you knew it was poison—and still you drank it to the dregs.
I had taken her before his death, when she still wore his name like armor. And now, like his lands, like his legacy, she lay beneath me without protest.
Helena was not a woman who broke beneath grief.
No—she draped herself in it. Sorrow was her cloak, heavy, deliberate, theatrical. Not a burden, but a weapon. She wrapped herself in tragedy and wielded it like a blade, gleaming beneath silk and beauty.
The lamp shadows crawled across the frescoed walls, chased by firelight, while painted gods and beasts stared back at me in their eternal silence. And I marveled at the bitter truth—I was nothing more than another piece in her game.
And still, I played.
Her voice broke the hush—soft, trembling, calculated.
“Salvatore…” A croak, barely a breath. “Don’t go to war. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
Tears welled in her eyes, crystalline and perfect, clinging to her lashes until she dabbed them away with fingers as graceful as they were performed.
My heart should have cracked.
Instead, I was entertained.
I gave her what she wanted. Words as smooth as silk, as hollow as smoke.
“This war won’t take me,” I murmured, staring into her eyes with a lie. “Not like it took Julian.”
She clung to me then, shivering as though grief had just now sunk into her bones. Whether it was real or another layer of performance—I could no longer tell. Perhaps even she couldn’t.
But when she heard the emptiness in my voice—when she felt I would not surrender what she demanded—something in her shifted.
Her tears vanished. Her sorrow shed itself like a discarded mask. In its place burned anger, harsh and sudden, coloring her cheeks.
She turned from me, clutching the crimson sheet as though it were armor. Then, in one fluid motion, she slid from the bed. The silk fell around her feet like blood spilled at an altar.
Naked, unapologetic, she crossed the chamber and lowered herself onto a hassock with the ease of a queen claiming her throne.
In the lamp’s golden glow, she looked carved from desire itself—dangerous, divine.
Lifting a brush, she began to draw it through her long, flaxen curls, each stroke slow and deliberate, a ritual.
A woman who could shed grief as easily as silk.
And gods help me—my chest tightened, not with guilt, but hunger.
“If you loved me,” she said, not looking back, “you wouldn’t leave me.”
The brush slid through her hair in slow, practiced strokes, but her voice was the weapon.
Ah, Helena and her damn charms.
She always knew when to push—when to pull—just enough to unravel me without ever touching my skin.
She had mastered the art of influence, of holding power without grasping for it.
My grip on her had never been firm, but I couldn’t let her see that.
Couldn’t let her know just how easily she could unmake me.
“You know why I’m going,” I said, my voice tighter than intended, rough and raw. “My father thinks I’m nothing. He always has. I need to prove I’m more than that. That I’m not just some forgotten shadow trailing behind my brother’s name.”
I hesitated, jaw clenched.
“I need to be something. For once.”
The brush caught in a tangle. She paused. Looked down. The silence she offered was calculated—a demure, intentional pause just long enough for doubt to creep in and bloom.
Then—
“My husband—your brother—was a true warrior.” Her tone was cool, unshaken. “If Julian couldn’t make it… what makes you think you can?”
The words struck clean and deep, like a lance to the gut. She didn’t even look at me.
She didn’t need to.
The wound was open, and she let it bleed.
I sucked in a breath, forced the pain down, and coerced my face into a crooked smile. I even laughed—light and hollow—but her words had already spread through me like poison.
Still, I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.
“The gods will it,” I said, my voice strained, thin—empty armor spoken aloud.
She watched me from beneath her lashes, her gaze slow, syrup-slick. Every inch of her was a performance. A goddess of grief—lips as red as bloodied silk, eyes rimmed in kohl, skin kissed by flame. Draped in shadow and perfume, crowned in warpaint and ashes.
She was a battlefield.
And I was already losing.
I dragged a hand over my face, trying to scrape the weariness from my bones as I rose.
The red-dyed tunic from the night before lay crumpled on the floor, twisted beside my woven leather belt.
I shook it out, its embroidered hem rough against my fingers.
The woolen cloak fared no better, half-hung on a stool, its edge brushing a toppled goblet—wine bleeding across the floor in a sticky pool, as dark as old blood.
“Why do you look so glum?” Helena asked sweetly. “Was it something I said?”
She padded across the chamber, as bare as sin, pressing herself against my face—half comfort, half conquest, smothering me in warmth and perfume. She smelled of sweat and myrrh, of the night still clinging to her skin.
I pushed her away.
Not hard.
But enough.
The linen tunic slid over my head, cool fabric dragging across my skin like a restraint barely holding.
I cinched the belt at my waist, my fingers moving fast, mechanical, as though armor could hide the cracks inside me.
Morning light slashed through the windows, cutting across the chaos of the room—silks like shed skins, jewels scattered like baited snares, wine-dark sheets clinging to the floor like sin refusing to be washed away.
I reached for my rings, sliding them onto my fingers one by one. Their weight was familiar—gilded heirlooms heavy with a legacy I could never escape. My sandals, stiff with dust and sticky wine, scraped as I forced them on.
“Salvatore…” Helena’s voice slid over me like silk dragged across raw skin—soft, smoky, dangerous.
I heard the whisper of oil as she poured cedar-scented heat into her palms. Then the slow, slick sound of her rubbing them together, as methodical as a priestess preparing for sacrifice.
Her hands were in my hair a moment later, fingers gliding through the dark strands with a reverence that felt like worship—and damnation. Her scent—wild, spiced, unforgettable—wrapped around me like a net I had no hope of tearing free from.
“You’re better at pleasing me,” she breathed, lips grazing my ear, “than you’ll ever be on some battlefield.”
Her nails raked lightly against my scalp, coaxing the beast inside me to the surface.
I snapped.
I caught her wrists before they could wander further—hard, punishing, the bones beneath my grip shifting under the force. I spun her to face me, eyes blazing, chest heaving.
This wasn’t just desire.
This was possession.
“You listen to me,” I growled, my voice shredded with hunger and rage. “While, I’m gone, no other man fucking touches you. No one. You’re mine. Mine to take. Mine to keep. Mine until the gods themselves choke on the sight of us.”
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away.
Her lips curved—half smirk, half surrender, the kind of smile that made me want to both worship and destroy her.
The silence between us cracked like a whip—charged, violent. It hummed with possession, with lust, with something too twisted to be love and too brutal to be anything else.
Her lips parted slowly, sultry, dripping venom.
“My husband never satisfied me,” she said, voice a low purr laced with poison. “But when you came to me, I finally understood what it meant to burn.”