Chapter 11 #2
He was the kind of man who filled a room without needing to rise.
Power radiated from him, coiling through the air until it brushed the edge of my breath.
And he was looking at me. Not as a stranger or a supplicant …
but as a man looks when he’s already imagined his hands where eyes should not linger.
Two concubines lay draped across him like offerings, their oiled skin glimmering with gold dust. One leaned close, her hand resting against his chest while the other’s fingers slipped beneath the crimson edge of his robe, sliding toward his groin.
Menelaus caught her wrist and set it aside, his gaze never leaving mine.
They might as well have not existed.
The air between us thinned, humming with a strange awareness that felt almost alive.
I tilted my chin just enough for him to see the curve of my throat, the rise and fall of my breath.
His gaze lingered there before climbing upward again, tracing every inch I allowed him to claim.
His lips curved, faintly, as though my beauty were already his.
Something in me answered. A spark under my skin. I could feel the court around us, people watching, whispering, waiting, but none of it reached me. There was only this silent exchange, this draw between predator and prey, though I wasn’t sure which of us was which.
He wanted me. I could see it in the set of his jaw, the hunger etched behind his eyes.
This was what I had been made for.
To hold a god’s attention.
I met his gaze, unblinking, a faint pull touching my own mouth, not a smile, but something shrewder. Something that said I understood exactly what kind of game had just begun.
Someone coughed nearby, a nervous sound swallowed quickly by the hush. The scrape of a sandal echoed faintly against the marble, and I felt, rather than saw, someone step closer behind me, close enough that their presence brushed the edge of my awareness.
“You’re staring at our king like you want to kill … or perhaps eat him. Should I be worried?” an amused voice sliced through the din, smooth as honey, with the bite of cold steel drawn across skin.
I yanked my gaze away from Menelaus … and nearly forgot how to breathe.
The man in front of me stood with a goblet dangling from his fingers, utterly at ease amidst the chaos of the room.
His hair was light brown with sun-kissed strands, tousled and windswept, like he’d just come off a battlefield—or out of a dream.
Tan skin stretched over a frame that would be easily worshipped, broad-shouldered and sculpted, the kind of body poets tried and failed to describe properly.
It was his eyes that held me though. Dark blue and deep as the Aegean Sea before it had been cursed.
The man wasn’t just handsome. He was ruinously, unfairly beautiful. The sort of man who didn’t enter a room so much as claim it. There was a quiet arrogance in the way he stood, like the gods had created him with intent and he’d known it every day of his life.
His eyes were steady, unblinking, his expression edged with something dangerous … amused as he stared at my face.
A crimson cloak hung from one shoulder, clasped with a bronze pin shaped like a spearhead.
The fabric shifted as he moved, revealing a leather baldric across his chest, the straps cracked and dark with sweat and time.
His bronze greaves bore the scrapes of battle, each mark a story no blacksmith would have dared to smooth away. This was armor that had seen blood.
He was a soldier.
I wondered how many villagers he’d killed for sport.
My spine went rigid. I stepped back before I realized I was moving, as if my body recognized the threat before my mind had fully caught up.
A bitter taste flooded my mouth. There was little I hated more than soldiers.
Even the beautiful ones. Especially the beautiful ones. They made you forget. Made you look past the blood on their hands.
His voice was a rich, low baritone that pulled at something in my spine, like a call I hadn’t meant to follow. I looked away, heat rising in my cheeks. I didn’t like the way that sound made me feel. Not at all.
“Are you able to speak, my lady?” he asked, tilting his head. “Or are you struck dumb in the face of my good looks?”
A scoff escaped me before I could stop it, harsh and inelegant. I winced.
He chuckled, and then looked surprised, like it was a rare occurrence.
The soldiers in our village never laughed. Not unless they meant to taunt you. I didn’t know what to make of this one.
“I’m certain that’s not it,” I said dismissively, using all of Calismae’s lessons to keep my face perfectly blank.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced toward the throne. Menelaus had shifted forward, one elbow braced on his knee, his goblet resting forgotten beside him. His attention hadn’t wandered. If anything, it had sharpened, fixed wholly on the space between me and the soldier.
A thrill, dark and dangerous, curled in my stomach. If the king wanted a reason to keep watching, I’d give him one.
So I let my mouth soften, my lashes lower, and turned back to the soldier, as though I didn’t care that the king was staring.
“Mmm, I’m not sure I believe you,” he murmured, exchanging his goblet with a fresh one from a passing servant’s tray with easy grace. His dark blue eyes gleamed over the rim as he took a sip, like he knew the game I was playing and was amused by it.
“You say that like I should care about your opinion,” I said, arching a brow as he offered the goblet—still warm from his mouth.
I stared at it, at the way his fingers lingered on the stem, the faint glint of challenge in his eyes. “Go on,” he murmured lazily, like a cat stretching in the sun. “Take it. I don’t know how you’ll survive the night without it.”
I reached for the goblet, the smooth gold cool beneath my fingertips. Lifting it slowly, I turned my gaze back toward the throne. Menelaus’s eyes were dark and intent, the kind of stare that could scorch if it lingered too long.
I tilted the goblet to my lips, just enough for the wine to touch my mouth, and held his gaze as I drank. The heat of it slid down my throat, but it was nothing compared to the fire sparking in his eyes.
When I lowered the cup, his grip on the armrest had tightened, and his knuckles were pale against the marble.
The soldier’s gaze was on me too as I turned back to him, sliding over my skin with the unrepentant ease of someone who knew he shouldn’t, yet didn’t care. It wasn’t the hunger of the king, it was quieter, more dangerous. His mouth curved slightly, and I was struck again by his beauty.
Something in me fluttered in response, unwanted and traitorous.
I took another sip and caught a drop of wine with my tongue before it could fall. His gaze followed the motion, heat flickering in it.
“Is there a reason you’re staring at me?” I asked, forcing a note of irritation into my voice even as warmth crept up my neck. “Do I have something on my face?”
His grin stretched and it felt lethal.
“Surely you’re used to stares …” he said, tilting his head slightly, his blue eyes trailing over me, my tangled hair, the dirt probably smudged across my cheek, the torn hem of my dress.
“And I must say, the air of indifference suits you. It’s obvious you know you’re the most beautiful woman in any room, Lady …
” He trailed off, daring me to finish the sentence for him.
I shifted, the goblet tightening in my grip until the metal bit into my palm. His eyes didn’t waver, not for a second, waiting … expecting. My name rose to the back of my throat.
My mother stood abruptly from the table, catching my eye over the soldier’s shoulder. The line of her frame was rigid, her disapproval enough to cut through the air between us. The message in her stillness was clear. I was forgetting myself. Forgetting why I was here.
The heat that had begun to bloom inside me cooled, replaced by the cold, steady pulse of purpose. I swallowed my name, forcing my gaze back to the soldier.
“I don’t give my name to strangers,” I said evenly, the words smooth but distant, each one a reminder that I had work to do, and none of it involved him.
The grin on his lips didn’t falter. If anything, it deepened, like my words had confirmed something he already believed.
He dipped his head slightly, eyes still fixed on me, a flicker of amusement still playing at the corner of his mouth. “Probably for the best we don’t get too attached,” he said lightly, almost bored. “I’m sure you leave a trail of broken hearts wherever you go.”
Before I could answer, a deep metallic clang resonated through the hall. The great doors swung open and a hush fell over the room.
My breath caught. I turned instinctively, my gaze darting back to the throne. Menelaus had straightened, his shoulders squared, and his attention on the door. The two women draped across his lap slipped away, their laughter swallowed by the anticipation sweeping the hall.
Panic curled low in my stomach. Had I done enough? Would he forget me now that the High Priestess’s chosen had arrived? Would catching his eye be able to change anything?
The soldier beside me stepped back, his presence dissolving into the crowd. I hardly noticed, my entire awareness fixed on the king.
The veiled women entered, their silks brushing the marble as they moved in a solemn line. The High Priestess followed behind them, her face as unreadable as stone.
I held my breath, watching as Menelaus’s gaze swept over them, assessing.
But then his expression shifted.
His brow furrowed, just slightly, as if something wasn’t aligning. His eyes searched the line once more, restless now, before breaking away entirely.
They found me.
His gaze lingered along my figure, pausing on the white of my gown, filthy, but the same color as the women who had stood before his priestess. I saw the moment understanding struck, when the flicker of confusion gave way to something else.
Displeasure.
His lips pressed together as his fingers flexed on the arm of his throne. Around him, the air seemed to thicken, that silent tension before a storm breaks.
The chosen moved forward, standing in a line before the throne, their veils trembling with the faint tremor of breath. From here, they looked almost identical with their faces hidden and their backs straight … their hands folded just so.
The High Priestess stepped among them like a sculptor adjusting her statues, pressing a shoulder back here, tilting a chin down there, aligning each girl with the next until they stood in a perfect line of trembling devotion.
Heads bowed and hands clasped, not one voice among them, not a single breath out of place.
Menelaus didn’t spare them a glance.
I lifted the goblet slightly, the wine inside dark as blood. My gaze never left his, and even though my pulse was pounding in my throat … my mouth set into something taunting and reckless.
When I spoke, no sound carried, only the shape of the word formed on my lips, meant for him alone.
Yours.
The syllable hung between us, unseen but heavy, as the High Priestess’s voice rose behind it, chanting her devotion to a god who was suddenly not listening.
Menelaus leaned back in his throne, the lion’s pelt shifting across his shoulders like something alive.
But his gaze never left mine.