6. A Slip of the Tongue #2
Before I could respond, his hand left my waist and rose to my face, his fingers sliding gently beneath my chin. The contrast between the fury in his voice and the tenderness of his touch made my chest ache as he tilted my head back, forcing me to meet his gaze.
Up close, I could see everything he had been trying so desperately to hide throughout the argument. The anger was still there. The frustration.
The guilt.
But now that he had finally spoken the truth aloud, it all seemed to blur together, revealing what had been driving every harsh word.
Every impossible demand from the very beginning.
Not the fear of a king losing a war, nor the fear of a ruler failing his people.
But the raw, desperate fear of a man who had come terrifyingly close to losing the person he loved.
His eyes searched mine as though he needed me to understand, needed me to see what every argument and accusation had truly been about.
The hand at my waist tightened, pulling me even closer until there was barely any space left between us, while the one beneath my chin remained impossibly gentle.
We stood there for a moment, breathing the same air, neither of us speaking as the intensity of his gaze stripped away every defense I had left.
There was no anger left between us now, only the weight of everything we had survived to stand here together.
Then he kissed me.
The movement was sudden enough to steal my breath, his mouth crashing against mine with all the desperation he had been holding back since I returned.
Weeks of separation, fear, longing, guilt, relief, and love seemed to pour into that single kiss, even though it had only been several days.
His hand slid from my chin into my hair, tangling there while his arm wrapped more firmly around my waist. It wasn’t careful, nor was it restrained.
It was the kiss of a man who had spent far too long imagining what it would feel like to hold me again.
A man who had stood on battlefields believing he might never get the chance, and now that he finally had me in his arms, he seemed incapable of holding anything back.
I kissed him back just as fiercely, my hands fisting in the fabric of his jacket as I melted against him.
Christ, I had missed this.
Missed him.
Missed the warmth of his body, the roughness of his hands, the way he could make everything else disappear with a single touch.
The argument, the frustration, and every unresolved question still waiting for us beyond this moment faded further into the background as he pulled me closer still.
Holding me against his chest as though he needed constant reassurance that I was truly here.
That I had come back to him. That after everything we had endured, after every impossible choice and every mile that had separated us, he hadn’t lost me after all.
The kiss deepened as though neither of us knew how to stop.
His hand remained buried in my hair while the other held me securely against him, and for the first time since stepping back through the Rift, the knot of tension that had been wound tight inside my chest truly began to loosen.
Because for all the chaos waiting outside this room, for all the conversations still to come, there was one truth neither of us could deny.
I was here.
And so was he.
“Atlas...” I whispered his name against his lips the second I needed to breathe. But he had lingering thoughts of his own, as he lay his forehead against mine and said,
“If something happened to you...” His jaw tightened, and I pulled back just enough to cradle his face with my hands.
“But it didn’t,” I whispered. My hands lost contact with his face when he shook his head and pulled back.
“You may think that I’m trying to control you, but that’s not what this is. It’s not about orders. It’s not about obedience. It’s about the fact that when I imagine this world without you in it...” He swallowed hard, and the pain that crossed his face was so raw it made my chest tighten.
“I can’t breathe, Alexandra.”
Slowly, I lifted my hand and rested it over his heart, feeling the steady beat beneath my palm as I searched for some way to make him understand.
Because I did understand. More than he realized.
I understood the fear. I understood the helplessness.
I understood what it was like to imagine losing someone and feeling as though the very thought might crush you beneath its weight.
“I know,” I said, barely above a whisper.
“I do. But you need to see it from my side too.” My fingers curled slightly against his chest as I tried to explain myself, tried to make him see that none of it had been recklessness.
“I faced the Rift. I survived the Labyrinth. Theron helped us all so I could make it back to you in time.” The words tumbled out before I had a chance to think about them.
Before I had a chance to stop them.
And the moment they left my mouth, I knew I had made a mistake. A huge, huge mistake.
Because Atlas went completely beneath my hand.
Every muscle in his body seemed to lock in place as if the Gorgon King himself had turned him into stone.
His eyes fixed on me with a sudden intensity that made my stomach immediately drop.
The color drained from my face as my own words replayed themselves inside my head, and I realized exactly what I had just done.
Oh shit.
The silence stretched between us, thick and uncomfortable, while Atlas stared at me as though trying to determine whether he had heard me correctly.
I could practically see the moment my words replayed themselves inside his head.
Each piece fell into place one by one until there was no possibility of misunderstanding what I had just said.
“Theron?” he asked at last.
His voice wasn’t loud, but somehow that made it infinitely worse.
There was something dangerous in the calmness of it, something that made every instinct I possessed scream that I should immediately stop talking.
Unfortunately, I seemed to have already passed that point.
The way he said the name told me everything I needed to know. He knew exactly who I meant.
I swallowed hard.
“Atlas…”
“Theron,” he repeated, his eyes narrowing as he studied my face.
“As in… the Gorgon King?”
I opened my mouth, desperately searching for a response that might somehow salvage the situation, but nothing came.
Whatever excuse I might have invented died before it reached my lips, and the silence that followed only confirmed his suspicions.
Judging by the look settling across his features, my failure to answer had told him far more than any explanation ever could have.
“Alexandra,” he said slowly, and there was something dangerous in the calmness of his voice now. “The Gorgon King helped you… Do I have that right?”
For a moment, I considered lying.
For an even briefer moment, I considered pretending I had no idea what he was talking about. Unfortunately, neither of those options seemed particularly believable.
“Well, we… we wouldn’t have made it back in time without him,” I admitted, being as careful with my words as I could. Too little, too late, however.
Atlas blinked slowly, as if I was suddenly speaking a language he didn’t understand. Of all the reactions I had been expecting, complete disbelief hadn’t been one of them.
“Without him?” he repeated slowly, and I nodded.
“Yes, he helped us.”
The look on Atlas’s face would have been almost amusing if it weren’t directed at me. Oh, and if he wasn’t also repeating words I said in that super scary way that instantly put me on edge, like I wasn’t just playing with fire, I was throwing gasoline on it!
“Helped you?”
The disbelief vanished, replaced by something that looked suspiciously like horror.
“Alexandra, Theron does not help people.” His top lip pulled back, somewhere between a sneer and a snarl.
“He doesn’t guide lost travelers, Alexandra.
“The Gorgon King doesn’t simply decide to help others, especially not those connected to me.
Not unless he receives something in return, something of great value.
Creatures like him do not involve themselves in the affairs of others unless there is something to gain. ”
I could already feel this conversation spiraling in a direction I wasn’t going to enjoy.
“Atlas...”
“No.” He shook his head and stepped back, dragging a hand through his hair as he tried to process what I had just told him. “You don’t understand my world.”
His eyes found mine again.
Dark, intense, and demanding answers.
“Now tell me, Alexandra,” he said, his voice rough.
“What price did you pay exactly?”