Chapter 22 #2
Dimitrios turned his body toward her. “What?”
“The supply routes,” she began, and twisted until their knees touched. “All the exported goods the bandits raided belonged to key noble households. They were Titos’s men, targeting specific provinces. When the nobles asked for help, Leonidas was to put the onus on you.”
Dimitrios’s thoughts raced back to the last conversation he overheard between Nektarios and Leonidas.
Nektarios had no idea. He’d suspected, but couldn’t figure it out.
The answer had been in front of him—in front of them all—all along.
Leonidas provided Titos with Perean’s weaknesses and had ordered Tassatos to thin the military presence along the borders, citing concerns that Titos might see them as a threat.
His reasoning? They were “smoothing over relations” with their ally.
Milonia continued, saying, “Leonidas was to make the lords believe that he was supporting you and your right to rule while the inquisitor made his determination.” She waved the letter. “It’s all here. Orders from Titos himself.”
Dimitrios sagged into the cushioned back. “He ruined my credibility before I could even take the throne.”
“It appears so.” Milonia’s shoulders sank. “I’m so sorry.”
“None of this is your doing.”
She pulled out the list of names that Leonidas had compiled. “Any idea what this is?”
“Those are the sole number of people I can trust, and only one remains in Perean.”
He tapped the paper beside Nikolas’s name. He’d spent the last few weeks questioning his own gut; it helped to see his friend’s name on his enemy’s list.
Milonia scanned the list. “My name isn’t on there.”
“I noticed. But, it wouldn’t be, would it?”
She went utterly still. “No?”
“You weren’t here long before his death. He had no reason to add you.”
A small smile touched her lips, soft. Unreadable. She didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
Dimitrios became keenly aware of every part of her. Where their bodies touched. Where they didn’t.
This dangerous lack of space.
Knees together.
Thighs.
Shoulders and arms.
His breath turned ragged, and down on his lap, his finger stretched across the barrier. His knuckle burned across the back of her fingers, each lifting on contact, awakened.
Milonia sucked in a sharp breath, then tasted her lower lip.
There was a gentle shift of their bodies. A tug. A pull. A desire to share the forbidden.
Roaring silence.
Heat.
Breath.
Lilacs.
A thick strand of dark hair fell across Milonia’s cheek. Dimitrios tucked it back, slowing at her ear, scraping his thumb across her cheekbone.
Her gaze fell to his mouth.
“Milonia.”
Her name was a prayer on his lips to the one god he had known his entire life. One who could be as cruel as they were kind. This particular prayer was for mercy. If she kissed him, he wouldn’t stop. And if he didn’t stop…
He would be hers.
Milonia met his gaze.
Exhaled.
“Yes?” A whisper. A prayer of her own.
Dimitrios traced the lines of her cheekbone and jaw. She turned her face into his palm, filling it. Her eyelids fluttered shut, stripping him of their shine.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
She did. Lids flaring wide, then turning languid.
He continued to memorize her face with his fingertips. The arch of her brows. The swell of her lips.
Milonia closed more of that precious space. Her nose skimmed up one side of his, then down the other. She breathed out, and he took it in.
Dimitrios threaded fingers into her hair, holding her steady…
His mouth brushed hers, feather soft. The shock of it stunned every part of his senses. He’d forgotten what this felt like. The newness of a woman’s lips. Two years—more than that—since he last experienced this sensation. This connection to someone else.
Milonia eased him deeper into the kiss. Tender. Exploring. Her lips parted, and he could only follow her lead.
The heat of her mouth crossed into his first, then her tongue.
She tasted like peaches and thyme-drenched honey. Sunlight and slow-simmered sweetness. He fed greedily from her, chasing the heat, the melting softness of her mouth against his.
She moaned, and he unleashed.
Dimitrios needed her. Closer, deeper, wilder.
He dragged her body across his. She straddled his lap—her heat sank through his pants. Blood rushed from his head, straight to his building erection.
His attention was all over the place, devouring her touch. The way she clawed into his hair. The depth of her tongue. The deep roll of her hips.
He could be inside her in under a minute. All he had to do was—
“I need you inside me.” Sophia’s desperate voice slammed into him, a long-lost heartbeat.
Sophia hovered over him. Hair a curtain. Lips swollen and wet. And because he could never deny her, he rolled her soft, naked body beneath him and entered her tight, warm heat.
This was immediately followed by another time he held his wife. Her heaviness. Her absence.
Dimitrios gasped out of the kiss.
Blinked.
He held Milonia away by the shoulders, and her breath came fast, an almost exact match for his.
Her eyes darted, searching.
She wouldn’t find the answers here. None that she liked.
Dimitrios squeezed his eyes shut. What had he done? What right did he have to this woman? What right did he have to take from her warmth when he still reeked of grief?
He was broken.
Still.
Maybe forever.
Milonia scrambled off his lap, wiping her mouth, her gaze everywhere he wasn’t. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Guilt sank like a stone in his stomach. “This wasn’t you. I— Forgive me.”
“I should—” Milonia straightened the drape of her himation and started for the exit.
Dimitrios stood and turned, tracking her every step. Wishing he had the words to explain.
Broken.
Too much.
And yet…he wanted her.
She vanished before he could call her back. Maybe that was mercy.
Maybe that was punishment.
The heavy wood door slammed shut behind her. Milonia threw her back to it. Breath sawed from her chest. Heartbeats hurled toward her ribcage. Her cheeks burned beneath her trembling fingertips.
Gods. She could still taste him.
Pomegranates. Sweet. Dark.
Forbidden.
She scraped fingers across her mouth, ashamed.
Ravenous.
Her body tingled where his hands had been, his mouth, his tongue. Still. Still.
She was still aching.
The way he’d pulled her across his lap—gods, she’d wanted that. And more. She’d wanted all of it.
Milonia pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and groaned. Stop it.
Caius was asleep. Should be asleep. She could never predict the state in which she’d find him. The palace was new and exciting. The pups didn’t help, either. And the king… Caius’s loyalty toward Dimitrios might very well be eternal.
Maybe, one day, Caius would forgive her.
Hot tears sprang to her eyes. Her ragged breath broke into a sob.
He’s a threat. To me. To you. To Caius. I raised you to be unshakeable. Unflinching.
Milonia clenched her fists.
Ruin him. Bury his name. Unmake his line for good.
She shook her head. It wasn’t right. Dimitrios didn’t deserve this. His own grandfather damned him for his name. They all had.
But they didn’t see. He wasn’t selfish or cruel.
Dimitrios Vidalatos was a man with every reason to chase power, but he chose his people instead.
And, gods, she wanted to help him. She truly did.
But her loyalty had already been bartered. Sold. Sealed by blood and sacrifice.
Dimitrios would suss her out eventually.
She almost hoped he would. Let him find her out. End it. At least then she could stop falling for the man she was meant to destroy.
He wasn’t the first man to hold her in the palm of his hand, but he was the first she’d walked into willingly.
If only there was room for her to stay.
A shuddering inhale released the tears from her eyes, and she rubbed the ache over her heart.
He’d pushed her away.
She should have expected it. He wasn’t hardened by his grief, but that didn’t make him any less of a ghost. He didn’t smile. He didn’t laugh. There was no joy in his eyes.
Every now and then, the signs broke through. Whenever he watched Caius and the pups. In the few words he’d written to her.
Tonight, the way he’d looked at her…she thought he was there with her.
Milonia had never felt more seen. Wanted.
The force of his rejection, the devastation and shock on his face—she wasn’t who he’d wanted. Not really.
Dimitrios was still clinging to ghosts.
“Stop it.” She dried her face with the backs of her hands and straightened away from the door. As her vision cleared, the desk inside the small study came into focus. “Damn.”
She’d known the one in Leonidas’s study because it was similar in style to her own. The palace was full of them, and she’d been snooping inside them for weeks. She hadn’t found anything too damning—forgotten trinkets, mostly.
Now that Dimitrios knew what to look for…
Milonia entered her study and unlatched the secret drawer. Like Leonidas, she hid her own stack of letters inside. The broken wax seals, however, were dark blue with three initials pressed into it: QMG.
She fingered open the more recent missive. It was long and wordy—he always had much to say—and the end came with the usual reminders.
You don’t only do this for me, you do this for your son.
A fact she wouldn’t soon forget. Everything was for Caius. He deserved a better life than she’d had. He deserved a secure future.
I know you’ll do what’s right, the letter finished, and it was signed, Your beloved father.
With fresh tears flooding her eyes, she turned toward the fire that blazed across the room. In the rising smoke, she let her vision blur and take her to another night many months ago. To the tunnels. To a small chamber that had been damp with secrets and shadows.
Milonia had expected to meet a woman who trembled and spoke in whispers. That wasn’t who she found that day. Queen Emanouella had been the sort of woman who would crash nations.
“Alexandra killed my son,” the queen said.
It was the one and only time she’d allowed devastation to show in her eyes.
“Orestis and Alexandra would burn the realm to rule over the ashes if it meant they could stay in power. My brother is no better, but that’s a problem for later.
” She sighed. “I can’t let Alexandra draw Soterra into her web. ”
Emanouella met Milonia’s eyes. “I can’t erase what my husband and brother did to your family, but I can make it right.”
“How can we help?”
“Be patient with me. And if I need you—”
“Our armies are ready.”
Emanouella paused, and a small smile lit her beautiful face. “Your father is lucky to have a daughter as loyal as you.”
In that moment, Milonia hadn’t imagined she could be anything else. Now…she wasn’t so sure.
Milonia hugged the letters to her chest, then strode to the fire.
“The queen is dead.” Her father’s announcement had weakened her knees. His scowl warned of something far worse. “There will be no alliance. Only retribution.”
Milonia threw his letters into the fire. As the paper blackened and rolled, her father’s scrawling script revealed itself one more time, all of them signed the same way.
QMG.
QMG.
Quintus Milonius Gregorius.
The king of Otuvia.