Chapter Seventeen
“Why would you say that?” Xander asked, surprised.
“That she and I are the same? When she and I fought at the temple, she repeatedly told me that we were. That I was vengeful, angry, petty, and every other bad thing just like her. It was one of the reasons I didn’t strike her down. I was afraid that doing so would make it true.”
“It’s not true.” He let out a deep breath. “If she were not already dead, I would kill her for making you cry and for causing you to doubt yourself.”
I shook my head. He didn’t understand. “We have the same aspect of the goddess. Fury. And she could tell what I was thinking.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. As I’ve told you, you have an expressive face. Sometimes you are easy to read. Regardless, you wouldn’t do what Lysimache did.”
I admitted out loud the thing that I’d kept entirely to myself. “But I would want to.”
“Wanting and doing are two different things. Actions speak to your character, not your thoughts. We all have thoughts we can’t control, desires for things we cannot have, but we don’t act on them. Life is choices. What we choose and do is what matters.”
“I understood her,” I whispered, scared to be sharing something so dark and ugly. “I understood the decisions she made. She even told me that she should have made me her heir. She thought that I would have joined her if she’d asked.”
“Did you allow a temple full of priestesses to be murdered?” he demanded.
“No.”
“Lia, look at me.” When I raised my face to his, he said, “I know you don’t have much reason to trust me. But believe me when I tell you this—you are nothing like Lysimache.”
The rough conviction in his voice made tears form in my eyes.
“And I promise you now that if you become an evil monster bent on the destruction of two nations, I’ll run you through myself.” He had switched from seriousness to teasing me.
As if he could sense that I needed his lightheartedness. That it was the only thing keeping me from slipping under.
“You would never,” I said.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he agreed. “If she claimed you as her heir, then you can go and take the temple treasury for your own. That could certainly help with the war effort.”
“Io said all the treasure is covered in fire dragon’s blood, so we’d have to find a way to remove it.”
“Another vault you’ve broken into? And you brought my sister? Why am I not surprised?” he said with a smile.
That got me to smile in return. Xander had become my sheltered port in the storm. The world could rage around us, but here together, just the two of us, we could talk and tease and ignore how everything else was falling apart.
“Stay here. I’ll be right back,” he said.
He left and I missed him. He had only gone into the washroom but I wanted to follow him. To stay close to him. I needed his strength.
I was grateful when he returned quickly. He had a damp washcloth in one hand and a bar of soap in the other. He sat down next to me again.
“Sit up.” He helped me into a sitting position. “Your hands are not the only place where there’s blood.”
I thought that he would hand me the washcloth, but he began to clean my face himself. My breath hitched when the warm cloth made contact with my skin. He was being so careful and gentle. I closed my eyes, overwhelmed with sensations and feelings.
“Last night you told me you could control your magic. Why didn’t you turn it off?” His face was so close to mine that his words washed over me.
“I let it go too far,” I said. I wasn’t talking about the magic. I was talking about him.
He rubbed soap into one corner of the cloth to clean and then used another end to rinse it away. “There,” he said. “Finished.” He then turned his attention to my hands and began to clean those as well.
I didn’t know what to do with this brutal warrior who was so carefully and sweetly washing me.
Xander had nearly finished with both of my hands when I whispered, “You scare me.”
That made him pause. “Why?”
Because of what you make me feel.
I couldn’t say that to him. Would he see it in my face? Would he understand?
“You scare me, too,” he admitted quietly. He finished with my hands and let the washcloth and soap drop to the ground. He kept my hands out in front of me, running his fingers over mine. He touched me like I was delicate and precious and might shatter at any moment.
Then he lifted my right hand to his lips.
I was about to ask him what he was doing when he pressed a kiss to one knuckle, then the next, down the line.
He turned my hand over, and my breathing went shallow as he gently kissed the pad of each finger, one after another.
Then a kiss on my palm, moving down to my wrist, where my pulse throbbed.
And every time his lips made contact with another spot on my skin, it was like he was sending me secret messages.
I’m here.
I understand.
I’m with you.
You are not alone.
I care about you.
His sister had been so insistent that he loved me.
What if he did?
If this was love, then it was the kind that made my bones ache and my soul burn. Fire and flood and earthquakes, just like Quynh had said.
He placed my hand against the side of his face and closed his eyes, as if he wanted nothing more than for me to touch him.
So I did.
I used both of my hands to trace the outline of his face, to run down the bridge of his nose, along his strong jawline, over his cheekbones, along his eyelids.
My fingers glided over his warm, smooth lips. I saw the knot in his throat bob, as if he were swallowing hard.
His eyes opened again and I gasped at what I saw there. I recognized the desire. The hunger. I had seen them many times before.
But now there was something else that made me tremble.
Tenderness. Warmth.
He looked at me like I was the only thing in the whole world that mattered to him.
A heaviness pressed into me as we gazed at each other. Something was different. Things had shifted in a way I didn’t fully comprehend. I ached for him. I wanted him to make me feel whole again.
As if he sensed my need, he took my hands and placed them around his neck. I felt his hesitation as he put his hands on my waist, pulling me into his lap as he had last night. Like he expected me to shove him away. To tell him to stop.
I needed his strength, his sureness. When I pressed myself against him, he gave it to me. His arms hugged me to him so tightly.
“You are a good person.” He said the words against the side of my head and I closed my eyes. “I know who you are. All will be well.”
I let my face fall against his neck. I wanted to believe him. To sink into his arms and block everything else out. Let him be my true husband and partner. To allow myself to rely on him, to let him fight off everyone and everything that would hurt me.
In that moment, I knew he would, if I only asked.
It had become so natural to me to seek comfort in his arms. He stroked my spine, slowly up and down, meaning to soothe.
Not to inflame.
But it still happened.
I drew my head back so that I could see his beautiful eyes. “Xander, what are we?” I asked.
Confusion briefly marred his features. “Husband and wife.”
“No, what are we?”
“I . . .” He didn’t have an answer.
At least not one with words.
His expression turned guarded and unsure for a moment, showing me his vulnerability, before he leaned forward and rubbed his nose against mine. As he had so many times before in our shared dreams.
I melted from it.
Then he tilted his head so that his lips were just above mine, our breath intermingling while I waited in a crazed anticipation.
His mouth finally landed on mine, soft as butterfly wings. His kiss was slow, every movement intentional in a way that no other kiss between us had ever been.
So deliberate. So undemanding. So careful.
So tender.
Somehow he had captured my entire soul with this kiss.
“What is that?” I whispered.
“This is called kissing,” he said with a soft smile before returning his lips to mine.
When he and I had first met, he had kissed me this way. Gently and sweetly. I had demanded that he kiss me passionately. I had dismissed his soft kisses as less than.
What a fool I had been!
This was still like slipping into a warm bath, but a warm bath that caused me to feel safe and protected and made every inch of my body demand more.
Emotions swirled behind his kisses, enveloping me.
As if they’d always been there, hiding behind the anger, behind the passion we had used to disguise them.
There had been a connection between us from the beginning, no matter how hard I’d tried to fight it.
I clung to his powerful shoulders, his biceps, the parts of his body that promised they would protect me. Shelter me from every enemy. Keep out the storm.
His kiss was devastatingly sensual, poignant, light as air. He moved his lips against mine as if to prove that there was a universe of sensation I had never experienced before and he was determined to show it to me.
I sagged into his kiss. Surrendering. Wholeheartedly giving myself to him, willing to be swept up in this.
He kissed me as if I were precious. Cherished. It made my heart swell and soar to the point that I was worried I might stop breathing.
Then he began to slowly lower me back against the bed. I went more than willingly, arching up against him so that our connection wouldn’t be broken. But he did take his lips from mine when I lay flat, and I nearly whimpered.
“Why are you kissing me like this?” I asked, feeling dazed.
“Not every fire needs to be ignited quickly. They can also be built slowly.” His voice was low and ruined and every one of his words felt like falling sparks against my skin, singeing me.
“But why?” I marveled at my ability to speak.
He froze in place, his eyes locked on mine. “You know why.”
I wanted him to say the words. I wanted to say the words to him.
Neither thing could happen.
His mouth returned to mine, and at least his kiss was completely honest. There were no lies there, no deceptions, no manipulations.
Just us.
He worshipped me with his lips, touched me with a burning reverence that made all the blood in my body throb fast and molten. I didn’t understand how a kiss could be so devastatingly tender and overwhelmingly passionate at the same time.
“Wife.” He somehow managed to make the word both gentle and possessive.
“Husband,” I sighed back. His lips whispered along my throat, and I lifted my chin to give him better access, arching up into him. My stomach knotted with pleasure. I wanted more. I needed to feed the fire that begged to be set free, to burn and consume everything in its path.
To kiss him in a way that felt more familiar and less scary.
I pulled his face back to mine and tried to kiss him, to show him how I was feeling, but he held himself just out of reach.
“No,” he said, kissing my forehead so tenderly that I thought I might cry. “This isn’t that.”
My mind was numb and buzzing at the same time, and it was like I couldn’t understand anything that was happening. Why had he stopped me?
“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured against my lips. “I feel it, too.”
He was in no hurry. He didn’t deepen the kiss. Instead it was like he was trying to convey something to me, only it was in a language I didn’t speak.
Then I realized that this was for me. He wasn’t pursuing his own desires—he wanted to show me this. How it could be.
He kissed me with a dreamy, delicate thoroughness that unleashed a cascade of exquisite sensations inside me.
His long, slow kiss broke me apart, flooding me with warmth, and I combusted, turning into smoke.
Ethereal, intangible. Floating away. Our edges blurred together in this slow intimacy and I couldn’t stop trembling.
This was what I had wanted—to pretend bad things weren’t happening. To shut out everyone and everything. Only Xander and his kisses could make the whole world disappear.
He lifted his head slightly and gazed at me again.
“How does this make you feel?” he asked.
“Good.”
“No, my little princess. How do you feel?” He took my hand and placed it against his chest so that I could feel his heartbeat. Steady, strong. It reminded me of when Suri had done it . . . as a way to express her feelings to me.
How did I feel? I felt cherished. Adored.
Loved.
It was Lysimache’s taunt that filled my head. Do you really think you can access the goddess’s power if you do not do what you promised her?
My heart beat violently and erratically. It was suddenly too much. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t risk everything just for this moment. I wouldn’t let Locris be utterly destroyed.
Not Ilion, either.
“I can’t. We can’t. I have to go.” I shoved against him, and he moved slightly so that I could dart out from underneath him. I bounded across the bed and scrambled for the door, running out into the hallway.