Chapter Sixty-Two
A mischievous look lit up Xander’s face. “Another thing a man never says no to.”
I watched him, my temperature rising with each piece of clothing he removed. When he was naked, he asked, “What now, my queen?”
“Over there,” I said. “Sit.”
I had placed a chair in the center of our room. He sat as I directed and I went over to lock our bedroom door.
He watched me with desire and amusement in his eyes as I walked back to him. “Does this mean you’re ready for your punishment?” he asked.
Where I was in charge and telling him what to do, while seeking our mutual pleasure? “If this is the kind of punishment you plan on giving me, then you have my permission to punish me as often as you’d like.”
His eyes darkened and I saw a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Wife, I adore you. I would worship the rain that waters the grass that grows under your feet.”
He tended to wax poetic when he was aroused.
Which he most certainly was.
As much as I enjoyed looking at him, I got the distinct feeling that he enjoyed looking at me even more. I slowly undid my belt and then let it fall to the floor, watching the way his breathing quickened. I lifted my tunic up over my head and he growled a curse word.
“Have you been walking around all day with no undergarments on?” he demanded.
I hedged around his question. “I figured this would make things easier.”
“It certainly makes them better,” he said in a rough voice.
While he could reduce me to a senseless mess who did nothing but beg him for more, I could do the same to him. And I had loved exploring all the different ways to have him shuddering, swearing, and groaning.
“Come here,” he commanded.
I tilted my head to one side and lifted my eyebrows.
“Please.” He ground the word out.
Him saying that word was always going to be arousing to me. A fact he had quickly picked up on.
And I was so eager for him that I didn’t want to delay.
I went and climbed onto his lap and we both moaned when our bodies made contact.
The way we slotted so perfectly against each other drove me to madness—my softness blending against his hardness.
“This is not how this was supposed to go,” I breathlessly told him.
“I am so overwhelmed by what I feel for you that I am mindless,” he said. “I only want to touch and kiss you and be close to you and I can’t think of anything else.”
“That is how I feel, too.”
“I know,” he said before he kissed me. And while our kisses started out slow, unhurried, it didn’t take long for them to ignite and turn hungry and deep.
His hands never stopped moving on my body, never stopped lightly stroking, caressing, rubbing, and sending streams of fire through my blood. I shook from it.
Then his mouth was on me, sucking gently, and the soft, wet heat had me moaning.
“Will I always be this desperate for you?” I asked, my fingers in his hair, holding him close.
He pulled back to look at me. “Yes, always. As I will for you.” The intent in his eyes was thrilling. It was primal and possessive and I welcomed it.
No longer able to wait, I moved into what seemed to be the correct position, and he put his hands on my hips, gripping me tightly. I slid down slowly and he guided me, his eyes never leaving mine. His stuttered groan was the only sound he seemed capable of making.
Once I had sheathed him completely, we both held still. Enjoying the feeling. Then his hands urged me to move. So I did.
He quickly went glassy-eyed, his pupils blown, his corded muscles straining in his shoulders and arms. His hips arched up several times, chasing me. Chasing the sensations we were giving one another.
The friction was exquisite. It quickly turned frenzied and carnal as we rocked against one another. Lightning coursed through me so that every cell in my body felt electric, alive.
I wanted to prolong this, to stay in this moment forever with him, but felt myself quickly unraveling.
“Xander, I’m . . .” I lost the ability to speak. I hurtled toward a violent bliss that felt unbearable, and when the wave hit, I let it take me and followed it down, calling out as I shattered into a thousand sparkling fragments.
My husband was only a moment behind me, his back bowing as if his release would break him in two, his body rigid and his groan so loud I was sure the entire palace could hear him.
But I didn’t care.
I collapsed against him languidly, my bones having all turned to warm, liquid honey.
“That was . . .” I started to say, but he finished my sentence for me.
“Incredible. It always is.”
“I love you.”
He put his hands on the sides of my face and lifted it. “If the only thing I accomplish in this life is loving you, then it will be a life well spent.”
Warmth filled my chest. We kissed and it was tender and sweet and beautiful.
He stood up and carried me over to our bed so that we could both lie down. When I lay on my back, something strange happened.
I felt a tiny pulsing light inside me. I put my hand over my womb, convinced that I was only imagining it.
But no, it was there. Was that from last night? Had we . . .
“I think the goddess gave me something very special,” I said to him in awe.
“That was me, wife.”
I laughed at his grumpy tone. “Not that. I just . . .”
It was too soon. I knew that. And perhaps I was only being silly. Or wishful.
If it was real, when I was certain, I would tell him.
Right now I needed to sleep.
“Geese!” I yelled, jumping out of the bed.
Xander was immediately awake. “What?”
“Geese are honking. Something is wrong. You need to call the alarm.”
“Are you certain?”
Was I certain? “Do you think there’s any possibility that I would ever mistake that sound?” The noise was faint but seemed so clear to me.
He ran over to the balcony doors and threw them open. He yelled out, “Alarm!”
The sound of the geese got stronger. They were agitated about something. I hurriedly got dressed, as did he, and I heard the word “alarm” being passed among various guards until horns started sounding.
We grabbed our weapons, ran down to the stables, and got on our horses.
“It sounds like it’s at the northern gate,” Xander said. We rode hard and got there as quickly as we could.
The geese were attacking intruders. Some of the Carians had managed to sneak over the wall. There were dozens of them. Maybe even a hundred. Where were the Ilionian guards?
The guard dogs?
It seemed we had caught the Carians before they started to spread their dirt.
“To me, to me!” Xander called out, and soldiers came rushing from every direction.
Horns continued to sound in alarm and I jumped into the fray to help.
“Dea Nikos!” My sword lit up, making it much easier to see.
These men were here to kill us. To take everything from us. To harm innocent people.
I wouldn’t let them.
Yelling, I swung my sword and stabbed in the gut a man who was trying to kick a goose.
I hacked and slashed and hit and parried. I kept an eye on my husband, although I didn’t need to. He sliced through the intruders like they were made of papyrus, and they fell quickly to the earth. I didn’t even call up my fury aspect. I didn’t need it.
Within a few minutes it was all over. Every single Carian lay dead. The geese honked their victory cheers.
Xander came over to inspect me, to make sure that I was all right. “I only have a couple of cuts. I’m fine.”
He kissed me and then said, “They were trying to open the gate.”
“Alexandros of Ilion!”
That was Artemisia. Her voice bellowed at us from beyond the wall.
My husband grabbed my hand and we ran up the staircase to the top of the outer wall.
I kept my sword turned on so that we could see. Artemisia stood alone in the field, too far away for an arrow or spear to reach her. The Carians had placed long planks over the trench Suri had dug. It was how those invaders had crossed over.
Artemisia held a torch in one hand and the metal cone that amplified her voice in the other.
“I am giving you this one opportunity to open the gates and surrender. If you do not, every man, woman, and child in this city will be killed. Lay down your weapons and your lives will be spared.” She paused for a moment before adding, “After my men enjoy the spoils of war, as is their right.”
She was so foul and twisted. I yelled back, “You want our weapons? Come and take them!”
Xander squeezed my hand to let me know that would have been his answer as well.
There was a thudding sound beneath us, off to the left, and I held my sword over the wall so that I could see.
A woman had climbed down one of the siege ladders the invaders had used to get over the wall. She was running toward Artemisia.
“Sanctuary! I seek refuge!”
“That’s Erisa,” Xander hissed.
What was she doing?
Erisa had nearly reached Artemisia when her body suddenly jerked and she fell back. Someone had shot her in the neck. Someone behind Artemisia, who we couldn’t see.
“Down!” Xander told everyone on the wall.
“Aren’t they too far?” I asked, crouching down.
“Dolion can reach that distance.”
That made me think his former phratry brother was the one who had just killed Erisa.
And I wondered if he had done it because she was Ilionian, or if he had done it out of some small bit of loyalty he still had toward my husband.
Xander led me down the staircase, and at the bottom of the steps, Demaratus and Antiope were waiting for us.
They looked annoyed that they had missed the fighting.
“Your guards were killed by arrows, and then someone shot slabs of meat over the wall for the dogs, which distracted them,” Demaratus said.
“We need to reward whoever thought of utilizing the geese,” Xander said.
If the geese hadn’t warned us, and the Carians had been able to open that gate . . . we would have been caught completely off guard. They would have run through this city like a raging river.
We owed our lives to the geese, who were still honking about their win.
I glanced back up to the top of the wall. Part of me wanted to ride out and confront Artemisia, but I knew I would end up like Erisa.
Artemisia had let a thousand years of her people’s hatred warp her.
I could have become like her. I might have, had it not been for the good people in my life.
If I had stayed obsessed with destroying my enemy instead of wanting to help my own people—I knew how easy it would have been to let anger and vengeance rule me.
While I understood that Artemisia had to be stopped, not every soldier in the Carian army was like her. Her former general had seemed reasonable. There must have been people who would prefer to create a treaty and broker peace.
Because the alternative, that we would have to destroy their army down to the last warrior, was unthinkable.
“The enemy is at the gates,” Demaratus said. “Tomorrow it begins.”