8. Astraea #2
“Run along, Maisy Rae! Meet me in the study in an hour, and I will run through some lessons with you.” Shayd says to her, regarding me with a tilt of his head as I watch Kyros.
Maisy giggles, waving to me as she lifts the skirt of her dress and runs off in the direction that we had just come from.
Shayd calls after her to snag him some blueberries for a snack and takes her place at my side.
“Blueberries are her favorite,” he says to me, a slight smirk on his lips and his hands clasped behind his back as his eyes stay trained on Kyros.
“So I’ve been told.” I clear my throat as Shayd and I watch Kyros saddle the horse and shove things into saddlebags on its flanks. “I’m sorry for, you know… stabbing you.” I say and wince at how awful that sounds. He barks out a laugh.
“I’m not sorry in the least bit. Who else can say that they’ve had the pleasure of being the princess’ first attempted murder?” I turn toward him, openly gawking at his mocking.
“You must be where Mavros learned his charm,” I tell him, and I can’t help but smile at the mirth playing in his eyes.
Kyros looks over at us. His brows drop as his eyes fall to my mouth.
I roll my lips between my teeth, and he grunts, looking away and pulling at a strap, cinching it tighter.
The horse whinnies in protest of his jerky movement.
“I taught him everything he knows.” Shayd winks, and I make a noise from the back of my throat. It only makes him laugh harder.
“We are going to the Creshian Forest. Did you eat?” Kyros asks, stepping between Shayd and me.
“The Creshian Forest?” My brows furrow, and I continue. “Are we going the long way back to Eathian?” Shayd’s eyes flick between us, watching the interaction between Kyros and me. Kyros pointedly looks away, not saying a word to answer my questions.
“I’ll be seeing you both. Be careful, Kyros.
You know the dangers have only gotten considerably higher and the risk considerably more—precious.
” Shayd says, clapping Kyros on the back and then taking my hand and placing a chaste kiss on my knuckles.
His eyes lift to mine as he speaks, “Princess.” He turns around without another word and slowly walks back to the house.
I watch Kyros through thinly veiled anger as he stalks past me, retrieves a stool, and places it next to the horse for me to climb up. I glare at him. So much for whatever that was in the bedroom…
“How long will it take going through the Creshian Forest to Eathian?” I ask, feet solidly planted and not moving to get onto the horse. I’m honestly not sure I would be able to get onto the thing even with the stool anyway.
“We aren’t going to Eathian.” He retorts without even making eye contact with me.
His demeanor is harsh. The lines on his face are deeper.
His muscles are more tense than ever. This is the same Kyros I met in the tavern.
Perhaps this is the true identity of the man entirely, and last night was the final goodbye of the man that I thought I was falling for.
I fold my arms across my chest and glare at him as he continues to make himself busy.
When he finally looks at me, his lips are pursed, and he rolls his eyes before letting out an indignant sigh.
“You can pout all you want, Shula. We are not going to Eathian.” He growls, his black eyes never leaving mine.
“I have to return to Cole! Don’t you care at all?
Was it all a lie?” Every word I say loses volume but gains a thick coating of resentment, as fury I didn’t know I could possess builds in my chest. Flashes of memory shine behind my eyes: My father standing over me, his words cruel and demeaning.
Pravin crushing my hips to the counter, threatening me with a punishment that would aim to break more than just my body.
The nightmare reaching for me, claws extended.
Every monster is worse than the next. Then I blink, looking up at the man I was only just beginning to think was different.
And his words that now only deepen the fissure I feel trying to rip apart my soul.
Trust me.
Trust me.
Trust me.
How many times did he tell me to trust him? He’s just another monster, isn't he?
“I can see that you need to hate me, Shula. Fine. If that’s what gives you strength.
Hate me. But you will at least be alive to do it.
If I didn’t care, I would have killed you the moment I had the chance, or don’t you remember?
It is your father who sits on my throne.
” He doesn’t raise his voice like I had, but each word moves him closer to me, and he growls the last sentence through his teeth just inches in front of my face.
The throne. The very chair that has claimed more souls than just the ones who have sat upon it.
The words are meant to hurt me, and they do the job.
But they also make the rage building in my chest erupt.
My hand comes up fast and hard as I slap him across his face.
He barely flinches at the impact, but my breathing is ragged with emotion.
He catches my wrist at the same time I make contact with his cheek.
His fingers circle my wrist, and he pulls me in so his nose brushes mine.
“I do hate you.” My voice betrays me and cracks on the words. The lie tastes bitter on my tongue and only fuels the fire within me. I am angry—at him, at myself, at the situation we are in—but I know that it’s not hate I feel for Kyros. That fact angers me even more.
“Good.” He says, but I see the way the muscle in his jaw feathers as the word barely escapes past his lips.
His nostrils flare as he takes a deep breath; slowly tilting his head, he scans my face.
His eyes fall to my mouth, and mine mirror the motion.
I watch as his jaw continues to work, and we stand there tangled in a web of emotion, stuck in this aching peril of need.
His lip curls back in a snarl as his other hand comes up, cradling the back of my head.
He wrenches my head back by my hair. “Fuck it,” he growls before his lips crush against mine.
I am rigid, but the moment his tongue sweeps past my lips, and my weak heart begins to beat again.
It pounds hard against the wall of my chest, demanding I submit to the raging fire within me.
He drops my wrist, and his arm wraps around my waist, lifting me up with ease.
I hold onto his shoulders, bracing myself as my legs wrap around his hips and he walks the short distance between us and the stables, pushing me up against the wood.
My head tips back, and his lips trail the line of my throat viciously, not even caring that there could be eyes on us right now.
He fervently sucks, bites, and growls into my flesh before stealing my lips and my breath in another hungry kiss.
We are all hands, warring with our lips, teeth, needs, and anger.
So much anger. His large body eclipses mine as I writhe beneath him.
Gasping for breath, a tear trails down my cheek before we both taste the salt of it.
The kiss breaks slowly, as though the ache in our hearts finds the pain at the same moment.
Leaning back he takes in the damage his attack made on me.
I feel that my lips are swollen. They sting as our breath twists between us in panting desperation.
The pieces of my heart ache with every wild beat, and I am lost to the feeling until his words quickly bring me back into reality like the echoing snap of a rope pulling taut at the gallows.
“Now—let’s fucking go.” He growls. I don’t respond.
I can’t. I don’t move at all. Shocked and horrified as he sets me down and I search his face for the mirror of pain that pierces my chest. The wall is the only thing that keeps me standing as he steps back to look at me, vexation now simmering in his eyes.
“If you hate anyone like that—it will only ever be me.” He says quietly, but his breathing is still heavy.
He points down to the stool he discarded near the horse.
“Get into the saddle… Or so help me, Shula, I will make you.”
I narrow my eyes. I don’t doubt that he will do it, but the need to challenge us not to go back to the dunes, back to Eathian, means more to me. Needing to know what the fuck that was means more.
“Fuck you, Kyros Kazhal,” I say bitterly.
Kyros doesn’t say anything close to intelligible words, but instead his shoulders roll, and his head tilts back as though saying a prayer to the gods above.
Then he turns his body toward me, and I am heaved over his shoulder in the next breath before I can even react.
My scream is short and high-pitched, cut off by his shoulder as it pushes the breath from my lungs.
A few quick movements later, my ass hits the saddle hard, and the air whooshes out of my lungs.
“That is not my favorite way to make you scream, Shula. Please, next time… Do your best to listen.” He growls, sliding into the saddle behind me.
My jaw falls open. I scoff, both not surprised and somehow still completely baffled.
Heat rises to my cheeks from his words and then drops to my traitorous core as his hand slides along my stomach as he settles us in on the horse's back.
His other hand comes around to my hip as he squeezes in a silent warning.
Gripping the reins, he nudges the beast into a trot, forcing any words I thought to say back down when I grab the saddle horn.