Chapter Seven
Thalia
Gods dammit, this man needed to put a shirt on right this instant.
How many times would he be wandering about in the winter wearing nothing but some loose fitting trousers, always somehow slung low enough the V of his muscles pointed right toward something Thalia had not seen in quite some time?
She’d stood off to the side, slightly hidden by the sail of the ship as she’d watched him and one of the Nexian soldiers spar.
His movements were intoxicating, the flow of his body as it dodged and deflected, the ease of his steps when he went on the attack.
Thalia sparred with the best of Skiatha’s soldiers, but never once had she seen someone with such eloquence land blows like Dimitris.
That distraction and curiosity had peaked when he stopped his training to go speak with her sister.
It was possible she’d misjudged the prince—Cal’s words from the other night still pestered her in the back of her mind—but who would she be if she took his words at face value?
Had she not been lied to by men too many times to count?
And by men like him the most. Cunning, charming, mysterious, cocky—devastatingly handsome.
She would not be so easily infatuated by their kind anymore.
Not even when he seemed genuinely open to helping her sister.
Especially not when he had seemingly risked everything—risked this very ship Thalia stood on—for her life.
There had to be an ulterior motive, something more than just his allegiance to Alexander.
She would not let Dimitris have the upper hand.
The last time she let a man—
“Get out of your head.” Her psychí’s voice swept into her mind.
“I am not in my head,” Thalia snapped back.
The creature jumped off the banister of the foredeck, landing on Thalia’s shoulder before swatting her paw against the seer’s head. “We do not speak of him any longer, nor do we grace his ego with our thoughts.”
“I was not thinking of the prince, Myko.”
“You know it is not the prince I am referring to.”
Thalia huffed, plopping down on the stairs of the deck. “Tell me, are they not one and the same?”
“I have not made a decision on the matter yet. Though Nyx has seemed to take a liking to him.”
Whipping her head to the side, Thalia glared at the little cat. “And what would the opinion of my sister’s psychí matter?”
Mykonos extended her leg once more, this time smacking her paw against Thalia’s nose. “Because if Nyx sensed any ill will toward Dafne, the prince would be panther food by now.”
It didn't matter at this point if Dimitris was compassionate purely out of the goodness in his heart.
Thalia had made up her mind—she would feel nothing.
Not loyalty, not affection, not hope. Hope was a fickle thing.
Hope was not something she could afford.
That pestering voice in her head came knocking once more.
“It is curious to me that you give grace to Alexander and Leighton, yet the brother deserves none,” Mykonos chastised. Had her psychí actually made up her mind then?
“They have earned my grace, my trust. Have never once harmed me or the ones I love.”
“You seem to forget that Dimitris has come to your rescue not once, but three times,” Mykonos hissed.
Thalia puckered her lips, narrowing her stare. “You have been spending too much time with Cal; his empathy and need to fix people is rubbing off on you.”
“Possibly. Or possibly you just hate that I am right.”
Against all better judgment, Thalia decided to heed the words of not only her psychí, but Cal as well.
One chance, that is all she had to give—and if he squandered that, he would not deserve another.
She stood outside his quarters, pacing back and forth, deciding whether or not she should knock, or if she should just stride through the door and begin her half-hearted apology for her incredulous attitude she still wasn’t sure he deserved.
If she didn’t act soon, Thalia was sure she would chicken out, find a reason why she should go straight to her own quarters, and pretend the thought never occurred to her.
That was it then she would just waltz in, say her peace, and head straight back out before he gave her a reason to take back the apology. A snide remark, a flirtation stare—really anything that came from that man.
She pushed down the lever of the door, swatting it with force to open. Her hand didn’t even have time to fly to her mouth, or better yet her eyes, before a yelp escaped Thalia’s lips. If she thought seeing Dimitris shirtless was distracting…
This. Was. So. Much. Worse.
“Eyes up here, gatáki,” he purred, seemingly unembarrassed that his entire body was unclothed.
No low-slung training trousers, no undergarments, just his bare, tanned skin, peppered with more whirls of tattoos than just the wolf and moons on his ribs.
Her eyes trailed unapologetically up from his thighs, to his—gods, she should not be staring at that.
“Like what you see?” That voice. She could drink in the poison that it was and would drown in it gladly.
“What?” she muttered out.
Dimitris stepped closer to her, too close. She couldn’t breathe, and her whole body heated as he leaned in. Gods, was he about to kiss her? Did she strangely want him to? He bent down in front of her, holding her gaze with those devilish silver eyes.
“What—what are you doing?” Was she panting? Her mind could not think straight.
His lips curved up in a grin that almost sent her melting to the floor. “Just grabbing these.” Dimitris held up a pair of sleeping trousers. “It looked like you were about to faint taking me in.”
And just like that, his enchanting hold on her popped. Thalia scoffed, waving her hand in a dismissive motion. “Hardly, Prince. I would rather scrape my own eyes out than see you in that state again.”
“Are you not supposed to be apologizing?” That gods-damned cat needed to mind her own business.
“Stay out of it, Mykonos.” Her psychí swept out of her head.
When she looked back at the prince, he had slipped into the pants, though they did little to hide his form underneath.
“Is something wrong, or do you always barge into people’s quarters without knocking?” Dimitris ruffled his hands through his hair.
“I never see Cal knock when he comes to speak to you.” Thalia could barely look at him. Her skin flushed a rosy hue.
“Yes, but Cal usually doesn’t come barreling through when I’ve told him I am going to bathe.” He laughed, plucking a thin cotton shirt from his bedside before sitting down on his chair. The same one Mykonos had not so subtly scratched tiny claw marks into during their dinners.
Thalia huffed, interlacing her fingers behind her back. “How was I supposed to know that?”
“You are supposed to knock.” Tapping the seat next to him, Dimitris beckoned her to sit.
“Right…” Thalia reluctantly took a seat beside him.
It was strange, she didn’t remember there being so much character in Dimitris’s quarters the few times she had been here.
A sea of gray and some old torn-edged charts, of course, but she never noticed the old trinkets he had littered about his desk and bureaus, nor the oil paintings that hung about the walls.
Every item appeared to be from a different part of Odessia—dried flowers in a vase that hailed from the deserts of Anatole, coral from the shores of the Saron Sea, scenes of the gods both Olympi and Grechi.
What was most surprising of all was the walls between the seating area of his quarters and where his bed resided.
Bound leather tomes lay on shelves stacked from floor to ceiling, each with a hand-inked date on the spine.
Twisting her mouth and straining her eyes, Thalia tried to make out if the spine included any other text. “What are those?” She pointed at the books.
“Excuse me?” Dimitris questioned back.
“The books along your hall, the ones with all the dates.”
He inhaled a sharp breath and clenched his jaw, fiddling with his nail beds. “They are my ship’s logs. Is that what you barged in here to ask about?”
Alright. This was her moment. Now or never.
“I came to apologize.”
A hacking sound came from deep within the prince’s throat. “You came to what?”
“Do not make me repeat myself, fengaráki, because I will not.”
His hand slid over to hers, squeezing it firmly. “I accept.”
“Wonderful. Then I guess I’ll be leaving.” Thalia stood to head toward the door, but Dimitris did not let go of her hand.
“You don’t have to, you know? Leave, that is.” He looked up at her from beneath his eyelashes. “Have a drink with me.” His voice changed, no longer lighthearted and flirtatious.
Dimitris’s eyes widened, flickering back and forth, searching her face for something. The prince seemed, dare she say, lonely. And because of that Thalia almost stayed.
Almost.