7. An Entertaining Chase
What price did I pay?
The question hit me harder than I thought it would, seeing as I should have been prepared for it.
But I couldn’t answer, convinced I had misunderstood the implication.
Surely, after everything we had just discussed, after the feelings he had just confessed, there was no way he could have meant what it sounded like he meant.
Yet the longer I looked at him, the more my stomach twisted, because Atlas appeared completely serious.
“Excuse me?” I asked, my tone equally dangerous as his had been seconds ago. His brows narrowed immediately, clearly confused by my reaction.
“You heard me,” he replied, and the calmness in his voice only made the knot in my chest tighten.
“No,” I said, taking a step back from him. “I don’t think I did.”
Atlas watched me carefully, the confusion growing as though he could see the conversation suddenly heading somewhere he hadn’t intended.
“Alexandra, creatures like Theron don’t help strangers for nothing,” he reiterated, as if I hadn’t understood the first time.
“If he helped you get back to me, then there would have been a reason for it. Men like that don’t involve themselves in the affairs of others unless there is something or someone to gain. ”
“Someone?” I repeated. So, I hadn’t misunderstood him.
“Yes.”
The answer came so easily, so matter-of-factly, that something hot and ugly immediately began rising inside my chest. Atlas didn’t seem to notice.
Or perhaps he did and just didn’t understand why.
Either way, he continued looking at me as though what he was saying was perfectly reasonable, and that my reaction was unwarranted.
“So, I will ask you one last time, how did you repay him?” he asked, looking me up and down. Was he really implying what I thought he was?
“What do you think happened?” I demanded.
“Alexandra.”
“No,” I shook my head and took another step backward. “Tell me.”
His jaw tightened, and the look he gave me suggested he was rapidly losing patience, but mine had disappeared completely.
Whatever understanding we’d managed to find moments earlier was unraveling all over again, and quickly.
And judging by the stubborn set of his shoulders, neither of us seemed particularly willing to back down first.
“The Gorgon King is one of the oldest and most powerful beings in existence,” he said slowly, as though he were trying to explain something obvious to a particularly stubborn child. “People don’t survive encounters with beings like that without consequences.”
The moment the words left his mouth, something inside me snapped.
Before I could stop myself, I shoved him hard in the chest with both hands.
Not hard enough to hurt him because that was near impossible, but hard enough to make him take a surprised step backward, his eyes widening slightly as though the reaction was the last thing he’d expected.
“How dare you?”
The words came out low at first, but there was enough anger behind them to make Atlas straighten immediately. Now the confusion was completely evident on his face, quickly followed by disbelief as he stared back at me.
“How dare I what?” he asked incredulously.
“You think I’m some kind of whore?!”
Atlas physically recoiled.
The reaction was so immediate and horrified that even through my anger, I felt a flicker of uncertainty. But it wasn’t enough to cool my anger, not nearly enough.
“I’m leaving!” I snapped instead, shouldering past him and making my way to the door.
“Alexandra, you’re being ridiculous.”
“And we are done with this conversation!” I shot back, yet his expression suggested we were absolutely not done with this conversation, but unfortunately for him, I had already made up my mind. The moment I was through the doors, I ran.
Not because I was afraid of him. I was because if I stayed in that room for another second, if I had to look at his face while that awful implication was still burning through me, I was going to do something I would regret.
Humiliation stormed through me in violent waves, leaving very little room for common sense.
And I had the distinct feeling that whatever happened next would involve either screaming loud enough to shatter windows or launching the nearest priceless object directly at his head.
My hands fisted in the heavy folds of my dress as I hurried down the corridor, dragging the ridiculous length of fabric up around my knees so I didn’t trip over it and break my neck. Which would have been shit, especially before I’d managed my dramatic exit.
It was a shame, really, as the dress had felt beautiful earlier, elegant even.
It was the kind of thing that belonged in candlelit halls and beside kings with too much arrogance and not enough good sense.
But now it was nothing more than a silk trap wrapping around my legs and slowing me down when all I wanted was distance.
God, I missed my combat boots. I missed cargo pants. I missed clothing designed by people who understood that sometimes a woman needed to make a swift getaway from a possessive king who had apparently decided her dignity was optional.
Behind me, the door burst open with enough force to make the sound crack through the corridor like thunder, and I didn’t need to look back to know it was him.
I felt him before I heard him, that same impossible pull that always seemed to reach for me no matter how far I tried to run.
Only this time, I shoved it down beneath the heat of my anger and tightened my grip on my skirts.
“Alexandra, stop!”
I ignored him and moved faster. Half running, half fighting with the dress as the polished floor slid beneath my heels. Even as the high walls carried his voice after me, I still didn’t stop.
“Come back here!”
“Leave me alone!” I shouted back, not slowing, not turning, because if I turned, then I would see him, and if I saw him, then all that hurt would have somewhere to go.
His footsteps came after me, measured at first, then quicker when he realized I had absolutely no intention of obeying him.
But obviously, he was gaining on me. Because Atlas could probably chase down a warhorse if he was in the mood, while I was stuck gathering up half a wardrobe and trying not to skid across the marble like some furious, overdressed fool.
“Would you just stop running?!”
“Would you stop being an asshole?!”
The words flew out of me sharp enough to cut, and I heard his pace falter for the smallest moment before it resumed. Heavier this time, less patient, the sound of a king discovering that command meant very little to a woman who had already decided she was done listening.
“Alexandra,” he warned.
“Atlas!” I snapped, breathless now, my heart slamming against my ribs as I rounded the bend and gathered the dress higher. “You don’t get to say my name like that!”
“Gods above, I am trying to talk to you, woman!”
“And I am trying to get away from you. Take the hint!” I shouted back, refusing to turn to face him.
“Not until you stop and listen… for fuck’s sake!”
I heard him swear under his breath, low and vicious, and a bitter part of me was glad.
Let him be angry. Let him feel even a fraction of what was burning through me.
Because I couldn’t get his words out of my head.
Couldn’t stop the shame from twisting with the fury until they became one ugly, unbearable thing.
What did he think I was?
What did he think I had done?
After everything, after all of it, did he truly believe I would hand myself over to Theron like some bargaining tool, some pretty offering traded across enemy lines?
The thought hit so hard that my vision blurred.
Then the air shifted behind me.
It was the smallest warning, nothing more than a change in pressure.
The heat from him was suddenly too close, the instinctive prickle down my spine that told me a hand was reaching before it touched me.
Riley’s voice flashed through my head, not as memory but as a command.
One sharp and merciless, honed by years of training.
Never let them take your arm, never let them control your balance. Use their weight against them before they use yours.
Atlas’s fingers closed around my arm, and I moved before thought could catch me.
Which meant that instead of fighting his grip, I moved into it.
Pulling away would have given him control, while stepping in shifted the advantage back to me.
My foot slid back and anchored against the floor.
Twisting beneath his grip, I caught the angle of his arm and drove my weight down and across, using his own momentum against him.
He was stronger than me, ridiculously stronger, built from war, arrogance, divine stubbornness, and, of course, he was a descendant of the Gods. Though strength meant nothing, especially when he reached for me, expecting fury but finding trained skill instead.
Hence, why his balance broke.
For one breath, his eyes widened, not in pain or fear, but in pure astonished disbelief as his body followed the direction mine forced it to go. I pivoted harder, using his arm as the lever and his momentum as the weapon. The next thing I knew, the King of The?kós was no longer behind me.
He was on the floor.
The sound of him hitting the marble echoed through the corridor with a finality that made all my emotions pause.
I stood there, chest heaving, one hand still gripping my skirts, the other hanging uselessly at my side as my brain slowly caught up with what my body had just done.
Atlas lay flat on his back at my feet, dark hair spilled against the pale stone, one arm braced out beside him.
His expression was frozen somewhere between outrage and utter disbelief.
Only our breathing filled the silence.
Oh shit.
I had just thrown the king onto his ass!