15. Let Them Watch #2
I slapped him on the arm hard enough to make him yelp.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“I think you know,” I warned, making him grin.
Atlas didn’t seem to care that I just assaulted his brother. Not when I turned firmly back to my plate and found him smirking down at me, as if happy that I had been caught obsessing over his mouth and fingers.
Which was why I tried ignoring the matching twinkle in both brothers’ eyes with everything I had. It was also when a familiar shadow dropped into the chair on Atlas’s far side, all easy sprawl and broad shoulders, snagging a roll from the nearest basket before he’d even properly sat down.
“Late,” Atlas observed without looking up, “as always.”
“And yet always worth the wait,” Aster said around a mouthful of bread, propping one boot up against the table leg in a way that would have scandalized every noble in the room had they dared to look.
Atlas glanced sideways at his brother, one dark brow lifting.
“And I see you’ve chosen your company carefully,” he observed dryly. For Lazaros had planted himself on my far side, the two of us paired on Atlas’s right, leaving Aster to sprawl alone on his left.
“Naturally,” Lazaros replied, entirely unrepentant, settling back with a smug grin. “Given the choice between the most beautiful woman in the kingdom and my brooding lump of a brother, I know exactly where I’m sitting.” Naturally, the compliment made me blush even more.
Aster reached over and clapped Atlas soundly on the back. “Lucky for you, then,” he said. “You’ve still got me.”
A laugh burst out of me before I could stop it, and Atlas slid me a long-suffering look that only made it worse. I twisted to peer around Atlas at Aster. “So, I take it you’re not exactly a fan of these things either?”
Aster fixed me with a look of such profound, weary suffering that I nearly laughed.
“Give me a battlefield any day over a room full of nobles. At least on a battlefield, you know who’s trying to kill you,” he grumbled.
“Spoken like a true romantic,” Atlas murmured.
It was right about then that a peal of bright laughter drifted over from a nearby table.
I followed Aster’s resigned glance to find a cluster of court ladies arranged in a glittering knot, every one of them gazing at him over the rims of their goblets.
They were a strange and lovely assortment.
One with skin that shimmered faintly opalescent in the candlelight, another with delicate curling horns threaded with gold, a third whose hair seemed to drift as though underwater.
And every single one of them was watching Aster as though he were the next course.
One of them lifted slender fingers in a coy little wave, and Aster groaned and slumped lower in his seat.
Atlas, the wretch, laughed outright. “It must be terribly difficult,” he said, “being so in demand.”
“I seem to recall a certain general before he became king who could not cross a courtyard without half the court swooning into his path.” Aster shot back, then arched a brow and nodded in my direction.
“Though I don’t suppose you have to trouble yourself with any of that anymore.
Do you?” His gaze flicked pointedly to me.
“No,” Atlas said, and the warmth in the single word made my stomach flip. “I don’t.”
“Lucky you,” Aster muttered, dragging his goblet closer. “Some of us still have to dodge the lot of them.”
“You could tell them you’re spoken for,” I pointed out, and was rewarded by the way his jaw tightened, just slightly, the only crack in all that easy armor.
“The only woman whose attention I’d welcome,” he said gruffly, “is a world away, and far too busy telling me what an idiot I am to wave at me across a banquet hall.”
I grinned, thinking of Tiff, and decided I liked him even more for it.
I had just turned back to my plate, finally, properly intending to eat, when I felt it. A warm, heavy hand settling on my knee beneath the table.
I froze, fork halfway to my mouth.
Atlas, to all outward appearances, was the very picture of a king at ease, leaning back on his throne, listening to some dignitary three seats down with a polite expression of interest. The only thing out of place was the hand currently sliding exhaustingly slowly as it inched up the silk of my skirt.
I reached down and shoved at it.
It didn’t move. If anything, it settled more firmly, his thumb tracing idle, maddening circles against my thigh through the fabric, gathering the silk higher with every pass.
“Atlas,” I muttered through my teeth, turning my head so the table couldn’t see, “Behave.”
He didn’t so much as glance at me. He only leaned in, as though murmuring some private royal aside, and breathed against my ear,
“They will only know, little bird, if you react to it.” Then his hand slid higher, fingertips grazing the bare, sensitive skin of my inner thigh.
I sat bolt upright, a strangled sound catching in my throat, and turned it into a violent, entirely unconvincing cough.
Beside me, smooth as anything, Atlas reached for the wine and refilled my glass.
“Here,” he said, the soul of solicitous concern, pressing it into my hand. “You must be parched.”
I took it, gritting out a “Thank you” so sweet it could have rotted teeth, and downed half of it in one go. All the while, he chuckled low, very obviously pleased with himself. Finally, mercifully, he at least withdrew his hand… For now.
The wretched, insufferable, devastating man.
I was just beginning to recover when he reached for one of the Star-bloom pastries, broke off a small, flaky piece, and lifted it to my lips, his other hand cupped beneath to catch the falling crumbs.
“Open,” he ordered, though his voice was soft.
And the thing was, there was nothing teasing in it now. Nothing performative. Just him, watching me with a tenderness that made the whole roaring hall go quiet at the edges as their king fed me by hand, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
And well, I opened my mouth and let him.
The pastry melted on my tongue, buttery and herby and unfairly delicious, and a low, helpless sound of pleasure escaped me before I could stop it.
Atlas went very still.
“Oh my god,” I mumbled, reaching for another piece, “that is genuinely the best thing I have ever…"
“Alexandra.” His voice had dropped an octave, rough at the edges, before he nudged my cheek with his nose, dropping to my ear so as he could warn,
“Making those sounds is not helping me keep my hands off you.”
I felt my cheeks heat all over again, even as a slow grin tugged at my mouth.
“Well,” I said primly, licking a crumb from my thumb just to watch his eyes darken, “this entire banquet was your idea, Your Majesty. You’ve no one to blame but yourself.”
“A miscalculation,” he agreed gravely, “I am beginning to deeply regret.”
“You’ll survive.”
“Will I?” His gaze dropped to my mouth and back up. “I am not at all certain I will make it to dessert.”
I laughed, and for a while, that was all there was.
Food, and warmth, and the easy roll of banter between the three of us.
Lazaros throwing in one outrageous comment after another.
Aster grumbling, deflecting, and occasionally surprising me with something dry enough to make me choke on my wine.
And then there was Atlas, with his hand a steady, grounding weight on my knee.
Then it struck me, somewhere in the middle of it, how much lighter Lazaros was than his brother, how easy it was to laugh with him, and how badly I had needed exactly this. To sit at a table and feel, for one stolen evening, almost ordinary.
It couldn’t last. Of course, it couldn’t.
But for once, I let myself enjoy it while it did… Imposter syndrome and all.
It was much later, when the last of the platters had been cleared away and the goblets refilled for a third time, that a low ripple of movement spread through the hall.
Servants slipped between the tables, drawing them back toward the walls, opening up a wide expanse of gleaming marble at the center of the room.
Along one side, a long table appeared as if by magic, laden with towering desserts, and people began to drift toward it to help themselves.
So, when Atlas rose and held out his hand to me, I assumed I knew exactly where we were heading.
“See,” I said, smug, slipping my hand into his and letting him draw me to my feet. “You made it to dessert after all.”
His mouth curved, but he said nothing.
I started toward the dessert table, already eyeing a confection that appeared to be spun entirely from sugar. However, this was when his hand tightened around mine and tugged, sharp and sudden. The action spun me back around and straight into the solid wall of his chest.
I caught myself against him with a startled gasp, both palms flat to the silver constellations of his coat and looked up.
Oh, no.
“Dance with me,” he said.
“What? No. Absolutely not.” The panic came on fast and certain, my fingers curling into his coat. “Atlas, seriously, I can’t dance. I have never danced in my life. I will make an absolute fool of you in front of your entire kingdom, I will trip, I will…”
“Alexandra.” He caught both my hands, gentle and unhurried, and drew me out into the open center of that vast marble floor while every eye in the hall turned to follow. “Trust me.”
“That is the exact phrase people say right before something goes horribly wrong.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. He lifted one hand, and somewhere above us the musicians stirred and began to play, something slow and sweeping and unbearably lovely.
Then he settled one of my hands on his shoulder, laced the other through his fingers, and pressed his free palm warm against the small of my back.
“I have you,” he murmured. “Just follow me.”
So, I tried.
I genuinely tried. I kept my eyes locked on our feet, counting under my breath, concentrating so hard my whole body went stiff as a board, and I still managed to come down squarely on his foot within the first ten seconds.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
He only turned us in a slow circle.