Chapter 29
Theora
She could do nothing but pace her room.
She could’ve used Boada’s romance advice, but she also didn’t want her mother making a big deal of it. A relationship…these feelings…were all new to Theora. It was like grasping in the dark without knowing how far to reach.
But, unless she wanted to lose Argos forever, she had to do something.
Theora looked through her suitcases until she found the watch she had purchased for him.
This is insane, Theora. You can’t do this.
…Yes, you can. You love him, don’t you?
Theora scoffed at her own thought. She couldn’t love him. She’d seen him sporadically over the past year, from a distance. Only spent time intimately with him for the past week and a half or so. She didn’t even know the man’s birthday, for Sovereign’s sake. She couldn’t bind herself to him forever.
And yet, what did time matter when it came to knowing someone?
Her ancestors would probably be proud of her for embracing her culture so fully—after all, Warriors were part of Aranean culture as much as Dociles, and it was high time the world acknowledged it.
And, in a way, that could be considered a marriage based on duty, as well, couldn’t it?
Theora let out a short laugh, covering her face with her hands when it threatened to turn to tears.
There was nothing dutiful about what she was about to do. It had nothing to do with the benefit of the people she cared for so deeply, nothing to do with the keeping of her Crown.
It was Argos. She wanted Argos.
Argos came back from the barracks, his arm still wrapped in some sort of clear second-skin bandage. He looked miserable, poor baby.
“Hi,” she said, feeling ridiculous for such a greeting.
“I suppose it’s that time” was all he said.
His tone was tired, closed off. She wanted to believe it was because of his injured arm, how much it had been handled today by the doctors.
“Come sit down.” She guided him by the arm she could touch to sit on her bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Not great, to be honest,” he said. There was something almost soft in his gaze as his eyes trailed over her. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She blushed, trying to gather her words.
She wasn’t sure why she’d worn something so fancy—the dress was black and fitted, with a neckline that plunged to her waist. It was slightly sheer in select places, with just enough shown to entice, without giving anything away.
But then, she was about to bind herself to her husband forever.
This occasion was deserving of a fancy dress.
“You can rest in my bed for a while if you’d like—”
“Could you just…”—Argos sighed, as if expelling every bit of energy he had left in him—“get this over with quickly?”
Theora froze, pressing her nervous hands against her stomach. “What do you mean?”
“The mission is complete. We both know what comes next.”
“It doesn’t have to.” She hesitated, not knowing what else to say. Instead, she held the box out to him, hoping he’d know what it meant.
He just stared at it.
Theora cleared her throat. “It’s for you.”
“Why?”
She swallowed, but it didn’t do much to help her tight throat. “Why else do people offer trophies?”
He was still, and Theora was a little nervous he was ready to hunt something. Finally, he looked at her, his expression unreadable. “What is this, an offer out of guilt? That’s not how this works.”
“I know,” she said. “And it’s not.”
When he didn’t answer, she took a breath.
“I’ve never done this before. I’ve never…
been in a real relationship. The war had made me hesitant to find something real, and then I met you and—” She took another moment.
Argos didn’t interrupt. “I don’t want us to part ways, Argos. I don’t want to be without you.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I heard you sent Apollo away.”
“He wanted to go. When we were still in Lasius, he asked me for the position.”
“I thought he was the ideal consort.”
“I don’t want the ideal consort. I want you.”
Argos hesitated, as if he’d never expected her words. “This isn’t just about sex?” he asked, and the vulnerability in the question made tears burn at the backs of her eyes.
“Of course not,” she blurted. “I have too much respect for you to do you that disservice, Argos.”
His gaze shifted to the trophy, his brows lowered in dark thought.
It was a sad sort of thoughtfulness that made Theora want to kiss him and kill it, a quiet that lasted so long, fear started to creep around her stomach.
She suddenly realized that this might not end the way she wanted it to.
He was going to reject her trophy. He was going to reject her.
“Okay,” he said. But his look was still skeptical when he added, “Yield.”
Theora shivered at the command, relief making her want to cry while her prime instinct to remain dominant rose up to challenge him. Slowly, she lowered herself to one knee, holding up the box to him. She waited for a loving respect salute, for him to say everything was fine between them.
Instead, he stood. “Stay.” And he walked away and shut himself in the bathroom.
At the back of Theora’s mind there was shame and humiliation, but mostly anxiety. Maybe this was too little too late.
She heard the shower come on and, after a few seconds, lowered herself to sit on the floor. On first meeting him, she would probably have gotten angry at this, but by now she knew he was challenging her by making her wait. Well, then she would wait. She couldn’t afford not to.
When the water shut off, she resumed her yield position. But it was hard to keep steady when he emerged. Naked, as usual. But this time it made her stomach swim with the best kind of nerves. Sovereign. Get ahold of yourself, Theora.
She watched him get dressed. Layer after layer. Theora couldn’t blame him, and giving her a taste of her own medicine was his way. But it still hurt.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Stay,” he said again, and left the room, shutting the bedroom door behind him.
“What?” Theora huffed, her resolve to fix the situation dissolving into frustration as she sat down again. Her instinct told her to go after him, but he had commanded her to stay.
She lay back on the carpet, wiping away her tears quickly before they drifted down the sides of her face. It was unbearable, him being distant with her like this. She wanted his trust more than anything. And more than trust, she wanted him to accept her. To…love her.
It felt like an irrational hour before the door finally opened again.
Theora felt pathetic—and angry at feeling pathetic—but pushed herself up and resumed her yield position.
Her hands trembled as she held the box up, but when Argos sat on the bed in front of her she managed to keep her head up, to keep eye contact.
She wasn’t ready to lose all her dignity yet.
Although her bladder was threatening to betray her. “Um, I have to go to the bathroom.”
Argos grinned briefly and nodded, and it made Theora’s stomach hurt with nerves and embarrassment. Sovereign, that smile…Why does he have to be such a pain in the ass?
“Dismissed,” he said. Still an order. He meant for her to come back when her mission was complete.
She could’ve stolen the dominant position right then. She could’ve challenged him. And she thought about it. Battled with it. She was used to satisfying her ego rather than her heart.
So instead, she did her business, then came back and stood before him when she was done.
“Yield,” he said, but she had started before he’d even finished the word.
This time, he offered her their salute. Theora released a trembling breath before returning it. Only then did he accept the box from her.
He opened the box and paused. Theora’s heart tripped over its own pumping blood at the sight of her husband’s smile.
A genuine smile that warmed his expression like a single flame in a cold room, such a change from the everyday that she was almost afraid it would never happen again.
He took the watch out of the box, a simple amber leather band to match his eyes, with a midnight face.
“This was supposed to be for Apollo,” he said with a raise of his brow. Despite his words, he indulged in swiping his thumb across the watch face, his body heat revealing the hands of the watch, which disappeared again after a few seconds as the face cooled.
Theora swallowed. Why was confessing her true feelings so…difficult? “It was never for Apollo.”
Argos looked at her, and Theora felt captured in his gaze. Breathless. There was a deep, vulnerable look in his eyes, like part of him couldn’t risk believing her and yet still hoped. It made her want to cry.
It made her want to kiss him.
Silently, he patted the bed beside him, and Theora got to her feet quickly, her heart pounding. They were married. Not in the legalized Docile way, but just as real. In a way, this was more romantic, more personal, because it didn’t require a signature on documents to make it official.
It had taken swallowing every ounce of her pride to get here, and she’d never felt so simultaneously foolish and happy in her entire life.
“You can’t take this back,” Argos murmured.
Theora’s heart raced. “Good,” she breathed. “I don’t want to.”
A shiver went up her spine at her husband’s touch.
The backs of his fingers trailed up her arm.
Slowly…barely a feather’s touch. She waited for what might happen next, silently begging him to grip her…
possess her. His hand drifted up, tracing her shoulder, her neck, her jaw, every nerve lighting up beneath his fingers.
This touch didn’t feel sexual or possessive, but it balanced on the edge of something Theora had never felt before. It was unbearable.
Unbearably foreign. Unbearably unreal. Unbearably…lovely.
This didn’t feel like a ritual at all.
“Argos,” she whispered, his name the most beautiful word she’d ever felt on her tongue, “forgive me for everything I put you through these past weeks.”