Chapter 11 #2
Elysia set the seed organizer back where she had found it. “I still plan to find a way out of the latest addendum to our deal. A thoughtful bribe doesn’t change that.”
“Expected and understood even if I feel I must note how futile that will be.” A mischievous glint burned in Aidan’s eyes as he prowled over to her. “But what if we made a little wager?”
“I am not betting with you. What is it with everyone and betting around here? Even your priestesses are gambling on us. And look at where the last deal with you got me.” Elysia crossed her arms, scowling up at him.
“Locked into an exciting voyage to save not only your kingdom, but realms beyond, with the promise of immortality beside the most handsome of the gods?”
Elysia stabbed a trowel into the workbench. “You are genuinely insane.”
The light humor disappeared from Aidan’s face. “No, I simply have had longer to know you than you have me, and as you seem to be caught on—I’ve been around a very long time. I would hope that I would know what I want when I see it after all these years.”
Elysia’s brows drew closer in suspicion. “How didn’t I ever notice a constant reaper tail?”
Aidan breezed past her question. “Because you couldn’t see them.
Now, we need to finalize this wager you keep asking for.
If you’re certain you’ll want to leave at the end of your voyage, then there’s nothing for you to lose.
I’m prepared to set the odds entirely in your favor.
” His voice had switched from the hard, but thoughtful god who gifted greenhouses to the man who clearly enjoyed cutting deals and taking bets.
Squaring her shoulders, she looked him dead in the eye. “It’s not even a question—I’ll want to leave.”
“You want to go back to the family who exploited you. To rekindle the love that never existed between you and Garrison’s spawn. Makes perfect sense.”
“What I want is to remain a mortal who lives in the mortal realm and to live a normal life free from insufferable gods.”
“Okay, a bit of wager, a bit of a deal. If at the end of your voyage, talisman in hand, you want to return to the mortal realm and live a perfectly boring life, then we will find a way.”
Elysia grabbed the trowel back out of the table and stuck it at him. “According to you, that isn’t possible.”
Crossing his arms, Aidan’s fingers pressed into the wool of his coat. “I can’t promise mortality, or escaping ruling entirely, but I can promise the freedom to live in the mortal realms for much of the year. You would still need to fulfill certain obligations here.”
Hesitation held her in check. “Why would you offer me this?”
Fire bloomed in the heart of his cold blue eyes. “It’s as much freedom and choice as I can offer you.”
“And?” She narrowed her eyes.
His lips turned up with utter confidence. “Because I’m certain you’ll want to stay.”
She stared at him in exasperation, dropping her arm and the trowel down by her side.
“Mark my words, by the end of the voyage, you’ll want to stand beside me with a crown on your head, making our enemies shake when you walk into the room.”
“Hardly.” Again, he had to be insane.
His grin was vicious as he strode closer, his earlier uncertainty long gone as he took hold of the lapels of her coat. “It won’t even be a question. But don’t worry, I won’t gloat. Won’t even bring up this conversation.”
His proximity and wild presumptions sent a blazing mix of furious heat and electricity down her spine, and yet her dark eyes gave none of it away.
“Hands,” she said coldly.
Aidan released her, conjuring the same goblet he’d used that day in the throne room when she’d unknowingly drunk her mortality away. He held it out daringly. “Do we have a deal?”
Voice even, she pointed out the obvious. “You didn’t state the rest of the conditions.”
He lifted the cup. “You wanting to stay is all I could want. No further conditions.”
She shook her head in utter amazement. “I cannot fathom the level of self-assurance required for you to believe I’d want to stay.”
A small dimple she’d never noticed before appeared near one side of his mouth. “The odds are in my favor. You’ll see.”
She pushed the cup back to him. “Because death voyages and forced immortality are the foundation of all great relationships.”
“No, but trust and friendship—learning about one another as we navigate the obstacles of fate—might be more romantic than you’d think.”
A laugh burst out of her. “This is going to be easier than I thought if that’s how you think of romance.”
Aidan set the goblet down, his gaze sharp and altogether too perceptive. “Possibly,” he acknowledged. “Or perhaps you’re unfamiliar with what it looks like for two people to know and care for one another beyond sex and separate ambitions.”
Elysia blanched, drawing back like he’d struck her, but Aidan caught her waist. “It wasn’t an insult.
You survived a land that wanted you dead for existing.
I could never fault you for any of it. You could go on a murderous revenge spree, and it would be understandable. You deserve more, is all…so much more.”
She didn’t know what to say to that—she had wished for someone, anyone to see her without judgment for so long.
For them to know all the horrid details and actions that haunted her with shame, and to still look at her like she was whole and wonderful and something more than what had happened.
He couldn’t possibly know everything, or he wouldn’t dare to make such statements.
She took hold of the goblet, speaking in a low voice. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve made choices I hated too.” He held her gaze easily. “Yours don’t scare me.”
Elysia drank without hesitation, handing the goblet off to Aidan and wiping her mouth with a smirk to cover her discomfort. “To being the first platonic co-rulers of the death realm.”
Aidan choked, water spraying out of his lips, and Elysia smiled as she swept out of the greenhouse with a new pep in her step. Her wrist burned as the floral background of her tattoo expanded around the helm, marking her skin with Aidan’s promise to give her as much choice as the fates allowed him.