I turned the aspect off and was about to ask him what was troubling him when the doors flew open.
Lykaon strode into the room with half a dozen of his personal soldiers.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Xander demanded, getting to his feet.
“I am here to demand satisfaction,” Lykaon said, drawing his sword. “You have cost me a kingship. What right do you have to terminate my betrothal contract?”
“I am king of Ilion.” Xander sounded like wrath incarnate. “And after having made your acquaintance, my wife requested that you not be allowed on the same continent as her sister. I was happy to agree.”
Lykaon looked at me, and I waited for that moment when recognition would fill his eyes.
It didn’t happen.
He had no idea who I was.
How many women had he hit?
“So you mean to be the sort of king who lets a woman rule a ruler and command a commander,” Lykaon said with a sneer.
Angry, I picked my xiphos up off the ground and took it from its sheath. “You want satisfaction? You can fight me. For what you did to me, to my maid, and what you would have done to my sister.”
“Do you want your wife to die?” Lykaon asked Xander incredulously. “You would let her fight your battles?”
“It’s not my battle.” Xander looked genuinely amused. “You think you’re going to beat her? This is going to be fun.”
“Your husband must not care very much about you,” Lykaon said.
“He’s not concerned because he knows I’m going to win,” I said, lifting my sword.
At that Lykaon laughed.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” I asked as I paced toward him, my xiphos still ready.
“Should I?”
“That is your queen.” Xander snarled the words, and I had to smile.
I told Lykaon, “When you went to Locris, I found you beating my maid, Hippolyta. And when I tried to stop you, you backhanded me.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know why you think I’d remember that.”
Because it happened so often? I’d had enough. I swung at him and he looked shocked as he brought his own sword up to stop me. I hit him much harder than he’d been anticipating, and he had to take a step back to absorb the blow.
“Not so amusing now, is it?” I asked before I lunged forward.
Lykaon was not the warrior he apparently fancied himself to be. He could barely hold me off as I pressed forward relentlessly. His reflexes were poor, and he had no idea how to create cover to protect himself from me.
He was a spoiled nobleman’s son with battle masters who had probably let him win so as to not risk his or his father’s anger.
Giving him an overinflated sense of superiority.
“Why are you moving so slow?” Xander asked me. He was leaning against a column with his arms folded across his chest.
“Not all of us are goddess-blessed,” I said. Lykaon was such a poor sword fighter that I didn’t even need to call up my power. I could beat him on my own.
“I’m hungry,” my husband told me. “Quit toying with him and finish this.”
Lykaon mistakenly thought that my husband had distracted me and tried to strike at me. I blocked him with my xiphos, and then with my left hand, I punched him so hard in the face that his nose began to bleed.
