He stumbled backward, in shock. He reached up to touch the blood and said, “Did you see what she did? Don’t just stand there! Get her!”
His soldiers pulled out their weapons, and my husband turned toward them to calmly say, “I will kill anyone who interferes.”
Lykaon’s men stayed put.
I forced Lykaon to reengage with me. “Is this why you hit women? Because you’re so pathetic?”
“Be silent!” he screamed at me as I began to rain down blows on him.
It was laughable that he thought he could tell me what to do. “What was it you said to me in Locris? You told me to learn my place and obey my betters. I am giving the same advice to you now.”
I knocked his sword out of his hand, and it went flying across the room. I whirled around Lykaon to kick him in the back of his legs so that he dropped to his knees. I grabbed his hair and held my xiphos to his throat, letting the edge pierce his skin.
“Don’t kill me,” he pleaded. “Please, I don’t want to die.”
I gripped his hair tighter and yanked his head back so that he cried out. “The only reason I’m letting you live, worm, is so that for the rest of your pathetic life you’ll remember that you were bested by a woman. And if I ever hear of you hurting another woman, I will find you and cut off all the protruding parts of your body.”
I released his hair and stepped back. “Your soldiers witnessed this. They will tell others. Soon everyone in Troas will know.”
“Get out,” Xander said. “And do not darken the doors of my palace ever again.”
Lykaon scrambled to his feet and his soldiers followed after him.
Xander came up behind me and turned me toward him. He kissed me so thoroughly and completely that I stopped breathing and became lightheaded.
He put his forehead against mine. “That was ... arousing.”
“You enjoy watching me beat people up?”
“I find it immensely entertaining when I’m not on the other end of your little sword,” he said.
“That’s not how I remember it. I recall you very much liking it.”
“You’re right.” He kissed me quickly on the forehead before releasing me. “I shouldn’t kiss you like that.”
No, he probably shouldn’t.
But that was all I wanted, to melt into his arms and his kiss.
“What will your sister do now?” he asked me.
I folded my arms against my chest to stop myself from reaching for him. “Themis mentioned her youngest son being a possible candidate as a prince consort. I’d like to meet him. But as long as he’s not Lykaon, I think it could work.”
Xander nodded. “I need to go meet with Thrax to set up guard placement throughout the city. I’ll probably need to talk to him about putting a guard to watch Pelias’s house. I don’t trust him or his son.”
I was sure I hadn’t helped matters by beating Lykaon. “Right now?”
“First I need to clean up and change,” he said in a way that made me think I should have understood what he was hinting at, but I didn’t.
We walked back to our room in a comfortable silence until the moment when I realized that I shouldn’t go into our room with him. We both needed a chance to cool down.
“I’m going to check on my adelphia,” I said.
“You don’t want to help me bathe and undress?” he teased, and I knew my cheeks had to be an extremely bright shade of pink.
“That should probably be a solo activity,” I said.
“You have no idea how many times it has been,” he said with a wink before entering our room. Another thing I didn’t understand, but the heat of it still flustered me.
