Elena must have sensed you’d awoken, because she appears on the other side of the door at that moment.
“Good to see you’re finally awake again, dearie,” she says, carrying a mug of steaming tea into the room. “Please, drink this. I promise you’ll feel much better.”
You glance at the steaming mug, then at Ziros. With a grimace, you take a tentative sip.
It’s minty and refreshing.
So maybe she’s not trying to poison you or anything after all. That’s a relief.
“Tell me, now,” she says, sitting slowly on the edge of a creaking, old, wooden chair beside the bed. “How did you come to be tethered to a demigod in the first place?”
Maybe it’s your grogginess, or maybe it’s the tea. Or maybe it’s just that you’ve started to trust her, after all, but you tell her everything.
Meanwhile, Ziros keeps working-out and Eli leans against the inside of the doorframe, listening-in.
When you finish, Elena nods solemnly in the low light.
“I see,” she says. “I see. Now tell me, Chosen One. Why haven’t you simply set him free already, if you’ll forgive me for asking?”
You freeze.
With a glance at Ziros, you swear you see his shoulders twitch, but he keeps his head down. Is he just pretending to be in a workout-trance now? Maybe he’s actually listening.
Just in case, you decide not to mention anything about your conflicted feelings.
Because you’ve been growing strangely attached to him lately.
“It’s not obvious?” You laugh, feeling much better now that you’ve finished the tea. And with a shrug, you say, “I don’t know how.”
“Ah.” Elena leans back in her seat, the old wood creaking. Or maybe that’s her joints. “Then would you like me to tell you?”
“Without…without either of us dying?”
She laughs, a dry, cracking sound. “Yes, dear. Without that.”
44
Keeping Your Promise to the Hot Guy
You
You gulp, glancing out of the corner of your eye at Ziros where he just keeps doing push-ups.
The back of his shirt is drenched with sweat, clinging to the muscle of his shoulders. Has he really been at it for six hours?!
That’s not even humanly possible.
Is it?
Right, well actually that probably makes sense, considering Zirosisn’thuman. Come to think of it.
But still. He’s been at it a long time.
Like, a really long time.
And…why?
Would it be presumptuous for you to think maybe it’s because he was worried about you? Maybe he was so upset byyour capture that he had to do something to distract himself, and that’s why he’s been doing push-ups for six hours nonstop.
