“By the time my legion caught up to him, I had already given up on ever seeing you or that crystal again. I should’ve called off the order. It was one of my generals who continued to hunt for Cassianus. I didn’t know Taebris and a few of his men had tracked him to Boston until they returned with the news of his slaying.” Selene wanted to reach out to Jordana, offer some comfort for the hurt in her eyes, but what good would it do? “I am sorry . . . for everything.”
“Sorry doesn’t change anything. Remorse can’t bring them back.”
“I know,” Selene murmured. “But I hope telling you might help you understand. Just as I hope releasing you will at least lessen some of your hatred toward me.”
“I should hate you,” Jordana said quietly. “I want to. All I feel for you is pity, Selene. Your bitterness and mistrust robbed all of us . . . including you.”
“Yes, it has.” Selene nodded soberly, her throat raw with grief and self-condemnation. “I don’t expect it, but I hope in time maybe you’ll find a way to forgive me.”
Before Jordana could see the emotion welling in her eyes, Selene turned away and walked to the opened chamber door. With shoulders squared and a steeliness in her voice that she truly didn’t feel, she called for her guards.
“Please, take my granddaughter down to the dock now.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
CHAPTER 28
Movement down at the beach caught Darion’s attention as he sat in his tower cell.
The large sailboat that had brought him to the Atlantean island was departing. Crewed by several soldiers from Selene’s legion, it also bore a single passenger: Jordana.
She stood on the deck, facing the island while the men heaved the vessel away from its moorings.
Had Selene set her free?
Darion got up and walked to the border of shadow and sunlight, watching as the white sails began to unfurl into the warm winds off the water.
At that same moment, Jordana must have spotted him standing in the tall tower. Her hand went up slowly, and even across the distance he could see the conflicted look on her face as she waved goodbye to him.
All he felt was relief to see her go.
Her freedom was the most important part of the mission he’d had when he left for the Atlantean realm.
Now, all that remained was finding some way to either persuade Selene that he and the Order weren’t her enemies, or hatch a plan to locate her crystal and somehow smuggle it off the island before she was tempted to use it against them.
He hoped to hell Selene would eventually come around, because the alternative plan held nothing but obstacles and nearly impossible odds of success.
As the sailboat moved farther into the distance, Darion glanced across the palace grounds to the private garden off Selene’s royal chambers. She was there, sunlight illuminating her as she tended to a rosebush bursting with bloodred blooms. Her long platinum waves were gathered up off her shoulders today into a complicated arrangement of loose twists and pearl-studded plaits, topped with a delicate coronet. The soft curves of her lean body were draped in filmy blush-colored silk and long skirts that were nearly translucent in the golden sunlight overhead.
Darion’s mouth watered at the arrestingly sensual sight of her. He had been tormented by the memory of her soft lips and pleasured moans ever since he kissed her. His body still burned for her, arousal still smoldering in his veins. Seeing her again lit a match to the embers.
As for Selene, all her focus seemed rooted on the long-stemmed flowers she carefully snipped and placed into a vase of clear water. She didn’t look his way, but Darion knew she felt him watching her. The almost rigid way she moved despite her innate grace, the way she seemed to deliberately avoid acknowledging her awareness of him . . . all of it gave her away.
He smiled to himself, far too pleased to realize she wasn’t as unaffected by him as she wanted to pretend.
Overhead, the peculiar sunlight blazed. If not for the threat of certain incineration, it would have been tempting to leap across the distance and pay the haughty immortal queen another unannounced visit.
Maybe there was another way.
He’d been noticing the persistent glow that sealed his cell door closed had been dimming now and then over time. Even now, the ring of white light that had burned so brightly when he’d first woken up a prisoner in the tower seemed slightly guttered.
Darion sent a mental command to the locked latch on the thick stone door. It yielded to his mind with a quiet, metallic snick. He took full advantage, moving swiftly. Opening the door on the pair of sentries posted outside, he quickly tranced them both, dragged them into the cell, and closed them inside.
Using the speed of his Breed genetics, he flashed through the abandoned east tower of the palace to Selene’s chambers, stirring no more notice than a cool breeze as he passed the handful of oblivious attendants and soldiers along the way.
He strolled through her living quarters and out to the shade of an ivy-covered pergola at the edge of her cheery little garden where she had just finished arranging the flowers.
“Good to see you took my words to heart.”
