But I kind of did. When Arc said I was to live here, he implicitly said it was my home too.
“Didsheinvite you in, then?” Carter asked, but there was no ounce of doubts in his voice. He knew I didn’t.
The familiar orange eyes met mine as he said, “I don’t need an invitation if a blood relative lives here. When you’re done avoiding me and frolicking with the almighty goose over there, I’dlovea moment to catch up,sister dearest.”
Chapter 16
Lola
July 2, AD 519
Dimitri was going to freak out.
I watched the sun dip below the horizon, my legs bouncing anxiously under the table.
I was officially late to meet him for our fourth training session.
A large hand clamped around my knee and my blood froze in my vein, my whole body tensing with the fight or flight response.
“Your littlecrushcan wait for you longer,” Amyntas said, leaning to talk in my ear. The words sent a cold shiver down my spine. “This is the last night you’re forced to deal with me until we’re—”
“If,” I interjected.
“—Married.”
He chuckled dryly, shaking his head as his palm patted my thigh in a slow rhythm. My hands tightened on my fork and knife. Maybe I could just stab the fucker. Would that be bratty enough? He’d certainly be pissed.
“I know what you’re doing,” he said, voice low enough so that no one sitting at other tables could pick up on what he was saying. I looked at him from the corner of my eye and his falsely kind features rubbed me the wrong way. “Too bad you’re using the wrong tactics.”
I had to dig my nails into my palms to avoid glaring. “What do you mean?” I gritted out.
He leaned closer, brushing his scaly shoulder against mine. “I have no interest in a compliant and weak Maiden. You, fighting me constantly, only gives you morepoints.”
My throat dried out.Fuck. I dropped my fork and reached for my goblet of wine.
“Choose the other one,” I said openly for the first time, hiding my mouth with my cup to avoid anyone trying and succeeding in reading my lips. “I don’t want to be your Maiden.”
“Why not?” he asked, his tone curt. “I’m not as bad as people say.”
“I don’t—I don’tlikeyou. I don’t think I ever will.”
He hid his laugh in his own drink. “No one said anything about liking each other. Love won’t strengthen the Dragon’s line. A powerful alliance will.”
“Sure,” I gritted out. “Easy for you to say, you’ll have plenty of wives to find love elsewhere.”
Amyntas leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. “Is that what bothers you?” he asked, surveying the tables farther away. We were seated on a platform, like rulers watching over their subjects. “That I’ll have the opportunity of love with someone else while your little boyfriend is left here?”
Another mention of his knowledge that my heart was, in fact, taken by someone else. I stiffened as he closed the distance between us again, placing his arm on the back of my chair. To anyone else, it might have looked like we were getting closer after over ten days of being forced to interact like this. But it was all a façade.
“Three things,” he whispered in my ear, a smile audible in his voice. “First, I don’t know how your father and brother are still clueless about that boy, but you might want to start being more…discreet. Second, even though I can smell him on you, I’m grateful that you didn’t give yourself to him. It appears you know what will happen to your whole clan if you, in fact, welcome him to your bed before you give me my heir.”
I gulped at the casually voiced threat. My brother watched us from the closest table, a frown deforming his face. My father was smiling next to him, oblivious to the terror gripping me. I didn’t bother looking for my mother at the wives’ table, way too aware of her glee.
“You said three,” I croaked.
Puffs of warm air hit my neck as he chuckled his response. “I have no plan on going to visit the other Maiden. My choice is made, and in a little less than a year, you’ll fly with me to my clan.”
It was long past midnight when Dimitri found me at our usual resting spot in the forest. His footsteps stopped as he saw me, folded in on myself, my head buried between my knees, arms circling my legs.
