But then I remembered that fear had never saved me.
So I smoothed my expression and let a gentle smile rise to my lips. I lowered my gaze, then lifted it again with a flutter of lashes, offering him the guise of a queen pleased to be admired.
A distraction. A lure. A reminder that I could wield charm as skillfully as any weapon. Although the king usually made sure it cost me.
The hard glint in his eyes did shift though, caught for just a moment on the invitation I offered. He stared, hard and unblinking, as though trying to place me, to remember some half-forgotten thing lodged in the back of his mind.
The silence stretched until, with a faint scoff, he blinked and straightened. “It’s about time you arrived,” he muttered, just loud enough for those closest to catch the words. He jerked his chin toward the smaller throne beside his own, impatience cutting through whatever strange moment had lingered.
“Sit,” he said, the command flat and dismissive, as he turned his gaze elsewhere as if I were merely a piece fallen back into position.
My body moved before my thoughts caught up, and I walked through the hall as if someone else was guiding my steps. Eyes followed me as usual, soldiers, courtiers, concubines, but none met my gaze directly.
I sat down on my throne, my spine straight, as still as aneicon.
Menelaus leaned closer, his breath absolutely rancid. “Try to look like you want to be here,” he hissed, “not like you’re waiting for someone to carry you away.”
He straightened, his voice carrying this time. “Bring in the prisoner.”
The great doors creaked open, the sound reverberating down the hall. Steps came next, the steady cadence of soldiers on command. Achilles entered first.
This wasn’t the man who had stood a breath away from me in the dark last night, danger hovering so near it might have undone us … This was Menelaus’s captain in full regalia. His armor was polished, his crimson cloak trailing behind him. The helmet beneath his arm bore a high, proud crest and his face was set in the cold lines of duty.
For a moment I struggled to reconcile the two versions of him, the warrior forged in bronze and crimson with the man who had nearly unraveled with me only hours before.
Two soldiers marched forward then, their prisoner between them, though nothing in his bearing suggested captivity.
The torches brushed him first, light skimming over damp sandals and the whisper of a midnight cloak. The shadows peeled back with each step he took until they finally yielded, revealing him at last.
The man from the sea. The stranger who had walked across water as if it were earth.
He moved with an ease that mocked the chains at his wrists. Broad shouldered and tall, his heavily muscled frame filled the space with quiet dominance. The cloak around him drifted like an animate shadow, black threaded with whispered veins of gold. Saltwater still clung to him, staining the leather at his sides.
But when the light revealed his face, the hall seemed to forget how to breathe.
He had cheekbones like a sculptor’s dream, lips tilted in wicked promise, and skin kissed in a deep bronze. His eyes were violet flames, mesmerizing and otherworldly.
The same violet that had stared at me in my dream last night. The color that had followed me out of sleep and into waking.
I froze, struck dumb in shock.
Because now they weren’t a dream at all.
They were staring back at me.
Chapter44
He should not have been beautiful.
And yet he was.
Beautiful the way graves are beautiful. The way fire dances prettiest before it consumes. The way fallen gods still call to mortals. The way cursed kings wear crowns of ash and call it glory.
The court leaned back as he passed. The air stirred in his wake, banners rustling faintly against the walls. He halted at the base of the dais, stillness settling over him.
His gaze flicked lazily to the guards bracketing his sides.
“Careful,” he purred in a voice smooth and edged with amusement. “Hold me that tight and people might start to talk.”
