Page 104 of Vow to Claim You

I push off the wall, wiping the dampness from beneath my lashes with the pad of my thumb. Straighten the necklace. Smooth the dress. Reset the mask.

You’re a princess. Act like one.

“All alone? That’s unlike your husband. He usually keeps his assets under closer watch.” He falls into step beside me, pleased with himself. “Married life not quite the fairy tale?”

“I’m not in the mood, Mr. Thorne. Excuse me.” I intend to walk past him, but his hand closes around my arm, and he leans in with a smile he badly mistakes for charm.

“Shame. Though perhaps I could fix—fuck!” Bobby shrieks as his head snaps sideways from the punch square in his face, the crack of it splitting the corridor. His glass slips and shatters on the floor.

Before I can even process what’s happened, Aric steps between us, shielding me, and looking at Bobby with an expression I haven’t seen before.

It’s not just rage. Rage is hot, explosive, temporary. This is something else. Something colder. Like rage but under absolute control, and I see the discipline it takes to contain it.

“Touch her again,” Aric growls so low it barely qualifies as sound, “and I’ll make sure you never use that hand for anything. Ever. Again.”

Bobby drags his tongue across his teeth and spits red onto the marble, and then—because the man apparently has a death wish stitched into his tailoring—he laughs. He straightens, rolling his jaw. “You always this territorial, Viking?”

“Bobby.” Alexei’s hard voice reaches Bobby from behind. A hand clamps his shoulder. “Enough.”

Bobby shrugs it off. “Get off me, Morozov. I’m a member, same as he is. He doesn’t get to put hands on me and walk. There are rules. There are consequences.” His eyes swing back to Aric. “You want to discuss what happens when a God strikes another God? Because I’d love to.”

“I said enough.” Alexei’s grip returns, harder.

“The rules are the only reason you’re still standing.” Aric steps closer, crowding Bobby until the latter has to tip his head back just to meet him. “Put your hand on her again, and I will take it all. Your seat. Your name. Your inheritance. I’ll dismantle it piece by piece.” His voice drops to something lethal. “And when there’s nothing left of any of it, I’ll start on you. There isn’t a God at that table, or anywhere else, who’ll be able to stop me.”

Bobby says nothing, only his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

Aric turns from Bobby as though the man has already ceased to matter. His gaze finds mine, and for one heartbeat, something that was never meant to be seen slips through. Something that looks suspiciously like a man standing at the edge of a cliff he swore he’d never approach, staring down into the fall.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Aric

We step out of Olympus, and the chilly night air hits us, but it does nothing to cool the heat inside my body. Ayanna walks ahead, in no particular direction, as though away from all of it. I fall into step beside her without a word, because there was never another option. Wherever she’s going, I go. That stopped being a decision somewhere I can’t pinpoint and became a fact about how I’m built now.

Neither of us says anything. The path curves away from the villa into the garden proper, and I watch her the way I’ve long since given up pretending I don’t. The pearls at her throat—the ones I chose. The dress that moves like water when she walks—the one I chose. The dark eyes that have been quietly taking me apart since the day she came down that aisle toward me like a woman walking to her own execution and refused, the entire way, to look like anything but a queen. I noticed her then. I’ve noticed her every day since. I stopped lying to myself about that long before I was willing to do anything about it.

“Ayanna.”

She slows.

“Are you hurt?” My teeth clench at the memory of Thorne’s fingers on her arm. I can still feel the give of his jaw under my knuckles, and I’m not sorry. “Did he⁠—”

“I’m fine.” She lifts the arm a fraction, then lets it fall. “He didn’t hurt me. You made very sure of that.”

But I see she’s different. And if it’s not the situation with this goddamn bastard that affected her, then it must be Chiara.

“Is it what she said, then?”

She’s quiet for a few steps. “No,” she whispers, brows creasing as though she’s contemplating whether to continue or keep whatever this is that bothers her to herself. “Not as much as—” She hesitates.

“Not as much as…?” I demand.

She stops walking and turns to meet me, stripped of the armor she wears so well.

“I saw you,” she breathes. “Last night. In the garden, with her. I went out onto the balcony for air, and you were down there⁠—”

“It wasn’t arranged.” I don’t even let her finish as though I can’t stand the thought of her having the wrong idea of all of it. “I couldn’t sleep. She was already out there. I didn’t go to her, Ayanna. I’d never⁠—”