Page 126 of A Vow of Embers

His body drew back, as if I’d slapped him. “I have never accused you of being simpleminded. I am very well acquainted with how your devious and cunning mind works.”

Iwas devious and cunning? That was the height of hypocrisy. I was not the underhanded, sneaky adulterer in this situation. I thought of his mouth fused to Chryseis’s and was filled with so much fury that I shook from it.

Now I did look at him. His eyes blazed and every line of his body was tense—if he clenched his jaw any tighter, he might break all of his teeth. I wanted to lash out at him but I reminded myself of our contract.

And that any bodily harm I tried to inflict on him, I would also inflict on myself.

We stared at each other, both of us breathing hard. His gaze flickered down to my mouth and a wave of desire crashed into me, strangling my breath.

He leaned in, as if he intended to kiss me, and I froze. Like prey trembling before a mighty predator.

Wanting to be devoured.

“Your pretense would have worked better if your book wasn’t upside down,” he said with a snarl. I glanced down in shock to see that he was right.

Then he stomped out, slamming our door shut.

I threw the book against the far wall. I would not think about the fact that I would have kissed him if he’d made the first move. I’d watched him kiss another woman just last night and I still wanted him. I was disgusted with myself.

I might have technically won this battle but I was afraid that I was going to lose the war.

Chapter Forty

The prince and I returned to our previous arrangement, wherein we didn’t speak to one another. He came back late to our room and I pretended to be asleep. I never was. I stayed up all night so that I wouldn’t be stuck in a dream with him, worried that we might be compelled to talk again. I tried to nap during the day, and those times were always dreamless.

I continued to be locked in my room. My adelphia spent as much time with me as they could. Kunguru visited often, along with an assortment of Io’s pets. Luna continued to grow every day, bit by bit. We kept searching Io’s books and half listened to her while she tried to teach us lessons. Themis would also come by, and Io and I worked on teaching her and the others how to read.

Suri brought the scroll over when we were all certain that Xander would not return and catch us. Io was a bit disappointed that I hadn’t included her in my scheme, but they’d all understood why I’d left them out of it.

I unrolled the scroll, and it was blank.

There wasn’t a single word on it.

How could this be the greatest weapon when there wasn’t anything on it? Io thought it must be some kind of puzzle or riddle, but I didn’t agree with her. It seemed to me like a badly executed joke. Io kept the scroll with her, promising that she would unlock it.

In the afternoons we would spar in my room and I realized that I had become slower and weaker. Once I started to drink the water again, I was easily able to keep pace with the others.

That meant the water was definitely the key to our strength. I wondered what would happen if someone like Xander drank it.

And I hated that I thought of him by that name now. I never spoke it aloud, but I no longer thought of him as Alexandros, no matter how angry I was with him. It was like a dam had been broken apart and I couldn’t rebuild it.

Four days had passed this way and my restlessness continued to grow. I hated being trapped. And ignored. I realized that I preferred fighting with him over him ignoring me.

Zalira and I were sparring with our fists when he suddenly entered the room, surprising me. I dropped my defense and she landed a hit square on my jaw. His head snapped back at the same time that mine did. He rubbed his face and glared at me and I tried not to smile. I hadn’t done it deliberately, but I did derive a sense of satisfaction from it.

“There is a dinner for the court tonight. You need to be there,” he said before exiting as quickly as he’d arrived.

Io sighed.

“What?” I asked her.

“I just thought after you were attacked that things were different between you two. That they were changing.”

That made two of us, unfortunately. “Same as they ever were.”

I glanced down at my arm. The cut had healed completely and there was no longer a scar there. I’d noticed that while Xander’s had healed, his scar remained. He didn’t use the salve to make it disappear and I wondered why.

“Maybe if the two of you stopped trying to hurt each other, you would be able to figure things out,” Ahyana offered and then immediately went quiet when she saw my face.