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I pinch my eyes shut. “Stop saying that,” I whisper.

Bonds, mates—I don’t want to hear any of it.

“What,bond? Why would I?” he asks, sounding truly baffled. “It is the basis of everything,est amage. Your power, my power. All I know of my magic has come from it. Before I ever met you face-to-face, I heard your voice, right here.” Memnon uses his other hand to touch his own heart. “I spent countless nights whispering down it to you, and I spent my days letting it guide me across the world to find you.”

My skin tingles with his admission, and when I open my eyes, there’s a rawness and an intensity to his words that has me ensnared.

“So, enemies or not,Selene, please, ask me a question down our bond—project it to me.”

I want to deny him becauseIam in denial, but his plea gets under my skin, and a sick sort of curiosity wins out.

This shouldn’t work. It really shouldn’t.

I close my eyes once again and focus on that place just beneath Memnon’s warm palm; supposedly, it’s where soul mates are magically bonded. It’s terrifying that Idosense something there, now that I concentrate on it.

I’ve heard bonds described as cords and roads, but this feels more like a river flowing both into and out of me.

How did you get the scar on your face?I push the thought out with my power, forcing it down this magical river I sense.

“At fifteen, a man tried to skin me in battle,” Memnon says.

I open my eyes, both stricken and entranced not just by what he said but also by the facthe heard my voice in his head.

“You read my mind,” I accuse. I don’t want to believe the alternative. That we’re…bonded, our souls inextricably linked.

“I didn’t need to when you spoke so prettily down our bond.” Memnon stares at me with some emotion simmering in his eyes.

I hold his gaze for a second, then two, then three. My pulse is jackhammering, and I can hear the roar of blood in my ears. My knees are growing weak.

“I’m not your soul mate,” I insist.

Are you sure?

As if to emphasize his point, Memnon’s power pours into me from that magical river. For a moment, I close my eyes, and I feel the alluring lick of it right up against my heart. I press my palm to the place in question; it’s only once my hand comes to rest on Memnon’s that I realize he’s still touching me, and I’m starting to get confused about where he ends and I begin.

“No,” I whisper, the word coming out as a plea.

“Yes, Empress, you are,” he says, his voice gentling. He says it with a surety that sets me on edge.

I’ve spent far too much time fruitlessly convincing him of my own identity. Perhaps it’s time for Memnon to do the convincing.

I lift my chin. “Then tell me about who we were,” I dare him.

Memnon reaches out and strokes my cheek with his knuckles, this softness so at odds with the man I have come to know.

“I was a king, and you were my queen,” he says, his eyes turning soft.

“You don’t look like a king,” I challenge him. He’s too young, too scarred, too handsome, and too well-built.

He narrows his eyes at me but smiles. “Where I’m from, I do.” After a moment, he touches his hair. “Except for this,” he concedes. His hand moves to his smooth chin. “And this.”

As he speaks, my familiar prowls out from the shadows, silently joining my side when it’s far too late for me to need him. I spare the panther an annoyed glance.

“Sarmatian men wear their hair and beards long,” Memnon continues. He flashes me a conspiratorial look. “But you preferred me shorn like a sheep, and I admit, I greatly enjoyed the feel of your pussy against my bare face when I ate you—”

I cover his mouth before he can finish.

“Nope, I don’t want to hear about that,” I say, even as my sex dreams come back to me in all their lurid glory.