Page 15 of A Spark in Time (A Knights Through Time Romance #21)

“Most days, I’m not sure there’s a difference.” He touched the scar at his temple, “Andrōn kai theríōn—between men and beasts.” the gesture was unconscious. “But when you bandaged my arm, when you argued with me instead of fearing me... you saw something I’d forgotten was there.”

Sweet suffering saints, he’s beautiful. Not just his face—though gods knew that was enough to make a girl forget her own name—but the way pain had carved him into something deeper than mere handsomeness.

“You know what’s funny?” she said. “Back home, I used to visit this museum. The Metropolitan. They had a gallery of Greek sculptures—warriors and gods carved from marble. I’d stand there and think those ancient artists must have had some serious imagination, creating men who looked like...”

She gestured at him, encompassing the gold hair, the intense blue eyes, the shoulders that could carry the world. “Like you.”

His eyebrows rose. “I remind you of a statue?”

“The best ones. David, if Michelangelo had understood that warriors have scars.” She reached out—couldn’t help herself—and traced the thin white line along his jaw. “Except statues are cold, and you’re...”

Warm. Alive. The answer to prayers I didn’t know I was praying.

“Flesh and blood,” he said, but his voice had gone rough.

“Flesh and blood,” she agreed, her thumb brushing his lower lip.

The ship rocked gently, and for a moment they were the only two people in the world—a flapper from the future and a warrior from the past, finding something eternal in the space between heartbeats.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For seeing a person instead of an oracle. For kicking down my cage. For making me remember what it feels like to choose.”

“What did you choose?”

She looked at him—really looked. At the man who’d killed for her, who’d risked everything to give her freedom, who stood here letting her touch his face like she had every right to claim such beauty.

“You,” she said simply. “If you’ll have a girl who’s twenty-four centuries out of place and apparently cursed to fall in love with the wrong men at the worst times.”

His smile was soft as a spring rain, dangerous as a summer storm. “I’ve always preferred the wrong choices. They’re more interesting.”

When he kissed her this time, it wasn’t the desperate collision of their first kiss in the storm. This was deliberate, thorough, the kind of kiss that rewrote a girl’s understanding of what mouths were actually for.

His hands framed her face, calloused thumbs stroking her cheekbones as his lips moved against hers with devastating patience. He tasted like wine and wild wind, like promises made under starlight, like everything she’d never known she was hungry for.

The kiss deepened, and she felt it everywhere—her knees went liquid, her pulse hammered in places that had no business having pulses, and her toes actually curled against the deck of the ship.

She made a sound that would have scandalized her finishing school teachers, low and wanting and completely beyond her control.

When they finally broke apart—because breathing was apparently still necessary, even in paradise—she was clinging to his shoulders like a woman drowning.

“Men back home,” she managed, voice breathless and wondering, “definitely didn’t kiss like that.”

His smile was pure male satisfaction, the kind that should have annoyed her, but instead made her want to kiss it right off his smug face.

“Pollous ērastas echeis, argyrí kóri?”—Have you had many lovers, silver girl?

She grinned, still dizzy from his attention. “A few. But none like you.”

“Good,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to hers, their breath mingling in the salt air. “I’d hate to think I was competing with ghosts from the future.”

“No competition,” she assured him, her hands still fisted in his tunic because letting go seemed physically impossible.

“Those boys were playing at romance. You...” She searched for words that could encompass the way he’d just dismantled her with nothing but his mouth. “You’re the real thing.”

His laugh was low, rough around the edges. “Careful, silver girl. Keep talking like that, and I might start believing I deserve you.”

“You do,” she said fiercely. “You absolutely do.”

And when he kissed her again—softer this time, reverent, like she was something precious he was afraid to break—she believed it too.

Bebe drank him in. The wind had pulled strands of golden hair across his face, and she had the absurd urge to brush them back.

His smile was different this time—softer, less blade-sharp. “Where will you go? When we make port?”

She thought of her old dreams—the Mediterranean, Cairo, Rome. The world. They were all here, all real, all waiting. Just... different.

“Everywhere,” she said. “Anywhere. I wanted to see the world, and now I’ve got all the time to do it.”

“Alone?”

The question hung between them like a dare.

“I’ve got gold sewn into my dress and a magic ring that won’t take me home. I’ll manage.”

“Gold runs out. Magic disappoints. And the world’s full of men worse than those Athenian swine.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Speaking as one of them.”

She looked at him—really looked. The scars, the weathered hands, the eyes that had seen too much and decided to keep looking, anyway.

He was dangerous, absolutely. But not to her. She knew it, the same way she knew the ring wouldn’t take her home—bone-deep, inexplicable, certain.

“You’re not as bad as you think,” she said.

“You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I know you came back for me.”

“I came for revenge on Athens.”

“Liar.”

He blinked, surprised. Then laughed, rich and real. “You’re calling me a liar? The fake oracle who had Athens eating from her hand?”

“Takes one to know one.”

The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold that reminded her of champagne and roses, of another life that felt like a dream now. The crew was preparing for the night—adjusting sails, lighting lanterns, settling into the rhythm of life at sea.

“Come with me,” he said suddenly, and there was something vulnerable in his gravel-filled voice, something that made her breath catch. “Not just to see the world. “Elthe meth’ emou. Come with me. To Thessaly.”

The words hit her like a physical blow. Home. He was offering her a home.

“Kassander—”

“I have land there. Olive groves, vineyards. A house that overlooks the sea.”

His hand found hers on the rail, warm and steady. “It’s not a palace, but it’s mine. Clean. Free. You could...” He paused, like he was stepping off a cliff. “You could stay. If you wanted.”

Stay. With him. Build something real instead of just running from what’s broken.

Her heart did something complicated in her chest—a flutter-skip-leap that felt like champagne bubbles and spring mornings and every good thing she’d ever wanted but never dared name.

“You want me to come home with you?” Her voice came out smaller than intended, like the scared girl under all the oracle nonsense was finally allowed to speak.

“I want...” He turned to face her fully, his thumb tracing circles on her knuckles.

“I want to wake up and see you in my garden, arguing with my housekeeper about how to grow proper tomatoes. I want to watch you scandalize the village women with your short hair and your opinions. I want to build you a library filled with every scroll from here to India, just to see what new ideas you’ll get. ”

Sweet heavens, he’s offering me everything.

“And when you get tired of domesticity?” she managed. “When some war calls and you remember you’re a warrior, and not a farmer?”

His smile was soft as starlight. “Then you will come with me. Or you will stay safe at home and curse me for leaving. Either way, you’re mine and I’m yours, and the world can make of that what it will.”

Mine and yours. The words settled into her chest like puzzle pieces finding their proper places.

“That’s quite an offer, soldier boy.”

“You’re quite a woman, silver girl.” His free hand cupped her cheek, thumb brushing the corner of her mouth. “Say yes. I will love you the way you deserve.”

Love. There it was, the word that could save her or damn her, probably both.

She thought of Alistair’s cold proposal, all transaction and no tenderness. Thought of her mother’s bitter wisdom about cages and choices. Thought of running, always running, never staying long enough to see if happiness could take root.

“ Nai. Yes,” she whispered, and felt something shift in the universe, some cosmic tumbler clicking into place. “Yes, I’ll come home with you.”

His kiss tasted like relief and promises and the future they’d build together—a warrior and woman who’d tumbled through time, planting impossible love in the Thessalian soil.

When they broke apart, both breathing hard, she pressed her forehead to his.

“Just so we’re clear,” she said, grinning, “I don’t know the first thing about olive groves.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“And I’ll probably scandalize your entire village within a week.”

“I’m counting on it.”

She laughed, wild and free, the sound carrying across the water like a promise to whatever gods might be listening. For the first time since that night in the conservatory, the future felt like something to run toward instead of from.

The ring pulsed warm against her skin—not in warning this time, but in agreement. Like it had finally brought her where she was meant to be.

Home, she thought, watching stars appear in Kassander’s eyes. He’s offering me a home.

And for once in her life, Bebe Merriweather was exactly where she belonged.