Page 157 of The Spider Queen

“I thought if you feltthe pull, you had to free him or die trying?”

“I—loved another.”

“I love another,” I said automatically, gritting my teeth.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Though I’d given Cass an affirmation of my love for Hunter, was that truly how I felt? I didn’t even know my own emotions anymore. And why had Cass been able to resist Thane’s pull, but I hadn’t?

Cass’s eyes became glassy, like she was looking deep into the past where all her transgressions and regrets remained.

“I resisted Thane. I chose another. He died. I died.” She swallowed, like she was forcing down pain that was still fresh. She inhaled a sharp breath and regained control of her emotions. “During my human life, I was called a seer. No one believed my prophecies. I watched the fall of my home, the destruction of my family. I fell in love with the man who claimed me as a war trophy and then I died by the hand of his jealous wife and her lover. They killed him too. Along with our twins.”

Anguish ripped through me at the retelling of her story. “Prophecies,” I murmured. “Oh, my God. You’re Cassandra. Cassandra ofTroy.”

She smiled sadly. “I was. Once. I serve Thane—I’m bound to him—because I refused to succumb tothe pull. Who knows where we’d be now if I’d given up my lover and instead chosen Thane. I might’ve died anyway. Or I might’ve succeeded and freed him. Who knows?”

“If you were the first, then Thane hasn’t been imprisoned for hundreds of years, but thousands.”

Cass nodded.

“Why did he let me believe otherwise? Why didn’t he tell me how long it had truly been?”

Her smile was wry. “Thane has issues with obligation.”

I mulled over that thought and then forced it away. Now was not the time for more guilt.

My Greek mythology was rusty, but I remembered something about Cassandra. She’d foreseen her own death. She knew she’d die at the hands of another woman, and still she’d chosen to live out the rest of her short existence with the man she loved.

“I love Hunter,” I whispered. Needing her to hear me, believe me. Maybe then I’d believe myself. Remorse engulfed my heart.

“Not as much as I loved Agamemnon. I was willing to die for him. That’s the part of the myth that never made it in the bards’ tales. We had to remain a myth, otherwise our love would have become a legend.”

She set her hand on mine. “You may love Hunter, but you were never prepared to die for him.”

I’d placed the blame entirely onto Thane’s broad, immortal shoulders, when in reality it was mine to bear. At first my body had chosen Thane. But then my bastard of a heart had selected him too. Being with him on the altar had been the melding of body and heart.

I was suddenly glad Hunter could no longer remember me. At least he didn’t have to be tortured by the memories he had of us.

Stupid, ephemeral, mortal memories.

I squeezed Cass’s hand and said nothing, trying to come to grips with the fact that I wasn’t sure I really knew how to love anyone at all.

Chapter 9

I laced up my boots and then looked at Cass. “I feel like I’m missing something. Like, shouldn’t I be carrying a ray gun attached to my hip?”

She grinned, the last traces of her sadness disappearing. “You won’t need a ray gun. You’re already armed.”

Was I?

I was terrified of the journey I was about to embark upon, but that was nothing compared to feelings of terror I felt about Thane. It would be just the two of us. Desire for him zinged underneath my skin. It was controlling me. I couldn’t think clearly because of it, and so I pushed against it, unwilling to succumb.

“Why do you fight him?” Cass asked, jarring me out of my own thoughts as we walked down the dark hallway lit with twinkling lights in the floor.

“Why did you?”