Page 30

29

“You have a visitor from the Myrdinian camp,” Clara said.

Clara—calling her Aunt Clara still didn’t feel natural even after several days—stood in the doorway of the living room of Kassandra’s new house. It was a cozy place along a quiet street near the center of town. A beautiful house, and all her own, but she still missed her tent.

Kassandra leaped to her feet, her heart in her throat. “Lodan?” She knew the Myrdinians still camped in the meadow near the path to the Dorian village. Yesterday, she’d asked Ision for a tour along the Bough Walkway, the path up in the trees, and she caught a glimpse of the camp when they walked to the west. Ision had turned them back before they got too close to the forest perimeter though, telling her there was a prettier path to the north.

She thought he might have wanted to keep her from getting closer.

Clara studied her and frowned for a moment. Clara often frowned, but not normally at her. Her aunt was serious, almost humorless, and oddly, she reminded Kassandra of Lodan in some ways. Not only her serious demeanor but her devotion to her people above all else, and she spent twenty hours every day working. Lodan had done that, too.

There was one big difference between them, though. Whenever she was with Lodan, Kassandra always felt she had his complete attention, but with her aunt, she could tell Clara was working other things out in her head. Not that Kassandra minded. The Dorians were much more involved with the goings on in Anatolia than Kassandra expected, and Clara was worried about how the war would end.

“No. You have a very insistent visitor. One who has already charmed my son into showing him the path up here.”

Cian ducked around her aunt into the room, and Kassandra ran to him. He wrapped her in a hug and swung her around. “You didn’t say goodbye to me. Again.”

“I’m sorry. Everything happened so fast.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she lowered her head. “I’ve wanted to come see you, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea to go down to the camp.”

Clara nodded. “Probably wise. I trust that Alpha to keep his word, but the less temptation the better.”

Kassandra glanced at her aunt in surprise. Saying Lodan would keep his word was high praise for her. While Clara hadn’t said anything outright, she’d made it clear she found the Sardi distasteful, and so far, she was reserving judgment on the Myrdinians, although her inclination was to dislike them as well. She didn’t seem to care how the war ended; her main goal was to keep her people safe.

Clara took a step toward the door. “I have a meeting, but I’ll come back later.” Her gaze lingered on Cian. “We have no male Omegas here. We don’t allow outsiders to live with us, but perhaps things need to change.”

For the first time since Kassandra had left Lodan, the pressure in her chest lifted, and she grabbed Cian’s arm. “You can live here with me.”

Clara paused at the door. “If Kassandra invites you, then I do too. Think about it.” And she slipped out the door.

Cian flopped down on the loveseat. “There’s no ocean here. What would I do with myself? What would I look at every morning?”

“Well, I know it isn’t the ocean, but the woods here are wonderful, like they hold a great secret you need to explore and find. And Clara’s right, there are no male Omegas, but” —she lowered her voice— “there aren’t many Omegas at all. And I learned there haven’t been a lot of births in the past decade either. I think being so secluded has hurt them. Clara has done a lot of work getting the different Dorian tribes to mingle more, but only a few bondmate ceremonies happen each year. I can tell she’s worried about it.”

“Well then, there will be many Alphas desperate for me.” But he didn’t sound very excited. “What else is it like here?”

Kassandra described the nicely built homes, the hidden walkway in the trees, and the miles and miles of passageways and rooms inside the mountain itself. She also told him how warm and kind the people were, although reserved and still a bit guarded around her.

A soft knock interrupted them. A young Omega named Starli, who worked for Clara, entered. In her hands, she held a small parcel. “This is a present for Mister …” Her face flamed red, and she walked over to Cian. “I forgot your name. Damn it, I’m not supposed to forget a guest’s name. Ever.”

Kassandra shrugged. “It happens.”

“Not for me. I’m in training as one of the tribe liaisons. That means I’m supposed to know each and every guest and make sure Clara never says the wrong name when she addresses them.” She thrust the parcel at him. “I’m so bad at this.”

“This is for me?”

“You know, I used to have to greet many people at my father’s palace,” Kassandra said. “It’s easier if you try to make an association. Like Cian. His name is the same as cyan, the color blue. Cian has blue eyes. Blue. Cyan. Cian. It sounds silly, but it helped me.”

“Thanks. I’ll try it.”

Cian tapped the package. “Back to this present. Is this a welcome-to-the-village gift?”

Starli smiled shyly. “Not exactly. Dorian males give presents to request the right to court an Omega. There are a lot of Dorian Alphas, who never come anywhere near court, suddenly extremely interested in learning about the male Omega visitor.”

Cian’s eyes widened. “There are men lined up for me? Am I dreaming?” He glanced at Kassandra. “What about Kassandra? Where are her presents?”

“Oh.” Starli dropped her gaze to the floor. “Well, she gives off the aura of one already bonded. Dorian males are honorable and won’t go after one already taken. It’s caused a lot of disappointment.”

Cian raised a brow. “Bonded, huh?”

Kassandra twisted to stare out the window. “I’m not bonded. And Lodan and I are over.” Just saying the words was hard.

“Well, my aura is waving a warm welcome. No bonding here.” Paper rustled, and then Cian gasped. “This is gold. ”

Starli lifted her chin. “True Dorian gold. There’s none better. Now you have a choice with what to do with it.”

“A choice?”

“Well, you could accept the gift, which means the Dorian male—” she squinted to read at the tag on the present “—Damon, will court you. No one else will court you until your time with Damon is done.” A witchy kind of smile crossed Starli’s face. “But, if you were undecided about Damon’s courtship, other gifts would continue to come, and you could choose between them. It becomes a bit of a contest.”

Cian’s face lit up. “Oh, I want that. Definitely.”

“I’ll tell them you’re undecided then, so other presents will be welcome.” Starli grinned. “Besides, Damon is an arrogant ass, and it will do him good not to get what he wants right away.”

Cian put his arm around Starli. “We’ve just become friends.”

She laughed, gave them both a small bow, and dashed out of the room.

“I really do like her, but she needed to leave because you need to talk. And not about the Dorians and their village. About you.” He moved his legs on the loveseat and pointed next to him. “Sit.”

Kassandra scowled. “You know, for an Omega, you’re really bossy.”

“I get a lot of Alpha in me.”

Kassandra laughed and sank onto the seat beside him. “When? You didn’t take any lovers during the entire time I traveled with the Myrdinians. And you and Xander took things slow.”

Cian’s brows flew up so high they almost touched his hairline. “Traveled with the Myrdinians? Now you’re sounding like you joined them voluntarily.” He waved his hand. “But forget about all that. For days, you were sealed off with Lodan in his tent, and all the Alphas turned edgy. Briseis had even more males begging for her attention than normal. The rumor was you were in heat. Is that true? How did it go?”

Pain slashed through her chest. “It was all hazy, like I was looking through a thin white curtain. I was more in my body, living moment to moment in pleasure, but my mind wasn’t exactly there. It was like I’d drunk the most exquisite wine, and I was giddy and at the top of the world, but I didn’t really know what was happening, just that he was there. It was pretty great.” She wasn’t going to say any more. What happened between the two of them was private.

“He took good care of you?”

“Yes.” She frowned. “It’s strange, though, I don’t really remember a lot of detail around those two days.” She hugged herself. “But little bits are coming back to me.” She remembered the way he’d held her to him, and the way he’d fed her. She also remembered him talking to her but couldn’t remember what he’d said.

Her throat clogged, and she shook her head. “I don’t think I can talk about him.”

Cian took her hand. “I’m sorry he left you here, but you’ll get better.”

She shook her head, and her cheeks were wet. When had she started crying? “I asked him to let me stay here, and he did.” Her heart squeezed. When he’d said goodbye, she’d looked into his beautiful eyes and seen … not hate. The unreadable Warlord was laid bare before her, his gaze letting her in. If he’d held her hand a fraction longer, she would have flung herself into his arms and never let go, but her decision was correct. They could never be happy together, not when her family had killed his.

“You did?” Cian’s hand squeezed hers. “But you’re miserable.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “There’s no future for us. He needs to finish his war. But that doesn’t help it ache less.”

“Ache?” A long silence filled the room until Cian asked, “Did you take the strobile?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“How much, and when?”

She jerked her chin up to look Cian in the face. His expression was serious, his eyes without the normal twinkle of mirth. “I took it daily from the day you gave it to me.”

“And you didn’t ask for a bond?”

“No.”

His fingers closed more tightly around hers. “Did you want to?”

She screwed her eyes shut as pain pounded in her chest again. “Yes. Many times.”

“I think, perhaps, you shouldn’t have taken strobile.”

Her lids flew open. “What? Why?”

Cian fell back against the loveseat and ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t tell you everything about it. Honestly, I didn’t think it would matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Strobile dulls our instincts, you understand? Which is good if you’re an Omega looking to have fun with many males. But we also have instincts that tell us if an Alpha is something more for us. Something important. Taking strobile, you dull that part of yourself.”

Kassandra pushed herself off the couch, not seeing Cian or the room around her. “Are you talking about bondmates?” She walked to the window and put her hand on the pane. The coolness of the glass leached into her palm.

“Yes. It would block the ability to recognize your bondmate.”

“Would he know if I was his?”

“That’s a good question. I don’t know. I would think the Alpha would recognize something, but bonds are mystical. No one knows how they work.”

Kassandra sagged forward. “Then everything is all right. Lodan only ever saw me as an enemy.”

“Don’t be daft. When you fled Argos, he chased after you and asked you to return to camp as a free Omega. Why would he do that if he really hated you?”

That was the question she’d asked herself nonstop since they parted. “At first I was his prisoner. He wouldn’t even use my name.” She gazed out at the dark trees. “That changed. I can’t really pinpoint when, but it did.”

It wasn’t just her name, it was a million other things. Like keeping her in his bed every night. At first, when he settled them in for sleeping, she thought him tucking her close was only possessive Alpha nonsense. But after a few nights, she realized that he nestled her against him, then rolled slightly, as if blocking out the rest of the world with his wide shoulders, making it just the two of them.

She loved how he caressed her face and ran his fingers through her hair, small touches of affection she’d never had. He didn’t look through her, or ignore her, or treat her like she was addled. “He might have softened toward me, but it isn’t enough to—” She shook her head. She wasn’t about to tell Cian about Lodan’s past. About how Lodan could never really care for someone related to the man who’d destroyed his family.

When she’d experienced the vision of his past, she’d thought her agony was despair over what happened to him. It was, but it was also despair for them. At that moment, she’d truly understood they didn’t have a future together. “I think I might love him,” she whispered. “But it’s impossible for us to be together.”

Cian joined her at the window and turned her to face him. “I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Have you taken strobile since you’ve been here?”

She shook her head.

“Good.” He took both of her hands in his. “I want you to close your eyes for a minute.”

Kassandra raised a brow. “What?”

“Just do it.”

Kassandra sighed but obeyed.

“Now, go inward. Listen to your Omega instinct. Or, as idiotic as it sounds, listen to your heart. What do you feel?”

She took a long moment, but all she felt was the perpetual ache of missing Lodan mixed with a wistful sorrow. “It’s all muddled. I miss him. That’s all.”

“There’s nothing in there urging you? Telling you he could be your bondmate?”

Lodan, her bondmate?

She opened her eyes. “No. No way. Things changed between us, but there wasn’t a thunderclap from the heavens giving me a bolt of recognition that Lodan was mine.”

Cian’s brow lifted. “Who told you it worked that way? No one knows how the recognition happens. It just does.”

She frowned and remembered her first night with Lodan. The night after he’d captured her, but before Cian gave her doses of strobile. Something had happened between them.

Yes, he’d been demanding and difficult, but the moment Lodan touched her, something inside woke up for the first time, and it had stayed awake ever since. Demanding more of him. Thrumming at his touch. That first night, it pushed her to offer the bond, and she’d resisted, but it never faded completely, not even with the strobile. It whispered at her when his lips claimed hers. It sighed out with longing when he knotted her.

She pressed her hand to the window again. “If we are bondmates, it’s a cruel joke. There is something between us that can never be overcome.”

“Are you sure? Because he’s not all right, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“He tore his tent to pieces and said he can’t ever sleep in his bed again. Actually, I’m not sure he’s slept at all since you left. He goes out scouting for the Sardi, or he’s with Xander pouring over dusty maps. He’s not acting like an Alpha who doesn’t care.”

Kassandra stared out the window again, peering into the thick trees as if they’d magically part, allowing her to see through them to the meadow beyond. “He tore his bed apart?”

“Yes.”

Pain slashed through her. “It doesn’t matter. It’s impossible for us to be together.”

Cian slumped against the window as if he’d suddenly gone boneless. “That’s how I feel, too. Xander may have thought he was following orders, but he had no qualms about treating you the way he did. He’s just another asshole in a long line of assholes, and I don’t see that changing.”

“Did you take strobile when you and Xander were together?”

“Of course. It’s better not to feel anything, then you don’t feel crushed when they aren’t who you think they are.” Cian sighed. “Although, I still felt …” he trailed off for a moment. “I felt a pull with him I never felt with an Alpha before. It was like we were going through a courtship dance as old as time, and it was almost inevitable. Like a path laid out by the gods. When he touched me, it felt like the first time I’d ever been touched, but it was also familiar, like I was returning home to something that was always meant to be.” He ducked his head, and his cheeks tinged with pink. It was the first time she’d ever seen him embarrassed. “I’m talking nonsense.”

She knew exactly what he meant. “No.” She followed him to the couch and slumped sideways to lean against him. “I think you should stop taking strobile, too.”

He slung his arm around her. “Then what? The Myrdinians will leave soon to hunt down the rest of the Sardi. I’ll never see Xander again.”

Her heart squeezed hard. Soon Lodan would be gone. “I think you should do it, anyway.”

They sat together in silence while the sun dipped below the trees and shadows lengthened in the room.

Cian decided to stay, and the days slipped by. The Myrdinians remained in the camp nearby but the troops left for longer and longer periods. Clara and the Dorians followed, slipping through the forests to observe the war’s progress. Kassandra heard snippets from Clara. She knew her brother was in an impenetrable fortress, keeping the Myrdinians at bay. For now.

Kassandra walked among the trees every morning, trying to memorize the winding routes down the mountain’s slope. Some led to the small lake, some to the fields. And one, the one she always ended up on, passed where the Myrdinians camped in the meadow with its sea of flowers.

Today, while she strode along that path, a large shape stepped from the trees. She let out a small cry and stepped back.

“Don’t be alarmed. It’s me. Xander.” He came closer. “Our scouts said you walk here every day, and I wanted a word.”

Kassandra halted and crossed her arms. “Are you alone?” She scanned the woods behind him.

He nodded, and the bubble of hope in her chest turned to stone. “Why did you seek me out?”

Xander’s gaze flitted over her shoulder and up the path to the village center. “The Dorians have been trading with us.”

“That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

Xander frowned. “The cook was so grateful for fresh food he sent a pie as a present to Leader Clara. Her mate charged into camp, sword in hand, ready to take his head off. I guess the Dorians give presents for courtship.”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s right. What are you?—”

“Is Cian getting presents?”

“What?”

Xander paced a few steps away. “Of course he is. Every Dorian male will want him.”

Kassandra watched him and said nothing.

“Cian isn’t … he wasn’t the reason why I came here.” He turned back to face her. “I came here to apologize for what happened in Argos. I haven’t felt right about it. We’re leaving tomorrow, and I didn’t want to leave without saying so.” He looked away. “Lodan was different when you were around. In a good way. In a way I thought he lost a long time ago. He stopped seeing you as an enemy, and I’ve worked at doing the same.”

Alphas didn’t apologize. Ever.

“I had a lot of assumptions about Myrdinians,” she said. “I didn’t see you all clearly for some time either.” She stared past him, catching glints of the golden grass of the meadow. “I can understand why you hated me.” Xander may not have lost his entire family like Lodan, but he’d lost everything else.

A long silence stretched between them, punctured only by the sweet calls of songbirds flying overhead.

“I appreciate you coming here and telling me,” she said. “You didn’t have to.”

Finally, Xander nodded. “That’s all I came here to say. I need to get back.” He gave her a small bow. “Take care.” He turned to leave.

“Wait.”

He paused.

“Why do you call him Lodan? You must have known him as Vasick.”

Xander jolted and faced her. “He told you his old name?”

“Yes.”

Xander sucked in a deep breath. “He stopped using Vasick a long time ago. He said Vasick died in Myrdinia, so he embraced the name that followed him across Anatolia. I think, to some degree, he was right about that. To tell you his real name means a lot.”

The scarred warrior appeared to be debating something, his brows furrowing. Finally, he said, “Myrdinian Alphas fall hard, and we only fall once.”

“He didn’t fall for me. Maybe he stopped hating me. Just a little.”

“He never would have touched you if he truly hated you. No matter what his plans were.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I saw how he looked at you from the first day you showed up at camp. Then, the night you played the lute, when he carried you away, I knew for sure there was something much bigger between you. I recognized it because for the first time, I understood what it felt like. What it’s like to meet someone who changes your entire world.” He shook his head and turned away.

Was he right? Xander knew Lodan better than anyone. Was Xander telling her Lodan cared for her?

She studied him a long moment. “You feel that way for Cian?”

He held her gaze, his expression fierce yet vulnerable. “From the first moment I saw him, I fell. There will be no other for me. Not even if he never speaks to me again. And it will be the same for Lodan.”

Tears burned behind her eyes. She was turning into a complete idiot, crying all the time. “Flowers.”

“What?”

“Pick Cian flowers. Pick the ones you think he’d like most.”

“Flowers?” He seemed incredulous, as if it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

She nodded. “It’s not about the most expensive gift, it’s about the most thoughtful. The one that speaks to his soul. He doesn’t believe real love exists and thinks everyone will disappoint him. Show him otherwise. Show him all those things Lodan told me Myrdinian Alphas do for those they love.”

“Flowers.” Xander smiled, and his entire expression changed. She caught a glimpse of the Alpha he might have been if war hadn’t hardened him. “Thank you.” With a nod, he returned to the path back down to the meadow.

She stood there a long time, wanting to follow Xander into camp and fling herself at Lodan, but the same barrier always knocked her back. Her family destroyed his. It was insurmountable.

She headed to her new home, instead.

Later that evening, Starli knocked on Kassandra’s door. Blooms of lupine cascaded from her arms, bound in rope with a scroll of parchment tied to it. She held the bundle out to Cian. “Another gift for you.”

Cian scooped up his flowers. “This is stunning. Who would think to give me flowers?” He unrolled the scroll, and his mouth dropped open. “Xander.”

“I saw him today,” Kassandra said. “He apologized to me about Argos. He’s an Alpha, and he apologized.”

Cian looked stunned. He nodded and, without a word to Kassandra or Starli, strode out of the room, cradling the flowers to his chest.

“And this is for you.” Starli handed her a single, perfect mountain rose. “These are rare, especially this time of year.” The perfect pink blossom was at the point where it had just started to open, the outer petals softening into a lighter blush. Starli frowned. “There’s no tag.”

“I know who sent it.” Her heart beat so hard the noise echoed in her ears. This could only be from Lodan. He’d remembered she said the mountain rose was her favorite flower and picked it for her. A perfect, beautiful flower. She brought it to her lips and inhaled. It was probably her imagination, but she thought she might be able to tease a small trace of his scent.

She closed the door behind Starli and collapsed against it, sliding down to the floor. Closing her eyes, she tried to sense with her instincts the way Cian had told her to. Was Lodan her bondmate? And if he was, would it change things?