by Maisey Yates
“Those that did not were always viewed with suspicion. But it was my great-grandfather who decided that it could be no more. That he would stamp out all that made them... Them.
“I was a gift sent to them, Agamemnon said. To right the wrongs that had been done. And it is as you said... You only know what you were raised with until you are shown something else. It is injustice that was done to the people of the forest. And I am the one that was sent to make it right.”
“Did Agamemnon never read you stories?”
“No. Not as such. Not tucked into my bed. But he told me tales around the fire. He taught me to hunt and take my own food. Taught me to cook. Taught me to fight. He made me hard, and he made me a man. I went from being a prince who knew how to do nothing but sit at his own corner of the table and eat...chicken nuggets that had been prepared for him. Who spent his days playing ball with his brother... I became a man very quickly. But in the wood there is nothing else.”
“Did you ever miss it? Did you miss being a boy?”
“I forgot about it,” he said. “Because as you say... It is easier.”
And he had not realized that he had quite so much in common with Agnes until that moment. But he hadn’t even realized he’d felt that. Hadn’t realized it was what he was going to say until just then. But it was true.
“I became something new.”
“And you like what you have become?” she asked.
“The man I became is the man that saved you in Paris. The Prince of Liri would not have done that. I’m sure you heard how debauched my brother Dionysus was. What would’ve stopped me from becoming such a man?”
“Alex is not that man,” Agnes said. “Read anything about him, and you’ll see that he is upright, moral. He is very like you, I think.”
“So you think. But I’m not convinced.”
“And what would it take to convince you?”
“There is nothing,” he said. “But it does not matter. We are of one goal, Agnes. And that is justice, yes?”
“I suppose.”
“What about... What about in life?”
She tilted her head, looking at him from the corner of her eye, as though she were suspicious. “I have thought little about my life since coming to you. I have not had to. All needs have been met. And like you... I became stronger. I learned to hunt. I learned to fight. If I have to survive, then I can, and I will. And beyond that...”
“You will go off in the world to have experience.”
“You’re the one who said I should.”
“And you are the one who decided it should be permanent. So what is it you dream of?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
AGNES DIDN’T KNOW how to answer that question. Nor did she know what to do with... All of this. For she had never sat and had a conversation with Lazarus as though they were... As though they were friends.
“I once dreamed of safety,” she said. “And I found it. I dreamed of always being fed, and you have given me that as well. I’m not certain I know how to dream bigger than that.”
“Come now. The girl that went and ate bread at the Eiffel Tower, she did not only dream of bread. What did you dream of?”
“What all people do, I suppose. Yes, I know a great many people dream of jobs. Work and what they will be when they grow up. But those things shift with time, and change. You might want to be an astronaut when you’re a child because you don’t know how difficult it is to get to the moon. I didn’t dream of those things. I did wonder what it would be like, though, to be loved. Not used. But loved. When I dreamed of someone coming to rescue me, I often thought of my grandparents. The ones I never really got to know. Yes, I often thought of them. I just dreamed of what it could be if I... If I found a safe place with people who might open their arms to me. I dreamed of friends.”
“A lover?” he pressed.
Her skin flushed, and she remembered, all too well, the heat that Lazarus generated in her body. The truth was she had never dreamed about a lover, not before she met him. Men had always represented something rather frightening. Something foreign and potentially dangerous. And then... Then she had dreamed of a man’s touch. Especially when they had begun their training. When he had held her tight and invited her to try to escape him, her whole body had been flushed with heat. And she had not wanted to escape him, not at all, no... She had wanted to lean into him.
She had wanted his hold to change, had wanted his touch to become tender. She... She was so strangely aroused by the man, and then had begun to fall in love with him. Her loyalty had become something different, something deep. But the way that he observed the separation between them had provided safety.
Her hormones had been out of control, he had spent his own with women closer to his age. Women who were not sad teenagers with terrible crushes.
But still, his calloused hands always made her shiver. And sparring exercises became the most erotic experience in her life.
Until the sword fight in his Parisian penthouse. Until he had...
And then in the baths.
Where she had seen his body. Really.
“Of course I should like one,” she said. “I am a warrior, but I am not made of stone. Yes, it has been the easiest thing to devote myself to my training and cast off the idea of having a lover. But... But that is not...is not all I want.”
“And so you should leave me and find a man to take as a lover?”
“Perhaps I will,” she said, feeling angry now. “Perhaps I shall go off and find myself countless lovers. How many have you had?”
He chuckled. “I do not know the number. Is that what you truly want?”
She wanted him. But it terrified her. She wanted him, and she did not know what to do about that.
She wanted him, but something about it terrified her. Perhaps it was that he was... All things to her. A man of great beauty and consequence. The one who had given her shelter, who had given her purpose. The one who had changed her life.
Perhaps that was why.
He leaned close to her. “I could teach you.”
His words were dark and rich like the coffee that she had just drunk with her cake. And the temptation in them was... It was so deep. So real.
“I could show you all the things your body can do, Agnes. But you deserve more than that. More than a simple training.”
And now it had gone from temptation into something much, much more dangerous.
“You deserve to have a man take his time with you. To give to you. Has anyone given to you, darling?”
“I... You have given me much.”
“I would like to lay you on a soft bed and spend an hour tasting your skin. Every inch of it. I would like to make love to you. Slowly, the first time. But then... You are a warrior. You always were. A woman and a warrior. And I see that. You would not be content only with slow and sweet, would you? You want to sword fight. And I would give it to you. I would test your strength while I held you in my arms. And you would test mine. I want that. Do you know... All of my lovers have been so very soft. I have never had a woman quite like you. And the idea intrigues me. More than intrigues. I want to know what it would be like to take all of your strength and have it pressed against me. Naked. So, this is why it can never be just a training. Because I need you to show me what your body can do. I need you to show me what mine could do. What it could do only with you. The pleasure I think we might find...”
He was looking at her, and he did not break focus. His words were slow and true, and achingly deliberate. Each one felt like a touch, like that promised caress. Each one felt something like magic. And she wanted it. So very desperately.
She wanted those words to turn into touch. Wanted this moment to turned into more. The pulse at the base of her thighs throbbed, and she could scarcely think past it. Was this why women made whole fools of themselves after men? She had see
n women do it at the camp. Giggling after Lazarus. Wanting so badly for him to turn his attentions to them. But he did not have time for the giggly ones. He preferred experienced women, at least he always had. An observation she had made. And one that made her feel even more like she was in her own category.
But he had said... He had said that he had never wanted a woman like her before. That he had never been with one.
And that was the greatest temptation of all. He leaned across the space, and he touched her lips to his.
And her body caught fire.
His kiss was achingly slow, deliberate. But not for show, not like the one in the restaurant. He parted her lips with his tongue and tasted her deep, and she became lost in the slick rhythm. Lost in the feel of his mouth on hers like so.
His kisses made her feel drugged. And she slowly began to lose all resistance. All worries. Because there was nothing but this. Nothing but that large calloused hand on her face, stroking her rather than holding her for a fight. His mouth was not issuing commands, but rather demanding response with each pass of his lips over hers.
This was more dangerous than any battle she had ever engaged in, and she was going into it willingly. With all that she had in her. She was so desperate and wet between her legs, needy for something she knew only he could give.
Hadn’t he given it to her once? The touch of his tongue on her most intimate flesh.
The kiss he had given her there would reverberate inside of her for the rest of her life.
And how much more so if he took possession of her? With that thick, glorious male member of his that she had seen for the first time in the baths.
She had been afraid then.
Because she had felt like he wanted her... Well, she didn’t know why. He had been angry. She could see that. Angry, and his touch had been a demand in a way that had frightened and confused her.
But this was different.
This was different.
She found herself pressing as near to him as she could without falling off of her chair, and then he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her directly to his chair, bringing her legs on either side of his, placing the heart of her directly in contact with that hardest part of him. And she gasped. And found herself moving her hips in a sensuous rhythm that she somehow simply knew, even though she had never done anything like this before.
She just knew.
Her body knew exactly what it was required to do. And she was chasing pleasure. Chasing the desire that he aroused in her with all the intensity that she possessed in her soul. An intensity created by her time with Lazarus. For before she had been soft. Before she had been nothing more than a leaf drifting on the wind. And now she created the wind. All because of him.
And together... Together they were making a storm.
She cupped his face, kissing him back, deep and hard and with all of the longing inside of her. She rocked her hips against his arousal, gasping as he hit that spot that was so aroused with desire for him.
Oh, how she wanted to feel him there. Hard and thick, surging within her, and even though the idea frightened her, those virginal nerves that few could ever outrun, she also needed it. Craved it. Desired it above all else.
“Lazarus,” she whispered.
“Yes?”
“Lazarus, I...”
“You can still speak,” he said, dragging his thumb down her face. “That means I have not done a good enough job.”
She wanted to protest. He had done a fine job. She was gasping with her need for him. Desperate.
“Tonight, I think you shall sleep, Agnes. And you will not be bothered by me.”
Bothered. She was not bothered. Well, she was bothered. Rather warm with it.
But she wanted...
“I want you desperate, darling.”
“Darling?”
He had called her that about twice.
“Agnes,” he said, in that way only he did. “Darling Agnes.”
And she did not know what to do now, for he set her back in her chair, and she felt unsatisfied and confused. He had said that when it came to sex you had to be mindless and not in control, but he still was. Or he would not have stopped it. She would not have stopped. She would have let him take her there on the terrace. She would not have been able to control herself.
And why did he want her now?
That thought pounded in her head while she sat there and finished the last slice of her cake. And again as they made their way to their bedchamber.
“Lazarus? What do you want with me?”
“I have been giving it a great deal of thought, Agnes,” he said. “And I think... Yes, I said that I wanted you to see the world. I stand by that. You should have some experience away from me. But... When you return I want you to be my wife.”
CHAPTER NINE
AGNES COULD NOT believe what she was hearing. He wanted her to be his wife?
“What do you need a wife for?”
“I’m to be King. I will need a wife. And I will need heirs. You are... You are bound to me in a way that I cannot explain. And now I think I understand it. This is what was always meant to be. I could never have a soft princess by my side. I need a warrior. It is built into my blood. On the deepest level of who I am. That is what I require.”
And then he disappeared into the bath chamber, and she heard the water running for the shower a moment later.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her pulse pounding heavily. He wanted her to be his wife. He wanted her to be his wife because she made sense.
But with that she would have... She would have a permanent place by his side, and there would be no other women. And for Agnes, who had never done much dreaming, it was...
But it was not about love.
And she had dreamed of love once.
But you know how the world works. It is not so simple. Neither was it half so wonderful as she’d once dreamed.
It was true. How could one woman ever hope to have all of those things? A place in Lazarus’s heart and by his side. Ample food and shelter.
But he’s bent on revenge...
He was. And he would say it wasn’t revenge, he would say that it was...
But there was more. He spoke of his family, and they were not bad memories. And yet something in him was twisted in regard to them, and it wasn’t just the stories that Agamemnon had told him. She could sense that.
Inside of him was a frightened boy whose father had not found him. It was another man who had saved him from the jaws of the wolves.
It wasn’t true that they had never really looked for him? Was it true they had not done so because of what had happened generations before with the people of the forest?
She wondered. And if she wondered, then he certainly did. He certainly did.
She sat, and she waited. And decided what she was going to do.
And there was only one conclusion she could come to.
That his seduction at the table was more calculated than he would have her think. And she had to test it. If this was a battle, then she would have to pick up her sword. If this was a battle, then she would have to test herself in truth. And test him.
And there was only one way to do so.
You should be mindless.
You should be unable to stop.
Agnes stood slowly from the edge of the bed and crossed the space to the wardrobe where her things had been put. Everything that she had tried on at the Parisian fashion boutique, and many things she had not.
And she was gratified by what she found.
There was an outfit—it could be called that—made entirely of gold lace. Open up the front, with a belt at the waist, and a pair of the tiniest undergarments she had ever seen. Just for the lower half.
She stripped all of her clothing off and put it on. And examined herself i
n the mirror. She could see the shadow of dark hair between her thighs through the underwear. Could see the dusky hint of her nipples beneath the lace of the dress.
And he would see them as well. But he had seen her naked already, so why not this?
Why not?
And she waited. Waited for him to emerge again.
And when he did, he had nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, his glorious torso gleaming in the golden light, water droplets rolling down his chest, rippling over his ab muscles. He was a truly beautiful man. The most beautiful that she had ever seen.
And will you regret this?
No. The answer came, swift and simple. Whatever happened after this, she would not regret it.
Because there were only two possible outcomes. He would pass her test, and she would agree to be his wife. She would. It was that simple. Or he would fail and... Well then, she would remain a virgin. And she would go on into her new life and find another lover. One who was mindless for her.
“Agnes,” he said, his voice rough.
He was not unaffected.
“As we have discussed,” she said. “You are not my King any longer. I do not have to follow your every order.”
“Do you not?” His voice was deceptively calm. But she knew him well enough to know that a person could not have any sort of false sense of security when it came to Lazarus.
“You stopped things before I was ready.”
“You don’t know what you’re ready for.”
