Page 31

“Oh no, little bird,” he warned, the low sound rolling through me before his voice dropped even further. “Now, this time, you will listen.”

The silence between us filled only by the lingering aftermath of the chase and the sound of both of us trying to catch our breath.

My chest rose and fell rapidly beneath the bodice of my dress, my pulse still wild from running, fighting, falling, and everything else this ridiculous night had decided to throw at me. While Atlas stared down at me with an intensity that made it impossible to look anywhere else. The silence between us was filled only by the lingering aftermath of the chase and the sound of both of us trying to catch our breath.

Unfortunately for him, I was still angry enough to be reckless.

“What?” I snapped, lifting my chin despite the hand still resting against my throat. “Going to accuse me of being a whor…” I stopped the second that hand at my throat covered my lips, and he growled.

“I advise you not to finish that sentence… not for a third time.” The tone told me to take that advice. “Is that truly what you think I’d ever think of you?”

The question carried none of his usual arrogance and none of the teasing confidence that so often accompanied his words. It was built from disbelief and was plain and honest. Despite myself, I felt some of my certainty begin to waver beneath it.

“Well, what else was I supposed to think?” I demanded, folding my arms tighter across my chest. “You asked me what I gave Theron in exchange, and you certainly implied what it could be.”

A muscle tightened in Atla’s jaw as understanding finally settled over his features. I could almost see him retracing the conversation in his mind. Now piecing together exactly how we’d managed to arrive at this disaster.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was still strong, but the anger beneath it gave way to something far more vulnerable.

“There are many forms of payment.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but Atlas cut me off before I could. “The gift of your body wasn’t what concerned me.” The quiet certainty in his voice brought me up short, and for the first time since storming out of the previous room, I found myself actually listening instead of preparing my next argument.

“Theron is ancient,” Atlas continued, his gaze never leaving mine. “Powerful. Manipulative. Rich. Meaning men like him rarely want coin, for they have no need of it, and they rarely want something as simple as flesh. But what they want is loyalty, promises, and information. They want influence. They want secrets. They want pieces of people that are far more valuable than gold.”

His thumb shifted slightly against my skin, the touch so subtle I barely felt it, yet somehow impossible to ignore.

“They want courage. Intelligence. Trust. A little warrior’s spirit.”

Something inside me faltered, not completely, not enough to erase the hurt, but enough that the certainty I’d been clinging to began to crack. Atlas watched it happen… the man missed very little where I was concerned.

Unless it was calling me a whore, I thought dryly.

“You may be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he breathed, and there was no flirtation in the statement, no attempt to charm me or distract me from the conversation. If anything, the honesty behind it made it infinitely more dangerous. “But that doesn’t mean I’d assume you’d willingly give yourself to another.”

The words seemed to settle somewhere deep inside my chest, landing with a weight I hadn’t expected. Looking at him now, really looking at him, I suddenly saw something I had completely missed in my anger.

Atlas wasn’t upset because I’d shouted at him. He wasn’t upset because I’d thrown him onto the floor, elbowed him in the stomach, or forced him to chase me through half the castle like an escaped criminal. He was hurt because I had genuinely believed he thought so little of me. Because somewhere along the line, I’d convinced myself that when he looked at me, that was all he saw, and thinking that was wrong of me. He hadn’t deserved that.

Not. One. Bit.

“I would never think that of you.”

The conviction behind the words was absolute, and with it came the slow, uncomfortable realization that I had been wrong. The fight I’d been carrying since leaving the throne room began to unravel, then slowly enough that I felt every piece of it loosen. I stopped searching for a way past him, stopped calculating distances and escape routes. Stopped waiting for the next argument. Somewhere between his explanation and the look in his eyes, the misunderstanding that had seemed so enormous only moments earlier suddenly felt fragile. As though all it had ever needed was for us to stop running long enough to actually speak to one another.

I had been a fool.

And now, what was worse… I was a guilty fool.

Atlas seemed to sense the change in me. The hand resting against my throat disappeared now he knew I was no longer trying to escape him, and in its place, his fingers rose to my cheek. The touch was infinitely softer than it had any right to be, and the contrast nearly undid me.

The throne room was silent around us, with no shouting, no chasing, no frantic footsteps echoing across marble floors. Just the two of us suspended in the aftermath of a battle, neither of us had intended to fight, breathing the same air, and looking at each other as though seeing something new.

His gaze traveled slowly over me then, taking in the state of my hair, the flush still lingering on my cheeks, the dress I’d nearly destroyed trying to outrun him, before finally settling where I was sitting. Only then did I remember exactly where that was.

His throne.

Something dark and heated flickered through his expression, and the look that followed sent a completely different kind of awareness racing through me.