A Promise of Fire (13 page)

“Why have eight children only to terrorize them?”

I sigh, throwing my head back. “Sinta’s going to get squashed.”

“What makes you say that?” The sidelong look he slants me is heavy with warning.

Here’s something I never thought I’d say…
“You’re too nice.”

Beta Sinta’s eyes spark dangerously. “I’m fairly certain the Magoi royals weren’t thinking I was nice the night I plowed through them with my sword, and you’d do well to remember what I’m capable of, too. Don’t cross me, Cat. Ever.”

I mock shudder. “I’m so scared.”

He ignores my sarcasm, his hard stare hitting me even harder than usual. “I’m just as capable of making people miserable as other royals. I don’t do it for fun. That doesn’t mean I won’t.”

Did he just threaten me?
“Fine. I like to provoke. Warning ingested.”
And spit back out.
“You’re big and bad. I’ll try to remember.”

He arches a dark eyebrow. I think his lips twitch. “So. Eight children.” He pokes a stick into the fire, sending sparks spiraling into the gathering gloom.

I actually respect the way Beta Sinta can end an awkward situation and move on as if nothing happened. We brawl? So what. Everyone gets up, and it’s done. I swim around naked high on euphoria? It’s forgotten. Pretty much. I think… I insult him and insinuate that he can’t protect his realm? He tells me he’s as mean as the next guy when he wants to be, and it’s over, back to the eight children.

“Eight children should be enough to ensure the bloodline even with all the fighting among them. Andromeda is Alpha. Like most royals, to avoid coming under constant attack from her own children, she spent their childhoods teaching them to fear her and to hate each other. To them, she’s terrifying. Untouchable. They fight to become Beta, to inherit the throne. It’s suicidal to even think about trying to eliminate an Alpha like her.”

“But Betas challenge Alphas,” he argues.

“Not Alphas like Andromeda. But yes, otherwise, if the Alpha’s power dwindles, and when other threats, like siblings, are taken care of.”

“It’s not natural. Why not raise her family to be loyal to her? And to one another? They’d be stronger that way. A unit.”

“Because royals, and especially Andromeda, don’t think like you. Power is their ultimate goal. They challenge each other for it. They kill to get it, and they kill to keep it. Everything else is secondary, including emotional and family ties.”

“And you gleaned all this while spending eight months in a cage?”

Eh…
“It was an instructive period in my life.” I hesitate and then add, “But I was in the castle for a lot longer than that.”

He studies me, his eyes dark and metallic in the firelight. Reflecting the flames, they glint a burnished bronze. “How old were you?”

“You mean in the cage?” That’s not the question I was expecting.

He nods.

My lungs constrict in a familiar way, making it hard to breathe through the memory of lies, sneering grins, tempting food just out of reach, fists, flames, and blades, all snaking their way through the bars, and Andromeda’s face, a cold, marble mask, watching it all. “Nine.”

“Nine!”

“Don’t look so horrified. I’m lucky none of them killed me. Andromeda had guards on me day and night to avoid it coming to that.” I huff a bitter laugh. “The guards didn’t stop much else, though.” Only Thanos did. For brief, blissful moments I could sleep, and he kept everyone at bay.

Beta Sinta’s voice turns gruff with anger. “She caged you for your magic.”

I’m tempted to say “like you,” but things have changed too much for that. It wouldn’t be fair, and he’s nothing like Andromeda.

“Yes.” It wasn’t really a question, and I don’t elaborate. I don’t tell him how she encouraged the royal children to lie to me, or how she hid me behind screens during gatherings and made Ajax record my every twitch so she’d know who was lying to her.

“How did you get out of the cage?”

I stare at the tips of my boots, itching in my own skin, sick with the knowledge that Andromeda made me an accomplice to cavalier murder a hundred times over. “When I found out she was eviscerating people for utterly insignificant falsehoods, I learned to control my reactions. She knew I still felt the lies, but when she couldn’t beat the truths out of me, she let me out of the cage.”

“Odd she didn’t just kill you.”

I glance over at him. He could just as easily have said, “Odd she didn’t serve pheasant at dinner.” Sinta might survive after all.

“I’m too valuable to kill. Kingmakers are rare, and useful. She bribed me. More guards, food, clothing, beautiful accommodations. It worked for a while. I was only nine, and I’d just been tortured and deprived of all comfort for eight months.”

A mixture of fury and disgust contorts his features. “How did you get away? People don’t just let a weapon like you go.”

I give him the evil eye. “You should know. But you asked about the royals. Let’s talk about the royals.”

He starts to say something, but I cut him off. “Of the eight children, four were left. I killed Otis. That leaves Laertes, Priam, and Ianthe. They’re probably busy trying to kill each other off now that they’ve each moved up a rank.”

Ianthe had only just turned nine when I escaped Fisa City. Priam was eleven, Laertes thirteen. Andromeda was already hard at work turning them into monsters. Otis was fourteen. Now he’s dead.

“Are they all Magoi?” Beta Sinta asks.

I snort. “Andromeda’s line would produce nothing less. If by some fluke of nature it did, she’d probably drown the child at birth, like the unwanted runt of the litter.”

He grunts. “She sounds like a treat.”

I almost smile. That was funny. It would have been funnier if she hadn’t terrorized me for years.

“They mostly have Fire Magic. It’s common among Fisan royals, but they can all do different things with it. Needles of fire, Chimera’s Fire, fire whips, fire balls, flaming attack birds… You know, that kind of thing.”

“No,” he says broodingly. “I know very little of that kind of thing.”

I stare into the fire. Rabbit fat drips from the spit, making it spark and hiss. “Use your imagination. None of it’s fun.”

He’s silent for a while, using his imagination, I guess. “Did they attack you with fire in the cage?”

I sit up, drawing my knees under my chin. “Among other things. Torture is a favorite pastime in Castle Fisa.”

He looks at me strangely, a crease settling between his eyebrows. Compassion? Pity? I can’t tell. I don’t want either.

“But you absorbed it and sent it back?”

I shake my head. “Not then. I couldn’t do that then.”

I see the exact moment he puts the pieces together. It doesn’t take long. “The Oracle. The gift.”

I don’t deny or confirm, and I don’t tell him I was granted two gifts, or that I’ve felt Poseidon’s presence close to me ever since.

“The Fisan royals are abominations,” Beta Sinta announces.

I nod. I couldn’t agree more.

“What do you say we kill every last one of them?”

I turn, and my eyes crash into his.
For me?
“I’d say our goals have common ground,” I answer cautiously, a little breathless.

His gaze turns even more intense than usual, and heat swamps my insides. “Tell me about the others. The first four.”

“Why? They’re dead.”
Mostly, anyway.

“Humor me.”

It’s not in my nature to humor people. I start talking anyway. “Thaddeus killed Ajax. Lukia killed Thaddeus. Otis killed Eleni. And Lukia is missing.”

“The Lost Princess?”

I smile vaguely. “Heard of her?”

He nods. “I didn’t know her name, but I think everyone has heard of the Lost Princess of Fisa. Do you know why she disappeared?”

“The ambiance in Castle Fisa wasn’t exactly homey,” I answer tartly.

He grins. It’s wide and unexpected and sends a sudden thrill through me.

Shifting uncomfortably, I push the feeling aside. “Andromeda trapped Lukia and Eleni and then forced them into an arena, intending them to fight to the death.” I use words Beta Sinta will understand. “They were a team. They worked together to stay alive. The two girls actually liked each other, and Andromeda couldn’t have that. They were growing up, becoming more powerful,
thinking
. Their popularity was reaching dangerous levels, especially since Andromeda had none.”

“So she found a way to tear them apart?”

I shake my head. “They refused to fight. She deprived them of food, then water. When that didn’t work, she got in their heads. Compulsion,” I explain. “Planting ideas. Controlling actions. Making things seem…not what they are. They resisted. It took seven days and a lot of weakening for the princesses to come to blows. They were both half-dead by then. Eleni was older, stronger, and Lukia’s magic wasn’t useful in combat. But Eleni wouldn’t kill her sister, no matter what Andromeda did.”

“What happened?” he asks when I fall silent.

“Eleni could hardly walk. The pressure in her head must have been unbearable. She was bleeding from her ears, her nose, her eyes… She still put herself between her mother and Lukia. Andromeda grabbed her by the hair, said, ‘Weakness does not go unpunished,’ dragged her over to Otis, and handed him a knife. He stabbed Eleni through the heart.”

“Gods!” Beta Sinta breathes a curse. “That’s barbaric.”

For once, we agree.

“Were you still at the castle? What happened to Lukia?”

“A few days later she was gone, never to be seen again.”

“What did Andromeda do?”

“She went crazy. Lukia was her favorite.”

“She had favorites?” He says that like I just spouted gibberish.

“Didn’t your parents?”

“No. Never.”

I frown, trying to imagine a life like that.

“Why was Lukia her favorite?”

I’ve always wondered the same thing. I give him the truth, as far as I know. “Lukia was the only one without fire, like her mother. Their magic was different, more…internal. I guess Andromeda thought that made her special.”

“Didn’t it just make her weaker?” Beta Sinta asks.

The ghost of a smile haunts my lips. “Maybe it made her stronger. She had to fight harder to survive.”

“Makes sense.” He pulls out a long knife, the blade flashing in the corner of my vision. He lifts it, startling me, and my legs punch out on instinct, kicking the knife from his hand. People talk about fight or flight? That’s nonsense. It’s fight
and
flight. I twist and take off.

“Umph!” The air leaves my lungs as my chest hits the ground.

One second Beta Sinta is next to me, and the next he’s on top of me, heavy and volcanically hot. He flips me over and pins my wrists to the ground on either side of my head.

I blink.
What just happened?
He looks like he’s wondering the same thing.

“What are you doing?” he grates out.

My eyes widen.
I don’t know!
“I saw a knife.”

“And you assumed I was going to attack you?” Surprise colors his tone, and maybe some anger. His expression seems to question my sanity. “I was going to cut you a slice of rabbit for dinner.”

He was going to feed me? I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. Of course he wasn’t attacking me. It’s this conversation putting me on edge. I didn’t think. I just reacted. Fear and aggression are always so close to the surface. I was raised to fight, fight, fight. “I’m violent by nature.”

His grip eases on my wrists. He shakes his head, looking bewildered. “Save it for your enemies, Cat. That’s not me.”

I scoff and start thrashing.

His body presses me down. “You can’t fight me, so you might as well stop trying.”

Gah!
It’s true. I get nowhere. Beta Sinta doesn’t let me up, and he’s so close that I can see the dark-silver rims around his irises, and smell the sunshine and wind still clinging to his hair after the bright, breezy afternoon. His warm breath fans my lips, and my traitorous body turns pliant, some parts of me softening while others heat up, thrumming with tension. My lips part, and his eyes drop to my mouth, lingering there before flicking back up, softer now, heavier lidded.

Heat swirls through me, and something more potent, like need. I beat it down and glare daggers. “Get off! You weigh more than a Dragon.” I thrash again, moving about half an inch.

His arms tense as he lowers his head, inhaling long and deep in the curve of my neck. When he speaks, his lips brush the sensitive skin below my ear, and a shiver races from my head to my toes. In a low rasp, he says, “I like the way you feel.”

What!

He lifts his head, and his raised eyebrows tell me I didn’t just shriek that in my head.

“And you won’t admit it,” he says quietly, “but you like the way I feel, too.”

My eyes shoot wide open as shock ripples through me.
Do I like how he feels?
He feels hot and heavy and hard, and there’s more hardness growing against my thigh. My cheeks burn while something dangerously close to excitement flutters in my belly. Between my legs, the sudden emptiness throbs, muscles tensing in anticipation.
Stupid muscles.

“See how well we fit?” Beta Sinta’s question is like a toe-curling caress, soft yet urgent. “You have no idea how much I want to touch you.”

I gasp. I thought we had boundaries. Apparently not.

He takes advantage of my surprise to settle more firmly against me, rocking once. The movement is barely there, but it’s enough to send sensation crashing through me. He dips his head again, his cheek brushing mine. His tongue flicks the shell of my ear, and I inhale sharply, a jolt of desire thundering through me. His lips skim down my throat, his warm, suddenly ragged breath curling around my neck and captivating my senses. He nips softly at my hammering pulse. My whole body jerks under him. I stifle a moan.

Smoothing his thumbs over the insides of my wrists, he rises above me, his eyes never leaving mine. The sensual touch makes me tremble. So does the earthy roughness in his voice. “I never know what to expect with you. Worldly cynicism or blushing innocence. It’s enough to drive a man insane.”