Her Lord of Death: A Mythic World Romance by Kyla D. Knight

Author:Kyla D. Knight [Knight, Kyla D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

“Thank you, Irini,” Kora murmured, accepting a plate of pancakes drizzled with honey and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Irini knelt before her, and Kora reluctantly met the girl’s eyes. Kora had always thought Irini’s eyes quite beautiful, a soft chestnut color that took on a honeyed tone in the warm morning light drifting through the balcony doors. Kora did not like the concern in those eyes; she did not want to talk about Acheron.

Her tongue made a liar of her. “Do most Cretans have brown eyes?”

Irini gave a contemptuous sniff. “He is not pure Cretan.”

It always surprised Kora that Irini clung to the pride of her heritage, considering that her people had made a slave of her. Or rather, her father had, selling her to pay his debts, but no Cretic law had stopped him.

Kora said, “I only once saw green eyes like his, when I came ashore in Trezen after the shipwreck. A priestess there cared for me.”

Irini gripped Kora’s knees, impatient to get to the heart of things. “What has he done?”

“Nothing,” Kora said, and her eyes prickled, for though it was true, it did not feel that way.

She nudged one of the pancakes through a sticky pool of honey. The truth, which she could not speak to Irini, was that Acheron had embarrassed her. Her cheeks burned at the memory of her passion. How could they not, when he hadn’t returned it? Don’t fucking touch me, he had said—right after she had come apart again and again under his hands.

She was concerned about him, and she wished that her concern were pure and selfless, that she felt nothing else. She wished she could shake off this dead feeling and ask only why he had reacted so badly, but she couldn’t. She had laid herself bare to him in every sense, and he had turned away in anger, had left her raw, exposed, and alone.

Irini’s fingers dug into Kora’s knees, but a knock at the door spared Kora the girl’s next question. Grumbling about intrusions before breakfast, Irini went to answer it.

Kora told herself that she didn’t want to see Acheron, but she was disappointed to find it wasn’t him in the doorway.

“Your Highness,” she said, rising from her chair and setting aside her untouched plate.

Medea swept across the room, and Kora was startled when the queen took her hands in a warm, friendly grip. Medea’s eyes were worried. “I had to see that you are well.”

“Yes, of course, quite well. Won’t you sit?”

“I was so upset when I heard where they found him last night. I thought surely he would have put those habits behind him now that he is married.”

“Found him?” The words made Kora’s mind trip over an image of Acheron unconscious, covered in blood and dirt on the floor of the Mother’s temple in Megara. Fear edged into her voice. “Is he all right?”

Medea laid a cool palm against Kora’s cheek. Her eyes were sympathetic. “I dare say he is. But I see I must start from the beginning.

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