Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
“Attes?” Nyktos stopped the other Primal as he folded his arm across my waist. “Why did you kill Kyn’s guards?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Attes’s shoulders went rigid as I remembered them speaking about Kyn’s guards when Attes had come to tell us that the coronation would need to be delayed. “They were taking young ones years out from entering their Culling to their encampments,” he said, and a rumble of disapproval radiated from Nyktos and against my back. “It wasn’t to keep them safe, so I gutted them and then ended them.”
The Primal then bowed before pivoting on his heel. I watched him leave the atrium, the curtains settling back into place behind him.
“Were you not expecting that answer?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t have a few months ago,” he said, stretching out one leg as I kept mine tucked between his.
I turned my head toward his, speaking as quietly as he had. “Did it seem like Attes was…looking out for me?”
He nodded as he glanced over the atrium. The eather had subdued in his eyes, but his gaze remained alert. “It did—does.”
“So maybe you can stop threatening to rip out his eyes?” I suggested. “He could be a…friend.”
“Then he should stop looking at you like he wants to taste you.”
My brows shot up on my forehead. “First off, he was not looking at me like that.”
“That is the only way he looks at you.”
“And even if he was, you have no right to be jealous,” I reminded him.
“Agreed. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am, and that Attes will inevitably find himself having to regenerate his eyes.” He turned his head to our left.
A door near the dais opened, and a woman walked out carrying a tray of glasses. She had her tightly curled hair swept back from her face, and her painted mask shimmered against the cool, black tones of her complexion. My attention shifted to the body-length garment—a loosely fitted peplos gown made of a nearly transparent material. Golden bangles were stacked on her slender arms from her wrists to her elbows.
“Is everyone required to wear gold here?” I asked as the woman approached us.
Nyktos snorted. “His Majesty does favor the color—the symbolism.”
The woman stopped before us, keeping the tray level as she bowed deeply. “Would you care for refreshments, Your Highnesses?”
My gaze lifted to hers. The woman’s eyes were a dark brown, and there was no hint of an aura behind the pupils. Was it possible that she was a godling who hadn’t Ascended? Or a mortal? A Chosen. My chest squeezed as I looked over the glasses, my gaze settling on one with dark, purplish liquid inside. Curious, I reached for it.
“That would be an unwise choice,” Nyktos murmured, reaching around me to pluck a slender glass of amber liquid from the tray. He handed it over to me and then took another. “Thank you,” he said to the woman.
Surprise flickered across the woman’s face, gone in a blink as she ducked her chin and bowed once more. Rising, she turned to make her way to where Hanan stood, still not having taken notice of us.
Which was okay by me.
“What was in the other glass?”
“Radek wine, made from grapes found in Kithreia,” he said, taking a sip.
“That’s…Maia’s Court, isn’t it?”
“It is. The wine is a fairly potent aphrodisiac.”
“Oh.” I glanced quickly at Nyktos and then back to where the woman offered the tray to Hanan. “Exactly how potent?”
“I’ve never partaken of it, but I’ve heard it will leave one wanting for three full days.”
Eyes widening, I took a drink of what turned out to be whiskey. “Kind of hard to imagine one would have the stamina for that.”
“I can,” he murmured, irises bright behind half-open eyes.
I stared at him. “I bet you can.”
One side of his lips curved up. I looked away, slowly sipping the whiskey as I tracked the veining in the marble, following the lines and curves to the atrium’s center. I squinted, lowering the glass as I leaned back just an inch or so. Nyktos’s arm tightened as I followed those lines in the floor again. They weren’t natural marks, but in the design of a…
A wolf.
A large, prowling, snarling wolf.
Nyktos tilted his head to mine. “Did you feel something outside? With Dyses?”
Blinking, I drew my gaze from the floor. “I…I felt nothing.”
He nodded, his jaw hardening. A sign that he understood what I wasn’t saying.
“Is it just me, or is there a design in the floor?”
“It’s not you,” he confirmed. “That is if you see a wolf.”
“I do. It reminds me of the crest on your throne doors.”
“It should because it’s nearly identical. It’s the crest of my father’s bloodline. Both his and Kolis’s.” He paused. “And mine.”
The smoky whiskey scorched my throat. I wanted to ask how he felt about sharing the same crest as his uncle, but I knew that this wasn’t the place for it. My gaze drifted back to the wolf, and I thought of the kiyou wolf I’d brought back to life—how fierce and brave it had been, even on the edge of death. “Why is the wolf the crest?”