Page 80 of A Vow of Embers

And then soothe him with soft kisses.

There was something seriously wrong with me.

“Is everything all right, wife?” I heard the laughter in his voice. He was enjoying this.

I needed to call back the anger. I couldn’t let desire rule me, because I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“Wife,” I said.

“You are my wife.”

“I don’t like it when you say it.”

His smirk let me know that it was why he had done it. Now that he knew it bothered me, he would probably go out of his way to continue doing it.

“Is that any way to speak to your husband?” he asked.

How I spoke to him was the last thing he should be concerned about. “I should slit your throat for demanding that I come in here. How dare you humiliate me in front of everyone?”

“I knew you’d be angry,” he said wryly, as if this were all some big joke he was having at my expense.

“Don’t ever do that again. I’m playing by your rules, but I won’t be publicly embarrassed like that. Ordered around like some—”

“Wife?” he offered in a helpful tone.

“Being a wife doesn’t mean I have to obey you. I am my own person and make my own decisions. I don’t care how things are done in Ilion.”

There was a long silence and his tone shifted to a serious one. “I would never expect your blind obedience.” He said it in a way that made me believe it was true and that he would find such a thing distasteful. Even though that was exactly what he had made me agree to in our contract. “And it wasn’t meant to embarrass you. Most women would not be embarrassed if I asked them to join me in my bath. They would be eager and excited.”

That Iwaseager and excited was beside the point. “It has been a few hours, so I suppose it is time for you to remind me how much other women desire you,” I said as sarcastically as I could, trying to cover up the pangs of jealousy I felt. I didn’t need the reminder that other women wanted him.I had heard them with my own ears. I curled my hands into fists so that I wouldn’t touch my mouth. “But I don’t fall into that category.”

He stood and I looked down at my feet. I heard him moving through the water and he came to the end of the pool and crossed his arms along the edge, letting his legs float out behind him. “As I recall, you enjoyed your time alone with me.”

I wondered what color my cheeks were now. I couldn’t even deny what he’d said. I could only feel like the world’s biggest fool for letting him seduce me so quickly and easily on a constant basis despite knowing better.

“What do you want?” I asked. “You pulled me away from that dinner, where I was speaking with two of the archons, attempting to get them on your side. Not to mention you’ve left Io alone with your stepmother.”

“Io will be fine. I have half my phratry watching over her. She knows how to navigate the court and my stepmother.”

She did seem a bit different here. As if there were a mask she put on so that she could turn into the person she had to be in order to survive.

I wondered if the same thing had happened to Alexandros. Maybe Jason had been his true self, away from the treachery of the palace.

What if I had misjudged him? The idea made my heart twinge slightly.

He leaned back and asked, “What are you thinking?”

There was no way that I could tell him where my thoughts had gone. “I was thinking how vulnerable you are right now without a weapon.” Did it sound like a threat? I wanted it to. I was afraid that it didn’t.

He gave me a silky smile that turned my legs to water. “Would you like to get into the pool and see how not vulnerable I am?”

My fevered mind grasped on to what he said, delighted with the excuse. I could go in there under the pretense of anger and one thing might lead to another.

“If you decided to join me, I would let you look at me, touch me, as much as you’d like.” His gaze traveled the length of my body. “As long as you afforded me the same privilege.”

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