I run my hand down his neck. “Memnon?” I call out again.
Where in the seven hells is the sorcerer? He finally has me in his bed where he’s been apparently angling to get me this whole time, yet now he’s the one missing.
I throw the sheets off, biting back an oath once I realize that I’m in an oversize shirt—his shirt—and my panties from earlier.
He undressed me. Of course he did.
Bastard.
A small, reasonable part of me is willing to throw the guy a bone—he probably just wanted me to sleep comfortably. But fuck him and the fact that he saw my tits while I’m still angry with him. I seethe at the thought.
Memnon, I all but growl down our bond.
The first thing I sense is his smile.
You’re awake, fiancée. Did you sleep well?
I grimace at that word. Fiancée. I swear he keeps using it just to rile me.
You better have closed your eyes when you changed me, I say.
All I feel is that persistent grin from his side of the bond, damn him.
And where are you? I demand.
Is someone upset that I wasn’t in bed with them when they woke?
I grind my teeth. He’s so cavalier and playful at the moment.
When are you coming back? I ask.
I feel glee from him. Miss me already?
If that keeps your fragile ego from shattering, then sure. I miss you so desperately I might die if I don’t see you again.
On the other side of our connection, things go quiet, still.
Finally, Memnon says, Speak to me like that again, and I will give you your heart’s greatest desires.
My heart desires to be rid of you. If you can give me that, sure, I will whisper some empty platitudes in your ear.
On the other end of the bond, Memnon is no longer jovial. If anything, I swear I sense a flicker of woundedness. I nearly cackle at the thought. I might not be defeated yet.
I will be home soon, he says instead.
Soon? Soon? The fuck does that mean? Fifteen minutes? Two hours? I need to know how much time I have.
But to him, I merely say, Oh good, then I’ll get the knives out and sharpened for your return.
His amusement returns. Empress, you’re speaking my love language. With that final, disturbing thought, he pulls away from the connection.
How does he even know about the concept of love languages? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I need to get out of here.
I glance at the oversize black shirt I wear.
Well, change, then escape.
I head for the walk-in closet next to the bathroom. Halfway there, a scrap of lace hanging inside it catches my eye.
My stomach bottoms out as, for an instant, I’m filled with dread that some other woman has been here with Memnon.
No, that can’t be right. Can it?
I hate that I care. He and his poor life choices can rot.
Still, my pulse pounds between my ears as I hustle toward the closet, drawn by a horrified fascination at what I might find inside.
Women’s clothing? Weapons? Bodies? Who the fuck knows.
The walk-in closet is about as big as my entire room at the coven. He’s such a rich bitch. Despite the space, there’s not much inside as far as Memnon’s clothes go. I see a handful of suits hanging up as well as some folded shirts and pants on the shelves.
Not that I’m paying much attention to those.
My eyes are pinned to that single scrap of lace, which now that I’m closer looks like a slip dress. I reach for it, my stomach plummeting at the thought of someone else wearing this around Memnon until I notice it has a tag still attached.
I exhale, my breath shaky. Okay, so it’s not some mystery woman’s. What a relief. For her, of course. Best not to get within striking distance of this dude.
Letting it go, I tug out another dress. This too has a tag still attached.
All the women’s clothes seem to have tags.
They’re also all roughly my size.
These are meant for me, I realize.
That really shouldn’t stun me—Memnon intends to marry me, after all. Still, this is…a lot.
An old feeling, one that belongs to Roxilana, rises.
This would’ve won her over. Easily.
Before Memnon took her away and married her, she had little to her name. Even for me, independent though I am, being doted on is alluring.
This is blood money, Selene. And the price is letting the asshole get his way.
Dicks will sprout wings before that happens.
I stare at the clothes a moment longer. I do have to get dressed, I concede. I rifle through the women’s clothing until I find a pair of jeans and a simple white shirt.
Goddess, forgive me for taking from the devil.
On a shoe rack below, there are three different pairs of shoes in my size, one of which happens to be a set of Doc Martens.
I grab the combat boots.
Forgive me, Goddess, for taking these too. And for keeping them.
I mean, it’s not every day one gets new Doc Martens.
Grabbing the items, I head into the bathroom and quickly pull on the clothes, my agitation growing. I don’t know where Memnon is, but the time I have before he returns is limited.
When I straighten, I notice that tucked into the bathroom mirror is a photo. Of me.
In it, I’m clinking a champagne flute with a few people who are off camera. I know from memory that it was taken this last New Year’s Eve, when Sybil and I and a few of her coven sisters were all at an apartment party. It’s an action shot of me, one where I’m genuinely smiling and my eye just happened to catch the camera.
My heart does a funny thing, finding this picture in Memnon’s otherwise bare bathroom, knowing he must’ve taken it from one of my photo albums and placed it here where he’ll see it every day, alongside his own face.
I stride out of the bathroom and snatch up my phone, which rests on one of the bedside tables. It clings to a mere five percent of battery life.
I slip it into my back pocket and survey my surroundings once more.
There’s not much to see in this room, nor was there much to the bathroom and closet. For some reason, I assumed there would be. Memnon is good at playing the game of rulers, and in the modern world, so much of that is owning lots of expensive things. But so far, there’s really not that much that screams self-involved.
I guess my warlord ex is a little too rugged to bother with more creature comforts. That, or he’s still amassing his wealth, one victim at a time.
I need to go, now.
Yet my attention moves to the one place where Memnon has accumulated items: his bookshelf. Without intending to, my feet lead me over to it.
There are books from Pliny the Elder written in their original Latin, alongside the Greek versions of The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Herodotus’s writings, and some ancient poetry. There’s a biography of Nero as well as some histories of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas that span the time frame when Memnon and Roxilana lived.
My eyes move to the lower shelves, where they snag on the familiar spines of my notebooks.