One corner of his mouth curled up. “Good genes?”
“Good something.”
“I practiced flashing earlier today.” The grin on Max’s face lightened the ache in her chest. And gods, his smile at full force was dazzling. “Casey told me how it works. Want to see? We could go outside right now and I could show you. I bet I could flash all the way to the castle if I tried.”
Wonderful. A manipulator. Just like his father. Between the two of them, she didn’t stand a chance.
“There are guards all over the castle,” she said. “After everything that happened, they’re being extra cautious with security for the…event.”
The binding ceremony. Zander’s binding. Her stomach pitched hard. She couldn’t possibly be contemplating going to the castle. Not now. What good would it do? Nothing had changed. They still couldn’t leave with him and he’d never go without her. Butterflies took flight in her stomach.
“I’m pretty sure I can get us in.” The look of utter confidence on his face struck her, and in that moment he was the picture-perfect image of Zander.
She would never be free of the guardian. No matter where she went or what she did, Zander was always going to be a part of her. And though she’d tried to convince herself what she felt for him was trivial, in the end it was everything. He was everything. Max was right. She couldn’t kill his hope because she thought it would make things easier. She’d spent her whole life resenting those who laid claim to her, and yet the one person she now knew she truly belonged to was the only one who thought she didn’t care.
Her heart pounded hard in her chest. Images, memories, pictures of Zander were all she could see.
Max lifted his brows. “Ready?”
“No,” she whispered as her pulse beat like wildfire. When it came to Zander she was never ready. But this time, at least, she knew she was doing the right thing.
“Yo, Z. It’s time.”
Zander turned from the window he’d been staring out the last twenty minutes and looked across the gigantic bedroom suite on the third floor of the castle—correction, his bedroom suite—toward Titus, decked out in his Argonaut dress uniform, dwarfing the doorframe and anteroom beyond.
The guardian wore the same ensemble Zander did—tight-fitting dark trousers, a white tunic cinched at the waist, the traditional leather breastplate decorated with the seal of his forefather and a cloak made of differing colors based on a guardian’s lineage, which fell over his left arm and was anchored at his shoulder with a bronze leaf. Titus, being from Odysseus’s line, wore a blue cloak. Zander’s was amber.
Titus let out a low whistle as he looked around the room. “Sweet digs. You could hold a party in here and still have room to house the Misos while they look for a new base camp.”
Zander glanced around the massive and stifling room with its soaring ceilings and gold everything as his stomach rolled all over again. Man, he hated this. Hated every part of it. He was so fucked it wasn’t even funny. And there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it.
He drew in a steadying breath and wished for his old friend, rage, to push its way forward so he had an excuse to escape. But it didn’t. It was nowhere to be found.
“You okay, old man?” Titus asked quietly from the door.
Realizing he was staring off into space and that this was a conversation he didn’t want to have with anyone—especially someone who could read his pathetic mind—Zander gave his head a shake and forced his feet forward. “I’m fine. Let’s just go do this and get it the hell over with.”
“Spoken like another happy groom,” Titus muttered, stepping out of the doorway to let Zander pass.
They made it to the top of the grand stairs before his skin started to itch under the greaves—the ancient shin guards that ran from his boots to his knees over his pants. To keep the panic at bay, Zander focused on the sensation of the leather rubbing the cloth into his skin as he moved, and counted the minutes until he could be back in his room—alone—staring out at nothing.
The royal temple was located in the courtyard of the castle. By now the Council would be seated, including the other Argonauts and Orpheus who—motherfucker—he still couldn’t believe was being fast-tracked to replace Lucian when he retired. Sure, he owed Orpheus for saving Callia and Max on that hillside, and as Gryphon was a guardian himself, that left Orpheus as Lucian’s only blood relative who was eligible for the seat. But Orpheus on the Council of Elders had bad news written all over it. Even Zander could see that much.
He was so caught up in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the commotion one floor down near the main doors until he and Titus rounded the newel post at the top of the first floor.
“Looks like the Executive Guard’s finally good for something,” Titus mumbled at his side. “At least they’re keeping the rubberneckers back from your nuptials.”
Zander peered down to where someone was arguing with the two guards at the door. When the guard on the left tried to muscle the person back, a small voice said, “Get your hands off her.” The guard went sailing backward to land on his ass on the shiny marble floor.
Zander froze. He knew that voice. He moved down three steps, his eyes searching for his son.
“Zander! Wait!” Callia broke free of the second guard and sprinted across the lobby toward him. Zander’s eyes grew wide. Shouts rang out behind Callia. In his peripheral vision, Zander saw Titus speed past him toward the door, but he barely cared. All he saw was her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked when she reached him. “Max. I thought I heard—”
“Max is fine.” Callia’s chest rose and fell with her labored breathing, and her cheeks were rosy and wet, as if she’d just run a mile in the rain. “He can’t flash to save his life, though.” A hysterical laugh slipped from her perfect mouth. “He can take down a demigod, but he can’t flash. He gets that from my side of the family, you know. Overachievers have trouble with the simplest tasks.”
His brow lowered as his eyes searched her face. He was having trouble following her, had no idea why she was here, but couldn’t look away if his life depended on it. “Callia, if nothing’s wrong with Max, then what are you doing here?”
“I…” Her eyes shifted to the side, and his followed. He caught sight of his son, just as wet and out of sorts as she was, near the main doors, helping Titus set the guard on his feet.
Callia stepped in front of him, blocking his view, until all he saw was her face. “See? He’s fine. I…I needed to see you. To talk to you before…” She swallowed hard, pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks. “Oh, gods. This sounded so much saner in my head on the way over here.”
“What are you—?”
“Oh, Zander. I lied.” Her hands moved to his chest, and even beneath the layer of leather and cloth, his skin warmed from the contact. “When you came to see me yesterday I thought I was making things easier, but I see now I wasn’t. All I was doing was taking away your hope, and no one should have to live without that. I mean, you might as well be a daemon without it. And you’re not a daemon, are you?” She looked up at him with the softest eyes he’d ever seen. Like amethysts mined from the purest ores, polished to a gleaming shine.
Of course, she made no sense whatsoever, but when she looked at him like that, as if some part of her still cared, he could almost believe the things that had happened between them—all the really awful stuff—were nothing more than memories.
“Did you hear what I said, Zander?” Her hands landed gently on his face, and that warmth spread hot over his skin, drawing him back to her words. “I was wrong to take that from you. Just as I was wrong to keep my love for you to myself. It doesn’t change anything, I know that, but it wasn’t right and I—”