Theron glanced toward the cathedral window and the view of Tiyrns down the hill below. A bird flew over the parapet, swooped low into the courtyard and landed on the fountain’s edge. He followed the flap of its wings as the time line he’d been ticking off in his mind jumped to light speed. He’d spent precious hours with Casey, when he’d been needed here.
“How long?” he asked. “How long do you think she has left?”
“I’m not sure,” Callia said softly at his side. “Could be days. Weeks. Possibly longer. But one thing’s certain, Theron. She’s not strong enough to produce an heir. A pregnancy would seal her death warrant.”
No, he’d been wrong. He did feel something. A shred of impending loss for Isadora. And a low, searing ache at the bottom of his heart for their race. This changed everything.
His gaze snapped to Callia. “This goes no further. The Council cannot be told.”
“You’re the only one. As her future mate, it’s your burden to bring this to the Council of Elders when you see fit.”
He nodded, though it was a duty he didn’t particularly look forward to. He was a fighter, a soldier who commanded an elite band of guardians against those who would destroy their world if they could. He cared little of politics and status and the bickerings of the Council. If Isadora died without producing an heir—even if he did marry her—the Council would never allow him to become king. And the direction of the Argonauts would shift forever.
He looked toward the king’s bedroom door.
“Try not to stay longer than necessary,” Callia said. “He’s frail. If you have any other questions regarding the princess, come find me.”
Callia stepped around him, leaving him alone in the deserted grand hall. When she disappeared from sight, he rubbed a hand over his face, and fleetingly thought of Casey. Staying with her would have been a helluva lot easier and way more pleasurable than coming back to all this.
The king’s nurse rose from behind a large desk when he stepped into the outer sitting room. Theron waited while she checked to see if the king was up for a visitor.
When she returned, her lips were drawn down in a disapproving frown and lines creased the skin between her eyes. It was a look he’d seen often from her over the last few weeks. Not that he cared.
“Not long,” she said. “He needs his rest.”
He rapped on the bedroom door and waited. And told himself that somehow he’d find a way to save Isadora. It was his duty, not only as the leader of the Argonauts, but as her future husband.
“Come in, son,” a weak voice called from the other side of the door. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
From his chair near the window, King Leonidas gestured for Theron to join him with one frail, bony hand. “Come, come. Sit.”
The elderly ándras had lost weight since Theron had seen him only a week ago. His red-checked pajamas and blue silk robe hung on thin shoulders. Hair becoming more and more silver captured the sunlight shining through the tall windows. Lines Theron hadn’t noticed before deeply creased the king’s sagging face.
As Argoleans only began to age during the last twenty-five years of their lives, the changes in Leonidas were amplified more each day. It was to be expected, yet each wrinkle and jutting bone seemed like a cruel death sentence to such a wise and boisterous male, and not for the first time, Theron cursed the gods who gave them such amazing powers but limited their existence to that of mere mortals.
“I’ve been waiting for you, my son.” Leonidas nodded weakly toward the double doors Theron had closed at his back. “The old hag with the thermometer could rule the Argonauts with an iron fist and run Zeus himself into the ground if she wanted. Don’t show fear, lad. She smells weakness.” A mischievous glint lit his eyes as he glanced at Theron’s jacket. “Did you bring me a gift?”
Theron reached into his coat. The king had few weaknesses, but among them was his well-known penchant for Irish whiskey. Whenever Theron went into the human world, he brought a bottle home with him just for the king.
It was one of the things Theron had always enjoyed most about Leonidas—his passion for life, so unlike other Argoleans who were, as a race, more reserved. He suspected the king had developed his desires during his time secretly spent among the humans, but the elder ándras never spoke of those days, and Theron had never bothered to ask.
Theron pulled the bottle from the inner pocket of his leather jacket and handed it to the king. “If she finds this contraband, I’m going to have to turn you in.”
The king grabbed the bottle like a parched traveler in a dusty desert. “Pansy.”
The human slang brought a smile to Theron’s lips as he eased into a chair across from Leonidas.
The king broke the seal and took a long swallow of Jameson, then let out a contented sigh. “The damn Irish got one thing right. If you were half as smart as Zeus contends, you would have bought a bottle of this magic for yourself when you were there.” His violet eyes narrowed with unseen knowledge. “But you didn’t. Did you?”
“No.”
The king took another long swallow and eased back into his seat. Though Leonidas’s body had decided after six hundred and eighty-four years it was time to wind down, his mind was still sharp as a tack. And the cunning light shining in his eyes confirmed exactly what Theron suspected was on the old ándras’s mind. “Tell me, Theron. How do you find the human world?”
There it was. The same question he always asked whenever Theron came back.
How did he find it? Last night it had been steamy and sultry and nothing like what he’d experienced before. And he had a feeling the memory of that heat might haunt him long into his marriage.
Since that wasn’t something he suspected his future father-in-law wanted to hear, he simply said, “Hot.”
Leonidas chuckled. “It is that at times. But vibrant.” He waved his gnarled hand around the room. “Oh, most would say nothing could compare to Argolea, and I would agree for the most part, but there’s always been something intriguing about the human world…something we lack here. Olympus lacks it as well, which is one of the reasons the gods have always been so intrigued with humans, themselves.”
“That and that they like to meddle,” Theron muttered.
Leonidas grinned. “True. But Argoleans are fascinated as well. Look around you. Sometimes I have a hard time believing this is the same kingdom I was born into. Styles, speech, even our technology—though more advanced—are similar these days to what you find in the human realm.”
Theron frowned. Yeah, he’d noticed that over the last two hundred years as well. Argoleans were applying for passage into the human realm more and more, even when it wasn’t safe as the daemons grew ever bolder, bringing back popular culture as if it were treasure to be coveted, and the Council was letting them—though only the males. Didn’t matter that most thought they were intellectually and physically superior to humans, they were still enthralled with what they didn’t have. Theron couldn’t see the fascination. And frankly, it disgusted him. Or at least it had. Before last night.
Leonidas took another swallow from the bottle. “Tell me, Theron. You’ve been all over the human realm. What’s your favorite place there?”
“When I’m in the human world, I’m not paying much attention to the landscape.”
“No, of course, you wouldn’t be, now would you? You’d be hunting daemons, doing what you were bred to do.”