A wave of heat washed over her, making her skin prickle. That was different, she told herself. What she’d done, she’d done for a reason. For restitution. For payback. For—
For your own personal gain. Just like her.
Her stomach tossed, and the air seemed to clog in her lungs. She wasn’t like Isadora. She couldn’t be. She—
“It was wrong,” Nick whispered, his warm breath fanning her cheek, making her blink several times. Somehow she’d backed herself against the wall, and he now stood only inches away, one hand braced near her head, the fingers of his other hand running softly down her cheek to make her tremble. “What the king and the Council did to your people was wrong. But it wasn’t her. She wasn’t in power then. She was timid, shy, not at all like she is now. No one would ever have listened to her. If she’d known what was happening here, she wouldn’t have been able to stop it.”
A hot ball formed in Cynna’s throat, one that made it hard to swallow. She glared up at him. “She’s your soul mate. Of course you’d take her side.”
Why was he standing so close? Why was he touching her? Why the hell was he even here when his soul mate was back at the castle, just waiting for him?
She shoved aside the jealousy and swiped his hand away. “Go back to her and leave me alone. I’m not the one you want, and we both know it.”
She twisted to get away from him, but he caught her around the waist and pushed her back against the wall. “That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t want her. I need you.”
Cynna stilled and knew he had to be lying because…no one needed her. No one ever had.
“You’re a fucking liar.”
“It’s not a lie.” His arm tightened around her waist, and his body pressed fully into hers—his chest grazing her breasts, his thigh pushing between both of hers, his erection—oh gods, his heavenly, hard erection—nestling against her hip. “You keep me centered. You have from the start. How do you think I got through every sick thing Zagreus subjected me to? Because you were there. Because no matter what was happening to me, I could look at you and think about you, and not focus on the pain. If not for you, I’d have lost it long ago. Zagreus would control me, Krónos would be free, the gods would be at war, and the human world would be consumed by the apocalypse. You stopped it all from happening. You give me the strength to fight back.”
Cynna’s heart pounded hard, and her skin tingled with a heat she couldn’t hold back. She braced her hands on his shoulders and tried to push him away, but he was an immovable force, and he wasn’t letting her go. “You lie.”
“Why would I lie? What do I get out of lying about this? I need you, Cynna, not her. I have for a long fucking time.”
Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, and her breaths came fast and shallow. But she was no longer sure if she was trying to push him away or pull him in closer. And her gift, the ability she’d always had to tell lie from truth, was screaming she was wrong. He believed what he was saying. Believed it as he believed nothing else.
She tried to be disgusted. Knew that was the logical reaction. But she wasn’t. She was intrigued. And, dammit, incredibly excited. “That’s…sick.”
“Not to me. To me it’s the only thing that feels right. You’re the only thing that feels right.”
His mouth was so close, his breath hot and minty, and everywhere he touched her, even through the fabric forming a barrier between them, her skin tingled. She needed to get away from him. Couldn’t think when he was close like this. But the thought of letting him go back to her…
Her fingers tightened even more in his shirt, and she dragged him an inch closer. Electricity arced between them, like a firecracker about to explode. “I don’t need you. I don’t even want you.”
“Now we both know who’s lying,” he whispered.
His head lowered to hers. She sucked in one breath and lifted to meet him. His lips parted at the first touch, and she licked into his mouth, their tongues tangling in a fiery kiss that rocketed through every cell. He pushed her harder into the wall while he devoured her mouth, while she devoured his right back. His erection stabbed into her belly. Desire roared in her veins. Wrapping her leg around his hip, desperate to feel the friction of his cock rubbing against her mound, she clawed at his shirt, needing skin. Needing heat. Needing him.
“Cynna…”
“Don’t talk.” She nipped at his bottom lip hard enough to make him wince. He drew his head back. She braced her hands against his chest and pushed hard. “Don’t say a word.”