The next day, Christian ran by my side as my lungs heaved. He wasn’t the slightest bit winded as we made our way around the perimeter of the yard, all too aware of the watchful gazes of two other members of Calix’s security. One of them stood on the balcony outside the guest bedroom, his eyes bearing down on me as I came to a sudden halt and gasped for breath. Placing my hands on my knees and leaning forward at the back end of the yard, I tried to fight back the pain that erupted through my side.
I was not made for running.
“Keep moving, Monster,” Christian said, his voice gentling as he stopped advancing a few feet in front of me. He ran in place, his motions assured. “Even if you can’t run anymore, you need to cool down with a walk.”
“Fairly sure drowning myself in the pool would be faster,” I wheezed.
“Drowning would be accurate. Your muscles could cramp and then what? You’d be dead weight at the bottom of the pool. Move your ass,” he said, forcing me to stand straight with his harsh words. Calix had run off with Rafael to search for Jeno, and as much as I wanted to go and be a part of finding evidence of my still-living brother, preparing for the coming battle was more important at the moment.
“Your bedside manner is shit,” I argued, forcing my legs to move.
“I’ll work on it when you’re actually in your sickbed and not just complaining for the sake of it. You’ve always hated cardio.” He laughed, as if he found it very entertaining that the part of training my husband had chosen to fixate on was by far my least favorite.
My feet moved slowly, but they moved, and at this point in the day I was just grateful they functioned at all. Christian had made me do two painfully slow miles around the yard, after doing one hundred squats just because he was a cruel bastard.
“It won’t be long with the way you and Calix are determined to kill me,” I said, breathing deeply and rhythmically to try to bring my heart rate back down to a more sustainable throb.
“You’ll manage. Adapting and surviving are what you do best,” he said, dropping from his run and walking at my side. He glanced toward the man standing on the back patio and watching us, his eyes then drifting up to the man on the balcony, as his fists clenched at his sides.
“He thinks I’ll maul you if I’m left alone with you. I’ve watched over you for years, but all of a sudden, I can’t be trusted to be alone with you,” he muttered, keeping a careful distance between us.
“You didn’t tell him about my mother’s journal,” I said, contemplating the question I had to ask him. If I couldn’t trust him with my secret, Calix would be furious, but I couldn’t just not try.
“It should be up to you whether you share that with him. The last words you’ll ever read from your mother are deeply personal, and I refuse to take that and taint it by having him rummage through it for crumbs of information that might be useful to him.’
“I appreciate that more than you could possibly know,” I said. As much as I hated the way Christian had deceived me, he was the only hope I had of getting what I needed without having someone run right to Calix.
He was my only hope of delaying the inevitable, and our moments without prying ears nearby or the risk of cameras were few and far between now.
“I hate to ask this of you, Christian. Really, I do, but I can’t have a baby right now,” I said, letting my voice drop low. I smiled as I said the words, trying not to give away the seriousness of the conversation to any of the men who watched us from a distance.
Christian tensed at my side, then he swallowed uncomfortably. “Then you should speak to Calix about that. I’m sure he will understand.”
“I don’t think he would. He’s made his intentions clear, but it isn’t his choice to make. I will not go into ο λάκκος with a life growing inside of me. It’s far too dangerous right now,” I explained, pausing to grab my ankle and pull my leg behind me to stretch it out. “I just need to buy some time.”
“A child provides stability to your marriage. I don’t mean between you and Calix,” he said, interrupting me when I started to interject that children were not known to be a quiet, peaceful influence on married life. “But to all those looking on and searching for weaknesses. A marriage can be dissolved with the snap of a finger in this life, but a child is far more difficult to erase. It goes against everything the six families hold dear to kill a child, when this life is driven by legacy.”
“A child should not be used as glue to hold together a business arrangement,” I said, wincing back from my own words. No matter what I felt for Calix, no matter what he claimed to feel for me, nothing would ever erase the fact that marriage was nothing but a tool. It was the contract that bonded families together, forcing them to be allies when they otherwise might have murdered one another in cold blood.
“What exactly is it you’re asking me to do, Thalia?” Christian asked, shaking his head. “I cannot keep him from having sex with you. He would kill the man who tried. You had that power, but it seems as if you didn’t think the consequences through.”
“He never made his intention to impregnate me clear until we’d already been together,” I growled in warning.
“So stop having sex with him now that he has. That’s the easiest solution,” Christian noted.
“I’m not sure that’s an option.” I didn’t want to admit that I’d given Calix open permission to fuck me when he wanted, that in my moment of desperation to get off, I’d agreed that he would have the final say in something like that.
The lines of consent were always fuzzy in this life, blurred to the point of nonexistence. Any other husband would have raped me on my wedding night, whether I screamed and cried or acted like I wanted it.
I’d been happy to have some semblance of a choice, for even just a little while. I hadn’t been thinking about the long-term ramifications. What was so wrong with settling into married life before bringing a child into the picture?
“I need birth control,” I said suddenly, the words erupting from me far more abruptly than I’d intended. “I need to have control over this one thing, at least until the battle is over and done with.”
“You cannot seriously be asking that of me. No.” He shook his head, hanging his face forward so that he didn’t have to meet my stare. “Calix will kill me for that. Do you understand what you’re asking me to do?”
“He wouldn’t, and I would never tell him where I got it,” I explained. If he ever found out I had it at all. I wouldn’t use it for long, and it would be entirely feasible for it to take two months for me to become pregnant. It happened all the time.
“It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to know exactly who you would turn to for this, Thalia. Are you fucking kidding me right now? You know nothing about the man you married, so let me make something very clear. Do you know what he likes to do to the men who betray him?”
I shook my head, confident in the assumption that I did not want to know. Christian reached out to grab my arm, and I froze as he realized he’d touched me. “He likes to turn them into human candles. He’ll tie or nail them to the very top of a stake, wrap them in kindling, douse them in gasoline, and light them on fire to burn while all of his men watch and are reminded of the price for their betrayal.”
“Nero was a Roman Emperor.”
“That is what you choose to fixate on? I just told you that your husband will burn me alive if I do what you’re asking of me. Who the fuck cares if Nero was a Roman Emperor? The Romans stole everything from the Greeks. Why shouldn’t we do the same now?” he asked, scoffing as he turned his irritated gaze toward the house.
Calix stood there, glaring at the place where Christian’s hand wrapped around my forearm. Christian released me suddenly, piercing me with a glare before he shook his head and stalked to meet Calix. From his reaction, there was no doubt in my mind that he’d tell Calix exactly what I’d asked. He’d do it to save his own skin, because there had to be an explanation for his hand on me.
The cruel malice in Calix’s face made sure of that.
“Christian, wait,” I pleaded, following after him. My mind raced as I tried to come up with a solution, with something I could offer as a reasonable explanation for the moment Calix had witnessed. The only thing that came to mind was my mother’s journal, but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t share that with him, not yet at the very least.
I hurried to catch up, my steps quicker than Christian’s despite the ache in my muscles. He moved like he was walking to his death, when the reality was I would be the one to face the consequences if he revealed my request.
“Would you like to explain to me why you put your hand on my wife?” Calix asked, his voice deadly calm. I’d never heard it so absent of all inflection, so flat and toneless. His face was colder than it had been on the day he’d slaughtered a church full of people.
“I wanted her to listen to my answer when I told her I couldn’t get her what she asked for,” Christian said, glancing at me from the side of his eye. His face fell, his head bowing forward as he hesitated to continue.
“And what is it that my wife asked you for, Christian?” Calix said, turning that cold, cruel face toward me.
He held my gaze as Christian continued, his focus never wavering from my stare. “Birth control.”
Calix raised his brows, his jaw flexing silent warning. “Is that true?” he asked, the question clearly meant for me. I could try to backtrack; I could imply that Christian was lying and hope Calix believed me.
But at what cost?
“Yes,” I agreed, steeling my shoulders against the intensity of his glare. “It’s true.”
Calix sighed finally, nodding as he pursed his lips in thought.
“Get in the fucking house, Thalia,” he ordered, that flatness settling over me. Something wasn’t right in it, like the calm before the storm.
“Calix—” I started, cringing back when his face twisted brutally.
“I said get in the fucking house,” he said more firmly, his voice remaining quiet. I swallowed, glancing toward Christian and wondering if he cared that I was about to walk to my death.
It certainly felt like it, anyway.
I moved forward, stepping just past Calix on my way to the French doors that led into the kitchen. Calix stopped me with a hand on my bicep, his fingers squeezing as he dipped his head to the side to brush his lips against my ear. “I expect you to be naked and on the bed when I get there. Do not test me right now, Little One.”
I nodded, wincing away from him when he finally released me and making my way up to the bedroom.
Fuck.
