Thief of Olympus (Greek Myth Series Book 3) (14 page)

“I’ve already tried that,” she reminded him. “Since the mouse didn’t work, perhaps you have a better idea?”

“I do,” he said, taking a peacock feather from his bag and holding it over his head. Lysandra looked at him, thinking he’d gone mad.

“Are you trying to tell me a feather is going to scare a Cyclops?”

“Just watch,” he told her, waving it to get the monster’s attention. “Hera once had a servant named Argus who had one hundred eyes. He was killed by Hermes. After he died, Hera took the eyes and placed them in the feather of the peacock to remember Argus by.”

“Why does this scare a Cyclops?” she asked, holding on to the rock wall as it shook again.

“Because a Cyclops has but one eye. Without it they are nothing and will die. It is a horrific thought to lose one hundred eyes, let alone one. Argus’s mishap scares them beyond anything, and they run from the sight of a simple peacock feather.”

As to confirm his words, the Cyclops hid its face with its hand and backed away.

“Go,” he told Lysandra. “I will hold him off until you escape.”

He helped her to the rope and she lowered herself down. “But what about the thunderbolt?” she cried, looking to the floor for her quiver, but not seeing it anywhere. The cave shook again, and this time rocks rained down upon them.

“Run!” he instructed Lysandra. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold him off.”

She looked once more for the quiver, then when a rock nearly hit her, she dashed out the door. She watched from the cave as Zarek threw down the feather and quickly descended the rope. But the Cyclops reached for him, snapping off the rope before he’d made it to the bottom.

“No!” she screamed, wanting to help him, but with the rocks crashing down, knew she’d never make it to him alive. Zarek swung on the end, totally at the Cyclops’s mercy. But then a rock hit the one-eyed monster on the head and the beast fell to the ground.

She saw Zarek hit the floor, then get to his knees. He hesitated, and she saw why. As luck would have it, he landed just next to her quiver, with the thunderbolt of Zeus still intact. He looked back to her and their gazes interlocked. Then he shrugged his shoulders and picked it up, and ran to safety across the cave.

“Sorry, Princess,” he said as he dashed past her and mounted his horse. “This one is mine.”

Thirteen

Lysandra stood atop the battlements of Castle Thrace, ready to run her sword through the first man who dared open the portcullis for Zarek. She had found her Amazon sword hidden under Zarek’s bed, where he had obviously placed it the day he locked her in the dungeon. It felt good to have it back in her hands. Powerful. Without her ring on her finger, this was her only confidence. With this sword she would not fail the Amazons. She would win the last challenge.

She peeked out from behind a merlon, stone structure, and watched Zarek riding toward the drawbridge.

Hoofs clomped over the wet wood, the rain pouring down around him. He shouted to the gatekeepers to let him in, but Lysandra had tied the men up and gagged them, to keep them from calling out or helping their king. Now, they sat still and silenced against the wall in binds.

“Damnation, cannot you hear me?” he called out. “Open the gate and let me in or I’ll have your heads!”

Lysandra showed herself atop the wall. He looked up, taken aback, and just shook his head.

“You!” he stated with conviction. “I should have suspected as much. Now open the gate before I - ”

“You do not deserve to step a foot inside. Not after the way you tricked me and won today’s challenge.”

“I did not trick you,” he shouted, then shook his head. “Let me in so we can discuss this like adults in the dryness of the great hall.”

She could see the weariness in his eyes. The rain washed over him, soaking his long dark hair, and wetting his white tunic. It stuck to him like a second skin, and she couldn’t help but notice his broad, firm chest underneath. She remembered the way that chest felt beneath her hands, and it stirred a feeling within her. But then she remembered the way he had kissed her at the chamber of Apollo, only to steal her weapons.

“Never!”

She stepped back to take a look at her prisoners, assuring herself they had not untied their ropes. They had not, but she’d almost wished they had. They still sat there pitifully at her mercy, rain soaking them to the bone. Her mother was right in saying men were worthless, and females were the stronger of the genders. But she knew if it were Zarek she had tied up, he would have found a way to escape. He wasn’t worthless like the rest. Zarek was a challenge, and she liked that. He was different.

Why did she still feel attracted to Zarek? And why couldn’t she convince herself she hated him after what just happened at the cave? His presence in her life was so distracting, she couldn’t think straight. They argued and irritated one another, but could this be the way a thief and a man-hating Amazon showed affection? She didn’t know anything besides lust between a man and woman, but now she was wishing she did. She had feelings for the father of her son, but didn’t know how to express them. It would make her weak if she just came out and admitted it. She didn’t want him to see her as weak, and so she’d just kept her feelings to herself.

She stepped back out to the wall, expecting to hear Zarek complaining. She wanted to make him beg before she opened the gate. She wanted him to crawl to her on hands and knees and apologize for being such a cur. After that, mayhap she’d find it in her heart to forgive him.

All was quiet. She heard his horse nicker, but not a word from Zarek. She leaned over the battlement and looked down to the drawbridge.

“That’s odd,” she said to herself when she saw his horse only. She walked the length of the wall and leaned over again, to see if he was off his horse and trying to somehow open the gate.

He wasn’t.

He was up to something, but she didn’t know what. The gate was still down, so whatever it was, he was doing it to lure her out.

“Don’t bother with the gate.”

She jumped, hearing Zarek’s voice right behind her. She started to raise her sword, but in one swift motion, he’d knocked it from her hand and over the wall.

“Damn you!” she said, watching the golden-etched hilt of the sword slowly disappear as it fell from her hand and into the moat. She’d earned that sword by her actions throughout the years. Each Amazon emblem of bird, snake and wolf had been carved upon it as she successfully completed a skill that made up the path to her warriorship over the last two decades. As the murky waters closed over it, part of her life disappeared with it, and she couldn’t help but feel saddened. The emblem of her teachings, her life etched into the metal, it was all gone now. Could this be an omen as to her life with the Amazon tribe as well?

It bothered her immensely, but she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing it. He would gloat for the rest of the day.

“How did you get up here?” she snapped.

“The same way you did at one time. Those vines on the wall really should be removed, just like you suggested.”

“So,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “What did Artemis say when you delivered Zeus’s thunderbolt to her?”

He slid a hand over his wet hair, causing the water to run down his arm. The rain let up and now just drizzled.

“She said she was impressed that I found a way to steal such a precious thing.”

“You have me to thank for that.” She waited, but didn’t really expect gratitude. But then again, she hadn’t given him any when she took the lyre that should have been his.

“She also said we are tied in the challenge. Tomorrow we’ll compete in our final task, and by nightfall, one of us will have the baby back in our arms.”

She turned and looked over the wall at the green lands below. Several children played in the puddles and a rainbow stretched across the sky. Their laughter and giggles weighed heavy on her mind. Would she ever hear her son laugh? Would she ever have the chance to watch him play in puddles? She had to win this next challenge, if she wanted any chance of that at all.

“I miss him,” she said, clutching on to a merlon, and laying her cheek against the cool stone. “I dream about him every night.”

“So do I,” came Zarek’s soft reply. “Lysandra, we can’t both have him, and you know it. Only one of us will win Sander in the end.”

She didn’t like the way this sounded. They were both Sander’s parents, yet Zarek spoke as if the baby were the spoils of war given to the victor. She could never be happy without her child, and she knew neither could he.

“But what if we could both have him?” she asked softly. “What if things could be different?”

“We come from different worlds,” he told her. “While I care for you immensely, Lysandra, I can’t let you take Sander away from me. He belongs here in Thrace where he will someday become king. I won’t let him be taken back to the Amazons where he will never be safe.”

She wanted to tell him things could be different if they only tried. She wanted to suggest she stay in Thrace with him and the baby, but she couldn’t say the words. He was right. They came from two opposite lives. They were always fighting, and Sander deserved parents who weren’t always at each others throats. Zarek was a king who wanted an heir, not a wife. She was an Amazon warrior who would never know marriage or love between a woman and a man. She was raised to be queen, but she would never be his queen. When this was all over, she would have to go back to the Amazons where she belonged, and forget all about Zarek, the father of her child. Forget all about these feelings she tried so hard not to show.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said, pushing past him. He grabbed her arm and swung her around, and she looked down at his hand and then up to his face.

“Don’t walk away. We need to talk, Lysandra. I have told you how I feel, but I haven’t heard about your feelings. Tell me.”

“Amazons do not show emotions.”

“Well, mayhap it’s time they start. Do you feel anything at all for me, Lysandra? Because if you do, I need to know.”

She fastened her eyes on her amethyst ring, wedged tightly onto his little finger.

“I feel disgust. You have taken everything of mine, and I have done nothing to stop you. I am shamed for not living like the warrior I was trained to be. First you stole my virginity, then my ring, then my child, and now my sword.” And her heart, but she wouldn’t tell him.

“If I could remove the ring from my finger, I would have given it back to you long ago. And as for your sword - I will gladly replace it.”

“And what about my virginity?” she asked, shaking loose from his hold. “How will you replace that? And how will you replace my son, if Zeus forbidding, I should lose the last challenge? Some things cannot be bought, Zarek. Emotions are one of those things.”

“I’m not trying to buy your emotions. And I didn’t steal your virginity. You, my dear, were the one who insisted I bed you at your coming-of-age, if I must remind you. I merely took what was offered.”

“Not me,” she said. “My mother was the one who chose you. But now that she has seen the damage she has caused, she is ready to kill you herself.”

“Is that what she said today when you returned to the Amazon camp to tell her you lost today’s challenge?”

Lysandra remained quiet and looked the other way.

“Lysandra?” he prodded her to answer.

“She didn’t say anything, because I never told her.” She walked down the steps to the courtyard and he followed.

“You never told your tribe that by tomorrow night they might all be dead? And would that be because you knew they would kill you themselves before they ever let that happen?”

She stopped in her tracks and turned, bumping into his chest he was so close behind her.

“And you mean to tell me you’ve told your people they may be dead tomorrow instead?”

She saw a muscle twitch in his jaw as he clamped his teeth together. His eyes darkened over, and she knew her words disturbed him.

“There was no need to relay that message to the people, since I don’t plan on losing.”

“Well, neither do I.” She walked away and once again he followed.

“Lysandra, don’t leave this way. How am I ever supposed to get to know you if you keep putting up walls between us?”

“They’re not walls. They’re the Amazon ways. This is all I know, Zarek. How can you expect me to go beyond everything I’ve ever learned and forget my ways of the past one and twenty years?”

“I’m not asking you to forget, just to look into your heart and live by your own rules and morals. I once lived as a thief because I feared those who raised me. The best thing that ever happened to me is when I stopped listening to them and listened to my own heart and walked away.”

“You told me we’re from different worlds. That we both can’t have Sander. So what is it you are really trying to say?”

He reached out and caressed her gently upon the cheek. His eyes said more than his words. She knew his feelings for her even before he spoke. Oh, if only she could relay her thoughts as easily.

“We can’t both have Sander, not living the way we do. I’m willing to change, Lysandra. But are you? You are next in line for the throne of the Amazon nation. While I’d like nothing more than to see you as a queen, I cannot condone the Amazon’s ways. Sander will be raised in Thrace as successor to my throne. I will not let you see him if you decide to keep living as an Amazon. My son will not be the victim of your horrific sacrifices if you should someday decide to bring him to your village.”

She pushed his hand away. “You say you have feelings for me, but how can I believe it when you speak this way? If you really cared for me, you’d be more understanding as to what I’m going through. You say you’re willing to change, but I don’t see that, Zarek. You still hate the Amazons just as much as you did when I first met you.”

“And do you still hate men as much as you used to? Tell me, Lysandra. Do you still hate me?”

She didn’t answer - couldn’t answer that question. Zarek had challenged everything she ever believed in, and she was so confused she no longer knew what to think.

“I’m going to bed,” she announced and walked away from him.

“Fine,” he said. “You do that. But just understand that I’ll not spend another night sleeping on my dais chair. I will sleep in my bed tonight, as I should have been doing all along.”

“Do as you must,” she said. “But just be sure not to wake me, as I need my rest. After all, I have a challenge to win on the morrow.”

She left him standing in the courtyard and ran to the bedchamber. She didn’t stop until she had entered the room, and slammed the door behind her. She didn’t want him sleeping in the bed with her, let alone in the same room. She hated him more now than anything, and at the same time felt she didn’t want to live another day without him at her side. She didn’t understand any of this. Amazons weren’t supposed to have this kind of confusion running through their heads. She’d become weak since she’d met Zarek, and wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to go back to the Amazon ways.

She barred the door from the inside, not having taken the time to stop in the kitchen to tell Tessa to bring her food, or to order up a bath. She removed her wet clothing, throwing it on the floor by the fire and jumped into the bed and pulled the covers up to her nose. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling totally exhausted. She had not slept much last night, and had barely a bite of food to eat all day. Zarek occupied her thoughts and kept her from sleeping or eating. Zarek was the cause of the anger within her, and also the gentle feeling she tried to ignore. A sinking feeling consumed her chest when things didn’t go well between them.