He began to wonder, though, if she was not right. Perhaps he had not offered her enough in exchange for the satisfaction of his own desires. It was no hardship to him, after all, to have her in his bed, nor did it stop him from taking his pleasure elsewhere as he wished. He had thought only of what he might give her to keep her from taking lovers of her own. But she must realize why he had not promised more.
“If you knew what you asked, you would not want it,” he said quietly, tucking her body carefully against his. “If we are to have a son, if you are to keep strength enough to nurture one, I would not have you wearied by my demands—nor would you find any joy in it for long. Not beyond the first nights, or perhaps as long as a season. A year from now, you would be cursing me each time I reached for you, begging me to leave you in peace, and what pleasure I might have given you at first would be soured by exhaustion and misery.”
“I don’t—I don’t understand.” Her head fit perfectly beneath his chin, and her words were muffled against his chest. “Antiope and Theseus—”
“Antiope is a daughter of Ares, little mouse, and an Amazon besides. But Theseus, too, is… more disciplined.” He smoothed her hair back, that it would not tickle his jaw. “I fear it is a strength of mind and body I never mastered. And until this night, I never understood the need.”
“But the women you keep do not seem…” She made a soft noise of frustration, as if she did not know what word she wanted.
“I am careful of them. And of you, I would be even more so.”
She was silent, but for a soft sniffling. If he had not felt the pulse of her emotions—spinning, no doubt, with her thoughts—he might have even believed she slept. He wished she would, that in the morning she might see the reason of his argument and understand his choice.
“I wish it were otherwise, Mia,” he said gently. “For both our sakes.”
She stirred, drawing back from his embrace. “Even if I am nothing but the daughter of a common herdsman and a shepherd’s daughter, I have the blessing of Poseidon Horse Lord, or I would not be what I am. Is it not possible that he has given me strength enough to match you in this way, as he has in others?”
He almost laughed, but even in the firelight, he could see the seriousness in her eyes. “Is that what you believe? That Poseidon has made you my equal?”
“Even your better when it comes to horsemanship,” she said, and he did not doubt she meant it. Nor could he argue, though it galled him to know it. “If it is truly for my sake that you refuse me, Pirithous, you cannot object to a trial.”
He rolled to his back, that he might frown at the ceiling instead of her. He could not doubt her determination. And perhaps she was right. What harm would it do to let her see what it was she asked of him, of herself? And if she could match him—he hardened at the very thought.
“It might well mean disappointment for us both,” he warned.
“Perhaps,” she said, and he knew she studied him. “But we cannot know until we try, and I would know one way or the other.”
He snorted. “If I had known taking a wife would be so difficult as this…” But he rolled to his side, cupping her cheek and catching her eyes before she bridled at his teasing. She searched his face and he smiled. “I have promised you every pleasure within my power to give. I will not refuse you this, but you must make me a promise in return.”
Her forehead furrowed, and he wished she did not look on him with so much suspicion. But it was surely better than the guilt and tears, and he could not say that he did not, in some ways, deserve a little of her mistrust. “What would you ask of me?”
“Honesty,” he said. “Most especially in bed, but out of it as well. You must tell me at the first if you cannot tolerate my desires, and swear you will not let your pride hold your tongue. If you lie, little mouse, I will know, and I promise you that will be the end of this trial. Heir or not, and if need be, even the last night you spend in my bed altogether, for I will not see you harmed by my hand or for my pleasure.”
Her eyes had widened as he spoke, and all to the better if he had inspired some small fear. After all, if he could not trust her even in bed, how could he trust her as his queen?
“And can I expect your honesty in return?”
“You have not lacked it, Princess.” He brushed his thumb along her cheek, reveling in her softness. “But there is one more thing that I would ask of you.”
She let out a sigh. “Of course there is. What more?”
Such impatience! Somehow he found it charming. And had he not asked her for honesty, just moments before? He grinned.
“If I am forbidden from taking any other lovers, so are you.”
“For the duration of the trial.”
“Until our son is born,” he countered.
Her eyes narrowed. “And if this trial does not last beyond the next full moon?”
This time, he did laugh. “If you are so certain you will have no trouble matching me, I do not see why you should worry.”
“Even so!”
“Even so, these are my terms. In the interests of getting an heir, if you desire satisfaction, I would have you come to me. For my part, I will not refuse you. At any moment of the day or night, you need only find me and I will grant you any pleasures you crave.”
“Any moment?”
He traced the shape of her lips with his fingertip. “Any.”
Her breath caught, and she licked her lips. “Oh.”
He leaned down, pressing a kiss to her forehead, the tip of her nose, the corner of her mouth. “Then we are agreed?”
She hesitated, just for a moment, and then nodded.
Aphrodite, bless us.
And for the first time, he almost hoped that Hippodamia might be right.
Fingers brushed across his mouth, tracing the line of his lips, the bridge of his nose, the shape of his brow. He forced himself not to stiffen, nor even to open his eyes, but only lie still, his breathing steady as if in sleep, one arm around her waist to keep her near. Light filtered through his eyelids, blue and gentle, as if Apollo himself had barely risen.
She sighed, so soft and light he barely trusted his ears, and then her mouth found his, her body straining closer, pressing against the hardness below his waist until he groaned. Without thought, he shifted, rolling her beneath him. Her lips parted to his, her tongue inviting him deeper, even as her hands spread against his chest holding him away.
He growled and she laughed, turning her face from his to break the kiss and pushing him back. “I cannot leave Cyllarus and Hylonome to the mercy of your nobles.”
“Can you not?” he demanded, dropping his mouth to her breast, careless of the linen which covered her body. If he had not time to remove it, he must make do. He had restrained himself last night, but what she had started this morning, he would finish. “Perhaps they, too, intend to take their pleasure before rising.”
He flicked his tongue across the hardening point and her back arched, dark eyes darkening even further. “Pirithous…”
But it was moan more than denial, and he eased the short tunic up her hips. One of his, he realized absently, though he had not noticed how loosely it fit her the night before. He slid down her body, biting softly through the fabric as he went, marking the trail to that slick heat at the apex of her thighs. And then he tasted her skin, just below her navel, sweet as pomegranate, with the barest hint of salt. The perfect complement to the soft musk of her need.
“Please,” she breathed, her fingers curling around his ears.
He spread her thighs and lowered his head, taking the bud of her desire into his mouth, teasing her with his tongue. She gasped, her thighs closing around his head, and he chuckled low, making her writhe even more.
Gods above, how he wanted to take her then. To lift himself up and slide deep inside her. He traced one finger around her entrance, teasing her with just the slightest pressure while his mouth worked. He had been careful of her before, not wanting to give her any discomfort with he
r first release. Nor did he wish to stretch her too far now.
He dipped one finger deeper as he tasted her. She moaned, lifting her hips, and he answered. Another finger joined the first, curling up to stroke the sensitive flesh, the heat of her center making him ache all the more.
She bucked, a throaty cry breaking from her lips and her fingers twisting into his hair. Her body clenched around his fingers, and she shuddered once, twice, a third time, with a second low moan. He stroked her again once she had relaxed, as she lay limp and panting. She shivered and laughed.
“Are all men so skilled with their mouths?”
He kissed his way back up the length of her body. “Not even half of them.”
She stroked his hair, his neck, his back, until he had brought himself level with her eyes and had pulled the tunic over her head. All he wanted was to lie between her thighs, to have her body shudder around his while she found release a second time. He nudged her legs apart with his knee, wishing he had stripped off his kilt long ago, that he might sink inside her. The warmth of her center still teased him through the fabric, and she lifted her hips, wrapping her legs around his waist.
“Mia…” He groaned and dropped his forehead to her shoulder, his arms trembling. “I begin to fear you still wish to drive me mad.”
She laughed again, clear and sweet and more joyful than he had ever hoped to hear. “I thought we had come to an agreement, my lord.” She pushed against his chest, and he let her roll him to his back. “You cannot believe I would leave you wanting so soon?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hippodamia
Her days passed quickly then, in eager anticipation of the nights, and Pirithous taught her more of pleasure with his mouth and hands than she had ever realized was possible. But it was not only the nights they spent together. Pirithous took her again out to the broad plain where the horses grazed, guarded by the young men. Two mares were with foal, returned lately from the Myrmidons, who had failed to keep them as prizes. The foals would be hers, and one of the mares, Pirithous promised, was Fire’s get, a brilliant chestnut who bred as true as her dam.
“Colt or filly, it will be a fine foal.”
They spoke little after that, for Pirithous had found excuse to part from Hylonome and Cyllarus, and he was determined to make good use of the time they had alone. Not that Hippodamia objected, for the rest of her days were spent preparing for the wedding feast, which could not come soon enough, and welcoming guests as they arrived for the celebration. Peleus was invited, of course, and King Nestor of Pylos, though the journey was long.
“Nestor will miss nothing, if he can help it,” Antiope told her while they took their turns scrubbing tables one afternoon. Antiope would not ask servants to do anything she had not done first. “When he is not invited, all of Achaea hears of the slight. But for all of that he is not so terrible for a man. At least he always brings a story. If he had been a younger son, he would have made at least as good a poet as he has a king. It is Peleus you must watch out for. With Dia’s death, he is no longer bound in friendship to the Lapiths. That is part of why Pirithous was so determined to make peace—he could not risk the centaurs turning to Peleus instead. Theseus says Peleus has been hungry for the plains and the horses which graze upon them since he came into his kingship.”
But it was the centaurs Hippodamia looked for. Her father, most of all, and Eurytion, that she might show him the horses Pirithous had given her, gold and silver bridles and all. He would have no reason to think she was unhappy then, not when he had seen for himself the generosity she had been shown—and the gentleness in Pirithous’s eyes when he looked on her besides. He had made so clear his delight in her, she could not help but be encouraged. Indeed, he gave her far more pleasure than he took.
None would leave their wedding feast thinking Pirithous mean, either. Amphora upon amphora of wine had come from Athens, for Pirithous would serve only the best to his guests. He had traded, too, for honey mead, sweeter than anything Hippodamia had ever tasted, though it made her head spin and her feet unsteady. Two hands of oxen were marked for slaughter, and twice as many goats and sheep went up the mountain in sacrifice to Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, and Poseidon.
“Come,” Pirithous said, catching her by the arm the morning before the feast, his eyes bright with mischief. “I would have your help to choose the guest gifts, and you have spent enough time on your knees these last days.”
Heat flooded her cheeks, for it was not only in scrubbing the floors that she had knelt. But he was already pulling her with him down a corridor, rarely used, and through two store rooms, filled with tables and stools, reams of rough-spun wool and broken looms. Cast-offs and discarded furnishings, too worn or too dowdy for use.
“This cannot be what you mean to offer?”
Pirithous grinned, stopping before a cracked stone altar as tall as her waist and at least twice as long. One-handed, he tipped it upon its end, revealing a door cut into the floor beneath.
“These upper rooms are what is left of Ixion’s wealth, but for the horses, of course. What waits below is mine, and only a portion at that.” He nodded toward an oil lamp upon a broken chest. “We’ll want the light.”
With some trick of his fingers he had it lit once she had brought it to him, and then he lifted the solid oak panel from the floor, revealing a stairwell of stone leading into darkness. Pirithous took her hand in his, leaving her no time for hesitation as he started down the stairs.
She followed, the lamplight illuminating nothing but more stone, roughly hewn and scarred by chisel and sledge. Then the bubble of darkness expanded, and the light no longer reached even the wall.
“Not much farther,” Pirithous said, squeezing her hand.
Gravel of some kind crunched beneath their feet, the only sound but for their breathing, and then she saw the first spark of reflected flame. Pirithous let her go, cupping his hand around the lamp to shield it, and took three long steps forward, leaving her outside the light.
“Come here,” he said. “Exactly here, and do not move.”
“I can hardly see, Pirithous.” In truth it made her uneasy, for all that she had slept her whole life in caves. This was different. The darkness crowded her, impossible to avoid. Even the stairway and the door behind them had been swallowed whole.
She saw the flash of his smile. “Just a moment longer and you will have no trouble with the dark.”
He positioned her exactly as he wished, then left her. The lamplight turned his skin a glowing bronze, flashing here and there off something she could not see clearly as he moved away. She hugged her arms to her chest and shivered, covered in gooseflesh.
Pirithous stopped, crouched down behind a shadowed thing—a table perhaps, for it did not shine, or another altar made of stone—and the lamp’s light jumped, then flared into a wall of golden flame, rippling out along a channel carved in the floor.
Hippodamia blinked away the glare, the light blinding her after so long in the dark.
“Look!” Pirithous called, bounding back to her, lamp forgotten. “And you will choose first what you wish to keep for your own. I promised you platters and cups and bowls, did I not?”
She looked, her eyes widening to take it all in, and still there was more. Mountains of golden tripods, cauldrons, platters, cups, piled higher than Pirithous was tall. The same again stood heaped in silver, and rich furnishings of olive, oak, cedar, ivory, and ebony, bejeweled with pearls and brilliant blue lapis, emerald, ruby, and quartz. Chests of bronze armor, swords, spear- and arrowheads rested in another pile, separate from the hoard.
Pirithous picked up a dagger, dull gray rather than gleaming bronze, though the handle shimmered, not quite gold or silver, but somehow both.
“It is forged from iron,” he explained. “Stronger than bronze, and less brittle when worked and folded. I have never seen its like before, but if what their armorer said is true, we will see more of it, soon.” He smiled shyly, sheathing the blade. “Forgive me. I meant to
show you jewels, not knives.”
“All of this is yours?” she asked, when he poured necklaces and bracelets into her hands until they spilled over, chiming against the stone at her feet.
“I have been raiding with Theseus season upon season, as far as our ships could take us. Beyond Troy to the far east of Colchis, and as far west as there is sea to sail upon.” He picked up an arm cuff, gold wound in two spiraled discs wider across than her thumb, and then he dropped it again and chose another, solid silver snakes with emeralds for eyes. That one, he slid up her arm, his fingers caressing her skin. “We even went into the north one year, through the Thracians, one river after another, as deep inland as we could row. This is but a sampling of the prizes I brought back. We have caverns elsewhere, sealed with boulders even Heracles would have trouble shifting alone. And the fabrics are in the palace proper, of course. They would only rot down here.”
He grinned when she stared at him, and tugged her toward the largest pile of gold. “Choose whatever you would like for yourself, and gifts rich enough to honor your father, as well. There is plenty—enough to make guest-friends of an army, if we could but feed them all. We will have a cup of gold or silver at every seat for our wedding feast.”
“Are you certain?” she asked, her eyes drinking in the glitter of so many riches, piled as carelessly as the discarded furnishings in the storeroom above. “I can hardly imagine—it is so much, Pirithous. Too much!”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But it will buy us peace for a time, I hope, and our children will never lack the proper gifts if they require the favor of hospitality from another.” He tossed her a golden cup, embossed with horses running across a plain, manes and tails streaming behind them in the wind. “Ixion’s house, our people, will never need to beg again.”
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