Page 67 of Inked Athena

My hands shoot out to steady her frail shoulders as guilt floods me at the thought of adding yet another soul to my hit list today. The wool of her cardigan is rough against my palms. “Mrs. Morris, where’s Samuil?”

She squints at me over the tops of her bifocals, nostrils flaring in alarm. “Are you alright, sweetness?”

“I’m fine. I just really need to speak to Samuil.”

She pushes me in the direction of the kitchen like she’d love me to be someone else’s problem. “You’ll find him in there, lass. I just put a plate out for him.”

I mutter a hurried thanks at her and follow the trail of savory scents through stone corridors, each step fueled by righteous, pregnancy-powered fury. The massive kitchen hearth blazes, and there he is: the lord of the castle himself, hunched over his dinner like a gargoyle made flesh.

The fire throws his shadow against the far wall, twenty feet high and monstrous. I have half a mind to shove his face in his shepherd’s pie.

He straightens up when he sees me, broad shoulders squaring beneath his black sweater, eyebrows furrowing like he already knows what I’m here to say.

“Not now, Nova.”

“Actually, I think now is the only time to have this conversation. If we don’t, it’ll be too late.” I stride around the table to face him. “How can you sit here and eat while Myles is packing his bags?”

He doesn’t look at me, focusing instead on mutilating his dinner with surgical precision. “I have the appetite of someone whose conscience is clear.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I wait for him to answer, but he just spears another piece of meat. “You think I should feel guilty?”

Guilt might be what drove me from my tower, but I’ll be damned if I’m admitting that now. Not when I need every scrap of moral high ground I can get.

“Before you,” he remarks, “Myles was never so easily persuaded.”

“Glad to know that some men are capable of evolving.”

He sighs tiredly. “It’s been a long fucking day,krasavitsa, and I haven’t eaten for most of it. Can you save the dramatics for the morning?”

Without thinking, I lunge forward and grab the fork right out of his hand.

He looks merely bored as he gazes back at me. “Planning on stabbing me with it?”

“I haven’t ruled it out yet.” The fork does feel good in my hand. Getting a reaction out of him other than apathy—say, by stabbing the tines into his giant shoulder—might feel even better.

Samuil gestures for me to continue. “Well, get on with it then. I’d like to get back to my dinner once you’re done commandeering my cutlery.”

He cares,insists a voice in my head.Somewhere under this rock-hard veneer, the cold-hearted bastard actually fuckingcares.

“He’s your best friend,” I whisper, my voice breaking. My throat feels tight, like all the unsaid things are choking me. “Your right-hand man.”

His jaw hardens, muscle ticking beneath his skin. “Which is exactly why he should have known better.”

“He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.”

“He knew exactly what the fuck he was doing. He knew he was crossing a line.” He sets his plate on the stones of the hearth and rises to his feet. His silver eyes simmer dangerously. “That’s why he kept it from me.”

“I made him do it. If you have to punish someone, punish me.”

He takes a step forward until the points of the fork I’m holding touch his chest like a trio of metal fingertips. “This is not a negotiation, Nova. You don’t have a say in this.”

I jab the fork upwards, in front of his face. “Look at this fork, Samuil. Look at the tines.”

His face screws up into a frown. Clearly, he has no idea where I’m going with this.

That makes two of us.

“There are three tines.” I touch them one by one. “You. Me. Myles.” Samuil’s frown recedes back into simple impatience, butI’ll take it; it’s better than the rage back in the library. Or the forced indifference. I might be able to work with this. “We’re like these three tines. They’re separated, but always connected at the root. Always moving in the same direction. Always.”

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