Page 32 of Onyx Realm

Only that he kidnapped me, and now my hand in marriage was being negotiated without my consent. My jaw tightened. But before an answer formed on my tongue, Markos tensed. The motion was a series of small muscles tightening. A deep breath filled his lungs, and then he turned.

There was a split second where I took in the whole picture. The man was a living embodiment of a child’s nightmare—a real monster.

What happened to you?

I forced myself to stare only in his eyes, ignoring the gnarled scar on the left side of his face. That bright gaze was guarded. Uncertainty lurked deep in those cerulean depths. He wouldn’tsee disgust or fear from me. Pity wasn’t something I could feel for this man, so he wouldn’t see that either.

“You’re burning the toast,” I commented.

His lip twitched, but I didn’t drop my gaze to look. “I’ll eat that piece, prinkípissa.”

I held his gaze a beat longer before breaking the contact and moving into the room.

“Give me that.” I snapped the tongs from his hands. “The heat’s too high.”

Flipping the charred pieces out of the crackling inch of olive oil, I shook my head. An inch! Way too much oil. The stench of incinerated food and burning oil danced through the air.

“If you don’t know how to make toast on the stove, buy a toaster,” I muttered.

“Believe it or not, but I’m only good at cooking fish.” He moved about behind me. I resisted the urge to sneak a peek, not wanting to be caught gawking.

“Oh, I believe it,” I said with a short laugh. “But then again, it seems you’re on the water with your pirate ships more than you're on land.”

Markos rested his hand beside me on the counter. “Evangelia’s been talking too much.”

Warning bells pealed in my mind. I did not like the way he spoke about that girl. I rounded on him, meeting that piercing blue stare with a glare of my own. “For your information, she’s barely said a word. She’sscaredof you—as are the majority of the villagers.”

“Fear creates a healthy balance,” he said flippantly.

“Says who?” I responded a touch too loudly.

Markos shrugged. “Some famous person. Fear creates a better environment than love.”

Machiavelli. Freaking Machiavelli! Of all the ways I thought I would be spending my precious vacation, hearing the man whoaccidentally kidnapped me misquote my personal hero as he burnt toast was not one of them.

My voice came out tight and strained. “Not quite.”

Markos crossed his arms, kicked a leg over the other, and stared. “If you know so much about it, enlighten me.”

With the skillet off the stove, I began to scoop the burning oil into a glass. “The saying is about a leader having the equal love and fear—respect—of his people. But it doesn’t take a gossiping girl to see that the villagers, while they admire your strength, are freaking terrified.”

“And you? Are you scared of me, Serena?”

His direct question made me wince inwardly. Whatever I said next needed to be said very carefully. I swiped the pan with a cloth before setting it back on the burner at a much lower temperature and drizzling fresh olive oil around the bottom. I answered him as I reached for the bread.

“Scared? No, there are just a few things I truly fear.”

“That’s...very strange,” he murmured, but he seemed to believe me.

Once the slices were in the skillet, I faced him again. We remained that way, staring at one another, daring each other to reveal the thoughts swirling in our minds, but neither of us spoke. The toast, needing to be flipped, broke the spell.

“At least you didn’t burn the eggs,” I commented, poking at where they warmed in the smaller skillet.

“They’re like fish.”

“Hardly,” I snorted. “So...what do you fish for, pirate?”

Markos rattled off a string of names, of which I only recognized a handful.

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