Page 70 of We Are the Match
“Idothink I know you,” I say. “I think you grieve your sisters every day. I think you are angry at my father for what he did. I think you resent me—and I think youlikeme.”
Paris stares at me, shocked—and then she crosses the space between us, hooks a hand around the back of my neck, and pulls me into a bruising kiss, her tongue tangling with mine.
When she withdraws, both of us are breathless.
“Paris,” I say against her lips. “Paris, I wantmore.”
I want us, together, the two of us on the throne, changing the Family forever.
For half a wild moment, I think of bringing Paris to the secret entrance to my family’s home, to climb the stairs together, all the way to my bedroom. To hold her hand, to feel the cold stone of those ancient steps beneath our feet, to burst into my room like invaders, with secrets no one would ever suspect.
“We need to talk about what happens next,” Paris says. “You and I. This war.”
Because it is that, now.
“He will kill so many,” I say. “We have to stop him, we have to change something—I can talk to him, calm him down, if you can get Altea and her people to flee, maybe to Troy, maybe farther—”
“Stop,” Paris cuts me off. “Helen,stop. Why would we stop this now? Why should we care if it burns, if it weakens your father’s rule and one of your rivals, too?”
But I can see it in her eyes, Ican, that she is haunted by what she has done tonight.
“And how are you different?” I snap. “How is this different than my father bombing your home? If this is how you are going to—”
Paris’s hand closes around my throat, her rings cold against my skin, and she is shoving me backward against the side of the boat, making the boat tilt wildly.
Tommy is there before I can even think to call him, dragging her backward, yanking her hands from me. “Enough,” he says sternly.
If it were anyone else, they would be bleeding at my feet.
But it is Paris,myParis, and Tommy seems to know well enough that she is ... well, mine. And not to be harmed.
“You,” Paris snarls at me, lunging at me even as Tommy holds her firmly. “Do notspeak to me of Troy.”
“Easy,” Tommy says, almost as if he is comforting her. “Both of you take a minute, all right?”
Are we bleeding right here on this boat, Paris and I? Bomb after bomb, ripping through our lives? Are we always destined for this violence?
Me in my home, Paris in hers. Caught in the wars of the gods.
“Zarek killed teenagers,” Paris snarls, ignoring Tommy’s low, soothing tone. “Girls Iloved. Do not compare me to him, Princess.”
Tears are stinging my eyes. I swipe the back of my hand across them, vanishing them with one motion. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean—”
But what can I say to Paris, after this? She carries them with her every day. I see it on her, all those girls like her, trapped beneath bombs while I survived my grief in luxury.
I can scarcely breathe.
I’m sorry,I want to tell her, but it is not enough. It will neverbeenough, no matter how long I rule and how well. No one can giveParis back her girls. Paris does not look at me, her face cast mostly in shadow.
And how did you live, Paris? How did you make a way out of the impossible? What secrets do you carry in that closed-off soul, in that singed jacket under your arm? How did you survive when others burned?
“I can make it home from here,” she tells Tommy. She does not look at me as she leaves.
I watch Paris go, her body thin and wiry and appearing so fragile next to Tommy’s broad shoulders. She disappears soon after, the black of her clothes fading into the darkness of the rocky shoreline.
You could have the whole world.
But, oh, Paris.
