Helen of Sparta (27 page)

Pirithous snorted. “The future is never certain, Theseus, not even in the eye of the Fates. What comes depends as much on our choices as the determination of the gods. Obedience, disobedience, prayer, and sacrifice, all of these things change the course of our lives. The only certainty in life is death. Let your son die with honor, and he will thank yo
u for it.”

“There is no honor in this, or she would not fear it.” Helen had offered the same arguments, but he knew the gods, had witnessed firsthand how they could tear lives apart and strip them of glory. “Content yourself with raising your own son, Pirithous, or distract yourself with finding another bride, and leave me to see
to mine.”

Pirithous grinned. “Name a woman worth winning and I shall claim her as my own, but even with your help, I cannot hope to be half so fortunate in choosing a second wife as you have been with your third.” He raised his cup. “I wish you a very long and happy life together, or if not, that you will at least let me have her when you’re
through.”

He glared, but Pirithous only laughed, then stood to toast the new queen of Athens in front of the entire hall. When he had finished, Aethra gave them Hera’s blessing and announced that their rooms had been
prepared.

The desire to finish his conversation with Pirithous fled the moment Theseus was freed from the banquet to take Helen to their marriage bed. More than half a year he had waited, and now he took her by the wrist, leading her from the hall as he
r husband.

Nothing else mattered
but that.

CH
APTER TWENTY-FIVE

D
uring the feast, I had not thought the evening could go quickly enough, but now that Theseus shut the door to the bedroom, my stomach twisted into knots. I stared at Theseus’s bed. It was the same bed I had slept in every night for half a year, but tonight, Theseus would do more than stroke my hair and kiss my forehead. Tonight, he would claim my body as he already had
my heart.

The price of the crown on my head and payment for the risks he had taken. He had not said it, had never suggested it, yet the words played through my thoughts, and my heart picked up speed. I owed him this, after all he
had done.

Menelaus’s words wormed through my thoughts, haunti
ng me now.

I shivered. Menelaus was the last thing I wanted to remember, but how could I not think of him when he had taken the same paymen
t in kind?

A hand touched my shoulder, and I bit back a cry before it left my throat. Theseus dropped his hand at once, but I turned to him and hid my face against his chest to keep myself from sobbing. For a terrible moment, it had been Menelaus’s touch I had felt, but even as understanding as Theseus was, I could not tell him that. I would not let Menelaus poison this night for eit
her of us.

Theseus kissed the top of my head and stroked my hair, the weight of his arms around me enough to drive the memo
ries away.

“What’s the matter?” he said int
o my hair.

All night, I had waited to be alone with him. During the length of the feast, I had dwelt in his kiss, anticipating the next to the point of distraction. I had barely thought even of eating, though the food filled the table before me. And then I had been too anxious for what was to come, my stomach roiling with nerves. Theseus, my hero, my king, my husband
, at last.

“Nothing,” I said, inhaling his warmth and waiting for my heart to calm. “I only mi
ssed you.”

He laughed and I drew back, looking up at his face. His hand slipped from my hair, caressing my cheek instead. Then he stopped, staring at his fingers for a moment. The umber from my skin had darkened his f
ingertips.

“This will not do at al
l, Helen.”

I shook my head. “I’m Me
ryet now.”

He raised his eyes to mine, brilliant a
s the sea.

Theseus drew me toward a low table and reached for a linen towel, dunking it in a basin of water and rose petals. I had not noticed it before, but it seemed Aethra, or perhaps Theseus himself, thought of everything. He held my face in his hands and wiped the powder and paint away, his tou
ch gentle.

“I had my heart set on taking Helen of Sparta to my bed, and making her Helen of Athens, my wife.” He paused to dunk a dry portion of the towel in the bowl and cleaned the kohl from around my eyes. “Does Meryet have any objection
to that?”

I shook my head, my heart skipping at
his words.

Theseus finished wiping the paint from my face, brushing the cloth across my lips and making them tingle. He stroked my cheek again with his bare fingers, lighting a fire beneat
h my skin.

“Even with hair so black, you still glo
w golden.”

He kissed my forehead, then each of my eyelids, and when I turned my face up to his, he kissed the corners of my mouth. I sighed, winding my fingers through his hair and pulling his head down again to kiss him
properly.

His mouth tasted of mint, and one arm encircled me, drawing me closer. My body, flushed from head to foot, begged for his, aching with anticipation for what he had denied us both. How had we waited fo
r so long?

Theseus stepped back, taking up the cloth again to wipe the umber from my throat and neck, then my shoulders, working the material of my shift loose to bare that strip of skin between my breasts. The light fabric clung to me but, even so, it threatened to slip from my shoulders. He paused to kiss my pulse and I shivered, the coolness of the wet cloth only making my skin burn with greater heat. After he washed away the color from my arms, he kisse
d my palm.

“This is the woman I missed,” he said, his voice rough. “Pale and clean as moonlight
on water.”

I dropped my forehead to his shoulder and let him gather me into his arms again, my fingers tracing the lines of muscle beneath the silk of his tunic. “Will you love me still when I am sun-kissed from wandering the palace
grounds?”

He laughed and caught my hand, holding it against his heart. “I will love you still when you are old and gray and stooped
with age.”

“Will you?” I looked up into his face. “Will you keep me in your bed, e
ven then?”

He sighed and stroked my cheek again with gentle fingers, meeting my eyes. “I would keep you in my bed for eternity, and it would not be time enough. I would make love to you night and day if you wished it, and never let you rise. But let it be for your pleasure, Helen. Let me please you
tonight.”

I pressed his hand to my cheek and turned my face to kiss his palm, wondering at my fortune to have ever found such a man. When he kissed me again, my body formed to his like warmed
honeycomb.

He lifted me in his arms and crossed the room to the bed. When he laid me down, I pulled him with me. Theseus hovered over me, his eyes searching mine. I could feel the effort it took for him to pause, the tension in every line of muscle, every surface of
his face.

“Tell me this is what
you want.”

“Shh.” I pulled his head down to kiss him. “Let me be your wife in body as well
as heart.”

The flash of sunlight in his eyes darkened as he brushed the hair from my neck and shoulder, his jaw tightening. When he lowered his head to kiss my throat, I shuddered at the touch, a whisper agains
t my skin.

The warm metal of the circlet on his forehead brushed against my fingers, and I raised it free from his brow, then reached for mine. He stopped me, drawing my hand away and sliding the sleeves of my shift down my arms to bare my breasts. His lips followed the trail of the fabric, down the valley between them, his calloused palms grazing my sides, rough and warm at my ribs. His tongue teased me until my back arched, and I pulled him closer
, moaning.

I did not need his encouragement to free the belt from his waist, but my fingers trembled, fumbling the tie. He chuckled, helping me, and then I pulled his tunic up over his head, forcing a sliver of space b
etween us.

My breath caught, and I could not tear my eyes from his body. All these months we had spent together, I had never seen him less than fully clothed. Even when we slept, he had remained modest. Now I pushed him to his back, that I might see him naked. He pulled me with him, laughing as he rolled, but I didn’t let him draw me down, sitting on
my heels.

“Am I so fas
cinating?”

I ran my hands over the muscle of his chest, my fingers tracing the faded lines of scars and old wounds. Even marred, he was incredible, the planes of his stomach chiseled perfection and the lines of his body balanced to absolute symmetry. Looking at him, seeing the bronze of his body laid bare, I no longer wondered that when he called himself the son of a god, men bel
ieved him.

“You’re beautiful,” I
whispered.

His hand slid down to the small of my back. My shift had bunched at my waist when I had rocked back to my knees, but he tugged at the belt that held my skirt in place atop it, and the fabric fell to my hips. I felt myself flush and turned my
face away.

“Look at me, Helen.” The gentle pressure of his finger beneath my chin raised my face to his. “I am nothing compared to you.
Unworthy.”

I shook my head, taking his face between my palms and pressing my forehead to his. “You are the most worthy man I have ev
er known.”

The last of the fabric between us was pushed away, the gold ornaments on my skirt chiming against the tiles, and my shift following soon after. Theseus rolled me to my back, kissing me again while his hands moved over my body, fondling and caressing, tickling my stomach before sliding between my thighs. His touch at my sex made my heart stutter. When his fingers slipped inside me,
I gasped.

His hand stilled, and he kissed my throat, then my collarbone. My body arched of its own accord, pressing against his hand until I moaned with pleasure. Palm flat against me, he matched his movement
s to mine.

I had never realized what pleasure a man could give this way, with just the touch of his hand. The wave built a roaring of the sea in my ears, and Theseus’s lips found my throat, teeth grazing the flesh. My hands closed into fists in the linens, as though if I did not hold on, I would be swept away. And then the wave burst, and I cried out, my whole body shuddering wit
h release.

Theseus’s hand slipped free when I had stilled, and I heard him chuckle again, low and smug. He tickled the inside of my thighs. I shivered and he shifted, his hand persuading my legs to spread be
neath him.

“Open your eye
s, Helen.”

I could not have denied him anything then, and did as he bid, meeting his eyes as the length of him pressed against my opening where his fingers had been. Anticipating the pain of his thrust, I bit my lip a
gainst it.

“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured, and then he kissed me, his lips parting mine as his body filled me with its hardness until I moaned with new
pleasure.

My nails scraped his back for purchase, my legs spreading wider to let him in. His forehead falling to mine, he held still as stone above me for a long moment, his breath coming hard. I wrapped my legs around his waist, drawing him closer, and he groane
d my name.

When he began to move at last, I thought I would never need to breathe again, that just this moment, and his body inside mine, would sustain me for the rest of my life. I raised my hips to meet his, finding his rhythm and echoing it wi
th my own.

He swore something I didn’t hear, for the ocean roared in my ears again. My heart beat so hard, my whole body throbbed, and his pace increased. Faster, and the wave built inside me again, slow and steady with his strokes. I wove my fingers into his hair, and let him carry me, let him fill me, let him hold me afloat, until I shuddered. My whole body shook from the inside out, and I lost myself in the ocean as it crashed over
me again.

Theseus groaned, one of his hands lifting my hips. Holding me tightly joined against his body, he shivered and stiffened with his own release, his seed spilling inside me. He collapsed against me on the bed, his weight somehow not crushing me against the cushioning, his breathing as ragge
d as mine.

With what seemed a great effort, he lifted himself up and rolled to his side. I sighed at the loss of his body in mine, feeling the absence like an ache. He smiled at me, stroking my cheek, his thumb tracing my b
ottom lip.

“Did I please you?”
he asked.

I blushed, though my face must have already been flushed from ou
r joining.

“Very much,” I
whispered.

His fingers moved to the circlet still on my brow, and I thought he traced the lines of the braided gold. He kissed my forehead, and though it was a gesture he had made a thousand times before, so soon after his lovemaking it made
me shiver.

“You are everything I dreamed of,” he said. “Everything I could have ever hoped for, in a woman, in a wife, in
a queen.”

I laughed and closed my eyes. “You are blinded
by love.”

“I was blinded before now.” He brushed the hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear. “But you taught m
e to see.”

I shook my head, not knowing what to say to such praise, and his every touch scattered my thoughts. He kissed my temple, then the pulse at my neck, his fingers trailing over my rib cage and making my body b
urn again.

But my stomach begged me for food, now that my anxiety
had fled.

“Theseus.”

“Hmm?”

His hand had reached my breasts, and I ached for his lips to follow. Another moment and I would no longer be able to think for the distraction he woul
d give me.

“I’m
starving.”

He stopped, and in the silence I opened my eyes to look at him. He searched my face for a long moment, his forehead furrowed. And then he laughed. It was not the chuckle of our lovemaking or his self-satisfaction, but a full-throated roar that came deep from his belly, making him fall backward o
n the bed.

“Shh!” I said, feeling the blood rise in my cheeks again. “They’ll hear you in the
corridor!”

He did not quiet, but gathered himself enough to sit up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The laugh settled into a softer chuckle when he stood up and, naked as a god, he crossed the room and threw open
the door.

“Food and wine!” he called, and by the sound of it, he had startled several loiterers with his sudden appearance. “And bring some of the oranges from Pirithous for
my bride!”