Penelope couldn’t see. Her vision was flooded with tears almost instantly. Her stomach threatened to upturn.
His lips left hers, trailing downward. Penelope shut her eyes, praying for this moment to end. Antinous laughed against her pulse, groaning. “Gods, Nel.” He rasped, moving quickly.
He grabbed her face roughly in his large hand, forcing her to look at him. She would not cry, she would not break. “You will be mine, queen. Mark my words” His lips crashed down on hers again, briefly. “I’d hate for the little king to suffer… should you refuse.”
He released his grip on her chin, shoving her face to the side. “Don’t miss me too much, Nel. I won’t be far.”
“You should thank him, old king.” He mocked, bowing low. Blood continued to spill from his nose. “He kept your bed warm while you were awa-”
Eupeithes didn’t stand a chance. The king’s blade was buried deep in his stomach before he finished his sentence.
Her pulse fluttered quickly in her throat. She hadn’t even seen the king move. He stood over Eupeithes as he gasped for breath, clutching at his wound.
The world did not move.
Not the men in the courtyard. Not the breath in Penelope’s lungs.
Not even the gods.
Eupeithes’ lips parted, but only blood spilled forth. His knees hit the earth, but no one moved to catch him. His fingers scrabbled against the stone, but there was nothing to hold on to.
Nothing to save him.
Her husband, her mad, impossible husband, had freed her again. Even in the wake of a man’s death, she found herself falling into him, into the endless safety he offered.
Penelope took a beat, two, before drawing in air. She looked to her husband, whose eyes had locked onto hers. “I spent twenty years ruling in my husband’s stead. Tell me, Ithacans,” she turned to face the surrounding men, “have you forgotten that?”
She looked down her nose to the man that laid before them, blood staining her courtyard floor. “You’re lucky, Eupeithes.” She turned her back to the men, brushing her hands on her tunic. “You’re lucky my husband got to you first.”
She did not turn, did not face the collection of families that stood behind her. “Remember this,” she said, voice ringing through the stone halls. “Remember it when you wake. Remember it when you dream.”
Then, and only then, did she pivot, facing the men that had jeered at her family just moments before. “Your king and I are bound by more than rings and vows, Ithacans.” She let the silence stretch, let the weight of her words settle like ash after a fire.
“Pray the gods never test us again. There is nothing I will not do for my king, for my son.”
39
HE FOLLOWED HER OUT OF THE COURTYARD, up the stairs, and to their private meeting chamber. Hells, he would have followed her back to Sparta on foot if that’s where she had been headed.
Odysseus knew he married a force to be reckoned with. He knew that the woman he had promised his entire life to was the one that would hold him to it. But seeing her covered in her attacker’s blood,sneering down at him, he wasn’t sure he had ever loved her more.
She commanded that room; the space filled with angry men, with less than a dozen words. They were at her mercy the minute she started speaking.
“You’re ruthless,” he croaked, barely hiding his grin as he took in the sight before him.
“You’re the one who killed him,” she replied, not missing a beat. Her eyes were wild, barely a trace of her golden irises visible. The tresses of her hair were unruly.
She was the most beautiful woman in the world.
He wasn’t ashamed to admit that seeing her standing in front of her, with another man’s blood speckled across her tunic, had his insides in knots. With the heavy breaths that she took, andthe way her hands twitched towards him, it was everything he could do to behave.
“He touched something that belongs to me,” Odysseus stepped closer to her, grabbing her arm where Eupeithes had snatched her away from him. He brought his lips to her skin, pressing a gentle kiss to the inside of her wrist. “Unforgivable.”
“You broke his nose, Odysseus,” she mused, tugging her hand out of his grip. “That’s the second nose you’ve broken in a week’s time.”
He cradled her face in his hands, searching her eyes. “I thought you liked it,” he whispered, caught in her gaze. He was adrift in the sea. There was no siren as seductive as the woman that stood in front of him.
He brushed her hair out of her face, holding her as if she was the most delicate thing on earth.
