Page 19 of The Shadows Between Us
“If you had, you would have gotten in line with the rest of the girls. You wouldn’t try to insult me every chance you get.”
Good. He doesn’t see through my charade.
I stare at the goblet on the table. After leaving him to squirm in his chair for a while longer, I say, “You will have to make up for the incredibly rude comment you just made if you expect us to become friends.”
“Rude?”
“You said I wasn’t beautiful enough.”
His mouth drops open. “No, I said you were the right amount of beautiful. I said you’re perfect.”
Now I am just being petty.
Tamp it down for now. Put on a smile and accept his offer.
“Forgive me,” he says a second later, surprising me. “It has been a long time since I’ve had a friend who didn’t walk around on all fours. My words didn’t come out the way I’d meant them.”
But they did. And that’s what’s so infuriating.
But I say, “I accept your offer and all that comes with it.”
“Excellent.” The Shadow King switches out his cake for the still-steaming soup. “If we are to be friends, then surely I should call you Alessandra when we are alone?”
“We are not friends just yet, Your Majesty, but once we are, what shall I call you?”
A faint smile still lingers on his lips. “My name is Kallias. Kallias Maheras.”
“Kallias,” I say, letting the syllables drift off my tongue:kuh-LIE-us.
I have been entrusted with the name of a king.
Now I need him to give me his heart.
CHAPTER
6
I fume as I walk back to my rooms.
Not beautiful enough to tempt him, am I? We’ll see about that. I’m going to make him fall so in love with me, he’ll forget he ever saw another woman. He will bebeggingfor me by the time I’m done with him.
And then he’ll beg for his life right before I end him.
That sweet thought sustains me as I reach my rooms and tread toward my bed.
The king was not wrong. A large pile of letters rests on the table in my room, but I don’t get to open them right away.
There’s a man next to my bed. I half hoped it would be handsome Leandros, just so I could have a story to tell the king about chasing men away from my room. But alas.
It’s Myron.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I demand. “How did you even get in here?”
He’s so tall his head is only a foot away from the ceiling. Impeccably dressed in black pants and a plum-colored coat, he turns at the sound of my voice.
“Alessandra, fancy seeing you here.”
“It’s my room!”
