“And now you think to protect him from me? Your mate?” Memnon’s eyes are glowing again. I hadn’t realized they stopped until now. That only snags my attention for a second because—

“Mate?” I echo.

Things inside me go very quiet and very still.

“We have spoken our vows before your gods and mine,” Memnon continues. “You and I were molded from the same bit of earth. The Fates spun our threads together. And we entered our own covenant. Your mind may be addled—”

Addled?

“—yet there are some truths even it cannot deny.”

“I am not that woman!” I shriek at him. “You know this—you acknowledged it yourself.

“Now,” I continue, jerking against him, “let—me—go!”

“Let you go?” Memnon’s eyes burn brighter, his expression hardening as his hair snaps about with his churning power. “Even if I wanted to—even if I didn’t have two thousand years of revenge to exact on you—your life is bound to mine, est amage. Not even death will part us. I will never let you go.”

Just when I think things can’t get any worse, Memnon reels me into him and kisses me.

The moment his lips meet mine, my magic comes alive.

It races along my skin and between my bones. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s consuming me.

Memnon’s magic joins in, threading through mine. I feel his power on me and in me, and I throb with the ecstasy of it.

It’s not even a choice to kiss him back—he’s a wildfire, and I’m getting swept up in it.

I kiss him like I’m starving for contact, like everything that was wrong has now been made right. The taste of him and the thrill of his power moving through me scorch my skin and steal my breath.

This is what I was searching for in the touch and taste of another. This is passion.

Memnon makes a possessive noise, slipping his hands into my hair, his staggering body enveloping me. His lips are bruising against mine; he kisses me with the ferocity of a starving man.

He tilts my jaw up to get a better angle.

It’s been too long since you’ve been in my arms, my queen.

I’m not sure Memnon intended for me to hear this—it sounds like a passing thought more than anything else—but the words whisper through my head all the same, and they break the spell.

What in the goddess’s good grace are you doing, Selene?

I move my hands to his lower abs and blast my power out, magically shoving him away.

“I thought we had established that I am not your anything.” Not his wife, not his queen, not his empress.

An angry smile graces his face. “Yes, you almost convinced me of that, didn’t you? But I have since had time to muse on it.” His tone changes, turning accusing. “I don’t know what witchcraft has destroyed your memory and produced those photos—”

“There was no witchcraft involved!” I say heatedly. We’re back to square one. I want to scream.

“—but my magic recognizes yours, and my bond is fucking singing through my blood as it hasn’t for the past two thousand years.”

We’re so close that our breath is intermingling.

“It’s why you can speak to me in Sarmatian when you’re pleased with me, and Latin when you’re angry,” Memnon continues, making me recall an earlier encounter in the spellcasting kitchen. I’d slipped into Latin with him then. “It’s why you can scream and fling your oaths and still kiss me as though we have done it a hundred upon a hundred times before—because we have.

“So you are wrong, little witch. You are many things to me. You are my queen, my empress, my wife. You are my Roxilana, the woman who awoke my magic and spoke to my mind before we ever met. You are my nemesis, who cursed me to endless sleep.”

Memnon’s hand cups my cheek. “And you are my Selene, my eternal soul mate, who woke me from it.”

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CHAPTER 24

Soul mate.

That terrifying, bewitching word echoes in my head.

I stagger back. “I—I am not your soul mate,” I say, even though my voice wavers.

I expect my words to be met with annoyance or frustration. This is, after all, a new version of the same old argument we’ve had.

Instead, his eyes have softened. “I saw your mind, little witch. I understand how you struggle and that much has slipped past your own awareness.”

He closes the space between us and places his palm over my heart.

“What are you doing?” I demand. I should rip his hand away. The ugly truth, however, is that I like his touch, even after all the shit he just pulled.

The gall of my body.

Instead of responding, Memnon stares deeply at me.

Empress…why do you think I’m able to speak to you like this?

I don’t breathe, my gaze locked with his.

Your heart knows the answer—as does your magic.

I feel that magic he speaks of rise now, twining with his.

Oh Goddess.

I shake my head.

No, no, no.

Memnon’s glittering brown eyes are intent on me, and a slow pleased smile spreads across his lips, like he can hear my own shocked thoughts.

We are soul mates, little witch, and we can speak down our bond…

I squeeze my eyes shut, grimacing because I can feel his words in me. They seep into my very blood, like a river reaching the ocean.

It felt like this every time he called to me—even when we were kissing only moments ago. I just assumed it was his brand of magic at work. Now, however…now his explanation makes a sick sort of sense.

Bonds are magical cords that connect two entities—like the one I share with Nero. Soul mates have them as well.

Could it be possible? Could Memnon truly be my soul mate, and could he speak to me through a bond we share?

No. I reject that thought before it can take further root.

Memnon’s eyes twinkle deviously, and it makes me wonder just how formidable this man truly is. I have seen his magic and his powerful body, and I have heard enough of his past to know he must’ve been a ruler, one who ruled a vast and expanding empire. Yet, even knowing all of that, I still find Memnon’s mind to be largely a mystery. And I think it’s that very mind of his that is the most terrible thing of all.

“You can talk to me through our bond too,” Memnon says softly, his hand still over my heart.

I pinch my eyes shut. “Stop saying that,” I whisper.

Bonds, mates—I don’t want to hear any of it.

“What, bond? Why would I?” he asks, sounding truly baffled. “It is the basis of everything, est amage. Your power, my power. All I know of my magic has come from it. Before I ever met you face-to-face, I heard your voice, right here.” Memnon uses his other hand to touch his own heart. “I spent countless nights whispering down it to you, and I spent my days letting it guide me across the world to find you.”

My skin tingles with his admission, and when I open my eyes, there’s a rawness and an intensity to his words that has me ensnared.

“So, enemies or not, Selene, please, ask me a question down our bond—project it to me.”

I want to deny him because I am in denial, but his plea gets under my skin, and a sick sort of curiosity wins out.

This shouldn’t work. It really shouldn’t.

I close my eyes once again and focus on that place just beneath Memnon’s warm palm; supposedly, it’s where soul mates are magically bonded. It’s terrifying that I do sense something there, now that I concentrate on it.

I’ve heard bonds described as cords and roads, but this feels more like a river flowing both into and out of me.

How did you get the scar on your face? I push the thought out with my power, forcing it down this magical river I sense.

“At fifteen, a man tried to skin me in battle,” Memnon says.