know why he wasn’t acting like the selfish, ruthless god everyone knew him to be.
“I can tell you why.”
Nysa’s voice startled him. He looked toward the door to see her striding into the room with a tapered candle as if she owned the place. She lit several torches on the walls until they bathed the room in a warm glow.
“She’s still sleeping.” She blew out the candle in her hand and set it on the desk, then looked at him across the shiny surface. “Ida’s with her. She’ll alert me when the princess wakes.”
He didn’t like the way Nysa and the other nymphs called Talisa princess. As if they were privy to his personal business. He needed to get control of these damn mortals. And he liked even less that the vibration in his chest seemed to be growing stronger.
“Why are you bothering me?”
“To tell you why you aren’t acting like the selfish, ruthless god you think yourself to be.”
He stared at her with narrowed eyes, unsure if she’d read his mind or if he’d spoken those words aloud.
She was a healer. She had gifts. Had the mages taught her some of his magick? Or had she probed his mind when he’d been injured?
Nysa laughed and eased a hip onto the edge of his desk. “Don’t look so worried, My Prince. It’s not that bad, I promise. Love has a way of making us all act differently.”
He frowned, knowing that definitely was not the reason. Especially not after today. “The female is not in love with me.”
“Oh, I don’t know if she is or not.” Nysa crossed her arms over her chest. “I was talking about you.”
He choked on a breath.
Coughing to cover, he shifted in his seat and looked anywhere but at the nymph who was eyeing him with an amused expression. “You’re clearly mistaken.”
“Am I? You sacrificed yourself for her. You were ready to surrender your life for hers. And I know you gave her your gem. You never did those things before. You never would have thought to do those things for her before. What’s different this time? It’s more than her race. More than her beauty. No, what’s different this time is you. What you feel. What she makes you feel.”
He stared at the nymph, hating that she was wiser than she looked. Hating even more that his mouth was as dry as a desert.
“That’s not…” He swallowed, trying to make his words work, but they seemed lodged in his throat. “I can’t—”
“It is possible. And you can. And the sooner you accept that you can, the sooner you’ll know how to deal with it.”
She pushed off the desk. “It would be smart to have her transferred to your bedchamber. No matter what happened between the two of you today, I think it wise if she woke in your bed, not in the tower where you had her imprisoned when she first arrived. That might put her in a bad mood.”
“She’s already going to be in a bad mood when she wakes,” he muttered.
Nysa smirked. “So I can have her moved?”
Dazed, he realized he’d said that aloud, too. “Fine. Whatever. But I still want guards stationed outside the door. I don’t want her leaving yet.”
“Yes, My Prince.”
She crossed the room but paused at the threshold and looked back. “For the record, Zagreus, loving someone doesn’t make you weak. It actually makes you strong. And contrary to what you or the gods think, love—true love—is not a myth. It is the very reason there is light in this world. Without it, we would all live in darkness.”
She left, leaving silence in her wake, interrupted only by the pulse in his ears and the crackle of flames in the torches on the walls.
He’d known nothing but darkness his whole life, even during the brief times his mono mia had been with him. Now things were different, though. Nysa was right. He felt different, and he couldn’t go on ignoring that fact.
He placed a hand against his chest, where Talisa had touched him earlier. Heat permeated his palm. Heat and the strong, steady beat of a heart he’d forgotten he still had.
Was Nysa right? Was this… thing… growing in his chest… love?
He didn’t know. He had no experience with that emotion. Lust? Yes. Obsession? Absolutely. But love was a foreign concept. His parents certainly didn’t love each other. He’d definitely never witnessed any kind of love in the Underworld where he’d been raised and periodically tortured. And if love