> The way he held himself, the way he spoke, the way he took it all in stride—like a monarch surveying a new realm ripe for conquest. It was a warning sign, more than the way we connected ever was. I should have known he would destroy us all the moment I saw that, and yet all I could fathom was his strength, his power, his potential. I was blinded by my desire, and though it shames me, I must admit in retrospect that I wholeheartedly regret it not a whit.

Arthur stared down at the woman beneath him for several long moments after she spoke. His eyes, which had already told him the truth of her words, probed more sharply across her features to fully assess what it was she was saying.

Beautiful features. Jade green eyes. Graecian skin.

Tall, proud, female, warrior.

Arthur pulled the blade back from Circe Leos’ neck with muscle memory-fueled precision and promptly tossed it over to Endymion, who caught it with a faint whine of his armor’s servos and said nothing.

His mind was racing while he regarded the heiress, and worked over a mix of shock, disbelief, bewilderment, confusion, and most of all a general sense of absolute incandescent rage.

His eyes narrowed while he stared at her, and she stared at him, and something passed between them.

A sense of… rightness that he couldn’t instantly place.

Until his memories as Arthur Zacaris flashed to the fore.

Resonance.

He had suppressed unnecessary thoughts during the fight, but with the immediate danger gone, the realization crashed into him like a freight train. He had been resonating with her, with a degree of ease that even Zacaris had rarely encountered.

The odds of that seemed ludicrously small.

Yet somehow, he knew, it was true.

“Well?” Circe asked in a strangely breathless voice.

“What?” he asked distractedly while staring down at her.

“Are you going to get off of me?”

Arthur stared at her uncomprehendingly for a long moment, and then realized belatedly that he was still on top of her, with his legs straddling her hips, and her wrists gripped in his far stronger left hand.

A moment of processing followed while Arthur’s brain attempted to work through why he would let go of someone that attempted to kill him, and then a quiet cough from Perseus stole his attention instead.

“You really shouldn’t be holding the heiress of a Graecian Great House captive, Arthur. It’s somewhat ill-advised given you’re to be her family’s Hetairoi.”

“She tried to kill me, Perseus.” he growled without taking his eyes off of Circe. “And besides, if it’s such an issue, why didn’t you just tackle me off of her?”

“Seemed inappropriate, given she ordered everyone away and said to ‘ignore any disturbances’.”

“She—?”

“We didn’t find out until we came to check in on you.” Perseus said simply. “And besides, she didn’t appear to be in much distress when we entered—and it was pretty clear who attacked who.” He shrugged. “Still, you should have been a little less forceful, perhaps.”

“She tried to kill me!” he said irritably.

“False edge.” Endymion grunted while looking at the xiphos. “Won’t cut flesh, but will cut everything else. We use them for training. Tricky bit of technology, this.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Arthur turned to stare at Endymion blankly for a moment, and then with another wordless growl he released Circe’s wrists and smoothly pushed himself to his feet. He gained distance when he did, while keeping his eyes once again fixed on the onyx-and-gold haired femme fatale.

He noticed her gaze shift from his eyes to elsewhere, and saw her blush deepen.

Arthur frowned at her in momentary confusion, and then flicked a glance downward.

The towel and hastily buckled belt had fallen off.

He was completely naked.

Arthur took several moments to parse this development, and then sighed in irritation.

He had long ago divested himself of embarrassment over nudity. The amount of time he’d spent barely clad or naked with peers of both genders while training for war on Albion had almost completely inoculated Zacaris against any sense of shame or embarrassment, and Magellan had never had that shame put back into place. He had often forgotten, in fact, that many others—especially among higher social echelons—still adhered to a more rigid sense of conservative propriety.

An impatient frown took hold of Arthur’s lips and he studiously ignored the staring heiress and decidedly silent Kidemónes. Instead he walked purposefully toward the partially destroyed cupboard and retrieved a black chiton, a scarlet himation, some black silk briefs, and a pair of knee-high sandals.

Still he said nothing while he started laying the clothes out on the bed, and attempting to collect his thoughts.

Circe Leos.

He had been attacked, apparently falsely attacked, by Circe fucking Leos.

His soon-to-be potential liege-lord’s only living heir.

Arthur’s temper danced between a bonfire and a frosty seethe while he habitually laid the clothes out, one after the other, on the ruined doona of the four-poster kingsize. His hands were shaking slightly, he noticed, from the after-effects of the adrenaline—and only his personal sense of control stopped him from snarling in renewed fury at seeing it.

He felt completely out of sorts, and more than that, was assaulted by the resonance he felt with Circe.

The moment he’d recognized it for what it was, it was like he’d opened the shutters to the sun and they could never be closed again. She was simply there. He was aware of her, passively, in a way he would never be able to explain to anyone that wasn’t experiencing the same thing. It wasn’t as thought their minds were connected or as if he could read her thoughts.

It was something both far more and far less intimate.

Circe Leos was, within a certain proximity, both a beacon of life and a deluge of instinctive responses. He could tell where she would move before she did, feel the intentions of her actions before she made them, and even pinpoint her exact location blindfolded. It was not something he did with perfect awareness, but more akin to a gut feeling.

It was like knowledge whose veracity he could never quite properly explain.

Even worse, Circe Leos had the highest resonance he’d ever experienced.

What that even meant he wasn’t sure. Somehow, he doubted it would end well.

At least after a hundred or so meters, the resonance would fade again.

Even when it did, however, it would still exist in the back of his mind like the embers of a fire that remembered what it meant to burn. That was the true cruelty and power of resonance between psions: it never, ever faded. It would last until one of the pair was dead, and even that the other would feel the moment it happened.

Like a miniscule part of themselves had died.

The very notion of it, he knew, was repulsive and invasive to Arthur Zacaris.

Arthur Magellan, though, had possessed no direct experience with resonance.

Arthur as he was at that moment? He didn’t know what to feel. The Inquisitor’s latest memory thread had seemed purposefully timed to awaken when he experienced his first strong bout of resonance, and there was almost something uncanny about the fact he had done so with Circe Leos.

It was, he reflected, almost too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.

Arthur reached out to take the briefs in hand, and pulled them on at the same time as Circe’s voice cut through the silence.

“I wish to speak to Ser Magellan alone.” she said firmly.

“My lady, I am not certain that would be—”

“It will be fine, Ser Kidemónas.” Circe declared with the tone of a woman who expected to be obeyed. “Wait just outside the doors if you must, but I will have privacy for what comes next.”

Arthur looked over toward the pair of stoic, elite royal guards of the Vasilikós Kidemónes—and almost snorted in amusement when the pair bowed, gave him shallow nods, and retreated outside of the doors with a quiet thud of her closing.

“Pushovers…” he muttered while turning back to his clothes.