Arthur listened in silence, and she turned to him with a look of anger mixed with hopelessness.
“Intelligent, and tall, and strong, and funny, and lethal, and controlled, and handsome; with psions to give my control a run for its money, and enough good looks to make even me blush.” Her cheeks warmed as if in evidence, and she sighed in resignation.
When next she spoke, her voice was almost strained. “Gods, Arthur, you’re so perfect it’s sickening and enrapturing all at once, and the greatest joke of it all is that you’re completely off-limits to me.”
“Circe, I can’t be your family’s Knight and be involved with you.” Arthur said gently.
“I know, damn it!” Circe growled back at him, while smacked her hand against the marble table. “I know! That’s why this—you and me—is so infuriating! Gods, Arthur, I want you with a level of intensity that is embarrassing.”
Her voice turned strained, and she continued in a tone that was sad and angry all at once. “I have been a controlled, disinterested maiden for thirty-five years, and in one fucking day you’ve made me so enticed I shook my ass like a common harlot, and did so while walking up the stairs of a public fucking restaurant!”
“So that talk with Nika—”
“She saw through me like I was made of glass.” Circe said with frustration. “She knew the moment she looked at me that I was feeling something, something I’d never felt for anyone. It’s not like I never had options, Arthur, but nobody has ever twisted me up like you did—nobody has ever manhandled me like you did, and for all that the proud woman in me hates to gods damned admit it, the way you so thoroughly defeated me drove me crazy.”
“I see.” Arthur said quietly. “I didn’t realize how much distress you were in.”
“It’s not distress, Arthur, it’s just confusion—confusion, and embarrassing hormones.”
Arthur took a breath, and spoke as soothingly as he could. “If you want to go—”
“I don’t want to leave, Arthur!” Circe cut in immediately and with another look of frustration. “Gods damn it, why are men so dense? I—I like this. I like being with you. I mean, I hate it,” she said with a low growl, “but I love it too. I like this. I like us. I like the ability to feel like… like I’m vulnerable.”
Circe seemed to be searching for the words while she spoke, and Arthur refused to interrupt. Instead he just swallowed back his own nerves, and let her speak.
“It’s like you could just, I dunno, throw me down and do whatever you wanted! I know—I know that sounds depraved and absolutely mental, but it isn’t like that, I… You’re strong. Stronger than any man I’ve ever met. Stronger than Atreus, or my father, or any of my relatives. I feel vulnerable with you, Arthur, and I feel safe because of it.”
“I see.” Arthur said, and then winced the moment he did.
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That had not come out the way he’d intended it to.
Circe, however, smiled at him when he said it.
It was a resigned smile, a sad smile, and a pained one all at once.
“You just don’t get it, do you? I guess you can’t. You’re here for a reason, and I’m making this complicated. I thought maybe, because of how you looked at me, we understood each other. I’m an idi—”
“We did. We do! You aren’t an idiot.” Arthur blurted out impulsively when his self-control finally eroded. “Throne of Terra, Circe, you’re everything a man could want! You’re smart, you’re brave, you’re kind, you’re proud, you’re warm, you’re strong, you’re beautiful, you’re elegant, you’re a warrior, I…” Arthur sighed and reached up to clasped his hands together and lightly tap his forehead against his interlocked fingers.
“Then why…?” she asked with an expression torn between desire and frustration.
“Circe, this—us—whatever this is? This isn’t just us. This is more than just chemistry. It’s psions. It’s resonance. It’s everything we are.”
“This is more than just—” she began hotly.
“I know.” he cut her off again. “I get it. I know. You’re beautiful. Staggeringly beautiful. Any man would want you, I just… I—We don’t have the luxury of choice. I’m a nobody from Aurelia, Circe, and you’re the heiress to House Leos. You’re going to be a Duchess!”
Arthur held up a hand when she opened her mouth to cut in, and her jaw audibly clicked shut in what he thought was surprise.
“More importantly, I’m going to be your family’s Hetairoi. Possibly its Strategos! I know you’ve said this already, in your own way, but you need to hear this from me.” Arthur took a breath while Circe watched him intently, and he could almost feel her nervousness and trepidation reflecting his own. “If we were just two people, Circe Leos, I’d throw you down on this table and teach you what pleasure is—”
Her eyes widened, and her cheeks flamed to a bright red at his words.
“—until the sun set and rose again, but we aren’t. We’re not just two people. We’re not even just a Lady and a Knight. We’re Eidolon pilots.” Arthur stressed the words before he continued. “Moreover, we’re elites. We both know it. We’re so psionically gifted we can change the perceptions of entire populations just by moving through them, speaking to them, and letting our aura wash over them.”
He took a steadying breath and then continued.
“The reality is, Circe, that what we feel is as much our psionic resonance as it is actual chemistry. It’s playing with our sense of reality.” Arthur’s mind focused on his words while he spoke, and he drew strength from them.
A small, contradicting part of himself said that he was actively deceiving his own sense of fact and fiction, but he crushed that voice as ruthlessly as Arthur Zacaris had crushed his rivals to the title of Heir.
“You are the Lion Maiden of Laconia, Circe Leos, and I will be the Knight that defends your family’s honor.” Arthur said with definitive finality. “And we…” he sighed sharply to rid himself of a curdling feeling of disappointment and self-inflicted hurt in his stomach. “We have to accept that, and not let this—whatever it is—distract us.”
Arthur leaned back when he finished, and took a moment to let his mind latch onto his own words.
In the silence, Circe spoke.
“Thank you, Arthur.” She said quietly. Her eyes met his, and then drifted away to look toward the sunset. “Thank you for being honest. I…” her lips trembled for a moment, and after a few seconds she looked back at him, took a breath, and smiled. “Just… thanks.”
Arthur swallowed the lump in his throat, ignored the voice calling him a fool and a liar, and smiled at her with all the warmth he could muster in turn.
“So.” he said as casually as he could into the silence that followed. “Lesson time: Why keep House Leos in Pallikári?”
Circe’s eyes searched his own after the question, and she chuckled softly.
Apollo set long before they finished talking.