I looked into his eyes, and in them I saw destruction. At the time I couldn’t tell for whom, be it my family or our enemies, and truthfully a part of me didn’t care. I was taken in by his charisma, his presence, and the force of his existence. For the first time in my life, I felt vulnerable—and in that vulnerability, I felt safe in a way nobody had achieved before him. It is impossible to explain, perhaps, but it is the truth. Now the red-gold of that sunset is the same hue as the power that burns the worlds of the Humanosphere, and truthfully, I cannot say I regret a thing.

  The restaurant Circe had brought them to was named the Lion’s Pride, and Arthur couldn’t help but chuckle at the name when they walked under the proudly hanging sign.

  “The name?” Circe guessed from beside him.

  “Guilty,” he said with a wry smile.

  She laughed in kind and together they entered the premises.

  The Lion’s Pride was an open-plan restaurant built from three storeys of treated wood of various origins, and lit by standing braziers and hanging lanterns that were even then coming to life in the wake of the gradually approaching sunset. Its bottom level was designed evidently as a dance floor and bar, though the former was presently unoccupied.

  “It stays basically full during the night hours,” Circe explained while they passed the lightly armored security at one of the many open areas of the bottom floor, and made their way toward the stairs to the upper levels.

  “I take it we’ll hear some bass-heavy music soon?” Arthur enquired while following her, hands in his pockets casually and eyes instinctively sweeping for threats.

  “Of a sort, yeah,” Circe said while taking the steps one at a time in a way that threatened to break his focus entirely.

  He instead focused on the interior of the restaurant, and reminded himself that Circe—like him, in fact—had been designed to draw eyes. Her height, her curves, her natural grace, her power, her stunningly symmetrical features; all of it was intended to engender a desire in others.

  Add in a prodigiously dense helping of psions and a lifetime of training to accentuate every one of her most attractive features while simultaneously commanding every room she entered, and Arthur was able to take some solace in his self-diagnosed weakness.

  It wasn’t an excuse not to control himself, of course, but it helped him rationalize his reactions to her, and the way she had been making him feel. Arthur was not a man prone to being unable to control himself, he knew that, and so the experience of flustered attraction resulting from his exposure to Circe was even more disconcerting because of it.

  He had to master himself.

  Arthur, those thoughts in mind, followed her up the stairs while very determinedly not looking at her lower body while she ascended above him.

  Several moments later they passed through the family-oriented setting of the middle floor’s large tables, and reached the third level’s more formal and intimate dinner seating.

  He looked up from his extremely focused stare at the smoothly polished wood of the stairwell’s banister to see Circe looking back at him with an approving smile, and what he almost thought might have been a glimmer of disappointment at the same time.

  Before he could do more than frown in confusion, she was walking away, and Arthur was left feeling conflicted by the heiress’ strange expression.

  The uncertain idea that perhaps Circe had been testing his decency filled his mind.

  He dismissed the thought as vanity and paranoia, and followed after her.

  “Your highness!” a warm woman’s voice greeted them upon emerging onto the top level. “Welcome back to the Lion’s Pride!”

  Arthur’s eyes searched for and located the voice’s source when he stepped up behind Circe.

  The speaker was a redhead of average height, with a light smattering of freckles on her cheeks, full lips painted a light shade of pink, and an elegant white chiton cinched above her hips and extending down just past her thighs. She’d combined the traditional garb with a pair of shin-high sandals with golden straps, and nothing else visible above her knees.

  Though from Arthur’s experience, it was very likely she was wearing some manner of shorts or sportswear undergarments to preserve her dignity.

  Hopefully.

  “Hello, Nika,” Circe greeted the redhead with a fond look. “I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”

  “Business is booming, princess, and it only booms more when a member of the Leos clan patronizes our establishment. The fact it’s the Lion Princess herself, this time, is worth more than your impressive weight in gold!”

  Arthur’s eyebrows rose in surprise at the words, but Circe seemed to take the inference about her weight as a compliment, and even placed her hands on her hips to show off the musculature of her arms—somehow managing to combine feminine elegance and a warrior’s sculpting all at once.

  Several other faces among the dining guests turned their way, and then promptly faltered and looked away upon what Arthur assumed was the recognized presence of two Kidemónes.

  “You’re flattering me, Nika. You know how I feel about flattery,” Circe chided without ire and seemingly without noticing the looks from the other patrons. She seemed in her element when in public, and her easy comfort despite the crowded room only affirmed Arthur’s respect for her comportment and sheer presence.

  “Only when you’re in a good mood?” Nika asked slyly, and slipped forward to take one of Circe’s arms in one of her far daintier ones. “Though, your highness, I have to know—” she glanced back at Arthur with appreciative appraisal and then turned back to Circe “—whether or not it’s true that the hunk of out-sector meat behind you is really the new Leos Hetairoi.”

  Endymion and Perseus shifted at Arthur’s sides when Nika spoke, and he glanced at both Kidemónes in question.

  It was Perseus who spoke, quietly, through his helmet while Circe laughed at Nika and leaned in to speak quietly to the buxom redhead.

  “It’s up to Lady Leos what she says, but it’ll complicate matters if she admits to it. We’re just assessing exits in the worst case scenario.”

  “The worst case scenario?” Arthur asked warily.

  “Assassination attempt,” Perseus replied simply, before stepping away to perform what Arthur interpreted as a security sweep, following a muted click of communication from Endymion.

  “Come on, your highness!” Nika said in a voice that pulled back Arthur’s attention, and drew him to follow in the two ladies’ wake. “You know I can keep a secret.”

  “No you cannot, Nika,” Circe laughed fondly. “But you know we adore you anyway. I can’t say what Arthur is, anyway, because that hasn’t been decided yet.”

  Nika’s blue eyes snuck another glance at Arthur, and she grinned.

  “Ohoho. Arthur is it, princess? Not Kyrio?”

  Circe flushed at Nika’s words, and very lightly smacked the much shorter woman’s arm. “Nika, stop, you’re embarrassing me.”

  The redhead giggled and actually wiggled in excitement when she replied, “I think your red cheeks are doing that themselves, your highness, but I shan’t add more fuel to that particular fire. The rumor mills are already raging all over the ‘Net.”

  “Artemis help me,” Circe said with a groan, “I can only imagine.”

  “Everything from him being the bastard son of Leonidas XIV, to a Fringe noble, and even speculation he’s a True Core Lord in exile, if you can believe it!’

  Arthur’s heartrate spiked at Nika’s words, and he narrowed his eyes slightly on the redhead. Had that simply been a rumor, or was she dropping hints he needed to be wary of? Preparation and paranoia warred with forced relaxation and rational restraint, and Arthur re-assessed exits himself just in case.

  If he and Circe did need a quick exit, he wanted one at hand.

  “I’ll have the kitchen prepare your usual fare, and I’ll throw in our best bottle of retsina,” Nika said while she and Circe came to a halt near what appeared to be a sectioned off section of their level, and apparently led to a balcony marked by two black drapes bearing the crimson lion of House Leos. “I’ll also make sure nobody disturbs your date.”

  “Nika!” Circe said with a very visible look of mortification. “It is not a date!”

  “Sure it isn’t, your highness. Just like I’m not a gossip, right?”

  Nika winked at Circe, stood on her toes to plant a light kiss on the woman’s cheek—which Circe returned automatically—and then stepped away with a respectful curtsy and flounced past Arthur, to whom she gave a decidedly and shockingly sudden cold look.

  “If you let anything happen to her or hurt her in any way,” Nika said softly when she passed, “all of Pallikári will ensure you live just long enough to regret it, Fringer.”

  Arthur’s eyebrows rose into his hairline at her abrupt change of demeanor, but the woman was already smiling and laughing with one of the other guests before he could do more than watch her go.

  “Arthur?” Circe called out to him warmly, and stole back his attention. “Are you coming?”

  Arthur peeled his eyes from Nika and turned to look at Circe, at which point he smiled and nodded while moving to catch up to her.

  The Kidemónes arrived at the same time as he did.

  “We’ll remain behind after we check the location,” Perseus stated when Arthur rejoined Circe.

  Both Arthur and Circe came to a halt outside the drapes, and Endymion stepped inside to inspect the small balcony-set dining area. Several seconds passed, and then the Kidemónas stepped back out with a polite nod to them both, and took up a sentinel position on one side of the three-meter wide black-draped entrance.

  Perseus mirrored him, and also nodded to them both.

  “You guys sure you don’t want to eat anything?” Arthur paused to ask the Kidemónes, and caused Circe to stop mid-stride as a result.

  “We’re fine, Arthur,” Perseus said with a warm intonation. “We’ve got a nutrient mix for when we need on-the-go sustenance.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “That sounds gross,” Arthur said with genuine apprehension, and memories of something similar from his time on Albion.

  Circe glanced between them with an unreadable expression, but didn’t interrupt.

  “It’s alright,” Perseus said reassuringly. “Mine tastes like vanilla.”

  “You’re sure?” Arthur asked with a glance between both men.

  “Go eat dinner, Arthur,” Endymion growled.

  Arthur smiled wryly and nodded. “Alright, alright. Thanks, guys.”

  “We’ll be here if you need us,” Perseus assured him before joining Endymion in a rapidly statue-still vigil of the dining area.

  “Thank you both,” Circe said warmly in turn and, with another assessing glance for Arthur, stepped elegantly through the thick drapes into the sectioned off dining area.

  Arthur took a breath and joined her a moment later in stepping through, before pausing at what he saw.

  They stood on a private balcony overlooking the raging surf of the Hellenic beachfront, with a clear view to the west where the white radiance of Apollo had taken on a more golden-red hue as it sank toward the horizon. The A0V-type white star was immense compared to Pendragon or even Sol, and Arthur drew in a short breath of naked appreciation for its beauty.

  “It’s your first time seeing a Hellenic sunset, right?” Circe asked from where she stood beside one of the elegant, high-backed dining chairs at the opposite side of the large table. The table itself was made of black marble-topped pine, with the Leos lion proudly emblazoned upon the center.

  “It is,” Arthur said while stepping around toward her, and instinctively taking hold of the high-backed chair to draw it out for her.

  He had been raised in the True Core.

  Fragmented memories or not, he understood dining etiquette like he did breathing.

  Circe turned to him when he moved the chair, and her jade eyes regarded the red leather of the padded chair, and then moved back to observe him. Her eyes tightened slightly around the edges, and then she brushed her hair back behind an ear and turned to smoothly sink into the chair.

  Arthur pushed it back in while puzzling over her expression, and then turned to take his own seat thereafter.

  “How often do you make your way here?”

  “Now and then,” Circe said in a slightly distracted tone, “but mostly whenever I need to think, or when Mother comes down from Asfalís. She loves it here. It was where my parents had their first real date.”

  “That explains why that woman—Nika?—seemed so confident around you, at least.”

  “Nika’s mother owned the Lion’s Pride before her, but left to open up another restaurant in Sparta a decade or so ago,” Circe explained with a little nod. “Nika is about fifteen years older than us, but that means little even here in the Rim. Unless you’re close to your first century, we don’t really think about age.”

  “It’s much the same in the Fringe and inner Sectors,” Arthur agreed.

  “Another thing to thank the geneticists for, even if other legacies of theirs are incredibly frustrating,” Circe half-muttered while staring out at the slowly encroaching sunset.

  “What do you mean?” Arthur asked with a hint of danger pinging his senses.

  “Do you really not know?” Circe asked with a look toward him. “Really?”

  “I, uh…” Arthur said while trailing off at the intensity of her stare.

  “For a smart man, Arthur Magellan, you certainly can be an idiot.”

  “I’m not sure that I—”

  “You confuse me so much I want to hit you, Arthur,” Circe cut in flatly.

  Arthur blinked for a moment, and then stared at her with surprise.

  “I do?”

  “Yes!” Circe said with a sudden exclamation of frustration, and clear embarrassment at her own outburst. “One second you’re comfortable and relaxed around me, and the next it’s like you’ve put up a wall—like right this instant, in fact! One moment you’re admiring my body, and the next you’re doing anything else. It’s maddening!”

  “It isn’t appropriate for me to—”

  “It’s a body, Arthur!” Circe cut him off again, with a slap of her hand to her upper chest. “It’s flesh, and sinew, and tissue, and fat! I know I’m beautiful. I’m not being vain when I say that. I know it. I was designed this way. My mother was one of the most sought after women in the cluster, and I know I’ve at least equaled her—I know what I am!”

  “Then why would you want—?”

  Again she cut him off, though strangely Arthur couldn’t find a reason to be upset by it.

  “Because! I don’t know! Just because! I—you—we—ugh!”

  Circe leaned back in her chair and looked out at the sunset in frustration once more, her lower lip caught in her teeth, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and what he assumed to be anger as well.

  Arthur remained silent, and simply let her take the time to think. His mind was racing, of course, and his heart was thundering under his ribs. Despite that though, he knew that what she needed was time to think and process.

  He understood that well, after all.

  “My whole life,” Circe finally said after almost a minute of silence, “I’ve been surrounded by inferior men. I don’t mean that to make me sound like a snobby bitch, but it’s true.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, played with the golden bands on her biceps idly, and still didn’t turn to look at him.

  “They were all weaker, vain, self-entitled, and less capable than me in every way that mattered. I’ve been fending off their advances since I was fifteen, in some awful cases, and learned to guard myself against anything as stupid as girlish infatuation—until you come along.”

  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 self-control a run for its money, and enough good looks that even I took notice.”

  Circe’s cheeks warmed as if in evidence, and she sighed in resignation.

  “I never wanted to use my psions to influence you,” he said to her seriously, and with genuine apology in his tone. “I don’t want you to think I’m trying to manipulate you somehow, Circe.”

  She was silent when he finished, and 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 quietly.

  “I know, damn it!” Circe growled back at him, while smacking 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, and I never want anybody!”

  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 bloody restaurant!”

  “So that talk with Nika—?”

  “She saw through me like I was made of glass,” Circe confirmed 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. True prowess is everything to a Spartan. It’s intoxicating. I’ve never met a warrior my age with your level of raw talent.”

  “I see,” Arthur said with an echo of guilt. “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 adore it too. I like this. I like us. I like the ability to feel like… like I’m just a normal woman with a man that can protect her.”

  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, you know? Stronger than any man I’ve ever met, and not just physically,” she said while looking at him with her intense, focused jade eyes.

  “Your presence is more impactful than Atreus, or my father, or any of my relatives or peers. I feel vulnerable with you, Arthur, and I feel safe because of it. I feel like you could fight off a dozen assassins and hold me close at the same time, and I know it sounds completely delusional, but that’s how I feel.”

  “I see…” Arthur said, and then winced the moment he did.

  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 tapped 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 incredible. You make my head fuzzy sometimes. 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 may not have the title, but you’re a future Duchess, and these people worship you!”

  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, Circei, 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 do things that would leave you breathless—”

  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.”

  Arthur 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 hid the defeat in his own voice. “And we…” he sighed sharply to rid himself of a curdling feeling of disappointment and self-inflicted pain 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.

  “Well, with all that said,” he began as casually as he could into the silence that followed, and with as upbeat a tone as he could muster, “lesson time: why keep House Leos in Pallikári?”

  Circe’s eyes searched his own after the question, and she chuckled softly.

  When she replied, Arthur listened while drinking in her eyes.

  Apollo set long before they finished talking.