A Thief's Kiss

16| Legend

Chapter 16: Legend (Alexander's POV)

She whined, kicking around her uninjured left foot in agitation while I wrapped a crepe bandage around her ankle. Dinner is in fifteen minutes and I can't keep acting like her nurse throughout the night, so I'm just spraying it one more time and wrapping it up. I let out a small laugh and finished wrapping it up before finding some tape and sticking it on, so the bandage wouldn't come undone. 

"I don't like what you're doing," she said, folding her arms across her chest and pouting like a child. 

"And what is it that I'm doing?" I sighed, pulling her sweatpants back down to her ankles. 

"I don't like how you're... you know," she shrugged. 

"No, I don't know. What am I doing?" 

"I don't like how you're taking care of me." 

I lay down on my side, propping my elbow up on the bed and holding my head in my hand. "Didn't I tell you that I still care about you?" 

"You said you care about the me that you knew. And last I checked, I'm not acting like ten-year-old Aria." 

"Maybe you are," I narrowed my eyes at her. 

"How so?" she asked, jutting her chin forward. Just like she used to. I shot her a pointed look and she realized, straightening up and arching a brow at me. 

"You're all pouty, whiny and constantly complaining like you used to. You're still terrified of ghosts. You're still dependent on me in the palace." 

"I don't want to be." 

"You never did. But you were," I nodded. 

She stared at me for a moment. "Why are you suddenly trying so hard?" 

Because I switched my tactic. I know I can't avoid marriage so I'm trying to build a relationship between us that is at least tolerable. But if I tell her that, she'll resist her. Because she's here with a purpose. "What are you going to do to me, Aria?" 

"Huh?" she frowned in confusion. 

"Aren't you here for revenge?" 

"Yeah, so?" 

"I'm your only target. You were humiliated, embarrassed, and you lost your family because of me. What are you going to do to me in return?" 

She pretended to pick fuzz from her sleeve while she spoke. "I never planned to do anything to you." 

"Why? You keep saying it was my fault yet you aren't going to make me pay for it?" 

"You were eleven years old. It was your fault. But I like to think you don't know what you were doing. And if you did, Alexander." She looked up at me. "Then you better tell me." 

"Do you think I knew what I was doing?" 

"You weren't that little. You knew right from wrong," she paused. "But my heart doesn't like to think you did it intentionally. Tell me, did you?" 

"What if I didn't?" 

"Then I won't do anything to you." 

"And if I did?" 

She stared at me before tipping her head back against the headboard. "Then I'll do what I have to." 

"In order to...?" 

"Hurt you how you hurt me." She arched a brow at me. "If you knew what you were doing and did it anyway, then you deserve to get just a taste of what I did."