PRAISE FOR SARIAH WILSON

  “Abundant pop-culture references and nerdy quips only enhance . . . This is utterly adorable.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “In this adorable romantic comedy, the fake-dating trope is taken to another level with banter and nerdy references Anna and Marco throw around. Adding to the fun, Anna’s grandparents and their pet birds will have readers in stitches. A fresh and fun romance from Wilson.”

  —Library Journal

  “The Chemistry of Love is full of funny moments . . . that will have readers cringing and laughing out loud in turns.”

  —Bookreporter

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2024 by Sariah Wilson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781662525933 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781662525148 (paperback)

  ISBN-13: 9781662525131 (digital)

  Cover design by Elizabeth Turner Stokes

  Cover image: © Separisa, © Peratek, © Studio77 FX vector, © Vasilius / Shutterstock

  First edition

  For all my Reylo friends

  and for everyone who adores enemies to lovers

  CONTENTS

  MAP

  But I shall . . .

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  But I shall cause grief to many women in the future

  bereft of their maiden daughters. They will long bewail the commander,

  the breaker of sexual law, the thief of the . . . goddess;

  they shall send their girls to a hostile place,

  deprived of wedlock.

  . . . Locrians . . . and the valleys of Pyronae

  All of you, because of his impious sexual intercourse with me,

  will pay requital to . . . the goddess

  for a thousand-year period, nurturing until old age

  the unmarried maidens, chosen by [lottery].

  Foreigners in a foreign land, their sad grave . . .

  shall be washed away by the sandy breakers,

  . . . burn their limbs with logs

  from barren trees, and shall sprinkle into the sea

  the ashes of her who perished . . .

  Others, like women about to die, shall arrive by night

  at the fields of . . . Sithon,

  peering round for secret out-of-the way paths,

  until they are able to run into the house of [the goddess]

  and kneel in prayer as supplicants . . .

  They shall sweep and decorate the goddess’s sacred ground

  with pure water, escaping the hateful anger

  of the citizens. For every man of Ilion

  will be watching out for the maidens, holding a stone in his hands,

  or a black sword, or a hefty

  bull-killing axe, or a . . . club,

  keen to satisfy his hand which thirsts for blood.

  The people shall, by an inscribed law, honor the slayer . . .

  and grant him immunity.

  Lycophron, Alexandra, lines 1141–73

  CHAPTER ONE

  I took the corner too sharply and nearly tripped over my own feet, slamming hard into the stone wall. Pain bloomed in my shoulder. I grit my teeth together and kept running, breathing hard, sweat pouring down my back and making my tunic cling to me.

  “That way!” I heard a soldier call out behind me, and it gave me a burst of energy, propelling me forward even faster.

  An arrow whizzed by my head, so close that it nearly nicked my ear. I gasped and fought the urge to freeze in place.

  Stupid girl, remember that a moving target is nearly impossible to hit! My mentor’s words echoed inside my head, reminding me that I needed to keep low to the ground and run as fast as I could.

  There was an unfamiliar whirling sound one moment, and then in the next, my legs were suddenly swept out from under me. I tumbled to the ground, my armor clanking. I hit the earth so hard that my breath was knocked from me.

  I was dazed for only a moment and then I looked down. They had thrown a bola around my ankles. I pushed the heavy helmet from my head and reached down to tug the rope loose from my legs.

  The men’s voices were getting closer.

  With a silent groan I got to my feet and ran. I went left through the maze, then right. I had lost track of the course and didn’t know where I was. Fear flooded my system, making it even harder to think, harder to focus on a way of getting out of this alive.

  A spear whooshed past me, piercing the hem of my tunic before it slammed into the ground, wobbling in place. I ran by it and turned left again.

  A few more turns and I would reach the temple. Sanctuary.

  My breathing turned even more ragged as I dug deep, willing myself to fly the rest of the way. My limbs burned, my lungs protested, but I had to keep going.

  Another arrow. This one went wide but I still felt the rush of hot air as it cut through the open space beside me.

  “We almost have her!” a man’s voice called out in triumph, and the panicky adrenaline coursing through me said he was right. Too close. They were too close.

  I heard the sounds of swords being drawn from scabbards as the soldiers behind me closed the distance between us.

  I came to a crossroads. Right or left? I couldn’t remember.

  With no time to think it through, I chose right.

  And after two more turns, I realized that I had made a fatal mistake. That path came to a dead end. There was only a stone wall ahead of me. I banged my fists against it in frustration.

  I was trapped.

  A dozen soldiers crowded together behind me, their weapons pointed my way. I pulled out my dagger but knew that I wouldn’t be able to fight my way clear. Maybe if there had been only a few I might have had a chance.

  “You are caught,” the man in front announced with delight.

  “Not yet,” I hissed back.

  He stepped forward with his own dagger drawn and I grabbed his wrist, turning it so that he dropped the weapon. I elbowed him hard in the face and pushed him into the man behind him.

  Someone lunged at me on my right, and I sidestepped the swing of his staff and used his momentum to shove him off-balance.

  Arms went around me, grabbing me hard about my waist and lifting me. To the soldier’s surprise, I went completely limp and fell to the ground. It was the worst possible defensive position to be in, but I’d had no choice. I grabbed the back of the attacker’s knee to propel him forward so that he tripped over me, and I kicked out at the two closest men, clearing a spot to leap to my feet
.

  I got back into a defensive crouch, holding my weapon out. My pursuers spread out in a line and my stomach sank. I knew it was over.

  My only hope had been to fight them one at a time.

  As I feared, they attacked all together and I had a dozen sets of hands on me, pulling me down. I struggled against them, pushing and kicking, but it was no use.

  Demaratus was already yelling as he shoved his way through the crowd. “Stupid girl! What did I tell you? Never, ever allow yourself to be cornered. And you never let yourself get flanked that way!”

  The regiment released me and I huffed out, “I know.” When my mentor was in this mood, which was essentially all the time, I was better served by being meek and agreeable. Arguing only made him worse.

  Someone from my regiment offered me their hand to help me up and I accepted, brushing dust from my tunic.

  Demaratus’s face finally came into sight and I breathed deeply to fortify myself. I was very tall for a woman, but he was a head taller than me. He was nearly as old as my father but moved like a much younger man. He radiated anger and frustration. Even the patch over his missing right eye seemed angry with me.

  “You are not as strong as them,” he yelled. “Hide! Evade! Run! You don’t try to fight your way clear.” He gestured toward his soldiers, who had all been sworn to secrecy. “They have more training and they are stronger than you. You will not win in hand-to-hand combat. You must stay out of arm’s reach! Once they get their hands on you, it’s over.”

  “I know,” I said again as my breathing returned to normal. I looked at my shoulder, which had already started to turn a darker color.

  The bruises were getting harder and harder to explain.

  Then Demaratus was directly in front of me, grabbing me by my breastplate the way he would any of his other soldiers and pulling me up to his face. His breath reeked of alcohol, as it normally did.

  “No quarter will be given! You will not be taken alive. If they catch you, corner you, you will die!” He roared the words so loudly I wondered if everyone in the palace could hear him.

  The former Daemonian general spent his time either not speaking at all or yelling at the top of his lungs. During our training, there had been no middle ground.

  I didn’t even know if he knew my name. He only ever called me “stupid girl.”

  “What happens if you get within reach of those Ilionian men?” he demanded.

  “They will kill me.” I understood this better than everyone else here, as I was the one it would soon happen to.

  I had been training with Demaratus for the last year in preparation for the selection that would take place in two days’ time. The Seven Sisters constellation had appeared in the sky a week ago, letting us know that the time had arrived.

  And the main thing that I had learned in practicing hand-to-hand combat was that no matter how many techniques I learned, no matter how agile or nimble I might be, if more than one soldier could get their hands on me, I was finished. Demaratus was right—they were stronger than I was.

  My only hope was to keep my distance. I wouldn’t be able to fight my way out. Getting cornered would mean certain death.

  And you got cornered in a place that you’re familiar with, that worried voice inside me pointed out.

  When this happened for real, I would be in a city I’d never stepped foot in before.

  I stumbled a bit as he finally released me. Seeing that Demaratus had finished lecturing me, the other soldiers dispersed. I’d wondered more than once what the general had threatened them with to get them not only to help me train, but to keep silent about our activities. Because they were the biggest bunch of gossips I’d ever met. If I wanted to know what was happening in the palace, I only had to ask one of them.

  “At least when I go to Ilion, I won’t have this much armor weighing me down,” I said as I undid the buckles at my shoulders, letting the breastplate drop.

  Demaratus watched as it hit the ground. Before he could yell I reached over and picked it up. I could already hear him in my head. Stupid girl! A warrior’s armor deserves respect!

  But to my surprise he spoke in a rational tone, one I normally only heard when I visited him in the evenings after he’d become completely drunk. “There used to be a racing event called the hoplitodromos. It was a footrace run with full armor on.”

  “Was the point to torture the athletes?”

  He ignored my jest while I undid the bracers on my wrists. “Centuries ago, there was a battle between the Sasanians and Daemonians. The Sasanian archers expected to pick the Daemonians off easily, given the superiority of their arrows. What they did not expect was a phalanx line of soldiers rushing them in full armor, plowing into their front defense. Training with armor made the Daemonians able to run long distances in it, unlike our enemies.”

  “I’m not going to battle with the Sasanians,” I said, bending to remove my leg plates.

  He grimaced, as if annoyed. “You race with armor now so that when it matters, you will be accustomed to a heavier load and you will be faster when you run without it. And it strengthens you to train with it on. A warrior who sweats more in training bleeds less in war.”

  I had certainly sweat enough to ensure that I wouldn’t bleed at all when the time came. I gathered my armor, holding it against my chest. “One of those arrows almost hit me.”

  “You have to learn to be unafraid of being shot at, and there’s only one way to do that.”

  “By shooting at me.”

  He grunted, and if he were the sort of man who ever smiled, I was sure he would have.

  “At least no one threw an axe at me this time,” I said.

  “I didn’t want to risk injuring you. Not so close to the end.”

  And despite the fact that I knew it was coming, that I was aware of the fact that the Ilionians would be landing on our shores in two days to collect their tribute, a bolt of fear struck my heart, shuddering in place the same way the spear had earlier.

  I immediately suppressed the sensation. Demaratus had drilled into me the need to control my fear. Panicked warriors made mistakes.

  I could not afford to make any mistakes.

  He reached for the wineskin at his side, deftly undoing the ties with his right hand. Although I had never asked him about how he’d lost his left hand, I’d always been in awe of how easily he fought without it. There wasn’t a soldier in the entire Locrian army who could defeat him now.

  He must have been terrifyingly lethal when he’d had both.

  Demaratus surprised me by offering me the skin.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Wine,” he said.

  I took a deep swig and then had to fight the urge to spit it out. This was what he drank all day, every day? “That is not wine,” I said with a grimace, passing the skin back to him. “It tastes like vinegar.”

  His expression didn’t change, but I heard the slight defensiveness in his voice. “It’s Daemonian wine.”

  Daemonians were renowned for their skill in battle—but their wine left much to be desired.

  “No wonder the Daemonians aren’t afraid to die.” I could have sworn that a ghost of a smile hovered over his lips. “Why are you being so nice to me? Is it because you’re worried I’m about to die?”

  My mentor was the only one I could joke with about my situation. To be more accurate, I joked while he glared.

  Much as he was doing now.

  “I would tell you to do better tomorrow, but this is our last training session. I will have to hope that you’ve retained some small part of all that I’ve taught you. If not, at least you will have an honorable death, which is all anyone can ask for.”

  This entire conversation felt surreal. He never spoke this much unless he was about to black out.

  It made me think he really was worried that I would die.

  Which I understood because that fear had kept me up many a night.

  “Put your gear away,” he said, interrupting my thoughts. There was so much I wanted to say to him in that moment, to thank him for all his guidance, his teaching, the skills he had drilled into me.

  For giving me a fighting chance.

  But he walked away before I could speak.

  I trudged back to the armory, glad that I would never have to wear this blasted armor again. It was ill-fitting and often made me chafe. When I entered the room, my regiment were stowing their equipment, teasing one another.

  “There’s the thigh-flasher!” I heard Linus say, and they all started laughing. I glanced down at my tunic. In Locris it was considered improperly short, showing my upper legs, but Demaratus had told me that it was what the Daemonian women wore when they exercised and trained. It was much easier to run without lengths of cloth wrapping around my ankles.