“This is your room, sir.” I motioned to the first door we reached.
Agamemnon kept his heavy gaze on me. His face looked as if it had been carved into rock instead of flesh.
“Show me inside.”
“I am not permitted to enter the guest chambers. Master’s orders,” I lied.
“I do not care.”
I forced my lips to curl into the lazy, intimate smile I had seen Callias flash countless times before.
“I still have work to do,” I murmured huskily, brushing his arm. “But perhaps if you settle in, I can visit you later when I am done.”
It was the kind of line that would have made Castor heat and soften, becoming easy to mold in my hands. But the king of Mycenae was not so easily manipulated. His eyes darkened, mouth twisting beneath his thick beard.
“I gave you an order, slave.Show me inside.”
I realized there was no swaying this swine of a man, and my exhaustion from the day prickled into indignation as I turned and shoved the door open.
“There. There’s the inside,” I snapped before biting out the word, “sir.”
Without warning, Agamemnon’s hand shot out and closed around my throat as he slammed me against the wall. His palm spanned the entire length of my throat, his fingers clawing up across my face, digging into my skin. My jug fell to the ground, shattering at our feet.
“What a sharp tongue you have. Perhaps we should put it to better use.”
“I serve Tyndareus, not you,” I snarled at him.
Agamemnon struck me across the face with his free hand. Theimpact sang through my jaw, and I tasted blood in my mouth, yet every trace of pain was incinerated by the rage surging inside me.
In that moment, it was not just Agamemnon who hit me. It was the men who had held me down as I was whipped. The men who had dragged my mother away in chains. Icarius, who had tried to bed me as a child. Castor and his vile friends, who had enjoyed my body night after night as if it were their own.
“Defy me again, slave. Go on.”
I spat at him, my blood spraying across his cheeks.
I knew this would not be worth the consequences, but at least for this fleeting moment, I could smile up at his outrage and pretend it was.
The curl of my lips was a step too far for Agamemnon. A meaty fist tangled into my hair, yanking me toward his chamber. I tripped as I struggled against him, tumbling to the ground. Shards of the broken wine jug bit into my knees, making me yelp. Agamemnon wrenched my head upward.
“Help! Help me!” I cried to the two guards patrolling the hall.
They turned and stared at me. When they noticed Agamemnon, the men visibly stiffened before bowing their heads and disappearing.
I watched them leave, that fragile thread of hope snapping inside me.
With his hand now on the back of my neck, Agamemnon hauled me to my feet, shoved me into the room, and slammed the door shut behind us.
“This could have been civilized,” he snarled as he dragged me toward the bed. “Why must slavesinsiston acting like animals?”
Panic sparked in my veins, but hotter than that was the fury that coursed through me, setting my blood alight.
“Help! Help!” I screamed again. “Hel—”
“No one is helping a damn slave,” he hissed into my ear as he closed a large hand around my mouth.
I bit down. Hard. So hard my jaw spasmed with the effort.
So hard my mouth filled with blood.
