“To be chased. Hunted.”
Between them, Cassius’s knuckles blanch when he grips the edge of his seat. His hand trembles with tension, as if he wants to touch her but won’t let himself.
Not unless she asks. Not without her permission.
It all dawns on her at once:Beg. Use your words. Say it.He’s never simply teasing her—he’s giving her time to change her mind. He’s empowering her to take charge of their play so she gets exactly what she wants.
And he’s giving her space to say no.
Her chest presses hard into the neckline of her dress. “Cas, do you want to touch me?”
“Desperately,” he says, like the word has been on the tip of his tongue for centuries.
She reaches over and caresses his jaw, bringing his gaze to hers. “Do it.”
His lips part slightly before he captures her in a carnal, heated kiss. He slides his hand down the length of her body and hooks it below her knees, picking up her legs and draping them across his lap. To keep her balanced, his grip moves to the swell of her hip. Squeezing hard, he speaks straight through their kiss. “You wantit to hurt, Claudia? Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” she says. “Please.”
At that, he presses himself back into their kiss and bites her bottom lip. A hint of her blood laces the taste of him in her mouth. Claudia shivers, arching her back for more.
Then the lights come back up, illuminating their entanglement and the rapid, syncopated rise and fall of their chests.
How are they going to get through a whole recital? Does Claudia even want to? Part of her wants to grab Cassius by his obsidian pendant and use it as a leash to lead him back to her room right now.
He could be a good boy for her.
She almost does it, but a new song begins just in time. There is no melody—only drumbeats. Artemis steps onto the stage in a green-and-white chiton, crowned with gold laurels, holding a bow much grander than Agamemnon’s. The drums beat in time with her careful steps across the stage. She leans down and picks up the red sash. Her eyes cut to the audience, and in them, there is nothing but wrath. The goddess takes a breath so deep her belly swells.
Her song has no words. It is a series of guttural, melodic, sharp, and vengeful wails. The sound leaps between octaves, spearing through Aeolian cries.
Claudia slinks away from Cassius, overwhelmed by Artemis’s rage and sorrow. The lights shift from red to blue in rapid succession as the goddess is caught between the two extremes. The effect blurs her movements, as well as Claudia’s vision. It feels like watching a dream.
No—it feels like falling into a nightmare.
Suddenly, Claudia is no longer sitting in the opera house. She’s swallowed up by her own imagination, lost to horrors dancing across the dark front of her mind. Dorian’s face. Dorian’s eyes. His sharp teeth, his imminent threats, his forceful hand shaping Claudia into his weapon of choice.
Her heart feels like it’s cracked in two—half red, half blue. Halfrage, half sorrow, total agony. She feels Artemis’s rage, her grief, her all-consuming need for revenge. It feels familiar. It’s the same emotion that drove that letter opener straight through her father’s heart. She didn’t realize it was still there, but now she realizes that the willingness to kill is like a virus. It lives in the body forever. Now that she’s killed once, she’ll always know that she could do it again.
Cassius drapes his arms around Claudia and pulls her out of her head, back into the moment. A ship, helmed by Agamemnon, creeps across the stage and stalls in the middle as Artemis releases a final piercing shriek. The goddess leaves the stage, and with her, the wind that would carry the ship to Troy.
The sails slacken, and the soldiers on the ship erupt in panicked whispers. Agamemnon quiets them with a wave of his hands as the seer Calchas—a lithe, white-winged man—descends on strings from above, floating across the stage.
A deer and a daughter,
King Agamemnon.
Artemis will wear her
Soft skin like silk,
The way you belt yourself
With her grief.
You will offer your own blood,
Else remain a stone in the sea.
