The response surprises me so much that my hand goes slack. If this is a lie, it’s the best I’ve ever seen. She looks exhausted on a level I understand intrinsically. “What?” This woman with all the words in the world in her arsenal, who always has the right thing to say, can’t give me a reason not to kill her?
“I’m not delusional. I know I’m as much a villain of this piece as the ones I returned to punish. People have died because of the choices I’ve made. I can’t change that, Atalanta. If I could go back…” Circecould take advantage of my moment of shock. She doesn’t. Instead, she looks almost sad.Exhausted.“It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”
That almost sounds like she holds regret, which doesn’t align with what I know of this woman. She’s been cold and calculated and brilliant beyond measure. There’s never been any indication of what appears to be a glaring weakness. “Why not change course?”
“It’s much too late for that.” She tilts her head back, baring her throat. “I haven’t begged for my life since I was married to that bastard. I won’t start now.” She doesn’t smile, doesn’t charm, just speaks stark truth.
“I’m going to stop you.We’regoing to stop you.” All I have to do is slash once. With the correct placement, she’ll bleed out in a few minutes. It won’t solve all the problems we’re dealing with right now, though. I’m not even sure it will feel good. I hate her and I want her and I might even understand her a little. Who in Olympus is without scars, physical or otherwise? I was used and discarded by the Thirteen, too. I went in knowing it was a possibility, but that doesn’t change the foundation of the issue. The way things are set up in this city doesn’t work. They wouldn’t have worked even if Circe hadn’t come back.
She still hasn’t moved. “Make your decision.”
It should be easy enough to cut her throat. Ishouldbe thinking of the greater mission and what is required to save Olympus from itself. Ishouldbe putting that above all else, the same way I have for years and years. The perfect soldier, the perfect spy, a woman with no thoughts or feelings of her own—at least none that she’ll allow to interfere with the mission.
The mission, the mission, alwaysthe fucking mission.
The mission didn’t stop Hecate from falling into this woman the first chance she got. She’s even better with a blade than I am; she could have ended things the first time they were alone. She didn’t. She chose herself over the mission, over Olympus, overme. I want to hate her for it, but how can I when the weight of so many lives on my shoulders is crushing me? We put aside all personal needs for so long; is it any wonder she’s tired of being strong and standing alone? That I am?
I very carefully withdraw the blade and set it on the counter, out of the way. “I hate this.”
“I know.” The sheer empathy in Circe’s voice threatens to undo me. This woman is a monster, and yet she’s still human, still carries scars on her body and soul the same way I do. She cups the back of my neck and tugs me gently down, the press of her palm against my skin more a suggestion than anything else. One I’m only too happy to take.
I kiss her again and there is no hesitation, nothing holding me back. I choose this, choose her, in this moment, and it changes everything. This time, when I pick her up, I walk unerringly down the short hallway to the bedroom. The bed is only a full, likely because anything larger would consume the space. I turn at the last moment and sit on it, allowing her to push me down onto my back. Her smile is knife-sharp and impish at the same time as she runs her hands over my body. “Beautiful, beautiful Atalanta.”
I arch into her touch, moaning as she tugs at my nipples and bends down to take first one and then the other into her clever mouth. She clearly knows how to use it for more than bringing entire civilizations to ruin.
She shifts down my body, kissing her way over my stomach,pausing at the long, curving scar near my hip. I tense, but she doesn’t ask for the story of this one. She just nudges my thighs wide and uses her fingers to part my pussy. “Perfect,” she breathes. Then her mouth is on me, her tongue licking up to my clit.
Once again, she surprises me. It would be so easy to slip back into the frenzy, to let the world fade away as we come, hard and fast and borderline brutal. Instead, Circe slows down even more. As if she’s savoring this, savoringme. She runs her hands over my thighs and hips as she idly tests out different motions and pressure until she finds the one that makes my back bow and moans slip free despite my best efforts to remain quiet.
She hums with pleasure atmypleasure, but she doesn’t immediately zero in on making me orgasm. She dips down and thrusts her tongue into my pussy as if trying to claim every bit of me, to imprint my very taste. Her fingers dig into my thighs, a perfect point of near-pain to ground me against the pleasure she pulls forth.
When she lifts her head, I can’t stop a whimper of protest. “Don’t stop.”
“I won’t,” she murmurs. I look down my body to find her expression damn near rapturous, proof that she’s just as lost in this moment as I am. She licks her lips, her lower face shiny from my pleasure. “Come for me. Ride my mouth and take what you deserve.”
It’s as if her words weave a spell around me. The few thoughts I have left in my head dissolve like mist on a warm day, my body taking over entirely. I lace my fingers through her short hair and lift my hips, guiding her mouth back to my pussy. There may have been a distant part of me that wanted this to last forever, but it’s quicklydrowned out by pure greed.
Make me feel good. Do it. Do it now.
Circe obeys my unspoken commands, holding my thighs wide as she works my clit in exactly the way I need to go nuclear. It’s too much and not enough, and I suddenly want to slow down, but she’s stronger than she looks, and my hands haven’t gotten the memo, holding her to me even as I unravel. I cry out as I come, every muscle in my body locking almost painfully. I want to blame the intensity on it being so long since I’ve slept with someone, but it’s not the truth. It’s never been like this before. Godsdamn it.
While I’m still recovering, she moves up to stretch out against my side. She doesn’t stop touching me, her clever fingers tracing patterns on my skin, palming my breasts, sliding over my hip. I drag in a breath and roll to face her. I start to say… Nothing. Nothing at all. There are no words needed in this moment, and anything I say about the future will ruin the strange spell we’ve created in the now. Better to ride this out to its inevitable conclusion and deal with the fallout at that time.
I press her onto her back and palm her pussy. “My turn.”
24Hecate
Even if Demeter hadn’t texted me a heads-up that Circe was moving the trials to a location near Cypress Bridge, I would have figured it out. I just needed to follow the crowds of people streaming down the streets with determined looks on their face.
Olympus has fallen.
I knew that—of course I knew that—but there’s something about leaving the city proper for a couple days and returning to find it unrecognizable that truly drives the point home. It’s not happening how I wanted, but itishappening.
Strange to realize maybe I don’t actually have the stomach for revolution.
I perch on the rooftop of a building a few blocks from where Ishot Hera and Persephone during their little meeting only a short time ago. So much has changed since then. Nothing has changed.
Below me, the crowd murmurs as more and more people stream in, packing in tighter and tighter. If something goes wrong, people will die from being trampled. I don’t know if that’s a feature or a bug in Circe’s plan. Even if I asked, I don’t think she’d tell me. And Atalanta? She isn’t taking my calls, every single one going to voicemail over the last twelve hours.
