She didn’t argue. She stayed close anyway as she guided me the rest of the way, up the last corridor and to my door.
By the time she pushed it open and ushered me inside, I was barely aware of anything but the pounding heat in my veins. I stumbled toward my bed, fingers numb, breath ragged.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Anysa said as she hovered in the doorway for a second before finally stepping out and closing the door behind her.
I flung myself down desperately, tangling my fists in the sheets, my back arching against the phantom heat still pulsing in my belly.
It wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’tletme stop.
The ache throbbed with every heartbeat, demanding more … demanding him. A finger. A cock. Achilles.
I set my jaw, fury and hunger clashing inside me. My eyes burned.
No.Nothim.
But the need kept rising, brutal and merciless, until tears finally broke loose, burning as they slid down my face. And still, my body begged.
A small squeak broke the silence. My head snapped toward it. Roz sat on the edge of the table …
“Don’t—” My voice cracked. I jerked my gaze away, hand flying up as if to shield my face from it. “Go. Just … go.”
Another squeak, softer this time.
“Please.” The word tore out of me, anguished. My hand slashed the air, desperate to push it from me without touching. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
For a long heartbeat, it didn’t move, only stared, tail coiled tight against its body. Then Roz slipped soundlessly into the dark, leaving me alone with the ruin of myself.
I writhed for what must have been hours.
My hair was damp with sweat, sticking to my face. My tunic had twisted around my thighs, plastered to my skin like a second layer. Every shift made the silk drag across flushed flesh, feeding the torment instead of soothing it.
When it stopped, it was like I was waking up from a haze. I was shaking in sweat-slicked sheets that had grown cold and clammy.
I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, my chest rising and falling in quick, broken pulls. But the air didn’t help. It couldn’t reach the part of me that was unraveling.
Rain lashed the windows. Thunder rolled somewhere distant, rumbling like a Titan turning in its sleep.
And I felt … emptied.
Flayed open in every way possible, like the dance had peeled away skin and sinew and left only my rawest self behind. I’d said I’d do whatever it took to win, but I suddenly felt like I’d given too much.Showntoo much.
Tears slid down my cheeks in silent, endless streams. I didn’t sob or wipe them away. I just let them fall, one after another. The storm outside wailed like it wasmourning something too, wind howling through the palace eaves, rain slamming against the stone like fists.
It matched the wreckage inside me.
I blinked, slowly, and my performance immediately rushed back to me. The heat of the throne room still clung to my body, damp and shameful, the memory of my own movements playing back behind my eyes. The sway of my hips. The moans I hadn’t swallowed. The way I’d offered myself, open, aching, forthem.
My stomach turned and suddenly … I couldn’t stay here. Not in this room. Not in this skin.
I sat up, legs shaky, silk sticking to my damp thighs, and moved without thought, slipping into my sandals, walking out my door and then through the door at the end of the hall.
My sandals slapped against the stone as I ran, veil left behind, past shadows and sense.
I burst outside and rain hit me like a wall, cold and drenching … and impossible.
It shouldn’t have been raining like this. It shouldn’t have been raining at all. Not when the rest of Sparta had dust choking the fields and wells shrinking to mud. These raindrops weren’t the monsoons that Amyklai endured.
Another example of how whatever plagued the rest of Sparta never dared reach Menelaus.
