by Katee Robert
I take the time to call Sara and check in, but as expected, they’ve handled the situation. The supplier magically found the missing ten percent within five minutes of Sara showing up. I don’t ask what kind of example they made. They’ve been my right hand for long enough that I trust they did what was necessary without crossing over into being too much. A delicate balance, but one at which Sara exceeds.
And there’s nothing else on my plate.
Aurora’s watching me, her expression contemplative. I raise my brows. “Yes?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Do you need to?” I find myself holding my breath while I wait for her answer. I don’t know what the right one is; I don’t know which one I crave.
Finally, she looks away. “I’d like to.”
“Why do you sound so put out by that?”
“Because it’s irritating as hell.” She makes a face. “It was easier to hate you.”
“Hate takes as much effort as any other emotion; more than some.” It’s much preferable to apathy, honestly, but I’m not about to say as much. If Aurora no longer hates me—No, no use following that rabbit hole into a spiraling game of what-if. “If it makes you feel better, there are large swathes of you that I don’t understand, either.”
“Me?”
I give her the look that faux innocence deserves. “The bratty submissive. The fierce friend. The princess of the Underworld. You’re all that, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. You must have a life outside of Hades.”
She tucks her hair behind her ear. “Is there a question in there?”
“Surely you’re not content to be the pampered princess forever? There’s a fire in you that needs to be fed. You can only rise so far in Hades’s territory.” Hades will be ruling for some time yet, and he’s got both Megaera and Hercules beneath him. Should he decide to retire, surely those two will take over running operations. And Hercules is several years younger than Aurora. She’ll never run the Underworld, no matter how many years she works there.
Aurora finally shrugs. “I don’t really know what I want. I had this guiding light for a really long time, but now that the bargain with Hades is coming to an end, that light’s faded. I have a master’s in business administration, but I mostly got that because it seemed like the logical next step and I had money to pay for it.”
“Have you done anything beyond the Underworld and school in the last nine years?”
“Stop it.” She looks away. “You say that like it’s a bad thing, but what else could I possibly want? I’ve dated outside the Underworld, and you already know how well that’s worked out. Carver City might be run by territory leaders, but most of the people who live here are normal. I don’t fit in. I don’t want to fit in. That’s a choice I made for myself, so stop looking at me like you pity me.”
“I don’t pity you.” It’s the truth. But I can’t help feeling that Aurora could do so much more if she ever had the fire of ambition lit inside her. One only has to look at how she blossomed as Megaera’s second-in-command to see that she only needs the space and she’ll continue to expand. But she won’t thank me for saying as much. I turn away. “Come along.”
“Where are we going?”
“Tonight? Nowhere. I have plans for you.” I walk into my closet and pull on a pair of lounge pants and a fitted shirt. Then I lead the way into the spare bedroom. It smells of lemon and pine, and the mattress has been removed—Rogue was too effective in marking his territory, and it’s well beyond ruined. “You’re lucky the closet was shut or Rogue would have done a number on your shoes.”
“Your shoes.” She pauses in the doorway as I peruse the selection. “You’re the one who bought all of this.”
“And you’ll take it with you when this is over. Consider it a tip.” I finally land on a black, oversized knit sweater that’s long enough to be considered a dress—barely. I pull it off the shelf and toss it to Aurora.
“A tip, huh?” Her lips curve the tiniest bit. “It wouldn’t be a way for you to mark your territory the same way your demon cat does?”
Truth be told, I do like the idea of Aurora wearing clothing that I personally picked out. It satisfies something deep and dark inside me that I mostly refuse to acknowledge. “Stop calling Rogue a demon. You’ll hurt his feelings.”
“That creature doesn’t have feelings. All he has is spite.”
I arch an eyebrow. “He simply sees you as an intruder and took the steps to rectify the situation.”
“Uh-huh.” Aurora makes a face. “How many pieces of furniture have you replaced because that animal destroyed them?”
“In the last year or since I’ve had him?”
She blinks. “How old is that cat?”
“Ten. He was among a litter left in a box by my building. The kittens were so young, not all of them made it, but Luna has his sister.” I frown. “That cat is a demon.”
“I’m going to ignore that statement, since you are obviously biased.” She shakes her head. “How many pieces of furniture has he destroyed in the last year? I’m afraid of the lifetime answer.”
I do a quick count, realizing halfway through that I’m going to lose this particular argument. “Eight, not including the mattress.” When she stares, I cross my arms over my chest. “As I said, the mattress was a territory dispute and so is completely justified.”
Aurora looks at me like she’s never seen me before. “You love that cat.”
My face heats under her intense gaze, and even as I try to muscle down the reaction, I have a feeling that a tinge of pink colors my cheeks. “We have a mutual understanding.”
“Right. Sure. A pair made in heaven.”
“I’m taking that as a compliment, rather than the insult you intended. Rogue is particular with people.” I turn away before she can keep pressing. The truth is that the cat barely tolerates me, let alone anyone else, but I like that about him. Some days he feels like my own personal dragon, guarding our castle of a penthouse. A fanciful thought, but Rogue has the tendency to attack unwanted guests at his whim. The fact that he hasn’t touched Aurora, marking his territory aside, is moderately shocking.
“As I said, a pair made in heaven.”
I lead the way into the kitchen and head to the fridge. As promised, there’s an entire meal waiting with a note about reheating instructions on the top. I double-check them and then preheat the oven. When I turn around, Aurora has an expression on her face like she’s trying not to laugh. “What?”
“When I saw how stocked your fridge is, I thought you cooked. But you don’t, do you?”
“No.” I’m capable of putting together a simple meal in a pinch, but when a person is as busy as I am, they learn to delegate. I can’t do that with many of my business responsibilities, so I farm out as much personally as possible. “I have a chef who usually preps a week’s worth of meals on Sundays.”
Aurora moves closer into the fridge. “That’s not a week’s worth of meals.”
“No, I had her do something special tonight.” I realize how that sounds, but I don’t take the words back. They’re the truth. “She’ll come around this Sunday and get back into the swing of things, but this week was irregular.”
“I see.” Aurora peers at the food containers. “Interesting.”
“Are you allergic to anything?” Something I should have asked before, but I didn’t even think of it.
She shakes her head. “No.”
I bring out a bottle of wine and pour us each a glass. We drink in what’s almost a comfortable silence as we wait for the oven to preheat. It dings its readiness, and I put the container into the oven and set the timer. Then I motion for her to follow. “We’ll wait in here.” I lead the way into the living room and sink onto the couch.
After the briefest of hesitations, Aurora sinks down next to me. Does she realize that, even a few days ago, she would have chosen another seat, would have put as much distance between us as possible? I don’t comment on it, though. A patien
t hunter gives the prey plenty of time to settle in before making their move. It doesn’t matter that this woman makes me feel frenzied and out of control.
I will have patience.
I sip my wine and study her. She looks good here in my home, dressed in the clothes I purchased her. A feeling almost like possession rises up in me, but I stifle it. This isn’t the time or place for such messy emotions. Not yet. I need her to want me first. Crave me. Desire me like a fire in her blood that she never wants to douse.
Then, and only then, will she be mine.
22
Aurora
“I would like to know what drove a thirteen-year-old to make a deal with Hades.”
I flinch. I thought we were done talking about that. I really should have known better. The rage on Malone’s face when she found out my age at the beginning of the deal was a fearsome thing. “It’s irrelevant.”
“It hardly feels irrelevant. If the rest of the territory leaders knew what he’d done, they’d string him up, leader of neutral territory or no. Especially Ursa. There are lines, even for the likes of us. What he did crosses them.”
She’s working herself up again, and while part of me almost enjoys this moment of Malone feeling protective of me, I refuse to indulge this line of talking. “We’ve already been over this.”
“I remain unsatisfied.”
I reach out and give her arm a squeeze. “I chose this. There’s nothing more untoward going on than there usually is in the Underworld, in this city. It’s not worth going in there and fighting with Hades. The worst he’s done since I moved into the Underworld is be overly over-protective of me. That’s it.”
“He’s not the only one.” She murmurs it so quietly, I’m almost convinced I misheard her. She picks up her glass and takes a long drink. “What could possibly drive a thirteen-year-old to show up in the Underworld, let alone make a bargain like that?” A question she’s asked several times now. One I’m no closer to answering.
I look away. I’m a coward in so many ways. If I can’t enact my revenge, the least I can do is shove what she did in her face. If she’s feeling protective of me, if she cares even the slightest bit, surely she’ll feel guilty for the fact that her actions put me on this path?
The moment I break my silence, this thing between us ends.
That should make me happy. She’s my enemy, after all. It doesn’t matter how good it feels to fuck her, how high I fly when we scene. She is the enemy. But that word feels flimsy and untethered. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Silence for a beat. Two. Finally, Malone says, “I don’t suppose it’s a happy story.”
“It’s not.”
The soft stroke of her finger down the side of my face has me opening my eyes to find her searching my expression. I’m not sure what she finds there, because she nods almost to herself. “Growing up as an Amazon is very different from a lot of other places. We value our children above all else. All we do—the ambition, the hostile takeovers, the territory skirmishes—are to pave a better life forward for them. We spoil them and let them have free rein until they hit high school. Then they begin training in earnest.”
I swallow hard. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because it seems that something went sideways during your childhood, and I’m sorry for it.”
She’s not apologizing for what she did to my mother. She doesn’t even know that the former leader of this territory was my mother. Still, the words echo through me. I’m sorry for it. I swallow past my suddenly dry throat. “You’re better than Allecto on the mat. Surely you had to start training at thirteen to get that good.”
“Aurora, I’m forty-one.” She gives a small smile. “Even if I didn’t see the inside of a studio before high school, I’ve still had more than enough years to become proficient at any number of things.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t.” She rises slowly to her feet and tugs me up with her. “We give our children free rein, yes, but they start combat training as soon as they can walk.” My shock must show, because she shrugs. “Part of the way we settle disputes with the other factions in Sabine Valley is ritual combat during the feast of Lammas. It’s important that every one of our people can hold their own, should it ever come to that.”
I don’t know much about the pagan feasts beyond roughly when they are in the year, but even I can connect the dots. Lammas is at the beginning of August, which means it passed not too long ago. “So if Lammas is the ritual combat feast, what are the other ones?.”
“Lammas is more than ritual combat. That’s just the part everyone talks about because it’s flashy.” She leads the way down the hall toward her playroom. “Samhain is a sober feast where we honor our dead and fallen throughout the year. Everyone gets drunk and poetic and forgets we’re all enemies. Imbolc is usually when marriages and alliances and various agreements are forged. Everyone celebrates together.” Her lips curve. “And Beltane is a night when there are no factions, no enemies, nothing to hold anyone back from pursuing the pleasure they crave with whomever they please.”
It sounds like something out of a fantasy novel. I knew they followed strange paths in Sabine Valley, but I didn’t realize how strange. She mentioned a bit last night, but it doesn’t feel any less strange now. “Oh.”
“Let’s not talk about painful things anymore.” She opens the door and heads for the large cabinet that contains her plethora of toys. “I’d rather focus on pleasure.”
Malone opens the wardrobe and trails her fingers over her rainbow of strap-ons. They range from average size, if funky shapes, to downright ruinous. My gaze lands on the red one at the end—it’s shaped like a fist and is damn close to life-sized. I shiver. “Do I get to pick?”
She snorts. “No.”
I didn’t think I would. I don’t really want to. The lines have blurred, and the rules I was so sure were unable to bend no longer seem to be in effect. Better to experience the sharp edge of desire, to reestablish those careful boundary lines, than to give in to the strange emotions in my chest. The soft emotions in my chest.
The timer in the kitchen dings, and Malone strokes her hand down my spine. “Let’s eat.”
How can she show me this preview for the night and expect me to be able to concentrate on dinner? Except that’s not what she expects, I realize as I follow her out of the room. This is the appetizer for what comes after the meal. For dessert.
The dining room is smaller than I expected, just large enough for a table capable of seating four. It’s appointed as lavishly as the rest of the penthouse, but I get the feeling that it’s rarely used. It’s a little too pristine, though I don’t know what gives me that impression when everything else is equally pristine. It’s just a feeling.
Malone sets down her wine and motions for me to take a seat. “A moment.”
It’s not until I obey that I realize how wrong this feels. She shouldn’t be waiting on me, though that’s not what this is. It’s her taking care of me.
That traitorous warmth springs to life again. It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything. No matter what else is true, I simply cannot fall for Malone. It’s bad enough that my revenge slipped so easily through my fingers; half my life spent wanting to hurt her the way she’s hurt me, and the moment I get a chance to put all that pain and sorrow into action, I flounder.
But falling for her?
It would be a failure on an entirely different level. It would paint me in the ugliest of tones, would turn me traitor to the mother who lost everything, to the grandmother who sacrificed so much to ensure I was safe. Surely I can’t be that weak, that horrible?
Malone sets my plate in front of me. It’s lasagna, and the smell immediately has my mouth watering despite my tumultuous emotions. I take a bite, mostly to keep my hands busy and my thoughts internal, and moan as the taste explodes over my tongue. “You should give your chef a raise.”
“She makes quite a pretty penny for her services.” Malone sounds amused.
I realize I’ve closed my eyes to better savor the food and force them open, only to find her watching me with an expression I’ve never seen on her face. It takes several beats for recognition to filter through me. I’ve seen the exact same expression on Hades and Gaeton and Beast and Hook and Ursa. It’s a fond sort of indulgence.
And she’s looking at me like that.
The temptation to close my eyes is nearly overwhelming. Maybe if I pretend I didn’t see it, I can ignore the way it makes me feel. As if she’s wrapped me in a cozy blanket and held me close. As if she cares.
Oh, this is bad. This is very, very bad.
It’s been less than a week, and she’s already undermined everything I thought I believed in. What more can she do, given the rest of the assignation? Will I be panting after her like a love-struck fool when she sends me on my way?
Because she will send me on my way. This isn’t forever. It can’t be. Even without our history, I have no intention to stop working at the Underworld anytime soon. I love it there. Allecto and the others are the family I’ve chosen. The work is fulfilling and fun. There are plenty of people who frequent the place who wouldn’t have an issue with that, but Malone doesn’t strike me as a person who shares outside of the odd scene here and there. Choosing her means giving up all of that.
What am I even saying?
Bad enough that I can’t follow through on my revenge, and I can’t even pretend that I want to. Bad enough that I lust after my enemy. Bad enough that I now see her as a complicated person rather than the villain I’ve painted her.
Choosing her? Wanting to do more than fuck and scene, to actually spend time with her? How can I possibly want that?
Gods, I’m in danger of losing my mind. I feel like I’m standing in the middle of a storm pulling this way and that, threatening to tear me to pieces with the force of conflicting desires. It’s too much. It’s far too much.