Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95458 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95458 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
She stares at me, her green eyes filled with so much emotion it staggers me. “I can’t.”
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…” Circe could 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’re going 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. I should be thinking of the greater mission and what is required to save Olympus from itself. I should be 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, always the 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, over me. 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, savoring me. 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.