Shattered Gods (Dark Olympus, #10)(28)

She circles me, forcing me to rotate to keep her in my line of sight. When she comes for me, it’s fast, without a single indication that she was ready to attack. I barely get out of the way of her slash, and my parry is weak. She raises her brows at me. “Sloppy.”

“I did not ask for your input,” I snarl. Even as we dance back and forth, our blades flashing in a deadly dance with each other, the familiarity of this bleeds back into my body. I’m out of practice, yes, but some things are written in my very bones.

Atalanta only gets faster, as if the hallway was a warm-up. Maybe, for her, it was. She grins at me, fierce and beautiful, when I score a line across her muscular thigh. “Better.”

Damn her, because the faint praise sings through me. It doesn’t make any sense. This is strictly business. I’m here to kill this woman and remove Atalanta as Hecate’s ally. It doesn’t matter what she thinks of me or my skill with the knife. I should not be enjoying myself.

“I thought you were just a pretty face.” Her breath comes a little harder now, but not as hard as mine. She kicks a desk at me, and I have to scramble back to avoid it knocking me to the floor. Atalanta wastes no time vaulting over another desk toward me. “Just goes to show.”

“Yeah, well.” I stumble, which is the only thing that saves my life. Her knife veers over my head. She was too sure of me and committed to the movement fully, leaving her open. I step into her, close enough to embrace. Atalanta’s dark eyes go wide as I slide my knife into her upper chest. “I learned from the best. Hecate taught me everything I know.”

She stumbles back, curled over the wound, taking my blade with her. “Fuck.” Blood gushes over her chest, turning the dark fabric shiny.

“You put up a good fight.” I gently guide her down to her knees, sinking to crouch in front of her. “Better than I anticipated.”

“You are such a cocky bitch,” she rasps. “She’ll never forgive you for this, you know.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I have more time with Hecate—the real Hecate—than you do.”

Atalanta grins even as she slumps back against one of the desks, causing it to screech a few inches across the floor. “Wrong.” She sucks in a rough breath, her voice fading. “You changed. She did, too.” Her words worm their way into my mind, sinking greedy fingers into the cracks in my confidence.

I shove to my feet. “It doesn’t matter how much time has passed or what we’ve both done to survive. There’s only one way this ends between us, and it’s with her at my side.”

“Sure it does.”

That’s enough time wasted on this distraction. I examine the placement of my blade. Not the heart or she’d be dead already, but I may have nicked the top of her lung. “You can sit there and die slowly or pull the knife out and save yourself some agony. Your choice.” My people will clean up the mess either way.

I don’t wait for a response as I shove out into the hallway. It’s blessedly empty, which is a damned good thing because I have to press myself to the wall and wait for the shakes to pass. It’s been so long since I’ve fought someone, really fought them. Atalanta would have killed me if I’d dropped my guard even once. I hold my hand in front of my face, watching the tremor. I feel so much in this moment: pain and fear and sorrow for cutting down a magnificent warrior.

I glance at the door. Atalanta was beautiful in motion. Like Death herself. I can see why Hecate likes her…maybe loves her. In all my files on the Thirteen and the legacy families and their high-ranking employees, there wasn’t a single link between Hecate and Atalanta. They both attended Minos’s party and dozens of ones in Dodona Tower over the years, but so did plenty of other people. I had no reason to believe they might be lovers.

I’ve hardly been celibate since leaving Olympus. Hecate certainly hasn’t. And why would she? Being loyal to a dead woman is foolish in the extreme. Hecate may be idealistic to a suicidal degree, but she’s not a fool. She’s too damned full of life to cut off large swaths of herself.

If she and Atalanta aren’t merely lovers but more…

I don’t like the guilt that threatens to rise in my heaving lungs. I made no promises. Hecate can’t hold it against me if someone she loves dies at my hand. “Right,” I mutter. “Because that logic has worked so well in the past.” Maybe I didn’t nick a lung. The placement was high enough that Atalanta could easily live. If she did… I move quickly down the hall and curse when I don’t see anyone. This place was filled to the brim with people only an hour ago, and now it might as well be deserted.

It takes five long minutes to find a pair of soldiers patrolling. Amytis is a new recruit, a woman with light-brown skin and long, straight brown hair who wanted to escape her controlling family on Aeaea. Noe fell in with me the first month after I arrived on the island, a street kid with the kind of ambition that would have seen her dead if I hadn’t taken her under my wing. She’s got pale skin and black curls that she keeps short to leave her sharp features in stark relief.

It’s Noe who notices the blood on my clothes first. Her brown eyes go wide. “What happened? Do you need medical attention?”

“I’m fine.” The aches are starting to set in. I need to bandage up my cuts before I bleed all over this damned campus. “There’s a woman in Classroom 7B. It’s down the hall, take two rights and a left.” I hesitate, but finally say, “If she’s still alive, give her medical attention immediately and ensure she’s secured.”