Shattered Gods (Dark Olympus, #10)(61)

“Not anymore.” Her smile dims. “I’m not offering love tonight. Just pleasure.”

There’s no reason for the tightness in my chest to get worse in response to her words. Didn’t I just ruminate on the fact I don’t like this woman? “Then it’s a good thing I just want to fuck you.”

She reverses course and hooks her finger into the top of my towel. “A very good thing.” One tiny tug and it slides off my body to pool around my feet. Circe props herself back on her hands and just looks at me.

I’ve had a handful of lovers over the years. Nothing serious, not when my heart always belonged to another, but something to mutually release some tension. They were always frantic encounters, fueled by the need to feel, to escape. Just like this started.

Apparently Circe is changing the rules. She looks at me like she wants to consume me, bite by bite, relishing every taste and texture. She touches the scar just below my right breast. “What happened here?”

“A mission gone sideways. Stab wound.”

Her lips quirk, but her eyes are serious. “Are they still alive?”

I shake my head slowly. “I killed them.”

“Good.”

That prompts a laugh. “Don’t try to act protective. You stabbed me. By that logic, I should kill you.”

“Do you want to?” She cups my breast, rubbing her thumb lightly over my nipple. It’s the tiniest touch, but a whimper presses against the inside of my lips. If I let her, this will be the tone of the night, with her steering our ship right into the rocks of oblivion. It will be too vulnerable, too close to cracking open my rib cage and letting her see my beating, bloody heart. I can’t do it. This is a betrayal to Hecate, and no matter how angry I am at her, there are some lines I still can’t cross. I can’t give Circe intimacy, even if I share my body with her.

“Maybe in the morning.” I grab the hem of her shirt and pull it over her head. Even in the low light, I can see that she has scars of her own, more than I would have expected from a sweet-talking politician. But this woman also won a knife fight with me; there’s more to her than meets the eye. Getting this close is a privilege, and if I was even a little less desperate, I’d use this opportunity to end things once and for all. I should…

My body moves of its own accord, reaching past her to the knife block and snatching a blade. “Or maybe I really should do it right now.” I press it to her pale throat, our bodies so close that I swear I can feel her racing heart in my chest. “Give me one good reason not to kill you now.”

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?