Shattered Gods (Dark Olympus, #10)(62)

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.

She hums with pleasure at my pleasure, but she doesn’t immediately zero in on making me orgasm. She dips down and thrusts her tongue into my pussy as if trying to claim every bit of me, to imprint my very taste. Her fingers dig into my thighs, a perfect point of near-pain to ground me against the pleasure she pulls forth.

When she lifts her head, I can’t stop a whimper of protest. “Don’t stop.”

“I won’t,” she murmurs. I look down my body to find her expression damn near rapturous, proof that she’s just as lost in this moment as I am. She licks her lips, her lower face shiny from my pleasure. “Come for me. Ride my mouth and take what you deserve.”

It’s as if her words weave a spell around me. The few thoughts I have left in my head dissolve like mist on a warm day, my body taking over entirely. I lace my fingers through her short hair and lift my hips, guiding her mouth back to my pussy. There may have been a distant part of me that wanted this to last forever, but it’s quickly drowned out by pure greed.

Make me feel good. Do it. Do it now.

Circe obeys my unspoken commands, holding my thighs wide as she works my clit in exactly the way I need to go nuclear. It’s too much and not enough, and I suddenly want to slow down, but she’s stronger than she looks, and my hands haven’t gotten the memo, holding her to me even as I unravel. I cry out as I come, every muscle in my body locking almost painfully. I want to blame the intensity on it being so long since I’ve slept with someone, but it’s not the truth. It’s never been like this before. Godsdamn it.

While I’m still recovering, she moves up to stretch out against my side. She doesn’t stop touching me, her clever fingers tracing patterns on my skin, palming my breasts, sliding over my hip. I drag in a breath and roll to face her. I start to say… Nothing. Nothing at all. There are no words needed in this moment, and anything I say about the future will ruin the strange spell we’ve created in the now. Better to ride this out to its inevitable conclusion and deal with the fallout at that time.

I press her onto her back and palm her pussy. “My turn.”





24

Hecate




Even if Demeter hadn’t texted me a heads-up that Circe was moving the trials to a location near Cypress Bridge, I would have figured it out. I just needed to follow the crowds of people streaming down the streets with determined looks on their face.

Olympus has fallen.

I knew that—of course I knew that—but there’s something about leaving the city proper for a couple days and returning to find it unrecognizable that truly drives the point home. It’s not happening how I wanted, but it is happening.

Strange to realize maybe I don’t actually have the stomach for revolution.

I perch on the rooftop of a building a few blocks from where I shot Hera and Persephone during their little meeting only a short time ago. So much has changed since then. Nothing has changed.

Below me, the crowd murmurs as more and more people stream in, packing in tighter and tighter. If something goes wrong, people will die from being trampled. I don’t know if that’s a feature or a bug in Circe’s plan. Even if I asked, I don’t think she’d tell me. And Atalanta? She isn’t taking my calls, every single one going to voicemail over the last twelve hours.

I’ve never felt more alone.

I shiver and pull my hood up. The wind is vicious up here, and I’m just superstitious enough to see it as a sign of things to come. Demeter is certain she can turn the tide in her favor. If anyone can do it, she can, but I’m so fucking afraid we’re underestimating Circe. Again.