Shattered Gods (Dark Olympus, #10)(76)

Atalanta reaches down and grabs Circe by the back of her neck, hauling her up to claim a kiss. Tasting me on her mouth. I shiver. “That was…”

“A good beginning.” Atalanta nips Circe’s bottom lip. “Nowhere near enough.”

She’s right. She’s always been right in so many ways. I can’t believe I denied us both this experience for so long. To have it now, with Circe, is something that will threaten to break my brain tomorrow. Right now, I’m enjoying myself too immensely.

“Good idea. You next.” I twist and topple her onto the bed. The move might have worked on anyone else, but Atalanta isn’t anyone else. She laughs and rolls us, somehow wrapping me up like a damned present. One moment, I’m victorious, and the next, her mouth is on my pussy. Maybe I’m still victorious. It sure as fuck feels like it when she fucks me with her tongue.

Circe shifts to kneel at Atalanta’s back. “Yes, this is a good beginning, a good idea, and…” She palms Atalanta’s round ass. “How you resisted her is a mystery to me, Hecate. She’s intoxicating.”

“Right here,” Atalanta murmurs against my heated flesh. “Stop talking over me.”

“Mmm. I prefer to tell you with my touch anyway.” She meets my gaze, so many things left unsaid in those big green eyes. Regret and sorrow and…hope? It’s there and gone in an instant. She refocuses on Atalanta. One hand disappears, and Atalanta’s rhythm stutters briefly before she rallies. I know what it is to have Circe’s hands on me—in me. The fact she can rally at all is a testament to her control.

She curves her fingers inside me, finding the same spot she did earlier, the same rhythm and pressure, and the slick slide of her tongue against my clit is overwhelming in the best way. I give myself over to the pleasure rising with each stroke, each perfectly timed slide, and then I’m coming, my back bowing and a cry erupting from my lips.

Atalanta isn’t far behind me. She shifts up to bury her face in my stomach, wedging her arms between my body and the mattress as Circe drives her closer and closer to orgasm. I feel the exact moment she tips Atalanta over the edge, her ragged cry muffled by my body.

And then it begins again. We shift fluidly, Atalanta and I bringing Circe to a peak, and then Circe toying with me until I’m shaking and unable to form words. We take turns going down on Atalanta, each doing our damnedest to get that sexy little squeal out of her. Time ceases to have meaning. There are only us, this bed, and the pleasure we wring from each other’s bodies again and again and again.

Even though I know it can’t last past sunrise, I can’t stop myself from being happy.





30

Atalanta




Dawn comes far too soon, the sun painting bloody fingerprints across the sky as it tries to fight its way through the smoke hanging in a haze over the city. Despite my assurances to Hecate and Circe, my shoulder hurts like a motherfucker from all the sex.

I slide off the bed and pad to the bathroom, my legs still feeling shaky despite getting a solid nap when we all passed out a few hours ago. The three of us together feels balanced and right, and there isn’t a shred of regret involved.

Unfortunately, key problems wait right outside our door. Primary among them: the entire city that wants Circe dead.

Both Hecate and Circe are awake when I reenter the bedroom. They take their turn in the bathroom, the silence careful and intentional, as if we’ve all agreed to hold the conversation until we can have it properly. With that in mind, I pull our clothes out of the dryer, get dressed, and head into the tiny kitchen to get coffee going.

Ten minutes later, we’re all holding mugs and staring at each other. For once, neither of them has something to say, so I sigh and dive right in. “Last night, I went to get a look around while you were both sleeping.” I keep talking over their surprise and worry. “It’s bad. The people of Olympus are rioting.”

Hecate shifts. “Surely you understand that your plan is ash. You won’t be able to control the riots, and any attempt will result in more death on both sides.”

Circe cups her mug, her energy diminished. In the past twelve hours, she’s nearly drowned—again—and had a good portion of her people killed by the mob. As Hecate said, the plans she’s spent more than ten years creating are ash. There’s no going back now. I try to dredge up some sympathy for her, but frankly, we’re in this situation because she wanted to play god-queen. If she’d come back in secret, had reached out to Hecate…

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Even so, I hate how small she looks right now. She might be as much of a monster as the Thirteen, but she clearly cared for her people. Antigone’s death wouldn’t rock her so thoroughly otherwise. And nearly drowning a second time must be triggering as shit.

“Sunk cost fallacy is a real bitch, you know?” she finally says. “Olympus cannot continue as it has been.”

I bite back a curse. She’s proud, which I already knew. Failure has to sting, but I’ll be damned before I let her walk out of this apartment without convincing her that our way is the only option now. “We’ve already been of the same mind when it comes to that. It’s the method that we can’t allow.” It would be smarter to leave it there, but I need her to understand. “Our way isn’t bloodless, but it doesn’t involve further public executions.”