“Not like that and you know it.” She brushes Pandora’s dark hair off her face. “I like her.”
“Eurydice.” I sigh. “Don’t go soft on me now.”
She drops her hand and takes a sip of her wine. “No danger of that. I know what’s at stake. I’ll reach out to Ariadne tomorrow and get that moving.”
“Good.” I’m still not entirely convinced of Apollo’s report that said Minos’s daughter might be turned to our side, but at this point we can’t afford to overlook any potential foothold.
I turn to where Charon is leaned against the wall nearby. He’s always haunting some space near Eurydice. She seems to find it comforting. I feel it’s disconcerting. With someone as dangerous as Charon, I prefer to have him where I can see him. “Help me get her into the car.” I had planned to come here and get her sloppy drunk, so her managing it on her own skips a few steps.
Sometime later, I corral a nearly passed out Pandora in my apartment and help her get out of the bridesmaid dress and into my bed. Guilt threatens to rise again, but I swallow it down. She’s not an innocent, no matter how sweet she’s been since I met her. She’s part of Minos’s household, which means she’s part of the plot to bring down the city I love.
That doesn’t stop me from pulling the covers up around her shoulders. It’s cold in here and she’s already asleep. There’s no reason for her to freeze. It might make her wake before I’m ready for her to. That’s all.
I watch her sleep for a few moments. She’s got to be the only person in existence who doesn’t look more innocent like this. Not that she’s innocent when she’s awake, but there’s something about Pandora that invites the kind of delight that only exists before the world shows exactly how cruel it can be. I don’t understand it. It must be a mask, but I’ve never seen it so much as crack in the hours we spent together for the wedding planning.
That means nothing.
My mask doesn’t crack, either.
Satisfied that she’s not somehow faking sleep, I head for my bathroom. I need to take a quick shower and wash the events of the day off me. I’m mildly irritated to discover I’m sore after having sex with Hephaestus. I press my fingers to my pussy and shiver. It was fast and cruel and, damn it, I came. I shouldn’t have bothered, but in the moment I couldn’t resist.
I love pleasure too much to miss an opportunity to take it.
It’s tempting to take a long shower, but I have my task to keep in mind. It will be dawn soon enough, and there’s no time to waste. I’ll sleep later. Probably. Maybe.
It still takes another thirty minutes to dry my hair and put on enough makeup to hide the exhaustion starting to make my body feel heavy. It doesn’t matter. Sleep is something that evades me even under normal circumstances. Except with…
No. No use thinking about him.
A black silk robe completes the picture. I run my fingers through my hair a bit to give it a messier look and head back into the bedroom. Pandora is exactly where I left her, snoring softly. Cute. Her dark hair is spread out over my red sheets, creating the perfect contrast.
I move to the window and lift the blinds just enough to give some natural light in the room. One of the things I learned early was how to manipulate the public. With the current situation in Olympus, that skill is needed now more than ever. If we have a chance to avoid an all-out war, we have to fight the first battles through public perception.
Right now, all the headlines are screaming about the secret assassination clause that can catapult anyone who manages to kill one of the Thirteen into their newly vacated position.
The city’s opinion of the Thirteen is a fickle thing. They love to watch us, fish in an aquarium for their entertainment, and some of them flat-out love us. But that sort of thing can turn on a dime. Power is a heady thing, and if there’s one thing Olympus idolizes even above the Thirteen, it’s power itself.
No matter how much they enjoy watching our dramas play out in the gossip sites, it won’t take long until they start wondering what it would be like if they held the title of one of the Thirteen.
If we don’t give the people something else to talk about, every one of our lives will be in danger. Even with all our security measures, there’s no guarantee someone won’t succeed.
My husband did.
And that chaos will only spread. It’s exactly the thing my brother was worried about when we had three title changeovers in a single year. A destabilized city is ripe for the picking, which is no doubt what Minos wants. Throw in a faltering barrier, and we might not be able to muster up a defense if and when the enemy comes knocking at our door.