Chapter 21
The herb was burning its way through me, and it didn’t want to leave cleanly.
After the performance, after the swirling incense, the pounding drums, the rancid stench of lust, I staggered back to my room.
My skin felt too tight, too hot. Every brush of air skimmed my nerves like a lover’s breath.
Every inch of me still thrummed like I stood before the king, body bared beneath a thousand ravenous eyes.
Lust clung to me like oil, seeping inward.
“Helena?” Damaris’s voice trembled beside me. “You’re … you’re shaking.”
I forced my gaze up. The corridor wavered. Her face shimmered like water. “I’m fine,” I whispered. Or tried to. The word scraped out hoarse, barely formed.
Chloé snorted softly, tossing her hair. “Some people weren’t made for this,” she scoffed, loud enough to be heard.
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t even summon irritation. The heat twisting inside me drowned out everything, petty jabs, whispers, the rustle of veils. My pulse throbbed between my legs, insistent and brutal.
Anysa slipped an arm beneath mine, steadying me when my knees buckled. “Ignore her,” she muttered. “Just breathe. We’re almost there.”
Almost there. Almost.
The hallway stretched endlessly, shadows pulsing at the edges of my vision. I caught myself against the wall once and my palm seemed to burn where it met the cold stone.
“Helena,” Anysa murmured again. Worried. Gentle.
“I just …” My breath hitched. My tongue felt thick and clumsy. “Need a moment.”
She didn’t argue. She stayed close anyway as she guided me the rest of the way, up the last corridor and to my door.
By the time she pushed it open and ushered me inside, I was barely aware of anything but the pounding heat in my veins. I stumbled toward my bed, fingers numb, breath ragged.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Anysa said as she hovered in the doorway for a second before finally stepping out and closing the door behind her.
I flung myself down desperately, tangling my fists in the sheets, my back arching against the phantom heat still pulsing in my belly.
It wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t let me stop.
The ache throbbed with every heartbeat, demanding more … demanding him. A finger. A cock. Achilles.
I set my jaw, fury and hunger clashing inside me. My eyes burned.
No. Not him.
But the need kept rising, brutal and merciless, until tears finally broke loose, burning as they slid down my face. And still, my body begged.
A small squeak broke the silence. My head snapped toward it. Roz sat on the edge of the table …
“Don’t—” My voice cracked. I jerked my gaze away, hand flying up as if to shield my face from it. “Go. Just … go.”
Another squeak, softer this time.
“Please.” The word tore out of me, anguished. My hand slashed the air, desperate to push it from me without touching. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
For a long heartbeat, it didn’t move, only stared, tail coiled tight against its body. Then Roz slipped soundlessly into the dark, leaving me alone with the ruin of myself.
I writhed for what must have been hours.
My hair was damp with sweat, sticking to my face. My tunic had twisted around my thighs, plastered to my skin like a second layer. Every shift made the silk drag across flushed flesh, feeding the torment instead of soothing it.
When it stopped, it was like I was waking up from a haze. I was shaking in sweat-slicked sheets that had grown cold and clammy.
I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, my chest rising and falling in quick, broken pulls. But the air didn’t help. It couldn’t reach the part of me that was unraveling.
Rain lashed the windows. Thunder rolled somewhere distant, rumbling like a Titan turning in its sleep.
And I felt … emptied.
Flayed open in every way possible, like the dance had peeled away skin and sinew and left only my rawest self behind. I’d said I’d do whatever it took to win, but I suddenly felt like I’d given too much. Shown too much.
Tears slid down my cheeks in silent, endless streams. I didn’t sob or wipe them away. I just let them fall, one after another. The storm outside wailed like it was mourning something too, wind howling through the palace eaves, rain slamming against the stone like fists.
It matched the wreckage inside me.
I blinked, slowly, and my performance immediately rushed back to me.
The heat of the throne room still clung to my body, damp and shameful, the memory of my own movements playing back behind my eyes.
The sway of my hips. The moans I hadn’t swallowed.
The way I’d offered myself, open, aching, for them.
My stomach turned and suddenly … I couldn’t stay here. Not in this room. Not in this skin.
I sat up, legs shaky, silk sticking to my damp thighs, and moved without thought, slipping into my sandals, walking out my door and then through the door at the end of the hall.
My sandals slapped against the stone as I ran, veil left behind, past shadows and sense.
I burst outside and rain hit me like a wall, cold and drenching … and impossible.
It shouldn’t have been raining like this. It shouldn’t have been raining at all. Not when the rest of Sparta had dust choking the fields and wells shrinking to mud. These raindrops weren’t the monsoons that Amyklai endured.
Another example of how whatever plagued the rest of Sparta never dared reach Menelaus.
Within seconds, the white silk clinging to my body bloomed with drops of water.
Streaks spread across the fabric, soaking it through in wild, uneven lines, the cloth plastering itself to my skin as if it meant to slow me.
Still I kept going, sprinting across slick flagstones into the drenched rose garden.
Thunder cracked across the sky like a warning shot, like the heavens themselves had decided to scream. A jagged bolt of lightning was a silver vein through the clouds, and for a moment the whole world lit up with a violent, ethereal flash.
The rain fell hard and fast, each drop a needling shock against my skin. Wind tore through the garden, dragging at my saturated gown and whipping my hair into a wild, wet tangle. It all felt right.
This, this storm, this fury, this ruin … it was all truth in its most base form. I finally stopped, tilting my face up into the torrent.
Let it come. Let it drown me. Let it strip me clean.
My tears now mingled with the rain, indistinguishable from the sky’s grief. And I let myself unravel, quietly, fiercely, beneath the cloak of the storm.
“What are you doing?” Achilles’s voice tore through the rain like the lightning flashing overhead.
I turned just in time to see him striding through the downpour, soaked to the bone, eyes blazing.
Before I could speak, he was on me. His hands gripped my arms, hard and shaking. Then suddenly, he lifted me.
I gasped, legs kicking as he hauled me up against his chest like I weighed nothing.
Rain streamed down both of us, soaking his tunic, slicking his hair to his skull, but his grip didn’t falter.
He moved fast, cutting through the storm with long, furious strides, his jaw clenched like he might break it from holding something back.
He ducked into a narrow alcove half hidden behind an ivy-covered archway, stone walls pressing in close. The moment we were out of the rain, he set me down—not gently. His hands dropped away like my skin burned him.
“What were you thinking?” he snarled, chest heaving, his voice furious. “Out of the wing. Without a veil. Anyone could’ve seen you.”
I gaped at him, lips parting, but nothing came out.
His eyes were wild in the low light, rain still dripping from his lashes, his hair curling at the edges from the storm. He looked like something torn from the earth—feral, furious, real.
My mouth opened again, trying to form words, to explain the chaos roaring inside me, but they wouldn’t come. Just a breath. Just a tremble.
Finally, I whispered, “I needed air after …”
But the words crumbled. My voice faded off, swallowed by the sound of rain still pounding just beyond the stone. I looked down, water sliding from my lashes to my chin, my chest still heaving.
His gaze pinned me, unrelenting.
“You needed air,” he echoed in a voice like flint. “So you ran out into a storm? Veil gone. Dress clinging to you. Out of the chosen’s wing—alone? For the second time?”
I flinched, but he didn’t stop.
“Why would you go through all of this,” he growled, stepping closer, his breath sharp between his teeth, “only to throw it all away? I could dismiss you for this!”
I’d had men and women stare at me with lust my whole life … hungry, devouring, false. But with Achilles, his stare seemed different. Like I wasn’t just being seen for my face. Like he was seeing something deeper.
A flash slammed through me. The memory of how my hands had moved over my own skin, how I’d arched and moaned and offered myself, all while my gaze had locked on his.
Worshipful. Needy.
Gods.
My head fell back against the stone wall, eyes squeezing shut in shame. Rainwater still clung to my lashes. I wanted to blame the herb. I wanted to.
But if I were honest—truly, brutally honest—I wasn’t sure I could.
The heat had come from the herb.
But the direction of my desire? That had been all me.
And I’d pointed it at him. Even if I’d told myself it was for the king.
It had been him.
My throat tightened. “I couldn’t sleep,” I finally muttered, the words tumbling out like a confession. “After today, after everything, I just—I couldn’t breathe in there.”
For a moment, I thought he might turn away, let the silence fall again.
Instead, he let out a bitter, frayed breath.
“Well,” he said, in a voice rough and edged with something far more dangerous than anger, “after today, I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep again.”
His eyes slid past me, out toward the sheets of rain still pouring just beyond the alcove. His lips were pressed into a hard line. Water trickled down his temple, catching on the edge of his cheekbone before vanishing into the collar of his soaked tunic.