Chapter 36 #2
Across the hall, one of Menelaus’s advisors lounged back in his chair, laughing too loudly as Hetairis draped herself artfully over his shoulder. Her fingers skimmed the line of his jaw, her voice warm as poured wine. He leaned toward her like a man starving.
Her smile wasn’t real. But his attention was … and it gave me an idea.
Before I could second-guess it, I let my hand slide along Menelaus’s arm.
He immediately stilled, his words to Achilles cut off mid-sentence.
Confusion tugged at his features as he turned toward me, brow furrowed like he couldn’t reconcile this sudden …
voluntary touch with the queen who usually tolerated being touched rather than instigated it.
I lifted my lashes, meeting his gaze head-on. “I have a gift for you,” I murmured sweetly as I rose from my chair. Every eye nearby followed the movement, and I ignored Achilles’s burning stare.
Menelaus blinked up at me, utterly thrown.
I stepped away from the table, letting the hall breathe with me, letting curiosity build like a drawn bow. As I approached the musicians gathered near the dais, their strings quiet between songs, I leaned in and murmured a few words, soft enough that only they could hear.
A new rhythm began, slow and sinuous. A pulse meant to pull attention.
I stepped into the open space before the table, and the room hushed, breath by breath, as I let my hips sway with the first sweeping note. My hands lifted, tracing the air, drawing invisible patterns that curved and beckoned.
My gaze found Menelaus … and held.
It was much easier to get his attention without a veil. There was no gauze between us, no barrier softening the effect of my face. His eyes caught on me like hooks as I moved with purpose, just as Hetairis had taught me, each roll of my shoulders, each turn of my waist, a controlled lure.
Heat climbed Menelaus’s throat, flushing the skin beneath his beard. He leaned forward, wine forgotten, lips parted … enthralled.
His pupils blew wide. His chest rose unevenly. His hand twitched on the table, as though resisting the urge to reach for me.
My arms lifted, wrists circling as though stirring embers, drawing a glowing line from my fingertips down the length of my chest.
Menelaus’s breath hitched and his knees spread slightly as he angled his entire body toward me.
I drifted closer, letting the sway of my hips sharpen, letting my movements grow more intimate, more dangerous. My foot slid forward, toes kissing the marble. My thigh brushed the hem of my gown. I exposed the long line of my back to him, then I glanced over my shoulder, just once.
His hands were digging into the wood of the table.
The music deepened, and I let it guide me into a low bend, palms skimming the air close to my knees before rising … rising … every inch aimed directly at him.
By the time I stood fully again, Menelaus wasn’t blinking.
I let the final notes twist around my ankles, climbing up my legs, unraveling in time with my last slow turn. In that suspended breath, I let my gaze drift to Hetairis.
She had frozen mid-gesture, her hand still resting on the advisor’s shoulder. Her eyes were wide, gleaming, her lips parted not in coy invitation but in startled awe. Shock … and something like admiration flickered over her face.
A knowing smile curved her mouth as our gazes locked. My pulse steadied.
I turned back to Menelaus, stepping close enough that the heat from his body brushed mine.
My fingertips skimmed the front of his robe, light and teasing, a touch meant to unravel him further.
His breath hitched, and he leaned in, greed and adoration warring in his eyes.
“What can I do,” he murmured, his voice rough with desire, “to reward you for that?”
“I want Nikandros’s head,” I murmured, my voice soft but carrying as I continued to touch his chest.
“My queen is just as bloodthirsty as her king.” He laughed with glazed eyes, his pupils blown. Menelaus was nodding before I’d even finished my request. “Yes,” he said instantly, the word thick with lust and oath all at once.
CRASH.
A chair slammed to the ground across from us.
I jerked my head toward the sound.
Achilles was stalking across the hall, his expression pure, murderous intent. Nikandros’s eyes bulged as he scrambled backward, squealing, tripping over the hem of his own robes.
“Wait—wait—WAIT—!”
Achilles didn’t.
He seized a fistful of Nikandros’s hair and wrenched him upright. Steel flashed and Achilles drew the blade across his throat in one clean, devastating stroke.
Blood erupted in a hot, arterial spray. Nikandros gurgled, hands flying to his throat, crimson pouring through his fingers as he collapsed to his knees. He toppled sideways, body twitching, bleeding out in a widening, glistening pool that crept across the stone.
Screams erupted as wine spilled and someone fainted. Menelaus’s eyes went wide, not with horror, but with stunned, blinking disbelief. His gaze slid from the dripping blade … to Achilles … to the dying man writhing at a noble’s feet, blood pulsing in rhythmic spurts across the floor.
And then … to me.
Suspicion narrowed his eyes, pulling his mouth into a thin, assessing line. The haze of lust burned off him like steam.
“Well done,” he murmured, the praise sounding more like a warning.
His fingers brushed mine as he stepped closer, the touch deceptively gentle.
“But be wise when you use me, my queen.” His mouth dipped toward my ear, the air between us tightening.
“Power borrowed is a dangerous thing. Power owed is worse.”
He straightened, studying my face as if trying to decide whether I’d meant to unleash Achilles like a blade from my own hand.
Before I could speak, the suspicion in his eyes thinned, replaced by the returning flare of hunger. “And now,” he murmured, “we’ll finish what you’ve begun.” His hand closed around my wrist and he began to lead me through the still stunned, gasping hall, toward a side door that led to his rooms.
My heart hammered at the thought of where he was taking me, cold apprehension filling each step I took.
But before the doorway swallowed us, I looked back.
Achilles stood amid the carnage, his chest rising in slow, controlled breaths, his sword still dripping red. His eyes were locked on me as I walked away.
His stare was a promise, a question, a warning—all tangled, all burning.
And beneath the rush of fear flooding my veins, something else stirred. Satisfaction.
Nikandros was dead.
Dead.
And it was by my will as much as Achilles’s blade.
Revenge, swift and merciless and absolute, glowed warm in my chest.
Whatever waited for me in the dark with Menelaus …
It was worth it.