Chapter 22
Atalanta
The address Achilles gave me is right on the edge between the upper warehouse district and the theater district.
It’s not the safest neighborhood, but no neighborhood in Olympus is truly safe these days.
I let myself in and close the door softly behind me.
He said it would be empty, but I can’t afford to take anything for granted right now.
I clear the small space methodically, cataloging it as I do: living room, kitchen with short peninsula that doubles as a dining table, single bedroom, single bathroom.
Everything is clean and pristine, all bearing the mark of a clear personality.
This Briseis likes teal and white with pops of coral accents.
The color scheme plays out through the whole apartment.
I brace my hands on the kitchen counter and consider my options.
My shoulder aches from the climb and my healing injury.
The few days of rest were anything but restful when I wasn’t sure if I’d be disappeared like the inconvenient problem I am to the Thirteen.
I can’t afford to burrow and stay here until I feel human again, but rushing around the streets without a clear plan is a good way to end up with a brick to the side of the head.
“A shower,” I say aloud. “A shower, clean clothes, a quick nap to get my head on straight.” As plans go, it’s bare-bones, but it’s enough to get me moving.
I locate the washer and dryer in a little closet in the hall and strip down. Once I get the washer going with my clothes, I walk naked into the bathroom, set my gun on the counter, and lock the door for good measure. Old habits die hard, and I’m not fool enough to think I’m truly safe here.
I haven’t been safe in… I don’t know if I’ve ever been safe in my adult life.
My parents died when I was eighteen, leaving me adrift and rootless in a way I was too grief-stricken to know how to combat.
Instead of fighting the demons summoned by their absence, I fought anyone I could provoke.
I lost a lot—including the fight resulting in the scars on my face—and I learned in the process.
Until I won, again and again. Until people wouldn’t fuck with me.
Until I met Hecate and we offered each other the one thing we’d both been missing in our lives.
Hope.
The shower water is blistering hot as I step beneath the spray and scrub what feels like weeks of grime from my skin.
It’s not. I know it’s not. I had a quick shower in the lower city yesterday, when the doctor finally gave me approval as long as I kept the bandage dry.
It’s not the easiest thing to do, but I’m tall and I make do.
It feels very, very good to get properly clean.
The hot water feels even better, and I run it out completely before I relent and turn off the shower.
Exhaustion hits as I dry off and wipe the steam from the oval mirror.
My bandage looks fine, so I leave it be.
My clothes should be almost ready to switch to the dryer, and I can take a short nap then.
When I wake up, I might feel human enough to put together a proper plan and figure out what the fuck to do next.
I’m woozy enough that I almost leave the gun on the counter, but even weaving on my feet, I’m too well trained to be so foolish.
I wrap one of the towels around me as best I can—Briseis must be significantly shorter because it barely covers the essentials—and grab the gun as I step out of the bathroom.
To find I’m not alone.
I register short dark hair, pale skin, and large green eyes in the space of a heartbeat. I recognize those features a bare second later. “Circe.” I stumble back a step and try to get my gun up.
She rushes me, shoving my arm wide before I can pull the trigger. “Hello, lover.”
She smells good. It’s such an absurd thing to register when she’s punching me in the fucking stomach.
She looks like one of the fragile socialites who populate this fucking city, but she hits like a pro fighter.
I can’t stop myself from doubling over, my lungs cramped and constricting from the blow.
Circe uses the opportunity to divest me of my gun. I manage to look up to watch her dismantle it with the ease of someone who’s done it many times before. She tosses the clip away. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
That’s rich considering she just punched me in the stomach. “Fuck. You.”
She steps carefully back, her hands raised as if I’m naive enough to believe she’s harmless. “I just want to talk.”
I finally manage a full inhale. It’s the sweetest air I’ve ever tasted. I straighten slowly. “I don’t believe you.”
“That just proves you’re not a fool.” She grins, suddenly looking like a completely different person.
There’s none of the carefully poised mask or the leader who convinced an entire city’s population to see things her way.
Before I can decide how I feel about the change, she moves into the kitchen and starts digging through the cabinets.
It’s only then that I fully register that Circe is here. “How did you find me?”
She smirks over her shoulder at me. “Please. I took control of the city’s cameras. No one goes anywhere in the upper city without me knowing about it.”
Yeah, that’s a cute statement, but it’s not true. Hermes—Hecate—has always managed to dodge the camera system when she felt like it. I suspect she’s doing so now, wherever she is, or Circe would be fucking with her instead of me. Fucking her.
The thought sends a shiver of poisonous heat through me. I’m standing here in a towel, without even the barrier of clothing to protect me from this woman. I move deeper into the living room so I can see the entirety of the kitchen. If she comes at me with a knife…
But Circe isn’t caressing the knife block. She’s pulling a pair of glasses from the cabinet and then goes onto her toes to tug down a bottle of amber liquid. She whistles under her breath. “Expensive taste.” She turns to me and holds up the bottle. “Temporary truce?”
“As if I’d eat or drink anything you touch.”
“I’m hurt. Truly.” She shrugs, sets the bottle on the counter, and takes a dramatic step away from it. “If you’re so concerned, then you pour.”
I don’t move. “I’m not drinking with you.”
“Are you sure? You look like you could use some unwinding.” She leans a hip on the counter and surveys me.
This woman has looked at me before, fought me in a life-or-death battle, but this is the first time she’s looked.
She drags her gaze from the top of my curls, over my scarred face, down my body to my toes, and then reverses course.
Taking her time. Appearing to drink in the sight of me, appearing to like it.
Witnessing desire blossom across her face… I don’t know what to do with that.
She smiles slowly. “You’re very, very good. I understand what she sees in you.”
“I don’t want to talk about her.” No need to say her name—either of her names—in this space. The memory of our last conversation, our last fight, rolls through me again. Only someone I love could hurt me the way Hecate has. “You need to leave.”
“You’re too smart for that. If I leave, I’ll just have you dragged in, and I’d prefer to save us both the indignity. I have…” She glances at her phone. “A very short time before my people start panicking that I’m gone. Let’s talk, Atalanta.”
I don’t exactly make a decision to move.
It’s more that I can’t stand this stillness, this knowing, that pervades every inch of this suddenly too-small apartment.
“I’m not interested.” I stalk to the hallway to change the laundry because fuck like I’m going to get a nap now, but I’ll be damned before I have to haul ass through the streets with only a towel for cover.
When I walk back into the main space, Circe hasn’t moved. I don’t trust that for a moment. She could have easily dosed either—or both—of the glasses with something nasty while I wasn’t watching.
But she’s right; I could really use a fucking drink.
“Atalanta…” She takes a breath, something almost vulnerable rising in her green eyes. “Please.”
It’s clearly another manipulation attempt.
I retuck the towel as best I can and grab the bottle.
This, at least, is sealed. If we all survive this, I’ll send a new one to Briseis.
I open it and take a long drink. Bourbon.
It burns down my throat and warms my stomach.
After a beat of hesitation, I hold out the bottle. “Fine. Talk.”
Circe’s fingers brush mine as she plucks the bottle from my hand.
She holds my gaze as she takes an equally long pull.
It’s only when she passes it back that she speaks.
“I’m not interested in fighting you and Hecate.
We all want the same thing—yes, yes, different methods and all that.
” She waves that away as if it’s a minor disagreement instead of a dichotomy of morals.
“I love her. You love her. If we continue down this path, one or all of us will die and nothing will change. Which means we’ll have failed. ”
I take a shorter sip this time as I consider her. She’s not entirely wrong, but… “Are you willing to stop killing the Thirteen and the legacy families?”
“Not entirely.” She shakes her head slowly.
“I admire the positivity of your plan—whatever it is—but if you exile the Thirteen—especially Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon—it’s only a matter of time before they come sniffing around again.
Or their children do. A new government system is a fragile thing.
So many of them fail before they have a chance to solidify.
Olympus is already going to be faced with steep stakes because this city has spent the entirety of its existence being safe and mostly removed from the rest of the world.
” She accepts the bottle and tips her head back, her throat working as she swallows.
“Even without the corruption inherent in our system now, we’re likely to fail when facing foreign governments attempting to influence or dominate. ”
I don’t drink often, and it’s been hours since I ate last. The soldier in me is demanding I stop now before I lose my regimented constraint.
Instead, I take another pull from the bottle.
There’s no possible way to taste Circe’s mouth over the burn of the bourbon, but I’m half-convinced I can.
“By that logic, it doesn’t matter if we—you—kill them or not.
The obstacles are ruinous already. A few extra molehills won’t make a difference. ”
“That’s certainly one angle to take.” Her smile widens, and holy fuck, she has a dimple. “I choose another.”
I stare at the divot in her cheek for a beat too long. “You only want them dead for revenge.”
She steps a little too close to take the bottle, and this time, she doesn’t retreat. She drinks deeply and sets it on the counter. “I prefer to call it justice. They’ve more than earned their fates.”
I shake my head, making the room swim. Damn it, I’m drunk. This was foolish in the extreme; it’s like I fucking want to die. “No wonder you and Hecate get along so well. You both talk in circles for your own amusement.”
“Atalanta.” She says my name on a sigh. She slowly reaches up to cup my jaw.
Her calluses brush against my skin, and fuck if the reminder that she works despite her socialite appearance isn’t unbelievably sexy.
She brushes her thumb over my cheekbone, trailing it down the scar that runs vertically under my right eye. “You said her name. Her real name.”
I guess I did. “Yeah.”
She leans in. She’s a good six inches shorter than me, and she has to tip her head back to maintain her hold on my gaze. “What if we table the discussion on working together for the time being?”
“We were never talking about working together.” A trap. It’s not even a good one, but I’m too tired and buzzed and turned on to care. “But sure. I’ll play. What do you want to talk about instead?”
“I don’t want to talk at all.”
Understanding dawns. I laugh in her face. “So you’ll use sex to manipulate me into seeing things your way? Nice try. It won’t work. Not for me and not for Hecate.”
“I know. I don’t expect you to believe me, but this is just desire. No ulterior motives.” She exerts the tiniest bit of pressure, drawing me down, down, down to my doom.
“You’re right. I don’t believe you.” There’s a laughable amount of opportunity to step away, to put a stop to this, to remember all the reasons why this woman is the enemy. I don’t do any of it. Instead, I grab her hips and pull her flush against my body. “But I don’t want to talk, either.”
I kiss Circe.