Chapter 14

14

Aurora

Ialmost welcome the sexual distraction. It’s easier to deal with than this new angle of Malone. I have watched this woman for years, waiting for the right opportunity. In all that time, I’ve never once seen her as anything other than a woman who worships at the altar of ambition and little else. Yes, she takes care of her people, but that doesn’t negate the damage she’s done or the people she hurts. It doesn’t change the fact that she took away one of the most important people in my life when I was far too young to withstand the loss.

I don’t know why it never occurred to me that Malone would have family, friends, people she cared about beyond Ursa. She was just an ambitious monster who wasn’t content with second place in Sabine Valley, so she came here to rule. Of course she didn’t care about the people she left behind.

I realize now that I’ve been making a lot of assumptions.

It doesn’t change what Malone did to my mother, but it also isn’t the sum of who she is. The knowledge shouldn’t change anything. There is a perfectly good steak knife sitting on the table between us. She’s relaxed and distracted. All I have to do is grab it and plunge it into her chest, bearing her down to the ground and cover her mouth so she can’t scream. I can almost picture it in my head. Almost. All I have to do is move, is attack, is act out the revenge that I was so sure I wanted when I agreed to this.

I will my hand to move. I will myself to ignore the barely shielded pain in her voice when she spoke about her nieces and brother. I shouldn’t want to comfort her. She’s my enemy. I close my eyes for a long moment, but the fire that encased me when I formed this plan flickers just out of reach. All I feel is a drenching sadness. I unclench my fist and open my eyes. It doesn’t have to be tonight. I can get my revenge later. “Is there anything you can do to help them?”

I half expect her to push the command, but she sighs. “No. The victor of the match sets the reward, and the reward they demanded for the loss in combat is handfasting. It was agreed upon by all parties. The ceremony was completed that night. There’s nothing we can do.”

I stare. I know Sabine Valley is a completely different environment, of course, but surely I didn’t misread Malone that badly. “Since when have rules ever stopped you from taking what you want?”

“Rules are there for a reason. The more you flout them, the more ammunition you give the people who work against you. A ruler is only in place through will of the people, whatever their motivation, be it fear or love or loyalty. The moment you start breaking your own rules is the first step toward the end. All the Brides agreed to the handfasting. If my sister attempts to kill the Paine brothers now, the entire city will build a pyre with her name on it and scramble over each other to light the first match.”

I shudder. Handfasting is a year-long marriage-type relationship. A year can be an eternity or a blink of an eye, but I can’t imagine being strong-armed into that situation with the enemy will be anything but torture. “Still. Isn’t there something to be done?”

She gives a faint smile. “My nieces and brother are made of sterner stuff than can be broken by this experience, and it’s not in the Paine brothers’ best interest to truly torture them. Every single person picked wasn’t part of the decision-making process that resulted in them being run out of town. That was no doubt intentional.” Her smile fades. “But it doesn’t change the fact that my sister made a misstep. She’ll have lost the trust of some of our people, and that is worrisome, especially when her heir is currently little more than a captive to Broderick Paine. It reeks of weakness for both of them, and that’s something the Amazons will never accept. If something happens…” She gives herself a shake. “It won’t. I don’t know why I’m musing on this.”

Because she’s got the mind of a general predicting the waves of a war. I lean forward, curious despite myself. “What will happen if the Amazons lose faith in your sister and her heir?”

“We’re a matriarchal society. They’ll either skip to Aisling’s second daughter, Thea, or they’ll skip Aisling’s tree entirely.”

Understanding washes over me. “You’re second in line.”

“I am fourth in line,” she says tightly.

“But if they skip your nieces, you’re second.”

Malone looks away. “I don’t want the throne. There was a time when I did; it’s the reason I left, because I love my sister too much to unseat her. But I don’t want it now.”

She left Sabine Valley because she loved her sister too much to stage a coup. I don’t know why the thought rocks me. Everything about this conversation is turning my assumptions on their heads. It doesn’t change the core of who Malone is, but…

I need time to process this new information. That’s the only excuse I have for leaning in and kissing her. I can’t say that she commanded me and I’m obeying. It’s pure instinct. I can’t even pretend it’s entirely to distract—either me or her—because a small, traitorous part of me wants to chase away the lost look in her green eyes.

She goes still for the space of a heartbeat, as if I’ve surprised her, and then her hands are in my hair and she’s taking control of the kiss. I find my hands on her shoulders and, when she doesn’t stop me, I skate them down the slice of skin barred by her shirt. Her skin is so soft. I can’t believe I’m allowed to touch her.

I should be grabbing the knife perched at the perfect angle on the table, should be looking for a way to use this vulnerability against her. I just…can’t.

I have time. There will be other opportunities. I tell myself a thousand lies as I slip my hand into her shirt and cup her bare breast. She’s built small and perfect, and she inhales sharply against my mouth when I stroke my thumb over her nipple. Malone lifts her head a little. “So bold.”

“What? I’m not allowed to touch you?”

She shakes her head slowly. “Why did you say yes, Aurora? I know Hades gave you a choice about this assignation. You hate me. Why agree?”

I kiss her again instead of answering. I have a feeling she’ll see through whatever lie I can come up with, and I’m sure as hell not telling her the truth. No matter how carefully she touches me when we’re not in a scene, this woman is a brutal warrior. If she thinks I’m a threat, she’ll slit my throat and deal with the fallout later. And she can deal with the fallout. Hades might be furious, but he’s balanced too precariously to go to war over a single person, no matter how much he cares about me. He’s not the type to let his emotions get the best of him. There will be consequences, yes, but nothing Malone can’t survive.

She allows the kiss for a few long moments and then moves, shoving me back against the cushions on the floor and pushing up my dress to bare me from the waist down. Malone brackets my throat with one elegant hand and shoves two fingers into me with her other. “You don’t want to answer that.”

“No,” I gasp.

“Just like you don’t want to talk about your exes.” She strokes me slowly. “Do your other partners realize how much you keep back, Aurora? How you use sex to deflect from subjects you don’t want to discuss? It’s rather clever.”

I’ve had sex in front of other people more times than I can count. It’s a common occurrence in the Underworld. I’ve acted out fantasies upon fantasies over the years, dredged every single one of mine from the darkness and thrust them into the light. I’ve never done anything like this. We’re outside the kink community, outside the club, outside a personal residence. If someone walks in, they’re not going to expect to find Malone finger fucking me before dinner. It feels almost wrong, but in the most delicious way possible.

Part of that is pure Malone. She’s staring down at me with something wild in those green eyes, something fierce that calls to a part of me I’m still not entirely comfortable with. Her fingers flex at my throat, not cutting off my air at all, but making me feel chained in place. Held down. Captive. She slides her thumb over my clit. “Did you agree to this assignation to punish me?”

Too close to the truth.

I swallow hard, the movement pressing my throat more firmly against her palm. “Why would I want to punish you?” She doesn’t know who I really am. There’s no way she’d interact with me the way she does if she realized the woman she took everything from twenty years ago had a daughter. A daughter Malone is sliding a third finger into right now.

“Could be any number of reasons.” Her cheeks have gone a little pink and her lips are swollen from our kisses, her lipstick a little smeared. She strokes her middle finger against my G-spot, something like pure satisfaction flickering over her expression when I moan. “Maybe because I’ve been ignoring you for so many years.”

I laugh a little, though it comes out as a gasp. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t been hard up for company in the intervening time.”

“No, you haven’t.” She circles my clit again. “Pretty, popular Aurora. You’re everyone’s favorite, and yet you’re always left in the dust when they find their people to settle down with. They don’t see you, and the ones who do want to change you. They don’t appreciate you for the gift you are.”

I’m suddenly terrified that Malone truly does see me. I try to keep my mouth shut, try to just enjoy this without digging myself deeper into a hole I’m not sure I can climb out of. “Do you?”

“Fierce Aurora. Protective Aurora.” She picks up her pace between my thighs, driving me toward orgasm as if we’ve done this a thousand times before, as if she knows my body as well as I do. “Deadly Aurora.” Her smile is just as fierce as her eyes. “Yes, I see you.”

I orgasm. It’s just a physical thing, just a tiny death, but it feels like something’s shifting inside me. Like something is changing that I can’t afford to change, not if I want to keep my feet on the path I’ve trod for more than half my life.

It feels like forgetting.

I shouldn’t want to forget. I shouldn’t betray the memory of my mother, my grandmother. I am simply so tired. Tired of fighting, of plotting, of hope. That must be why I’m craving this woman’s touch. No one has ever undone me in the same way that she does. I’ve never craved that undoing the way I am now.

Malone gentles her touch, bringing me back down with the same expertise she ramped me up. She holds my gaze as she lifts her fingers to her lips and sucks them deep. Tasting me. My entire body clenches at the sight. It doesn’t matter that I just came, that she’s my enemy; I want her. “Malone—”

She ignores me and pulls my dress back down, smoothing it into place, her touch lingering on the sequins for a moment before she sits back. “I’m famished.”

“Malone.”

“Aurora.” The snap is back in her voice, the coldness I recognize… Though it’s different now. It feels brittle, like it might crack beneath my feet at any moment. Not like the deep permafrost it used to be. Or maybe that’s all in my head. I honestly can’t be sure.

It shouldn’t matter. It can’t matter.

I carefully sit up and move to a kneeling position. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” I stare hard at the bright red of the cushion in front of me. “You want me to stop talking and stop pushing, right? Here I am, being obedient.” Why am I so angry? I should be happy that she’s reestablishing the proper boundaries between us, reminding us of our respective roles. I didn’t expect to need that reminder as much as she apparently does. That must be why I’m furious. It’s certainly not because she’s shutting me out.

She presses a single finger to my chin and guides my face up until I meet her gaze. “We’re not through talking.” Without looking away from me, she reaches to the middle of the table and presses the button to summon the server.

He arrives a few minutes later, bringing in our food, replacing our pitcher of water, and disappearing just as quickly. I pick up my fork, but I’ve lost anything resembling an appetite. It’s so tempting to put the utensil down and just drink some more wine, but I can practically hear Allecto’s voice in the back of my head.

You want to defeat a warrior, Aurora? You have to train like one; and that includes eating.

A rousing pep talk when I was twenty-two. Now she just shoves extra protein on my plate any time she catches me during a meal. It’s annoying and endearing in equal measure, and with that in mind, I start working on the chicken scattered throughout the salad. “If we’re not finished talking, what are we talking about?”

“I would have thought it was obvious.” Malone cuts her chicken like she does everything else—with precise violence. “We’re going to talk about you.”