Chapter 25

25

Malone

Aurora and I settle into a smooth rhythm over the next week, interrupted only by the check-in that Hades insisted on. It goes off quickly and without an issue, but it’s still strange to have Allecto prowling around my house as if she expects to find evidence of nefarious activities. She and Aurora disappear into the spare bedroom for twenty minutes, and when they come back out again, Allecto announces herself satisfied and Aurora has shadows in her eyes. She doesn’t want to talk about it.

She never wants to talk about it.

I leave her in my bed each morning and head down to work for a few hours. We meet in the gym and spar. She wins a few matches; I win more. Then we end up back in my penthouse, fucking until we’re too exhausted to move. She’s still a little brat, but the edge of hatred is gone, leaving something warm and almost soft in its place.

It should be perfect.

This is what I want, after all. A slow and steady build into something more. A chance to pave the way for this to extend beyond our deadline.

But after ten days, there’s no escaping the truth.

Aurora is holding something back.

I have no business demanding more of her, especially so soon, but sometimes she looks at me and gets this strange expression in her dark eyes. It’s not grief. I’ve seen her grieving, and the night I beat her with a cane and then shattered her with pleasure seems to have blunted the edge of her sorrow. No, this is something else.

I’ve never met a mystery I was able to leave alone, and this is no exception. The stakes are too high. I want her. Whatever she’s hiding is preventing me from having her entirely.

It comes to a head three nights before the end of the assignation. I can feel the seconds slipping through my fingers with each tick of the clock, and it puts me in a foul mood. “Aurora.”

“Hmmm?” She looks over from where she’s been contemplating the fire crackling in the fireplace.

Maybe I’ve been going about this wrong. Wanting her to give herself to me without being vulnerable in turn isn’t going to work. I should have known that from the start. I take a slow breath. “I care about you.”

She tenses as if she’s going to jump off the couch and flee the room. “Don’t say that.”

My patience threatens to snap, but I hold it together through sheer force of will. “I realize that things are complicated between us, but I’m not misreading things when I say we’ve both had a lot of fun since you’ve been here.”

She won’t quite meet my gaze. “Yes, we’ve had fun.”

“More than fun.” A small part of me tries to put on the brakes before I push us into something we can’t take back, but I’ve never been good at sitting still when the prize I want is before me. “You’ve enjoyed your time with me.”

“Malone, please.” There it is, that expression I can’t define. “Let’s just enjoy the next three days.”

I should let it go. I already know I won’t. I lean forward and try to get her to meet my gaze. “What if this extended past the next three days?”

Aurora clears her throat. “Why did you leave Sabine Valley?”

This is what’s bothering her? What she’s been chewing on for the last week? No, it doesn’t make any sense. We’ve talked about this already, or at least touched on it enough that it’s not a mystery.

This is just the lead-in question to circle whatever is bothering her. With that in mind, I answer honestly and without hesitation.“Because if I didn’t, I might have ended up fighting my sister for the Amazon throne.” I catch her look and shrug. “I was never going to be content with second place, but I love my sister and I love my people, so I chose to leave to spare us all that.”

“Couldn’t you have just not tried to stage a coup?”

“I am ambitious. I always have been.” She’s still looking at me like I’m speaking Latin, so I try to elaborate. “My mother was the most powerful person I’ve ever known. Sabine Valley has fail-safes in place to ensure the territories don’t go to war, but there are a thousand things that could happen to spell the end of an heir’s life that have nothing to do with violence. She wanted to ensure our people would be cared for regardless, which meant she raised us both to rule. But my sister was healthy and strong. There was no need for the spare.”

“She raised you to be a queen and then gave you second place.”

“Yes.” I don’t begrudge her that. Her plans made sense from a tactical point of view, and they ensured the Amazons would remain under a strong leader. If I got the raw end of the deal, I’ve never held it against her. I would have done the same in her position. “I stayed in Sabine Valley until Aisling had her third daughter, Winry, but the second-in-command position chafed. And my sister might love me as much as I love her, but she doesn’t trust me entirely.”

“Can you blame her?”

I arch an eyebrow. “Of course not. I wouldn’t sleep well with someone like me as next in line for the throne, either.” I sit back and pick up my wine glass. “It was better for everyone that I leave.”

“Why Carver City?” She’s still not looking directly at me, still edging this conversation in such a way that I’m not sure of our destination.

Oh well. I resign myself to being along for the ride. If she needs to talk this out, it’s the very least I can do to indulge her. “Of the two cities closest to Sabine Valley, Olympus is too entrenched in its leadership. There’s no way I could come in as an outsider and end up as one of the Thirteen.” And no way that I would be content as one of the bit players beneath Zeus. “Carver City offered more opportunities.”

Aurora pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “Why this territory?”

There’s no harm in telling her. The news is two decades old, after all. “It had the most potential for growth—and the weakest leader. The people were unhappy; they needed someone strong to give them a path forward.”

She inhales sharply. “I suppose that makes sense.”

It does, but what doesn’t make sense is her reaction to this mundane information. I frown. “Aurora, what does this have to do with continuing this thing between us past the end of the contracted assignation?”

“I…” Aurora takes a deep breath. “I heard that you almost killed her when you took over.”

It feels like there’s a question within her statement, but I can’t figure out the flavor of it. I debate for a moment but decide to answer instead of pushing her. This time. But I want an explanation, and I want it soon. “I dislike coups that come in the form of a blade in the back. It’s cleaner to have a fight for it out in the open. I declared my intentions to take over, and Amelia chose not to take me seriously. She could have left, and I wouldn’t have touched her, but she didn’t. We fought. I won. It’s as simple and complicated as that.”

“You almost killed her.”

I study her. “Where is all this concern for something that happened twenty years ago coming from?”

“You had her down and beaten, and you still chose to keep going.” She’s still not looking at me, her voice low and fierce.

“An Amazon doesn’t leave an enemy at their back,” I say softly, my mind racing. Why is she so worried about the former leader of this territory? It’s no coincidence. Aurora’s anger is too personal to be on behalf of some faceless stranger. No, there’s something else going on here. But what? Aurora was maybe ten or so when that fight happened. There were no children involved; neither Amelia nor her inner circle had kids. I would have known.

“I see,” she whispers.

I cup her face and gently guide her to look at me. Part of me wants to let this go, to kiss her and distract us both until whatever lurks beneath the surface of this conversation stays locked away. I can’t shake the feeling that this revelation will crush the fragile bloom of possibility we’ve nurtured the last week.

It’s not in my nature to shy away from an ugly truth, let alone a fight. I search Aurora’s pretty face, looking for answers she’s determined to hide from me. Finally, I ask the question I know, deep down in my poisoned heart, that will break us. “Who was she to you?”

The silence stretches thin between us. Aurora shudders out a sigh. “My mother.”

Shock has me dropping my hand. “Impossible.”

“It’s really not.”

I’m already shaking my head. “She had no family. It was the first thing I looked into when I got into the territory.”

Aurora goes back to staring at the fire, her expression curiously blank. “I lived with my grandmother. She didn’t want the dangerous elements of her life to touch me. At least not when I was a child. I doubt the same would have held true if she were still ruling when I turned eighteen.”

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this revelation. Twenty years is a long time. I barely remember what Amelia looked like, let alone down to the kind of details that I could hold up to Aurora as a comparison. I remember she was a slim Black woman, but that’s it. Her features have blurred over time, and I never spent any effort into solidifying them. Why would I bother?

Now, I wish I had.

“I didn’t know,” I find myself saying faintly.

“Would it have mattered if you did?”

A comforting lie might work in my favor right now, but I don’t make a habit of untruthfulness. Not with the people I care about. “No.” The die was already cast the moment I chose this territory to make my own. Amelia was a shitty leader, sloppy and far too willing to give in to excess and power. Even if I hadn’t been the one to take her out, someone else would have stepped in before too long. She was an opportunity just waiting to be plucked.

I can’t say that to Aurora. Not now, knowing the woman was her mother.

Aurora lets out a painful laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

Several things become clear all at once. “That’s why you made the deal with Hades. For her.” When Amelia was put in the hospital in a coma, no one thought she’d wake up. She’s been medically brain dead since about a week after our fight. I know. I checked. For Aurora to have made a deal that desperate, there could only be one cause. “You’re the one who moved her to a private clinic.”

“Yes.”

I look at her closely, my chest getting strangely heavy. “Is she still alive, Aurora?” If one can call her existence life. It’s been argued either way by medical professionals, but I land on the negative. I went to visit her once before she was moved from the hospital, and the spark that made her Amelia had been extinguished. Only the shell remained.

But Aurora came to me grieving someone close to her.

“No. Not anymore. I made the call before I agreed to this assignation.”

Fuck.

She kept her mother alive for twenty years, sold herself to Hades to do it, and all for nothing. The woman never woke up. She was never going to. Gods, this situation is so fucked. “I’m sorry my actions hurt you.”

At that, she flares to life. “That is the shittiest of apologies. You’re not sorry you hurt her.”

I won’t lie to her, not even in this. “No, I’m not. She was a weak leader, petty and cruel, and if I didn’t take control, someone else would have staged a coup. Everyone looked at her and saw an opportunity.”

“Stop it.”

I lean forward, knowing that she’ll hate me after this but unable to stop. “Why do you think she sent you away, Aurora? Because she knew she wasn’t strong enough to keep you safe. I was in this territory for a month to observe her, and during that time, there wasn’t a vice she met that she didn’t embrace fully. Even her generals were sharpening their knives and eyeing her back. She wouldn’t have lasted the year.”

“Stop it!” She swipes a hand across her face. “It doesn’t excuse what you did, what you took from me.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” I clench my hands to keep from reaching for her. With this new information, it’s easy enough to understand why Aurora said yes to this assignation. The one mystery I could never quite answer, not to my satisfaction. Lust isn’t enough of a driver for her, not when she can fulfill that desire filled with anyone she crooks a finger at in the Underworld. “How were you going to do it?”

She blinks. “What?”

“You came here to get revenge, correct? An eye for an eye is very biblical of you, but I can’t fault the logic. You were going to kill me. Or at least attempt it.” It feels like something is stuck in my throat, something sharp and jagged and far too large. “How were you going to do it?” She hadn’t brought in any weapons; I would have known.

“I hadn’t decided.”

I have no right to feel anger. Her desire for revenge is an honest one, even if it’s against me. In her place, I would have done the same thing, albeit on a faster timeline. Feeling hurt because she got close enough to strike me is ridiculous. Feeling betrayed when this was only ever supposed to be sex…

I am a fool.

I laugh hoarsely. “You have been sleeping next to me for over a week. I have been as helpless as I am capable of being every single night for hours at a time. Why haven’t I woken up with one of my butcher knives embedded in my chest?”

“Stop.”

“No, you answer me. You came here for revenge.” I motion at me, at the room around us. “You have had opportunity after opportunity to strike. Why haven’t you?”

She shoots to her feet, fists clenched. “I hate you!” She stares down at me, turmoil in her big dark eyes. “But I don’t only hate you. It’s more complicated than I expected.”

I don’t only hate you.

Hardly a declaration of caring, let alone something like love. Hardly anything at all. I laugh again. I can’t stop speaking, can’t stop twisting the knife. This was never going to work. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to hope. “Sounds like you lost your nerve.”

“That’s not it.” She shakes her head, still looking furious. “You aren’t what I expected, and it’s got my head all screwed up. Forgive the fuck out of me if I’m not as easily inclined to murder as you are.”

I push to my feet. I don’t crowd her, though. No matter how much I want to. “Yes, Aurora. Paint yourself as the helpless damsel instead of the ruthless hunter. Others might believe that lie, but it doesn’t work on me.”

“I am not a ruthless hunter.”

“Lies.” Gods, this hurts. I didn’t expect it to hurt so much. “You spent ten days fucking me, letting me hold you, talking with me, coaxing me to let you in. All the while, you were thinking of ways to kill me.” I shake my head. “You’ve accomplished your goal.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You might not have wielded a literal blade, but you’ve broken my fucking heart.” I turn away. “Get out. Sara will take you back to the Underworld.”

“Wait.”

But I can’t wait. I have to get her out of here before I crumple. I glance over my shoulder. Aurora looks lost, and every instinct I have demands I go to her. I make myself hold her gaze for a long moment. “Do not, under any circumstances, tell anyone outside the Underworld what you had planned. My people rarely disobey me, but they are protective in the extreme. They will kill you to keep me safe.”

She stares. “Why protect me? After all this, shouldn’t you want to tie up the loose end I represent?”

Yes, that’s exactly what I should do. Hades might not believe me if Aurora died of an accident, but unless he could prove I was directly responsible, there wouldn’t be a damn thing he could do. Maybe Aurora held herself back this time, but there’s nothing to say she won’t try to come for me in the future.

I can’t do it.

Even if it’s a logistical mistake, I can’t stand the thought of the world without her in it.

“Goodbye, Aurora. I truly am sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.” I turn around and walk away.