Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
“Circe,” I finally manage, my voice mangled.
“Hecate.” She moves around the edge of the bed and stops before me. In her bare feet, she’s only a couple inches taller than me. She lifts an elegant hand, but stops short of touching my face. “The years look good on you.”
“You too.” Gods, I can do better than this. I’m no longer just Hecate, victim of the whims of the powerful. I’m Hermes, for fuck’s sake. There’s never been a situation I can’t find a way to backflip through—sometimes literally.
But standing here, held captive by her gaze, I’m not Hermes at all. I really am only Hecate, a woman with more dreams than I can contain alone.
Circe has new lines at the edges of her eyes, but they only enhance her beauty. She surveys me. “You know, when I realized you were the new Hermes, I hated you.”
My mouth is so dry, I can’t possibly dream of swallowing. “Hated, past tense.”
“Yes, hated, past tense.” Her full lips curve. “You were the one who taught me how to look. It didn’t take long to figure out you were on a revenge mission.” She glances around the room. “This house only further confirms it. You didn’t miss a single detail, did you?”
“How could I?” I whisper. “Those dreams were all I had left of you after…”
“Yes. After.” She cups my cheek the way she used to, all those years ago. “Join me. I’m so close to accomplishing more than we ever dared dream.”
I almost say yes. That word, those three letters, dance on the edge of my tongue. I have to concentrate to swallow them back. “What is your endgame, Circe?”
She shrugs, so elegant that I want to fall to my knees and weep. “Nothing more than what we always talked about. A dream, just like this house.”
I knew it to be true the moment I realized who Minos’s benefactor was. I just didn’t want to believe it. I’m ruthless to a fault and I have blood on my hands—and will have more before this is over. But being Hermes, moving through circles previously closed to me, made me realize something I never could have imagined all those years ago, when the downfall of Olympus was just a dream shared in the dark space between my lips and hers.
The legacy families are just people. There are good ones and bad ones and petty ones and selfish ones. Some of them actually use their privilege to do good things. The system of the Thirteen must be abolished, but I don’t have the stomach for wholesale slaughter. Some of those people have become my friends, even if they don’t trust me much right now. Even if they weren’t…there have to be lines.
Otherwise, we’re just as bad as the thing we’re trying to eradicate.
It kills me to take a step back, to put more distance between the love of my life and me. The next step feels like I’m being stabbed. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Her smile never dims. “I thought that might be your answer.” She looks around the room again, but her gaze is distant in a way that makes me think she’s seeing beyond these walls. “This place has changed you.”
I shake my head sharply. “Losing you changed me. That’s where it started.”
“You could have me again.” Her dark eyes go soft, just like they always used to before she’d kiss me. “I never stopped loving you—even when I hated you.”
“I never stopped loving you, either,” I whisper.
She closes the distance I tried to create, and I can’t stop myself from inhaling, taking her spicy scent as deep into my lungs as I can. It’s still the same, even if everything else has changed.
Circe kisses me. I make a sound that’s part desperation and part protest, but my hands are in her hair and I’m pulling her close. Gods, I missed you so much. I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t…
There’s a sharp pinch at the base of my neck. I jerk back—or at least I try. My limbs aren’t working properly. I stagger away from Circe, pressing my hand to my neck. My fingers come away with little drops of blood on them. “You…”
“Drugged you, yes.” She ignores my attempt to flee and catches me around the waist, tugging me to the bed just as my legs give out. Then she lifts me easily onto the mattress and lays me out. She even makes sure the pillow under my head is properly placed. “There you go.”
“But…” My tongue feels too thick in my mouth.
“Yes, that’s a valid point.” She shifts me onto my side, facing her, and props one of the pillows against my back to keep me in place. “It will wear off in a few hours, but you’ll be woozy for another few after that.”