Pika flopped down my face, kept his wings tucked in total faith that I’d catch him under my chin, then lay on his back in the centre of my palm, rocking on his wings as I tickled his downy feathers. “Had a good few days, little nightmare?”
He blinked as if he understood everything I said. He chirped back with a very clear, “Yup!”
It never failed to astound me how quickly he’d learned to speak. Sure, I’d shared my life with him for almost fourteen years. Sure, his sister wasn’t as friendly as him and preferred to live with the wild parrots in the palm trees with the occasional visit to me. But Pika had chosen me as his mate.
He was never far from my shoulder, disappearing for a few days only if the hibiscus flowers—which were his favourite—were blooming. He’d grow drunk on the nectar, pass out in some tree, and not come home for a while.
Those nights, I tried to convince myself that I didn’t miss the stupid bird. That it would be best for all of us if he just reverted to his wild side and forgot about me raising his scrawny ass.
But…he always came back.
And he always made me a little bit better when he did.
Sighing heavily, I raised my hand until I slipped him onto my shoulder. There he snuggled into my ear, chirping and chattering, content and calm.
Bracing myself, I let my eyes fall unwillingly onto Markus Grammer’s fantasy.
I read each page with my stomach coiled and my cock hard as a fucking rock.
I wanted to kill him but I also understood him.
Understood his fantasy because it was based in the roots of mankind. The need to dominate, manipulate, copulate.
It was a fantasy I could enjoy, if I ever let myself dabble in my creation.
Swallowing away inconvenient lust and violent possessiveness, I picked up my phone and arranged Jealousy to get Jinx ready.
Her vacation was over.
It was time to become a goddess.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ALL DAY I’D EXISTED in a state of panic, terror, nausea, and claustrophobia.
The island no longer had the power to distract me with its sublime sea and comforting heat. After running from the guests on the beach, I’d curled in front of my door, and fallen asleep. Emotionally exhausted, I was determined never to leave that spot again.
However, when I woke up, a dinner tray with a carved-out pineapple holding delicious fried rice and tempeh had been delivered on the table outside. The knowledge that the door to my villa wasn’t the only way in reminded me all over again how vulnerable I was.
How anyone could swim to the small beach in front of me or slither through the jungle and enter easily through the open driftwood sliders.
There was no point camping out in front of my door.
None whatsoever.
The only thing I still had control over was eating, so my body didn’t crash again, and then I studied my hand-drawn map well into the night, racking my brains for scenarios on how to get free.
By the time the clock said three a.m. and I’d exhausted all concepts—both sane and insane—on how to escape, I made a promise to myself.
Whatever happened, I wouldn’t let it affect me, just as I didn’t let Sully affect me.
I sneered at myself.
He doesn’t affect you?
I hung my head in my hands.
Sully was the secret I tried to keep even from myself. I hated him—there was no debate about that. But…I also couldn’t deny that hate dipped into lust every now and again. His despised handsomeness somehow did affect me, and that was something I could never tolerate.
My promise evolved.
Whatever happens, do NOT let it affect you. You might have to sleep with someone, but remember what you said: it’s just an activity…like skiing. And whenever Sully decides to torment you again, don’t retaliate. Just be silent. Be remote. Be untouchable.
As dawn cracked the inky black of night, curling more and more fingers of light and ripping back the curtain of stars, I fell asleep.
I had nightmares of men surrounding me. Men touching me. Men lining up for their turn.
I woke with scratchy eyes and a chaotic heartbeat, knowing that today…was the day.
My fainting spell had bought me three days. Perhaps I should injure myself again and buy another week or so. Or maybe I should just swim out to sea and sink where no one could find me.
Sighing heavily, I looked out to the deck where yet another silently delivered tray waited on the table. I no longer had to ring for food to be brought, and I hauled myself from the bed, wrapped myself in a white sheet, then dragged it like drooping wings over the sandy floor to devour the island-grown vegetarian fare.
The scenery tried to cheer me up with a flock of seagulls landing on the azure flat ocean, a school of fish darting silver and fast through the surface, and a trio of parrots who landed in the palm tree beside me.
Heaven hiding hell.
Angels cloistering Satan himself.
A mythical story I couldn’t escape from.
* * * * *
A knock sounded.
Polite and requesting…gentle even.
I sat lotus style in the middle of the woven grass mat in the living room. I wore the sack of a jumper, even though my skin grew clammy with heat. A staff member must’ve found it floating in the sea from where I’d stripped it that first day. It’d been freshly laundered, hung in the wardrobe, loud with its reminder of what I was.
If I was honest, my ears had been ringing with anticipation since noon. Waiting for that knock. Hearing an echo of it in the future. Trying to prepare myself for the inevitability.
It was a relief to finally face the real thing. To no longer tremble with apprehension, wondering when the summons would come.
It’d come.
I would be forced to swallow elixir.
I would be delivered to a man who’d paid to fuck me.
I tried to unfold my legs, to go and open the door, but all the power in my bones had bled out my pores, leaving me useless.
The knock came again, followed by a feminine, “Hello…Jinx?”
I gulped a breath, slouching.
It’s not him.
Not Sully here to drug and deliver me, desperately gasping and horribly horny to that guest on the beach.
Another knock, but this time the handle turned, and the door cracked open. I’d left it unlocked after I came to terms with the falsity of my safety. Walls and doors couldn’t protect me.
Not in this place.
It was better to just surrender to the knowledge that my body wasn’t my own, my thoughts not considered, and my own desires totally disregarded.
“Ah…you poor thing.” She came toward me, dressed in a lemony gown that hugged her petite chest and flared out to dance around her knees. Matched with her blonde curls, she looked like a lemon meringue cake—sweet and tart, satisfying and toe-curling.
Crouching in front of me, she balanced herself by placing both hands on my thighs.
The contact made a shudder wrack my body. My eyes remained dry, but it didn’t mean everything else cried, begged, screamed that this wasn’t happening.
“It’s okay.” She sighed gently. “The thought is more terrifying than the action.” Tucking a lock of dark hair that’d escaped my ear, she added, “Sex is fine…isn’t it? I mean, you’ve enjoyed it with the partners you’ve chosen in the past?”
I risked looking into her uncomplicated gaze. I still didn’t trust her. After all, she loved Sully, even if she didn’t lust after him. She might be an award-winning actress with her kindness and attempt at friendship. But she urged me silently to answer her, expecting honesty.
“Yes…” I licked my lips, lubricating my dry throat. “Sex with my boyfriend was pleasant.”
She smiled, crinkling her eyes. “Just pleasant?”
I wanted some space, but I allowed her to stay balanced with her fingers digging into my legs. “What else is there?”
Stupid question.
/>
Very stupid.
Jealousy’s eyebrows shot up. “What else is there? To sex?” She swooned backward, landing in a fluff of lemon dress. “If you have to ask that, then you haven’t experienced what it can be.”
Shifting so I sat on my knees, I revealed, “Sully’s already given me the elixir. He used it as a punishment on the day I arrived. The pleasure that awful stuff gave me was the most intense I’d ever felt before. But it also caused so, so much pain. If that’s what it’s like sleeping with a man while on that stuff…then…well—” I shrugged helplessly. “I’m terrified.”
She nodded in sympathy. “You will be sore, I guarantee that. You’ll be exhausted for days afterward. But, Jinx…while you’re in Euphoria, none of that will matter.” Her voice lowered with truth. “Honestly, the best piece of advice I can give you is…let go. Forget how you came to be here. Forget your friends, your life, your home. Forget even who you are. Just take my hand, come with me, and allow yourself to experience something no one else gets to in their entire life.”
“No one? What about the men who—”
“Men who pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to worship us?” Her eyes glowed with past conquests and her own experience. “They won’t hurt you…not in a violent way. They will give you their hearts while you are theirs. They will fall in love with you when you’re in their arms. You will forever be incomparable for the rest of their godforsaken lives because they only get to taste ambrosia…but you, us, the goddesses on this island, we are that ambrosia. It’s not the elixir. It’s not Euphoria. It’s us who makes this place burst with magic.”
I climbed to my feet, rubbing my arms and needing to walk on shaky legs. “It’s still against my will.”
She stood too, her eyes following me as I paced. “Isn’t all work against your will?”
I stopped, glaring at her. “Going reluctantly to an office building compared to sleeping with a man are two completely different things.”
“I suppose.” She held out her palms. “But…the same too.”
“I’m not arguing with you about the morality of employment versus slavery. Besides, plenty of people do work they love. Work that isn’t against their will.”
“Fair enough.” She padded toward the door. The door she’d left open, revealing the sandy path and journey I had to take whether I wanted to or not. “Enough talking. I’ll show you why you don’t need to be afraid.”
When I didn’t uproot myself, she murmured, “Come. I’ll be the one to guide you through getting ready.”
“There’s a process?”
“Yes. There are rules and techniques and a system that has to be followed.”
“And if I refuse to leave this villa?” I crossed my arms, doing my best to be strong and brave—to be a female gladiator who would rip out the throats of any who touched her, but really, I was an imposter. A scared girl who’d been brought up with the ideals that her body was her temple and only those invited were allowed to enter.
“Then Sullivan would have to collect you himself.” Her voice lowered. “And he wouldn’t be as kind as I.”
Drifting toward her, I asked despite myself, “Why does everyone idolize him? No one tries to kill him for what he’s made us. No one tries to run away.”
“Some do…in the beginning.” She shrugged. “But Euphoria changes them.”
“I don’t want to be changed.”
She came toward me, her eyes flashing. “Are you sure? Are you so sure you’re the person you’re meant to be with the limited life lessons you’ve learned already? Are you so sure you don’t want to grow and evolve and experiment?” She leaned in until her body heat tangled with mine. “Are you so sure that you’re not afraid because secretly, deep down…you want to let go? You want to know what it’s like to be that raw, angry, wild little creature that society has forced us to tame?”
“I’m not some sexually starved beast who—”
“No.” She wrapped an arm around my waist, one part threatening and all parts understanding. “You’re a woman. And women have forgotten who we are because we give ourselves to others, over and over. Husbands, children, bosses, friends. We change to fit their ideal of us. We change to fit an ideal that we create. Tonight…just forget.” Dropping her arm, she grabbed my hand and tugged me gently out of the villa. “Tonight…just be free.”
* * * * *
“Holy…what is this place?” My mouth dropped open as Jealousy guided me through the double doors of a hexagonal villa I hadn’t explored. If she hadn’t guided me here, I would never have found it.
Nestled within a small glade, tucked at the end of a ten-minute walk from the residential area of the island, this new place held an aura of secrecy and temptation that dripped from the thatched roof, permeated the ground, and decorated the exposed rafters.
“This is where we play.” She smiled, striding forward with familiarity while I stayed struck dumb as I drank in the majesty of such a place. The front foyer glowed with sun from the glass roof interspersed with thatch, five stories above us. Palm trees grew through the floor, stencilling the marble tiles with their fronds. The villa ached with opulence even though none of the usual garish strappings of glitz and glamour existed. The walls were a simple alabaster plaster. The wooden doors huge and left natural so their knots and grain were visible in their imperfection. Hinges of black metal were a feature, along with the simplicity of openness and no furniture.
It was like a church.
A church where no respectable god would reside.
A church of sex and sin.
“Come…this way.” Jealousy opened one of the six doors all leading off the main foyer. Cracked open, the sense of space and sunlight continued bright and welcome, even as twilight cast the island in cocktail-happy hour.
Padding behind her, I drank in yet another offshoot of splendour. Unlike the grandness of the foyer, this space held furniture. A small nest of burnt orange chairs by the window, enjoying the babble and view of an exquisite waterfall splashing into a lily pad pond, and a lounger stretched by the wall with a rack of glossy magazines.
A waiting room.
A waiting room for a man about to have sex.
“This way.” Through yet another door, the villa once again shrank. A building-size version of Russian dolls. Huge then large then medium then small…all fitting inside one another in a magic trick of cohesion.
This room needed no explanation.
A bathroom fit for a queen…or a goddess.
Part covered, part open, I drifted from the large vanity and stone-tiled shower to the private garden where a quartz bathtub waited filled to the brim with rose petal-dotted water.
Butterflies darted in the spiels of sunlight, their jewelled colours of blue and purple flashing like weightless gemstones.
Jealousy turned toward the vanity, touching the row of items laid out on fresh white towels. “This is where you’ll bathe. Shower or bath, the choice is yours. Shave your legs, underarms, and if you shave between your legs, then do what you are naturally comfortable doing.” She didn’t blush talking about trimming pubic hair, far too confident and experienced in her own sexuality.
Giving me a kind smile, she tapped the wrapped toothbrush. “Clean your teeth, dry and brush your hair, dress in that dressing gown behind you, and when you’re ready, join me behind that next door for the final preparations.”
I eyed the door in question. Simple frosted glass leading to unknown horrors.
Was that where I would sleep with him?
Was that the bedroom where all of this would end?
“Any questions?” Jealousy asked, joining me by the bath.
Shaking my head, I dipped my fingers into the flower petal water.
Warm.
Fragrant with essential oils.
“No.”
She squeezed my arm. “It will be okay…I promise.”
I gave her a tight, worried smile.
Backing away, she added, “I’ll be waiting, bu
t take all the time you need. Don’t rush.” Blowing me a sweet kiss, she vanished through the smoky glass door and left me alone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
IT TURNED OUT MY willpower was shit.
I found Jealousy in the VR room, sitting on the couch by the wall, reading something on her e-reader. “She ready?”
She shook her head, tearing herself from whatever material she found engrossing. “I left her in there about fifteen minutes ago. I told her to take her time.”
Nodding, I deliberated just leaving.
I didn’t need to be here.
The program code was complete. Jealousy had Jinx’s cleanliness in hand, and my other staff knew their jobs backward. But…fuck it.
Without making eye contact with Jealousy, I marched to the glass door and pushed it open. The moment I entered the muggy, steamy bathroom, I shut and locked the door behind me.
Jinx wasn’t there.
My stomach knotted, and I darted forward, searching the shower, the toilet, the little koi carp pond made from a huge porcelain pot.
Nothing.
Goddammit.
Tearing my phone out of my pocket, I spun around and brought up the number for Calvin. I’d get him to hop in the fastest speedboat and circle the island.
She can’t have gotten far.
Just as I was about to connect the call, a caique parrot with the energy of a cocaine-snorting flea shot through the air and into the bathroom thanks to the open-air garden. He chirped and flapped around my head. “Not now,” I growled.
He landed on my head and did his trick of hanging upside down, latching onto my hair to stare me dead in the eye, making me go cross-eyed if I wanted to look at him.
“Pika…” I bared my teeth. “If you want to be useful, find that damn goddess that’s run away.”
My hand curled around my phone. I’d expected the worst from Eleanor…but it was highly fucking inconvenient that she’d decided to bolt mere moments before having to serve Markus Grammer.
The tiny parrot did an acrobatic flip off my forehead and flapped noisily around my ears. I rolled my eyes, holding up my hand so he could perch on a finger.
Once a Myth (Goddess Isles Book 1) Page 20
