by Katee Robert
But I also know next to nothing about her on a surface level.
“Clear the room.” I speak without looking away from her.
Sara sighs. “Try not to break her.” They nudge Ivy with their shoulder as they walk past, which prompts her to pick her jaw off the floor and follow Sara from the room.
I wait for the door to close behind them to motion Aurora onto the mat. “I’m not capable of going easy.”
“I don’t expect you to.” She rolls her shoulders and, after some consideration, kicks off her shoes and socks.
I try to view her through the lens of an opponent, but it’s like my brain skips every time I look at her. All I can see are her graceful movements, the curious tilt of her head, how fucking breakable she is. No matter what she believes, it was never my intention to shatter Aurora. I’m not sure I can do this without harming her. “Aurora—”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.” I answer without thinking, still trying to find the right words to let her down gently without harming her pride.
She comes at me like a whirlwind. One moment, she’s several feet away, and the next she’s too close, delivering a punishing kick to my thigh and following it up with a right hook I barely dodge. Fuck, she’s quick. And well-trained.
I move out of the way before she kicks the same spot on my thigh. A few more hits there and the leg will buckle. Damn. I shove my hesitations away and feint a few times, testing out her response time. Fast. So fucking fast. “You’ve done this before.”
“Many, many times.” Aurora knocks my hand away, but I’m expecting it, and I come in with my other fist, forcing her to block me to avoid a hit to her face.
I retreat, still studying her. Now that I know what I’m looking at, I realize I recognize the way she moves. Smooth and dangerous and intent on her mission. Not like Aurora at all. No, she looks like… “Allecto.”
Aurora grins. “We’re good friends.”
I know that, of course. In the last year or so, it’s been impossible to miss the strange sort of friendship that’s cropped up with Aurora and several other women in the Underworld. Maybe it was always there, but they’re out in the open with it now.
Allecto is one of the few people in Carver City that gives me pause. She could be an Amazon for how superior she is to everyone around her in every way. She’s smart, capable, and famously brutal with the people who cross Hades. I always assumed her friendship with Aurora was one where she took on a dominant role and looked after the younger woman like a protective older sister.
If they’ve trained enough to make Aurora this skilled, they’re closer to equals than I could have imagined.
Which means Aurora is a threat in a way I didn’t anticipate.
I’m thinking too hard. It slows my reaction time, which is the only excuse I have for Aurora sneaking past my guard and clipping my chin. It’s a glancing blow, but it snaps me into the present. I step back a few times, putting myself out of her range, and touch the spot. “Are you angry at me, Aurora?”
A fine sheen of sweat glistens on her skin. She clenches and unclenches her fists. “Why would I be angry at you, Mistress?”
Answering with a question is its own kind of confirmation. The knowledge creates a strange feeling in my stomach. No matter what else has happened, I’ve inundated her with orgasms this afternoon. She shouldn’t want anyone touching her pussy for a few hours yet, no matter how insatiable she is. Surely she’s not still angry that I pushed the issue with aftercare?
Aurora takes advantage of my distraction. She comes at me in a concentrated effort, alternating kicks and punches until I’m scrambling to keep any of the hits from landing. The little asshole feints with her leg, aiming for the same spot now aching from that first kick, and when I move to block, she punches me in the face.
I’m on her before I make the conscious decision to move, bearing her to the ground. She tries to roll us, but I’m stronger, and I have as much experience grappling as I do with the rest of it. I straddle her hips and hook her thighs with my feet, pinning her lower body to the mat. She tries to hit me again, but I easily catch her wrists and shove them down, holding her in place.
My leg hurts, but it has nothing on the throbbing in my face. I move my jaw carefully, but everything seems to be functioning as it should. “You didn’t pull your punch.”
“Oops.” She doesn’t sound the least bit sorry.
It should piss me off, but the feeling surging through me isn’t anger. It’s admiration. Admiration and a heavy dose of lust. This delicate flower has more thorns than I could have imagined. Instead of turning me off, it makes her that much more interesting. I stare down at her. “I should have expected this.” I’m the one who pointed out how dangerous she is, how ready to do violence when incited.
“Sounds like a you problem.”
I sit back a little, careful to keep her wrists in place. “Can you shoot? Use weapons beyond fire?”
Aurora’s gorgeous face takes on a stubborn set. “Want to grab some guns and find out?”
That surprises a laugh out of me. “So you can shoot me? I don’t think so.” But it also answers my question in a roundabout way. “What was Allecto preparing you for?”
Aurora narrows her eyes. “Who says she was preparing me for anything? Maybe it has nothing to do with her at all.”
I’m making assumptions again, something she’s proven time and time again that I can’t afford to do. I trace her inner wrists with my thumbs and am gratified to see her breath catch. “I have you pinned. To the victor goes the spoils.”
“Am I the spoils of war now?” The way she says it is all wrong. She might like the way I touch her, but she is furious. Far angrier than this loss warrants, especially since she landed such well-placed blows.
I contemplate her for several long moments, but she offers me nothing. I don’t know the source of her rage, which means I can’t work with it. Surely it’s not… I take a breath. “Are you angry because it took eight years for me to circle back to you?”
“Yes. Next question.”
No, she answered too easily. It’s the truth, yes, but not the full truth. Gods, this woman is a puzzle I only have half the pieces to. If I have one vice, curiosity claims the honor. Aurora’s layers are what draw me to her, and realizing they go deeper than I expect is like a gift just for me.
I settle myself more firmly on top of her. “We’ll add sparring to our schedule.”
“Pass.”
I ignore that and nod to myself. “A bet, if you will. Winner gets a favor.”
She opens her mouth but seems to reconsider whatever she was about to say. Aurora frowns up at me. “What kind of favor?”
Got you.
“Whatever you like, within reason.” I allow myself a satisfied smile. “Today, I win.”
“Give me a rematch now that the terms are set.”
I chuckle. “I don’t think so.”
She licks her lips. “What do you want?”
I should demand answers, information to sate my curiosity. This woman has secrets upon secrets, and I want to hack my way through her barriers to get to them. “A kiss.”
She blinks. “A kiss?”
“Yes.” I lean down, pressing myself to her. Gods, she’s something else. Soft and strong and straining to kick my ass. But the anger has faded from her eyes, and she’s watching my mouth as if craving a taste. I’m only too happy to close the distance and touch my lips to hers. She tenses, as if she expected me to plunder her mouth. Another time, I might—I will. Right now, I intend to enjoy my prize to the fullest extent.
I nip her bottom lip and trace the spot with my tongue, deepening the kiss when she gasps a little. Pretty Aurora. She’s a revelation. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times she’s experienced something, how many people she’s kissed. She reacts like this is the first time, like it’s a shock. Or maybe I’m projecting. There’s something about this woman that brings a fierceness to the fore. I want to conquer her, to
brand our shared experience all over her hot little body. The desire is inconvenient, but if I could get rid of it, I would have done it by now. That’s what these two weeks are about: purging her from my system.
She kisses me back. I shift, settling on top of her and pressing my thigh between her legs. Aurora instantly digs her heels into the mat and arches up to rub herself against me. Wicked little thing.
I don’t mean to lace my fingers through hers. It seems the most natural thing in the world to go from gripping her wrists to pressing palm to palm. The shock is almost enough to jolt me out of this moment, but then she makes a delicious little whimpering sound, and I push away my misgivings in favor of drawing that sound from her again.
She rocks against me, and I press my thigh more firmly to her, giving her the friction she obviously needs. She kisses me like she needs me more than she needs air. It doesn’t matter that this is pure chemistry. That it doesn’t mean anything. I sink into the feeling of Aurora with everything I have.
Fuck, but if I were a different person, I might decide to keep her.
12
Aurora
They say love and hate are different sides of the same coin. So are lust and anger. Malone has turned my fury into an inferno that I’m terrified will burn me down to nothing but ash. She’s kissing me. Something I refuse to admit that I can’t get enough of. More, her entire body is pressed against me, and it feels like I’ve been starved for touch until this moment. Like the one thing I’m missing in my life is the slow slide of her soft skin against mine.
She’s holding me down, but it feels like we’re clutching each other, like we exist in a space outside the simple rules of gravity. I can’t help rubbing myself against her leg as her tongue strokes mine. It must be the endorphins still raging from the sparring session because I’m so turned on, I can barely think straight.
I can’t think straight.
I am pure need and raging emotions. I can’t tell which way is up, don’t care about anything but the press of Malone’s body against mine. She’s wearing a similar outfit—shorts and a sports bra—and I wish it was less. I want all of her against all of me with a ferocity that leaves me breathless. I knew I wanted her, of course, but I never bargained for how much. She overwhelms me.
Malone shifts, pressing my hands more firmly to the mat, and uses her thigh to spread my legs wider. She releases my mouth long enough to nip my neck, sending a delicious frisson of desire through me. “Make yourself come. Use me.”
She kisses me again before I can respond, but what is there to say? I want this. Her command just makes it easier to take what I need. I grind on her leg like a horny teenager, chasing the pleasure sparking through my body.
Gods, the woman can kiss.
Malone maintains control, even in this. It’s perfect and precise and hot enough to set me aflame. She kisses me like she’s memorizing me. I shouldn’t like it as much as I do. I shouldn’t like it at all.
My orgasm overwhelms me between one breath and the next. I moan, and she drinks the sound. I could almost swear that she shivers in response, but it must be my imagination. Malone’s too distant to ever react to something as simple as a little grinding orgasm.
Finally, a small eternity later, she lifts her head and looks down at me. “Do you have something else you want to do to finish your workout?”
I blink. What is she…
My mind clicks into place sluggishly, pleasure making it hard to focus. “Um.” I lick my lips, tasting her there. “I was going to go for a run.”
“Good.” She sits back and pulls me up with her. Only then does she release my hands. I can feel the imprint of her there, too, but that’s no surprise. I can feel her all over my body. Somehow it never registered with the aftercare or her carrying me, but having her body against mine is more intoxicating than any alcohol. I want more, and I want it now. I start to reach for her, but she lightly slaps my hand. “Go finish your workout, Aurora.”
Shock eliminates my verbal breaks. “But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“I came.” I motion vaguely at her hips. “You didn’t.”
Her smile is more like the Malone I’m used to, sharp and icy. “You’ll make it up to me later. Finish your workout,” she repeats. “Then go upstairs and get ready. Cocktail attire, no bra or panties. We leave at seven.” She turns, and I can’t help but watch her walk away. She’s so fucking flawless, it’s almost offensive. Her workout gear shows off her muscle definition with every step, a visual indication of the strength I’ve felt time and time again. Maybe if she was just strong, she wouldn’t have such an effect on me, but Malone is so much more than brute strength. She’s an elegant kind of violence in a beautiful package. The perfect predator, anyone with a hint of intelligence recognizes it the moment she walks into a space.
She seems to take all the air of out of the room with her when she leaves. I press my hands to my chest, my heart racing so hard, I can feel my pulse through my palms. What was that?
I hadn’t meant to show my hand, but the temper I normally have no problem locking down slips its leash more and more the longer I’m around Malone. I want to blame it on being close to my end goal of putting Malone six feet under, on seeing an opportunity for a “sparring accident.” I’m not so sure that’s the case any longer.
One of things living in the Underworld has taught me is to be honest, even if it’s only to myself.
The honest truth is that I desire Malone with a fervor I’ve never felt before. She’s a fire in my blood, and I used to be able to convince myself that it’s purely rage, but now I have to admit that it’s more nuanced than that. I hate her. I want her. A small, unforgivable part of me even admires her for the sheer strength and ruthlessness she exhibits.
I put my shoes and socks back on and drag myself into the other room. Under normal circumstances, I like running. It soothes me in a similar way that a good scene does—an exercise for both body and mind. Right now, I’m too frazzled to do more than a few miles. I keep circling back to the fight.
She’s better than I am. She might even be better than Allecto. I don’t know why part of me thought she’d let herself go over the years. I’ve looked into the place she came from, and though news out of Sabine Valley is scarce, Alaric originally comes from the same city. His information is years out of date because of how things went down with his cousins, but he gave me the basic rundown. About how the Amazons are one-third of the big movers of that city. About how they, more than the other two, straddle the line of shadows and light. They are CEOs and COOs and the upper tier in all of the companies in their territory. Just like Malone runs her corporation and rules the illegal industries in her territory with an iron fist.
She still moves like a warrior that might have to step onto a battlefield at any moment. She’s so fucking strong, too. Stronger than someone with her lean frame has right to be.
I touch my knuckles. They ache a little from the punch I landed on her face. I’m lucky she didn’t take it as a true attack, just an extension of our sparring.
I… I don’t know if I can beat her in an all-out fight.
I stop the treadmill and go through the motions of stretching. My thoughts whirl in increasingly frantic circles, a tornado of thorns that slice me with every rotation. I don’t know if I can beat her. The whole point of agreeing to these two weeks was finally getting revenge for what she did to my mother, to put Malone in the ground.
The plan felt rock solid when I decided on it. Not even Allecto’s arguments could get through my wall of stubbornness. But two days in, and I’m not sure I can pull it off.
I head back up to the penthouse in a daze. It’s empty, so Malone either didn’t come back here or has already come and gone. It’s just as well. I don’t know what my face is doing right now, and I have no faith that I can keep myself locked down enough to be in her presence.
The cat hisses at me as I walk past, and I hiss right back. “Mind your business and I’ll m
ind mine.”
A long shower does nothing to settle me. I walk out of the bathroom to find the demon cat sitting in the center of my bed. I eye the door. I must not have shut it all the way. The cat and I stare at each other. What did Malone say its name was? I glare. “Don’t get too comfortable. That’s my bed you’re sleeping on.” At least for the next ten days.
I consider my options for dinner. I’m still a little shocked at how Malone went all out with these clothes. It’s more than the money she must have dropped on it. It’s a cohesive wardrobe with enough options to almost fully replace the one I already own. And they’re all top-of-the-line and in my size.
She must have had an assistant handle that. I have to believe that, because the thought of her handpicking each item with me in mind is too much for me. It makes me feel strange, like my skin is too tight. I don’t like it.
Especially because there isn’t a white garment in the entire closet.
I finally land on a short, red cocktail dress. It’s long-sleeved and covered in sequins that will turn me into a walking disco ball. It’s also short enough to almost be indecent and backless. It’s extra as hell, but I’m instantly in love.
I style my hair down and vamp up my eyes a bit, finishing the look with red lipstick a shade brighter than the dress. The dress and makeup, combined with my indigo hair, make me look like a girly fantasy. I love it.
I find some nail polish—seriously, did she think of everything?—and paint my toes to match my lips. A silly little detail, but I like to go for the complete look, whether I’m running an errand for Allecto or spending a night working in the Underworld. Even if the details don’t matter to other people, they matter to me. That’s reason enough to do it.
Five minutes before seven, I slip on a pair of strappy silver heels and eye the cat. As much as I don’t want to leave him in this room, I really don’t want to go to dinner with claw marks all over my arms. I glare. “Your time is limited, my friend.”
