Richer Than God Page 12

  “I-I…” She can hardly breathe. It must burn. It must sting. I’m drawn to her by a force larger than me. Reya doesn’t try to stop me, and I follow that magnetic pull. This is the answer. This is what happened to me. And it’s been drawn from her by such violence. “I put poison in Brigit’s tea.”

  My heart skips a beat. Poison. Somehow, all this time, I didn’t expect it to be poison. I expected her to have done something to it, of course—but real poison? She tried to kill me. Where did she get poison? Questions crowd out the rest of the room, and there’s only me and the light and Zeus.

  The whip.

  Her skin.

  His shoulder flexes, and I jump in front of her, something inside of me breaking. “Stop.” Louder this time. He can’t pretend not to hear me. “Please, Zeus. Don’t do this to her.”

  A shake starts down near my feet and works its way up to my neck until all of me is shivering.

  “Why not, sweetheart?” Zeus cocks his head to the side. “I haven’t killed her, you know. This is only a deserved punishment for what she did.”

  The awful, ugly truth is that I can’t stand it.

  The whip is too inanimate. The crack against her skin is closer than breath, closer than tongue. If he’s going to hurt someone, I want it—sickeningly, selfishly—to be me. The part of me that recoils from violence is only a thin veneer. It’s as shallow as a puddle.

  The reasons don’t matter.

  His fist tightens. Such a simple movement to be able to unleash so much pain. Fear skitters across the surface of my mind, but my body is already moving, putting myself closer to Savannah. This is maybe the dumbest way to die—as a human shield for a girl who hates me.

  And maybe I just can’t admit that it’s not only for her that I sink to my knees and throw my arms out. The shadows behind Zeus take on more color and form; the other girls are getting closer. The light catches his eyes, a faint smile playing at his lips, and my mouth goes dry. I’m not the only one who influences his decision. Not in a place like this.

  I’ve never been so attuned to a man’s face in my life, which is why I see the change. His smile settles into something sharp and cruel, his perfect teeth a knife’s edge.

  Zeus drops the whip.

  It falls dully to the floor, useless without his strength. “Let her down then.”

  I get to my feet, hands shaking. I won, but… I didn’t. This is like fool’s gold. A victory that disguises defeat. Or a price.

  I’ll pay for this.

  That’s why he looks so satisfied.

  I undo the cuffs holding Savannah to the cross, and she falls like a broken doll, huddling to the floor and bursting into fresh tears. What do I do? I settle for putting a hand on her shoulder. Asking if she’s okay is pointless; she’s obviously not.

  Whatever I’ve done, whatever price I pay, it’s set the room into motion again. Someone presses a cold cloth into my hand, and I don’t have time to question where it came from. This place would have a sink. It has everything, including a vengeful king.

  More girls brave the light to help me move Savannah, who weeps pitifully all the way to the bed then buries her face in the covers. She cries into the comforter while we tend her wounds. I pretend not to feel Zeus’s eyes on me. I pretend not to feel the storm coming.

  20

  Zeus

  It’s an abomination, all this kindness.

  And Brigit, its ringleader.

  I can’t bear the way it rips into me, shoving my ribs apart and biting into the soft flesh of my heart. It’s weakness paired with defiance, and the combination makes me lethal.

  Reya tries, edging closer to me with her lips already formed into something resembling a distraction.

  It’s too late.

  Girls in gowns scatter away from the bed when I come for Brigit, some of them ducking. She doesn’t run. She doesn’t even bother to look at me. All her focus is centered on Savannah, the worst of them all.

  Brigit’s dress twists into the palm of my hand, and I pull her against me. “Wait… stop—”

  I don’t wait. I don’t stop. She begs louder on the way out of the playroom and up the stairs. One of her toes catches on the steps. She’d be dead of a broken neck if it weren’t for me and my iron grip on her dress. But the dress is not enough. It’s her hair I want, and I get it on the landing. Brigit makes a wounded sound, and if I were not my father’s son, it would make me drop her right then and back away.

  Unfortunately for her, I am the closest thing my foster father ever had to a son. Hades was his disappointment. I was the replacement. And he made me in his image. All the safeguards I’ve put into place to keep that part of me under control are gone.

  It’s replicating, like a cancer.

  Caring.

  Fuck it.

  Brigit’s scratching at my hands when we get to my rooms, and it makes no difference. What’s the use in feeling such a small pain when the rest of me is on fire with need? The only thing that’s going to bring me back to any semblance of balance is taking her.

  All of her.

  The begging starts when I throw her on the bed. No one has been in to make it yet, so she lands face first in rumpled sheets and tries to crawl away. A laugh tears itself out of me. Then her dress. Such a soft dress. Such a soft body. The dress comes apart in my hands, resisting against her skin. The pull of the fabric is better than whiskey. It’s better than money. Destruction is the way to feel alive, isn’t it?

  Brigit’s next.

  She can’t get away, not bent over the edge of the bed like she is. She gets a toehold in the mattress and tries her very best, but I knock her legs apart and lock an arm over the small of her back. This way, she can struggle all she wants.

  And she does want.

  The cascade of “please, don’t” and “please, stop” and “you hurt her, you’re awful” is a sweet fiction. What a good girl in a cardigan would say. But my fingers between her legs find different evidence.

  “I hated it,” she pants.

  “You’re such a pretty liar,” I tell her. “Lie some more.” I stroke my fingers through the evidence of her desire.

  “Why don’t you throw her out?”

  “Throw her out?” I laugh to cover the cold freeze at the center of me. Demeter got to Savannah somehow, which means she is in the city, which means she is up to something. Better to keep Savannah here to use as bait. “She took her punishment. She learned her lesson. Now it’s your turn. Amuse me some more.”

  “No—”

  I push three fingers inside her and twist, drawing a sound out of her that’s between a whimper and a scream, layered in something dirty and wanting. Her cunt holds my fingers tight. Brigit is a consummate whore—she doesn’t want to let go of me until she’s bled me dry. She obviously doesn’t know it’s impossible. That my ruined heart will keep beating no matter what she, or anyone else, does to it. My fingers are slick when I pull them out, and she mewls, hands balled in the blankets.

  Her body is at war with itself, and I take it in for a heartbeat. The rock of her hips. The scramble of her toes on the floor. The glistening between her legs.

  “Oh, no,” she whispers, clenching on my fingers. “Oh, no.” I stroke against the rough patch inside that reduces her words to an embarrassed moan.

  I’m not putting her on the floor; I’m not selling her at auction until I’ve broken the part of her that made her help her own enemy. Until she knows what it is to be merciless. Until she’s given an example. I’ll take everything from her. The anticipation sparks in my chest, a series of lights turning on and on until it’s blinding.

  She freezes at my touch on her ass, her head lifted off the blankets, mouth open. “What are you doing?”

  “Completing your training.”

  “That’s—that’s not what I’m selling.”

  “You’re not spare parts,” I snap at her. “You’re a package deal. The man who buys you will expect complete access.”

  Her cheeks brighten with
shame. “Shouldn’t you leave something for them?” A shiver down through her legs, all the way down to the floor. She twists her toes against the wood. “Shouldn’t you?”

  “Fuck no.” My blood surges, beating its fists on my veins. I move her up onto the bed like the doll she is and push her head down, angling her hips up so she’s exposed to me. Brigit’s breathing fast and light, like the air has gone thin, and it has. She’s winding up.

  I don’t know how to describe what happens to me at the sight of her on her knees like this, open and ready. Killing takes a certain amount of precision. It’s best if it’s done with concentration, with accuracy. I’m going to fuck her ass the same way.

  There’s lube close by. I own a fucking whorehouse; there’s always lube. I watch her body tense at the chill and hold her down when she tries to squirm away from it.

  “It’ll be easier if you relax.”

  “There’s no way.” She gasps. “It can’t be easy.” Another thrash against the covers. “Please—”

  “I love the begging,” I comment. “It’s one of your best features. But you know you’re not going to stop me, right?”

  Brigit tries to say something, but I breach her with a fingertip. Up to the next knuckle, and the next, until there are tears at the corner of her eyes. Maybe she thinks she’s trying to get away, but she’s not. It’s the most astonishing thing, the way she’s pushing back onto my finger while she cries.

  “Yes.” That’s her reward. “That’s good.”

  She sags forward a fraction of an inch—all the room she has—and I work a second finger in with the first. I’m losing patience. Breathe it out, breathe in calm. Ha, fuck—it didn’t work. I fuck her perfunctorily with my fingers then wrestle with my belt. A bright sensation comes over my skin like the whisper of a sheet, and I climb up behind her and spread her with both hands.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she whispers.

  I lean down and kiss her cheek. Brigit yelps like she’s been stung. “I do,” I tell her.

  That’s enough talk.

  I notch myself against her and push. She gasps and goes still, stunned, except for her fists—they open and close on the blankets in time with her desperate panting. Fuck, she’s tight. It’s better than I expected, and more difficult. The stretch of her around me is enough to shut down the parts of my brain that play nightmare scenarios over and over and over. They’re gone, into a black field of stars. There’s only her shivering body, and me, taking it in the basest possible way. There is nothing dirtier than this. There is nothing more shameful for her. Another tear slips out, runs down her cheek and over her nose and glistens on the comforter before it evaporates.

  “You’re doing so well, sweetheart.” Her eyes go wide at the praise, a sob wrenching itself from her chest. “Look at you. It must feel like I’m splitting you apart, and you’re surviving it.”

  “It does,” she admits, her cheeks a deep-pink turning to red.

  More tears.

  I wedge in another few inches, and she cries out while I sink in to the hilt. Her thighs tremble, feet kicking uselessly.

  “That’s not why you’re crying.”

  Brigit sucks in a deep breath but can’t fully catch it. It takes her two more tries to answer. “No,” she manages.

  A lock of hair has fallen into her face, and I brush it away. With her head turned to the side like this, I can only see one of her eyes, but it’s so fucking beautiful I could die. “Tell me why you’re crying.”

  A steadying breath. “No.”

  I pull out and thrust back in. I’m not gentle about it. “It would be better for you if you did.”

  “Would it?”

  I laugh. “No. But I want to hear you say it.”

  “Say… what?” Her face is scarlet now, and I settle into a rhythm of deep strokes. I add more lube out of the goodness of my heart. “Tell me what to say,” she begs. More tears. “What do you want me to say?”

  “The reason for all these tears,” I tell her jovially while I fuck her ass with the kind of viciousness I’d normally reserve for other, less savory activities. “Come on. You’re being such a good girl. Don’t stop now.”

  “I’m crying because it hurts.” Brigit gets her hands under her and rocks back against me.

  “And?”

  “And what? What?”

  I grab for her hair and twist it around my fingers, pulling until her head is up, until she’s on hands and knees, until her back is arched so deliciously that I might not recover from this. “It hurts, and what?”

  “I like it,” she cries. “I like it.”

  I knew she’d say it. I knew, but the effect it has is magnetic. It’s like gravity. It’s like a supernova. The last of my control shreds, and I cage her in with one hand, the other on her a fist in her hair, fucking her with abandon. Complete abandon. My own release blindsides me, and I haul Brigit upright and back, using my free hand to skim my fingertips over her clit while I empty myself into her.

  “Not like this,” she says, rocking her ass back against me. “Not like this, please, not like this.”

  Yes, like this.

  I pin both her wrists to her chest with one arm and add pressure with the other until I force the issue. Brigit comes with a final “No!” that becomes a howl that becomes a moan, her body throbbing around mine. Turning us into statues now. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to stay like this forever.

  But there is no forever with a man like me.

  When I’m completely spent, I let her fall to the bed. She curls up on her side, breathing hard, then covers her face with both arms.

  I find a T-shirt in my closet and toss it over her naked body. I’m going to say something cutting, something horrible, but instead, I climb onto the bed and take her arms away from her face. Brigit blinks, pretty and flushed, and I kiss her.

  She kisses me back.

  It’s good.

  21

  Brigit

  The day of the party comes too soon.

  I still haven’t worked through what happened or why some sick, dark part of me wishes it was still happening. It’s not the pain. That’s not what I like. Is it? No.

  “Get out of my way.”

  Savannah reaches over me at the makeup table, where I’ve been trying to get my face to look like it does when the other girls do my makeup. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing—getting ready for tonight. Only there’s no instruction manual for Getting Ready to Sell Your Body at Auction. I’ve already had a facial and a full-body scrub. I had a manicure and a pedicure. What else do I do?

  I bat Savannah’s hand out of the way. “You don’t have to be so rude.”

  “Don’t I?” She rolls her eyes in the mirror. “You don’t have to be here. You could go anywhere else, and we’d all be happier.”

  It stings, though it shouldn’t. “Why are you being such a bitch?”

  Savannah narrows her eyes, her glare enough to break glass. “Is this something you want to get into right now?”

  I want to get into anything right now. I would rather fight with Savannah than daydream about a mean man with a beautiful face who tore my clothes and gave me his own T-shirt in return. Who kissed my cheek and fucked my ass then kissed me again before he sent me out. I can still feel where he was. “Yes.”

  The rest of the girls don’t notice when I stand up, or if they do, they don’t say anything. The volume of conversation in the spa stays exactly the same. They’re all talking about the party tonight. About the added decorations and the special catering and the tips, oh, the tips. You can even get tips for dancing. It starts at midnight, this fantastic party. The most exciting party of the month, maybe the year.

  It sounds like the most magical nightmare.

  I follow as Savannah stalks out of the spa and makes a turn down a long hallway. This place has too many long hallways. She goes to the end, where there’s an access door. I think it might open to the same alley that I came in through at the beginning of all this, which
seems like it was a hundred years ago.

  I think about Zeus kissing me.

  His golden eyes lingering on my face.

  I shouldn’t feel so warm about him.

  Savannah rounds on me. “You’re ruining everything,” she spits. “You do understand that, right?”

  “What’s everything? Because honestly, all I did was stop you from getting whipped. After you tried to poison me. You understand that, right?”

  “I would let him do anything.” She steps toward me, and oh, I’ve made a mistake. I’ve made a big mistake, coming here with her, away from everybody else. There’s more than hate in Savannah’s eyes. There’s vengeance. “I would let him whip me all night. And there’s you,” she sneers. “You, putting yourself in the way. I don’t know what he sees in you.”

  I don’t either. I don’t either, but I don’t care, because he does see me. Zeus saw me last night. This is the last moment on earth that I should be falling for him, wanting more from him, and here I am. The instant that thought touches down, it bursts apart like a pillar of salt losing its shape.

  It doesn’t matter if I’m falling for him or not.

  It doesn’t matter if it’s ridiculous or not.

  None of it matters, because tomorrow night, Zeus will accept bids for me for the night—and, I don’t know, the next several nights. There are so many men on that list. They’ll pay me. And I’ll leave. And I’ll never see him again.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Savannah snaps. “Are we fighting or not?”

  I blink back a sheen of tears. “I don’t know, Savannah, are you still being a huge bitch or not?”

  The door flies open so fast that Savannah doesn’t have time to get out of the way. It hits her arm, knocking her to the side, and I reach for her like the fool that I am.

  Only I don’t make it.