The Atlas Six (The Atlas 1)

“Oh, of course,” Parisa confirmed, taking the bottle from Libby’s hand and pausing its path in front of Tristan. They exchanged a glance; Tristan’s brow arched. Then he tilted his head back, permitting Parisa to pour a little absinthe down his throat, and licked the excess moisture from his lips, choking up a laugh as she spilled it down his chin. “Oops,” she said, smoothing it away with the pad of her thumb, and then drew the bottle to her lips. “Anyway,” she said, taking a swallow and handing it back to Libby, “it’s not as if I have any reason to be loyal to the Society yet. I’m not initiated, am I?”

“Well, no,” Libby conceded, frowning as she accepted the bottle. “But still, isn’t it a bit—”

“Disloyal?” Parisa guessed. “Perhaps, though I’m hardly known for my fidelity.” She gave Tristan a sidelong glance. “What about you?”

“Me? I’m a one-woman man, Miss Kamali,” said Tristan, half-smiling. “Most of the time.”

“Most of the time,” Parisa echoed with approval. “But surely not all?”

Libby took a long pull from the bottle, suddenly feeling she needed much more of whatever poison it contained.

“Why, um,” Libby began, and Parisa turned to her. “Can I ask you—?”

“Why sex?” Parisa prompted, as Libby’s cheeks burned again, heartily chagrined. “Because I enjoy it, Elizabeth. And because most people are idiots who’ll pay for it, and existence in society costs money.”

“Yes, but isn’t it…” She trailed off. “Well—”

“You want to know if I find it demeaning to have sex with people for money,” guessed Parisa flatly, “is that it?”

Immediately, Libby wished she’d said nothing. “I just… you’re obviously very talented, and—”

“And I use my talents well,” Parisa agreed, as Libby drew the bottle back to her lips clumsily, if only for something to do with her hands. “And it is attitudes like yours which make certain I will never be denied. After all, if we could all have boundless, fulfilling sex whenever we liked, why would we ever bother with monogamy? Stigma like yours keeps you subjugated, you know,” Parisa remarked, tipping Libby’s bottle upwards to ensure a longer sip.

Libby felt the liquid spill around the sides of her mouth and closed her watering eyes, suffering the still-unfamiliar sting. The taste of anise marinated the thickness of her tongue, foreign and bittersweet.

“Don’t you ever detest the necessity of emotional attachment?” Parisa murmured, the tips of her fingers brushing Libby’s throat before toying, idly, with the tips of her hair. “Men in particular are draining, they bleed us dry. They demand we carry their burdens, fix their ills. A man is constantly in search of a good woman, but what do they offer us in return?”

Flickers of Libby’s irritation with Ezra filtered through her mind. “On another day, I’d have a better answer to that,” she muttered, and felt the reward of Tristan’s most disdainful laugh against her elbow. She shifted, leaning into his chest, and let the vibration carry through her bones. “But still, you’re a telepath, Parisa. Those are rare, and you’re exceptionally good, I know you are. I just…” Libby shrugged. “I don’t see what you gain from it.”

“You do things, don’t you, to make things easier for yourself?” asked Parisa. “You don’t use your magic to walk up the stairs, but you defy gravity all the same, don’t you?”

“So?” asked Libby. Tristan leaned over for the bottle, his fingers brushing hers. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Well, because to you, sex is purely physical, when in fact the mind opens along with everything else,” said Parisa. “To try to overpower someone’s mind, to make it subject to my own, is a waste of time. When he’s inside me I hardly have to lift a finger to know precisely what he is, what he wants. He’ll tell me so himself without my asking. And why impress my demands unnecessarily, wasting energy and effort? I can make people loyal to me simply by offering them something they want above all else, which costs me nothing to give.”

That made a bit of sense to Libby. Tristan’s arm slid around her back as he adjusted his posture, brushing the inch of skin between the top of her jeans and the hem of her sweater.

“So you use them,” Libby said, clearing her throat. “Your… paramours?”

“I enjoy them,” Parisa said, “and they enjoy me.”

“Is it only men?”

Parisa paused to moisten her lips, half-smiling.

“Most women are less in love with the partners they choose than they are simply desperate for their approval, starving for their devotion,” she said. “They want, most often, to be touched as no one else can touch them, and most of them inaccurately assume this requires romance.” She reached forward, taking the bottle from Libby’s hand. “But the moment we realize we can feel fulfilled without carrying the burdens of belonging to another—that we can experience rapture without being someone’s other half, and therefore beholden to their weaknesses, to their faults and failures and their many insufferable fractures—then we’re free, aren’t we?”

It took Libby a moment to realize that Parisa had set the bottle aside, forgotten. Instead Libby had been feeling Tristan’s arm against the small of her back, smelling the roses from Parisa’s long hair, draping like a curtain within reach. She could see the little gloss of alcohol on Parisa’s lips, and the strap of her silk dress she still hadn’t fixed, slipping further down her shoulder. Libby could hear the undertone of suggestion in Parisa’s voice, as spiced as the absinthe, as warm as the noisily crackling fire.

“You underestimate your power, Libby Rhodes,” said Parisa.

Libby held her breath as Parisa came closer, half-straddling Tristan’s lap to take hold of Libby’s face, smoothing her hair back from her cheeks. Libby, paralyzed, sat perfectly still as Parisa’s lips brushed hers, warm and soft. Delicate and inviting. She shivered a little despite the heat, and meanwhile Tristan’s hand stole up her spine, traveling carefully over the notches. She kissed Parisa back tentatively, lightly.

“You’re mocking me,” Libby whispered to Parisa’s mouth, withering a little in agony.

Parisa pulled back halfway, pausing to glance at Tristan.

“Kiss her,” she suggested. “She needs to be convinced.”