Arguing won’t work, but maybe another tactic will.
“Ursa. Mistress.” I give her my best charming smile. “I thought I’d keep you company tonight.” I thought we’d talk, too. Maybe not tonight, but soon.
She rises slowly from the bed. Normal people would look awkward doing the same motions, but with Ursa it’s pure grace and deadly power. She smooths down her dress. “Alaric, you can go sleep in the spare bedroom with Zurielle, or you can go outside and sleep on the balcony like a disobedient pup. It’s your choice, lover.”
I clench my jaw even as part of me responds to the sweet poison of her words. Everything about this woman draws me in: her beauty, her power, her deceptively sweet meanness. Even now, the threat makes my body go tight.
But that desire will only last about five minutes in the cold night.
I finally nod. “I’ll take her now, Mistress.”
“Good boy. I knew you’d see things my way.” She crosses to me and presses a light kiss to my lips. “Start with aftercare. You may do anything she consents to—except fuck her pussy with your cock. Do you understand?”
I frown down at her. I don’t understand this. We were supposed to be the endgame, and now she’s essentially giving me to Zuri. Or giving Zuri to me, depending on how one looks at this. Either way, the equation doesn’t include Ursa, which is the one component I crave above all others.
I like Zuri. I do. But she’s so sweet, I feel like I’ll bruise her with a harsh word. She has her entire heart pinned to her chest, just ready to give it to the first person who offers her a tiny bit of kindness, fake or not. Being around her makes me feel guilty, and I fucking hate it.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I grind out.
Ursa doesn’t move, a deadly stillness stealing over her. “If you harm her, it will displease me.” If Zuri has a problem with us talking about her like she isn’t there, she doesn’t say a word from her spot on the bed. Ursa reaches up and gives my chin a light flick. “Go.” No negotiation. No bargaining. A simple command with the illusion of a choice.
There’s no point in arguing further. She’s not bluffing about making me sleep outside, which might amuse me in different circumstances. Not tonight. Not with everything riding so close to the surface.
I turn to Zuri. “Let’s go.”
She gives Ursa a wounded look but climbs off the bed on clearly shaking legs. I’m moving before I make a decision to do so, closing the distance between us and scooping her into my arms. If she takes a nose dive, it’ll just be more work for me to scrape her off the ground. Or that’s what I tell myself as I walk out of Ursa’s room and down the hall to the spare bedroom that’s been mine the few nights I’ve been able to slip my leash long enough to stay over.
I kick the door shut with my foot, which is right around the time Zuri seems to register that I’m carrying her. She squirms in my arms. “Put me down.”
“Can you stand without falling on your ass?”
She goes rigid. “I never knew you were such a dick.”
I set her carefully on her feet. “You never knew me.” I’m irritated at being banished from Ursa’s bedroom, at being forced into this conversation. The idea of revenge against Triton sounded like a good plan when she first proposed it to me. A way to bring that bastard down a few notches, even if ultimately we have no power in Olympus. It took some doing to be able to meet Zuri “by accident” when Triton would kill me before he’d let me touch one of his precious daughters, but it was all for the sake of revenge and freedom.
That plan feels so distant now with her standing in my room, naked and still flushed from our fucking. She seems to realize it at the same moment and moves to cover herself. “Turn around.”
I burst out laughing. “Zuri, there is nothing that you’re covering that I didn’t have my mouth all over back in Ursa’s room. No point in playing the coy virgin when you aren’t one anymore.”
I don’t even try to dodge her slap. The force of it turns my face to the side and sends pain blossoming over my cheek. It’s nothing more than I deserve for being such a goddamn bastard.
Zuri’s big eyes are furious and filled to the brim with hurt and betrayal. “Don’t act like you took something special from me. It’s just sex, Alaric. Whether it’s my first, hundredth, or thousandth time.” Her lower lip quivers, but she makes an obvious effort to still it. “And when this week is finished, I’m going to fuck as many people as it takes to forget all about you and Ursa.”