“Mmm. Seems to me like they were your generals when your father was still alive.” Something like sympathy flickers through her brown eyes. “Sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I reply automatically, just like I have every other time someone has offered their condolences in the last few months. The words mean nothing, change nothing. Every person in this city could drown in their apologies and sorrow and it still wouldn’t bring my father back.
Megaera finally sighs. “Hades has decided to let this little drama play out despite my reservations, so you’ll be allowed into both the lounge and the playrooms, provided you follow the club rules. Consent is our god, Isabelle.” She gives me another long look. “You have subbie written all over you. I’d say I don’t understand how those two managed not to drag you in here at one point or another, but I know all too well about how misguided men can be when they put you on a pedestal.”
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say to that. “Thank you for access to the club.”
“I doubt you’ll be thanking me before this is over.” She shakes her head and pushes off the desk. “I can’t keep you from approaching them, but if they aren’t interested in talking, you don’t get to force the issue. You might be the precious princess in your territory, but this is neutral space and our rules prevail over all others here. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” If I’d been able to corner Gaeton and Beast in my own territory, I wouldn’t need to come here. But they’ve been slippery. I’m not even sure Gaeton has been home in over a month and he’s not taking my calls—any of our calls. And Beast? Even when he was in my bed, he felt like more ghost than man. No one can pin that man down if he’s not interested in being pinned down. It was one of the things that drew me so strongly to him initially, a way I thought we were kindred spirits.
Megaera nods again, but not like she likes it. “Do you have a basic understanding of kink?”
“Yes.” One could argue that I have more than a basic understanding, but it’s all theoretical. My respective relationships with Gaeton and Beast were both vanilla, which is something of a startling revelation now that I know where their tastes lie. They may have attended meetings at the Underworld with my father over the years, but to the best of my knowledge they didn’t indulge until our respective relationships had ended. I don’t understand it. They must have known what they liked, must have known they weren’t being completely fulfilled in my bed. And yet neither of them ever said a single thing about it. I want to know why; one of the many answers I don’t have a right to, but crave all the same.
She motions to the door. “Then by all means. Go play. Mind your manners or you’ll be bounced out of here so fast, that pretty head of yours might spin right off your neck.”
I rise slowly to my feet. “You know, most of the time when people decide they don’t like me, they’ve actually met me first.”
Megaera raises a perfectly shaped dark brow. “I’m not most people, and even if I were, I consider Gaeton my friend. Beast is one of our patrons. I’ve witnessed the damage you did to them, Isabelle. Some things are unforgivable.”
She’s wrong, of course. Or, rather, she doesn’t have the full story. It’s easy to paint me villainous shades for the production, but it takes two to tango—or three, in this case. We did not come to this place on my power alone.
But that’s none of Megaera’s business.
I channel my middle sister, Sienna, and stare Megaera down. It still doesn’t feel natural, but I’ve been taught how to move amongst big players from the time I first learned how to walk. This woman is powerful, but she’s just one of many. Ultimately, she holds no power over me. In theory. “If we’re done here …”
“Step carefully, sweetheart.” She waves me out the door, and I have to concentrate to keep my gait even and unhurried.
In the short time I was closeted up with Megaera, the lounge has gained a number of people. Couples and throuples and people who seem content to talk and ignore the promise of sex in the air. Or maybe it’s not sex. It’s power, the kind sometimes exchanged only for a night, sometimes for a lifetime.
I feel like I’m dying of thirst and someone just shoved me into an ocean. Water everywhere, but none of it for my drinking. All of these people are off-limits to me. They aren’t why I’m here.
A couple moves toward the bar, clearing my line of sight to the booth nearest the door back to the playroom. I get a sense of a massive white man, and then he leans forward into the meager light cast over the table. Dark hair that’s gone a little shaggy from need of a haircut. Shoulders that will fill any doorway. A surprisingly generous mouth on a face that looks carved from the side of a mountain. He’s got freckles, too, though I can’t pick them out across this distance.