orders so I can survive, so I can get through this. Doing what he says will free me from one thing and one thing only—worrying about what to do in this next moment.
I expect Reya to lead me down to his office. That makes a certain kind of sense. If he’s not in his bedroom, then he should be in his office. Or the lounge. A nervous chill prickles the skin on my back. Would he really train me tonight, with people watching, even after I fainted?
I think he would.
But Reya makes a series of turns on the first floor that don’t seem related to his office at all, and then we’re descending a set of stairs that open wide at the bottom like a skirt. They’re gorgeous, grand. I have never once pictured stairs like this existing for a basement. It turns out my imagination has been lacking all my life. The final step puts us on carpet as rich as the rooms upstairs. I get the distinct sense that the carpet here is for noise-dampening purposes. The doors set into the wall—a double pair, and black as night—look like they shouldn’t be disturbed.
Reya takes a deep breath.
“Tell me.” I try to make the plea sound less like a plea, but I still feel ghostlike from last night. Or this morning. “What are we here for?”
She shakes her head and opens the door.
I should have known what was going to be on the other side. I should have known, because I’ve seen Zeus. I’ve been in his hands. I’ve had his mouth on me. A place like this belongs in a place like Olympus. But the scene rocks me back on my feet. Reya keeps me moving, and the door closes behind us. We’re late to the party. The other girls have taken their places around the room, shadows in lovely gowns. That’s the first thing I notice. There is an audience—a silent one. It’s dim enough that it sets off the whites of their eyes.
There’s so much here to absorb. A bed against one wall with a heavy frame—it reminds me of Zeus’s bed, only more intricate. There are obvious places for a person to be bound. A pair of leather cuffs adorns a shelf above the bed. A low bench waits in front of a fireplace, and I know instantly the ways a body could be bent over it. A clench between my legs is enough confirmation, and God, what is wrong with me? How can I be looking, thinking about these things when the main event is Zeus?
I take it in, in a series of blinks. A cross by the opposite wall. Savannah’s naked body, tied to it. The startling white of Zeus’s shirt with no jacket. The tensed muscles of his forearms, perfect and vicious. The light shining down like a halo on them both.
The whip in his hands.
The red stripes on Savannah’s thighs.
Zeus watches me, and understanding rushes in like a new day.
It was more than that. More than tea. More than a fainting spell.
“I learned something, Brigit.” It’s as if he’s standing upstairs, completely at ease. He might as well be upstairs, at the center of everything. An illusion—that’s an illusion. It’s not real, the man upstairs, graciously accepting drinks and laughing, a smile on his face. My heart gives three beats in quick succession and then goes quiet, like it could possibly hide from him. “I learned that Savannah hasn’t been kind to you.”
His hand moves, and the whip snaps across her skin. Savannah’s anguished cry is absorbed into the ceiling, and another red line decorates her skin. He’s been here a while, I see now. The whip is only his current implement.
“Tell her what you did, Savannah,” Zeus prompts.
A blubbering sob eats her words.
For that, she gets another stripe, this one across the center of her ass. Her head drops back and she howls.
No one moves.
Why aren’t they moving?
Someone has to be the one to intervene.
A droplet of blood drips down from this newest punishment.
“Stop.” I might as well not have spoken. My voice is still rough from sleep, and Zeus doesn’t bother to turn his head, if he even heard me. I don’t think he can hear me. I’m seized by a horrible fear that I really did die.
I’m not a ghost, damn it.
“Confess, Savannah,” he croons, and the illusion of him shatters again, the façade shearing off to reveal what’s underneath his nice clothes and his gorgeous face and