What in the depths of the Underworld had she even been thinking? She didn’t need a damn husband to push her about and make demands of her. Certainly not one who could muster a look of such profound arrogance. Damn him for his haughtiness. Damn him for that adorable smile. And damn herself for never being able to control her tongue or her heart. Her eyes stung with unshed tears she could never let anyone see.
“I’m quite certain you can find your way around from here, prince,” Kirke said. Which was well, as she needed to hide her face and drink a fountain-full of wine.
But the wine did not help her shame, even knowing it was more at her own behavior—childish, girlish fancy when she had a mission to follow—and she found herself instead stalking the streets of Kronion late at night, clinging to the shadows as if they might protect her.
It was in such gloom she noticed the scuffling footfalls trailing her in the harbor district. Her heart quickened at the sound of it. Probably she should have banged upon the door of the harbormaster’s office, for the lamp burning in the window meant he was still at work. Instead, she found herself darting down the adjacent alley, almost welcoming an altercation.
She drew up short.
Maybe her height alone was not quite enough for her pursuers to recognize her as a Titan. She couldn’t imagine they would try this if they guessed the truth about her. Even a Nymph had some Pneumatikoi, enough to overpower mortals.
Two men followed her into the passage, silhouetted against the faint lamplight from the street. Their features were obscured by the overbearing shadows, but to them, she must have looked almost like a wraith in the darkness.
And she did not flee, which made them hesitate. She just stood there, tall and defiant—if quite a bit intoxicated—staring them down. One of them actually took a step backward, and Kirke chortled. Yeah, mocking them was foolish, but she couldn’t stop herself.
“What, that’s it? Here I was, thinking to myself, what an adventure I’m about to have tonight. Two big strong men coming to corner me in an alley, try to rob me—or wait, I’m a helpless woman so you probably wanted to have your way with me first, huh? I’ve heard some men can’t get it up for a willing woman, though I’m guessing that’s not an issue for you as I can’t imagine you lot have too many willing women anyway. Oh! Did you forget your stones? If you want to run home and grab them, I can wait …”
Kirke’s Pneumatikoi might not have matched that of greater Titans, but pushing her Pneuma into Potency and Alacrity allowed her to cross the alley, snatch one of her pursuers up by the throat, and carry him into the main street before the other even seemed to have time to react. With a snarl, she grabbed his crotch and squeezed. “Oh, I was right. No stones, huh? Hmm. Not much of a tree there, either.”
“T-titan,” the other man gasped before breaking off into a run down the alley.
Kirke winked at her captive. “Guess he’s gonna go grab his stones. Yeah, and when he gets back, you two can go fuck yourselves.” She dropped the man and he pitched onto the flagstones, clutching his throat and wheezing.
The expenditure of so much Pneuma at once left Kirke a bit more lightheaded than she had expected, but she dare not show it.
Rather, with effort to keep her gait steady, she plodded along down the street. A few steps later she paused. A man she’d seen with Pikus exited the front of the Griffin’s Beak and stalked around the side, perhaps for a piss. He’d told his crew about the place?
Yeah, she should definitely go home and sleep this off. That would be wise. It would be mature and wise.
Instead, she found herself peeking through gaps in a shuttered window. There, indeed, the Rassenian prince sat at table, throwing back a bowl of wine and laughing with his mates. Probably at her expense, the bastard.
Maybe she should go in there and use a bit of Pneumatikoi on him, too. Of course, Athene might take it ill, her accosting a royal guest in her city.
Or she could …
Kirke made her way around the back, finding the way to the servants’ entrance to the kitchen. Inside, she found a pair of women, one aging, the other younger, and similar enough in visage to have been mother and daughter.
The younger started at her appearance, her yelp causing the older to look up sharply. Both women lowered their heads once they got a good look at Kirke.
“My lady,” the mother said.
Hmm. Kirke didn’t much want to be recognized, but being seen as a Titan would have some edge here. “You’ve seen the Rassenian prince out there.”
The older woman nodded, while the younger blushed, clearly as taken with Pikus’s exotic accent and easy smile as Kirke herself had been.
Withdrawing a vial of Nectar—a new batch she’d not finished experimenting on—she made her way to a bowl the mother had just filled with white wine. She unstopped the vial and poured the liquid into it. The golden Nectar quickly vanished in the wine, though Kirke gave it a stir with her finger to be sure, flicking the excess off into a corner. If the Rassenians took to manic behavior, sexual frenzies, or even trying to eat each other, well, Athene might guess at Kirke’s hand, but no one else would.
The old woman blanched at what she had done, but Kirke offered her a purse. “Ten tetradrachmae,” she said. Maybe more money than the woman had seen in one place in her life. “See that the prince gets this bowl.”
With luck, maybe he’d wind up trying to rut with a donkey or something. The mental image was so vivid,
