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“Do any of you dislike theHarem of Hadesshow?”
Piper blinks. “Only when the episodes are rushed. But Neo takes care of us. And the show is a lot bigger than us.”
“You mean because of…?” I clamp my mouth shut before I can spill anything about Nita.
“The Father, yes,” confirms Piper, double-checking the time. “We know what happens if he comes back to Court. As long as we put on a really goodshowfor him on screen and at the Court parties, he’s more likely to stay away and not do his whole reaping thing.”
“It’s still exploitation,” I say softly, my gaze dropping to my camera clutched in my hands.
“Well, excuseyou, Miss. High and Mighty.” Piper snaps her fingers right in front of me to get my attention, and I immediately bend beneath her sharp eyes. “I’d rather take Lux and her dinky little gifts over your moral superiority. FYI: we get paid, we get protection to come and go as we please, we’re the talk of all the Court O’ Nines, and we get to be undercover sex workers to fool Neo’s bitch-ass dad. So, don’t you go sticking your nose down at us and thinking we’re all blood whores. We’re Harem bitches, and we run this mutha. Piper the Viper out!” She turns her back, smacking her ass behind her.
My jaw drops. “Piper!” I exclaim beyond the thickening in my throat—beyond humbled by her words. Before she can walk away, I offer her my apology…in the form of a challenge, “Who are we?” She pauses in mid-step and tilts her head over her shoulder to my words. I cover my grinning mouth with my fingertips to say, “Hope you still like me.”
Tossing her waves back, Piper chirps, giving me the finger, daring me on with a wave. “Beyonce. Thy game is weak.”
““If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”,” I quote and lurch a little, touching my pinky to my lower lip in a goading gesture.
“Thatcher!” Piper responds with the feminist who penned the quote, raises her head high, and clenches her hands. ““I’m tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.”.” She saddles me with another empowering quote.
“Madonna, because I know how to bring my A-game.” I blow her a kiss and spin so my ruffled dress twirls.
Piper makes a motion of rolling up her sleeves, and as she does, the other harem girls gather around us. Piper dishes out her next quote, ““Words have power. TV has power. My pen has power.”” She pretends to give me a mic drop. “Perhaps you should try musical chairs, Princess.”
I laugh and squeeze my shoulders together, “Bitch please! Shonda Rimes. And I prefer cat and mouse. Because, after all, “women must learn to play the game as men do”, though I prefer to play a better one. Oh!” I mouth the word, “boom” and clap my hands, rubbing my palms together. A proud and playful heat stirs within me.
For the next few minutes, the camera crew turns the screens to Piper and me as we dance around each other, swapping feminist quotes. A couple times when I hesitate, she ups the ante by sucking on my fingers in a little warning threat while I launch a golden halo of stars over her head on my turn.
““Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe you must become its soul.”,” taunts Piper with Corella Scott King, swinging her hair so it thwacks my cheek.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Neo hugging his elbows, appraising me as Piper waits for my retort. I decide to go back to an old standby, a very old standby. ““At her feet, he sank, he fell; there he lay. At her feet, he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell—dead.”
Reveling when Piper finally pauses and sighs, dropping her hands to the sides, I do a little twirl and letmyhair thwack her this time before snatching up her fingers. Only to give her a fist bump and reveal, “Deborah. Badass Judge over a bunch of men who royally fucked up a whole country. She was celebrating the triumph of another badass woman who drove a tent peg through a general’s head and served him up like a piece of meat. Cause…” I shrug and lean in to kiss her cheek, finalizing, “…empowered women empower women.”
Neo begins a slow clap. All the other girls join in and flock around me, singing my praises. Piper salutes me and jabs her chin at Neo to say, “Prince, you bring this badass bitch back anytime.”
He offers a nod and moves toward me, claiming my waist and causing the other girls to back away. “Perhaps tomorrow…afterI escort her to the border.”
Halo radiating from my chest, I turn to him and beam.
Chapter19
“Looks like we will need to choose a safe word. Shall we start tonight?”
“You’ll really take me to the border tomorrow?” I muse softly, making my way toward the window so I may study the blood moon, a half moon. How strong is its cycle? How much does it impact Neo? I glance back at him, aware of the pang in my chest, the Halo twinkling upon my skin, and my walls splintering. In all these weeks, we’ve never been closer.
He remains closer to the bed, removing his filming garb and using his shades to erase the gold body paint and to heal the little love bite bruises from the harem girls. “I plan to take the morning off Court and join you. Quillion showed me the record of requests that you passed on to him. It wasrevealing. Rest assured, no more children will be removed from their parents. And I am taking due steps to ensure whatever families have been separated will be reunited.
“And despite my destroying the ones near death to put them out of their misery and prevent the spread of more infection, I have collected and separated each one’s ashes for potential restoration should you convince my damned brother to release their souls.”
Oh, Saints!
Every nerve ending in my body pulses with affection for the Prince I love. Spitfire nudges my palm, distracting me, so I take a moment to scratch my hellcat behind his pointed ears before offering him a few large slabs of fire-fish. I send him scrambling into my suite to follow his meal: a reward for his earlier obedient bite of Neo.
“Do you understand now, Elysia?” Neo advances toward me, cupping my shoulders from behind and murmuring against my curls. My breath hitches. My heartbeat catapults inside my chest. “If I treat my harem girls with such care and attention, though they are a tool in my Father’s belt that I never desired to have thrust upon me, can you trust that I will treat you with even more regard and devotion as mywife?” The Prince’s fingers slip onto my neck to trail along my collarbone, where tendrils of star fire twist and twirl to meet those fingers.
I melt back into him, remembering the night I first shared my trauma…when his strong arms pinned my thrashing body down. When I’d panicked, he’d locked his leg around mine and held me until my tremors stopped. My dark fortress, not a war-hammer.
“Second wife,” I correct, using his own words against him but smiling fondly at his shades knitting around my dress. Just like they used to, they slip beneath the ruffled skirts to tempt me.
