Chapter 3: Moon-Bound Conspiracy
The only sound was Arthur’s ragged breathing, slowly settling into a rhythm that matched the gentle rise and fall of Lilith’s body against hers. The obliterating pleasure had receded, leaving behind a profound, humming stillness. Her skin felt hypersensitive, every thread of the silk sheet a distinct texture, the cool air a tangible caress.
She was aware, in a detached way, of the new weight on her chest, the alien landscape of her hips. But the cognitive shock was fading, replaced by a deep, liquid exhaustion and a simmering echo of what she’d just felt.
Lilith propped herself up on one elbow, her dark hair falling across Arthur’s shoulder. She traced a finger idly around a nipple, watching it pucker again in response. A small, proprietary smile played on her lips.
“There’s a peace in it, isn’t there?” Lilith murmured. “After. The noise in your head just… stops.”
Arthur realized it was true. The constant, low-grade anxiety of his old life—the worry over bills, the dread of Monday mornings, the hollow ache of an empty apartment—was gone. It had been burned away in that sensory inferno. What remained felt clean, if terrifyingly unknown. She found her voice, a softer, smoother instrument. “What did you do to me?”
“I opened a door,” Lilith said simply. She shifted, rolling onto her back and staring up at the high, dark ceiling. “You walked through it. All of it. The hunger, the change, the pleasure… it’s all connected. It’s the cycle.”
“The cycle.”
“Of the bloodline.” Lilith turned her head to look at Arthur. The moonlight carved her profile into something stark and ancient. “We’re not monsters from a campfire story. We’re an echo. A very old one. We don’t turn on the full moon. We renew on it.”
Arthur pushed herself up on the pillows, the silk whispering. The movement felt instinctively different, a shift of balance from the core. “Renew how?”
“By passing it on.” Lilith sat up, drawing her knees to her chest. She looked younger like that, but her eyes were ageless. “A long time ago, something was given. A bargain. Power, of a kind. But it’s a hungry power. It fades if it isn’t… shared. Translated. The solstice is when the veil is thinnest, when the old magic still has a little bite. That’s the window. We find someone. We open the door for them.”
Arthur’s new mind, sharper in some ways, dull with fatigue in others, processed this. “The bar. You were hunting.”
“I was looking,” Lilith corrected, a hint of defiance in her tone. “It’s not random. It can’t be. The spark has to be there. A certain… receptivity. A quiet life that’s become a kind of waiting. I saw it in you the moment you walked in. That thirst. Not just for a drink. For a sign. For something to happen.”
The truth of it was a cold stone in Arthur’s gut. She thought of the countless nights nursing a whiskey, hoping the night would offer an answer, any answer, to the static hum of his existence. He’d been a perfect target. The realization was more shameful than the transformation.
“So I was recruited,” Arthur said flatly.
“You were chosen,” Lilith insisted, her voice gaining intensity. She reached out, gripping Arthur’s wrist. Her touch was electric. “You think this is a curse? Look at you. You’re beautiful. You’re strong. You felt things tonight Arthur—she felt things—that your old body couldn’t even comprehend. That life was killing you with a thousand tiny cuts. This? This is a clean wound. It heals into something powerful.”
Arthur looked down at Lilith’s hand, at her own slender fingers. She thought of the steak, the savage satisfaction of it. The way her shadow had moved independently. The overwhelming, non-negotiable rightness of the pleasure that had just wrecked her.
“What happens now?” Arthur asked.
“Now you learn,” Lilith said, releasing her wrist and stretching like a panther. “You learn the rules. The hungers. The protections. How to move through the world like this. We have time until the next solstice.”
“The next solstice?” A cold trickle of understanding seeped in.
Lilith’s gaze was unwavering. “The pact is a chain. To keep what you have, to stay as you are, you must open the door for another. Before the next solstice sun sets. You must find someone with the spark. You must change them. Or the power recedes. You won’t turn into a pumpkin, Arthur. It’s slower. It’s a grayness that seeps into everything. The hunger returns but can never be satisfied. The senses dim. The body… weakens. It’s a living fade-to-black.”
The opulent room suddenly felt like a gilded cage. The price was clear. Her salvation was contingent on perpetuating the cycle. On doing to someone else what had been done to her.
“I can’t do that,” Arthur whispered, but the words lacked conviction. She remembered the thin man’s clinical stare. The spotter. Gauging her viability. She was part of a production line.
“You will,” Lilith said, with absolute certainty. She leaned in, her scent of jasmine and ozone enveloping Arthur. “Because the alternative is to go back. And you can’t. Not really. That man is gone. He died in my bed three weeks ago. What’s left of him is fuel for her.” She pressed a kiss to Arthur’s shoulder. “She wants to live. I can feel it.”
And Lilith was right. A fierce, terrified will to survive was coiling in Arthur’s new belly. The thought of that grayness, of the dampened senses, of returning to a numb, taste-less world, was more horrifying than the moral abyss of the task ahead.
A sharp buzzing echoed through the penthouse. Not a phone. An intercom.
Lilith sighed, annoyed. She slid off the bed, naked and utterly unselfconscious, and padded across the room to a panel on the wall. She pressed a button. “What?”
A distorted voice, male, crackled through. “Lilith. It’s me. We need to talk. About the new one.”
Arthur recognized the cadence. The thin man from the bar.
“It’s not a good time,” Lilith said, her voice turning cold.
“It’s precisely the time,” the voice insisted. “The moon is waning. The clock is ticking. I have reports. There’s been talk. Baruk is asking questions in places he shouldn’t. He’s connected.”
A shadow passed over Lilith’s face. She glanced back at Arthur, her expression unreadable. “Fine. Come up. But be quick.”
She released the button and turned around. The vulnerable confessor was gone, replaced by the commanding figure from the bar. “Get dressed,” she said, gesturing to a wardrobe. “Wear something of mine. We have a guest.”
Arthur moved stiffly, her body feeling both fragile and immensely powerful. She found a simple black dress, soft and stretchy. It slid over her new curves with an unsettling familiarity. She was staring at her reflection in the dark glass of the window when the elevator door opened with a soft ping.
The thin man stepped out. He seemed even more cadaverous in the expansive light of the penthouse. He’d removed his coat, revealing a sharp, inexpensive suit. His eyes, pale and quick, darted past Lilith and landed on Arthur. He didn’t look surprised. He looked like an auditor assessing an asset.
“Arthur,” he said, giving a curt nod. “Or do you prefer something else now?”
The question hung in the air, brutal and direct.
Arthur said nothing. She just watched him.
“Marlowe,” Lilith said, crossing her arms. “You have five minutes. What’s the problem?”
Marlowe dragged his eyes from Arthur back to Lilith. “The problem is the old network. Baruk has been a bartender for a long time. He hears things. He knows people. The kind of people who still remember how to make wolfsbane tonic, or forge silver into something more harmful than jewelry. He’s making inquiries. He’s concerned about his ‘regular’.”
“Baruk is a sentimental old fool,” Lilith sneered, but Arthur saw a flicker of tension in her jaw.
“Sentimental fools with long memories are dangerous,” Marlowe countered. His voice was a dry rustle. “He’s pinpointed the solstice window. He knows the pattern. If he convinces the wrong person that a new transformative has been unleashed in his district, there will be scrutiny. The kind that attracts hunters, not barkeeps.”
The word hunters landed in the quiet room with physical weight.
“So what’s your solution?” Lilith asked.
Marlowe’s gaze slid back to Arthur. A cold, evaluative stare. “Acceleration. The traditional mentorship period is a luxury. She needs to complete her first cycle. Soon. Once the pact is sealed by her own act, her signature will muddy the trail. The energy will change. It’ll throw the old man off the scent. It’ll also…” he allowed himself a thin, lipless smile, “…solidify her commitment. No going back once you’ve recruited your own.”
Arthur felt the walls of the cage tighten. The freedom she’d just tasted was an illusion. She was on a conveyor belt, and it was speeding up.
“It’s too soon,” Lilith said, though it sounded less like a protest and more like a negotiation. “She doesn’t know the signs yet. She could choose wrong.”
“Then teach her faster,” Marlowe said. He took a step forward, his focus entirely on Arthur now. “The hunger will guide you. The moon’s pull will point you. Look for the quiet ones. The lonely hearts. The ones who stare a little too long into their drink, who’ve made a shrine of their solitude. You’ll know. You looked just like them.”
He turned back to Lilith. “A week, Lilith. Or I start making contingency plans. We can’t afford a spotlight. Not for a novice.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He just turned and stepped back into the elevator. The doors closed, swallowing him whole, leaving only the faint scent of cheap wool and dry cleaner chemicals behind.
The silence he left was deafening.
Lilith walked to the window, her back to Arthur. She was a silhouette against the city’s grid. “He’s not wrong,” she said finally, her voice quiet.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Arthur said, the words sounding childish even to her new ears.
Lilith laughed, a short, sharp sound. “You won’t be hurting them. You’ll be offering them a gift. The same gift I offered you. You felt like you were being hurt tonight?”
Arthur remembered the shattering release, the peace that followed. The answer was a traitorous silence.
Lilith turned around. Her eyes were bright, almost feverish. “It starts tomorrow. We go hunting. Together. You’ll learn to see the spark. And when you do, you’ll understand. It’s not corruption, Arthur. It’s an invitation.”
She crossed the room and took Arthur’s face in her hands. Her thumbs stroked the high, new cheekbones. “This is your life now. Fight for it.”
Arthur looked into those mesmerizing, dangerous eyes. She thought of Baruk’s weathered, disappointed face. She thought of the gray fade Marlowe described. Then she thought of the consuming fire, the silence of the static finally being switched off, the sheer, shocking aliveness of the body she now inhabited.
The cage had a door. It only opened one way.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Arthur nodded.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Arthur nodded. The motion felt like the last bolt sliding home on a door she’d just locked behind her. Lilith’s smile was instant and brilliant, a reward for surrendered resistance.
She released Arthur’s face and clapped her hands together, the sound cracking through the penthouse’s heavy silence. “Good. That’s settled. No more dread. No more lectures from Marlowe.” She stretched, the muscles in her back rippling. “But tonight, we can have some fun.”
Lilith headed to her closet, a vast, softly lit alcove. She pulled on a leather jumpsuit, the material sighing as it zipped up the front, conforming to her like a second skin. She ran her fingers through her dark hair, fluffing it at the roots before the mirror. The action was casual, rehearsed.
From the depths of the closet, she produced a swath of fabric the color of a fresh wound. “Here. My usual clothes will be too small on you in the shoulders, the hips. This will stretch.”
It was a blood-red lycra spandex bandage dress. Arthur took it, the material slick and cool between her fingers. She stepped into it, the fight with the fabric immediate and awkward. She had to shimmy and tug, her new breasts protesting the tight confinement as she hauled the dress up her body.
It suctioned itself to her. Every curve, every dip was outlined, showcased. The neckline plunged, and the hem rode high on her thighs. She felt exposed, amplified, a neon sign in the shape of a woman.
“Perfect,” Lilith purred, circling her. “Now, the details.”
She sat Arthur at a vanity and worked with quick, efficient movements. Mascara darkened the lashes around Arthur’s familiar-yet-alien eyes. A swipe of burgundy lipstick defined the new fullness of her mouth. Lilith took her hair, that strange, sudden weight, and twisted it up, securing it with a few deft pins so that loose tendrils framed her face.
Arthur stared at the final composite in the mirror. The person there was a stranger, but a stunning one. Dangerous. Intentional.
“You need a new name in this form,” Lilith said, her hands resting on Arthur’s bare shoulders. Their eyes met in the glass. “I think Artemis will be good.”
“Why Artemis?” said Arthur. The name felt foreign on her tongue.
Lilith’s reflection grinned, all sharp white teeth and promise. “She’s the goddess of the hunt.” She leaned down, her lips brushing Arthur’s—Artemis’s—ear. Her whisper was a thrill of static. “And that’s what we are going to do tonight. Go hunting. And get laid.”
The words were crude, but the intent behind them was pure, undiluted catalyst. This wasn’t about love or connection. It was about appetite and action, a field test for her new senses. Artemis felt a jolt, part terror, part thrilling voltage.
“I don’t know how,” Artemis said, the admission a ghost of Arthur’s old uncertainty.
“You don’t need to know,” Lilith countered, straightening up. She grabbed a small black purse. “The dress knows. The hunger knows. Just follow my lead. And listen. The city’s full of lonely hearts beating a sad, slow rhythm. We’re just going to find one and... duet.”
They took the elevator down. The silent descent felt like a countdown. Artemis was hyper-aware of the dress clinging to every inch, of the way the air in the metal box moved over her skin. She caught their reflection in the polished doors: a study in calculated allure. Lilith, the seasoned predator in black leather. Herself, the freshly minted lure in violent red.
The lobby was empty. Their heels clicked a sharp, syncopated rhythm on the marble as they walked out into the warm, diesel-scented night.
Lilith didn’t head for the bar. She turned down a side street towards a part of the warehouse district that had been hastily polished into a weekend playground. The bass from a club throbbed through the pavement, a deep, subsonic pulse that Artemis felt in her teeth.
“There,” Lilith said, nodding towards a rooftop lounge accessible by a grated staircase. Music and laughter spilled down. “Full of fresh meat and bad decisions. Perfect.”
They climbed. With each step, Artemis felt Arthur’s nervousness recede, burned away by a rising, anonymous confidence. The dress, the makeup, the new body—they were armor. By the time they pushed through the door at the top, a wave of noise and body heat washing over them, the last tremor was gone.
She stood at the edge of the revelry, watching. And for the first time, she understood what Lilith meant about listening.
It wasn’t with her ears. It was a prickling along her skin, a slight metallic taste at the back of her throat. Most people in the crowd emitted a blurry static, a neutral buzz. But here and there, a different frequency cut through.
A man leaning too intently over his phone at the bar, his isolation a tangible bubble. A woman laughing too loudly with her friends, her eyes scanning the crowd with a desperate, hungry hope. Each one sent a faint, pulling sensation through Artemis’s gut, a compass needle twitching.
“See?” Lilith murmured, appearing at her elbow with two crystal glasses of something clear and fizzy. She handed one to Artemis. “It’s like sonar. They ping. You don’t even have to think.”
Artemis took a sip. The liquid was crisp, flavorless. She kept her eyes on the woman with the desperate laugh. She watched her extricate herself from her group, heading for the restroom with a relieved slump in her shoulders.
“That one,” Artemis said, the decision forming without conscious thought.
Lilith followed her gaze. “Solid choice. Wounded bird. Go. I’ll be your wingman.” She gave Artemis a gentle, encouraging push.
Artemis moved through the crowd. The red dress parted the sea of people; eyes tracked her, but she barely noticed. Her focus was on the restroom door. She pushed it open.
The woman was alone, leaning against the sinks, staring into the mirror with a look of profound exhaustion. Up close, the spark was unmistakable—a shimmer of profound loneliness, a reservoir of untouched yearning. She jumped when she saw Artemis’s reflection appear beside hers.
“Oh,” the woman said, forcing a smile. “Sorry. Just… needed a minute.”
Artemis set her purse down on the counter. She turned, leaning back against the cold porcelain, and looked at the woman directly. The words came, not from Arthur’s playbook of awkward pick-up lines, but from a deeper, instinctual place.
“You don’t need a minute,” Artemis said, her voice low and sure. “You need a night that doesn’t feel like a rerun.”
The woman’s eyes, a little bloodshot from drink, widened. She was pretty, with soft brown hair and a kind face that had learned to hide its disappointment. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to people who are looking for the same thing.” Artemis pushed off the sink and took a half-step closer. The air between them thickened. “What’s your name?”
“Chloe.”
“I’m Artemis.” The name felt more natural this time, a key fitting into a lock. “Your friends out there seem nice. But they’re not what you’re hunting for, are they?”
Chloe’s breath hitched. She didn’t look away. “What am I hunting for?”
Artemis reached out, very slowly, and tucked a strand of hair behind Chloe’s ear. Her fingertips brushed the skin of her neck. Chloe shuddered, a full-body tremor of recognition.
“A sign,” Artemis whispered, repeating Lilith’s words from a lifetime ago in a smoky bar. “For something to happen.”
In the mirror, she watched Chloe’s defenses dissolve. The desperate laugh was gone. In its place was a raw, open hunger. It echoed the void Arthur had carried, the exact same shape.
The pull in Artemis’s gut became a sharp, sweet ache. This was it. The first step on the other side of the door.
She offered her hand. Chloe took it, her fingers cold and trusting.
“Let’s get out of here,” Artemis said.
Chloe didn't hesitate. The decision was instant, a surrender she’d been waiting years to make. Her fingers tightened around Artemis’s. The roar of the rooftop lounge became a muffled drone as Artemis led her back through the crowd, a path opening before the red dress.
Lilith was waiting at the bottom of the grated stairs, leaning against the brick wall with predatory calm. Beside her stood another woman, tall and willowy with ash-blonde hair cut sharp at her jaw. This woman’s arm was linked through Lilith’s, her expression one of cool, detached amusement. Her eyes, a glacial blue, swept over Chloe with clinical interest.
“Found one,” Artemis said, her voice steady despite the electric current humming under her skin.
“So I see,” Lilith replied. She disentangled herself from the blonde and stepped forward, her gaze holding Chloe’s. “I’m Lilith. This is Isobel. You’re among friends now, Chloe. The tedious part of the evening is over.”
Chloe offered a shy, wobbly smile, overwhelmed but unafraid. The spark within her pulsed, a steady, inviting glow that Artemis could feel like a thumbprint on her spine.
The four of them moved as a unit, a sleek, silent pod gliding through the gritty streets back towards the glittering tower. No one spoke in the elevator. The air was thick with anticipation, the silence broken only by the soft hum of ascent and the rapid, almost imperceptible rhythm of Chloe’s breath. Artemis watched the numbers climb, her own new instincts alive to every shift in the enclosed space—the heat radiating from Chloe’s body, the predatory stillness of Lilith and Isobel.
The penthouse door sighed open. The sterile moonlight had been replaced by the warm, low glow of concealed lamps. The vast space felt different tonight, less a gallery and more a den.
Lilith went straight to a sleek cooler and pulled out a bottle. The pop of the champagne cork was a sharp, celebratory gunshot. Golden froth spilled over her wrist as she filled four flutes without ceremony. She handed them out, her eyes gleaming.
“To new beginnings,” Lilith said, her voice a smoky invitation.
“To not being lonely anymore,” Chloe added, her voice firmer now, tinged with a daring hope. She clinked her glass against Artemis’s with a delicate ting.
They drank. The champagne was dry and expensive, exploding in tiny, urgent bubbles on Artemis’s tongue. It cut through the metallic taste of her hunger, cleansing the palate. She watched Chloe take a long sip, her throat working, a faint flush spreading across her chest above the neckline of her dress.
Isobel drifted to the window, sipping her drink. “The city looks like a circuit board from here,” she said, her voice like smooth stones in water. “All those little lights, thinking they’re running the show.” She turned, her blue eyes landing on Chloe. “You feel bigger than that now, don’t you?”
Chloe nodded, mesmerized. “I feel… seen.”
“That’s because you are,” Lilith purred, setting her glass down. She moved to the large sofa, sinking into the cushions and patting the space beside her. Chloe followed, drawn by an invisible tether. Artemis sat on a low chair opposite, with Isobel elegantly perched on its arm.
The talk was light, a surface shimmer over deep, pulling currents. They asked Chloe about her job, her friends on the roof, the life that had left her so parched. Each mundane answer felt like a layer being peeled back, revealing the soft, pulsing core of her yearning. Artemis found herself speaking too, weaving bits of Arthur’s old reality into a vague tapestry of past dissatisfaction, a story that seemed to resonate deeply with Chloe.
Lilith and Isobel traded glances, a silent communication that crackled with understanding. They refilled glasses. The second bottle was opened. The conversation drifted, turned playful, then intentionally charged.
A compliment about the drape of Chloe’s dress. A murmured observation about the scent of her perfume. A casual touch that lingered—Lilith’s hand on Chloe’s bare knee, Isobel’s fingers brushing Artemis’s shoulder as she reached for her glass. The heat in the room became a physical presence, moist and thick. Artemis could smell it on the air now, cutting through the champagne and jasmine: a sharp, sweet musk of arousal, blooming from Chloe like a night flower.
It was intoxicating. It was the target.
Artemis leaned over, her lips close to Lilith’s ear. The scent was overwhelming here, a concentrated perfume of promise. “I can almost taste it,” Artemis whispered, the truth of it making her jaw ache.
Lilith’s smile was a slow, wicked curve. She turned her head, her lips brushing Artemis’s cheek in a faux kiss. Her whisper was a direct order. “Why don’t you show Chloe the view from the guest room, Artemis?”
Artemis stood. Her movements felt liquid, assured. She extended her hand to Chloe, who took it without a second thought, her eyes wide and dark with trust and building desire.
“The city’s even better from the other side,” Artemis said.
She led Chloe away from the living room, down a softly lit hallway. Chloe’s hand was warm and slightly damp in hers. The guest room was smaller, but just as opulent, dominated by a wide bed and a floor-to-ceiling window framing the endless urban glow.
Artemis closed the door. The sound was final.
She turned. Chloe was standing in the middle of the room, trembling slightly, a live wire of nervous excitement. “I don’t… I’ve never…” Chloe started.
“It’s alright,” Artemis said, her voice lower now, a vibration that seemed to calm the air. She approached, stopping just inches away. She could see the rapid flutter of Chloe’s pulse in her throat. “Just feel.”
Artemis cupped Chloe’s face, her thumbs stroking the high bones. Then she kissed her. It was not gentle. It was a claiming, a direct circuit completion. Chloe gasped into her mouth, a sound of shock that melted instantly into hunger. Her hands came up, clutching at Artemis’s back, fingers digging into the slick red lycra.
Chloe’s mouth was soft and tasted of champagne and surrender. Artemis kissed her deeper, mimicking what she’d learned from Lilith, her tongue exploring, her teeth grazing a full lower lip. Chloe responded with a frantic, eager energy, her hips pressing forward.
They stumbled towards the bed, a tangle of limbs and urgent, muffled sounds. Artemis pushed the thin straps of Chloe’s dress down, followed the path with her mouth. She found the frantic beat of Chloe’s heart against her lips, then lower, taking a taut nipple into her mouth. Chloe cried out, her back arching, her hands fisting in Artemis’s pinned-up hair, pulling it loose in dark waves.
The dress was a nuisance. Artemis peeled it from her own body, then helped Chloe wriggle free of hers. Skin met skin. The spark wasn’t a metaphor anymore; it was a conflagration. Artemis worshipped Chloe’s body with a focused, desperate intensity, driven by a need that was part instruction, part mimickry, and part her own roaring, unchained hunger.
She used her mouth, her hands, her new and astonishing sensitivity to map every tremor, every gasp. She found the wet, eager heat between Chloe’s thighs and focused there, relentless. Chloe unraveled quickly, violently. Her first climax was a sharp, sob-like release that tightened her whole body into a bowstring before she went limp, panting.
Artemis looked up from between her thighs. Chloe’s eyes were glazed, her mouth parted. A thin sheen of sweat made her skin glow in the city light.
Before the aftershocks had even faded, a new, more potent hunger twisted in Artemis’s own gut. It was a mirror, a echo, a demand. The sight, the smell, the taste of Chloe’s pleasure had acted like a drug. Her own body was screaming, every nerve-ending she’d discovered hours before now clamoring for the same treatment.
She moved up Chloe’s body, her own need a palpable vibration. “My turn,” Artemis breathed, and it was not a request.
She guided Chloe’s hand down her own stomach, through the slickness that had gathered there without her conscious notice. The moment Chloe’s fingers made contact, Artemis shuddered, a wave of pleasure so acute it bordered on pain. Chloe, emboldened, her own instincts waking, began to explore with a clumsy, eager fascination.
Her touch was nothing like Lilith’s expert certainty. It was searching, experimental, and utterly devastating in its authenticity. Where Lilith had been a maestro, Chloe was an enthusiastic amateur, and every fumbling, sincere stroke lit a new fuse.
Artemis let go. She surrendered to the clumsy, perfect friction, to the feeling of being wanted in this raw, basic way. This wasn’t a ritual or a recruitment. This was the thing itself, the desperate human connection that underlay all the ancient magic and predatory cycles. She came with a broken, gasping cry, her body convulsing, the city lights below dissolving into a blur of gold and white.
She collapsed beside Chloe, their sweat cooling in the conditioned air. For a long moment, there was only the sound of their breathing syncing, slowing. The static was gone. For both of them.
Artemis turned her head. Chloe was already looking at her, a soft, dazed wonder in her eyes. She looked peace, exhausted, and profoundly filled.
“What happens now?” Chloe whispered, echoing Artemis’s own question from what felt like years ago.
Artemis looked at the ceiling. She thought of Marlowe’s clock, of Baruk’s warning, of the gray fade. She felt the ancient, hungry power inside her settle, satisfied for now. It coiled around the memory of Chloe’s pleasure, content.
“Now,” Artemis said, reaching for Chloe’s hand and lacing their fingers together on the rumpled sheets, “the real waiting begins.”