WHO: Melpomene and Tragos WHEN: Saturday afternoon WHERE: Melp's place WHAT: Delivering Marcie's necklace WARNINGS: Sex, references to a not brilliant childhood.
There were days lately when Melpomene felt she could crawl out of her own skin, like there were too many things writhing beneath it. Restlessness and impatience and frustration. She was always hungry, but nothing perfectly satisfied her. Honestly if Ares had offered to fuck her in exchange for Marcie’s details, she would have taken him up on that, just to see if it made her any less full of wanting.
Work was unremarkable. The show trucked on after Elliot’s death and Nikki’s resignation, drama curtailed by other people's professionalism. Writing for next season continued. It should have been exciting, but nothing compared favorably to her real life drama. They’d be plotting a story that would have thrilled her a few months ago, all her writers firing on all cylinders, but all she had to do was think I’m pregnant and nothing else mattered.
Ares had messaged her last night, though. She’d grabbed onto that. If he wanted to connect with Marcie then come hell or high water so did she.
Tragos arrived at her door early in the afternoon, a week-old bruise spread over his cheek, snaking dark across his nose. His skull seemed more pronounced beneath his skin, perhaps due to the bruise, perhaps not. Melpomene guided him into her apartment, raised her hand to brush the back of her fingers over his cheek, around the edges of the bruise. She looked at his knuckles – they were much worse. Fresher bruises, the skin grated over the knucklebones of his right hand, the one he reached into his pocket with and drew out Marcie’s necklace.
Melpomene took it, turning it over and running her thumb over the crest. Tat, he’d said. Garbage. Didn’t mean anything to him. Yet he’d kept it around for a few hundred years. Melpomene wasn’t interested in Ares’ attachment to the necklace, though; it was clearly important to Marcie, a physical token of her search for her identity. And proof that something that Ares took could be taken back.
“Good,” she said, turning her attention back to Tragos, who was watching her with a guarded expression. She slightly narrowed her eyes at the look. That would not do. Raising her brow instead, she asked: “What has he been saying about me?”
“Nothing,” Tragos said, but it wasn’t entirely truthful. The frustration coming off Ares when he’d given Tragos the necklace and ordered him to take it to her had been bright as solar flares. It was the kind of familiar frustration that, when crossed, put you in hospital. Tragos knew it well. Figured Melpomene was the cause of it. Ares hadn’t needed to say it.
Tragos wasn’t going to say it either. He ran his tongue over his teeth, less than comfortable.
Melpomene stepped closer, looking up at him, trying for a different angle for information. “What is he having you do?” she asked, thinking of Ares threat toward Tragos in the club, trading his place for the girl between two of his biggest men.
“Different things,” Tragos said, his entire posture suddenly screaming its awareness of her closeness. The skin stood up on his arms, his breathing changed. “Sparta’s pup, the male. I’m in charge of training. Been learning the books. Some other stuff.”
He couldn’t keep his pride out of his voice. So, Ares was going the opposite direction, offering a taste of responsibility, of trust, instead of smashing him down. Maybe he was more manipulative than Melpomene had given him credit for. She found herself rather pleased by this realisation, actually.
It wouldn’t work, of course; Tragos was hers. She lifted her hand and traced it over his sharp cheekbone. His jaw clenched, tense and intense, as she pulled her finger over his bottom lip. “And your fighting, that’s been going well?” she asked, as her fingertips slid down his neck, over his pulse.
“Yes,” he said, and she curled her hand into a fist around the front of his shirt, and pulled him firmly down to meet her mouth. He was all angles and electricity as his hands grabbed both of her arms, his tongue inside her mouth straight away. When her teeth closed over his bottom lip he let out a groan and pulled her even closer.
More than anything, Melpomene was discovering, her body craved touch.
He smelled a little like Ares, carrying the scent of the gym, sweat but also petrol and Axe; mortal, masculine smells. He felt so alive under her hands, and so young, and so full of beautiful tragic promise. Maybe that was what she craved, that feeling she was creating something deep and potent and meaningful, something that would hurt. The back of his buzzed head prickled against her palm. His breath panted over her skin, his eyes intense and determined. She kissed him deeply to encourage that conviction, encourage him to never look away, never let anything come between him and what he wanted. She whispered it to him as well, in case he was as oblivious to subtlety as Ares was: take what you want, no matter the cost, take it, make it yours.
Tragos growled at her and twisted both her arms behind her back, holding them tightly as he crushed her body against him. Melpomene made a surprised sound, then one of approving satisfaction, letting him claim her throat. Gods, yes. Her favourite sort of men, the blindly determined, the ones who’d sacrifice anything for their goal.
Her son would be that. (Or her daughter? Maybe. But Melpomene just felt that son was right. Felt right.) Determined. Ambitious. Hungry. A world eater. She’d be at his side, loving him, advising him, watching him tighten his grip over the earth. Yessss she thought, tilting her head back as Tragos bit her throat, not as hard as Ares would have, but there were teeth there all the same. As soon as he released her arms, her hands went to his belt, removing it with fingers that tingled as the blood flowed back into them.
He was armed, she discovered as she undressed him. The knife she'd given him, and a handgun.
For a moment she paused, her fingers wrapped around the heavy gun, looking at him. It wasn't what she'd expected, and for that moment, he looked a different kind of dangerous. And then Tragos smiled like a pit viper and pulled it out of her hand, dropping it on his pile of clothes before he stepped in to kiss her again.
He wasted no time in undressing her as well. She was never far from his thoughts, and most nights, alone in his bed, she was all he could think about. His position as a War Dog had to be first in his mind; the trust Ares was giving him was more than anyone had even given him before, and the honor of that was important. But there was room for that and thoughts of her, as well.
Seeing Ares and Melpomene in the club that night hadn’t been the first time he’d seen people fucking (a steady diet of porn over the last half dozen years made him feel unshockable when it came to sex) but it was the first time he’d felt so insanely personal about it. It had been right after she’d kissed him, too, right after she’d whispered something unheard in his ear, right after she called him noble for attacking the guy who’d tried to touch her.
Ares was undoubtedly the most powerful man he’d ever met in his life. What did it mean that this woman, who Ares had claimed so many times in front of Tragos, now wanted him? Everything, it meant everything.
He ran his hand over her breast and made her moan as she arched her back toward him, and he’d never felt more powerful. Not till he pushed her down onto her bed and crawled over her, spreading her legs to make room for him, that made him feel powerful.
Melpomene closed her eyes, engrossed, this powerful baby inside her, this acolyte on top of her, worshiping her, these two gifts from Ares she was making her own - ah she gasped, as she readjusted Tragos’s hand, whispering instructions, curl this, yes, press, yesss, faster, there, there.
After, still straddling him, she hung the necklace around his bare neck. “I’m going to give you Marcie’s number,” she said, tracing the chain with her fingertips. “As soon as you leave here, arrange a meeting with her to return her necklace.” She rolled her hips against him as she leaned down to kiss his lips once more. “And make sure she knows I sent you,” she purred, this instruction the most serious of all. “Then you may give Ares her number.”
He would have done anything for her. He hadn’t known obeisance could be this.