The Rite Stuff

The Pacific stretches — a raw untamed sweep of black sand in the violent grip of crashing waves. A necklace of shark teeth scrapes against his bare chest with each ragged breath: a portent, a weapon, a talisman of the hunt. Then Livia lunges — an explosion of urgent movement — and they collide, a tangled heap of limbs and heat, half swallowed by the surging sea.

Cyrus and Livia through Pacific beaches, black tombs, steppe necropolises, Greek villas. She grabs his shorts and yanks them off. "Catch me!" she laughs into the dark. In a black tomb, the air is frigid and sharp, laced with something that prickles his skin. On the steppe, hooves thunder across the necropolis plain and his hands roam her back, nails digging in, marking him. She unties him from the temple rope, leaving a welt that stings hot and sharp. Her priestess mask slips as she wipes her chin. He pins her against a villa wall, wrists locked in his oil-slick grip.