The air in the National Portrait Gallery was thick and stale. It smelled of money. Old money, new money, desperate money. It was all the same to Selene. It smelled of decay. She held a flute of champagne, the bubbles dying against the crystal. The wine was cheap, hidden behind an expensive French label. A perfect metaphor for this city. A perfect metaphor for its men.
She let her eyes drift over the crowd. They called themselves the powerful. Senators, congressmen, lobbyists, chiefs of staff. They postured and preened in their tailored suits, their wives dripping with diamonds and quiet desperation. They were children playing dress-up in their fathers' clothes. She had known real power. She had slept beside it, commanded it, and died for it. These men were soft. They were pale imitations of the brutish, glorious Romans she had once bent to her will. A faint smile touched her lips, a cruel, private thing. They had no idea a true queen walked among them.
Her gaze swept the room, ignoring the hopeful glances of lesser men, and found him. Marcus. He stood near a shadowed archway, a ghost in a perfectly cut tuxedo. He looked like the other security details, all coiled muscle and watchful stillness. But his stillness was different. It was the stillness of a patient leopard, not a leashed dog. His eyes met hers across the sea of bodies. There was no flicker of recognition, no warmth. Only a command. He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod to his left.
The target.
Selene's eyes followed the direction. Congressman Daniel Whitman. Age fifty-eight. House Appropriations Committee. A champion of family values on camera, a man who beat his wife with words instead of fists behind closed doors. Marcus's dossier had been thorough. Whitman had a weakness for art, a desperate need to be seen as a man of culture. And he had a deeper, uglier weakness. A craving for intellectual women who could make him feel small. He wanted to be dominated, not by a whip, but by a mind sharper than his own.
Whitman was pontificating to a younger colleague, his face flushed with wine and self-importance. His wife stood beside him, a porcelain doll with cracks around her eyes. Selene watched the way the woman's smile never quite reached them. She saw the way Whitman placed a hand on the small of her back, a gesture that looked like affection but was pure ownership. Selene felt a flicker of ancient contempt. Men like him never changed. They just traded togas for tuxedos.
It was time.
She did not approach him. A queen does not chase. She allows herself to be sought. Selene moved with liquid grace toward a quiet alcove. A painting hung there, a dark, violent piece from the Italian Baroque. Artemisia Gentileschi. Judith Slaying Holofernes. A woman's fury rendered in oil and canvas. She stood before it, her back to the room, a solitary figure in a column of emerald silk that clung to every curve of her body. She knew the dress was a weapon. It whispered promises her eyes would never make. She waited.
The sound of his footsteps on the marble was heavy, certain.
"Powerful, isn't it?" Whitman's voice was a practiced baritone.
Selene didn't turn immediately. She let him wait, forcing him to admire the line of her back, the curve of her hip. When she finally did turn, she gave him a look of cool appraisal. "Some would call it brutal."
His eyes drank her in. He was trying to place her. He knew everyone in this room, or he thought he did. She was new. She was dangerous. "Daniel Whitman," he said, extending a hand.
She ignored it. "She painted it after she was raped," Selene said, her voice a low murmur. "She painted her attacker's face on Holofernes. It isn't just a story. It is a confession. An act of vengeance."
Whitman was taken aback. His hand dropped to his side. "An interesting interpretation."
"It's the only one that matters," she replied, her gaze flicking from his eyes, to his mouth, and back again. She could smell his cologne, something spicy and expensive. Beneath it, she could smell the faint scent of his sweat. He was already aroused. It was pathetic how easy it was. "Art isn't about what you see. It's about the secrets the artist couldn't bear to keep."
She watched his pupils dilate. He was a man drowning, and she was the storm. His gaze traced the line of her throat, down to the subtle swell of her breasts above the dress's low neckline. He thought he was being subtle. He was as transparent as the cheap crystal in his hand.
"You have a… unique perspective," he stammered.
"I have an honest one," she said. She took a deliberate step closer, invading his space. The scent of her perfume—jasmine, sandalwood, and something else, something wild and reptilian—enveloped him. "Tell me, Congressman. What secrets do you keep?"
His breath hitched. The air between them crackled. It was thick with unspoken things. The noise of the party faded into a distant hum. In this alcove, there was only the predatory queen and the mesmerized politician. He was losing his footing, his carefully constructed world tilting on its axis. He wanted her. Not just her body. He wanted the danger she promised. He wanted the oblivion she offered in her dark, knowing eyes.
"I..." He had no answer.
Selene gave him a slow, languid smile. The hunt was over. The prey was snared. "It was a pleasure," she lied, her voice a silken thread. She turned to leave, her job done. As she moved past him, her clutch bag tilted just so. A small, black card with the weight of heavy stock slipped from its clasp, falling silently onto the marble floor at his feet.
He stared at it. Selene kept walking, not looking back. She could feel his eyes on her, feel his indecision warring with his desperate, rising lust. She knew he would pick it up.
She swept out of the gallery and into the cool night air. The black town car was waiting at the curb, engine humming. The door opened and she slid inside. The scent of worn leather and Marcus's clean, masculine presence filled her senses. The professional mask she wore for the world dissolved.
He pulled away from the curb smoothly, merging into the D.C. traffic. He didn't speak for several blocks.
"He'll call before midnight," Selene said finally, her voice shedding its manufactured softness, regaining its true, imperious tone.
"I know," Marcus said. His large, warm hand moved from the gearshift and came to rest on her thigh, high up on the silk. His thumb stroked the sensitive skin of her inner leg. It wasn't a question or a request. It was a statement. Ownership. Partnership. A promise of the fire that burned only for them. "The suite is ready. Everything is in place."
She leaned her head back against the seat, closing her eyes. The first piece was in motion. Tonight, a Congressman would fall. Soon, an empire would follow.