14. Cross

“There. There … Godsdammit, Sin, Stop! What are we going to do with the popcorn now? Swim in it?” Meda stomps her foot in a hushed thud as I step into the war room, pushing through a hot, buttery haze.

Purple mirrored aviators falling off his nose, Sin’s got his hands stuck up his custom—microwave popcorn on these lips? Do I look like a peasant?—bright red, portable popcorn maker. “Sweetheart, I said say when. You never said it.”

To Meda, sweetheart is a code-red-don’t-expect-to-walk-away-with-your-balls-attached word.

Ironically, Sin’s lucky I’m in a shit-mood and can’t properly enjoy the matchup between them, the two-foot height discrepancy jabs write themselves. “Can we not?” I groan. “I want this over with as fast as possible.”

Meda tosses a glare at me, as if robbed her of one of life’s greatest joys, but stalks silently up the green carpeted risers to her seat.

In every one of our holdings—apartments, lofts, mansions, townhomes like this—the war room is selected using one simple metric—for obvious, had to learn the hard way reasons. Whichever room has the least breakable shit.

This one used to be a home theater until someone sent a seven iron through the massive screen. Rune’s unanimously been accused of the atrocity but since he’s our tech specialist, he wiped the security cams before anyone got proof.

Now the IMAX is a shattered backdrop for Atlas to gather status reports, and the scent of buttered popcorn gives me the urge to scheme.

Kind of like how the scent of spearmint will get me hard for years to come. And honeysuckle. And the ocean, and she’s in my shower right now. Using my soap, my towels. Mine. All. Mine.

Is she?The curse retaliates, jabbing a sharp stab of pain into my ribs. I bite down on my lip.

Give me more. Go ahead. The threat of agony’s the only reason I’m heeding Atlas’s council meeting, and not begging for a shower drain indent on my knee.

Her breathless, I changed my mind had hit my like a starting gun.

The curse held me back. Did she really change her mind?

She’d woken up with hot tears streaking down her cheeks, body wracked with shivers, taken a single look at me and flinched.

Vomited.

Worse than a knife to the spleen. I wanted to raze the world and lay its ashes at her feet. Wanted to vow I’d protect her from ever feeling that way again. But her nightmare, why did I have a sinking feeling it was about me? And it was more prophecy than memory?

Shit.

A sloppy licking sound precedes Sin’s dreamy, “You are killing the vibe majorly. Bitter melon rind and flambéed cherries. You’re giving me vertigo.”

My mental file on Sin flips open unnecessarily in my head. Tastes emotions.

Pushing six ten, body honed like the most savage dagger, Sinis—Sin as he preferred—is stuffed into skin tight maroon leather pants, and a black-and-white checkered beach polo stolen off Elvis’s corpse.

Every other day, he claims a different Godly parent, but the front runner in our pool remains aggravatingly constant: Aphrodite.

Olive skin, lilac eyes, a corona of golden hair. He’s so beautiful, he’s made a weapon of it.

“Quit being dramatic.”

“Me? You’re dunking me in buckets of hate and lust. I need a fan and grapes to calm down.” He gives me a double eyebrow lift. “Honestly, I’m surprised you slant so sugary, so fruity, thought you’d be more like scissorhands over there, and skew bloody when you’re feeling a certain type of way.”

I glance up at Drake sitting alone in an aisle seat and redact the last minute of information from my memory. He keeps his leather gloves laced in his lap, elbows secured firmly on the armrests. His black hair clutters around his pale temples, poised to fall. Drake’s file is sliver thin. For good reason. All the king’s personal executioner must do is touch another to learn their deepest, darkest fear.

Behind Drake, at the back of the theater, lording above the rest, Zeke’s slumped sideways, tearing pages out of a book, strips of white vellum floating to the floor.

He’s buzzed his mullet to a fine white fuzz, unintentionally stressing the jagged scars slashing through his eyebrows, ending just short of auburn lashes. He’s paler, like he’s not just seen a ghost, but been taken possession by one, and he’s lost weight too.

His army jacket—sans patches thanks to dishonorable discharge—hangs off his shoulders. The hollows in his cheeks are nearing sallow. At least, each rip of the book makes him smile. Small, but something.

Meda and Luke are locked in an arm wrestling match at the perfect center of the theater, her ruby ring shining against dark skin as she sinks teeth into her lip to concentrate.

The battle is surprisingly close, considering she’s a thief known for light footedness and Luke’s the super sized version of Heracles. Then again, she has the stubbornness of a born immortal and Luke doesn’t possess a drop of ichor.

Poor kid has had a crush on Meda since she told him nothing would ever happen between them.

That’s only five.

“Rune’s breaking into the phones we found,” Lev says, reading my mind. He raises his chin at me, plopped in the front, eyes dark with lack of sleep.

“A stranger in our home,” Atlas says from the dead center of the screen. He doesn’t yell, he doesn’t stray from his strict, even voice. Doesn’t need to. The leader of the Blackguard exudes lethal grace. Black designer suit flawlessly pressed. Oxfords glowing like spilled oil. Thick black hair styled to hide finely pointed ears.

“Have I not bled for you?” he asks. “Have I not protected you? Have I not been your family?”

I refuse to recoil, even as my throat burns with shame.

He’s done more than bleed. Two tattoos ring his neck. Twice the curse, twice the strain, twice as often. With the death of Calydon, the horrible cost of being our leader made itself known. Not even death frees us of the curse.

“What were you thinking?” Atlas continues. “Risking us—”

A piece of popcorn nails Atlas in the forehead, leaves a sticky yellow mark. “Come on, you big baby,” Sin croons, jogging up the risers to dump popcorn in Zeke’s waiting palms. “He met a female. He didn’t stake you in the heart.”

“A female who’s hurt one of mine.”

“Who?” I ask, breaking for my normal spot next to Lev.

Atlas gives the barest shake of his head, eyes narrowed. “I can smell you bleeding from here.”

“Me?” I sit on the edge of the black velvet. “I was shot. She didn’t pull the trigger.”

“You placed yourself in the line of fire for her.”

Shit. Lev tattled. There goes any chance of mentioning she’s fated to me. I gnaw on my lip. “She doesn’t control me, and she’s clueless about the effect she’s having on me.”

Sin sings “I’m not!” from the cheap seats.

“She put you in the Ballasts.” Lev. A snarl. Low and quiet.

“You begged to go to the Ballasts,“ I remind him. “You should thank her. You got your fight.”

Lev grunts, switching tactics to the classic gang-up as he tells Atlas, “He blacked out in the ring he was so distracted.”

“That’s my problem,“ I snap.

Angrier by the second, Lev launches to his feet, fills the space in front of me with corgi butts. “It’s not just your problem! If you die, what about us? What about Atlas?”

“It’s a fucking surface wound—”

“It’s still not healed. And she’s causing it.” He throws out his arms and half of us flinch. “What about the fire she started? Huh? I heard you two talking on the plane. We never kept secrets before her.”

Double shit. “We still don’t.” I would’ve told him. Eventually. Once she was far, far away. “All you’ve done is threaten her. You didn’t need more ammo.”

Silence.

Zeke’s head pokes up from the back row. His gaze is clouded, suggesting he’s stuck in the half reality, half fantasy world he gets trapped in. “Whose side is the spy on, again?”

I glare. “Are you kidding me, Z? I gave you that book.”

“Answer him,” Atlas commands.

Fury bubbles in my stomach. “Yours,” I croak, and it clogs in my throat like a lie. “I’m always on your side.”

The thought I haven’t let in rises, brilliant and evasive.

Royal library. The palace tattooed on her elbow. A knack for starting fires.

Effective, devouring fires.

I suffocate it as I look into my leader’s eyes, white knuckling my knees, tendrils of black leaking off my knuckles.

The Fates cackle.

Hold it. Do not say anything.

It can’t be possible. It’s an insane theory.

If she killed Kadmos, why would she seek out his most loyal subjects?

To sow discord. Divide us. Then the last people searching for the king’s killer would destroy themselves.

The creatures chasing her had been trained. Vinia’s males?

Shit.

“Ignore them,” Sin’s low, smooth purr echoes in my ear as he takes a seat next to me, hunkering down into the chair with ease. He shakes a bucket of popcorn in front of my face. “I can hear you overthinking,” he says casually. “Hungry?”

I can hardly focus on him with the treacherous heat rising inside me, unfurling, spilling, pounding on my skin to get free. “No. Thanks.”

“Here if you want it.” Then he’s leaning back in his seat, pushing mine back to match. He shuts his eyes and lets out a loud overexaggerated sigh. “She’s a pretty female,” he murmurs, a half-formed thought. “Beautiful. You’re lucky.”

“I am lucky.” I sigh.

Slowly, the tension leaves my body. The darkness simmering, my defenses dropping.

“I am lucky,” I repeat, insistent because he can’t grasp the extent of it. It’s a miracle that she even looks at me. And beyond that, she remembers my name. I let my shoulders sink into the seat, pretend the ceiling above us is made of stars.

“Whenever I meet a girl like that.” Sin’s voice is a calm, cool breeze. “I want to impress them, you know? It’s my move, dishing secrets. You ever let stuff slip?”

I picture Sin with a dark-haired woman whispering, dancing in the moonlight, and a relaxed feeling washes over me, like I’ve just taken a hit off a blunt. Like I’m lying in the grass with the boys, cravat loose at my throat, pilfered whisky on my tongue.

Kids swapping stories, nothing more. I glance over at Sin’s glittering purple eyes. “Leni tastes like syrup.”

He grins. Wolfish. “Delicious. Perfect in the morning, even better at night.”

I can’t help but smile. “And she’s so. Fucking. Beautiful. Her hair drives me up the wall. And she smells like honeysuckle. All the time. After the ocean, the shower … honeysuckle. It’s like heroin.”

“Yeah?” He raises an elegant eyebrow. “And what—”

“And those tattoos.” I groan, closing my eyes and savoring the image of her adorned body. “I want to memorize them.”

In agreement, Sin’s lips curve into a mischievous grin. “I admire a female who can handle a little pain. Especially in sensitive areas.”

He’s grinning. I’m grinning.

A chuckle rolls off his tongue. Somewhere an angel gets its fucking wings. “So … what does she know about you?” he asks.

My words come tumbling out unfiltered, a reveal I’ve been dying to make. “She only knows that I want her.” She has to, right? Yes. “Gods, wanting her is effortless. Easy. It’s the rest that burns me. I crave her, as if my every atom and cell and nerve solely exist to feel her. I wish it were as simple as wanting her, I need her. More than my next breath. Holding her is … it’s like feeling the full force of my immortality all at once.”

A weight settles between us and regret hacks at me—did I say too much?—but a cool breeze lifts my worries away again.

Sin runs his tongue over his teeth before speaking. “That’s a keeper. I’m happy for you.”

I laugh, careful, light. “I’m fucking miserable. All I want is her, and I don’t even trust her. She’s not telling me something.”

“Oh yeah? What about?”

“I don’t know. It’s just …” I turn to face Sin, feeling like I can confide in him without judgment or ridicule. Sin’s a great listener. “She asked me to … ruin her, but she won’t tell me why.”

He nods, contemplative, wholly absorbed in my problems, a true friend. “Do you think … fucking Hades! Who took my chapstick?” He lunges to his feet. “Zeke!”

“Idiot,” Meda snorts. “Look at his mouth. He doesn’t have it.”

Luke mutters something like, “Oh sure, you can look at his mouth but when I look at yours—”

Only to be cut off by Meda’s, “For starters, a chapped and cracked mouth is not getting me hot. Second, I told you—”

I block them out as freezing dread slithers into my stomach.

Sin’s file flaps in my head. Tastes emotions and influences emotions.

He played me.

Fire lights in my blood. “Fuck off with that or I won’t just cut off your hands. I’ll take your throat too,” I growl, knocking the popcorn out of his hands.

“Oh please.” Sin waves me off, annoyed, as if I should be grateful he reduced me to a mindless sap. “Don’t act like you weren’t gushing to gossip. I could’ve kept you there for weeks.”

I try to gather myself, to remember every word and find a mistake, an inaccuracy that I can cling to, a lie I have to cover up. There are none. Fuck. I dig the heel of my hand into my chin, crack my neck. Exhale. “I would’ve told you if you’d just asked. Don’t fucking do that to me.”

“Fine.” Atlas, a witness to my lovesick confession, cuts to the chase. “What does the female want from you?”

My jaw is bolted shut. “I wish I knew.” Truth.

“Have you slept with her?” Meda. Blunt.

Sin pipes up. “Isn’t it bloody obvious he hasn’t?”

“Are you going to?” Lev, a warning and question. Why does he torture himself?

I look up at the far seats. Drake staring blankly ahead, Zeke folding a paper Pegasus, Luke and Meda now separated by an entire row, Sin peeling polish off his nails.

What would they do if they were me?

Tell the truth. Not put the team at risk.

The Blackguard comes first.

I should make them say my name. See if they can.

My stomach rolls as I choose my words carefully. “She could have killed me, and she protected me. She helped me.” It’s not a fucking answer. “She didn’t have to. She won’t do anything to us …”

“Enough,” Atlas. Monotone. “The female’s too great a distraction. She goes. Now. And Cross, you’re with Rune until you can focus. Online surveillance.”

Rage, hot and jarring, starts to boil over. “She came to me for protection. Remember when we used to do that?”

Zeke quirks up. “Who’d come to us for protection?“ Like who’d go to the landfill for a cup of coffee?

“Never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but Cuckoo’s making sense. We don’t exactly have the hero card anymore.” I jump at the low tenor of Meda’s voice.

She’s not beside Luke anymore but poised on the stage beside Atlas and it speaks of her own gift that she snuck up on me. She’s drowning in an oversized hoodie, braids caught in the collar, dark circles under her eyes.

“Come on, boys,” she says, “It’s obvious what needs to be done.”

Sin starts laughing, in on the obvious.

I add a note to his file: complete asshole.

Meda sets golden eyes on me. “You need to sleep with her.”