6. Cross

Pain is all mental.

Once you understand that, you can train yourself out of it, convince yourself it isn’t deadly or crippling, that your bones remain in straight rigid lines and your guts are still neatly packed under straining muscle.

It’s easier to block it out if you experience it regularly, but the best way to trick yourself out of it, is remembering that you’ve endured worse.

Little pains, like the fleeting bite of Leni’s nails in my scalp, the jagged catch of her zipper breaking under my fingers, the snap of my ankle, I hardly register. And crushing pain, like losing a brother, a father figure, a purpose in the same year; I force myself to forever forget.

Happiness is invasive.

It’s smothering and relentless and impossible to ignore.

Leni eviscerates me with it.

Cheeks blossom pink, lashes vibrant blue. My name on her lips, her undiluted gaze despite being submerged in the depths of my power.

I don’t think either of us realized I’d moved until I was on her, hauling her into me, molding her chilled, wet body to my hard, blistering one.

She doesn’t retreat, doesn’t step back, doesn’t hover on the precipice of torture like she should. Gentle as the sun’s rays, she presses her lips to mine.

She remembers me, my name, knows who I am. Clutches me to her with shaky fingers.

I can overcome any pain, but happiness wrecks me.

Something ruptures in my brain when her mouth slightly parts under mine, like a grenade launching addictive blue shrapnel into my DNA. I slice off the surge of my power, ending the slashing shadows and darkness, terrified of the damage it’ll cause with her eyes closed.

The kiss is flavors of rain and metal and cautious, simmering hunger.

Leni is shy as she melds into me, as pliant as molten wax over a flame, ready to be poured into a sticky vibrant stain. Her tongue is delicate and exploring, electrifying as her hands carefully roam up the base of my skull, into my hair, grasping, tugging me down.

Sweltering desire flows through me, powerful and perilous. Adrenaline driven lust.

I swallow a sound as I lift her into my arms. Possessing newfound strength, I drift slightly apart to confirm it’s one of shock and not distress.

Without the impenetrable cover of darkness, a dense gray haze envelops us, reducing the street to muted silhouettes. The air feels heavy, dampening every noise except the rush of our swift, short breaths, sucking much needed air.

“That ...” She swallows, cheeks and throat flush. “Was unexpected.” Her eyes, usually ablaze with confidence, flicker with uncertainty, like a flame in the wind, faltering yet resilient.

Her fingers tremble against my skin, her touch a soft caress that sends shivers down my spine. A vulnerability that tugs at my soul. My heart beats faster than it has in decades.

She remembers me.

I crave to pull her closer, to erase the distance between us and lose myself in the abyss of blue, but distrust drips onto me like acid rain.

She’s lying to you. She doesn’t want you. Look at her.

“Look at me,” It slips out, studded with disgust.

I should stop.

If I had honor, if I had self-respect.

She asked you for it, didn’t she?My conscience is corrupt. She asked you for much, much more than this. Hesitant and bumbling. Take it.

Fates ruin me for the urge swirling through my blood.

See how far you’ve fallen? How despicable you’ve become. How greedy.

Eyes sleepy and drugged, she lets me press her into the stone, lets me slide my hips between her thighs while I suck at her throat and dip my hands into the seam of her coat.

Instantly, I forget who I am.

Lace scours her body, tight and gripping.

My fingers glide down her near-bare midriff, stroking over the sparkling corset of embracing flower petals as delicate as smoke. “I knew you were dangerous,” I growl at her, taking her neck with my mouth, shoving her tighter into the wall, hands roaming, finding the hem of the pink puffer and forcing it up.

So fucking greedy.

Stockings cling to her thighs, glittering like crushed diamond, big looped satin bows mark the ends, pucker against her silky skin.

A spark ignites deep within my chest, fuels me to protect and possess her, as if I’m not still clutching a knife.

As if she didn’t try to kill me.

Pain is a straightforward enemy, easily beaten by time and resilience.

Happiness will picnic on my grave.

Happiness is diabolical. It’s so fucking convincing. This girl, it whispers, strangling my better sense, setting locks on my files. She tastes like syrup.

Sweeter.

She remembers you, she wants you, hurry before she doesn’t. Forget everything else, chase this feeling.

Never let go of it.

A frantic, exploring grind of her hips against my hard, throbbing shaft pours fire and ice into my veins, torture and rapture. I press my forehead against her shoulder, heart slamming into her, and inhale rain and honeysuckle. My hand traces up her throat, taking hold of wet blue hair. She freezes, eyes hooded, mouth bruised.

I grip the back of her neck, drag my mouth up her throat. “Don’t stop,” I command raggedly. “Don’t you ever stop.”

Thank the Gods, she listens, hips rolling into me, thoughtless, hurried, hungry, entire body clutching me.

Happiness can suffocate you in a thousand excruciating waves. The small whimper of her mouth, the frustrated pull of my hair, the hook of her ankles behind me, locking us together, the way she says hot, like she doesn’t mean to, like she’s out of her fucking mind too, like she can’t believe she’s doing this.

We are. We are going to do this. Right here, in the miserable gray sleet, Happiness demands, raising the potency, now. Hurry!

And so we’re entwined, kissing, laving, desperate strangers in an alley on a wretched night. And I’m drunk on her, on this, diving headfirst into Happiness’s shallow waters. I forget to forget.

Forget the shackles inked on my skin, cinching tighter and tighter.

Pain can be ignored, but not when happiness is close.

Leni yelps, pushing back abruptly, smacking my arm. “Ow! Get off—”

She scrambles out of my arms, hissing, cradling her bottom lip. There’s pink on her face, and goosebumps dancing down her throat, tears in her eyes. A drop of pale blood spilling from her mouth.

My stomach drops.

I bit her. When the muscle in my thigh torqued around a busted femur, I clenched against the pain and ... I bit her. Hurt her.

The rain is an icy slap against my face as I watch her wipe the drop away, stare at the shimmery pink that definitely isn’t mine.

The alley smells of singed hair and old trash, and I wish I wasn’t so accustomed to it, to shadows and grime. But here I am, in this Godsforsaken place with a woman who has come to me for reasons I don’t understand.

She’s shivering and her lips are losing the pink flush, paling. Her vibrant waves are tangled around her face like she’s been caught in a windstorm.

She looks at me, touching her mouth. “It burns.”

Something inside me stirs. It’s not lust or desire, it’s oily and black and it makes me long to disappear. The wrongness of this moment.

Sucking on her teeth, she advances a half step forward. “Cross? Don’t—”

Done lurking in the background, pain charges. My leg quits supporting me. I crash to the side, smack the ground, bite my tongue, bang my head.

Happiness is a distraction.

And it flogs me. I lash against it, but it has hooks in me, marrow deep.

“Cross?” Worried fingers graze my arm.

I must groan, because her lashes flutter, and then she’s closer, toes licking at the inseam of my thigh.

One unbearable thought presses on me, pushes down my throat and takes root in my ribcage. Her skin is warm. She’s not cold. She’s shaking because she’s scared.

She should be.

My wrist snaps. The curse bands are buzzing, narrowing. I’ve lost too much blood and air. Pain seizes my chest, and still, horrible covetous thoughts rule me.

Touch her. She wants you too. She asked.

No. I clench my teeth.

I’m not a monster.

I strive to relax and command the shadows to overtake her, to douse any memory of me, any fear.

Black flames. I think it so hard, I smell it before I sag into the abyss.

Iwanted to be nothing. Nobody.

I didn’t admit it, out loud, not back then, but I craved to disappear.

Every mortal yearns for the unimaginable.

I was born with a lofty title, with means and land, and immense vacuous power, all for happening to be born first and in the gender society preferred.

England was small then, but my own self-importance made it smaller. I hated my status and the expectations bound to it. Properties and servants. Marriage. Heirs.

I rebelled against my birthright, a spoiled lad seeking liberation in the gutters of London.

Days before I turned seventeen, I pledged myself as a spy in service of the Queen under a fake name and no skills and for nine years, for Her Majesty, I pretended to be nobody.

Until I didn’t have to pretend at all.

The ruse sank into my bones, etched lines of fatigue on my face, corrupted memories with false stories.

When my lieutenant sent me home to Mayfair, nothing had changed. There remained a harsh boundary between the lucky and the not. Time changed, I changed, but the rules of society did not.

Atlas found me stuck in the front gate of my estate, unable to enter. The servants hadn’t recognized me. Didn’t know my name, had no memory of me. Not at the house, not the club I frequented, not the neighbors or the church.

No one knew who I was.

“No one’s inside,” Atlas greeted in a harsh, American accent. “They’re in the country, attending a wedding. A fancy affair. Lowborn and a duke, a love match.” He sounded impressed, rather than disgusted, as he wiped his hands with a clean hanky, and tucked it in the pocket of his trousers.

Unrefined.

Barbaric Yankee, I’d thought.

Atlas invited me to share a scotch at the gentlemen’s club, where he shattered my world, and asked for my help.

He convinced me to board a boat. Sail across the ocean.

I was still in my uniform, sashes steamed, buttons gleaming when I met King Kadmos.

He didn’t look up when we entered his study. His desk was a sea of maps and parchment, battalion markers playing paperweight. Toward the back of the room, a sword laid haphazardly in its sheath beside stained glass windows, flung open despite the storm rumbling on the horizon.

The king wore no elaborate jewelry, no crown, only a basic linen shirt. He was unshaven and his black hair was cut unfashionably short. A wide chest and sturdy stance suggested he still fought more battles on the ground than in an office.

“My king.” Atlas bowed, fist over his heart.

“Son,” returned the king. “And you ought to be the male who can hide in plain sight.” Kadmos reached for my hand. “Do not look so shocked. There are a great many things I can do that no other has accomplished,” A charming wink. “Come in, my friend. Let us see if you are the same. If we may achieve something Zeus never could.”

I’d served crowns before, and I thought I knew what royals were—regardless of their blood and which Gods they served, regardless of what they over-promised.

Kadmos was different. Maybe because creatures chose him to be their king, or because he was a Demigod.

We stood until we sat, conversing like teenagers with grandiose, rosy ideas of the future, except our dreams and goals were tangible, our desired reality close.

No creature-on-creature violence. An end to the Gorgon genocide. No solitary creature would dominate, we would co-exist and eventually live freely with mortals.

Peace.

Kadmos was the only creature in the world powerful enough to believe it attainable, a half-blood hero and Pandora’s prized student. One of only three in mortal history.

When lightning turned the night sky white, Kadmos lounged backward on a velvet chaise, fingers steepled under his chin. “If you’d like it then,” he said. “I’d welcome you to join my Kingsguard.”

I had no idea that it was an interview, an initiation until Atlas nudged me to sink to one knee. The oath tumbled from my lips unbidden, the pledge of undying loyalty.

A flicker of pleasure lit the king’s amber eyes.

“Hereafter,” Atlas said, ripping the royal patches from my shoulders. “You’re sworn to protect and serve the great King Kadmos until the end of time.”

Kadmos placed his hand on Atlas’s shoulder, a tender father during a proud moment. “I am not a selfish ruler,” he told me, eyes sparkling. “In return for your service. I offer you protection from mortal weaknesses. I will transform your greatest skill into your sharpest weapon.” He cleared his throat and brought a jeweled chalice to my mouth. “Drink.”

I drank.

Choked on the thick cloying taste, like spiked honey.

The fire dwindling in the hearth snuffed, and every candle lost its flame.

“Hmm,” Kadmos mused in the darkness. “A good omen, I think.”

My body was sluggish, my mind collapsing. Atlas held me limp in his arms as Kadmos, Final in the line of Hope, branded my chest with his signet. The eternal flame.

I didn’t ask questions, didn’t hiss at the burn. I summoned the courage to meet the king’s gaze, devotion and trepidation warring within me.

He planned to fix the world, to usher in a new golden era.

He had my allegiance, body and soul, even if it led me to ruin. The die was cast. There was no turning back.

None of us considered failure an option.

No matter that Kadmos was a constant target of the most dreadful kind of creatures, and of the Gods. We saw his vision, lived and breathed and endured to ensure he reached it.

Failure became even more distant of a thought as Atlas built the guard stronger. Tempted Drake to join, collected Rune from a bad prophecy. Lev came looking for a right after too many wrongs. The Kingsguard expanded without weakening, each link indestructible.

We were the shield of Kadmos and we were impenetrable. Polished steel and unbreakable.

Until we weren’t.

I’m slow to wake.

Fog pours down the street, overrunning a symphony of hammering rain and panicked shouts.

Time loses me, or I lose it. I go from respectably upright to pathetically sprawled. The haze transforms into solid, tacky smog and the rain pummeling the ground gets drowned out by boots on pavement and harmonized sirens.

A door slams, a brass bell jingles.

Leni’s shoving me onto a suede settee when I finally open my eyes. Behind her are mismatched chairs overturned on tables. A chalkboard menu. Five euros for Earl fucking Grey?

“What are you made of?” She’s panting. The butts of her palms gouge my shoulders—left of which is definitely dislocated—while the top of her head jams tight to my sternum.

Sweet smelling hair tickles my nose.

“I am not a necrophiliac,” she huffs at me. “I’m not losing you now.” A strained groan as she shoves me back. “I sat in economy for ten hours. Ten. Hours. Middle seat and I didn’t even get the armrests. Man-spreading pigs ...”

Her rant devolves into a groan, and near silent muttering.

I try to help, but my gaze leaks to the smog billowing outside like smoke from a massive fire. The acrid stench overpowers the store’s faint scent of bleach and coffee.

Could it be possible my king died from arson?

Leni trips, forehead smacking my neck, hands sliding around my middle. “One last one,” she says, attempting to hoist me onto the cushion. “Come on.” She shifts, just a little, gasps. “Is that a gun?”

Fast as lightning, she wrenches the Sig from my holster and cradles it in front of her.

“He has a gun,” she mutters, twisting the matte black in her grip, shaking her head and finally—blessedly—gingerly placing it on a nearby table. “Unbelievable.”

I feel her gaze rake over me, and I try all at once to absorb the pain, but I’m too weak, drained from the fight, the curse, her. Especially her.

“I’d use it,” she continues, circling back to me, forcefully fluffing the pillow behind my head, oblivious to the fact that I’m awake. “If a male was coming at me, I’d shoot. Anyone would, but you didn’t.” She sighs, the same way she did against my mouth. “Of course you didn’t. Gods, you really are perfect, aren’t you? Please, do not die.”

Polite, even when talking to a corpse.

Her fingers trail over my forehead, caressing, kind.

I blurt, “Don’t—” Don’t comfort me, touch me, talk nicely, nothing actually comes out.

“Cross?” Her arms wrap around me, looping, grip comforting, and it’s the most effective she’s been in moving me, the both of us spilling across the couch together.

She’s hugging me.

It hurts, but I allow myself to surrender to her embrace, let her shimmy up my torso and push the hair off my forehead.

A slight smile graces her lips. “I was so worried.” Those pale eyes drip to my mouth, linger there for a moment. “I thought ...” she trails off, choked with emotion. “Stop doing that, will you? Passing out doesn’t negate our deal.”

“Noted.” I manage to say, hauling myself to sit. Drag a hand across the back of my neck, chew on the edge of my lip.

Leni’s sleeves are rolled up, blue hair tucked haphazardly behind her ears. She dragged me here from the alley, rescued me.

“You know,” I say, suddenly awkward. “I’ve never heard ‘Gods’ and ‘perfect’ used in the same sentence.”

“You’ve never met one then,” she retorts, emptying a napkin holder into her palm. “They don’t open their mouths without claiming Divine righteousness. Blowhards.”

Fuck, she’s making me smile. “I’ve also never met a creature unafraid of the Gods.”

I track her across the room, watch her wet a napkin from the hot water dispenser.

“If they wanted to punish me, they’d just go on letting me figure this all out on my own.”

“Fuck the Gods.”

Her gaze snaps to mine.

I smirk and raise lead filled arms to the ceiling. The heavens beyond.

Wait.

No lightning, no tidal wave, no gold tipped arrow through the chest.

Her lips hitch into a smile.

“I guess we’re the same,” I say, heart pounding in my chest.

“Not even close.” Her gaze shimmers as she melts to her knees in front of me, wrings out the napkin and wipes it along my hand. “They can’t punish you. They didn’t make you, so you’re not in their domain. A mortal imbued with immortal abilities. You’re ...” Our eyes lock under the glow of a plump yellow lamp. “You have power—real power—that you can control without worrying how the Gods will punish you if you actually embrace it. We’re nothing alike.” Her voice is not amused anymore. “You’re free.”

She switches her attention to my knuckles, clearing blood from cuts. Red blood. Dark and flat. Human blood.

“And you’re not free?” I ask.

“How badly are you hurt?” she asks as she pushes back my sleeves, exposing my tattoos. Sidestepping the question.

I smother a wince when she dabs my torn wrist. “Pain is temporary.”

She snorts. “I’d heard rumors about your skills in battle, but you were ...” She leans in, bringing honeysuckle and rain. “They don’t do you justice.”

“I’m not used to such an enraptured audience.” Not usually trying to show off.

“Would you have hit him, if he didn’t step on me?”

“No.” I would’ve let him tire out like a puppy mid zoomies.

“Thank you,” she says, back to wiping gravel from my cuts. “For defending me. Not that I needed it. I had a plan to make him regret involving me.”

“Another glorious plan.” I picture her in the ring, holding my gun between a pinched thumb and pointer, wobbly voice threatening to shoot. “Let me in on it.”

Mischief dances in her smile. “I can’t just give that information away. I might need to put thumb tacks in your shoes someday.”

“Punch me instead.” I flip my hand to grip hers, fold her fingers around the stained napkin. “Like this.”

She laughs, light and breathless. “No. Gods no. That’s the worst plan since ... not the birth of Gaia, but certainly the invention of marriage.”

“It’s absolutely not.”

“Yes it is,” she insists. “You haven’t thought it through at all.”

“I haven’t?” I’m smiling, leaning forward, desperate for her sharp return.

“No!” She’s irate, pale eyes inches from mine. “How would it work precisely? Do I summon a step stool at the same place I acquire a spine and when my knuckles shatter against your steel jaw, do I muffle the scream of pain or is crying at you integral to your ultimate humiliation?”

She makes an adorable know it all. “Find a spine?” I ask.

“Metaphorically. Holding an actual spine seems ...” She shudders.

“Unhygienic?”

“Bony.”

My mouth twitches. “If you pay extra.”

She studies me like she’s not sure whether I’m a threat or a joke, head tilted, wisps of navy hair falling across her forehead.

“I’m not a violent creature,” she says. “But a sweaty foot touched my hand. There should be a special forest of punishment for that in Tartarus.”

“And you claim to have no spine.”

Her cheeks flush. “Technically—”

“Technically,” I cut in. “You stole the watch of Lev Mikhailov’s dead father off his wrist. You extorted me, you entered my name into the cutthroat of the Ballasts.” I catch her chin in one hand, lifting her face to mine. “You offered yourself to me. And you did it all in a bright pink coat and blue hair and no one stopped you. Perhaps the Gods have left you alone, Leni, because you’re ten steps ahead of them.”

The flush spreads over her cheeks and down her throat, whether from embarrassment of being caught or some other emotion, I can’t tell.

“Whose name did you enter in the Ballasts?“ I ask, skipping over the obvious why did you enter my name, for genuine curiosity.

It couldn’t be as vague as the Blackguard, but there wasn’t enough time for her to gather my name and then provide it to the showrunner before I arrived. Unless she’s working with Hermes.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.” Her eyes drop. Dismissive, guilty.

I lean forward, bringing our eyes to the same level. The contrast of the powder blue and black of her pupils is striking. Harrowing. Mesmerizing. “Answer the question.”

She dabs at the lines in my palm, clearing nothing. Mumbles under her breath.

I shouldn’t press. I do. “What was that?”

“Shadow daddy, okay?” She rips the skin of my palm on her next swipe. “Don’t look so smug, I couldn’t put ‘homicidal silhouette’.”

I’m positive I’ve never been more smug. “Too many syllables?” I tease.

“Oh shut up,” She pins me with an annoyed, definitely putting tacks in my shoes glare. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Got me there. “Almost fatally well.”

“If you wanted to deter me. You should’ve used the daggers or the gun. That you didn’t just confirmed everything I’d already guessed.”

I tense. “And what is it exactly that you know about me?”

She shrugs nonchalant, but doesn’t face me.

“Leni.”

I cling to the curve of the couch, waiting for my name again. My name from those lips, bracing for happiness to siege. But what she says next is worse. Forces me to take a single sawed breath against the burn on my chest.

“I know,” she says quietly, resolutely. “That despite the rumors you’ve spread, that you’re still Kingsguard, through and through.”

My lungs empty.

Happiness always turns into the same thing: dread.