18. Sin

18

Sin

high pressure showerhead

Water drips from Nat’s red lips down her chin to chase the firm lines of her throat.

And I sit here, swallowing angry puffs of steam while my legs lose feeling.

Furies don’t bow.

I want to point out irony as she’s on her knees for me, trembling from water long gone cold. Her olive skin has paled and tightened, and the silver throbbing in her veins resembles lightning crackling on her cheeks and the insides of her arms.

I don’t want her here.

I don’t want hands touching me or pity soaked expressions.

I don’t need to be watched like a drunk on a roof, attention desperate and reckless.

But I don’t ask her to leave.

So Nat stays.

She’s freezing and doesn’t seem to realize it. Her expression is not the kind reserved for a pathetic display, but livid with war and bloodshed.

“It’ll be fast,” she tells me, grip firming on my thigh. “I won’t be able to help it. Fast and messy, she won’t realize it’s the end before it’s finished. She’ll still be planning her escape, and there will still be wonderful hope in her heart when I cut it out. And when she’s bone and blood and flesh, I’ll replace one of her eyes with a drachma and my Aunt Megaera will dismantle her the same way a river carves a mountain. Slow and determined until hope itself torments her, whispering wickedly for her to endure the agony.”

She doesn’t flit around the uncomfortable. Brash and fierce to the marrow, she lances the worst straight through the heart.

Against the laws of physics, I am hopelessly hard.

Freezing, drunk, miserable.

Craving .

I brush the soaked strands of dark hair from her cheek. “I wish I knew what you were really feeling,” I taunt.

A flush ignites the electricity in her face. “Oh,” she drawls. “Did too much time pass without you in charge of the talking stick?”

I smile to throw her off the truth, give her the lazy and arrogant one, the one that makes a line appear on her forehead.

There .

The air is suffuse with lemons, tart and bitter and drowning.

“In my defense, if we had a literal stick, you’d bludgeon me with it, darling.”

She scoffs, but her lip tugs up on one side. Irritated that I understand her, pleased all the same. “You’d deserve it.”

Yes. “I deserve plenty, love, but there’s only a handful of things I actually want.”

There’s not enough space between us now. Her hand is high on my thigh. A retreat from the ice that pools nasty delight into my veins. It makes me want to add ice to the stream so she curls in further.

It’s the same instinct that made her lean into me after Calion took his liberties, and it strokes a long dormant chord in my blood, the pleased tremor of helping.

However needlessly.

She peers at my mouth. A moth dancing around a flame.

If I wait long enough, she’ll tell herself to circle a little closer, yearn for a little warmer until it’s too late to turn back.

I don’t want her like this.

“Soul seeing,” I say, extinguishing the flame between us. “Cool party trick. How’s it work? 3D goggles? Make a circle with your left foot while you scatter dirt on a pile of bones?

Whatever I can see and fucking run away from.

“It’s not a trick, it was a gift.”

“A gift ?” I can’t keep the revulsion from my voice. “Let me guess, the Gods blessed you?”

“Hades blessed all Erinyes with the insight of auras. I know everything I need to the moment I read an aura. Good, evil, shades in between. Who should die and who should live.”

Immediate and embarrassing fear webs across my chest.

Everything?

I get defensive. “So you’ve lost the ability to cast judgment yourself. What a gift, indeed. The Gods are great, generous monsters, giving you license to kill without having it mar your conscience.”

Her gaze darts down, flashes with some nebulous emotion, before she’s snarling at me, “It weighs.”

My only thought is to drag her down and rot with me, make us both miserable wine soaked messes. “Yes dear, I’ve witnessed how ardently bloodshed affects you.”

Neither of us says a word for a full minute.

Saliva pools in my mouth, an apology winding forward to stop the sheer look of hatred sliced on her soft features.

I wonder why I like the look of it.

Who shredded the last of my humanity and made me greedy for her hate.

I soak in a sea of lemon.

Lavishing, breathing.

Comprehending only the brittle mist and the pool of water between her leg and my thigh. Cold, I’m so intensely cold I shouldn’t be able to move, much less feel.

She’s colder than me, fingers wrinkled and swollen, icy and shocking when she grabs my throat. Squeezes.

She raises up on her knees, sweet painted lips curved slightly, eyes lit with fire.

She was beautiful tonight in the dress I bought for her, mile long curves on display, but this is where she shines. Right before she kills. Red lips parted, eyes hooded.

She strangles me, and I hardly notice that my lungs burn, and my breaths have become rasps.

Killing me.

An evening with them, and I’m back in that moment, finding utter relief with death. Longing for it.

A fist pounds on the door. “Hey! You in there?”

Atlas.

Horror hits.

Nat scrambles backwards, keeping her hands elevated as if they’re evidence. She opens her mouth and nothing comes out.

I’m selfish enough to wish she’d finished the job. Terrified for my brothers to see me like a morose deviant, I wipe my face, call out, “Yeah. Just …”

Wait? Don’t come in.

Both will make them charge.

We’ve invited a Fury into our house. A Fury who can see precisely how far we’ve fallen, as clear as if she’s reading a list of transgressions.

I slap my cheek, shake feeling into my legs and grab the shower niche to pull myself up, ready to grin and crack a joke and pretend the laugh doesn’t sting.

Nat moves faster, tearing the wet robe down her arms, pushing me down, repositioning herself over me and spreading her legs to straddle my thighs.

“Is this okay?” she asks, not looking at me, adjusting her dress to ride high on her hips, wet fabric bunching. She pushes us together.

My hand slips. I sit.

I must nod or she gets impatient because she leans over me, elbows finding solace on my shoulders. Her breath mingles with mine, creating the only heat in the realm. “Is this okay?”

I grip her hip limply. Am I dead? “Yes.”

Fingers scrape into my hair, soft. “Is this—”

I’m numb, dumb, and hard as fucking steel. “It’s all okay,” I rasp. “Whatever you want. However you want.”

I’m yours.

The words flash, but I suffocate them.

The door crashes inward, splinters flying into our cloud. Atlas’s custom matte black 22 pins us. Next to the muzzle, Lev rubs his shoulder, chin lowered in anticipation of a fight.

“You broke my door,” Nat greets dryly.

Lev pivots on his heel, giving us privacy. Atlas swears, barrel lowering. “Uh …”

Streaks of silver burst across his cheeks, and …

Nat’s a genius.

From the angle, they don’t really see me, just her, half naked, draped across me, her silver streaked skin exposed.

“Yes?” There’s an edge to her voice. And I know without a doubt she’s shooting them daggers with those tender brown eyes.

Atlas sets his safety.

“Well?” she prompts, haughty, better than us, clearly knows it. “What is it? You forgot how to knock?”

“Sin hasn’t been to his room.”

“Obviously.” She makes a little noise in her throat, as if she can’t believe the leader of the Blackguard, the King’s right hand, the commander of battalions, is certifiably stupid. “Since he’s been in here. With me.”

Lev coughs the Russian equivalent of no shit Sherlock.

“What is it then?” she clips. “You need help opening a jar? Tying your shoes? Perhaps there’s a lightbulb that you’ve all committed to changing.”

“We were …”

I’ve never heard Atlas pause.

Now he’s done it twice.

And Nat doesn’t let up. “You were barging into my private bathroom.”

As though he’s forgotten, Atlas looks at the door falling off its hinges. “Yes.” He grimaces.

Lev pulls his hair, kicks wood debris aside. “Fuck. Luke’s gonna kill us.”

“Sin?”

Atlas won’t leave without command from me. No matter that it seems as though I’m currently fucking the realm’s most fearsome warrior. Heart pounding, I use the scraps of my power to shove ease into the room, and say, “The report can wait until morning.”

With stilted agreements, the two leave, sending backward glances at Nat wrapped in my lap, lovely and warm.

She’s Brilliant.

As soon as the bedroom door shuts, she pushes to her feet, and a new flush of heat singes me. She’s beautiful. Soaked to the bone, shuddering, dress like tissue paper on her skin, near translucent.

I’m not worthy.

“I have plenty choice,” she informs me as she turns off the water, wrings out her hair. “Every creature there tonight was worthy of a hunt, and maybe I’ll be the lucky one to deliver it. Maybe I’ll leave it to Theia. But I will be the one to finish Lesenia. She’s my choice to hunt. Do not presume that because you swore to do every bidding of a powerful male, that I did too.”

She turns her back on me, as though the conversation’s done just because she’s decided it is.

“Nat.”

She doesn’t turn, just hovers at the threshold.

“Why her?” I rasp. “Why is she your pick?”

“I don’t need to defend my decisions to a Blackguard.”

“Please, Nat. Help me sleep tonight, I … I need it.”

She looks up at the ceiling for a long moment, fingers balling into fists and releasing. Glances back at me. “Because her aura wasn’t just black, it moved. And when she touched you, it sunk hooks into yours and darkened it.” She steps forward, putting wet toes on the bedroom carpet. “And I won’t stand for that.”

I scramble to stand, slipping on tile as I chase her, rushing. “Let me take you to bed.”

She laughs, harsh and cruel.

At last. The disgust I expected when she found me here.

I follow her, misery gone, replaced by desperation. Embarrassment. “No, I mean, let me put you to bed, let me …” I gather her hair in my hand, smooth the drenched strands between my fingers, and drop my voice, “Let me dry you off, warm you up, let me …” Fix this guilt . “Let me repay you.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t be kind to me. It won’t change anything between us. I’ve already seen your soul. I know your fate.”

I don’t need to hear it.

She’s told me enough.

I watch as she reties the wet robe around her waist, opens the porch doors to crickets and humidity and steps into the darkness.

She’ll kill me.

And I’ll probably fucking let her.