26. Nat

26

Nat

three inches of holy water

I’m ironing out the details of a mass murder plot when Sin kisses me. His oversized hands find the edges of my jaw as he slants his mouth over mine, using force to part my lips.

He kisses me the way he does battle. Quick and precise and with a finesse that’s unnecessary. Defending, attacking, flaunting.

Slow , I want to say as my fingers slip from their hold, submerging in holy water as I fall back from him.

His body chases mine as smooth as water hugging a cliff face. Chest to chest, skin to skin, his hand slides down my arm, splashes and clamps over mine at the bottom of the pool, pads stamping down on my nails, pushing.

He pushes me.

“Give it to me, Bloodspiller.”

His fingers bury in my hair, fingertips dragging my skull, bringing me to him.

My mind reels. My free hand shakes where it rests, half on his shirt, half suspended in the air. Unsure if I should push or pull.

Fury and glory and justice teem within me, begging like hellhounds to be freed. To shed a mask of docility and seize and plunder and push like I was born to. I leash it back with steel hooks.

Sin’s tongue brushes across the line of my teeth, flicks up in some erotic, dizzying way that sends a pulse through me, knots heat in my stomach.

He makes a sound.

Quiet, muted. Sort of angry.

As if he can taste all the hate dumping into me, and he’s trying to wash it away.

I wish it were hate. I wish I had such an easy thing to blame for my unraveling.

My fingers tangle in his shirt. Greedy. I hate him. I hate his nicknames. I hate how effortless he is. I hate how strong he is.

I hate that I don’t have a longer list.

He grips my waist firmly, painfully, reminding me where I am and who I’m with. Then he forces my chin upwards, kisses me deeply. Perfectly.

I hate how much I want this.

My body is a traitor, delving into him, demanding he set me on fire. My mind is a horrible place, spinning out glossy, filthy possibilities. Sin hoisting me in his arms, ripping a waist high slit into the swaths of my skirt, gripping my thighs, spreading them. Arousal shoots through me.

He’d be so good.

Consuming good, crushing good, ruining me good.

No going home good.

“Oh my.” Lesenia’s voice slithers between us, sweetly venomous,

I detangle from Sin immediately, shoving back. Embarrassed to be caught. Panting.

Sin doesn’t move, strong, powerful body staying over me like a shield, eyes dark, lips swollen.

He huffs short, hot breaths on my mouth. He smells like clove and the taste of his wine is sweet on my tongue. Ignoring the intruder, Sin clutches me harder.

“You like me,” he says under his breath.

It feels like an accusation, like something I need to dismiss, reject, but then he repeats it, neat pleading, you like me , and the hair on my arms raises under a cool breeze. “Pretend a little longer.”

The amethyst is beautifully dark when he opens his eyes, pupils devouring as they pin me. I recognize this face, this broken, scared face he gave me in the shower.

He doesn’t want me, he’s playing their game. Her game.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” the queen wretch trills.

Sin’s hand flexes over mine, lifts. He turns.

Ignoring the hurt behind my ribs, I raise my chin. I can no longer be a bystander to his silent agony. With the might of an Erinyes, I fill the space between him and Lesenia, my back pressing against Sin’s chest—a wall of flesh and bone.

Tension riddles his warrior’s frame, a coiled spring ready to burst.

Pretend .

Not a skill I’ve mastered.

“Apologies, I was entirely distracted.” Sin’s jovial, but his gaze holds the weight of a challenge bolstered by the spread of his arm across my chest, how he pulls me firmly into him.

Desire flares.

The thrall latches onto me like a noose.

You want it? Take it.

“Yes, it appears you were.” A queen ruling court, Lesenia beckons a tray of canapes to her, giving the offering severe scrutiny. “You’ve been busy, Sinis. Hedone. Maxine's. You used to prefer time in bed, or do you need an audience to keep it interesting?” She pops a raspberry tart in her mouth.

I taste ichor on the back of my throat.

Sin’s pulse is slow at my back. “I do enjoy showing off my prizes.”

“ That ”—Lesenia licks her fingers—“I recall well.”

Her blistering blue gaze drops down his body, peeling him apart. “You’ve gotten so bland. Unoriginal, Sinis, you once took such pride in your body. Shame on you for allowing it to be ruined by that nasty ink.”

Sin goes stiff at my back. “Yes, you preferred a collar that bounced when I fucked you.”

She takes a sharp breath in, and smiles, resembling a wolf tired of being the biggest beast in the forest, fat and full and bored. “You could take off my collar. But you didn’t, did you?”

I reach to my neck, to his forearm banded there, unsure if I want to hold him still or pry myself free.

Lesenia’s nose wrinkles. “And you’ve got shackles too. Yes, you’ve flourished without me. Really, Sinis. You couldn’t leave well enough alone. Your father must be so disappointed.”

“Don’t speak of him.”

A sleek blonde brow arches. “Does he not know that you’re back here? What about what you’ve done? Why do you hide it from him? He’d be proud of you. Finally taking over his mantle. Unless, of course, you don’t plan on staying.”

“I’m only visiting.”

“Varley said you asked him about his assets and then inquired the same of Emil and Rufus while you trotted out this beast for them to see.”

I bare my teeth, but Sin’s unaffected. “You try having a conversation with them that isn’t about their holdings.”

“I thought the same,” she returns dryly. “Until Varley mentioned you questioned mine. You don’t assume my name comes up without my hearing about it?”

“A segue to inquire after your health.”

He’s so good at pretending. How much of him is pretend? Does it ever stop?

“You always were my puppy dog, trouncing after me.” She reels in close, smelling of the most expensive perfume. “There is no one here who would dare betray me, my Lord. You know that. No doubt your knees are still chapped from when you begged for them to help. You were never meant to be off a leash, mutt.”

The air sucks out of the cathedral.

The reins on my thrall slip. Rip through my palms and split the skin open wide.

“I’m not here for memory lane.” Sin’s voice is icy, his grip tight. “I want to buy and nothing else.”

“Then buy.” Lesenia chortles, gesturing about. “I don’t know why you must always drag me into your dramas.” She tickles her fingers over the desserts, deciding which to devour next. “You play the part of jilted lover flawlessly.”

“I’m after a Phoenix.”

Her hand drops. Her countenance breaks. “A Phoenix,” she hisses, stepping close to him, ignoring my presence. “Sinis, you must stop fooling around now. So you wore a shield for a bastard king. It means nothing. We’ve all heard you beg for me, seen those pretty tears run. Did you suppose because you finally did something clothed, we’d respect you for it? Treat you like anything but what you are? You are a tool for my enjoyment. You are here because I am forgiving. I will forget you said anything. Do not mention this again.”

The thrall leaks potent adrenaline into me, whispers for me to paint the walls with her blood.

“Then I must return to entertaining your guests.”

She balks. “Is that why you are here? To instill jealousy?”

“I am here because your invitation was simply too lovely to resist.”

“Flippancy,” she sneers.

“Not at all.”

“Your father deplores you.”

“Yes.” He sounds so cold. So unlike himself. Empty.

“All of Olympus does. Their mutt begging for scraps, a pathetic—”

Hatred pulses through my veins, an all-consuming poison finding every dead end and rushing it.

I have the server’s tines in my grasp before I realize that Sin’s not holding me, he’s restraining me.

Not well enough.

I thrust my fork forward, delicate silver tines aimed at Lesenia’s carotid, all set to pulverize when Sin dives, knocks Lesenia out of range, and takes three prongs into the back of his hand.

His elbow tightens painfully around my neck as he groans into the curve of my ear. With all my strength, I thrash against him. Don’t budge.

“Shameful.” Lesenia doesn’t blink at the attempt on her life, and Sin keeps me pinned to him as she swipes out with a hooked finger, whipping a slap over my cheek. “Her head or her hands, mutt, you know the rules. Keep whichever you’re more attached—”

She stops. Freezes.

Eyes wide, she reaches for me with one shaking finger, draws it over my cheek, pulls away with a drop of ichor sitting on her red nail. The paint sizzles. “Chire?” she gasps. Horrified expression flashing to Sin. “This is unac—”

His hand remains at his side, a fork sticking out of it. A fork that should be lodged in her throat.

That will be.

“Erinyes, actually.”

I don’t say it loudly, but the whole din of the room quiets.

There’s four feet between us. And still she backpedals.

Sinis is in my ear, telling me to quit joking around. Blasts of crisp air assault my nape, and I wonder what emotion he’s sending to the crowd to stop them from intervening, from pointing at me and screaming monster. Freak .

Lesenia backpedals all the way to the base of the altar, collapsing against the mahogany and pressing back like a witch to her burning post. “Are you mad? She’ll—”

“Kill you?” It’s the first time I’ve smiled all night.

“Nat—” Sin snaps, a groan on the edge of the word, straining to hold the guests at bay.

But it’s too late. I’m past saving. He might best me in a fight, in an argument, but no one stops a trained, pissed the fuck off Erinyes in the thrall, target in sight.

I jam the fork deeper into Sin’s palm and he grunts, releasing me. Wind, cold as the artic, sweeps through the church as my heels click over the tile, slow, savoring.

Terrified, Lesenia’s knees buckle. She tips her head back on the carved, dark wood of the altar, wine spilling from a goblet on top and pouring rich burgundy down her shoulder.

I bend over her. “I want to kill you,” I tell her in the same even tone Sin used. “I’ve fantasized about how I will. How incredible it will feel to have your runny, diluted blood slicking my Titan palms.”

I grab a handful of her stupid fucking hair and yank her over until the wine’s dripping into blonde like a rain of blood.

Footsteps, the sound designer loafers squeaking against the floor fill my ears. Guests scrambling from the chaos.

Sin shouts something that might be calm or stop .

Words lost on me.

I drop to a crouch, the skirt of my dress bunching tight as I lean in over Sin’s torturer. Breath right in her ear, whispering for just us girls. “Do you know why I am the most feared of creatures?” I grab her throat. “It’s because I kill you here in this realm first. I will macerate your body like a cheap dog toy in the mouths of Cerberus and then, when you arrive at the gates of Hades, I will do worse to your soul. For eternity.”

“I—I …” She’s stuttering.

If she were smart, she’d be running.

“You. You.” I mock, lightning dashing down my veins, tossing pure adrenaline into my brain.

Powerful arms encircle me, unyielding as iron. They yank. I sink my nails into the altar’s wood, clinging to my prey, hungry.

“Enough,” someone growls. Another pointless yank. Wood splinters and sprays shavings onto Lesenia’s cowering wine stained head.

The heat of a body sears through the thin fabric of my gown, overlarge muscles shifting and tensing to tear me backward. A cold breeze splashes my hair into my eyes.

Hot breath grazes my ear. “Fight it, love”

Sin.

Renewed rage spikes. A feral sound sneaks between my lips, fury climbing the walls of my mind.

“Fight it for Theia.”

“What about you ?” I shout.

My response steals the breath from my lungs. My grip cracks on the altar. I crash into his body, back scraping his broad chest, a jagged noise trapped in my throat as a knife tip kisses the span of soft, vulnerable skin beneath my chin.

Sin brought his blades.

And it occurs, ridiculously, in a corner of my consciousness where the thrall can’t seem to reach, that he’s never threatened me before.

Not like this.

He cinches his arm tighter around me and lifts me from the ground. Instinctively, I snare his blade hand. The fork is gone, and the only blood I smell is my own ichor between my teeth.

“Sweetheart,” he coos, loud enough for all to hear. “What have I said about interrupting me?” His knife stays tight on my skin as he holds me captive against him. “Lesenia, my dear. Forgive me.”

There’s rage in her. Her aura pulsates with the deepest shades of black. Malevolence.

I stick my chin at her, teeth showing, fists bared. And she leashes it. A mask descends over her face. Her blonde hair is matted sticky red. She laughs.

The old way rich creatures do, fingers tickling her throat, teeth catching air.

“Oh this .” She claps, slow and echoing. The room seems to exhale, shoulders dropping, lungs refilling. “This is your best entertainment yet, my pet.”

She twirls for her guests, skirts flaring around her, a smile on her face.

“It’s the problem with half-bloods, isn’t it?” she calls out, reaching for a glass of wine. “Everything’s too easy for the children of Gods. They end up troubled. Fucking Furies. Even taming them.” She twists back, eyes glittering with wicked amusement. “Alright, mutt, for a second time, you’ve won my interest. I’ll speak with Emil. A Phoenix in exchange for the Fury.”