30. Sin

30

Sin

overdose

I stare, unfeeling, as the moon fades under the brightening sky. In less than ten minutes, the horizon will be painted with fiery hues, casting a golden glow over Atlanta.

But right now, it’s hazy blue.

Right now the realm is asleep and quiet.

And somewhere out there is Nat.

Waiting.

Watching.

I spent the whole night fuming, cursing her name, waffling and hating myself.

I just had to fuck her, didn’t I?

And it had to be … that , didn’t it?

Fucking perfect? Wild and intense and exactly Nat. Disastrous.

I could’ve been blind, deaf, and numb and I’d know it was her nails clawing into my skin, her lips poisoning mine.

I’m wrecked for her.

Drowning in her.

Regret gnaws at me for letting my temper get the best of me, for the sharp turn of her words as we clung to each other.

Why couldn’t I have just kissed her? Slow and steady. Admitted the truth. I can’t deny it to myself any longer. No point in keeping it from her.

She’s the one.

She’s it. My father—the word tastes like acid on my tongue—he told me that there’d be one. That’d every person after would dull and flake and be forgotten.

According to him, it was an honor to have a Fated. An honor he’d bestowed on me even as he ditched me. Abandoned me and my mother for his own Fated. Who cared about a half-blood son that wasn’t a child of his Fated? Not him. Not even after mom died.

And I never wanted it. I did everything in my life to not form attachments. I was wild and outlandish. I jumped between beds. I treated love like a sickness.

The one time I didn’t … well I’d taken that punishment on the jaw.

Love is a sickness.

It’s got it’s claws in me already.

Fuck, I like the pain.

With a heavy sigh, I push off the wall I’ve been leaning against and start walking. I know where she’ll be—her beloved hill on the outskirts of the city, overlooking the skyline. Her private sanctuary, and my favorite museum.

The walk feels endless, my feet dragging with each step. By the time I reach the bottom of her hill, the sky is a murky blue. I pause.

What will she say when she sees me?

Will she spurn me again with that damnable disgust in her stare?

Run again?

I shake my head sharply. What does it matter? I have to try, even if the attempt flays me open. Squaring my shoulders, I climb until I spot her silhouette, and then I float.

Her dark, silky hair dances lightly in the breeze. Her face is turned east to the dawning sun.

Hearing my approach, never unaware, she shifts, annoyance rippling across her features. “Leave.”

“You don’t own this hill,” I say, husk filling my voice.

Gods, I still taste her along my teeth, can still feel her pussy wrapped around me, still feel tiles breaking under knees as I plunged into her, as I fucking peaked.

She drinks me in with big brown eyes, sets her jaw, and shifts her focus back to the sun. “You look like shit. You stayed up all night.”

Love of my life, folks.

“You don’t own insomnia,” I snap back.

“Very mature,” she mocks, “And to think, I almost didn’t regret fucking you.”

I plop down next to her without invitation, dignity replaced with a desire to be close to her. My knee brushes hers. When she doesn’t jerk away from the touch, it feels like the sweetest victory. “No darling, I fucked you , and trust me, you loved it.”

Didn’t she?

She came. Twice.

But since when did that constitute a satisfying fuck?

I can hit double digit Os on a Wednesday, and I let it slip with her. I just … was greedy. Desperate and incensed and Gods , brimming with a thousand feelings.

The thought of losing her … I clench my teeth until something cracks.

I just wanted to fuck her into the ground and never let her up.

“Here.” She offers me a cup of steaming coffee, gaze fixed on the sunrise. “It’s not poisoned. That’s not my preferred method.”

“Of course. Not flashy enough.” I take the coffee from her. Our fingers brush for a moment and I languish in the contact despite myself. I sip the bitter liquid, letting it burn my tongue, welcoming the pain as a distraction.

Lemons and coffee.

“Where’s Drake?” The question escapes before I have the chance to stop it.

I try to banish the image of them together, laughing and flirting while I stand on the outside, aching to be let in. Try to forget the slow shake of Drake’s head when I asked him if he thought I had a chance with her.

Nat narrows her eyes at me, blinks as if she’s just now noticed my presence. Gaze tearing up my jeans, across my Kiss Me, I’m Irish Me t-shirt. She frowns. “Are you drunk?”

Sunlight dances on her olive skin, shimmering over brown eyes and pink lips. Dirt cakes her from wrist to elbow, ankle to thigh. But I’m the one who gets that question.

Meda’s hoodie is snug on her chest, sleeves rolled to the elbows, cutoff cargos hug her thighs perfectly, and her hair is a waterfall of silk around her face. Typical Nat attire. Ass kicking attire.

I’ve had statues made in my likeness, symphonies for my voice. Nothing could explain the raw, harrowing beauty of a tired Fury.

She steals the breath from my lungs.

I open my mouth to respond, something that’d make her scoff— drunk on you baby , if I say yes, will you take advantage of me? —but the words stick in my throat.

I tear my attention from her.

Harden my heart.

No fawning. Not yet.

I twist the gold signet ring on my thumb. “Would it matter if I was?”

She doesn’t respond and I am so gone for her, so desperate for her to tell me why she ran off, why she couldn’t lay her shield down for one moment, I try again. “I’m not drunk. If I were drunk, I wouldn’t be here.”

I’d be curled around her like an unweened kitten, fucking purring.

She squints as the sun emerges from the skyline, vibrant and heroic. Stays silent.

I clear my throat. “We have unfinished business, you and I.”

“Schedule a meeting.” She takes a drink of coffee without taking the cup from my grasp, fingers pressed over mine, lips in the same spot mine were. Swipes a stray drop clear with her tongue. “Forewarning. I’m booked through the decade.”

“Nat …”

She shakes her head again. Licks two fingers and rubs them in the dirt. It’s the same ritual, one I’ve witnessed, seen marked on her, the trail of her fingers from her chin to her heart, the line unbroken.

“I can’t stay away from you,” I admit softly, unable to resist taking another gulp of scalding coffee. “Gods, you’re so fucking stunning.”

Momentarily, her eyes close, before she dismisses, “Everyone’s pretty in this light.”

“You outshine them all.”

“Go to sleep, half-blood.”

“Learn to take a compliment, Bloodspiller.”

“I don’t want compliments.” Cold, defensive.

“Gods, fuck it.” I dump the coffee out, face her. “It’s fortunate I don’t give a fuck what you want then, isn’t it? You want to be a martyr. You want to be in charge. You want to hate me. Well I don’t fucking accept any of it.”

Her hackles rise, fingers sinking into the soil at her side. “Who do—”

“You are more than capable of getting what you want, Nat. You’ve made that abundantly clear. I’m not piling on.”

I can tell she’s surprised. Mouth ajar, eyes aflame. She gives me a clipped, “Good.”

“But you can sure as hell bet I’m going to give you what you need. Compliments and support and protection whether the fuck you want it or not.”

There’s a slight widening in her gaze, surprise flickering before she hides it. She shoves at the dirt with her boots, avoids my gaze.

“We need to talk about it,” I continue, refusing to let this go. “What happened. What it means.”

She jolts upright. The sun a blaze behind her, turning her silhouette into a dark angel against the orange cream sky. “I knew you’d be a male about this,” she spits, tone dripping with disdain. “Whiny, and clingy. None of you have evolved since Zeus. Write a poem, roll it up and sage the place with it. But do not try to talk to me about how us fucking means the stars have aligned and suddenly we are a possibility. We had sex. It didn’t mean anything.”

“It did to me.”

Meant so much I didn’t sleep a wink, too busy inhaling her on my skin. Meant so much I stripped, stepped into the shower and couldn’t make myself switch on the water, couldn’t wash her off me.

I want her embedded in me. I want her scent so deep in my pores, it becomes mine.

“Then you’re a sap.”

She leaves.

I scramble after, chasing as she cuts for the woods. “Godsdammit, stop pretending you don’t feel this between us.” I snatch her arm to force her to stop and listen.

“I’m a Fury ! And you’re a Blackguard.“ She rips away from me, turning, backing up. Her eyes are bloodshot, and I wonder if she feels as drained as I do when her gaze falls to my lips. “I can’t get attached.”

“Because of Hades? Is he forcing you to go back to the Underworld?”

“My family’s there,” she says. “Hades is there. I’m the first Erinyes to visit this realm in decades. For good reason. I don’t belong here.”

“You’d go to the Underworld rather than stay here with me?”

“There’s no with you !”

“Never thought I’d see a Fury running scared,” I taunt, intentionally provoking her further, needing a reaction that isn’t disdained apathy. “Tail tucked and ready to return to the place of nightmares.”

She swings out at me. Fist locked like a bullet aimed right for my face.

I duck, throwing a shoulder under her arm and lift, surge forward, hurtle us to the ground. But she’s too good for me to subdue easily, twirling us to her advantage. I slam back on the packed soil and her elbows press into my neck.

“You only know what the Olympians have told you,” she hisses, face inches from mine. “That Hades is evil and his realm is insidious. As if the Gods would understand how they live. Hades is the oldest of the Olympians. He has more ancient primal power than your Cloud Gatherer, skirt chasing grandfather Zeus, and yet, when offered the skies and oceans, Hades chose to rule the Underworld.”

She pushes up to straddle me, a black adamantine blade peeking from the fold of her hand. I wish I were more surprised that she’s armed, and wasn’t so worried that the female I want above all else will use that blade.

But a sick, demented part of me is just glad it’s my knife in her hands.

My knife kept close, my knife defending her.

Gods, it looks better in her grip than mine. The ridges match her palm perfectly. As if Hef crafted it for her, not me.

“The Underworld is different. It’s dark and harrowing and it’s … striking .“ As she speaks, her voice mellows into something dreamlike. Her eyes gently shut. “The colors there are as vibrant as the the rarest jewels. The winds are soft and lovely. In the winter, Persephone blooms flowers from glittering soil. Petals flood the rivers, dying them pink and orange and green, so thick you wouldn’t believe there’s water beneath. The sky turns a bright teal, and the air smells like petrichor, and it’s life. Unbridled. Overflowing. And even when Persephone departs, Hades casts the realm into fragile beauty, into violent reds and drowning blues, the rivers sing as they rush, our fires crackle and cast ruby embers. Our most desolate season is more stunning than your brightest.”

She plucks the fledgling petals off a tulip beside my hip. “Pastels,” she mutters with distaste. “Persephone goes through the motions here. The plants here are terrified to grow for fear of being cut.”

Her longing, her aching, the bags under her eyes. A sinking feeling guts my stomach. She’s listing why she hates the mortal realm and that’s why I need her here. Because she’s not afraid to stand out. Because she sees it as a good thing.

Unable to help myself, I run my hands up her thighs. “Sounds like paradise. Then why’d you leave?”

“Why did Icarus fly so close to the sun?”

“Suicidal idiot. Just like you.” My thumb makes circles on her knee. “You’d leave Theia?”

It’s the only argument I have for her to stay.

Theia. Not me.

“She’s better without me.”

“That’s a fucking lie,” I say, boldly, loudly, dumping her on the ground and getting to my feet. “You’re not supposed to lie.”

Knees akimbo, fingers embedded in the soil, she bares her teeth. “I’m not. I’m not meant to be here. This place is too faded, there are too many shades, too much in between.”

“In between?”

She’s up and storming away again, punching through foliage and trees, kicking branches apart, bounding across the mud pit that’s become our yard.

Her response flies at me like a steel tipped bow. “Good and bad. Right and wrong. Damned and dead. I’m not a Fury here, not the kind I ought to be.” She shudders hard, squeezing her eyelids shut and stops at the patio. “I’m causing problems. I’m losing the values of my kind. I …” She looks at the ground, eyes shining.

I panic, rushing close to her, cupping her cheeks in my palms. “Don’t be a Fury, be Nat.”

“You were inside me and I reached for my knife. I can’t even help it, I can’t. Even if I want you …” She licks her lips, wetness heavy on her lashes, and pulls it together. Plants her feet, tips her chin up a warrior facing down a king. “I can’t.”

“You can. Want me, Nat. Just want me. I’ll figure the rest out.”

She hesitates, her resolve subsiding as quickly as it came. “I always felt like something was missing. I’d bag a body, drink the brew, and I’d lie awake at night as my sisters slept. So many creatures enter the Underworld angry. They scream and fight and refuse to accept their fate. But a few walk freely into Charon’s care, and ascend our shores with their heads held high. They are at peace with their death. I needed to know why. Not because I wanted to die. I just wanted to rest for a little while.”

So she came here.

Her question.

Do you know the secret to accepting death?

“I wanted to rest. I wanted to stop worrying. And for a second …” She closes her eyes, lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. “I need to go back where every color screams at me before I …”

I don’t need Drake’s gift.

If he hadn’t told me, I’d know at this very moment.

She’s afraid of nothing but herself and her power. What she can do with it. What it will do with her.

She wipes her wet cheeks, pitches her throat back to glare at me. “Sin, I—”

“Don’t,” I interrupt, bitterness seeping into my tone. “That’s not how I want to hear my name. Just … don’t.”

There’s nothing that will make her stay.

A stubborn Fury.

An unmovable mountain.

“Got ’em!” Zeke’s voice calls out, breaking us apart as he jogs through the sliding door. “Oh, hey.” He scratches at the scar under his eye. “Should I go? Are you guys gonna …”

Nat snaps her fingers, stretches her hand to him. “I’ll take those.”

Zeke tosses an orange bottle to her.

I intercept it. Circular white pills prescribed to Luke Donovan. I cast a look at the witch hunter. “You dealing drugs now, Z?”

“Never,” he says loudly, aiming at the sky, before whispering frantically, “They’re Atlas’s. Caffeine pills. You know he likes to stay alert.”

I roll it in my hand. “Then give them to Atlas.”

“Uh …”

“He’s offered them to me,” Nat explains, crooking fingers at me.

I pop the top.

“Give it here.”

“I’m sorry, love.”

“ Sin —”

“I told you, I don’t care what you want. I’m only giving you what you need.”

Silver slashes her cheeks. “Godsdammit, this is not funny. Give it here.”

Sometimes Fate is deceptive and cunning, but sometimes the blind bats toss you a home run.

“This is for you.” I overturn the bottle into my mouth.

Nat stabs me.