4. Nat

4

Nat

six-inch drop point tactical knife

I jump the gun.

I’ve never been praised for my patience.

In fact, the whole what are we doing sitting on our asses when we could be out there getting milkshakes, puking on roller coasters, learning to drive thing has been my MO since I abandoned the family trade.

I can almost feel my aunt’s whip coil around my leg and yank. Taste pyrite dusted dirt as she snarls, ‘patience is a virtue’.

I’m sure it’s great.

Right up there with goodliness, and giving, and saying ‘bless you’ every time you sneeze, even if the snot landed on your favorite Guns N’ Roses hoodie.

I just haven’t gotten to it yet.

Justice sounded a lot more fun.

And I haven’t been wrong yet.

Stealing a blade off the despicable beauty is easy. Too easy.

He leans into me, eager to grab and detain, and I meet him halfway, like we’re lovers embracing, and rip the short black knife from his belt.

I’m swinging before I can check my aim. My knees crack from disuse and there’s an alarming breeze too high on my thighs but I figure if I have to flash someone, I’d prefer it be the last thing they see.

Ephesus Oberlin, the disgusting pervert, screeches in horror, lunging for his taser, and I direct all the energy I have into my strike.

If I hit hard enough, it won’t matter which end of the knife makes contact.

At this point, I bet I could send a rounded brick through his diaphragm.

I see the whites of his eyes at the end of my blade.

Victory unfurls across my body in delightful sparks of retribution.

Breaks.

Doesn’t sizzle or fade, it ends as a broad hand clasps my wrist, turns me, throws the trajectory of my kill shot off course.

I’m reeling, spinning, furious. A muscled arm snaps around my stomach, the chains on my waist bite.

“Whoa there,” a honey smooth voice curls into my ear as I’m hauled against a hard chest.

My first thought is that he smells good. High-end, can’t afford to burn it candle good. Spicy, a combination of clove and warm allspice, something I want to dig my face into and inhale.

My second thought is that he’s got more rings than he does fingers, all biting into my skin.

Sinis .

That’s what Ephesus called him, and Sinis called the trafficker a friend.

Might as well have signed a death warrant.

The male’s jeans are slashed with holes at the knees and the zipper of his leather jacket is busted but his turtleneck—black, rolled once at the throat—and the perfect sheen on his Chelsea boots make me think the signs of wear are fashion statements rather than testaments to hard work.

A turtleneck in Georgia. During spring. This male must live in AC. Limousines and penthouses, indulging in the females he buys. Rage grinds into my bones.

A cool breeze accompanies his voice as he whispers in my ear, “It’s time to calm down.”

I throw my head back into his chin. “Really? My watch says it’s slit throats o’clock, and I’m running late.”

“So much anger packed into such a little body.” He presses the tendons in my wrist and the knife drops from my hand, clangs on the cold floor. “Does every emotion fill you to the brim, darling? I cannot wait to find out.”

Little body?

Little? Body?

I thrash all six feet, two inches of myself against him, infuriated like I’ve never been.

Little?

I’m a warrior. Born with the might of the powerful Erinyes. The famed Furies, honored guests of the Great House of Hades, a defender of the magnificent Underworld, and this silver spoon rapist calls me little?

Little like a speck of dust on the bottom of his shoe.

“Are you still talking?” I snarl, digging my nails into the back of his palm. “I’m not listening. I’m in the middle of aggravated homicide.”

“Apologies, my darling—”

Oberlin’s squat face rears close. “Words don’t work with that one,” he says, as if I’m a dog who’s incapable of understanding what the two superior beings are on about. “She only understands force.” His hand lifts, sausage fingers poised to rake his nasty dirt filled nail on my cheek, and I’m yanked backward and pinned.

Pretty boy locks me against him, my elbows glued back, knees shoved together. Helpless to the abuse.

Since I can’t dodge Oberlin’s backhand, I lean into it, shove my cheek out for him. A defiant offer I hope he shatters his knuckles on.

It’ll be the last time he’ll ever hit a creature.

The last time he’ll ever have a left hand.

Fast as Zeus’s bolt, Sinis snatches Oberlin’s flimsy hand from the air. His arm winds harder around me, punishingly tight, as he leans over my shoulder to the creature trader. “She’s mine now.”

Oberlin smacks his palm about fruitlessly. “Certainly not. I bought her.”

“You didn’t buy me, you needle dicked prick, I—”

A wide hand seals my mouth shut, cool rings pressing into my lips.

Oberlin rubs his wrist as if scarred by Sinis’s grip.

“I only meant,” Sinis soothes, chest rumbling against my back. “That she’s on the clock and I’m paying by the minute for this livewire. I wouldn’t want to waste a second of it wiping up her blood.”

Oberlin’s beady eyes narrow, and I tamp down my bile reflex.

They’re arguing over who owns me.

The electric prod ignites, sparks of blue, and I spot the ripple in Oberlin’s aura without trying, the piece of crude black in a roiling sea of debauched red. He’s going to hit me.

My skin revolts.

I brace.

And it … fades. The black blinks away from the hazy cloud around Oberlin and his entire aura gentles to a less insidious red. At the same time, the heavy set of lines on his forehead lose a fold and the prod putters off. He rubs an idle circle on his gut. “Fine, then,” he crows. “I’ll punish her after. Take her away.”

My jaw drops.

Who is this male?

As if Sinis can hear my question, he jerks me around to face him, chains rattling, knotting at my bare ankles and in a surprising twist, I have to tilt my head up to glare. “Touch me and I’ll end your life.”

He’s smiling, a twinkle in his otherworldly purple eyes.

I bristle.

He’s glorious to look at.

I bet creatures fawn over him.

Mortals probably kill over him.

The sexy, barely curled, rakishly messy dirty blonde hair, the wolfish smile, eyes that seem to swirl with color. Purple exploding to warm blue, melting to brown and black. Each feature is striking on its own, but it’s his skin that captures my breath.

The same shade as mine. A true olive brown that hints at the virile lineage in our veins.

Except where I’ve spent my life as far from Helios’s sun as possible. He’s bathed in it. Every pore seems to glow, a sort of shined gold that can never tarnish.

In the depths of my mind, greed rises, beckoning me to scrape my nail down his cheek and collect the shimmering flecks, to string them into an arm cuff or a chest plate and wield beauty as power.

Hades bless it, I’ve always craved pretty things.

He’s more than that though. He’s got decent fighting skills. Speed, muscle, the set of throwing knives slotted at his waist are weighted and expertly crafted.

Theia would call him the total package. Convince me I could fix him.

She loves a fixer upper.

Case in point: me.

In this scenario, unfortunately, she’d need correcting.

This one is past fixable.

No one with an aura as sinister as his can be redeemed.

We have a saying in the realm of the dead for the new bloods who can hardly hold their adamantium spears upright and quake in their armored plating.

Attack black.

If you forget everything in the chaos of battle, if fear pierces steel into your heart, if your feet turn to jelly on the wet, steaming bank of the river of souls: attack black.

The passages to the Underworld are never empty. Bodies of the departed pour in faster than a broken off fire hydrant. More and more for us to judge every day.

Charon, the ferryman for souls, is paid a single drachma for passage across the River Acheron and consequently has such a fortune that he’s tricked out his boat to a multilevel monstrosity. He has a diamond grille for each day of the week and he’ll chat portfolio diversification until the river dries.

When he docks on our side of the river, we have seconds to pick out the troublemakers and send them straight to the Fields of Punishment, the eternal resting place for the wicked.

There’s a process to the savagery.

Anyone with a black aura is immediately eliminated.

Then we move to the violent gushing red auras and those of putrid green.

The color of a soul tells us more than we could ever ask about a creature and as it’s written in our bones, we react accordingly, sparing the hazy oranges and milky purples to exact justice on the most foul. Those who deserve an eternity of misery for their deeds.

Ever since arriving in the mortal realm, I’ve only ever felt confirmed in the accuracy of an aura, and this male, with his cunning smile and punishing grip, he’s another drop in the Verified Evil bucket. Talking of innocent creatures as if they’re toys to be ruined, reminiscing with a creature trafficker, bragging about his expertise in wrecking a spirit.

Sinis’s grin widens as if he can sense the hatred simmering in my chest, the marrow deep urge I have to eviscerate him.

With insulting ease, he lifts me. First my feet off the floor and then higher, tipping me to splay over his shoulder.

“You’re dead,” I growl, scrambling to steal a knife when my chains crush me back, pin my wrists and ankles and grind into my waist.

“Calm,” Sinis repeats, his palm slipping to my backside and pressing down, aligning my hips with his shoulder. “I’ll be paying in cash,” he tells Oberlin in a voice so cheery and sure I vow to do more than simply kill this male.

I’ll obliterate him.

I open my mouth to tell him but then I feel the his hand on fabric of my dress.

The hem moves up my thighs.

Rises.