46. Sin

46

Sin

for her

Nat doesn’t falter. She rams into me faster than I can reel her in and stomps her boot onto my stomach. “I’ll kill you.”

Hades, I love her.

Behind her, Lev’s wrath has taken on a life of its own, three hundred pounds of hungover rage unlocked. Next to the Hulk, Luke’s throwing punches, fitted out in tactical gear, the both of them push the Queensguard out.

Head to toe splattered in red hot gore, Drake carries a limp brown skinned female in his arms, gun at the ready for attackers as he whispers reassurances. Though whether to comfort her or himself, I can’t discern.

There’s too much lemon.

High above, Atlas surveys the chaos through his sniper scope, shielding the Diakonos as they cluster to the side. Meda and Zeke are stationed below in flank positions, united in their resolve to let no one approach the females.

We fight until the only remnants of the Queensguard retreat, leaving behind green scraps and pink blood. They hadn’t expected a battle.

We did. Always do. A hazard of being the most hated males in the realm.

After releasing Nat, my brothers were the first thing I saw.

At least … the first thing I think I saw.

There’d been a mysterious blue glow that seemed to pull light in rather than push out darkness. A voice spoke alongside it, loud and rumbling, deep enough to puncture my ear drums.

Live .

I’d thought stupidly it’d been my father, before I discovered the vambrace in the rubble under me. Perfectly sized for my arm, made of the densest silver and engraved in the same ancient Greek as Nat’s. Live .

Hades.

Hades refused to claim me in the Underworld. Refused to let me die.

Panic had fractured the last shred of my sanity. I’d never screamed like that, never shouted, never hated.

I inflicted so much damage to myself, so much shouting at the earth—beating at it, trying to fucking bury myself, telling that damned God to take it back, to take me back—the curse washed from my skin.

Why expend itself torturing me if I was doing all its work?

I didn’t let up. Hate seared in my veins and singed my bones. Hot tears trekked down my face.

Persephone’s tale was the most horrible thought in my mine.

Admetus living because Alcestis gave her own life. The martyr Alcestis. So like my own.

Nat had sacrificed herself so I could live.

In those minutes, the curse tunneling inwards, my bones snapping apart, Hades’s breath of life, I knew the answer to Nat’s riddle.

I knew how so many walked into the Underworld with relief and happiness, no amount of fear.

Because half of them lived.

Because my death is nothing I fear.

But Nat’s death, that is my deepest, greatest fear.

Was I the selfish bastard who lived at the expense of his love? His Fated?

The subsequent moments were a blur. Atlas screaming at me for tipping off the Queensguard to rescue the creatures. Meda yelling for him to fuck off , ordering me to stop biting my tongue before it fell off.

Drake covered in blood so crimson it could only be mortal, rapidly revealing what he found in interrogation. King Kadmos’s insignia. A lead the curse happily sunk its teeth into, leaving me to wallow in my foiled heroics.

None of it went right.

The Queensguard was supposed to show up and intercept Lesenia leaving with Nat. They were supposed to aid Nat’s escape while Emil showed me to Theia.

I’d gut the creep’s mind, take Theia with me and escape just as the Queensguard instigated a full rescue of the Diakonos.

Then it’s over. Finito. Wrapped in a bow. No losers.

The Queensguard look like heroes like they want to. Nobody suspects the Blackguard is involved. The Blackguard is one step closer to revenge and Nat’s one creature happier.

I had every step nailed. From begging Meda to tipoff her brother, to getting security alerts and time stamps with Rune’s watch. I’d even insisted my brothers stay across the street during the extraction to keep them from being captured by the Queensguard.

Like dominoes, each missed step made the next fall harder.

Putting the vambrace on my arm had felt like losing Nat all over again.

I’d listened to Atlas’s warning to wait and develop a new strategy for as long as it took me to sheath my knives. Then I charged, ready to fight Thanatos himself to retrieve my Alcestis. To tear her from the hands of Death.

Only to find her alive.

On her knees.

Bowed in a line for execution.

Nobody puts my Fated on her knees.

Nat thrashes against my hold, the scarlet halter top smashing into my bare chest. “I’ll rip the larynx from your throat and I’ll—”

I pull her tight against me, cutting her off to inhale the lemon pouring off her skin.

So intense it scalds my tastebuds.

The battle has dissipated. Lev and Luke clock their wounds as they restrain themselves from giving chase to the Queensguard. A rare occurrence we won’t press again.

I tip Nat’s chin up to look at me. “What love? Tell me.”

“I’ll carve out your heart,” she snarls. “Bathe in your Demigod fucking blood, I will … I’ll kill you.”

This is the Fury I know, the merciless avenger I fell in love with. Fierce and indomitable and delicious.

“Yes. I quite plan on it,” I tell her, bending down, keeping my arms like a steel bar around her as I kiss her.

She rears, seething with rage, but I’m too pleased to stop, too utterly enraptured. She’s alive. She’s fighting. She’s furious.

Scratching at me, kicking, she tears back. “You do not get to kiss me, not with that filthy, disgusting mouth.”

I’m already winding her back into me. “You’re magnificent when you’re angry.”

“Fuck you and your compliments.”

“Come on.” I clasp her face with my hands, beseeching, “My love, my heart, my very soul. How could you imagine I’d ever desire a sprite like her?”

Another snarl. Feral. It sends a thrill down my spine.

“You kissed her.”

“You think, descendant of Megaera, the daughter of jealous hate, wouldn’t need to save me just to kill me herself?”

“You—”

“No, you ,“ I cut off, staring deep into those furious brown eyes that promise violence. “You do not kneel.”

Again, I capture her lips with mine, flooding every ounce of my devotion, my desperation, my unwavering love into the kiss.

For a heartbeat, Nat melts, her body molding to mine as if we were crafted from the same Divine clay straight from Prometheus's hands.

She pushes me away again. Wipes the back of her hand across my mouth as if to erase Kleio’s touch, and then lunges forward, slamming us together in a kiss that bruises.

Her fury is a living, breathing thing. Pulsing between us like a shared heartbeat. It feeds the dark, primal part of me that craves her touch, her fire, even if it consumes me whole.

It’s a kiss of punishment and possession. Her teeth nip at my lower lip hard enough to penetrate. The coppery taste mingles with the sweetness of her ichor as she lays claim to me, branding me as hers with each fierce pass of her lips.

I savor the sting. A reminder that I belong to her, body and soul. That she’s alive, and therefore I am.

“You do not kneel,” I repeat against her mouth. “You are Erinyes. You end fights, you advocate for good. If I ever see you on your knees again …”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Yes. I fucking am. Because I’ve gone insane, Natasa. I’m already going hand to hand with a fucking Goddess to keep you, so you can bet I’ll fight you too.”

She staggers back. “What? Which Goddess?”

“Which do you think?” I haul her back into me, a male obsessed. “The Queen of the Dead better be prepared for a dirty fight because I’m pulling hair and biting, and—”

“Persephone told you to stay away from me? She threatened you?”

“Only with my life. Who cares about that if I haven’t got you?”

Those wide brown eyes glint with a mix of disbelief and something softer, more vulnerable. “You would defy my Goddess for me?”

“I would defy the whole damn pantheon for you, Nat.” It’s a vow. A sacred oath sworn in blood and bound by the unbreakable threads of Fate that tie us together. “I would tear apart the gates of Olympus if it meant keeping you. If only for a day.”

She shakes her head. “Even after I …”

Poisoned me.

Shot me.

Stabbed me.

Lied to me.

Betrayed me.

Told me she’d never love me.

All done to protect me and those important to her.

“After all of it,” I promise, brushing a strand of silky hair from her face, fingertips lingering against the silver blush on her cheek.

She kisses me. And I’m truly alive. The kiss speaks of forgiveness and absolution, a love so fierce and unyielding it defies the laws of Gods and mortals.

I lose myself in the slick slide of her tongue and the sharp nip of her teeth. The chaos and bloodshed fade into insignificance as I drown in the lemon taste of her, into the scorching heat of her body pressed against me.

When she finally breaks away, we’re both panting, chests heaving with exertion and desire.

“Told you I could manipulate emotions,” I tease, pinning her flush against me, fingers digging into the supple curves I love. “I didn’t even need to use my power.”

“It was vile and—”

“I will go through the trenches of the Underworld to prevent you from bowing to those unworthy. I would dig through Tartarus before stomaching seeing my Fury at the mercy of another.”

Nat twists in my hold, not attempting to flee but to gain the upper hand.

Always a battle between us, a never-ending clash of dominance. With a deft maneuver, she hooks her leg behind my thigh and flips us, slamming my back into the gore-soaked ground.

The impact jars my entire body, and I welcome the pain, relish the weight of her straddling my hips. Hot asphalt and gun shells dig into my shoulders as Nat leans down, hair tumbling around us in a sleek curtain.

“You’re mine,” she hisses, breath hot against my jaw. “No other can touch you, taste you or possess you. I’ll paint this realm red with the blood of anyone who tries to take you from me. Silver if I must.”

“Gods, I love when you’re territorial.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

In a sudden surge of strength, I flip us back over, pinning Nat beneath me. Stare down at her, my heart a riotous drumbeat in my chest, pounding out a relentless rhythm. I almost lost her. Emotion clogs my throat.

With misty eyes, I kiss her, quick, once. Smirk over a sniffle. “Fuck, just when I thought you couldn’t get any sexier. A whip? It’s not cool to give me public erections, love.”

“Don’t you dare kiss me. I’m going to kill you.”

“That’s an obtusely empty threat.”

“Have I ever made an empty threat?”

“There is a first time for everything,” I remind her. “You are the first female I’ve ever loved, for example. Come on, Nat, I kissed the female trying to kill you. If you didn’t murder me that instant, you’ll never find the strength to kill me. Don’t worry, Bloodspiller, I don’t plan on testing you.”

She fixes me with a look that would make lesser males cower. “You will regardless.”

I grin. “Yes.”

“And then what?” she asks, stiffening, a crack entering her voice. “I already can’t sleep in a bed. You know what my husband Evan did? What made me roll over and stab him without even waking up? Nothing.” Her chin firms against a rush of tears. “Absolutely nothing. He came home, his aura a half a shade darker, the palest pink. Could’ve been a bad thought, jaywalking, overindulging, and I—I ended him. My husband.”

I swallow. “My soul is not pink.”

“I’m well aware,” she grits out, fighting tears in earnest. “So what happens? You test me and what? You’re dead?”

“Then … I gladly walk to the shores of the Lethe, I thank your aunts for sending you to me and I kneel in the golden soil and try to soak in as much of the beauty that bred you before I go to my eternal punishment.”

“Fools accept their fate.”

“I would not want to continue living, Nat, if it weren’t with you. If Fate chose that for us, I’d accept it.”

“I—”

“You love me. You’ll admit it as soon as I’ve showered off this blood and fucked you on the kitchen floor. You’ll admit it and then I’ll let you choke me in your sleep.”

“Kill you, you mean.”

I smirk, tracing the curve of her jaw with my thumb. “Presumptuous, love. You’ve stabbed me, poisoned me, dropped me off a high rise. There’s nothing you can do that’ll kill me.”

Her brows slam together. “But …”

“I am the grandson of Ares and Persephone. I was raised by Hephaestus. I am protected by Hades, the dark King of the Underworld. I am the child of Eros, God of Love. And perhaps, most notably, Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld herself, has already claimed my death as hers should I hurt you. So you’ll need to wait your turn if you want me dead.”

Nat’s breath hitches, her pulse jumping beneath my fingertips. “Eros is your father?”

“Impressed?”

“A Fury and a descendent of love?” She laughs.

It’s aimed at me.

And I don’t fucking care.

Because she’s laughing.

And I haven’t used my power at all.