7. Nat

7

Nat

a garotte so I can see the white of their eyes

You’ve never known sticky until you’ve walked barefoot through a cowboy bar at two in the morning.

It’s a kind of reckless I’ve never quite been.

Sneak two mega cup slushees into the movie theater under my coat? You bet your ass.

Throw myself off the Brooklyn Bridge to choke out a philandering Atlantide? Who wouldn’t?

Barefoot in a bar? Madness.

There’s crushed peanut shells between my toes and if that’s not broken glass piercing my heel, then it’s a needle, and I should pour one out for Zeus and my inability to contract tetanus.

Nah, fuck him.

This one goes out to Big Daddy Hades. I smash what’s left of my beer onto the floor.

“ Fuck !” Sin jumps back, amethyst eyes wide. “You’re stoned.”

“I am not.” My cheeks are hot as he collects the glass in his hands.

“You just smashed Artois like a cockroach.” He dumps the shards into a wicker basket and returns his gaze to me. “And you smiled .”

The word is accusing.

“I smile,” I snap.

Uninformed creature.

Presumptuous, sexy uninformed male creature. “And it was an offering of thanks to the Gods. Which you’ve now desecrated. Don’t be surprised if the dead rise to tear you limb from overlong limb.”

He stares at me as if I’m art that needs interpretation. Bulky shapes collected on plain white canvas with a plaque that says, feel .

That’s how I should be looking at him .

Striding into the bar dripping wet, smelling like smoke and cloves, acting as if he owns the place, owns me.

The thought that would’ve disgusted me an hour ago suddenly has a morbid appeal. A towering warrior locking the door, peeling off wet clothes, whispering things that’d make the hair on the back of my neck rise.

I sit.

We’re in the owner’s cramped back office as a result of a singular easy smile from Sin to the manager. A handshake and he was getting keys, calling him buddy.

Surely, I missed the gun he held to his stomach. People aren’t swayed by pleasant words and one armed man-hugs.

Along the wall, metal filing cabinets overflow, drawers stuck open with papers marked important and taxes and blackmail .

“People are the worst,” I mutter, snatching a file from the top, tossing it onto the square folding table masquerading as a desk and flipping it open. Photographs. Illicit. I angle my head to orient, attempting to figure out why she’s so ecstatic to be mounted by a—

Sin slams it closed. “That’s enough of that.”

“Such a prude.” I lean back in the boss’s squeaky chair, tucking a foot underneath my thigh.

I thought we’d close the door and crash into each other.

Now, there’s a line in Sin’s jaw, and he’s tugging his sleeves down his wrists like it’s an obsession. He’s uncomfortable to be alone with me.

Pleased sparks glitter all over my body.

You are terrifying, Nat, truly a beacon of horror.

He wasn’t terrified when I was in chains, but now on even footing …

Unbidden, a giggle bubbles up my throat.

Gods, I’m giddy with it tonight. Slicing up Oberlin. Taking the hate in my chest and expressing it, eradicating it, hits me harder than opium. Leaves my body in a swaying, dizzy suspension.

I want to dance, I want to drink, I want to fuck.

Heat flares in my veins, decadent and craving.

My eyes snap to Sin, glowing even under the fluorescent lights. He’s drenched and fully clothed, shirt glued to a plank of muscle, hair no longer a bouncy mess but bent lines cradling his face, flattened and dripping down his jaw.

He’d do nicely.

Better than nice.

Aunt Megaera says the best lays happen after the best kills.

Of my three aunts, she’s spent the most time in the mortal realm, and unsurprisingly, she’s also spent the most time warning me and my sisters to stay away, reminding us that we’re not welcome.

We never will be.

We’re fueled by destroying hate, given pleasure and strength and peace by cleansing the realms of evil.

Before the Titan Prometheus breathed fire into humankind, thereby blessing them with the gift of Divine spark bestowing them complexity and autonomy, the Erinyes were just like any other creatures of the Gods.

If anything, we were better. Warriors ever eager to point out when someone stepped out of line or stirred up too much trouble.

We were pillars of peace and harmony. The ideals of society and happiness.

Now the realm is overwhelmed with hate.

To combat it, the first three Erinyes had to divide hate amongst themselves: remorseless hate, jealous rage, and vengeance. Then, they had to multiply as hate spread and darkened. Kept darkening until the mortal realm was not a safe place for us.

The original Fury sisters were seen as no higher than beasts, thrashing out wildly with horrendous bloodlust.

If Hades hadn’t welcomed us into the Underworld—

There’d be as few of us left as there are Chire. Another creature whose power is misunderstood as the realm progresses, as we forget what Rhea, Titaness, mother of all Olympians wanted: peace, and love.

Sex isn’t love, and it won’t make the euphoric sensation humming through me last or spread. It won’t bring me peace.

But it won’t put an end to it.

It’ll echo it.

It’ll feel like a thousand tiny bolts on my bones, like being dipped in molten silver.

I want that.

My dress is more holes than not, but fuck it, I hitch the hem indecently high on my thighs. Males appreciate skin, and despite being more curved and muscled than most females, Sin’s expressed interest.

Why not take advantage?

Sin’s surprise is detectable in the slightest quiver of muscle between his brows. His tongue dashes out of his mouth, wets his bottom lip.

He'll do better than nice.

Spectacular , Aunt Megaera would croon, hands folded over her favorite scythe, chin resting on top. Too bad he’s rotten , she’d add and start to slash.

I wet my own lip, tip my mouth into a come-hither smile.

Just for tonight, I tell myself.

Just to hold on to this feeling for a little longer.

It’s been so long.

I recline in the chair and spread my knees enough to draw his gaze.

Arousal engulfs me with the force of a winter squall, a cold intensity that scares me. My pulse stutters, and Gods, I really need this.

I’ll kill him after, but first—

My voice comes out throaty and warm as I say, “Get on your knees for me.”

His tongue brushes the edge of his teeth and the flick draws heat into my belly and lower, twists something until I have to part my lips to breathe. To pant.

He’s staring at my mouth, pitch-black aura swirling off his skin. I wonder if it’ll peel away when I touch him, if I’ll finally see how bright his skin shines.

His jaw clicks again, the black undulating like the night sky resetting. His voice is one hundred percent indecent lust. “Say please.”

Not up for consideration, not even when I’m thralled and desperate.

I run a hand over the strong muscle of my stomach and inch lower. “I’m saving my voice,” I tease. “Knees. Now.”

He stands still, nostrils flaring, eyes hooded. Hungry . And yet he doesn’t move, as though he’s the Titan Atlas, trapped with the world on his shoulders, frozen in place when all he wants is to throw the table into the wall and plummet to the floor, pick up my thighs and make me scream.

He needs a push.

I trail featherlight fingertips over my bare thigh. “I can start …”

“Where’d you put his hands?”

I freeze. “What?”

“Ephesus Oberlin’s hands. You cut them off. Where are they?”

This is a trap. The pleased bubble humming within me vanishes, sucked out of me as quick as a snuffed fire. My dress lowers and reality slams into me. Hard.

A headache bursts under my forehead, my stomach wrenches and my muscles leach of strength. Cold air skitters over my skin, pinches.

Sin presses, voice hard, pupils still dilated. All purple and black. “What’d you take from his office? It was destroyed. You searched it, don’t deny it. And while you’re divulging everything you know, where’d you ditch the staff?”

There’s a knife in his hand. It still has Oberlin’s blood on it. Pink and shimmering, the mortal and immortal swirl of blood and ichor.

A lump forms in my throat.

Sin’s giving me the same look Evan used to when I’d stumble into the kitchen and knock the grocery list off the fridge in the dark.

Disappointed. Disgusted.

Nobody wants a Fury. Not all of us.

Not the dark parts.

“Did you kill the Daikonos too?” he asks, not pulling any punches.

The full weight of my situation sideswipes me. I’m unarmed and in a locked room with a single blocked exit. I’m weak from a burned out high, and Sin’s aura is so black it haunts me.

I bend over my knees, cradle my head, bile smashing up my throat. “What do you want?”

“Are the Daikonos dead?”

“Of course not. They’re innocent.” I let them go, sent them racing off with arms full of drachma and gems, things to barter, to hide. “Fuck,” I groan, pressing at my head.

“Sobering up?”

The arrogance pouring off him is suffocating.

“Don’t look so pleased,” I grit. “I’ll cut your tongue out. The staff.”

He raises a brow, knife aimed and ready. “What?”

I shove to sit up, hands shaking on my thighs. “I fed Oberlin’s hands to the staff.”

“You’re fucking deranged.”

If he imagines me wicked, might as well be it. “I provided them a choice: die by my blade or bite the heinous hand that fed them.” I dump my elbows on the table, over the bills and porn. “They have survival instincts. If you do, you’ll quiet down. Got it?”

“You’re telling me what to do? You can barely open your eyes.”

I glance up at him again, feeling like I’m made of thick mud. “Do you know what I am?”

He nods.

A bolt of ease unravels in my chest. Followed immediately by wariness. “No.” I shake my head. “You don’t. Because if you did, you’d know that I am power. That I breathe and you suffer. I snap and your thread ends. Understood? Good. Now, food.”

“Hands are not food.”

No duh. “ I want food,” I say, leaning forward. “It helps with the after effects so bring me something to eat before I chop off your most offensive appendage, shove it down your throat and make you thank me for it.”

Deranged enough for you?

He doesn’t move, merely flashes those perfect purple eyes at me. “You are a ray of unfiltered sunshine, aren’t you?”

“Are you still here?”

The door opens and shuts and the echo of his self-smug chuckle and a pocket of an Eric Church chorus sweep inside. I block it out. Block him out. Prioritize.

I need to recover. Eat and get my strength back. Then, for dessert?

Sin’s head.