8. Sin

8

Sin

over indulgence

Rat poison is an option, I remind myself, as sticky red juice runs from Nat’s cracked lips.

I don’t allow myself to wonder what she’d taste like. I already know, don’t I? Strawberry lemonade, more tart than sweet. A sucker punch to the senses.

“No cream?” she asks, searching the plastic pack for the ripest, reddest of the bunch.

Something’s off.

She’s sat exactly the way I left her, elbows planted, wrists holding her chin up, shoulders sunken. Dark, damp hair coiled around a bank pen behind her head, exhausted, hungover, coming down from her high hard and fast.

The pulse in her throat, however, is unsettled, calming only now, minutes after I’ve returned.

She searched the place. Papers are misaligned in the cabinets, a Bud Light coaster is upside down on the floor. Drops of water sit in a nest beside the wall safe.

Her first mistake.

Second.

Her first was telling me to get on my knees.

Assuming I wasn’t halfway there, drooling over those long, shapely thighs. Then she commanded it of me, tone sending spikes into my spine, carving out marrow with claws.

The rose-colored glasses fell off. Desire replaced with disgust.

I don’t feel bad that she’s suffering a migraine and a turned stomach. She deserves it.

“Sorry.” I peel my eyes from her mouth. “Only the merciful get cream.”

She snorts, and the lack of argument fits.

This is Nat from Oberlin's. Natasa. The female vows bloodshed and feeds body parts to grown males. Unabashedly strong and quick-witted. Bloodthirsty.

A Goddess.

She could curse or kill me for refusing her. She could call in a weather system to fuck up my hair for eternity, condemn me to chastity, accuse me of blasphemy. It’d be the least of the crimes the Gods like to commit.

No good can come from staying with her, trapped in this cramped office.

What have the Gods ever done for me except take and punish? Claim me family and desert me. Leave me to figure out that a God’s love is toxic and insidious.

The ichor in us warps love.

And life is better without it.

I once believed I was immune, once mistook a reserved female’s affection for a blessing. She enjoyed nothing more than to order me to my knees. Not a lover, only a whore.

“It’s no triple cheese quesadilla,” Nat says, arching a brow, as if when I broke into the bar’s cramped kitchens, I should’ve become a Michelin munchies chef. “But it’s better than the packed protein suet bars Oberlin gave us. I wouldn’t feed those to a Minotaur.” She twists the strap of her dress over her fingertips. “Ephesus was marked for death the moment I met him. He may have been your friend, but—”

“He wasn’t,” I blurt, if only to stop from hearing what she thinks, that she actually believes Oberlin and I were … friends, business partners, loose acquaintances.

Her expression shutters, and I ignore the red juice dripping in between the valley of her pinky and ring finger to focus on her, what she’s feeling.

Lemon.

With a pinch of salt?

That could be the dash I dressed the wet berries with.

A one, two, fuck you for treating me like a Daikonos.

I lick my lips and nothing changes. Lemon. It’s constant. Every minute with her.

I’ve never had difficulty reading a person’s mood before, but now it feels as if I’m punching the same passcode on the same lock and expecting new results.

“Oberlin will suffer in perpetuity,” she says breezily. “He’ll chase a warm gentle touch every second of every day and as a hand reaches for him, as their fingers intertwine, an eagle’s talon will slice him apart at the wrist and his hand will flop onto soiled ground. He’ll bleed out over hard, unmelting ice and when the pain overcomes him, when he blacks out from the frigid cold and intense blood loss, he’ll rise and repeat.”

She stares at me for an extended time, gaze hazy. “Or maybe he’ll just be raped for eternity. I don’t hash the details.”

She’s mad. Fucking mad.

I storm the desk, grabbing the bottle of honey Jacks and unscrewing it, putting it to my mouth—

I stop. Set it down.

Grit my teeth. “I can’t even have a last drink.”

“I didn’t poison it.”

As she says it, her mouth tips just so, and under lemon and strawberries and the sting of whiskey, I smell ichor. The burn of it like gasoline on the nose. Unmistakable.

“Yes, you’ve been a beacon of trust from the moment I met you.”

“Since you rented me. Like a fucking motorhome.”

“How’d you get caught? You could’ve killed Oberlin the minute he saw you. You let him—”

Tase her. Chain her. Berate her.

I’m the asshole.

Not her, whether or not she poisoned me.

She’s starving. Literally. Sitting in remnants of scorched clothes, stripped of her dignity, skin damp, decorated with round burn marks, and she’s bleeding.

Fed scraps and chained and struck—I’d have killed me too.

Guilt eats at my indignation.

A long time ago, before the Blackguard, when I wore a chest plate of gold with the King’s crest, when I fought for the progress of creatures and represented the good of the realm, I’d have killed Oberlin too.

With less pizzazz, but still.

She’s not insane.

She’s got a code of ethics.

Fuck, as if I wouldn’t have gone on a bender after getting freedom too. Gotten blazed out of my skull, sought out total and complete pleasure.

I thump a knuckle on the table, ignoring the tear in my gut when I realize she’s eating the strawberries whole, leaves and all, sucking her fingertips clean.

“Let me take a look at the cut, would you, sweetheart?”

She peers up at me with massive brown eyes, lips stained brilliant red. “What cut?”

I avert my gaze, guilt rolling through me. “I get it, I do. You’re cunning and beautiful and you bested me. Seduced, dead, and robbed in under ten minutes, but I’m not the fool you’ve played me to be.”

“Aren’t you though?” Out of the corner of my eye, I see her head cock, her pinky parts her lips. “Alone in a room with me. Not very smart.”

I’m towering over her slumped form, armed and dangerous, and she smirks. Bold. Deadly. Confident.

I admire her for it. “I know I look like your ultimate fantasy, darling, but I can be your nightmare too.”

“Have I not taught you what happens if I’m crossed?”

“A fool would’ve gotten on his knees for you,” I snap, watching her suck that finger and roll her eyes with pleasure. “A fool would’ve thanked the Gods and collapsed at your feet, tongue at the ready.”

“Because only a fool could desire me?”

I’m a whole fool for wanting to wipe that self-conscious look off her face. But I can’t.

We can’t.

A Goddess.

I wave my hand at her. “Give it up, sweetheart. Let me check the damage.”

Something flares in her eyes, a combination of surprise and hesitation. She doesn’t move.

Very well.

I crowd the table, grab her knee and yank until her ankle is in my hold.

She snarls and tenses but doesn’t fight, not the way I know she can. The hangover, as she called it, or the injuries are worse than she’s let on.

I plant her bare heel on the tabletop and hate myself intensely.

The sole is black and silver with filth and ichor. I swallow at the thick shard of glass sticking out of her foot. She’s been walking on it, running, flirting.

“I volunteered,” she says as I perch on the desk and wipe her foot down with a whiskey soaked paper towel. “Oberlin didn’t catch me. I walked into Blitz and demanded his attention.”

I glance up at the dress, strappy and black. “Obviously, he liked what he saw.”

“There are sensors in the floors. They can deliver 10,000 volts of electricity. At once.” She sets the empty strawberry container on the table. “Normally, that wouldn’t have been an issue.”

“Right. Getting struck by lightning is a walk it off injury.”

“For me.”

Goddess, right.

“In this instance, I was wearing forty pounds of plated gold.”

Again, there’s no bragging, she’s simply informing. “Armor?”

She nods. “It melted onto my skin. Liquid metal frying me. I lost consciousness, woke up in a cage.” I yank the glass from her heel and the only indication of discomfort is a tense jaw, a twitch in her eye. “They put the dress on me after they pried the plating off.”

From the dark tone of her voice, she’s downplaying the pain. She’s too detached, there’s too much lemon in the air.

I drag a balled up paper towel down the wound. It’s already healing. Fast.

Olympian fast.

Zeus strike me if I fall for a Goddess.

“How’s that?” My voice is a rasp, attention gliding up her ankle, over her legs.

She plops the second foot ahead of her, seemingly unaware of the view she’s giving me, the scrap of black underwear. Lemons.

I start on the other foot. “So you always meant to kill Oberlin. You have a justice kink?”

She laughs. Unabashed. “Justice. I suppose.” She picks an invisible piece of ling from the skirt of her dress. “My roommate—my best friend—was assaulted by some shady creatures a few weeks ago. I wasn’t quick enough to intervene. And she … they did something to her, drugged her because she’s too strong to be taken down by two pathetic males.” Her attention is pinned to the wall. “It took me ten hours to find one of the guys and break every bone in his arm until he confessed to selling her.”

“To Oberlin.”

“Yes. But she wasn’t up to his standards, apparently.”

That’s why Nat went into his office. To see if she could find who he sold her to. “What’d you take from his office? Files? Sales reports? Did you swipe the contacts?”

She pulls her legs into her chair, tucks knees under her chin, heels on the seat. “I burned it all.”

“You—” I set my teeth. “Why on Gaia’s green realm would you burn it?”

“To keep it from males like you. To stop you from ransacking the office and stealing all his information, setting up your own store of flesh and blood.”

“Am I not helping you?” I throw my arms out. “Have I not— fuck . I don’t give a shit about the Daikonos. I’m not a fucking customer.” I yank on the edge of my turtleneck, feeling hot and overwhelmed. Our lead is gone. “ You’ve been looking for your friend for weeks. I’ve been searching for years. For fucking decades.” I shove my sleeves up, tug on my hair.

Burned.

I was this close, and—Nat lurches to her feet, reaches behind her back and flips the safety off of a neat silver berretta. “Cease your movements, Blackguard.”

I freeze, arms bent over my head, fingers scraping my scalp.

Shit .

Her brown eyes glitter with anger as she takes in the black collar like tattoos wrapped around my wrists. The curse of the Blackguard, a visible marker to show our failure.

“Where’d you find the gun?” I ask. “Taped under the counter or stashed under a floor board?”

She doesn’t smile, doesn’t lower the weapon. “On top of the desk. Found it while you were cleaning up my offering. Palms on the wall.”

“You won’t shoot me,” comes out before I fucking think, and so does the bullet. I dive, and a hole is blown through the door. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

She re-aims, and I lunge for her, grabbing the barrel, overpowering her with sheer muscle and mass.

It doesn’t work.

She spins us, leaning into my weight, not giving up. I trip her, and instead of releasing her weapon, she lets us both crash into the wall.

“Blackguard,” she hisses. “I’ll mount your skull on my wall.”

“Flattered,” I choke, twisting us again to no avail. My shoulder clips the file cabinets. Her hip smacks the table. “Be sure to angle me toward the bedroom, or wherever you’ll touch yourself while you think of me.”

I grin, and she kicks me in the thigh.

I double over, ram into her stomach, lift.

Hands circle my throat as she wraps herself to me, legs coiled around my middle like a backpack.

“Slaughter does make me hot,” she taunts, squeezing her thighs.

I croak a laugh, fingers digging between hers to force them apart, flipping her and throwing us into the cabinets, steel and papers flying.

She groans against me, eyes made of vicious fire. “Is that an over-sharpened pencil in your pocket or are you scared of me?”

I might, honest to Gods, be in love with this female. “It is. And that third leg is—”

“Quiet,” she orders.

“You just shot at me. You blew up my entire fucking life, insulted my—”

She puts her hand over my mouth. Tilts her head. “The music’s stopped,” she whispers, gaze directed towards the door. She retrieves the gun from the floor. “Everyone’s gone.”

“No fucking duh. There was a gunshot. Humans tend to scatter at the sound.”

The muzzle swings to me again. “I said quiet.” With a smack of her elbows into mine, she tiptoes to the door, and presses her ear into it. “Two, no, three males incoming. Not mortals. Mortals clunk and shuffle.” She closes her eyes. “It’s an ambush. Oberlin’s males, perhaps. You distract and I’ll eliminate the—”

I grab the still hot barrel of her gun and bring us nose to nose. “Distract them with my body for target practice? I don’t think so, sweets.”

She looks at me. Glares. “Fine, then. Call them for help.”

“Why would I? You—”

She shoots me in the arm.