9. Nat

9

Nat

an axe. Freshly sharpened

Theia believes that truly bad creatures want to do bad. The desire bubbles in their blood like thick steaming tar and coat their insides in evil.

There’s so much sticky black in this room, I couldn’t see the gleaming gates of Olympus if they were an inch from my nose.

I believe most creatures fall ass first into bad situations and forget their virtues.

I leaped.

In the deep stainless bar sink, Sin scrubs out the hole in his forearm with a rough sponge.

The bullet’s out, the sharp sound of it hitting the counter echoed on the front window glass and hung in the air for what felt like hours. Same as his violent shout, inches from my face, “Hades fucking spawn!”

As if I needed a second reason to shoot him.

Blackguard.

I’ve seen those damning black tattoos before. In the Underworld. Day shift. Nearly forty years ago. I’d been spit polishing my greaves to a blinding shine when the warning bell rang.

Fear bashed ice into my veins.

I’d sprinted in a tunic and bare feet with nothing but a sparring spear for the riverbank. I can still feel the sting of sunflowers whipping across my cheeks, flares of red fireweed breaking against my bare knees.

Silver ichor flowed into the milky waters of the Styx as a roaring blond with a tattoo on his neck pulled a sword from the chest of Missy.

Her dying scream reverberated within our camp for years. A second swing of the Blackguard’s stolen sword and her head was off. He’d roared to the starless sky with victory, eyes red with anger, aura a black knot around him.

I’d dove into battle, vengeance lighting fires at my fingertips.

He fought mercilessly. I lost sisters. Fighters. Furies.

In a ring of ten, we subdued him. I’d taken a hit to the head that made it difficult to see straight, but I held my line, my spear right at the Blackguard’s throat.

Calydon the Great, second in command of the Blackguard, killer of Erinyes.

Hades snatched Calydon by his scruff and sent him to his damnation.

Persephone turned the sunflowers red for an entire year. She walked the fallen Furies hand in hand to the Meadows of Asphodel, leaving white, drooping lilies blooming in their path.

Hades’s mourning was so immense, the river herself dried to a dribble for three years.

In his spare time, he whelped three hellhounds. Gifts for my aunts. Not to fight, though they kept up with us easily. The hounds were trained to run should such a villain cross our shores again. Run because the Erinyes did not run, did not fall back, did not retreat.

These hellhounds, they’d run. Run through the Underworld to fetch Hades, who personally vowed to end the next Blackguard to dare step ashore.

There are four here in this room right now.

I can’t kill them all at once.

Not with my sisters unprepared. Stretched out over a week perhaps. Hades could camp at the east barracks, Cerberus and her pups at his side. Persephone manning the helm as queen while Hades defends.

No . Spring started two weeks ago.

Persephone is in Olympus, hoarded by Zeus, forced to entertain mortals for the season.

Perfect. Hades is anxious without his queen, eager to unleash his great primordial death power.

An inkling of guilt hacks into my chest.

I shouldn’t have shot Sin in the arm.

Kill shots only here on out.

“Try it,” Sin goads me, as if reading my mind. He chucks the sponge in the sink, wipes his jaw with a hand towel.

He’s not wearing a shirt, three angry black tattoos visible on the olive gold flecked skin, each wrist, his throat, all squeezing like vises.

My attention lingers on the brand embedded over his heart. The three tipped flame of Kadmos. It's oddly familiar, I try to remember from where.

“Sin,” a cold voice chides, knocking me from the trance. “She’s not doing anything.”

He’s their leader, exuding authority in his posture and monotone. In the shadows of his suit coat, there’s not one, but two tattoos encircling his neck.

Does it speak to his strength?

Kill him last.

Make sure my sisters are prepared, fueled. Ensure Hades is at maximum protective papa bear energy.

“She’s thinking about it,” Sin says, glaring. “Thinking something heinously morbid.”

I smirk.

The leader—they call him Atlas—sets a glass of ice water on the table in front of me before taking the chair opposite me. He’s already wiped the red pleather with a napkin and set a coaster under the wobbly leg.

His voice is so different from Sin’s smooth, lilting cadence. The comforting drawl as he asked about my blood, as he cared for me. No one’s ever tended to me like that.

As if it’s a source of pleasure and not a chore.

Evan thought babying me was insulting. Theia thinks I’m impenetrable.

“Are you cold?” Atlas asks.

“I could use a fire.”

“Don’t let her near a match.” Sin’s hands grip the sink’s edge. His shoulders are tense with muscle. His hair’s all but dry, dark blonde waves that push images of cherubs and teen heartthrobs into my mind.

“He’s upset,” Atlas notes dryly, uncuffing the pressed sleeve of his oxford. “People usually like him.”

In a slick motion, the leader of the Blackguard removes his suit jacket and passes it to me.

An offering.

I consider the male carefully.

His aura sits tight to his pale skin, as if a glued on shadow. It doesn’t glow or ripple like Sin’s. It’s a dense obsidian cage from the tips of his high fashion boots to his shiny black hair, impeccably styled.

He reminds me of a honed blade, sharp and intentional, every angle precise. Handsome.

I hear something shatter.

I don’t turn to look. Not even as Sin swears and water splashes.

I grant Atlas a wry smile. “I wonder why.”

The other two Blackguards are those from the club. The first is as nearly as tall as Sin, but twice as wide with hair resembling a lion’s mane, and the other is quiet and pale as death, with leather gloves folded at his middle as if he’s partaking in a funeral march.

Lev Mikhailov and Drake Cosgrave. If I’m to believe their stilted introductions. The father of the mob, and Kadmos’s favorite executioner.

Light from the bar’s off-kilter closed sign casts a paltry red haze about the dark room. It doesn’t quite reach either of them, can’t puncture matching black auras.

All three had stormed the office with heavy artillery, chambers loaded, barking orders, checking on their male. I’d turned over the pilfered gun before they could ask, feigning that I had the upper hand.

Four Blackguard when I’ve just finished a stint in the thrall?

I’m impulsive, not suicidal.

I accept Atlas’s jacket, marveling at the fine weave, the fresh smell of something clean, like detergent, as I drape it over my lap.

I am cold. Have been.

“Thank you,” I tell him.

Sin doesn’t like cordial. He’s across the bar and ripping Atlas’s jacket off me before the fabric settles.

Then, as if he hadn’t realized he’d moved, he breaks into a stiff halt next to me, lording his height and size, panting angrily, a line between his brows.

“Yes?” I drawl, the epitome of reserved.

He gives a low, furious growl, and the sound sends a shiver through me.

“Hurt them,” he says, “I dare you.” His pupils are sinkholes, chest rising and falling as though he’s battled an entire army with a toothpick.

He’s ferocious.

Something in my core tells me it’s attractive, this hulking, seething version of him, so different from the cocky smooth talker.

Hades, he’s nearly threatening. A crest of goosebumps rises on my arms, floods my stomach with warmth.

We stare at each other for a long minute, neither willing to back down, until Atlas commands, “Don’t provoke her.”

That draws my attention. Atlas may be as smart as he appears.

Interesting .

“She’s tried to kill me three times,” Sin defends.

“Here we go again,” Lev, the hairy giant, mutters.

“Knife, knife, poison.” Sin counts them off on his fingers. “And I still fucking help you. Fuck, I think about doing a lot more than helping and then … you shoot me.”

I narrow my eyes at his rapidly healing wound. “It was a tiny bullet, and in the arm, drama king. I wish it’d been the heart. You're giving me a headache.”

“Do you have no soul? Do you hear yourself speak? I’m a person. We are all fucking people. Not fucking toys for you to own and demand and—”

Quick as a flash, I’m on my feet, fists tucked tight, poised for a blow. “ Me ? Treating you like a toy? That’s some rich irony from a male who tried to buy me.”

Sin stiffens at the words, flares his nostrils. Swallows. “You may have a point.”

“And you may have some sense.”

“At least I’m trying to make amends.”

His superior tone makes me want to scream. “Oh yes, salted strawberries and an interrogation. Let the bridge open, the water’s receded.”

“You—” He sighs then, slowly, with the defeat of a war hanging on his shoulders. “I …” He looks at the jacket bunched in his hand and throws it at Atlas.

Irritation flares in my chest, an insult on my tongue until Sin steps into me.

Clove. His aura dances.

I brace.

He pulls his own discarded long sleeve over my head. Remains silent as he feeds my arms through the armholes, pulls it down, knuckles brushing my ribs, hips and thighs.

It’s so quiet.

Roaring, ear bleeding quiet.

We’re breathing each other’s air. No. Stealing it back and forth, neither gaining ground, neither giving it. I wonder how long we can do this, how long he can roll the sleeves up my wrists. Until all the oxygen in the realm is gone? Divided into mine and his?

I’ve never had to crane my neck for a male, and now my entire spine is arched like a bow, strung impossibly tight. Warmth touches my thighs, dots of it in lazy lines where his fingertips smooth the hem. It reaches lower than my dress, nearly mid-thigh.

My teeth clench.

Sin’s pants offset mine. The rest of the room holds their breaths, as though we’re a bomb helpless to detonate.

“I should’ve done that earlier,” he murmurs, voice like smoked honey, glazing my skin. “I should’ve unchained you. You’re not a toy.”

“I’m not.” It almost sounds like a question, the way my voice hikes up at the end as his thumb slides along my jaw.

“You’re not,” he answers, releasing my hair from its knot and draping it over my covered shoulders. “You’re brave, and you were right to kill Oberlin.”

“I know.”

I know and yet, his telling me lifts some invisible weight from my stomach, smooths the burning in my chest.

His hands are still on me, wrapped possessively over my hips. His voice lowers. “Have you stopped bleeding?”

I crane harder, helpless, as his fingers sift into my hair.

I nod.

Something bumps me, reminiscent of a rush of cold air when freezer frost hits you during a midnight ice cream binge. It blasts against my body, and I fight my response to jerk away. Instead, I let it roll over me, tickle the bits of skin still exposed.

Sin takes hold of my hair at my nape, his other hand staying at my waist as his eyes fasten to my mouth. There’s a small crease in his brow, like dented gold. “What’d you find in Oberlin’s office?”

His hand is strong and sure, his voice lovely.

“I set fire to his office,” I whisper.

“You’re too smart to burn it without reading, darling. Tell me and …” His fingers pull slightly on my hair to end his sentence, a dash of pain that sends bolts of pleasure down my body.

He lowers his head, changing from looming to crowding, cold to hot. The end of his nose brushes over mine. His eyes are so purple, they remind me of the blue sparks of Oberlin’s prod.

I shouldn’t like the comparison.

“Sin,” Atlas warns in a whisper.

From the corner of my eye I see he’s standing now, and the others have closed in, positioned in a battle formation. Flanked, turned slightly.

“Don’t look at them,” Sin whispers against my lips, coasting fingers up my ribs. “I bet you taste like strawberries. Tart, juicy sugar on my tongue.”

I want to say duh, what else would I taste like , but my mind’s playing tricks on me, running in the background, scanning the documents I memorized before destroying. The names, the addresses. The events.

His hand tightens in my hair, switching from soft to rough and his grip slides from my waist to my ass as he locks our bodies together. Murmurs, “Give in to me, dove. Tell me your secrets, and we could …”

Then his lips are on mine.

That ruins it.

Squishes our little dance as quick as drawing a razor blade over violin strings.

The firm press of his mouth is cluttered with pain and trauma and violence, hidden beneath tendrils of goosebumps, lovely pants, and dolloped pupils.

Three of his knives slot in my fingers amidst the distraction and when I find a fourth, I bend forward, carving a streak into the hard side of his torso.

He hisses, but his lips don’t stop the agony, his hands pin me roughly. His mouth slants and I bite him hard as I can, teeth digging in his lower lip as I slam my foot into his instep, mark a second slash over his bare chest and kick him backward.

He staggers back two, three steps. He’s heaving, eyes wild as he reaches for his knives, growls when he discovers only two left. Shiny pink blood dribbles down his chin.

Furious again.

Now if this male had kissed me …

“Everybody take a second to breathe.” Atlas instructs with his gun pointed at the ground, his finger light on the trigger.

“Unload it,” I hiss, switching to target the leader with a ferocious glare. “I’ve four knives that I can turn into four bodies before you can aim.”

“Try it,” Sin’s hissing again. “I dare you.”

“Stop!” Atlas has inflection at last. He raises the gun at Sin. “Stop and sit and shut the fuck up. I told you not to push her.”

“She’ll kill us either way. Might as well try.”

Drake, the still one, huffs his irritation and I agree.

“Furies cannot lie, Sin. She agreed to talk with us, now let her,” Atlas orders roughly.

Perhaps not as smart as originally assessed.

“Excuse him,” he beseeches me. “He’s usually better behaved.”

“Not since I’ve known him.”

“I’m right here,” Sin’s a growling, bloody mess.

“Quiet,” I snap, “The grown-ups are talking.”

The edge of Atlas’s mouth almost lifts. I press my feet into the dirty wood floors, deciding I’ll hit him from the side, send him flying across the room and knocking into the big, accented one while I—

“She won’t kill us unless we deserve it,” Atlas interrupts my plotting. “It’s the code of the Furies. They do not kill aimlessly. They’re moral creatures.”

I think of Evan’s choked sobs next to me.

It’s folklore that we’re the purveyors of good and evil, like Themis's scales.

I’m not going to correct him.

Atlas strips the mag from his gun, knocks the bullet from the chamber, and drops them into his pocket. A faux show of kinship. He nods at the table for me to sit and offers, somewhat kindly, “It’s been a long time since Hades released a Fury from his domain.”

“She’s not a Fury.” Sin’s mopping his chest with paper towels, turned away from us, vibrating with anger. “She’s a Goddess. She bleeds silver.”

A Goddess?

Delight surges through me. He confused me for a Goddess?

No , reality Nat says, he’s a sweet talker, a manipulator .

I sit down, wrapping the ends of Sin’s sleeves over my palms, warm for the first time in days. Perhaps it’s out of gratitude that I explain, “Furies were born of Divine blood and do not commune with other creatures. Their lines are pure ichor.”

“Furies are fanged and winged and have webbed feet. They skulk through the Underworld because Zeus banished them. You— you .” Sin stares at me, vicious as his words. “You’re not a Fury. You can’t be. You—you’re a Goddess.”

Again pleasure rushes me.

I squash it, focus on the insult. “That negative connotation is exactly why I prefer our given name, not the one assigned to us by ignorant males.”

“Erinyes,” Drake says.

I tip my head at him, trying to decide when to kill him, before or after the big one. His aura is the same matte black, but his will to fight seems lesser. “Do you speak Greek?”

“Sin taught us,” Bigfoot says, stepping forward, digging through his wallet and smoothing a crisp five-dollar bill down in front of me. “For you,” he says. “A gift. Maybe you can buy some shoes.”

Sin groans and buries his face in his hands. Atlas navy eyes almost roll. Drake is still as stone as Lev backs away slowly, hands upturned.

They’re trying not to antagonize me. And all they can think of is a fiver and awkward silence.

They’re doomed.

“I am a centurion of the Erinyes,” I tell them, “Natasa of Megaera’s line. And what your leader says is true. The Erinyes only harm those who inflict harm.”

I smile, my best Theia impression, sunshine and teeth and stinging cheeks.

The Blackguard let out a breath, fear easing, worry evaporating.

I’m not really lying, but as far as I’m concerned, those black necklaces are blinking Pass Go, Collect two hundred dollars kill signs.

Their deaths will be my golden ticket to returning home.