Selfish Myths 2

by Natalia Jaster

  They listen to music while whispering. When Anger asks, Merry answers no. She’s kissed other exiles, but she hasn’t done more with them. It’s never felt cosmic enough for that, though she has touched herself numerous times.

  When Merry asks him, Anger answers yes, he’s been with goddesses before.

  She thinks back on the signs, the looks, the tones of voice. “Wonder,” she guesses.

  Anger tenses. “Once,” he confesses without preamble. “It was one night. We were broken over people we couldn’t have. We’d grown desperate, lonely.”

  She listens with a pang, not for herself, but for them. It doesn’t hurt to think of them together, but it does hurt to think of their grief.

  “Even so, it didn’t work. And there have been others,” he says, then glances drowsily at Merry. “But this…tonight. It’s never been like this with anyone.”

  “Like what?” she mumbles, her eyes fluttering closed.

  Anger rolls to face her. When he gathers her to him, she gets a whiff of sandalwood and dark chocolate infused with rainwater.

  He whispers, “Like I’ve made a choice.”

  ***

  When dawn drizzles into her sanctuary, Merry blinks. A solid wall rises and falls beneath her head, and she grins at the slumbering, outcast god. He’s on his side, still facing her, their lower bodies braided, and their gloveless fingers knotted between them.

  Her, bare under the nightgown. Him, bare from the waist up.

  Merry would scurry on top of him, wake him up, and return the ecstatic fervor of last night. Only he’s asleep, and it’s like watching a hibernating rhino or a dormant tornado. If she takes him by surprise, he’ll barrel from his dreams and knock her over, since Anger doesn’t awaken subtly. She’d learned this during their hammock sleepover.

  Besides, it’s delectable watching his eyelids twitter and the plains of his chest inflate. The motions cause a ripple effect of muscles, of grids contorting and ridges extending. Tracing his features, Merry decides that his mouth is a severe yet sublime engraving across his countenance. Sometimes she needs a crowbar to open that schism. Other times, it takes no effort to make him bellow.

  Presently, he’s peaceful, unlike the previous times she’s witnessed him unconscious, with pinched brows and a padlocked expression. This may be the fruit of their emotional labor—the euphoria and its aftermath.

  Merry sighs. This is a magical morning-after for two lovers.

  Then she frowns. No, this feels more vulnerable than that. It feels more authentic.

  She slides out of the bed and prances from the room. She hops down the garret stairs and tiptoes across the hall, a trickle of enchanted light dashing through the windows. The corridor is a mezzanine overlooking the foyer and its swinging pendulum crater.

  She floats on cloud nine to the bathroom. Two inlaid spaces comprise the area, separated by an open doorway. Merry bypasses the tub and enters the second room, with a square glass shower at the center, beneath another mural of stars.

  Water rains and begins to steam. Beneath the deluge, Merry opens her arms to the onslaught, the downpour racing across her skin. She hums and does a little hip dance. Recalling what she and Anger have achieved together, her flesh stains the same color as her hair.

  Part of her wishes that she’d had lovers in the past, that she’d educated herself in the manner of a worldly goddess. It isn’t for lack of wanting or interest. The misfit gods who’d caught her attention simply hadn’t fancied her in return.

  Another part of Merry doesn’t care. She’s officially on her way to becoming a love ninja.

  The water glides down her belly and sinks lower. Merry sighs—then gulps at the flash of a sterling hoop, the broad expanse of olive skin.

  Anger’s in the room.

  Her heart vaults. He’s leaning against the door, staring at her. He’s thrown on his shirt, but he’s barefooted and tousled, the cyclone of his hair undone.

  Those eyes punch through the fog, through the glass. They sketch her drenched form, the swells of her breasts, the imprint of her navel, the taper of her legs, and the wiggle of her toes. She’s not a vixen. Hers is a gangly height, with knobby ankles and fine strands of hair. For this reason, she’s tempted to retreat into the opaque enclave of the shower.

  Yet he absorbs her nudity like a sponge, like those flaws are immaterial. And she feels the magnitude of his glance elsewhere, in the intimate place where his tongue had stroked through her. That spot drones and throbs merely from his gaze, deliciously terrifying.

  Oh, this is getting good.

  Merry changes her mind. The shower hisses as she steps closer to the door, the better for him to see every inch of her. Feeling bold, she picks up the pace.

  Lifting her finger, she writes on the misted door, Get in here.

  His pupils fatten, the irises blazing. It’s like watching a caged hurricane.

  He stalks to the shower, halting in front of her. A vaporous plate of glass separates them, thin and smashable.

  On the opposite side, he writes a counter offer. Get out here.

  Merry shakes her head, sidling backward, waiting for him. The intermission doesn’t last long.

  The door whips open.

  Anger’s inside. He saunters toward her, water gushing, spraying everywhere. He’s fully clothed, and she’s fully naked, and it doesn’t matter. His expression is barer than she is.

  Retrieving a tube of shampoo, he says, “Turn around.”

  The pulse of his voice hits Merry’s knees. She turns, revealing her backside and drenched tresses, and she feels the wall of his body align with hers.

  His breath curves around her nape. “May I?”

  “Yes,” she replies, drunk on the sound of him.

  Silk pours over her skull, followed by his fingers lathering her roots. Merry’s head lolls onto him, her ass resting against the coarse, sodden jeans. Her lower spine fits into the rails of his abdomen as he washes her hair, massaging the locks. His grip tugs gingerly, his fingernails lightly scratching her scalp while suds build, glistening down her stomach.

  Condensation swirls around them. Occasionally, he leans in to kiss her cheek. She smells the zest of ambition, along with a caramel satisfaction, the piercing reverberation of fear, the cotton of tranquility, and the glistening texture of arousal.

  But that can’t be so. Deities can’t sense each other that way.

  There’s a simpler sign. It’s explicit in the solid length pressed to her buttocks and the shaking of his digits as he rinses her hair.

  Beneath the tide, their movements slow. Merry circles to face him. He glances at her like she’s an artifact and an innovation, like she’s a rarity, like he wants to know more, more details about what she’s feeling.

  The overhead nozzle douses them in rivulets as she cups his face. “All I truly feel is you.”

  Anger vents for air. “Not enough.”

  And then he’s on her. Striding them two steps across the tiles, he pins her to the shower wall, gripping her wrists above her head. His mouth snatches hers, their lips pulsing, kissing one another, kissing so much.

  Merry’s head presses into the grout, her nipples pitting against his soaked shirt, one of her legs hooking over his hips. Anger hums, folding his mouth over hers and grinding their lips together.

  “Merry.” Tearing himself away, he mutters against her chin, “I can’t stop this.”

  “Anger,” she says. “I-I’m going to pass out.”

  “Yes. Yes, you will.”

  He descends, his lips melting from the crook of her neck to the swell of a breast. On a groan, he draws the ruddy pellet between his teeth.

  Merry yelps, her head flying back. She’s truly, certainly, inevitably going to pass out. And in the process, this rage god may crack a few tiles.

  Luckily, he resists breaking anything, and she resists falling.

  Anger sucks on her sweetly, laving at the tip, extracting moans from them both. Then he switches breasts, his lips budding, ov
erwhelming her with short, electric pulls.

  His head drags to her shoulder. This escalates quickly, like a broken dam, which may be the effect of immortal decadence or deity seclusion.

  Or it might be another L word.

  But before that, there had already been friendship, and kinship, so it’s okay. It’s very much okay.

  Merry licks her lips. She should say something memorable and intimate.

  Instead, she hiccups. Anger’s head lifts, and when it does, the intoxicated bafflement on his face prompts a chuckle from Merry. She starts to laugh at the situation, at herself, at him. And so does he.

  Afterward, Anger towels her off and carries her to bed. Being with him has exhausted her, and she goes limp in his arms, sensing that she’ll need energy reserves for whatever comes next.

  He tucks her in, then departs for a moment, returning in a change of dry clothes—a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. Merry admires him while blocks of cement heave her eyelids down. Snuggled in, she bats at the air, reaching for him.

  Mirth rumbles from Anger, tracking across her skin. He lifts the quilt, preparing to join her when the material freezes.

  His breathing stalls. Merry blinks, the room and his face hazy.

  He tilts his head to listen. Is someone calling out to him? Is it Wonder?

  A troubled frustration contracts his features, followed by resolution. Merry knows that pout. It’s not a call from Wonder, nor Envy, nor Sorrow.

  She’s too weary to fixate, but his gaze meets hers apologetically. He bows to kiss the ledge of her shoulder. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Nooooooo,” she whines. “Sleepy sleep.”

  “Lazy goddess,” he jokes.

  Merry watches his retreating back, his shirt shifting with stiff but determined movements. Something about that produces a dollop of apprehension.

  “Where are you going?” she asks, feigning nonchalance.

  Anger grips the doorknob, wavering. The delay in response produces an immediate twinge, because he’s withholding something.

  He cranes his head over his shoulder, then returns to brush a lock of hair from her cheek. “To see Malice.”

  It’s the truth.

  Anger opens the double doors and strides through, pulling it closed again. He vanishes around the corner, likely to retrieve his bow and quiver. No doubt he’ll take a route to the west side via the building roofs.

  Malice. That vile sleuth of a god. What is he up to?

  Earlier, Merry had fretted about Anger conferring with him regarding the Court’s attack. She’s worried about shrewd and curious Malice playing detective, thus somehow learning of the legend and her involvement with it.

  That would require extreme talent even from him, even if he used to be an Archive fan. But again, it’s Malice. Like Wonder, he finds out all kinds of impossible things.

  He wouldn’t call out to Anger unless he has information.

  Merry bolts upright. Whipping back the quilts, she hustles out of bed and rushes to her wardrobe. She’s in need of the right spy dress, something inconspicuous—and pastel.

  19

  Anger

  He strides past the circulation desk and enters the library. Under garlands of ivy, study groups and scholars hunch over tomes. From within cubicles, pages crinkle, pencils scratch paper, and fingers tap keys. Dust and whispers clot the air, mingling with the aroma of concentration and old hardbacks.

  A bitter funk wafts from farther within. Anger shouldn’t be able to sense Malice this way. It must be a coincidence or some random human on the brink of conflict, but he follows the reek’s uneven trail anyway. He reduces his pace, stepping moderately, his fingers hooked around the longbow.

  In the mythology section, he burrows down a narrow aisle where plastic clings to books, decimal numbers harnessed across each column.

  Turning a corner, he stops by the shelves of Greek lore. “Learning how to lie?”

  Malice’s shoulder leans against the stack, his golden head bent as he thumbs through a volume chronicling the demise of Icarus, from what’s visible in the chapter heading. It reminds Anger of Merry’s assessment about Anger, how he fell from Fate’s grace after being blinded, pursuing folly desires beyond reason.

  Perhaps he’s facing the same peril for a second time. Perhaps he’s getting too close to a new light, one that will melt his heart and every other iron-forged thing about him.

  An indentation appears in Malice’s cheek, quirking his lips. “Call me nostalgic. I find humans’ trippy interpretation of us amusing.” The blade of his index finger flicks a page. “For instance, they insist on ending this tale right when it should begin. They’re so fixated on Icarus’s impulsive flight toward the sun, so fixated on lessons and didactics, that they never stop to ask what happened when he hit the sea? Did he truly die? Or did he end up someplace else?”

  “Why not drown and find out?” Anger suggests.

  “Maybe,” Malice replies, being serious.

  He slaps the book closed with one hand, a thwack echoing. He punctuates the motion with an upward swing of his head, which musses his blond waves. His fried gaze meets Anger’s, those irises like cinders, rings of color that disintegrated long ago.

  “Prompt arrival,” Malice congratulates. “You’d better believe I like that.”

  “You’d better believe I don’t care,” Anger states.

  “Good thinking. Save your energy to care about other things. Speaking of deception porn, you have the afterglow of a god who’s been frisky. Maneuvering Merry into heartbreak position, I see.”

  “I’m also getting in position to shoot you.”

  “Temper, mate. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were getting attached to her, and not the kind of attached that merely gets your cock wet.”

  Anger isn’t getting attached. He’s already there.

  He cares for her. So much. Too much.

  He struggles not to let the past day with Merry surface, because if it does, Malice will notice. He’ll see the residue of Anger’s fondness, the confusion, the frenzy of indecision.

  Merry’s legs cradled around his head, the sound of her climax as he’d sampled the sweet root of her, where every nerve ending had collided. Merry in his arms as they slept. Merry in the shower, naked and drenched, her hair soaking his fingers, her body trembling against his.

  In the past, he’d only wanted release with other females including Wonder, and that intention had been mutual. But with Merry, he’d wanted to give.

  To give and give and give. He’d wanted to coax every shade of rhapsody out of her. He’d wanted her to feel what she’d never felt: wanted.

  She deserves much more than him.

  More than his selfishness.

  Yanking his thoughts back to the library, Anger steadies himself, tamping down any visible passions. If Malice gets a whiff of something that transcends lust, the barest hint of affection…

  The demon god is clever, invested, ambitious. Anger refuses to put deviance or the unexpected past this one.

  Thankfully, Malice doesn’t seem to notice a shift. He tosses the book over his shoulder, which any patron could have seen. “Welcome back to my home, away from home, away from home,” he says, his chest strapped in another leather sweater that reminds Anger of a straitjacket.

  He matches Malice’s pose, dropping his shoulder against the bookcase. “You know, it just occurred to me: Why haven’t you tried to break a heart yourself? You’re cunning enough.”

  “Who says I haven’t?”

  Anger gives him a knowing look, which causes Malice to sniff. “I seem to have a knack for turning deities off, rather than turning them on.”

  That’s not hard to swallow. Malice is on the fiendish end of handsome, with the juxtaposition of his impishly gilded hair. Deities would crave his ferocity, if his sanity were intact.

  On the flip side, his diabolism equates to perceptiveness. It’s a surprise that the tactical god hasn’t concocted a method of seducing a fellow exile’s h
eart. Perhaps he’s afraid to try.

  Then again, love is not in a deity’s bloodstream. Only Anger’s class—he’s willing to admit this now—is susceptible. Their elite unit is the very marinade for such a complex emotion, having been forged by the essences of anger, sorrow, envy, and wonder.

  Neither Malice, nor any other outcast in the city, is equipped to enact this legend. None other than Anger.

  And perhaps Merry, birthed as a love goddess, dud or not.

  He disdains thinking of her that way. She’s more than the Fates have earned. More than he has earned.

  He switches off the quandary with a click of his head. If he and Malice have convened, the rage god has news.

  “I take it you’ve called me here because you’ve found something,” Anger assumes.

  Malice quirks his lips. “I have.”

  When the misfit fails to expound, Anger grunts, “Am I to guess?”

  “Actually.” His attention strays over Anger’s shoulder, his face alighting as he circles his index finger. “You’re to turn around.”

  “The last thing I’m going to do is expose my back to you.”

  “Oh, why stop there?” Malice mocks. “I’m the bozo who’ll stab a barbed object through your back, right here in my humble abode. Never mind that I’m not packing terminal alternatives to archery today. And who cares if that would negate my life goals, keep me obsolete for eternity, so long as I get to end you for no unequivocal reason? I’m just that batty.”

  Point taken. But allies or not, Anger will never fully trust this degenerate. He’d been insane enough to pit the Court against Anger and put Merry in harm’s way, regardless that it ensured her trust toward Anger.

  Malice tips his head with exhilarated menace. “Now if I were you, I’d turn the fuck around. Or else you’re going to miss her.”

  Her? Her, who?

  Miffed. Dubious. Unconvinced.

  Then, suddenly, not. Anger searches Malice’s face. He speculates, then realizes this heinous archer has the oily look of anticipation.

  Of gratification. Because whomever he’s leering at over Anger’s shoulder, it’s someone worth the attention.