I clicked my fingers in front of his face for a beat.
He blinked, startled, then looked between me and Ava.
“Pardon me.” His apology was weak, spoken in a smaller voice than any I’d ever heard from an aniel.
Before he turned on his heel and stalked over to Adrik, he did something startling. He gave a curt bow my way.
I stiffened in the chair.
Ava’s hands slipped from her face, and she gawked after him.
“Did he—”
I cut her off with a stunned whisper. “Yeah.”
I turned my pale face to her, and we stared at each other with heaviness in our eyes.
“He did.”
An aniel bowed at me.
It couldn’t possibly be a good omen.
18
Ava and I stewed in a thick silence until the room was empty.
The maids were the last to leave, but we weren’t truly alone. Guards were stationed on the other side of the doors.
As Ava helped me sink into the warm bath, she kept her voice low so she wouldn’t be overheard. Who knew how closely the guards were paying attention through the doors?
“Has he ever done that before?”
I shook my head. “Never. Aniels don’t bow for vilas.”
Ava pursed her lips for a moment and wet a soapy cloth. She took my arm in her hand and started to wipe away the dried patches of blood stuck to my skin.
“Is that what you are?” she eventually said.
I studied her. Her mahogany eyes didn’t lift from my arm; she couldn’t look at me.
“If I’m not a vilas, what am I?” I said.
Still, she didn’t look at me. I watched her work the cloth down to my hands, then focus on my fingernails with a too-studious look twisting her face.
“What else could I possibly be, if not a vilas?” I was asking her, not for answers but to voice the stirring thoughts inside of me. “I’m not an aniel. I’m not a God. I was born just like you, not made. I’m as young as you are, I’m from the same isle.”
Finally, Ava’s gaze was lured to mine and I hesitated at the glassiness of her eyes.
“We played together on the sand when we were children,” I rushed on, forgetting who I was trying to convince. “We threw pebbles at boys who annoyed us. We did that together. You saw me grow just as you did. I can only be a vilas.”
Ava moved on to my other arm. Her eyebrows were tugged too close together and she wrinkled her lips into a thin line.
Some ticks of the old clock on the wall passed us by before she dipped the reddened cloth in the bathwater and twisted my gut with her words.
“Did you see his face when you said you don’t bleed?” Her gaze stayed glued to the cloth that she rinsed too many times. “He knows something. Or he suspects something. It isn’t normal, Lissa.” Crimson crept onto her cheeks and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “You’re not normal.”
I swallowed back a lump in my throat.
It was the truth and we both knew it. Still, sometimes the truth was better left implied.
I looked away.
But Ava wasn’t done. “It was after you admitted to not having a bleed that he bowed. An aniel, Lissa.”
“I was there,” I snapped.
Tingles of anger were starting to crawl through me. I curled my toes under the murky soap that was layered over the water.
Monster was stirring.
“You don’t need to keep telling me things I already know,” I grumbled and watched my fingertips make swirly shapes in the soapy surface of the water.
“Don’t I?” Ava’s own anger hiked up into a shrill, course sound.
I looked at her and, just as her voice betrayed, tears began to leak from her creased eyes.
“Because you don’t seem to be as worried as you should be,” she went on. “You were attacked in the middle of the night, someone tried to kill you. A God is drowning you in protection and dresses, forcing you to train your power into something stronger than it ever should be. And you don’t bleed.”
“So what?” I bit at her. “I don’t bleed, I don’t bleed, I don’t bleed—do you want me to run through the corridors and shout it at everyone I see?”
Ava snatched my hand in a grip so firm that pain stabbed through me. Monster clawed at my insides, desperate to tear free; desperate to tear off Ava’s face.
I shivered and stomped the maniac down.
“Gods don’t bleed.” Ava’s fingernails cut into my skin. “Aniels don’t bleed. Vilas do.”
I shifted in the tub and wrestled my hand out of her grip. “You’re being ridiculous, Ava. Cut me and I bleed. The where from isn’t important.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
I sliced my gaze to her.
Monster flashed in my eyes, bright enough for Ava to flinch.
“Shut up, Ava.” My growly voice rattled my throat. “I know what it looks like, I know what you’re thinking. But you’re wrong, and talking like that will get me killed. So do us both a favour and stop talking.”
Her jaw clenched and she held my smouldering gaze for a heartbeat. Then she pushed up from the tub and threw the cloth into the water.
“It’s not just your life on the line,” she said.
“Not just yours either!” I snapped back at her. “Spouting things like that doesn’t paint a target on only us. It stretches back to my family, Ava. You think they’ll take the chance with Mortiz and Petal? Or kill them just to be sure?”
Ava scoffed incredulously. The look she threw my way was full of disbelief. She shouted down at me, “They’re already dead, Lissa! Deal with it!”
I blinked at her, stunned. But in that one blink, Ava was storming out of the room.
I sat up in the tub for a few seconds, watching the doors, waiting for them to reopen and for my guards to push Ava back inside. But they must have let her leave, because the doors stayed firmly shut and soon, the only noise in the large room was droplets falling from my hair to the water in the tub.
Once I realised Ava wasn’t coming back, I sank back in the cooling water.
“They’re not dead,” I muttered to myself. “Bloody liar.”
I ran soap through my hair.
Even after Xanthe’s help, I felt every clench of my muscles and ache of my bones as I made quick work of washing myself.
Getting out of the tub was a whole other thing. It exhausted and pained me so much that I just settled on wrapping a robe around myself then collapsing onto the feathery bed.
The past few days caught up with me fast, and I was plunged into a deep, black sleep before I could draw a blanket over myself.
19
I drifted in and out of a heavy, deep sleep for what felt like days.
Sometimes when I woke for minutes at a time, the sun was glaring through the curve of windows that hugged the canopy bed, but mostly I woke to drawn-curtains and a simmering fire in the fireplace. Nalla fed me spoonfuls of soup and milky oats during those broken moments.
Mostly, I slept. And they let me.
Ava didn’t come. But then one morning, Jasper did.
That morning was different, and I knew it the moment Nalla came sweeping into the room and woke me by ripping open the thick curtains.
Light flooded the boudoir instantly. I squeezed my eyes shut against the glare; all I saw was red.
As I groaned and buried my face in a fluffy pillow, Nalla nudged the mattress-edge.
“Go away.” I sounded as rough as I felt.
“Not this morning, miss.”
Her voice startled me. Not how it sounded, but that she spoke at all. The maids never spoke; not to me, not to Ava.
I squinted up at her from the pillow.
Nalla wore a puckered smile and dipped into an awkward curtsey.
“You have gifts,” she said.
I traced her gaze to the tall, narrow table that sat by the doors—left ajar, I noticed. On top of the table was a stack of ribbon-wrapped boxes, pile
d so high it was like an old abandoned tower of the palace, ready to topple over.
“Great,” I murmured and fell back on the bed with a bounce. “More fucking dresses I’ll never wear.”
A new voice came from the doors. “The Prince doesn’t stock you with dress for no reason.”
I sat up and turned my dark stare on Jasper. He leaned against the doorframe.
Behind him, the shadow of a guard stretched up the creamy paint.
“Don’t you knock?”
He tilted his head. Curiosity flamed his eyes before he said, “Only for the Gods.”
Ava’s implications sprung to mind.
What if I am a God?
I almost scoffed at my ridiculousness.
“Have you seen Ava?” I asked as Nalla started to pick out my day’s clothes. She silently laid out stockings and undergarments on the foot of the bed.
Jasper deliberately dodged my question.
“Get dressed,” he said. “Your lessons continue today.”
“Now?” My brows pinched and I gave a lazy gesture to myself; the pallor of my still-clammy skin, the lump that stubbornly refused to leave my forehead. “Like this?”
“Those were taken care of.” His gaze was icy and I got the feeling this was a sign of payback to come.
“And yet it still hurts,” I challenged.
“All right.” A dark smile took over his lips. “I’ll take you to the Prince instead. You can explain to him your reasons for denying his ordered lessons.”
I chewed on a vile word that threatened to slip from me. Under the sweaty surface I wore, Monster writhed.
Sharpen your nails…
Rip out his eyes…
Tear out his tongue…
She had a point. He couldn’t talk without a tongue, after all.
Still, it was getting harder to keep a firm grip on her lately. Since coming to the palace, she was fighting me more often and tougher.
Can aniels survive disembowelment?
Today wasn’t the day I would lose to her.
Through gritted teeth, I said to him, “So get out then. I need to dress.”
Jasper turned his back on me swiftly and left the room. The door clicked shut behind him.
I peeled myself out of bed with more lethargy than pain weighing me down. It wasn’t a lie when I said my injuries still hurt; but they weren’t the reason I avoided lessons.
Returning to them felt pointless.
More than that, it felt dangerous.
For all I knew, those lessons were the reason a lump was on my forehead and the back of my neck ached.
Still, I could avoid the lessons themselves and the possible threat I suspected still lurked in the shadows, or face absolute destruction at the hands of the Prince for disobeying his orders so directly.
One danger at a time, one day at a time.
20
Nalla’s help had me dressed and pushed out the door with a red plum in my hand before Jasper could have a fit.
Last thing I want is another murderous visit from Prince Volatile.
I forced myself to shadow Jasper through the palace to my lesson. Guards were glued to my heels the whole way, just like the Prince had promised. They only let me out of their sight when I was safe inside the worship room with Jasper.
Once inside, I threw the meaty plum pit on the floor and wandered around the portraits. Their expressions didn’t change much, if at all. Most of them looked just as they did when I first gazed upon them.
As Jasper started to inspect the artefacts, I looked over at the Prince. Before my eyes rested upon his painting, I felt my gut twist.
Even to see his portrait was flooding me with anxiety. I wondered how terrible I looked and if the portrait really understood that.
Would he care that I’m sweaty and pale and bumpy, that I look like I’ve been to hell and back?
Are these portraits even aware of things like that?
I wasn’t sure, but I was certain of his beauty even in strokes of paint-stained brushes. The portrait had nothing on the Prince in person. It lacked the overwhelming sense of authority, his demanding presence, the sheer danger of his beauty. And yet, my gut still squirmed as I studied him.
Portrait-Prince stared down at me with cool, stormy eyes that reminded me of those ghostly marbles Ava and I used to play with when we were children, bored in the Sun Season. His eyes glowed just the same, and wisps of secrets and souls danced behind the glossy surface. If we were in a pitch-black room, I suspected his eyes would glow like torches.
Silvery hair swept over his forehead and the tips brushed over his dark eyebrows, making him look even more menacing, and shadows clung to his cheeks, between his strong jaw and high cheekbones.
If Prince Poison had been a vilas, and he lived on an ordinary isle like Zwayk, all the girls—and some of the boys—would have been all over him like a fever in the Frost Season. Tales of his cutting looks would have sailed over the Commos Isles and my heart might have ached when the inevitable day came that he married a guv’nor or an isle’s mayor.
Standing under his portrait with my heart twisting and my stomach turning, it dawned on me. Like a snake, the Prince had snared me and I had no idea how. If he had charms, they weren’t wasted on me. If he had feelings, they weren’t revealed to me.
So why I found myself caring for him in any way, even just built on the foundations of desire, I didn’t know.
Jasper told me once, ‘Some of us never get approval, yet we seek it our whole lives. It is our driving force.’
With difficulty, I pulled myself away from the portrait and joined Jasper for the lesson. It chugged by, slower than a carriage drawn by a husband, and I caught myself looking back at the Prince’s stony face too many times.
Jasper wasn’t impressed by my performance that day. Fortunately, he put it down to my weakened body still recovering and I didn’t argue it. Though I knew well enough, it wasn’t my injuries that blocked any progress in training that day. It was my mind—clogged full of thoughts of the Prince and, for once, what I wanted from him.
Jasper dismissed me hours before he normally did. I supposed I annoyed him with my distracted state.
New guards were waiting for me outside of the worship room when I was booted out by a frustrated Jasper. They must have changed over while I was pretending to focus on power and amulets.
The guards shadowed me silently through the palace. Not even when I turned off-course to the gardens did they speak or object. Apparently, I was still afforded wandering rights.
Yet, it wasn’t the same in the garden with two massive, armed and dangerous aniels at my back. I couldn’t get lost in the scenery with them lurking behind me; I didn’t even crack a smile when a purple goat-looking creature the size of my own head dashed between my feet and disappeared into the inky-black bushes.
Before dawn could reach up the sky, I called it a day and headed back inside. But I wasn’t aiming for my own lonely chambers. I swallowed back my pride like it was a razory lump of dirt and took the stairs to the vilas halls.
Without Ava, the palace was an even lonelier place to be.
But she didn’t answer.
I knocked twice, thrice, four times—until my knuckles started to ache from rapping on the rough wood. And still, it was silent on the other side of the door.
“Ava.” Apprehension clung to my quiet voice. Or was that shame? “Ava, it’s me.”
I was still. Completely motionless; even my breath froze in my chest. Then, I let it out with a whoosh as I realised, if she was in her room, she wasn’t going to answer the door.
She didn’t care that it was me. She didn’t want to see me.
I fought back Monster’s climb with fists clenched at my sides, and I sucked my teeth for a moment too long.
I might have been ready to apologise to Ava, but that didn’t mean I was willing to take the heap of wrong in my arms. It wasn’t just me …
At least, I didn’t think it was.
We
were both wrong, both irritated and afraid and tired. But of course, perfect Ava could do no wrong and say no sorrys.
Not when she stole my targets from the midnight parties, or ruined a pretty dress that I’d forced Tahmir to sew for me, or when she put my life in danger by talking dangerous things in my boudoir.
No, Ava could never be sorry for any wrong she had done, because in her eyes and the eyes of the world, Ava could do no wrong.
I scoffed and turned my back on the door. The guards stood, alert, at the wall and watched me with piercing stares.
“If you like the view so much, paint a picture,” I snapped.
The guards were unflinching. They didn’t even blink.
As I huffed and started to march down the corridor, I heard a soft creak come from behind. Not unlike an old floorboard struggling under the weight of a footstep. But that was no floorboard—I knew the creak well.
It was the door to the room I’d shared with Ava.
I spun on my heels and scurried over.
All that relief that had welled inside of me and clutched my face in a hopeful look, collapsed the moment I saw who’d opened the door.
Not Ava.
Her new roommate. And she wore the same snarly smile as when I first met her in these halls.
The blond girl who’d cheered Roxhana on into teaching me a lesson before I’d gone all Monster on them.
“Oh.” Disappointment clutched the sigh that escaped me, and all excitement and hope left me like a ribbon unfurling. “You.”
My shoulders slumped.
The blond gave me a once-over before she folded her arms over her chest and said, “Sarah Wathen.”
“Yeah, I don’t care.” I craned my neck to look past her into the room. “Where’s Ava?”
Sarah rolled her eyes upwards and pushed away from the door.
I saw the two beds clearly. Empty. And my blood stain was still there on the carpet, faint under the dark light of the lantern-lit room.
“Not here.” Sarah paused as if she wanted to say something else.
Whatever it was, I never found out.
She grabbed the edge of the door, ready to close it on my face, and said, “She’s out with that aniel.”
Gods and Monsters, Books 1-3: A Dark Gods Bully Romance (Gods and Monsters Box Set) Page 13
