As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, tables started to take shape before me. Round, gambling tables whose chairs were taken by—no mistake about it—Gods.
At least a dozen of them.
It wasn’t just their fine clothes that betrayed what they were. It was everything about them—the regal cuts of their features, dainty lifts of their hands as they reached for goblets of blood, and the way the vilas watched them. The same way I suspected I sometimes stared at the Prince; with a glaze of both need and terror.
A firm shove to my spine sent me staggering into the saloon. I threw a glare over my shoulder, but the guards were already inside and closing the doors behind us.
I suddenly felt trapped, as though I’d fallen into a snake pit, and the only way out was through a tangle of thorns and swords.
Between two heartbeats, my breaths turned shaky and my hands clenched into fists. Nails cut into my palm, and I was sure I would have bled if it weren’t for the lacy gloves I wore.
I chanced another glance back at the guards, who were now stationed on either side of the doors, before I took a tentative step farther into the shade of the saloon. It was silly, but I wondered if the darkness itself was a God. I wondered if it could snatch me by the ankles and drag me into itself. Consume me.
At the thought, my skin prickled into tiny thorns and I wrapped my arms around myself.
For a moment, I loitered in the middle of the saloon and searched for the Prince. But a vilas caught my eye.
His crumpled shirt was unbuttoned all the way down to his naval, and dots of blood were blotted along the fine hairs of his chest. He was sprawled out over a plush settee, asleep. At least, I thought he was asleep.
The longer I looked at him, the more I doubted myself.
His chest didn’t rise and fall with the steady rhythm of a heartbeat. No other vilas got too close to him, and there wasn’t an aniel or God who so much as cast a glance his way.
I got the feeling he wasn’t asleep at all, but dead—and discarded.
A lump swelled in my throat. It was hard to breathe through the smoky air of the saloon, but even harder now that I gazed at a corpse in the middle of a shady room.
I wasn’t sad for him.
I was afraid for myself.
Maybe today wasn’t the time I would meet that fate, but it was never out of the cards completely. If a seer did my tarot in that moment, I would have bet my curse and tongue that my card would be the wheel of fortune—Yet to be determined, unknown, try again later.
Cards were aplenty in the saloon. At the nearest table, draped in shadows and darkness, I caught glimpses of cards being tossed onto the betting pile.
Among the dozen that lounged around the game, at least five of them were playing.
Some I recognised from their portraits.
Mistress Mad.
One look her way and my insides were torched with desire. Wetness fast grew between my legs and I felt the push of my nipples pebbling.
I wrenched my gaze away from her before she could look at me, and send me to my death with a single kiss—a kiss I might have just begged for.
I didn’t see the Keeper of Lost Souls anywhere. And Gaia wasn’t here either, leaving me in a room full of Malis.
Swordsman of Scales, I recognised instantly. He even had his scales with him, set up on the table.
I watched as he took a card of his own and weighed it precisely. The scales tipped, barely an inch. With a strong, callused hand he snatched the card and threw it onto the betting pile, wearing a stony look of determination.
Beside him, the Zealot looked bored and threaded his spidery fingers through a pale blue ribbon. His dark-skinned face had a red tint to it, and though he couldn’t have looked more disinterested in the game at the table, I didn’t allow his relaxed demeanour to disarm me.
Zealot was notorious for his presence among the vilas. Mostly, he lived away from the Palace of the Gods and wandered the Commos Isles.
Zealot was a lover of the arts. Performance, paintings, song, sculptures, the written word—it didn’t matter what form it took, if it was art, it was his love. And all those who performed, whether well or poorly, worshiped this God.
But there lay the problem. Where there was love and a God, there was trouble.
Mother told me a story about the Zealot once. She told it as though she knew him personally, had been witness to the event.
‘A young lady once received the God’s boon.
She came from a family of travelling performers; a circus act. But the lady’s gift and love wasn’t for acrobats or fiery hoops.
The young lady loved to sing. And she was the greatest singer in all the Commos Isles.’
Zealot was known to appear to the vilas as someone they trusted. If their talent in the arts was worthy of a smile from Zealot, he would bless them. From that blessing came the world’s most famous artists. A blessing from this God, and a vilas became a star in their artform.
‘The lady became a star in the blink of an eye. She was swept away from the circus and taken to the Land of the Gods, where she was loved by Zealot. He showered her with gifts and melodies and servants. He loved her, as much as a God can.
The lady performed for him every night. It was the price. And every day, she performed for the vilas in the Capital.
She was adored, both for the beauty of her face and the beauty of her voice.’
Sounded nice.
That was what I thought when I first heard the tale. But then mother told me the rest.
The true price that stardom came at.
All it took was one mistake, one fault—a note off-key, a paint stroke in the wrong direction, a song performed with a sore throat—and the wrath of Zealot was unleashed. His wrath was said to come in only one way. The loss of the art.
That was what mother had told me.
‘But the lady sang too often for too long.
The lady enjoyed Zealot’s gifts too often for too long. She smoked pipes with him, drank liquor with him, and went to bed with him.
The lady thought she was safe, until she was not young anymore.
She sang a song for Zealot.
He did not smile for her. He wore a mask, painted white and black, and he listened to her destroy a song she once sang to enviable elegance.
When the song finished, the lady wept. She knew she had displeased him, so she fell to her knees and begged for his love to outshine his disdain, because—after all—he loved her, didn’t he?
“You have sung your last note.”
That is what he said to his lover, to the once-young lady he had kept for decades, before he reached down her throat and tore out her voice.
She bled to death at his feet. And only when she took her last ragged breath did the God leave in search of another artist to love.’
23
Slithering all around were snakes. And I was noticed.
I stood, shivering in on myself, in the middle of the dusky saloon when a pair of moon-white eyes locked onto me from the darkness enveloping the poker table.
Prince Poison had spotted me.
Beside him, the ghastly God Zealot turned his hot-iron gaze on me and still, he toyed with the ribbon in his hands.
The Prince lazily gestured me over. I gave a deep bow before I reluctantly dragged myself towards him.
As I neared, the lanterns by the table seemed to brighten some. Enough at least for me to catch a glimpse of the cards they were playing with.
Cards just like the ones I’d seen aniels trade with the day I arrived. Faces were painted onto each card, and most of them wept. Tears fell to names written in inky cursive letters.
I looked at the card gripped loosely in the Prince’s lazy grip. A familiar face. Bearded and rough, with mean eyes.
Adrik.
That aniel was a bastard, and I didn’t give a damn that he was being traded like currency in a game among Gods.
Still, I side-eyed the stoic Prince as if just realising how cold he really wa
s.
Silently, I stood beside the Prince and kept my gaze down. Some of the other Gods were taking too much interest in me with their too-long, lingering stares. I waited for the game to finish, and prayed to Gaia that the Prince didn’t whip out a card with my face and name on it.
Thankfully, it was only Adrik’s card he bet, and he won it back in seconds, along with two other aniels, and a handful of vilas. The game wasn’t over, but the Prince’s round was.
Once he pocketed his newly won cards, he pushed up from the chair and rounded on me. The first time he’d really paid me any mind since I was shoved into the saloon.
All memory of what had happened between us the other night was gone from his face; he looked at me with the iciness of the South Winds.
For a moment, the Prince studied me.
I noticed that Adrik’s card was still in his hand, slotted between his fingers. He hadn’t pocketed it with the others, and he seemed to have forgotten all about it as he ran his cold gaze over my face.
Instantly, I knew the reason for his curiosity. I was afraid, yes. I was cautious, definitely. But none of that cracked my stony face. Because Monster was here with me.
Then, the Prince chucked his finger under my chin. The sharp silver nails were gone, and I felt soft leather in place of tearing skin.
The corner of Adrik’s card nicked me. Not even a flicker of surprise broke my stone-faced Monster. I was cold inside and out.
The Prince pulled away, looking bored, and drawled a single command. “Come.”
I followed him to a bundle of curtains on the far wall; velveteen secrets and kisses.
The Prince pulled them aside with one arm, revealing a shadowy alcove whose walls wore iron pikes that ended in severed, shocked heads. The faces were still mangled in screams, and my true self stirred uneasily deep within.
The curve of the room was fringed by a sunken red couch. Cushions and fur blankets littered it.
“Sit.”
I dipped inside, avoiding the dead gazes on the wall, and side-stepped the round stone table bolted to the centre of the alcove. Some dusty gems were scattered over the table, as though a game had been paused and never picked back up again.
The Prince shadowed me inside the graveyard corner.
When the curtains slapped back into place with a heavy rustle that wafted stale smoke and rich wine over me, I slid onto the plush sofa and looked up at him.
My brow cocked as he mirrored me. He sat at my side, turned to face me, too close for a God and a mortal. The cosiness of the death-alcove didn’t help ease the suddenly intimate air that thickened all around me. Or was that my mind playing tricks on me?
After a moment of watching me, Prince Poison lifted the heavy glass in his leathery grip. Red, thick liquid sploshed inside of it, but not a drop spilled.
Now, in the huddle of the almost-room, I could smell the copper from the glass, taste the tang of it on my tongue, like rusted metal.
Blood.
“It is yours,” he said, his intense gaze piercing through me—ashy storm clouds for eyes, rushing with fever.
If he expected me to flinch, he was mistaken.
Monster was in control, and in this domed stone chamber of preserved heads and a poisonous God, I couldn’t be gladder for it.
“My blood,” I chanced a guess, because he seemed to be waiting for me to speak, and I didn’t have much else to say—much that wouldn’t have landed my head on a pike, that is.
“Why do you drink it?” I asked.
The Prince took a drawn-out sip. Thick crimson was quick to coat his scarlet lips.
I watched as he set the glass down on his thigh and ran his tongue along his sharp teeth, leaving drops of blood to stain the corners of his mouth.
“It is your life force,” he said softly. But his gentle tone did little, if anything, to put me at ease. “Everything you know, every memory you treasure and fear, is in your blood. They come in layers, yours more tangled than any I’ve ever tasted.”
Is that a compliment?
He went on, “When I first savoured your blood, I saw your home. The second time, you danced.”
My cheeks suddenly flamed up. Never had I been ashamed of my work, but there was a fresh look in his eyes, a hunger that wasn’t there before.
Reaching out a gloved finger for my flushed cheeks, he said, “Now, I know all about your darkness, Valissa.”
A small smile played on his lips as he traced my cheekbone. “Or should I say, Monster?”
Ice ran through my veins.
The Prince’s smile vanished and, in its place, settled a dark look.
“There is no Monster,” he said. “You are not two souls divided, Valissa. You are one.”
I watched, breath stuck in my throat, as he leaned back into the hugged cushions and tossed the glass onto the table—it skidded to a stop quickly, not a drop spilled.
My trapped breath broke free; a wispy sigh of disbelief.
The Prince slowly peeled off his gloves, one finger at a time. He tossed his gloves onto the table.
They landed with a slap that seized my muscles.
“Naming a part of yourself,” he drawled icily, “does not remove it from who you are. There is no separation to be had. This Monster is Valissa.”
His gaze cut to me, a silent fury simmering in his searing eyes.
“Now,” he said, “embrace her.”
He lifted his gloveless hand, holding it up between us.
“And embrace me.”
24
I couldn’t breathe.
I went hot all over, and my cheeks flamed like fires. My gaze was unflinching from his fingers, those pale fingers that waited so patiently for mine to meet them.
He wants me to touch him
He wants me to die from his poison.
“Are you frightened?” he asked curiously, and flexed his fingers ever so slightly, as if to taunt me.
“Yes.” The truth came out in a rushed breath. Monster or not, death was permanent. “I don’t want to die.”
The Prince brought his fingers to his widening grin. He grazed the sharp points of his pearly teeth with his fingertip, hard enough to draw a bead of blood just behind the nail.
Only, his blood wasn’t crimson like it ought to have been. It was black and shimmery, and I fleetingly thought of tar caught under the sun, or the darkest of night skies.
His grin stayed plastered to his beautiful face. “Who said anything about death?”
I watched as his tongue flicked out and licked the bead of inky blood away.
This time, as he offered his hand to me again, a shift happened. It flipped the whole alcove, suffocating me with a dangerous tension that radiated from him.
This time, it was no offer. It was a command from a God whose metallic eyes glowed with fatal promises if I failed to do what he ordered.
I licked my drying lips and squirmed on the cushions. Turning myself all the way around to mirror him completely, I rubbed my sweaty palms down my breeches and studied his hand.
Had I expected to see spears of poison spike through his skin? If I had, I was disappointed and left with little more to delay with.
I took a deep breath, so filling that it pushed out my chest and drew in the hungry gaze of the God opposite me. His stare hooked back onto mine in a blink and he wiggled his fingers impatiently.
Slowly, I reached out for him. Tremors trickled down my whole arm, all the way to my shoulder where the muscles bound tighter than knotted hair in fierce winds.
Tears prickled my eyes. I blinked them away until they rolled down my cheeks.
My fingertips were so close to his now that my hand started to shake violently.
Silent tears twisted into ugly sobs that wracked my whole body.
My time has come…
Fighting it will be worse. So much worse.
Before our skin could connect, I paused and looked at him. The Prince stared at me already, eyes alive with malicious excitement.
&
nbsp; “Why?” That one weighted word choked out of me, sheathed in agony.
His eyes flashed.
He cocked his head and studied me for a moment.
“Your lessons have not satisfied me,” he said, without apology. No remorse, no regret.
Distantly, I thought of Zealot and the young lady who loved him more than life itself. The young lady who fooled herself into thinking that her God gave a damn about her in the end.
I should have paid closer attention to the stories mother used to tell me.
A realisation that came to late.
I licked the tears away from my salty lips and snivelled.
Like the young lady, I am a fool. And like her, I will die.
I pushed my fingertips against his.
Skin touched skin, and a wretched sound tore out from my throat. My face was twisted, ugly, and I sobbed the same horrid cries as when my mother was killed in front of me.
Only this time, I cried for myself.
It happened faster than I expected.
Bruises blotted along my shivering fingers. Agony didn’t strike me—the pain was in the aches that chilled my bones and startled my muscles.
My hand was freezing.
Before the bruises reached the protruding bones of my wrist, my sobs had roughened so much that I barely heard the Prince call out a name.
Even through the tears welling in my eyes and clinging to my lashes, I saw the curtains sweep apart and a timid mortal shuffle into the alcove. His coppery head was bowed, and he wore bluish black robes—not unlike the hues of my fresh bruises.
“Come.”
Distantly, I was aware of the vilas rushing over to us and kneeling at my side.
I could barely focus on anything other than the seizing cold creeping down my bones, and how black my ghastly arm looked.
“Valissa, look at me.”
My hazy gaze lifted to the Prince. “Please.”
It was all I managed to spit out between hiccups and sobs. And I wasn’t even sure what I was begging for. It wasn’t as though he could simply stop. The poison would spread now, on its own, it would take hold of me and destroy me from the inside out.
Gods and Monsters, Books 1-3: A Dark Gods Bully Romance (Gods and Monsters Box Set) Page 15
