Three Trials

by Kristy Cunning

  He adjusts himself in his pants like he’s proving a point, and I realize for the first time he’s actually hard. And we’re alone.

  “None of us seem immune, and whoever you end up becoming most attached to…I don’t know if they could do as we’ve done in the past when it reached that point and simply walk away,” he says seriously. No bite to his tone. No snark infused to turn it into banter.

  Just real, honest disclosure.

  “Then the bond would likely sever, and three of us will roam with a missing piece and the inability to ever experience that one pleasure ever again. That is your treacherous step, even though you won’t admit it aloud. All I want you to do is really think about that. Think about what you’ll be destroying.”

  I admit I wanted real talk, but now he’s just being boringly obtuse, and I can’t suffer another moment of it.

  “If I wanted just one of you, I wouldn’t be here with you right now, worrying to death you’re being tricked or trapped by this girl you trust far more than me. My own jealousy stems to you at the moment, even though you’re certainly not my current favorite and haven’t been since that first night when you opened your mouth to speak and ruined the illusion of the bad boy who might make an exception for me.”

  His lips twitch before he takes a sip of the alcohol again.

  I’m a little curious what his chosen taste is.

  “I don’t even particularly like you at the moment, yet I’d still stop my heart from beating if it meant saving yours from such a fate,” I add, daring him to argue.

  I’ve done nothing but prove that time and time again.

  “The ability to persuade a man to question everything he knows is by far the most devious trait about you, comoara trădătoare. And you have quite a few devious traits we overlook just to keep you around. Myself included. As I said, I’m not immune. It’s because of my fear of you dying that I—”

  “Leveled up and turned the blind tribe to ash?” I ask, grinning. “That was really cool. But I still stand by my theory of the Four Horsemen. Clearly, you’re Death.”

  He groans, draining the last of his drink before standing to pour more.

  “This is why you’re infuriating. The fact you can’t even get your feelings hurt long enough to hate me back is—”

  “Endearing?” I supply.

  “Exhausting,” he counters, not sounding one bit happy.

  “My feelings were only getting hurt in the beginning. When it was all of you against me. Ezekiel is my special boy because he was the first to gift me with hope. Kai is like a willful drug, because I truly enjoy the attention he pays me, even when he’s so surly he couldn’t possibly have a gentle bone in his body. Gage is my current favorite because I know without a doubt he finally sees me as what I am.”

  He turns to me, his brow furrowing.

  “And what is that?”

  “All of yours,” I state as though it should be obvious.

  His eyes heat for a second as he swallows harder than necessary, as though I just said some really magical words that he’s struggling not to believe.

  “It’s clear I was designed just for the four of you. Whether or not I’m a Trojan Horse is beyond my knowledge. But even if I am such, I’ll destroy whoever wants to use me against you. My loyalties are sealed and undivided. The four of you are my only charge. If Lamar had been truly trying to hurt you, I would have burned his heart in his chest without blinking an eye. And I happen to like Lamar.”

  We stare at each other, not speaking, just gauging the other like we’re back in our usual opposing spots on the chessboard.

  Finally, he takes a seat again, his gaze flicking over me like it’s the first time he’s letting himself appreciate the sexy black gown I’ve chosen.

  “If we’re stuck here, you could at least wear red for me. Kai is the one who prefers black,” he says as though it’s no big deal.

  Instead of making my dress red, I change it to blue.

  “That’s Gage’s favorite color,” he points out.

  “Yes, and Gage is my current favorite. If you want to make requests, you need to at least try to be my favorite first,” I state absently, as though I can’t be bothered to think about the fact he doesn’t want to be my favorite.

  He fights a grin even as he shakes his head and looks away from me. I think we work best when we’re not trying to be too real. Our banter is our medium. Things get too intense too quickly otherwise.

  Same for all of them, really.

  Gage was willing to risk their bond just to give me a pity fuck when I was so pathetically honest with him. It’s a tad embarrassing now that I look back on it.

  I’ll make sure to withhold such pitiful stories in the future. I’d rather them not pity me at all.

  I want their admiration instead.

  That’s much harder to achieve, but the reward would be much better.

  “I was wrong about why you hated me,” I tell him as he glances over at me. “Gage had his own theory, and he was wrong too. I was wrong about all of it. I thought I had you all figured out as we floated down that fiery lake on the back of that beetle.”

  He just smirks.

  “Then you tell me why you hate me over and over,” I say, shrugging. “But it’s all a lie. Not even Gage truly knows you, and he’s the closest to you.”

  “I can assure you that I hate you just as much as I like you. You weren’t wrong about that.”

  “Well, I guess it isn’t all a lie. But you’re not worried about me choosing favorites and riding off into the sunset with one, while destroying the other three.”

  The confident smirk slips from his lips.

  “You know I value your bond. You’ve seen me preserve it to the best of my ability. Albeit, I have understandable moments of weakness. I don’t even want you one-on-one. I’m selfish for wanting all four of you, while expecting to be the only one you want, but I’m not greedy. I don’t want more than that. Just the four of you. You know that. I can see it in your eyes,” I go on. “It’s why you like me.”

  I can see him guarding himself, careful not to react.

  “Maybe one day you’ll tell me the true reason you’re afraid of even taking this risk, when you’re the most reckless of the four. Your menace is half your charm, so it doesn’t scare me anymore that you hate me. I just want to know why.”

  He leans back, swallowing.

  “You couldn’t bring yourself to go against my wishes when I told you that you couldn’t touch me. Not after the trials. You bartered with Ezekiel, knowing I wouldn’t even hold it against him.”

  I arch a challenging eyebrow at him.

  “You know I don’t hurt the bond,” I say, as though hearing it aloud again makes him all the more intriguing. “So what scares Death himself?”

  “The answer would be simple if you stopped to think about it,” he says so quietly I almost miss it. “You inspire a fear none of us have known before.”

  He looks away, and silence descends around us for more uncomfortable hours. I stare at the ceiling, idly wondering what the other guys are up to.

  “Does she ever plan to show up?” I ask him as he moves to the window to look out.

  “Patience,” is all he says.

  “You really trust her?” I ask on a sigh, needing him to keep me from being on edge right now with the heaps of dread flowing through me.

  So soon after the trials, when everything was life-or-death, is not the best time for someone new to come into the picture and wreak havoc on my nerves.

  “With my life,” he assures me.

  He says it to ease my worries, which is the nicest thing he’s ever done. But it weirdly feels like a knife to the heart for no reason at all.

  I try not to be envious. I really do.

  But I sort of want to kill her already, if I’m being completely honest. I think it’s best not to inform him I actually am as insane as he accuses me of being.

  Chapter 11

  Jude drops down to the bed beside me, li
ke he’s sick of finding uncomfortable furniture to sit down on and crane his neck to watch the TV that only has a good angle from the bed.

  The furniture, by the way, is nailed to the floor. Rather peculiar establishment, if you ask me. And Jude says we’re not allowed to pry it free because it’s an important meeting place for a lot of surface guardians—which is still just a fancy term for reapers.

  He’s careful not to touch me, unsurprisingly. Especially since I gave up being phantom and went whole hours ago to gain control of the remote.

  It’s almost dawn—the next day—and there’s still been no sign of Lake.

  “She must know I’m here or something,” I say as the light starts glowing through the curtains.

  We missed one hell of a party last night. The streets were loud, and I really wanted to join in, but Lake is a very annoying girl who thinks her time is the only time that bears importance. Selfish brat if you ask me.

  No, I do not sound petty.

  “No. Only Lamar and Lucifer have sensed you. Lamar has a link to spirits, which is part of his power. It’s probably why he sensed you when the hell spawns didn’t. And Lucifer is Lucifer. I’d be alarmed if he hadn’t been able to sense you, especially in hell.”

  “But only when I was close enough to touch,” I decide to point out.

  He purses his lips.

  More silence and impatient waiting follows that comment.

  We watch Friends like we’re not both waiting to be dropped into hell by an escort he knows but won’t really give me many details about, because he’s apparently more loyal to her than to me.

  Then again, at least I know she exists. She doesn’t have a clue about me. Even Jude has become protective of that secret. So that means I’m winning. You know, if I was in a contest with her or whatever.

  My mind reverts back to the theories I’ve been working on silently in my head for the past several hours when we both grew tired of veiled insults.

  “I think Kai is Conquest/Pestilence. The thing he did to those two guards seemed like he was infecting them with poison. But it could be disease,” I state randomly, causing him to groan again.

  “For the last time, the Four Horsemen were killed centuries ago during a collision of the two kingdoms.”

  “Who told you that?”

  He gives me a dry look. “Plenty of people, including Lake. Like I said, it was the first obvious answer.”

  “I don’t trust Lake.”

  “You don’t know her. Anyway, it hurt the balance significantly, though the details are murky as to why they were killed. But if by some chance all of that was inaccurate, and by some narrow miracle we were the special quad who were that powerful, we’d be accepted into hell. In fact, they’d even drag us there if they suspected it, because our presence topside this long would shatter the balance. In fact, we would have already shattered it by now if we were them.”

  “Balance, balance, balance,” I say on a frustrated breath. “I’m starting to hate that word.”

  “Get used to it. That’s all we’re constantly trying to do: Keep the balance. Both sides, no matter how differently opinionated they are, agree on one thing, and that is the importance of balance. Good must level out with evil, or the world becomes too corrupt too quickly, and hell spills over.”

  “Wouldn’t the Devil want that?” I point out.

  “Fuck no.” He looks at me like I’m a total moron. “It would be the end of hell if the world had no good left in it.”

  “Why?” I ask, moving closer like I’m desperate to know.

  “Because without balance, there is no such thing as good or bad. Free will becomes null and void, and so do both kingdoms.”

  “That makes no sense,” I grumble.

  He stands quickly and goes to grab an old-timey scale with two small plates on either end.

  He puts it down on the table in the center of the room, and I move to the end of the bed, no longer giving the TV my attention as he places a few lead balls on each of the pans on the scale.

  “There is a perfect balance to everyone who can be topside. You have an exact amount of purities and impurities,” he says, putting a lead ball on each plate.

  The scale stays perfectly balanced as he moves his hand back.

  “Like you told Lucifer you guys were,” I say, frowning. “He seemed surprised by that.”

  “Because he senses our impure imbalance, yet we have our souls intact and it defies the laws of balance,” he tells me, though it doesn’t make a lick of sense. “Plenty of our kind is balanced, otherwise, we couldn’t be topside. The most powerful of the balanced ones usually become royal escorts.”

  He puts an extra ball on one side, tipping the scale.

  “And the ones with an imbalance of impurities or purities go up or down to maintain surface balance,” he goes on.

  “Define purities and impurities,” I tell him.

  “Impure thoughts, emotions, urges…those are impurities. Compassion, loyalty…things like that are purities,” he says absently before continuing. “Humans have some far more pure than others, and far more impure than others. It’s their actions and reactions that define the topside balance, but an impure balance of one of our kind topside would have too much dark influence, inadvertently affecting free will.”

  “Would the same be true if a good angel were walking topside?” I muse.

  “They follow the rules better than our kind do, so I don’t know,” he answers.

  I snort, and his lips twitch. It’s sort of nice how he’s just talking and explaining things without looking at me like I’m searching for a way to use it against him.

  “People like Lake have that pure-to-impure balance and can be topside. Many do. But we’re an enigma,” he continues.

  “Because you’re the Four Horsemen, but you have souls to keep you from being imbalanced. I thought all the creatures had souls.”

  He blows out a frustrated breath. “The souls choose a new form. We’re in our original. Our soul is still mortal with immortal properties and shrouded by an unnatural immortal body. It balances itself against our impurities.” He quickly adds, “But we’re not the fucking Four Horsemen.”

  “Famine is Gage. I saw what he did that beetle. It was like he drained it until it was shriveling from starvation,” I go on, undeterred.

  He looks up from the scale, his brow furrowed.

  “Why would you say that exactly?” he asks, clearly intrigued.

  “When something starves, it starts eating itself from the inside. The beetle was clearly doing that, hence the shriveling. I would think that was obvious.”

  He starts to speak, but I continue on.

  “And Ezekiel is War, surprisingly enough. He doesn’t create chaos. Chaos would have them running in a frenzy and spurred by random events. War is a simple-minded thought to kill the opposition at any cost. Ezekiel just confused their minds with who the opposition was and created a civil war from thin air.”

  He steps closer, tilting his head.

  “As I said, you’re clearly death. Death can come in any form. You didn’t need a spear to kill them, because you were Death itself.”

  He blinks and slowly shakes his head. “Famine. No one has ever suggested Gage’s power being famine. He drains things.”

  “He starves them and dehydrates them,” I correct.

  “Famine’s power was to kill the land with pests and such,” he tells me dismissively.

  “Because he drained the land of nutrients and starved it until it killed everything to keep itself alive and not share resources,” I go on. “The land is just as alive as you or I. It only makes sense he could do it to a living being as much as a living entity.”

  He points a finger at me. “Your ability to rationalize your point by twisting theories and half-cocked hypothesizes makes you impossible to reason with. You make me think things I know can’t be possible. The Four Horsemen are dead. That is something agreed on by everyone.”

  “Then why give the quad
s so much extra attention?” I ask him, arching an eyebrow. “Why not just leave you forever locked in hell’s belly if Lucifer truly wants you dead? Why the theatrics for a man so powerful?”

  His hands fist, but before he can answer, I hear the door opening. Instantly, I go phantom, just as a very familiar brunette walks into the room, her smile spreading when she sees Jude.

  Envy like I’ve never felt before slices through me so powerfully that bile almost rises to my phantom throat when he grins genuinely back at her.

  It isn’t because he’s smiling at her.

  It’s because I know this girl.

  “Two years ago, the four of you shared her,” I say on a shaky breath as Jude goes to hug her right in front of me like she’s nothing more than an old friend.

  He ignores me, the girl who doesn’t really exist, as the one they’ve touched between them before laughs and pulls back, greeting him.

  I remember the way she kissed all of them, savored them with a familiarity I couldn’t understand. Most of the other girls always seemed like strangers to them, but she seemed as comfortable with them as they were with her.

  It’s now I realize why.

  They shared her more than once.

  I just got to view a reunion.

  Staggering back, I watch as her hand slides down his arm with ease and comfort.

  Jude clears his throat, and withdraws from her touch as I stare numbly at the scene at hand.

  “I really don’t trust her now,” I tell him, trying to mask the fact my feelings actually can still be hurt.

  Admired not pitied—my new goal, remember? I get nowhere with them when I wear my heart on my sleeve.

  She moves to the scale, grinning over at him. “Playing with lead balls, Jude? I hardly pictured you as the idle-hands type after knowing you for so long.”

  “It took you longer than usual to show up,” he tells her casually, moving to sit on the end of the bed near me.

  Me? I’m trying not to visibly sulk. Jealousy is a powerful emotion. I literally want to kill this girl. I had no issue with her back then. I mean, of course I was jealous, even tried to possess her—like I did many of them—especially her.