Page 87 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

“Why do you look like that?” Kalix frowns and reaches for me, sweeping me off my feet and into strong hands that I’ve seen do deadly things like ripping another Mortal God’s head from her shoulders. I should not feel as safe as I do right now and I remind myself that up until a few weeks ago, the Darkhavens were potential targets for my mission.

A mission that no longer exists in the original sense. After all, the brimstone chip keeping me bound in blood to Ophelia’s Underworld Guild is gone. The client I was meant to serve is none other than the God of Prophecy himself.

Kalix carries me over to the same lounge that Regis had occupied and as he sets me down, I straighten. “How is Regis?” I ask, casting a look to first Ruen and then Theos, as he enters the room through the doorway leading to his private chambers.

Theos doesn’t say a word to me as he moves to take a seat near the fireplace, hooking one ankle over a knee and crossing his arms over his chest. I grit my teeth. Now doesn’t really seem like the time for him to be throwing such a childish tantrum about what happened between us this morning, but I return my attention to Ruen as I wait for an answer to my query.

“He’s still in Kalix’s room,” Ruen says. “His condition is unchanged. Now, tell us what happened.”

Before I can answer his demands, Kalix reaches down and plucks my arm up from my lap. “What. Issss. Thissss.” All else in the room goes still at those three cold dangerous words.

Kalix’s upper lip pulls back and his tone takes on a distinctly serpentine edge as the s’s elongate through fangs that press down from his gums. The three lines marking the cuts Tryphone had made are revealed as the sleeve of my tunic is pressed up towards my elbow.

Theos stands abruptly, golden lightning sparking at his fingertips.

“I’m fine.” I jerk my arm, but Kalix’s fingers contract, holding me in place.

“Kiera?” Ruen’s voice draws nearer and I turn my head, blinking when I realize I’ve suddenly been surrounded by three increasingly angry Mortal Gods.

Ruen’s normally purple and blue eyes are a stark crimson as he gazes down at the thin lines cut into my forearm and the dried blood crusted around the now closed wounds that should be sealed by now thanks to my Divine blood. That is … they would have been had Tryphone not used a brimstone blade.

Exhaustion thrums a steady beat behind my eye sockets. “Please don’t.” My plea is a hushed whisper, one that is ignored when Ruen manages to pull his eyes from my skin to meet my gaze.

“Explain.” Just like that, I know, the Darkhavens will accept nothing less than an exact retelling of every single thing that occurred between when I left their quarters to when I returned.

I sink deeper into the lounge and close my eyes. Giving up on pulling my arm from Kalix’s grasp, I’m only half startled when I feel him release me. A second later, I’m being shifted forward as a hard male body climbs in behind me and pulls me against a wide warm chest.

Don’t get used to this, I order myself. This will not last. It’s not real.

Despite that internal warning and my dry throat, I spend the rest of the morning explaining in detail everything that happened between the God Council and me. I tell the Darkhavens of the strange room, the brimstone chalice, and the failed ceremony.

Halfway through, both Theos and Ruen take seats on the low-rise table before the lounge, their legs bumping against mine. When I get to the part of Tryphone cutting my wrist as part of the ceremony to combine my blood with that of the God Council, Kalix’s muscles twitch and he moves to get up.

I press a palm flat against his chest and glare. “If you move, I will not tell you the rest,” I tell him.

He freezes, eyes narrowing on my face as if assessing whether or not I will follow through with my threat. I don’t know if he believes me or not, but he doesn’t move again and that’s enough for me to continue. Several minutes later as I finish explaining the confrontation with Caedmon in the courtyard, Ruen shifts forward and takes my arm in his grip. I let him and watch as he turns my wrist over, his thumb coming up to stroke along the three markings that the God King had made. My head tilts to the side. Ruen’s touch is the barest whisper of flesh on flesh and when he lifts his head once more, his eyes have returned to midnight.

“Caedmon is no longer to be trusted.” No one argues against the words he speaks. Not me. Not Kalix. Not Theos.

Kalix steals my arm away from Ruen, but unlike his older brother, he isn’t gentle with the injury. He presses the edge of one nail into the corner of one scab, peeling it back as fresh blood wells. A hiss escapes me as he lifts the lesion to his mouth. Forest green eyes with slitted pupils hover on my face as he presses his lips to the wound. My stomach churns and then tightens for a reason I’m not wholly aware of as his tongue laps at the blood, taking it into himself.

“They will not take you again.” Kalix breathes the words against my bloodied skin.

Nothing, I mentally insist. It means nothing.

Even I know, though, that I, too, am lying. To them and to myself.

Because the one thing I didn’t tell them about was the way Danai had looked at me. The piercing quality of her gaze that I feel knows far more than she’s said. The God Queen has suspicions about who I am and I am more than a little fearful of what that must mean.

Chapter 38

Kiera

It is by the mercy of some unnamed power—certainly not the fucking Gods—that all returns to normal over the next two days. Everywhere I go, I can sense eyes upon my back, ever present, ever watchful. It’s as if the Gods do not fully believe that their ceremony failed, as if my heritage will reveal itself in the minute details of how I eat my damned breakfast or read books within the Academy’s library.

The Darkhavens—even Theos, despite his coldness towards me—refuse to allow me a reprieve from their presence. At least one of them follows me wherever I go as if the Gods will appear out of thin air at any moment and drag me back to their chambers for yet another ceremony that will see me bled for information.

It’s to no one’s shock that out of all of them, Kalix is the most suffocating.

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