Wild game, p.12
Wild Game, page 12
He didn’t look as bothered by that as he should.
“People die in my presence,” I reiterated, looking at him seriously. “I started creating spaces for Keres daimons to work out their bloodlust safely because so many I encountered were dying in fights around me. Thanatos would appear to collect their souls, and no one could see him except me. He was always there, watching me.”
“And since you started doing that, have you noticed a decrease in the number of dead Keres you encounter?” Bullet asked bluntly.
I blinked at him. “Yes.”
“Of course you have,” Bullet tutted impatiently. “You obviously think very highly of yourself, but you don’t control when someone’s time is up. Their threads are determined by the Fates, the same Fates who laid out multiple paths for your future. One of which involved you becoming some kind of guardian angel for angry Keres daimons. I don’t know why I’m bothering to explain all of this when you’re just going to forget anyway,” he added under his breath, massaging his temples.
Despite feeling like I’d just gone through the emotional wringer explaining everything to him, his show of irritation somehow made me feel better. It was so ordinary. Like what I’d just told him wasn’t the end of the world.
But would Grace see it the same way?
“You already know I’m going to tell my Amazing Grace all of this, don’t you?” Bullet confirmed, echoing my thoughts. Perhaps he could read them when he was dropping into my subconscious. Was he even supposed to be visiting me like this? Was this overextending his gift?
I nodded, reflexively answering silently before remembering I could speak here.
“Why do you call her that?”
Bullet looked at me, eyebrows rising slightly. “You don’t think she’s amazing?”
“Of course I do,” I scoffed. “But I don’t believe that’s why you call her that. You’re too complicated for such a simple explanation.”
He glanced at his shoes, cheeks tinging pink. I wondered if he was replaying that kiss between us two years ago at Elysium. As much as I’d thought about it, both recently and when it happened, I wasn’t going to bring it up.
Bullet loved Grace. He was committed to Grace. I understood how all consuming that draw to her was because I felt it too. I wouldn’t make things awkward by bringing up ancient history.
“Truth for a truth,” Bullet challenged, crossing his arms and tilting his chin up. I wouldn’t bring up ancient history, but I could still admire how fucking attractive he was. Especially with that stubborn look on his face.
“Sure.” I shrugged. I’d already revealed the worst thing about myself.
“What’s the harm in telling you? Just more things to forget,” he muttered, not quite able to disguise the bitterness in his voice. ”Was Grace that taught my heart to fear, And Grace, my fears relieved.” There was no trace of the sing-song voice he usually used as he recited the lyrics to the old hymn.
“I know that’s not what it’s referring to,” he said wryly. “But I only fear my curse, my death, because it means leaving Grace behind. And the only reason I don’t fear it—some of the time, at least—is because I know eventually she’ll return to me at the end of her long life, and hopefully she’ll be happy to see me.”
I probably didn’t need oxygen to breathe in the dreamscape, but it felt like it had been snatched out of my lungs nonetheless.
“You should tell her what I told you,” I said quietly, my voice thick. “And you should tell her all of that too.”
“I think our girl has enough on her plate without knowing that she’s the only thing keeping me this side of sane,” Bullet replied tightly. “Your turn. What will it take to make you stop holding back? What it is you’re really afraid of?”
“That was two questions.”
“And you won’t remember either of them, give me something here.”
I huffed a silent laugh, shaking my head. “I could quite literally bring Death to your doorstep, Oneiroi. What more explanation do you need? Is that really something you want to risk?”
“I’m not afraid of dying, Wild. I’m afraid of saying goodbye, I’m afraid of being forgotten, of becoming obsolete to the woman I’ve loved my whole life. But Death? He can come for me when he’s ready. I know to expect him.”
My chest ached.
“If I can’t be there for Grace when she’s old and gray, I’m going to make damn sure her other three soul bonds will be. You’re not running away, Wild. I’m not going to let you. Time to wake up.”
Chapter 12
I went from completely asleep to entirely awake, my eyes flying open to stare unseeing at the ceiling. Wild shifted restlessly from the other side of the room, in the armchair he’d dozed off in, and the movement was enough to make Grace stir while Riot continued to cling to her like she was his favorite teddy bear.
I’d known when I decided to pop into Wild’s dreams and ask for answers that the ones I got would be hard to hear. The traces of the gods’ magic on him weren’t subtle, and while I’d predicted something like what he’d told me, I was struggling to reconcile the reckless Wild who’d been cursed by the God of Death with the stoic, controlled man he was now.
No wonder he’d earned the nickname ‘Wild’.
“Good morning,” Grace mumbled, snuggling into my side and pressing a shy kiss to my shoulder. “Is it morning? Are we back to keeping agathos hours? How are you feeling today?”
“It is morning. And I feel better,” I assured her. Mostly. “You?”
“Much better. My head still hurts, but I’m ready to travel, I think. If everyone else is.” Her eyes darted over to where Wild was leaning forward, elbows braced on his thighs with a frown on his face, rubbing his temples. Left with whatever lingering emotion from our conversation in the dreamscape. Our two-sided conversation.
“There’s something we need to discuss first, but let’s get ready to leave. Do we still have snacks?” I asked, attempting to roll out of bed without letting on how painful the movement actually was. I was pretty sure I’d cracked some ribs in that earthquake.
Riot groaned, burying his face in Grace’s hair. “Can’t we sleep a little longer?”
“No.”
Grace blinked up at me, not used to my authoritative bossman voice. I didn’t know if I was pulling it off honestly, but I wanted to get this conversation over and done with. If I couldn’t see the future, I was just going to have to make do with the present.
Lame.
Riot grumbled as he rolled out of bed, grabbing the sweatpants and sweater closest to him without considering for even if a second if they matched. An absolute animal.
“Stay put, I’ll get the snacks,” he yawned, running his hand through his hair and ducking into the bathroom. Wild sat silently in his corner, staring up at the ceiling, and Grace looked nervously between us as she shuffled into an upright position and braided her hair over one shoulder, wincing slightly when the movement pulled at the bandage on her head.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. Goddess, sleep-rumpled Grace might be my favorite.
“Come here and give me a cuddle,” I replied in lieu of a better answer. It had been a rough few days, and while I didn’t want to admit it even to myself, I was feeling the pinch of time more than ever. Time, time, time.
We all took turns getting up and getting ready while Riot dug through the snacks French had brought us, pulling out various packaged breakfast foods that would play havoc with my body. I supposed it didn’t matter anymore—I’d done my best to maximize the amount of time I had, but the clock was running down anyway. What was a little processed sugar at this point?
Grace insisted on us making the bed, and we sat on the edge while Wild hovered in the corner, tapping furiously on his phone.
“I’m not all ‘my body is a temple’ or whatever like Bullet, but even I’m craving like one vegetable,” Riot sighed, unenthusiastically opening a Twinkie.
“Let’s get some on the way… wherever we go,” I agreed, looking at my ‘breakfast’ before setting down on the nightstand with a grimace. “But I have story to tell you first.”
It wasn’t lost on me that we were in a similar position to how we’d been yesterday, except that this time it was Wild’s story I was telling the group instead of Grace’s. Huh. I was totally the bard of our little bonded family.
I glanced at Wild, who had moved to standing in the corner with his arms crossed, ignoring the Twinkie Riot had chucked on the spare bed. Wild gave me one curt nod, so at least he’d guessed at what we were about to discuss.
I took a deep breath and channeled my inner Homer, ready to tell a story with a not-so-happy ending. “Once upon a time, the Olympian gods interacted with mortals on an almost daily basis. They visited the mortal realm, reproduced with humans, intervened in their lives, they giveth, they taketh away, all that good stuff. How familiar are you with those gods?”
Grace swallowed a mouthful of food, looking between me and Riot like she wasn’t sure who I was asking.
“It wasn’t something we focused on particularly. The agathos Elders are very moralistic, they disapprove of almost all the Olympians except Hera,” she said eventually.
That tracked. Hera definitely embodied agathos puritanical energy.
“The Olympians disappeared after Gaia waged her war against them. They’re immortal, so they’re not dead, but they were sufficiently weakened that she was able to take the top spot.” And I had plenty of theories about that, but this moment was about Wild. “Whatever happened to the Olympians, the underworld gods seem to remain unscathed, living and ruling their realm as they always have. Wild knows. He met them.”
Boom. Mic drop.
“You met the gods of the underworld?” Grace asked, her voice dropping to a whisper as she stared at Wild. “How? When?”
Wild gave me another nod to continue, his expression guarded. There was a wave of longing from Grace through the bond, and I imagined she was craving the connection with Wild that would give her the kind of insight into his feelings that she had into mine and Riot’s.
It would be helpful. On the outside, he was about as emotive as the uneaten Twinkie I’d left on the nightstand.
“When Wild was a young, foolish Keres, he rose up quickly through the ranks of the underground fighting scene in London. He was confident, undefeated in the… ring? Cage? I don’t know, I don’t know shit about fighting. Anyway, he maybe got a little too confident one night after a fight, and loudly boasted that not even Death himself could defeat him.”
“Death himself didn’t like that?” Riot guessed, a slightly disbelieving look on his face. Despite all he’d experienced recently, Riot still wasn’t accustomed to the gods and their games.
“He did not. Thanatos, God of Death, decided that if Wild was going to make such grand claims, he needed to back them up. He transported Wild to the palace of King Hades and Queen Persephone in the underworld, a place where mortals can visit—under specific conditions and only by invitation—and challenged him to a fight.”
Grace moved like she was going to go to Wild, but he shrunk further back against the wall and she stopped, not quite able to shutter her wave of her rejection before Riot and I picked up on it.
“He lost. Obviously,” I clipped, annoyed with Wild all over again for hurting my Amazing Grace’s feelings. “Gods and goddesses are rarely content to just leave their victories there. Thanatos cursed him to a life of silence, so Wild could never boast again. This was five years ago. Wild traveled the world since, making his fortune fighting and gaining a reputation for his, you know, silence.” Wild’s eye twitched. “Then he came to Milton and used his funds to start his Milton mini empire.”
Wild cut me a glare again, and I guessed he didn’t like his empire being referred to as “mini.” I mean, it was impressive enough considering he’d only been there two years, but Milton was tiny and property was cheap. He was hardly some kind of real estate mogul.
“For a long time, Wild saw Keres dying around him. Their bloodlust got the better of them and they fought until they physically couldn’t anymore. When that happened, Thanatos would show up to collect the souls, making sure he was visible to Wild, which is obviously not standard procedure.”
Wild was looking at me with wide eyes, and I guessed he was surprised he’d shared this part with me.
“That is why Wild goes so hard looking after the Keres daimons in Milton. I guess he carries some misplaced sense of guilt over all those deaths, even though the Fates decided when their time would be up, not Wild.”
Damn it, I must have explained it better in the dreamscape. He wasn’t looking particularly convinced by my words.
“There must be something that can be done,” Grace said softly, giving Wild a longing look. “Some way of reversing it.”
Grace and her eternal optimism. It was so tempting to believe it sometimes. To believe she could find a way around my curse. Around Wild’s. Fuck, we were an unlucky little crew.
Riot had basically spent his recent years in a cocaine-fueled cocoon of sadness and he was somehow the best off out of all of us.
Wild shook his head, refusing to look at her.
“Is that why you don’t want to be my soul bond?”
Riot made a quiet sound of outrage next to her, and I kind of understood the sentiment because the idea of rejecting Grace was insanity to me. I mean, I was dying, and I still couldn’t stay away from her.
A pained look crossed Wild’s face that wrenched at my own heart, and I could feel how much it got to Grace’s. At that moment, it was obvious that he wanted to speak more than anything, and he couldn’t tell her how he felt.
The ground moved again, this time with a fierce lurch rather than a gentle rumble, and Riot and I grabbed Grace at the same time, my heart beating out of my fucking chest. Was this going to be our life now? Was Gaia just going to haunt our steps, trying to circumvent the Fates by killing Grace before she could fulfill the prophecy?
I stiffened as something tugged at my psyche, a sense of wrongness, almost a ripple of something through the air.
“Pay attention,” Grace whispered, grabbing Riot’s hand and reaching for mine. “The voice is saying to pay attention.”
What fucking voice?
Grace was hearing voices now?
Wild flattened himself against the wall as the air twisted and contorted in the center of the room, swirling into a fucking portal. I pulled Grace off the bed, Riot and I moving in tandem to position her behind us as a figure stepped out of the swirling abyss, dominating the cheap motel room and cutting the three of us off from Wild.
Holy shit.
The enormous feathery, silver iridescent wings were the first thing I noticed because they seemed to span almost the entire length of the room. He appeared as a middle-aged man—with olive skin, shoulder-length wavy black hair and a long, black beard—but I had no doubt he was far older than he looked. Ancient. Immortal.
The god rolled his shoulders impatiently, wings fluttering slightly with the movement. He wasn’t dressed in some ancient Grecian garb though. No, this fucking guy was in a blue and silver sequined suit, with no shirt underneath. What in the Ziggy Stardust had just portaled into our shitty motel room?
Judging by the terrified look of recognition on Wild’s face… Thanatos.
“Ah, if it isn’t my least favorite Keres. I was sent on a retrieval trip and it is oh-so-convenient to be able to find you wherever you are. Even easier when you’re talking about me—well not you, obviously. I applaud myself on my foresight in cursing you.”
And I thought Nyx was scary. This guy was terrifying, in a sparkly, unhinged sort of way.
“Isn’t this a party?” the god said, his voice mocking as he surveyed the room. “So, three daimons and an agathos walk into a bar… Oh, except it’s not a bar. It’s the underworld. Come along, mortals. Aunty Gaia is in quite the foul mood today.”
“Wait—” I objected, digging my heels into the carpet as the portal dragged us forward.
“Oh no, we definitely don’t want to wait,” Thanatos replied cheerfully.
“What is happening?” Grace gasped, fighting to stay in place, clinging to both Riot and I. There was no point, though. Whatever magic he was wielding couldn’t be fought off by brute strength alone. The current dragged us forward, and I crashed into Wild’s side as all four of us stumbled through the portal together, briefly blinded by a kind of emptiness that wasn’t really empty at all. The veil—the separation between this life and the one after—teemed with vibrance and activity, but none that we could see.
Wild’s hand wrapped around my bicep as all four of us fought to hold on to each other through the wind tunnel we were being sucked through. I could faintly make out Thanatos’ sparkling wings ahead of us as he swaggered along in his sequins like he was about to march onto a stage rather than… wherever it was we were going.
The underworld. He said we were going to the underworld.
As quickly as it began, the world around us stilled, and I immediately hunched forward, bracing my hands on my knees and trying not to throw up.
“Welcome,” a female voice said softly, making me straighten. Grace immediately snatched my hand—the one on my injured arm—but there was no tug of pain. In fact, all of my aches and pains had disappeared. I chanced a glance at Grace out of the corner of my eye, finding her face back to its beautiful flawless state, not a bruise or blemish in sight.
Did this mean we were dead? I was going to be pissed if we were all dead. I was the only one on the agenda to die any time soon.
Wild suddenly grabbed the back of my and Grace’s shirts and tugged us towards the ground, and I knew right away that he was encouraging us to bow. Not wanting to risk offending anyone, I kneeled the same way I would for Nyx, with Grace following my lead and Riot clumsily hitting the ground with a thud after her.
“Aren’t you all sweet?” the voice purred. I chanced a glance up through my eyelashes, finding a terrifyingly majestic goddess staring down at us, wearing a flowing emerald peplos with a thin golden belt that highlighted her generous figure. Her skin was so pale, it looked like she’d never seen the sun, and her waist-length wavy hair was the color of wheat.
