Page 13 of Tempt

“What?” he asks, innocent.

“Stop being a jackass,” Love grits.

Andrew shakes his head. “Nah, he’s not being a jackass.”

Envy flashes a smug grin. “Thank you.”

“The word for it is dickhead.”

The grin vanishes. “Who invited you?”

“Who banished you?” Andrew and Love retort at the same time.

“Gracious, Envy!” Merry snaps, “Have you no compassion—”

“Frankly, I leave that to Pity,” he says, petulant.

“Wonder was just attacked by the love of her life!”

That shuts everyone up. Wonder has never confessed to loving Malice. She’d testified to loving a boy from history, the mask of whom Malice wears. There’s a galaxy’s worth of difference.

Before she can whisk up a proper speech, Envy is striding halfway down a sparkler path. The remaining males stalk after him, Anger bent on anger management, Andrew intending to keep the peace by making a few pacifist quips.

When all the immortal testosterone leaches from the atmosphere, Wonder consents to drop from the oak and join the females. Merry drapes herself across the grass, inviting Love to rest her head atop Merry’s lap. Love paws like a needy feline until Merry chuckles, obliging the request by combing through her friend’s hair.

Sorrow flops onto her back, landing in a puddle of shredded skirt layers. Absently, she mimics Envy’s previous performance, twirling one of her ice arrows.

Wonder is the last to recline as they watch the sky awaken. They form a mesh of color, a pinwheel from Merry’s pink layers, to Love’s ebony tresses, to Sorrow’s purple strands, to Wonder’s marigold locks. She muses at the disparity between her peers’ personalities, their clothing, and their vocabularies. Some of them have adapted eagerly to a mortal’s template of fashion and modern speech, while some of them cling to their roots.

“Don’t listen to Envy,” Sorrow grouches. “He’s nothing but a sexually frustrated harlot blowing hot air. Talk about one for the history books.”

There’s bafflement in Merry’s reply. “Oh, but I thought you were—”

“We are.” Sorrow clears her throat and amends, “Wewere, but you know.”

“He’s Envy,” Love translates.

“Wandering eye, wandering cock. It’s not a grand arrangement. We’ve never even kissed—what?” she asks when all three gape at her. “Kissing isn’t essential to get the job done; that’s what bodies are for. It’s hard and fast, without the residue of sap, but obviously, he’s grown bored. And what did I expect?” She flips her hair as if it’s a trivial matter. “He can do whatever, and whomever, he wants. I don’t care.”

A sharp nod from Love. “You tell him.”

“Brava,” Merry echoes.

“So don’t worry,” Sorrow assures Wonder. “He’s just tossing judgements like he tosses his prick—impulsively and stupidly.”

“I don’t love Malice,” Wonder stresses.

No, she doesn’t. She loves a person of whom he’s merely a celestial forgery.

If she closes her eyes, she’ll see that human boy resting on his back in the middle of a wildflower prairie. He’d had a name. It’s a name stamped onto her heart, a name she hasn’t permitted herself to say aloud in well over a century.

Not since she lost him. Not since she destroyed him.

Love stares at the firmament. “We worry, is all.”

“But we’re with you,” Merry chimes, abandoning Love’s hair and reaching out to clasp Wonder’s hands. “Always.”

Sorrow windmills her translucent arrow. “We’ve got to admit: For a nemesis, our prisoner is one erotic asshole. His criminal beauty rivals any thriving God in the Peaks, and don’t lie—we’ve all been subjected to his sleazy mouth. If it weren’t intended to harass, it’d be an aphrodisiac. The heckler’s pornographic vocabulary would be fodder for every deity who’s had their fill of Envy.”

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