Page 102 of Courting War
“You.” Cecile pointed at Theo with accusation. “You’re just as bad as them. You sent Gallagher into the Agoge to torture me and asked her to come here for what? To torture me some more?”
“I didn’t send—” Theo started, realizing it was a defensive and unhelpful response. It didn’t matter that Theo sent the goddess to protect the girl or even that she tried to reel in Gallagher’s dramatic tendencies. What mattered was Cecile had been hurt by it.
Theohurther.
“Did you know about her, too?” Cecile pointed a furious finger at the Goddess of Night.
“Night?” Theo’s brow furrowed. “What about Night?”
“That she’s my—” Cecile’s voice cracked, and Bella rubbed against her leg, “You know what, never mind about that.” Fury sparked in her eyes. “Get out, Night. I only want to deal with one god at a time, and I choose to focus on Theo.”
“Theo . . . god?” Kellyn whispered, his shoulders rising as he glanced between all three gods and Cecile. Confusion lit up his face. “What?”
Shit.This was going to end very poorly. Theo stepped toward him, wanting to comfort him, tell him the truth, something—
“I hate you. Get out.” Cecile reacted in a highly triggered fashion, almost as if it were the broken little girl inside her responding—yelling. She disrespectfully turned her back on the Goddess of Night, deciding to ignore her existence entirely.
Theo needed to step in and do something. She hated seeing Cecile so hurt; strangely, it was Night, not Gallagher or Theo,who represented that hurt. “You should leave, Marguerite,” Theo said to Night, who shifted on her feet, the dim cavern light painting her face a mural of sadness.
Night nodded and walked out; her head held high in grace as her feet nearly floated above the ground. Sometimes Night reminded Theo of Light in the weirdest of ways. In their bearing, their sadness, their regal acceptance of fate. At the cave entrance, she said one last phrase, “We can continue this later.”
“Never,” Cecile hissed before turning her ire fully on Theo. “Now, you.”
Gallagher stepped up to Cecile. The blonde-haired nightmare from the War Court took the girl’s hand and whispered soft indistinguishable words into her ear as a comforting gesture. The palpable tension between them caused the hairs on Theo’s arms to rise. She couldn’t decipher if it was good tension—I want to seduce you—or bad tension—I want to kill you. Or a mixture of both. With Gallagher, the latter was the most likely scenario.
Cecile’s sharp features focused on Destruction, but her words were gentle. “You should leave, too.”
“But I wanted to watch you rip our Great Goddess apart.” Gallagher’s nose wiggled with anticipation, and Kellyn’s face palled at the wordsGreat Goddess.His eyes widened as seven earth sprites crawled out of the rocks and circled his head, causing havoc. “Fine, Theo, I’ll let you stealmy girl.”
“I'm notyouranything,” Cecile snapped back, but before she could argue the point more, Gallagher disappeared into the shadows, a maniacal laugh flicking from her rose-tinted lips.
“Maybe not yet, but you will be.”
Cecile glowered at the darkness.
The sand shifted beneath Theo’s feet as she clutched the swing and pulled herself up. “I’m sorry, Cecile.”
“No, you’re not. War is never sorry for anything.”
Theo cocked her head. “Now, I'm simply War to you?”
Kellyn flinched, his body reacting to the title like a blow. His normally dark olive face paled, every muscle in his body drew tight like a bowstring, and his features were coated with a sick andtwisted understanding. A song of betrayal drifted through the space between them.
“Kel, I can explain—”
“Why would you be anything else but War?” Cecile cut in and shook her head. “You’re just like every other god playing sick games with mortals.”
“No, I’m not.” At least she didn’t think she’d been . . . but maybe Cecile was right. Theo had a lot to answer for—all the dead Theoden champions, Medusa, Devereaux, the men she’d punished, and many more.
Theo was a villain and had been for thousands of years.
“You’re rig—”
“Oh, but you have been,Theodra,” the name was said like snake venom, “You’ve never cared about my feelings, never asked me for my opinion. You do things that hurt people, and then you never even have the decency to apologize.” Cecile said it all in one, long slurring breath.
It was all true.
“Gallagher, truly?” A tear rolled down Cecile’s face. “You know how much pain she causes me.”
