Page 59 of Bloody Bargain
“What about you?” she asked slowly, eyes flicking up to ours. “Are you willing to watch them die?”
Again, she unsettled us with her questions, and suddenly we wished that she could not see us. That we looked like D’abel or an old lover, friend, enemy… Anything at all but whatever truths she saw on our face. “Whether we betray them or not has no meaning. If we are nothing to them, we are nothing to no one.”
Tessa swallowed hard, taking her time assessing our face. It was a disturbing experience, like being naked and touched by strangers. Normally, we might enjoy such a lewd event, but the b’adruokh’s mate exposed more than our flesh. She saw us with the same bare intensity of our five eyes on a mortal’s soul, dissecting its virtues and vices, its desires and desperation.
“That doesn’thaveto be true,” she said, gaze coasting down our person. Her eyes lingered in some places, and we wondered what wounds she saw. Had we been so maimed? Marked? Scarred? We knew not, for if we looked down, all we saw was the shimmering web of creation that flowed in our veins.
“It is our truth. Is tragedy not defined by grief that could have been avoided?”
“You could make friends,” she suggested. “Instead of antagonizing my–”
“Mate?” We said the word with more bitterness than planned.
She swallowed hard. “Right. He could be your friend instead of your enemy. You’re fighting on the side of a war that doesn’t appreciate you, Gamil.”
Were we, though? We had only done things that helped this mortal and her spirit since she’d first killed his guard and piqued our interest. We’d watched for a long while as she marched through the rain, flying overhead in lazy circles, laden with D’abel’s sorrowful rain.
“The most we can be is neutral,” we said with a frown.
“What if I think of you, then?” she murmured with a stitch in her brow. She flexed her fist as if it remembered the weight of our gift. “Remember you and send my gratitude. I’m not the worshiping kind, but… aren’t these the things gods actually want? To be included in the daily lives of the people they love and sacrifice for?”
Our heart nearly beat out of our chest. Heat suffused itself through our chest, and her spirit latched onto the radiating desire, siphoning a wisp of our immortal soul into its orbit.
All seven of our eyes blazed in shock, washing Tessa’s face in an eerie glow. In all our eons, no one had ever huntedusbefore. Not like this, by a mortal woman with an iron shell and compassion enough to drown an army. We had always been met with…
Well, forks.
“I can do that for you,” she said quietly, licking her lip in thought, convincing herself. “If you help me fix their mistakes.”
We squeezed our eyes shut in pain. Eons of our children sending anguished thoughts of hunger and desperation. Rending, tearing, slurping, gurgling. They cannibalized and murdered and swarmed. They had hunted, yes, but not in the way we’d meant to teach them. And they had prayed to us, but not for things we had the control to change. They had been a fearsome army once, but when our Mother turned from them–from us–annihilation should have been our course of action. We had been too soft to relieve them of their torture and allowed the anguish to fester in their souls until nothing was left of the people they had been.
It wasn’t their mistakes that needed fixing. The mistakes were all ours.
The barest nod was all we could manage, struck frozen on the cliffs of Pen Llyn.
“We accept your terms,” we rasped. “Our betrayal and sacrifice in exchange for your devotion.” A soft mouth pressed against our jaw and we startled backwards, eyes flying open. We slapped our cheek where it fizzed with sensation, pressing our tongue against the spot from the inside of our cheek. “What was that for?”
Tessa smiled, though it wasn’t the bright, happy sort of smile a young human woman might normally wear. It was predatory and flowing with power.
“For me. How many mortals can say they’ve kissed a god and left them speechless?”
In a single breath, our heavy mood lifted. We grinned, leaning into her selfish delight. Tessa’s fear, self-destruction, and lies were all delicious, but when she was selfish?Oohhhh,Mother deliver us from such addictive honey.
“We thought you lived a selfless life, Tessa Voss. How unexpected.”
She crossed her arms, the smile turning cold as she reflected on herself and inhaled for fortitude. “I’m coming to terms with the fact that I don’t need to live that way anymore to survive. D’abel is helping me learn how to be whole again.”
The snake was certainly rubbing off on her, in more ways than one.
“A little greed goes a long way, aye,” we teased.
“It’s not greed. It’s… more than that.”
Love.She couldn’t say it out loud, but her spirit sang with it, expanding to lick the waves and ruffle the long, dewy grass. She reached for him without thought, and the sensation was magnificent, overwhelming, lusty.
We chuckled. “Leave a little space in there for us,fyxen.Love or no, wearea greedy god and have but one mortal to fixate on now.”
Tessa rolled her eyes, taking a breath to scold us, no doubt.
