Sinful Gods: Paranormal Romance (Hell's Playground Series Book 2)

by Jesse Darkling

  “Hey,” he rubs my back, “you leave this with me, and I’ll try to sort out this shitshow.”

  “How?” I look up at him with tears spilling down my face. “They won’t stop until I’m dead.”

  “First, I’ll see what I can do behind the scenes. Second, I’ll train you in case part one doesn’t work.” He hugs me gently. “I’ll help you fight until you won’t fear anyone ever again.”

  His suggestion is ludicrous. I wasn’t thrown into a penitentiary to become a damn warrior. “So, they will send me in for a second time?” I shudder at how close I came to dying mere days ago.

  He hesitates and I feel him tense under my touch, his reaction answers me before his words come. “There’s going to be another fight. A bigger one.”

  “What do you mean?” I blink up at him while my insides twist into knots.

  “My fucking godfather visited me while I was in solitary.” His green eyes darken. “Told me there was a major fight coming up with you. All the gods were looking forward to it.”

  Bile hits the back of my throat. I’m going to be sick. “So maybe he was talking about Bono?” I ask hopefully.

  But there’s a rising tension in the air that I already know the answer is hell no. My life has been upside down since I accidentally killed Anubis and it feels like everything is getting worse.

  “Nothing is ever that simple, sweet legs.” He brushes my hair behind my ears, staring into me like he’s memorizing my face.

  I hate the way he says that, but I can’t even be pissed at him. He’s the messenger of bad news, but things are going from worse to atrocious.

  “So, y-your father came to visit you?”

  “Yeah.” He gives me a crooked smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Loki the god of trickery himself.”

  I inhale a sharp breath that stings all the way down my breastbone. “Your father is the Loki! Holy fuck! What did he want?” I’ve never met anyone whose direct parentage is one a major god, so what sort of powers did Rowan have then? And could I trust him when his god patronage is known for pretense? I push aside the wandering thoughts because Rowan has proven himself to me with his actions and words. And I need to believe he means well.

  “That’s not important.” He gently squeezes my shoulders. “I need to get you ready to defend yourself.”

  I wrap my arms around my middle. “I-I don’t want to do this. I’m not a fighter. I don't want to hurt anyone.”

  “But you’re not going to let them win, are you?” He nudges my chin up with his index finger. “You’re going to give them fucking hell for daring to touch you. Show them they need to fear you, then they’ll be so freaking scared of you, they won’t want to be anywhere in the arena with you. Terrify them. Even the fucking full-bloods looking down their noses from the stands. Keep them guessing and let them remember that you took out Anubis.”

  “How do I do that?” Thinking that it’s impossible. “I mean Anubis and Bono, they were my instinctive reactions, I didn’t plan on harming either of them, just tried to get them to stop what they were doing.”

  “And we need to turn that in our favor.” He grins and his green eyes sparkle. “Get your power to work whenever you want and amp it up.”

  I hold out my wrists, bound in the metal. “With these on?”

  “Leave it to me. But it won’t just be magic we’ll be working with.” He grasps my wrists with his hands, bringing each up to kiss my palms. “You’ll need to be able to fight with just these too. In the ring, they’ll switch your collar and bracelets on and off. You’ve got to be ready for that. For no access to your power and the ability to hold your own in a fist fight.”

  “Hell, I can’t do this…” My stomach coils. “I used to hide from the bully at school.”

  “Listen, I’ve seen a three-foot demigod take down a seven-foot half-giant/half-demigod before. It’s all about skills and honing those.”

  I don’t want to fight. I want to disappear. To forget that I’m a god-killer and living in a nightmare. “How can you have so much faith in me, when I don’t?” I ask.

  “Because I’ve been where you are. Where they take everything from you, and now it’s time to fight back and take back what’s yours. You are so much more than you realize. You just don’t know it yet.”

  His words roll over my mind, pressing everything together into a confused mess. How can I be more without knowing it myself? I look up at Rowan and nod. “I’m not sure, but I want to believe you, so when do we start?”

  “First, I need you to do something for me—”

  Chapter Six

  Shaye

  “Well, well, looks like someone has got a hottie,” Cyrmson says as she and my other two roommates sashay inside, eyeing Rowan and me. Her red hair is tied back in a knot at the base of her skull.

  Lene smiles like she’s relieved I’m alive and nods her head, making her blond braids bob.

  While Everly rolls her violet eyes and plops on the top bunk. “Whatever, get out, Rowan, no one wants your shit in here.”

  “Yeah, you’re standing on Jerome’s toes.” Lene points at the invisible spot next to her, where her ghost friend is, apparently.

  The way I see it, everyone deals with crap their own way, and if she wants to imagine a friend, then all the power to her.

  “Seen any good dead guys?” Rowan mocks.

  I punch him lightly in the shoulder. “Stop it,” I hiss. I have to room with these three and none of them are my BFF.

  Everly's black hair is shorn to her skull on one side and hangs to her jawline on the other while Egyptian-style tats line her scalp and arms and I swear I see one move.

  Rowan leans down and kisses me on the lips.

  “What did you want me to do for you?” I breathe against his mouth.

  “Not now, gorgeous. We’ll talk later.”

  “Spew.” Everly makes gagging noises behind us.

  He pulls back. “I’ll catch you later, okay?”

  “Okay,” I breathe out.

  After a middle finger salute to my cellmates, he struts out of the cell. I long to go with him, but I need a few words with my cellmates.

  I whirl around to them. Everly is looking like she’s bored while Crymson picks at her nails and leans up against the bunkbeds. Lene is sitting cross-legged on the floor with her eyes closed like she’s going into a trance.

  “You three knew about the arena and the fights, didn’t you?” Everyone was clued in except me, and it irks me. I huff, frustrated at how clueless I feel.

  Lene peeks up at me with one eye open. “Sorry, we’re not allowed to tell newbs about any of that.”

  “But we’re cellmates...I share my food with you.”

  “All the sharing in the world won’t matter if we get our sentences doubled or worse.” Crymson looks up from her nails.

  “I could have died. Do you not understand that?”

  “Stop being dramatic.” Everly sighs. “You’re as vain as the gods. Not everything is about you. Everyone has to fight if their name is drawn. Most just get jacked up, that’s all.”

  “Do you know who they put me up against?” My voice raises, but I can’t help it. “Bono. And he had every intention of murdering me right there in front of everyone.” I shiver, recalling the glint in his dark eyes while he squeezed my head.

  Everyly shrugs. “What do you expect, god-killer. No one here cares if you live or die. Actually, I’d take bets that most want to see you dead and your head on a pike on Olympus.”

  “Why’d you have to be such a bitch?” I say, tired of their lack of empathy.

  “Easy.” Lene pouts. “You’re freaking out the spirits. No one wants a fight in our cell or for someone to die here. It’ll screw up the karma in here and I’ll never get Jerome to come back.”

  “I don’t kill cellmates. It took them days to clean out my last one when I first got here.” Crymson goes back to picking the dirt out from under her nails.

  Why did I think raising the topic with them w
ould change a thing? I grumble under my breath and decide maybe it’s not too late to catch up to Rowan.

  “Hey, you missed breakfast,” Lene adds. “You’ve got a few minutes before they close the line if you wanna grab something.”

  Suddenly, my thoughts about getting away from my roommates sounds like a great decision. “Might do that.”

  I hurry out of the prison cell without another word and breathe easier. I never picked them as my roommates, and I mean, I still sleep on the damn floor, so that says a lot about our relationship.

  Regardless, I keep my head low and weave through the crowds, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze, as I hurry to the mess hall. Whispered words don’t go amiss with my name on people’s lips. But I don’t care about anything but getting some food.

  The mess hall is half empty, and I speed up to the counter across the back wall and stand in the small line. By the time, it’s my turn, the older lady behind the counter shoves a tray into my hands. I take it but she grips it, not releasing it from her end.

  I lift my head to meet her gaze, her eyes narrowing as she slides another sausage onto my platter. “You give them hell, girl!”

  I don’t need to ask her what she’s talking about. It’s written across her face. The anger in her pinched brow, the tenderness in her parted lips like she’s desperate to say so much more. She knows about my fight in the arena. She had to be talking about that. Her words take me by surprise. I don’t expect anyone to be anything but hurtful to me in this place, so this is new. For a moment, I’m frozen to the spot, my mouth open in surprise. Someone pushes me and I stumble forward.

  “Get a move on,” she barks, and shoves the next tray into the guy behind me.

  I turn and hurry to an empty table where I plonk down on the bench and dig into my food. Something swirls in my chest, a strange feeling as I keep repeating the words in my head.

  You give them hell.

  With a curt smile, I eat my breakfast. Two sausages, a large pile of scrambled eggs and two slices of toast. There is no skimping on the butter either.

  By the time I wash it all down with the orange juice, I grab my apple and bite into its sweet flesh, the snap crisp and juicy. My stomach is fuller than it has been in a long time.

  A shadow falls over me, and I look up to a familiar face that turns the food in my stomach.

  “You’re with me. Get up,” Xanth states, his eyes deep and staring right through me.

  Fury charges through me at seeing him after he’d watched me in the arena. Like the rest of them, he knew before I did and maybe even earlier than I suspect that I was going in to fight Bono. Yet, he made himself comfortable and watched the show. I hate that part of me still thinks about our time together and how much that memory will never leave me, will always make me crave him. Except, I push it all back, tired of being the butt of everyone’s entertainment in this joint.

  “Did you hear me?” he says loud enough with an authoritative voice, that I realize he’s playing his part and has no intention of showing me any leniency. That I am only a diversion to him, and our time together was nothing more than scratching an itch.

  I grit my teeth and take another bite of my apple before dumping it into the empty tray.

  He reaches for my arm, but I jerk away from his touch. Swallowing my food, I hiss between teeth, “Don’t touch me.”

  The room falls silent.

  “Shaye,” Xanth growls out in a low voice, his hand going to his tazer baton. “Don’t make me drag you out of here.”

  I push up from the table, picking up my tray and for a moment imagine smashing it into his chest. But that won’t give me anything, but a beating and thrust into solitary. Or worse... put back in the arena. I swallow down the bile burning the back of my throat and go to return my tray.

  “Leave it.” Xanth yanks the tray from my grasp and drops it on the table. “You’ve got a meeting.”

  I raise an eyebrow and gesture with my chin. What meeting is he talking about? “Lead the way.” I know there’s no way I can get out of wherever he wants me to go.

  And even the other prisoners crammed in the cafeteria are not meeting Xanth’s stare as he marches out into the hallway. It’s like a cloud of anger is floating around him ready to strike and swallow anyone who pisses him off.

  Good. He should be mad. He’s the one who watched me nearly die and didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t even blink.

  Out in the hallway, we walk in silence and I can’t stand his brooding, not even consideration of what happened to me. Not even a fucking apology.

  “What meeting are we going to?” I skid to a stop. If he plans on taking me to the arena again, I will fight him. I don’t care what we had before. This place is full of monsters like him who get off on misery and pain and I won’t add to his addiction.

  In three quick strides he reaches me, and I take a step backward, bumping into the wall. He blocks me with his body and his arms on either side of me.

  “What is your problem?” His dark gaze stares into my eyes before sliding down my lips that I involuntarily lick my lips.

  I try to push against him, but his chest is solid, hard muscle. “What do you think?” My voice dips in sarcasm. “You did nothing while I almost died against Bono.”

  “You expected me to shield you? Coddle you in this hellhole?” His nose flares. “My hands were tied and they still fucking are. I couldn’t do a damn thing, or they’d flay us both for the buzzards to eat. Only the strong survive, Shaye.”

  I shove against him again, anger flaring hot and hard in my chest. “That’s it? You’re not even going to apologize or ask how I am?” He didn’t even visit me in the infirmary.

  “You want flowers?” He snorts. “They’ll grow over your unmarked grave ’cause that’s the only time you’re ever getting out of here.”

  His harsh words cut my soul and I can tell that what we had in the past meant absolutely nothing to him. I straighten, refusing to let them know he’s terrifying. How his power flicks across the darkness in his eyes and down his skin, coiling like a poisonous snake about to strike.

  I lift my chin forcing my eyes to remain dry. “I made a mistake with you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Let me go.” I heave a sigh, looking past him to the empty hall.

  But instead of letting me pass, he lets out a growl and pushes his body to mine, pinning me in place. My body is buzzing from his closeness. I refuse to give in, to swoon from his aggression. It’s all a ruse. Wanting what he can’t have. He doesn’t care about me. If he did, he’d have done something in the arena or want to check on me afterward. Not barking orders of going to some meeting with him like I’m nothing more than a dog he has to walk between lab experiments. I clench my fists and grind my teeth down hard.

  He grips my chin with his fingers and forces me to look into his eyes sparking dark fire. I shiver despite the heat of his body so close to mine. My body craving him even though my mind is screaming to run, not to fall for him again.

  His mouth crashes down on mine and I shove against his chest. Traitorously, I’m kissing him back even as I beat against him. Even as I hate him. Even as I remember him watching me get beaten. Our mouths devour each other. My heart jackhammers in my chest and I feel like I'm falling. I grip his arms to keep as steady as I can with desperation and lust swirling inside me. And I want more yet I want him off me.

  Too soon though, he's grinning against my lips and pulls back, looking at me under hooded eyes.

  "We are far from done." He smirks and I want to slap him, yank on his grey uniform, and draw him back to me.

  Instead, I rub a hand over my mouth like I'm trying to wipe off his kiss. "Bastard."

  He chuckles and saunters away from me and down the hallway. "Keep up, god-killer. You won't want to meet the Warden thrown over my shoulder or with that juicy ass red from the palm of my hand."

  I flick him the finger and jog to catchup to him because I have no doubt he would do exactly as h
e promises or maybe both. And I can’t avoid the Warden... doing so might get me thrown back in that pit and I doubted I'll get lucky enough to survive twice.

  Xanth opens the Warden's door, holding it open for me.

  "You're late." The Warden glares straight at me from behind his metal desk with papers scattered across the surface. He steeples his fingers and leans forward, his partially bald head gleaming in the fluorescent lights.

  Behind me, Xanth closes the door and leaves us alone.

  "How are you doing after your first fight? Quite a show you put on for everyone." His concern for me faker than the certificates on his wall.

  "Show?" I choke out on a dry throat. Why did I think anyone in this place would care for anyone but themselves? Everyone has their agenda, and my thoughts can't stop drifting back to Xanth. "Glad I could entertain everyone with my near-death."

  And my stomach twists in on itself that I had to kill someone. Even though I hated Bono, I didn't want him to die, not because of me. Involuntarily, my hand drifts up to touch my neck, still sore from where he tried to choke me. And a weariness creeps into me at the eager look in the Warden’s brown eyes.

  He waves a hand at my comment. “First fight jitters are expected. Now, I have a way for you to get a reprieve from the next fight. Save up your strength for a big reveal later.”

  My stomach drops at the implication that he has plans to send me back in so soon. “Do I have a choice?” I ask, sarcasm laced with fear in my voice.

  “Not if you want to remain on my good side.” His grin leaves me shivering. He leans back in his chair, shuffling through papers before pulling one out of the stack before checking his watch. “On your next meal delivery to the boiler room in max security find this inmate.”

  When he pushes the paper toward me, I gawk at the mugshots of a guy with tattoos covering his body, hair shorn short, with a clown image sketched into the back of his skull.

  “Why me?”

  “Find out what he knows about Project X and report back to me immediately.”

  I set the photo down and shake my head. “What makes you think this guy will talk to me? And what’s Project X?”