I got the feeling these aniels weren’t keen on skin to skin contact with me again.
He brought the sharp blade closer to my exposed skin and, as it pressed into my arm, a shiver ran up my spine.
Ava jumped forward. She smacked the dagger out of his grip.
It landed at the toe of my boot.
Before either Jasper or I could move for the weapon, Adrik’s hand shot out and cracked Ava across the face. I heard her whimper before she hit the the door from the force.
“What the fu—” I lunged at him, my only weapon being my monster.
My nails sank into his face just as Jasper tore me off the aniel.
As I was tossed back into my seat, bits of Adrik’s face came with me, stuck under my fingernails.
Adrik looked at me so wildly that I was sure he was going to kill me right there. Mince me to pieces and lumps.
He made to grab at me with his giant hand—
“Stop!” Jasper held out the dagger between us. Slowly, he turned his dark stare on Adrik. “Do you want to explain to him why she’s a bloody mess when you’re done?”
Adrik hesitated. The fury lacing his eyes burned brighter than fire, but his mouth opened and closed like a goldfish’s.
Then he sank back into the seat, his molten stare still hooked onto me.
This time, Jasper didn’t ask. He snatched my wrist and, in a blink, dragged the tip of the blade down my inner arm.
I winced.
Blood beaded at the line, slow to start with, then a crimson stream was making its way down to my hand.
The quiet guard pressed the golden bottle to the heel of my palm. Like a river to the sea, my blood filled the bottle within seconds.
The guard corked it, then handed it to Jasper.
I clutched my arm to my chest, watching as Jasper tucked away the dagger and bottle in his coat pocket. He traded them for a handkerchief that he offered me.
With a sneer twisting my face, I snatched the handkerchief and wound it around my cut arm.
The carriage fell to silence. A terrible one.
Even after we began to slow from a horse-led run into a steady trot, Ava’s stifled sobs and my own racing heartbeat were the only sounds to flood the carriage.
We moved at a slowing pace for a while. It felt like an hour. It felt like an eternity. But eternal moments never lasted as long as forever, and eventually, the carriage rolled to a stop.
Jasper booted the door open.
I winced, preparing myself for the beating of cold winds from outside. It didn’t come.
Instead, a warm breeze—not unlike those that drifted from lit ovens—wafted over us.
Jasper’s face didn’t catch up with the surprisingly warm weather. He was all scowls and pinched lips as he swung himself out through the door.
He passed the envelope to a waiting servant sheathed in scarlet armour. The servant took off, out of sight, and Jasper turned to face us, still stuffed in the carriage.
Even Adrik hadn’t moved a muscle.
Jasper’s severe eyes locked onto mine. “If I have to drag you out myself, it won’t be gentle.”
9
Up close, the palace was even more stunning than it had been from the distant view on the ship.
The carriage was parked at the mouth of a paved path that circled a stone fountain bleeding blue and white water.
Late-night purples stained the rough, leafy trees that encircled the path. Between them, I could catch glimpses of bright white marble, forced into the shape of arched-tipped gazebos.
On the other side of the round path, loomed the palace.
I’d thought the stories of the palace walls being crafted from stardust were just rumours. On the ship, I realised how wrong I’d been. And now, as I stood before it, a shower of awe rained down on me.
Never before had there been a truer shade of midnight blue, not even in the night sky. It was speckled with glittering winks of silver and secrets. Glows of orange light shone from floor-length windows that arched into golden curves. And that was just the entrance.
Beyond the face of the palace loomed another storey, at least two levels taller than the first. It went on like that until the palace rear reached the cusp of the thick, white clouds.
I swallowed.
If I wasn’t about to meet my maker—and death—I might have thought the palace to be the most remarkable, romantic place in all the lands. Even the clouds swirled purple and blue, as though painted directly above the home of the Gods. Maybe they had been.
It was as beautiful as it was terrifying, because only Gods could have lived in such magnificence, and it suddenly reminded me of where I was.
The reminder was a punch packed with panic straight to the gut.
Jasper led the way along the path.
Moving in silence, Adrik was so close to my back that I could feel the heat pulsing off of him and smell the faint traces of fruit on his breath wafting around me.
I looked back at him briefly.
His scowl was enough to jolt my shoulders into something so tense that my body promised aching muscles tomorrow. Not that I would have a tomorrow.
But before I turned back around, I made sure to spot Ava.
She was tucked between Adrik and the silent guard, as small and quiet as a mouse. Her reddened cheek was already starting to turn purple.
My blood boiled, hot and angry. Not even the beauty of the fountain that we passed could distract me from the unleashed rage lashing inside of me.
That bastard aniel had smacked her hard enough for blood to gel at the corner of her mouth and a giant bruise to grow over half the side of her face.
Then I thought of my own mark of the scuffle.
My hand touched the handkerchief that bound the cut on my arm, reaching down to my wrist.
Gingerly, I pressed my fingers to it. A silent wince twisted my face and I hugged my sore arm to my chest.
When we reached the smooth marble steps to the palace, Jasper didn’t look back to see if we followed in line with him or not. He waltzed up them as though he owned them and, before his boot could touch down on the last step, the doors swung open.
Two servants—dressed in bone-white breeches, shirts and vests—held the door open for our disgruntled, tense party. Neither of them broke face as we filed in after Jasper. They were statues, staring straight ahead at each other, unblinking as we passed their line of sight.
I only knew we were all inside when I heard the heavy thud of the thick, stardust-blue doors close.
“Wait here.” Jasper wasn’t speaking to me.
The order, apparently, was aimed at Adrik who took the opportunity to grab my arm and yank me closer to him. I staggered on the too-wide hem of my skirt.
His meaty hand steadied me before I could fall flat on my face in the middle of the grand atrium.
To distract myself from the fear gnawing at my nerves, I wandered my gaze around.
Above, pearly white balconies overlooked the hard marble floor we were clustered on.
Columns punched up from the first floor to the underside of the balconies, as if holding them up—but each of the columns were twisted like old trees ready to die and make space for the next generation.
Doors were dotted all along the wall that curved around the atrium, hidden by heavy velvet curtains or silvery sheer drapes. There was even a long, narrow door made of leather that was wedged between two armoured statues. I shivered to think what kind of leather that was and, worse, what lurked behind that door.
Directly opposite us was a wide, red-carpeted staircase that exhausted me just looking at it. I counted fifty steps—and there were still plenty to go—before Jasper strolled back into the atrium.
His face was unreadable. Distant and severe. But it was angled at me.
“Follow me.”
Chubby, too-strong fingers slipped away from my arm.
Hesitantly, I glanced up at Adrik. His eyes narrowed into deadly slits. Still, he nodded his head once.
With a lingering look at Ava’s watery eyes, I turned my back on them and trailed Jasper around the massive staircase.
Behind it, a wide corridor stretched on farther than my eyes could see without blurring and crossing together.
Light flooded the corridor from the left wall; a never-ending wall of panelled windows that opened to a leafy, green courtyard.
The longer we walked, the more enchanted I became.
The courtyard held hidden jewels all throughout it. Romantic benches huddled in tufts of rosebushes. Outside baths large enough to fit my whole village. There were trees whose leaves and branches shone bluer than the walls of the palace, and even pink-coated rabbits that sped through the white shrubs.
Wonder dared to take me too far. And I almost let it, until we neared a small gathering of people in the corridor.
Not a glance was spared on either Jasper or me.
Two of the four men were undeniably aniels.
They didn’t glow. Their clothes gave them away—grey fitted coats that split into tails at the back, and silvery leather boots that reached up to their knees.
The other two men wept quietly and kept their heads bowed; and they were hardly dressed at all. Only loose grey pants covered them from the hips-down, but the rest of their bodies glittered bare beneath the light that flooded in through the windows.
As we passed them, I craned my neck to get a better look at what was in the aniels’ hands. My lips pinched when I saw that they were trading cards, not unlike ordinary playing cards—the kind that weren’t unusual to the balneum in the games room.
But these cards weren’t ordinary.
There were no diamonds or clubs or numbers painted onto them.
A sudden twist of nausea seized me, and I thought I was going to be sick all over the lush cream carpet under my boots.
The aniels weren’t trading cards. They were trading humans.
On the faces of the cards were remarkably accurate portraits of the two humans’ faces—and the portraits moved. Just like the real humans, the faces on the cards wept.
And the cards exchanged hands.
Aniels traded their servants and worshipers—those who gave up their lives to exist within the presence of these godly, powerful beings—as though they were nothing other than pottery and textiles.
My eyes started to burn with the promise of tears.
It was ridiculous, and I wasn’t about to weep for strangers. It was what it meant for me.
If aniels could so flippantly trade humans who were attached to them, loved them even, then what would a God do to me? A God who was a stranger to me?
I wondered if he would even want me to somehow force the power back into Jasper.
‘Your friend holds my power in her body. I want it back.’
It might be what Jasper wanted, but could the same be said about the Prince?
This God could be furious at his aniel for allowing this to happen—and what if he decided to throw Jasper away for it?
I would die so much sooner than I expected.
After all, these weren’t just Gods—they were monsters. And I knew monsters better than I knew myself.
*
Not far ahead of the trading-aniels, Jasper cut off through a crimson door between two wall-fountains that parted to a warm, honey-scented corridor.
Before I stepped into that embrace of heat, I didn’t realise just how cold I was. Outside was a steam bath, but within the palace it felt like the Frost Season haunted the halls—everywhere except here, through the definitely ominous blood-coloured door.
I hugged myself and stuck close to Jasper’s heels.
The walls were darker here; the passageway was narrower. And while the warmth and taste of honey in the air dared to lull me into a sense of security, alarms went off in my mind.
It was a trick. Because a human could never be safe in any part of this palace.
Jasper stopped abruptly.
I almost smacked into his back.
I grabbed onto a ribbed pillar to steady myself and watched as Jasper turned to face me. A cruel look settled on his face.
“After you.” He gestured to the scarlet drapes tucked behind the pillar.
I peered around at them, and couldn’t help but think that the fabric seemed to have been stained with very real blood.
“Uh…” I let my hand slip from the pillar.
Wide eyes turned on Jasper and all I could manage was a numb shake of the head.
His mouth flattened.
“Argh!” I cried out as he snatched me against him.
In a blink, my arms were pinned to my sides, then I was tossed up in the air. The bastard had swung me over his shoulder like I was a bag of grain.
Fear had me frozen—I didn’t struggle. Because as soon as I was over his shoulder, Jasper shoved us both through the drapes and every muscle in my body seized up.
After the most gruelling days I’d ever known, I was dropped onto a plush, cushioned sofa in a golden room.
Jasper strode out through the drapes from where we’d come from. I didn’t know if he waited out in the corridor, or if he’d gone back to Ava and Adrik.
Fleetingly, I wondered how she was. Did Adrik torment her in our absence? Smack her again? Torture her?
But I had myself to worry about now.
Relaxation didn’t take me. Not even for a second, despite the lulling twinkles of the velvet curtains and the welcoming heat of the roaring fire.
I couldn’t relax, because in front of me stood a man, who faced the hot orange fireplace, a crystal glass filled with blood loose in his gloved grip.
A crimson coat cut down to his thighs, stitching sewn with strands of silver—hair of fallen stars, a show of his great power.
There was nothing to separate us, so I saw the tight fit of his coal-black breeches, and the ankle cut of his silver boots.
Still, he could have been naked and imposed an unbearable, suffocating presence of authority over me.
I knew it instantly.
Staring into the fire as though I wasn’t just dumped on the sofa behind him, was Prince Poison.
10
Nails cutting into the velveteen settee, I held my breath and turned to stone.
I am in the presence of a God.
A God’s back faced me.
I stared at it, waiting for that deadly moment to come when he would turn to look at me—and flood my body with lethal poison.
Is that how he’ll do it?
A signature of sorts—his eternal mark on my body.
The stories told that his poison left a body in black and blue hues, rotten and battered before it took its last breath.
The thought made my toes curl in my boots, and I had a stomach-churning urge to use the chamber pot. Not that there was one in sight, or that I could do such a vilas thing in front any God, let alone this one.
Mind, I doubt he would notice since he hadn’t given me any notice at all. I was a mere stain on a freshly upholstered settee to be overlooked until removed.
Shivers had their hooks in me. It wasn’t the cold, either. Not with the blazing flames on the opposite side of the cosy room, roasting my pale skin.
Anxiety slashed through me.
The silence was suffocating. I squirmed on the plush couch, keeping my knees squeezed together, and my back curved in a cowardly bow.
Distantly, I wondered if this was the seizing terror felt by those who faced death’s stand, staring down their executioners.
Please—
I almost choked out words that needed to stay trapped.
Please, spare me. Show mercy that you don’t possess.
Before I could betray myself with such a fierce error as speaking to a God, Prince Poison moved. He captured my whole being with such an ordinary thing.
The Prince lifted the crystal tumbler to his lips. I heard the quiet sip of blood … then I felt it.
A thrum pulsed through my veins. I shut my
eyes against a dizzying wave that rushed my head. It was almost as though he was drinking my blood.
Sucking in a sharp breath, I cut my gaze to the angry red gash on my wrist. The handkerchief must have fallen off when Jasper hauled me into the room like a sack of grain.
Slowly, I touched my eyes back to the glass loose in the God’s grip.
It was my blood.
And he drank it, savoured it, like a fine wine.
Why?
But Gods were the ones to ask questions—not us. Never the vilas; mere mortal humans made out of boredom long ago and yet to be destroyed.
After a long while, the Prince tossed the tumbler into the fire.
I flinched at the shattering sound of crystal exploding, then cringed in on myself.
Flames blazed in raging reds and blistering blues.
My veins turned to ice.
Prince Poison didn’t bother to look at me, but his voice was enough to bolt me in place.
“So you are the one who stole my aniel’s power.”
Beneath the frost of his tone were waves of tedious curiosity and ancient licks of otherworldly accents. It was as though he could see me in the flames that still danced blue and red.
I opened my mouth, an answer choking in my throat, my tongue unmoving.
But the Prince cut me off before I could stutter out some pathetic string of nonsense. “It is not a question. You took from my aniel. Power that does not belong to you. When you take from mine, you take from me.”
If it was possible, I curled in on myself even more.
And the Prince finally turned to look at me.
My stomach flipped at the sight of him.
Nothing like I expected.
Prince Poison smiled—all sharp teeth and lips stained with my blood, like he was ready to take a bite out of me, or anyone for that matter.
Silver threads of hair hung over his forehead, absolutely nothing like my own. My hair looked ashen and cloudy compared to his, which wore an unearthly shine, as if every strand was powered by pure magic. Even his skin glowed fiercer than any aniels’, as if personally kissed by the sun.
From the front, his scarlet military coat gleamed brighter with its silver fallen-star threads and crystallised buttons undone. The black silky shirt he wore under his coat was completely unbuttoned, dishevelled as though he’d spent a year in fights and all-too-private embraces before cursing me with his presence.
Gods and Monsters, Books 1-3: A Dark Gods Bully Romance (Gods and Monsters Box Set) Page 5