by Jaymin Eve
“It looks as if the necklace … and you, are the only containment options we have right now,” Hyperion said.
Screams ripped through the street then, jerking both of the Titans into action. Cronus slid around the corner, pressing his back to the wall. “He knows I’m coming for him,” he told me, when I perched close beside him. “But I have a plan to get the drop on him.”
A thought hit me. “What about me? He doesn’t know I’m coming, and maybe he’ll think I’m the perfect target. Female and influenced by Jealousy or whatever.”
“No,” Cronus snapped.
At the same time, Hyperion nodded. “It’s a solid idea,” he told the snarly Titan. “She can directly contain him in the necklace if she gets close enough to touch him.”
Cronus shook his head. “I said no. We cannot risk the only vessel that can contain the sins. Their power grows daily. I know you feel it too, and if we don’t get it under control there will be no happy ending for this world.”
Hyperion and I exchanged a look. Wasn’t that the entire point of this venture? I was brought here to contain the sins.
“You’re not making sense, old friend,” Hyperion said, an undercurrent in his voice. A warning maybe? What he was warning Cronus about I had no idea.
#ICanReadBodyLanguage #Not
The screams increased and so did the anger on Cronus’ face, and when he squeezed his eyes shut for a brief second, I did the same, trying to get my heart together. Bitch was beating all over the place and I was worried I might be dying at how painful it was.
#AnyoneKnowTheSignsOfAHeartAttack
When I opened them again, Cronus was watching me, and I could have sworn that for a brief second, a beat of emotion shattered between us, before he tore his gaze away.
“Okay, let’s go with Maisey’s plan,” he said, facing away. “But if anything goes wrong, we get out of there. Being infected by Jealousy is not something any of us should take lightly. People kill for far less.”
Hyperion nodded. “You bring her to the front of the apartment and I’ll cover the balcony. We’ll trap him inside.”
“I’ll pretend I’m a delivery person or something,” I added.
Cronus just grabbed my hand and took off down the alley.
#WhyDoesHeHaveToHoldMyHand #NotStrongEnoughForThis
“He moves quickly. We need to be just as fast,” Cronus snapped as we turned on to the main road and entered the open double doors of an apartment building.
It was a rundown and ghetto place with no doorman, just an out-of-service elevator and a stairwell.
“Bottom floor,” Cronus whispered and yanked me past a row of mail slots and to a hallway of doors. This place smelled like a moldy Laundromat and I curled my lips in disgust.
As we walked down the hall, barely-contained rage began to rise within me. Strife, Sickness, and Turmoil were all rattling my chest as if they felt one of their brothers near.
“Feel that? He’s here,” Cronus whispered.
I just nodded, not trusting myself to speak. If I did, I might unleash the torrent of anger I had at Cronus. The sins were pushing my emotions higher and higher, and at some point I was going to explode.
We slowed, and then my eyes fell on a door that was propped open a few inches. There was a deep black inky substance dripping from the knob.
Cronus stilled. He pointed to the door and his eyes widened.
This was it.
I stepped closer, only pausing when Cronus pulled my arm. When I looked back at him, there was a brief sign of worry and alarm on his face, but then it was gone. Yanking my hand from his, I stepped into the apartment, looking around.
“Got your pizza here!” I called out. “Extra ranch.”
People fucking loved their ranch.
There was a skittering sound in the back room. Dread tightened my gut. What if he killed me? I was just waltzing in here with no weapon? Note to self: Buy a gun. #InPink
“You’re making this easy on me,” a deep demonic voice called out from behind me and I spun. When my eyes landed on the inky black humanoid figure, I yelped.
“Maisey!” Cronus cried out.
Jealousy zoomed toward me inhumanly fast, and thrust an arm out, splashing my chest with his inky shit. He did all of this without even touching me. Then he zoomed out of the room and out an open window like a fucking vampire on speed.
A burst of fury rocked me, sliding across my body and deep into my gut. Following it was the need for cold hard revenge. I’d never been angrier in my entire life. And just like that the subject of my anger burst into the room.
Cronus.
Reaching out, I grabbed the kitchen knife that lay on the counter.
“I’ll kill you and her,” I growled.
Out of nowhere, all I could see in my head was Rhea. Fucking Rhea. I hated her. I hated her so much. They had children together. He’d fucked her. Multiple times. This was why he left me; it had to be, because he’d been with her to send her to watch me.
#MadePerfectSenseInMyHead
Cronus took one look at the black mess on my chest and his face hardened. “Maisey, calm down, sweetheart. This is not you. This is Jealousy speaking.”
“CALM DOWN?” I roared, as black smoke began to ebb from my fingertips. “Did you just call me sweetheart? Really? After everything you put me through?” I jabbed my fingers at him and they were as black as the slime on my chest. “I was falling for you. Something real and serious and you had to go and fuck your ex-wife.”
The words coming from my mouth were not rational, but they made fucking sense to me. It was the only thing that made sense. Cronus put his hands out, walking slowly toward me. “I haven’t slept with Rhea in centuries.”
My chest heaved. “Don’t lie to me. How could you? How could you kiss me like that, make me fall for you and then just leave me!” I chucked the knife at him and he barely dodged it, eyes wide.
“Maisey!”
Launching myself toward him, I was fully intending to slap him right across the face, but he caught my arm mid-swing. His fingers touched the black ink that had splashed from my chest onto my arms and his entire face shifted from stoic indifference to something that represented the rage I felt inside. His eyes were like lasers, the blue and gold practically spinning as he swung me around and slammed me back against the wall. His body pressed to mine.
“What about you? I leave you for a few weeks and you’re already whoring around with those fuck boys on the beach?”
It hit me then, in a far-off place in my mind that was still clear—we were both infected with Jealousy. But since I’d wanted to say all of this for so long, I didn’t even care. I didn’t even fight it; it felt good to be this mad, this passionate about my feelings for him and what he did to me.
“Matt is a friend” I growled, as Cronus, still holding my arm, pressed his body even closer to mine. I could feel every hard line and it felt really fucking good.
His return growl was much more impressive. “When I saw the picture of his hands on your thighs, I almost killed him right there.”
Hands on my thighs? It took me a second to realize he meant the keg stand, when Matt held me up.
I smirked. “I knew it! You fucking like me. Does Rhea know? She thinks you won’t ever be in anything serious with a human.”
His nostrils flared as his gaze fell to my lips. “Fuck what Rhea thinks. She didn’t understand me when we were married, and she sure as fuck doesn’t understand now.”
His hands lifted to thread in my hair, tightly, almost to the point of pain, but I didn’t cry out. I groaned. Cronus had lost control. Lost the civility he wore so effortlessly.
This was him raw and real, and I was fucking so here for it.
#MineBitches #MainlyRheaTheBitch #ButAlsoYouKaren
Hoisting myself up, I wrapped my legs around him, marveling at his long hard length pressing right where I needed it. If Rhea were here now, I would have delighted in pointing out this obvious sign of a Titan wanting a huma
n.
I wanted him too, right here in this ghetto kitchen.
“Fuck you! I still hate you,” I shouted at him and then surged forward to kiss him. His strong arms came down around my ass, holding me up as he moved away from the wall. I kissed him so hard I thought my lips might bruise.
“If you ever…” he said between kisses as he tore at my shirt, “let another man touch you like that…” I sucked on his tongue as my bra fell away and he freed my breasts. “I’ll fucking kill him.”
I trailed my fingers down his abs, overcome with the need to claim this Titan. He was mine and I was going to make him scream my name over and over again. Reaching down into his pants, I wrapped my hand around the tip of his dick and my eyes bulged.
#GoldDickIsAccurate #AmendedToHUGEGoldDick
He groaned and it set off a tidal wave of emotions in me. I looked down at the black ink splashed across my breasts, but had no real thoughts about what it was or why it was there. I was in a passionate fever and nothing would break me out of it. But … why was it there? A nagging doubt crept into my mind as I tried to remember.
Cronus laid me on the floor and bent, taking my nipple into his mouth. The moment his tongue closed around the stiff peak, pleasure exploded inside of me. I squeezed him harder, panting. “If you so much as look at Rhea again, I’ll cut this off,” I promised.
Two of his fingers plunged inside of me and I cried out in pleasure.
“I’m going to lock you up so that no man can ever take you from me,” he groaned in my ear as he continued to slide his hand between my legs.
“Shut up and fuck me,” I growled, smacking his hand away and angling my pelvis to line up with his hardness.
A loud throat cleared beside us but I didn’t care. I was going to fuck the life out of this man and break him for any other woman—after he broke me in half with his giant dick of course. I hadn’t seen it yet, but if that tip was anything to go on … this would be the best sex of my life.
And his.
“Sorry for this,” Hyperion said just as a bucket of ice-cold water crashed over the both of us.
Blue magic ebbed from Hyperion's palms, coating both Cronus and me, and memories, reality, sanity splashed over me in the same way the water had—unexpected and freezing cold.
Holy fuck. What were we doing?
I looked down to see naked boobs, but thankfully the black ink was washed from my chest. Cronus’ right hand was on one of my boobs; we’d been two seconds from full-on angry rabbit fucking.
“Yeah, this is awkward for me. I’m going to be honest,” Hyperion said, his back turned to us now.
Cronus took a shaky breath, releasing my breast at the same time.
“Well, that did not go as planned,” he said, looking around in disbelief.
Without a word, he started to dress himself, gently handing me my clothes as he found them on the floor. I was still aching with need but tried to push that down since obviously it was some Jealousy sex-fueled thing and not what he really wanted. I wasn’t sure if Rhea was even the problem between us, or just a convenient thing I’d grasped on to. If it wasn’t Rhea that tore us apart, then that flat-out meant Cronus wasn’t into me. He didn’t want me, and had walked away without a backwards glance.
When he saw my shirt torn in two, he just handed me his own, and then walked over to Hyperion, giving me a bittersweet show of muscle and golden skin.
“Thanks, brother,” I heard him murmur.
Hyperion nodded.
Cronus was all business again. “I’ll track Jealousy with Hound. You stay with Maisey. I can’t be around her anymore.”
And with that … he was gone.
Gone. Again. Left me mid-orgasm. Okay, that wasn’t exactly fair, but even if it was demon-induced sex, you finish, right?
#BlueBalls #ActuallyBlueVagina #NotOkay
“Are you decent?” Hyperion's voice cracked.
Fucking kill me. This was so mortifying. My grandpa just saw me in a full frenzy almost-sex with his best buddy.
“Yes,” I sighed.
Hyperion turned then and winced. “I figured you wouldn’t want your first time together to be like that.”
He was right. Sort of. I mean I didn’t really mind if I was being honest because what he didn’t know was there would be no other time. Cronus was done with me and I was going to accept that with as much dignity as I could scrape up.
“I need breakfast,” I grumbled, trying not to inhale Cronus’ scent from his shirt I wore. “And to get laid. By someone that’s not a Greek god.”
“Titan,” Hyperion corrected.
I snorted. “Definitely not one of those. You’re all a bunch of dicks.”
He shrugged but didn’t disagree. “Let’s find you some food, then we can get back to tracking Jealousy. This time, we’ll be smarter about our approach.”
Well, we couldn’t do worse, that was for sure.
Chapter 4
After Hyperion took me to the best little hole in the wall diner—hello, ten stacks of fluffy pancakes for five bucks!—we zapped out of the city and to what seemed like the Titans’ headquarters.
There was no one else there, but I recognized Rhea’s clothing in one corner, and a shirt I’d seen on Crius was draped across the back of the couch. It looked like a giant loft with exposed ductwork and twenty-foot ceilings. I was checking out the surprisingly swanky kitchen when a door slammed and I jumped.
Koios walked out of an adjoining room.
“Well, well,” he said, smiling as he crossed to me. “It’s the human.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Not totally human. Or maybe you can just call me the human Pandora’s Box … hmmm.”
Some of the humor faded from his features. “Yeah, I’ve been tasked with figuring out how to get those sins out of you before it’s too late.”
#Uh #SayWhatNow
“What do you mean too late? There’s a too late?”
I mean there had been some basic talk about me not surviving taking in the final Sin of Death, but that was a joke, right? Right?
A brief exchange of glances happened between the two Titans. I was really sick of everyone hiding shit from me. I’d been through a lot of darkness in my life. I’d done some really hard shit, like three weeks tied to a fucking ancient set of trees in the redwood forest to stop them tearing it down; sleeping on the beach to protect baby turtles; living without a fucking decent family and mostly raising myself. Not to mention falling for a giant pain in the ass and having my heart obliterated. But I was still standing here. I was stronger than they thought and I sure as shit could handle this news, especially when it pertained to me.
Crossing my arms, I settled back, leaning on the kitchen counter, and stared at them both, silently letting them know that I would stand here for the rest of my life until they told me what they meant by “too late.”
“The sins are like … parasites,” Hyperion said slowly, watching me closely, like he’d stop talking the second I freaked out. “The longer they’re part of you … attached to their host, the more they infiltrate into your very being. To a point where I don’t think we’ll be able to separate you from them. You might not even want us to.”
What in the…?
I swallowed roughly, thinking of all the times lately I’d been talking to them like they were part of my subconscious.
“It shouldn’t be an issue though,” he hurried on to say. “We’ve heard that Zeus found someone that can remove the necklace and the sins from you. One of us will take them then. We have a much higher resistance to their charms. To their magic. We’ve been the gatekeepers between them and the world for too many years to count.”
Koios smiled brightly, his teeth so white against the dark of his skin. “Then you’ll be free to go back to your life. I’m sure you’ll be so relieved.”
An emotion that was nothing like relief hit me then. Back to my life…
#WhatLife #IllPassThanks
“So, Cronus is trying to track dow
n Zeus?” I diverted the conversation from the fact that I had literally been the most lonely, boring human on the planet before a Titan fell into my lap. I couldn’t even think about losing all of this. Even when Cronus had been gone, I’d still felt the connection. Mainly in the stupid necklace and the sins, knowing he’d have to come back for them eventually. But if I didn’t have that…
I’d never see them again. I was sure of it.
Koios wore a slight grin. “Yes. Between tracking Jealousy of course.”
Did he hear about our angry sex? #KillMeNow
“He popped in here briefly,” Koios continued, “but then he got extremely pissed off, mentioned something about one Greek god who would soon be dead, and then he vanished.”
I definitely wasn’t worried about Zeus’ demise. It would be nice not to have to deal with him again, or look over my shoulder. But Cronus … I had no idea how I even felt about it all now. Part of me knew I had to let go of my obsession over him—I’d always been an obsessive person, but it was getting sad. I had to let go and deal with the real-life shit that was going on.
I could possibly die.
Or be bonded to three sins that would destroy me from the inside out.
I mean, this was real serious shit, and I was the fucking moron more concerned with getting laid.
#ButIMean #Sex #WearingFlipFlopsJustToRememberTheSound
“I’m ready,” I told them. “How can we track Jealousy?”
They both looked at me, brows drawn together, and I was guessing they’d probably been discussing that very thing. I hadn’t been listening of course, too busy worried about my blue vagina. I really needed to pay attention.
“We have some feelers out, but it would really help if we could bring the rest of our Titan brethren back from the underworld,” Koios sighed. “Okeanos and Iapetos especially are very powerful. They were an integal part of helping us contain the sins last time.”
Hyperion nodded. “Yes. Especially Iappie. He converses with the dead, sees into the immortal plane that exists side by side to Earth. He will hear things we can’t. Especially since Jealousy is keeping his shit low-key.”