Twisted Karma

by Lizzy Ford

Was this the Future her brother foresaw, if she traded any favors? Frustration flooded her, fed by the tension filling the air between her and Wynn.

  “I have to do something,” she said, hating the despair in her voice. “I’ve spoken to every deity I knew to contact.”

  “You have an open invitation to discuss courses of action with me,” Wynn replied. “I can assure you it’ll cost you much less than what Darkyn will require.”

  “I assume you’ll try to trap me in the catacombs again.”

  “No. I promise.”

  Karma was silent, not because she was considering the dangerous offer, but because she’d never noticed how gorgeous his turquoise eyes were.

  “We’re done here,” Wynn told Darkyn. “Please leave us alone.”

  The Dark One complied.

  Wynn waited with her, hands clasped behind his back, gaze on her. “You need help.”

  “Not from you,” she said quickly. “I can handle this myself.”

  “Like you did seconds ago with Darkyn?” he responded with a faint smile. “Your desperation could have destroyed the fabric of every world. You could have freed your brother, and in the four seconds you had together before the worlds ended, you might have been able to hug him.”

  Karma flushed, this time with anger and embarrassment. Wynn’s rebuke was calm and measured, like the man himself. Somehow, his amused understatement was worse than yelling.

  “You can’t compete in this game with those who have been mastering it for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years,” he finished.

  In the terse silence that followed, while each of them waited for the other to back down, Karma noticed more about him than she cared to. She needed to focus on what he said, not on how the energy between them somehow stirred her blood, left her feeling fevered. The passage of time in the Underworld was unfixed, and she hadn’t cared what time of day it was in the human world when she summoned Darkyn.

  Judging by Wynn’s appearance, it was late. His white hair was mussed, and he was casually dressed in chinos, sandals, and a gray t-shirt that clung to his shoulders and biceps. He cared for himself, which showed in his slender yet toned shape. His frame was that of a long-distance runner rather than the beefy forms of his sons. His fingernails were clean, his teeth bright, his clothing well-kept and clean. He smelled of some faint cologne and his own light scent. His movement was graceful and deliberate. Nothing he did wasted energy, and he didn’t take a step without already planning where his feet would land for the next dozen steps.

  His caution, control and self-discipline fascinated her, because she possessed none of them.

  The only thing marring his appearance: the bandage wrapped around his wrist that extended up his forearm. The stark contrast between white gauze and his midnight skin fascinated her, as did his striking features. He and Andre could have been twins with their chiseled jawlines, aquiline noses, large eyes the same shade of turquoise and high cheekbones.

  It wasn’t just Wynn’s looks that distracted her. When she’d balanced his polluted soul, he’d displayed no fear or pain, and his eyes had never left hers. She had been killing him – and he hadn’t so much as flinched. She had the sense the world could implode, and he wouldn’t acknowledge any of it. He’d watch her instead, and together, untouched, they’d let the world crash and burn around them.

  It was this unnerving connection that left Karma questioning the wisdom of challenging Wynn again. Some small trace of her warned her against it. Her own brother, who saw the Future, had been leery of Wynn.

  Energy sizzled between them, the evidence of the involuntary mating bond.

  For the second time, Karma chose with her mind instead of her heart and backed down. “I don’t need your help,” she told Wynn quietly and stepped away.

  “You will.”

  “I take it you’ll demand your favor?”

  “Yes.”

  Karma rolled her eyes.

  “There are worse alternatives,” Wynn told her.

  “I can’t think of one!” She circled him in the same predatory fashion Darkyn had her.

  Wynn was still, relaxed and yet, she sensed he was too aware and sharp to ever be caught off guard. This, too, left her uneasy. She was too impulsive to care what the next moment would bring.

  Wynn had probably already predicted what she’d do and created an elaborate, twenty step plan to react. Her brother had warned her that the Ancient was the smartest man he had ever known. He had also warned her never to make a deal with, or trust, Wynn. She sensed his danger without being able to pinpoint exactly how a mere Immortal could be any threat to a goddess.

  Everything about Wynn vexed and intrigued her.

  She should’ve walked away when Darkyn left. She hadn’t, and she wasn’t entirely certain why, except something about Wynn ensnared her attention the two times they’d met.

  “It really doesn’t matter if there are a dozen alternatives,” Wynn said. “At some point, you’ll come to me.”

  “Do you always challenge deities stronger than you?” she asked, pausing in front of him.

  “Do your worst,” he replied. “Although, I think you already tried.” He lifted his bandaged arm in emphasis.

  Karma whirled and walked away, done with this round of their game.

  “The price goes up, the longer you wait,” he called after her.

  She ignored him with effort. Instead of returning to Death’s Underworld, she strode through the yellow portal beckoning her, determined to find some humans to balance to help her take the edge off her wired energy.

  Five

  “Fuck.” Wynn watched the woman with rainbow hair disappear through the yellow portal leading to some point in the human world. He’d been summoned to the place-between-places by Darkyn shortly after lying down to sleep. Instead of the dream about her trying to kill him, the goddess herself had disturbed his sleep.

  As much as he hated the unpredictable, he found himself unusually intrigued by Karma’s defiance and the spark of fire in her eyes. Interacting with her roused long dormant lust and derailed his train of thought to the point her plight was all he had thought of in that moment. Fucking her would be an experience unlike any other. With her lack of inhibition and passion, she’d never leave his bed.

  Wrong, he told himself, irritated for being taken in by such carnal thoughts when he had more important things to do. He hadn’t expected this interaction to affect him this way. He’d spent his two Immortal lifetimes focused on his duty and his hidden agenda. Karma shifted his attention with her presence, to the point he thought of nothing but her.

  Their bond was unbreakable and foreordained. All the research he’d done since discovering her name on his body had only reinforced this fact. He’d taken satisfaction in learning his daughter was mated to Fate, a deity Wynn had struggled to manipulate. In that circumstance, the mating bond had worked in his favor.

  But Karma? And now? The timing had Fate’s name written all over it. Wynn never expected the god to throw this card into the mix, especially when this card was Karma, a beautiful woman with no impulse control whatsoever. She’d been horrified when he described what Darkyn would do with his favors, which only made Wynn more concerned.

  She really didn’t know what she was doing. He had exaggerated the worlds ending but began to think he hadn’t been that far off. One wrong deal, with the wrong deity, and Karma could decimate the fragile balance among deities, Immortals, demons, and humans.

  She was breathtaking – and dangerous. Wynn wanted nothing to do with her but suspected if they met again, the primal nature of their bond would compel him down a path he had no intention of following, if he could stop it.

  At this rate, if she continued to pursue this course, he’d spend his time ensuring she didn’t back herself into a corner, wind up dead-dead, or cause the destruction of the worlds. Several weeks ago, he had predicted she would go to Darkyn, because she had no other alternative. That she’d finally decided to confront the demon was
a warning sign. She was becoming erratic in addition to desperate, and that could jeopardize Wynn’s plan.

  Let her fuck up her own life, he thought and tried to convince himself this was the wisest course of action. The only problem: she was likely to drag him down with her. Their fates, and their souls, were inextricably bound. For now. Until my plan is complete.

  “Checkmate.” Darkyn’s voice came from the portal to Hell. He stepped into the foggy, cool place-between-places.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Wynn replied.

  “You let your children make deals with my predecessor and me and never once tried to interfere,” the observant demon said.

  “They needed to learn. I’m focused on the long game.”

  “It’s never just a game with you.”

  Wynn looked away from the portal Karma had gone through to Darkyn. He didn’t answer. He’d mastered the ability to deal with powerful deities without directly challenging them, and without losing control of his position in the situation, either. His appearance of deference encouraged others to assume they had more influence than they did, and gave him the advantage of subtle manipulation of his opponent’s ego.

  This skill, too, was one Karma didn’t have the capacity to learn.

  “You definitely wouldn’t waste a favor on just anyone,” Darkyn added. “I already know, Ancient.”

  “The Dark One tell you?” Wynn asked softly, revealing the secret he suspected no one else had figured out.

  The giveaway: He’d been able to read Darkyn much more easily than he normally could a deity. Adept at reading information others didn’t want revealed, Wynn had picked up on Darkyn’s secret the moment he stepped into the place-between-places. Wynn didn’t know how Deidre had become the Dark One and he didn’t care. It gave him some leverage, in that Hell had a potential vulnerability he could exploit one day.

  Darkyn smiled coldly. “I am content letting my queen rule,” he said. “Are you?”

  “I have no queen.” Wynn touched his wrist once more.

  “Then open Hell to her and allow me to do what I do best.”

  “As you wish. When I have no use for her, I will.”

  “I’ll be first in line.”

  If Darkyn hoped to elicit a reaction from Wynn, he failed. Wynn bowed his head and turned away, retreating through the portal back to the human world and his chamber. If anything, tossing Karma into Hell was sounding like a better idea by the second.

  Darkyn was right. Wynn had been forced to use one of the very rare favors granted by Hell to ensure Karma never had the chance to make a deal with Darkyn. Wynn hadn’t planned on losing any of his favors.

  He hadn’t planned on her.

  Whatever was happening to him, it was quick enough to catch him off guard and strong enough to destabilize him beyond his ability to self-correct. It was deeper than instinct – a compulsion whose source was his very soul. He hated being out of control, and he was no closer to determining what to do about her than he had been the first time he laid eyes on the mark.

  Wynn unwound the bandage on his arm. Karma packed a punch. She hadn’t been toying with him all those weeks ago; she meant to murder him.

  Amidst the scars remaining from his first encounter with her was the Immortal bonding tattoo with the word Maat at its center. Her brother had chosen her name, Wynn knew from his journals. The Egyptians had named their god of destiny after him, and he’d named his little sister after one of their gods. Fate was known as Shai. Karma as Maat.

  Because Karma outranked Wynn on the scale of Immortals and deities, her name had appeared on his body rather than his name on hers. The mating tattoo consisted of her name, binding words written in a tongue from the time-before-time, and a few decorative flourishes. Lining the inside of his forearm, the bright red mark was impossible to miss.

  Karma hadn’t stopped mid-kill because she wasn’t able to do it. She had stopped because she saw what was in his soul: the discovery of her mate – among many other potential secrets that had been hidden for millennia.

  Technically, it was up to her to claim him. But Wynn had a feeling she wasn’t going to, and they’d both end up in Hell in some serious shit. Mates were weaknesses, and he couldn’t afford a weakness now.

  “Fuck,” Wynn murmured again. He replaced the gauze around his arm and lowered it.

  He wasn’t about to display the mating tattoo publicly until he had a plan to handle Karma and the bond.

  He didn’t have time to chase the young goddess around, no matter how pretty and spirited she was – or what the Immortal and deity codes mandated about mates. She wasn’t the first woman he’d been attracted to. His history was littered with torrid affairs that never lasted, including those with the seven different women who bore his children.

  None of them had been his foreordained mate or aroused his need on a primal level he’d never experienced with anyone else. Walking away – or killing – the others had required little effort. He began to believe walking away from Karma wasn’t going to be possible. He’d ridiculed every other Immortal or deity he met who was stricken with the mating bond. Unfortunately, he had begun to understand them.

  Wynn stretched out on his bed and stared at the ceiling far above.

  Karma was a hurricane, one that had burst into his life when he was close to reaching his goals. The last thing he needed was to be swept out to sea, or rendered ineffective and vulnerable, by a reckless goddess who thought with her heart and not her head.

  He needed to move in front of the storm headed his way and redirect it before his plans were destroyed.

  Wynn folded his hands behind his head, staring into the darkness, pensive.

  Was it possible to stop the storm, or was he in denial? He didn’t know – and that worried him most of all.

  Six

  The deity Fate paced the hallways of Death’s palace in the Underworld. No death dealers were permitted on the private floor belonging to Death and Past-Death, the former deity turned human named Deidre, who was trapped in the Underworld for her own safety. Likewise, no one aside from Death and his mate were aware of Fate’s presence.

  Fate stood at a window gazing out at the Everdark forest filled with living trees, birds with three wings, and other fantastical creatures. The Underworld was never fully lit by the weak sun above. The last time he’d visited, he’d been helping Gabriel retake the palace after the death dealers revolted.

  “The trees don’t like to be stared at,” said a soft voice behind him.

  Fate smiled. “Then they should stop waving at me,” he replied. The tendril-like branches of the trees always appeared to be writhing or dancing in a non-existent breeze.

  Deidre joined him at the window. The temperature in the Underworld was always the same, no matter what time of day it was, and there were no seasons. It was always cool and pleasant.

  “I wanted to be human once,” Fate said, amused. “If I had known this is what it’s like, I wouldn’t have.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Deidre replied. “I think all of us should be forced to become human once in an eternity. It helps us understand the effects of our decisions on the world.”

  “It makes us weak,” he countered.

  “It makes us compassionate.”

  Fate snorted. The small former-deity was right – and he hated it. It was easy to manipulate the lives and fates of people when he could maintain emotional distance between them and him, which meant not empathizing. He wasn’t yet convinced compassion would make him a stronger deity, for he couldn’t afford to lose sight of the bigger picture in order to take pity on everyone on a path towards to a deplorable Future. He’d go mad if he tried.

  “I’m glad it’s worked for you,” he said and leaned his hip against the window. He peered down at the small queen of the Underworld. Deidre’s blue eyes glowed, and she smiled. “I never would’ve thought you’d make a good human.”

  Their relationship, acrimonious for the most part, extended for hundreds of thousands
of millennia. They’d worked with each other as often as against one another. Death did not like to be cheated of souls, but Fate played his own game, one no one else could understand. It always pitted him against some deity or another. The stronger the deity, the better the chance he’d pissed him or her off multiple times. Deities lived for very long periods, close to eternity, which gave them plenty of time to plot revenge. They tended to hold grudges that long as well.

  “It took some getting used to,” she admitted. “But it’s harder not to tell Gabe what to do every minute of the day. He has to learn to govern the Underworld on his own and I need to let go.”

  “Work in progress,” Fate said. He’d seen Death and Past-Death erupt into two disagreements during the past few weeks over how to deal with another deity. “I’m sure, deep down, Gabriel appreciates your opinion.”

  “I’m always right,” Past-Death replied with a flare of the arrogance that used to drive other deities crazy. “He’ll figure that out. But in the meantime, I’m stepping back and letting him decide everything.”

  Fate grinned, unable to help it. Deidre remained feisty despite the fact she was human and her mate was a deity. She didn’t hesitate to stand up to the god of Death, who was twice her size.

  Whenever he watched them interact, however, he was forced to recall his own mate. Being separated from Stephanie made him sick to his stomach, and he spent as much time in Gabriel’s gym as he did in his spacious chamber. No matter how much he ran or how often he lifted weights, Fate couldn’t settle his wired, anxious energy. He barely slept and spent as much time waving at the trees and pacing the top floor of the palace as he did in the gym.

  “I need to leave,” he said quietly.

  “You can’t,” she reminded him. “Not yet. Gabriel says if you leave, you die-dead. You’re name’s on his list.”

  “I feel like I’m going to die-dead if I stay. Besides, no one really wants me dead-dead. They want to extort favors from me.”

  “You’re the master of the big picture. That’s where you need to focus,” she replied. “And there are some really stupid deities out there who may not be bluffing if you challenge them.”