“Of course, that’s the whole point,” she jokes.
“Oh, absolutely,” he banters. “Won’t it be marvelous?”
“We have different definitions of glory.”
“I should hope so. Otherwise, our conversations would be rather dull. We’d talk ourselves into a wall or go in circles, never to discover a thing.”
“We’d also never realize we don’t know a thing—that none of us do, I bet. We like to think we know stuff, but maybe the smartest people are the ones who are smart enough to know they’re not smart at all.”
He chuckles. “Look at us, getting philosophical like gods. Can I speak honestly?”
“As opposed to all the lies you’ve been feeding me tonight?” she wisecracks.
“I think the best of our nature is to be contrary. We’re walking, talking paradoxes, full of ironies and double-standards.”
“In other words, full of crap.”
“In other words, fluid like water. We’re real like humans, like bona fide deities. Meaning, neither of us should have power over the other. Meaning, I’m here because I want to be. I’m fighting with our class because I believe in what we’re doing, even if that entails redefining my purpose.”
“Which would be?” she asks.
“To begin, I’d have to declare what it means to be a deity in the first place,” he muses. “What does it mean to be a god or goddess?”
“Maybe it’s a blessing.” Sorrow halts, her hair in disarray around her face. “The clincher is, we’ve misinterpreted what that blessing entails. Maybe it’s about embodying magic instead of forcing it on others? I don’t know, maybe we need to wield that blessing from a different angle. Then maybe we need to trust it, have a little more faith in it.”
That option doesn’t sound half bad, if ambiguous. But then, he’s beginning to grasp that life itself is ambiguous.
They reach a second threshold at the opposite end of the enclosure. Indicating a tapered lane that stretches from the cavern, he takes her hand and leads her through.
Sorrow gasps. Outside, misted cascades fall into clusters of pools and baths, with burgundy-capped trees rooted beneath the depths and sprouting from the surfaces. Paths web through the enclave, arching like bridges over the waters or vanishing around bends.
“It’s a waterfall enclave,” Envy supplies, feeling strangely nervous.
Sorrow gawks at the sight. “I’ve never been here.”
He guides her along the walkways, knitting their fingers together but uncertain why it’s necessary. At a cul-de-sac, he releases her and reclines against a tall rock embroidered in magenta vines. “The ancient celestials used to say if you make love in these waters, you’ll be changed forever. Wanna try?”
She shoves his shoulder. “You creep. Stop ruining this.”
“Does that mean you like what you see?”
“Maybe. I’m still working on my so-called pleasures, remember?”
“Need more help with that?”
“You wish—”
She yelps when his arm snakes around her waist and tugs her against him. Their chests collide, her breasts mashing into his naked torso. “That wish came true once,” he speaks into her ear, relishing the way her muscles tense and her eyelids flutter.
He remembers this, how their bodies fit. Dammit, he remembers it well.
Sorrow pulls back and meets his gaze with a wry aspect of her own, her mouth slanting as if unimpressed. “Fucking me wasn’t a wish, Envy. It was a lack of options.”
Waterfalls crash and fog around them. Envy’s nostrils flare. Those oversized pajamas are becoming more appealing by the second, because he knows what’s underneath them.
Abruptly, he lets her go. “As we were, back to the…Where were we?”
“I-I’m not sure,” she stutters. “The meaning behind us? And humans?”
“Ah, right. To answer your earlier question, I like humans. I like them even more after watching them for this long. I like their unapologetic passions and how they feel a multitude of beautiful things simultaneously, despite their short lifespan. I like the notion of families and how much they cherish that custom.”
“It would be nice to have a family.” Sorrow hops onto a neighboring rock, letting her limbs swing over the side. “Or it seems like it would be nice.”
“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” Envy agrees, propping his shoulder against the rock and twisting toward her. “To be linked to someone? To build a relationship with them? To thread your life with theirs, in spite of your differences? Not every human dedicates his or herself to that, and sometimes I don’t blame them. But for so many, they create such unified harmony. It’s the sort of bond that I can’t imagine. So much compromise, tradition, emotional turmoil, and emotional bliss. So much comfort and collision. So much pain and joy. So much…”
“The word for it is love,” Sorrow says.
“That’s one sensation only our band can confirm.”
They fall silent. An elephant stomps into the scene, crashing its chunky backside across the fronds and settling its wide derriere between them. The reason they can’t confirm it is the reason they’re no longer lust partners. It’s because of this legend their peers insist on dumping in Envy and Sorrow’s laps, believing if they commit to something beyond fornication, something deeper and supposedly profound, something that only humans are supposed to feel—with the exception of their friends—then their band will have better odds of winning this war, perhaps preventing it altogether.
Not a chance. They might be having a conversation of actual substance, but that’s a far cry from romance.
Love and Andrew fell in love in ten days, Anger and Merry in twenty-one days, Wonder and Malice in thirty days.
For a deity? That’s no time at all.
There’s no way it’s going to happen between Envy and Sorrow, not in a thousand years, much less in a blink. Their peers are phenomenal in that respect. But otherwise, no deity would fall in love in only a few days.
Envy straightens a crease in his sleep pants. “On second thought, we may not know what it’s like being moonstruck, but we’ve witnessed it enough to know the warning signs.”
“We’d recognize them,” she asserts.
“We’d see them coming,” he agrees.
They watch each other. A colony of pools gargle around them, and a school of infant dragonflies zooms past on organza wings.
In any event, Envy and Sorrow know at least enough about that complex emotion to stop it from happening. And why would they do that? Because when all is said and done, they’re not right for one another.
For a romp session, indeed. However, not in the long term.
And for deities, it’s quite a long term.
“Families are loving for a number of humans,” Envy says. “Not all.”
“They forge different relationships,” Sorrow ponders. “Before I went to the human realm, I had no clue that range of kinships existed, in countless variations and hybrids, with tons of dynamics.”
“More than us. Although they don’t live long, they live a greater spectrum of lives, with a greater spectrum of connections. They have the strength to balance them, enduring in a way that’s…”
“Confusing? Mind-bending? Humbling?”
“All of the above. If you were a human—”
Sorrow snorts. “Jeez, are we playing this game? This is something Merry or Andrew would think up.”
“Bravo to them.” Envy sidles her way. The span of his waist nudges between her thighs as he flattens his hands on the rock, on either side of her hips. “If you were human, what—”
“—sort of family would I have?” Nonchalant, she worms out of his embrace and scoots farther up the boulder. “I admire the human parents who strive while single. That’s a resilience I can’t fathom. And maybe a little brother would be nice.”
“An intimate life.” Envy rests his elbow on the rock, balancing his profile in his palm. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d care for that much
intimacy. The smaller the household, the harder it is for you to disappear in it.”
Her brows crinkle. “What makes you think I want to disappear? What makes you think that?”
“Wait. Did I say something wron—”
“Just because I don’t care what people think of me, or just because I’m not big on sleepovers, and just because I keep to myself, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want any connection at all.”
“Hold on. I—”
“It doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of having connections.”
“I never said that.”
She gestures around them. “You’re the one who spent his life retreating here, not me. You’re the one who stashed yourself away, every chance you got. Your words, remember?”
“Hey,” he says, cupping her knee. “I’m sorry.”
Sorrow jerks her leg away. Regardless, her features give a perplexed lurch, her glower bordering on fragile. For a goddess of melancholy, she’s not used to hearing apologies.
Matter of fact, he’s not used to giving them. But for the first time, he minds whether things end on a sour note with her, so he clears his throat. “I’d want a big family, a house full to the brim. The more, the merrier. My parents would be partners who respect each other, and I’d have sisters. Lots of them.”
It takes her a while to reply. “Let me guess,” she mumbles with a grudge. “To play dress-up with.”
“Is there any other reason?”
They chuckle mildly, a simple sound yet not so simple at all. That makes it the loudest sound he’s ever heard.
It’s also a pleasant one, the noise meshing together and skipping across the breeze. Despite their reluctance to end this nonsense, he can count on one hand the number of organic, meandering discussions he’s had with others. None of them have been this unpredictable.
So where is this chatter coming from? What caused this flood?
Did he miss something? Was the currant nectar laced with alcohol?
Around them, waterfalls range from powerful downpours, to modest surges that rush down stacked mantles of rock, to rivulets that split over the tiered slabs.
They spend a subsequent hour hypnotized by the effusion while withdrawing into their own thoughts. After that spell of silence, Envy perks up. “Oh, I forgot a crucial pleasure on my list: the sound of a long, hard orgasm.”
“Male or female?” she queries, swerving back to him, her arms wrapped around her upturned legs.
“Don’t make me choose,” he pleads. “They’re both scrumptious.”
“That’s true.”
Which gives him pause. He’s aware that she’s as fond of females and males as he is, but as for a tally… “How many have you been with?”
“You’ve had two-hundred years to ask me that. And you definitely could’ve gotten that out of me when we were humping.”
“That’s not what I wanted to get out of you,” he purrs.
“Why the sudden interest?” she demands over the waterfalls. “Hoping to compare yourself?”
“That depends. Did you like sleeping with me?”
“You know I did.”
“I know that you bounced on me like a rabbit in heat, came like a comet, and then evacuated the premises like a vestal virgin. That’s what I know.”
“You had your fun. I didn’t leave you hanging.” She holds up her hand before he can open his mouth. “Bad choice of words.”
“Trust me, I wasn’t hanging.”
“You relieved tension.”
“What about lasting aftershocks? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“So this is about you.”
“I’m a god,” he says without preamble.
Honestly, what else is there to say? Self-congratulation is underrated in mortals, not deities. Naturally it’s about validation, and of course he wants verification of his prowess. There’s no other reason. It has nothing to do with how she internalizes the experience for herself. That’s her business, not his.
Isn’t it? Then why is he curious about her ideas of intimacy and whether she yearns for it? Why is he curious to know how deeply he can push that button?
And why the fuck is he itching to know the sounds she’d make if he found that button? If he tapped his finger against it lightly, ever so lightly, prolonging the buzz.
A fog weaves through his head at the very thought of skimming her flesh until she’s in anguish, until she’s begging him for things she can’t name. How high would those cries get? Would they flick at his tailbone and make him shiver?
They’ve done everything short of kissing, yet it’s as if they’ve done nothing. Fair enough, since they’d never surpassed anything sexually clinical.
But there had been moments, incidents in which he’d taken her hand and brushed his mouth across her knuckles. One time, she’d responding by calling him an idiot. Yet she’d tucked her face behind her hair and almost smiled.
Almost. Like earlier, when they’d been ensconced by the lagoon.
Envy gives a start, realizing that his fingernails have sunk into a vine swooning across the rock. He’d severed one of the poor magenta leaves from its spiral.
Sorrow doesn’t notice as she shimmies off the boulder and saunters past him. “I’d rather not know what I’m missing.”
He snatches her arm, stopping the retreat. Swaggering up to her, Envy aligns his abdomen with her spine. His mouth grazes her jaw, and his voice licks across her skin. “I can prove you wrong.”
“If you had been any good in the first place, you would’ve already done that.”
So much for keeping things light. Envy swings her around. “I know a plethora of immortals who would testify to the contrary, but no matter. Hear this: I gave you the perfunctory screwing you wanted and the superficial release we both needed. I tried to indulge in more, but I’m not about to squander my talents on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.”
“I thought the God of Envy could seduce anyone.”
“He can. He has.” Envy grins to his best advantage, knowing precisely which kind of sass will infuriate her the quickest. “You put out, didn’t you? I wasn’t imagining it.”
She opens her mouth, but he sets a pinky against it, no longer in the frame of mind to be magnanimous but in every mood to attack. “If you had been more adventurous, I might have indulged. But now, I’m seeing things clearly. I’m guessing that from your attitude about pleasure, you’ve been exposed to few examples. You may have slept with others, you may have slept with me, but you haven’t known sensuality. You’ve only known the mechanics of a stiff cock, not the exquisite suffering of an orgasm just out of reach.
“You accuse me of blowing smoke? Honey, don’t give yourself airs. If you had been worth the effort instead of a disappointment, I would’ve known. Like you said, it was just a bit of fun. I had no one else with whom to lower my standards.”
Shit. That’s going too far.
Sorrow sucks in a breath, her chin wobbling. To a small degree, they’ve talked about feeling pain. But they haven’t scratched the surface, and they certainly haven’t broached the subject of giving pain.
That’s what this moment is. That’s what presently roosts in his gut.
This is the pain of hurting someone.
And now he knows what that feels like.
In addition to the slap that follows.
10
Sorrow
His head whips to the side. The wet clap of a waterfall hitting a nearby pool punctuates the contact between Sorrow’s hand and Envy’s face. Moreover, his torso jerks from the impact, aggravating his wound.
She’s pushing through the foliage and out of the cul-de-sac before he turns back to her. Pebbles crunch beneath her bare soles, and damp soil stains the flannel hems, and the pink clouds agitate across her body. Striking across the pathway, she berates herself. That was the dumbest move she could have made, because she should know better than to trust her visceral responses to him.
Yet they’d been having suc
h a nice time, such a friendly time. While it had made her uncertain at first, they’d inched past the discomfort, and she had allowed herself to get carried away. Sorrow would go so far as to describe this evening as magical, tranquil with its shrouded lagoon, and mini feast, and meandering chatter.
Drumroll: She’d had fun.
After their discussions loosened the kinks in her reserve, she was game to see where this insanity took them. He’d said things she hadn’t expected, dispelled myths about himself.
All the same, he’d reconfirmed other facts. If Envy knows anything, it’s how to romance a partner. And how to offend her.
He’d gone and ruined this night. And she’d helped him ruin it.
She’d done it again, made a spectacle of herself. If anything, she should have dismissed his rebuttal rather than flying off the handle, because that only proves his opinion matters.
It doesn’t!
Lastly, she should have slapped herself, not him. She should have boxed her own ears for letting her guard down, for believing they could spend a jovial night in the same proximity.
He’d smelled like jasmine and myrrh.
Sorrow whisks out her arm, knocking aside burgundy shrubs. She will not fall victim to swoonery, not after the hunky, godly fucker had criticized her, tried to invalidate her worth. That’s the deal breaker of all deal breakers.
And yes, she’s cognizant of the irony.
Jasmine and myrrh. Whatever. His stench is immaterial, a ploy for the weak who think being a dickhead increases the sex appeal of heroes. If anyone asks her, the more despicable one behaves, the uglier one gets. A chiseled jaw and full lips haven’t a prayer of amending that.
Sorrow has always been aware of his extreme looks, his handsomeness more fact than dazzling spectacle. She’s used to his face.
The problem is she’s not used to his face when it’s upset or mortified. Normally, she would celebrate this revelation, if only to verify there’s a soul behind the swank. Though tonight, it had plagued her for reasons unknown. And it resulted in their one-millionth spat.
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