He toys with the folds, coaxing them open. Flexing his fingers, he pries her apart and starts to pump two digits into Sorrow, splaying her wider. “I loved you when I couldn’t stand you,” he rasps. “I loved you when I couldn’t stay away from you. I loved you when I was jealous of you. I loved you when you humiliated me in front of our people, all those years ago on a target range.”
His black mane hangs around his face, and his lips quirk as they blaze a trail across her body. “I loved you when you compromised my innocence.”
On a weepy, aroused laugh, Sorrow pitches her knees high. She writhes across the bed, her pelvis lurching upward to meet the depths of his fingers.
Ravenous, Envy watches her. “I’m still in love with you.” He withdraws from Sorrow’s passage and rolls on top of her. As her thighs clamp around his hips, his gaze pins her to the bed. “I plan to fall in love with you every day, for the rest of my misbegotten life.”
“Then let me love you back,” Sorrow pants, undoing the mulberry buttons of his black, high-necked shirt, exposing a burnished torso and a rapid pulse at his throat.
Envy’s heart rams against her own. They lay tangled, their hands roaming fretfully, hectically.
Andrew once said something remarkable to Love, which she’d repeated to the rest of them. What had it been?
A messy love is an authentic love.
Sorrow and Envy kiss messily. His mouth collides with hers, their lips rushing against one another. At the contact, a tidal wave of sensation builds, throbbing deep within her. It’s a lit fuse, an aching throb of adrenaline.
As their mouths cant and fold, her tongue dashes against his, each stroke hitting a spot below her navel. The craving escalates until they’re peeling her skirt down her calves, chucking his shirt aside, and kicking his trousers to the ground.
In between these ministrations, they surge into another raving kiss. His tongue rides her own, pulling a series of hoarse whimpers from them. Their arms and limbs mold, his torso sweeping over her taut breasts, the nipples budding for his mouth.
Sorrow cries out when he purses his lips and sucks with force, stars bursting behind her eyes. She mumbles incomprehensible words, and he answers with more flicks of his tongue, tormenting her to the brink before taking the other breast.
“I’ve wanted you my whole life, Sorrow,” he hums thickly. “I still want more of you. I want everything. I want the sound of me inside you.”
“Then take it,” she pleads, hooking her legs tighter around his waist. “Fuck it out of me, Envy. Do it sweetly.”
“Like this?” he teases, prodding her with his tip.
She sighs. “Yes.”
Another agonizing jab of his prick, and another, and another. “Does this hurt?”
The result is a decadent shimmy up her spine. She nods vehemently, her nails burrowing into his shoulder blades because, yes, it hurts. Yes, it hurts so well.
Yes, it’s pain. Yes, it’s pleasure.
And no, don’t fucking stop.
Naturally, she realizes too late that she’d made that request aloud.
Growling, Envy obliges. Braced on his palms, he suspends himself above her, his abdomen flexing with tension. The V of his hips lead to a trail of dark hair, his length firm and ready. The sight of her thighs splayed around his naked waist, and his cock primed, steals the last of her oxygen.
But it’s his face that unravels her.
No artifice. No veneer. No ruse.
Stripped bare, Envy gazes at her with an immeasurable emotion, one that has mystified and intimidated her for eons. But not anymore.
Sorrow grasps his face, and nips his chin, and mouths, Make love with me. Without waiting, she agitates her lower body, her groin chafing with his. Envy’s lids flutter, a curse sputtering from his tongue.
She gyrates a second time, then a third.
His control snaps—and so do his hips.
With a single whipping motion, Envy lurches into her. Harsh cries push out of them as his waist charges forth, their bodies jutting over the sheets. Moisture collects on their skin. The delirious pace of his thrusts fills the room, their moans curling to the ceiling, the noises amplifying.
Sorrow spreads wider, encouraging him to go deeper, deeper, deeper still. Her insides clench around Envy’s shaft, the friction terrible and wonderful. Her body reels beneath him, and his body undulates over her, and they drive against one another.
She concentrates on the brush of their shoulders, the puffs of air from their lungs, the entry and retreat. His lips snatch hers, prying her kiss apart, in the same way his length pries her apart. Sorrow bawls into his mouth, and he swallows the reverberation with another heaving groan.
Breaking from the kiss, he grapples the back of her head, holding it in place, holding her gaze to his while he lunges into her with long, burrowing strokes. Their eyes fasten together, and their mouths slacken as they chase that wave, chase it, chase it.
Envy’s all toned muscle, all joints working in tandem. He possesses an agile momentum and unparalleled tempo. He bucks his hips even deeper, locating a spot that nearly blinds Sorrow. Matter of fact, he shouts in surprise, as if he hadn’t known that place existed.
Good. She can’t be the only who’s going to pass out, or shatter into fragments, or both.
Flipping them over, she tackles his wrists to the mattress and beats her hips into his pelvis. Envy shuts his eyes. His palms span her waist, guiding her movements.
She grinds, loving the twitch of his eyelashes, the loosening of his jaw. She rides him to the brink, adoring his speechlessness. She loves all of it, consumes all of it, gives all of it.
He gives back, rising into her, swelling into her. Clasping Sorrow’s ass, he tugs her forward and backward, changing the cadence so that she can’t do a thing but straddle him. She gasps in tune to the motions, her thighs rubbing astride his.
All at once, she lands on her back again. And they’re hugging, and they’re rushing at one another, and she can’t tell where it begins or ends. Their bodies sprint. Envy’s hips whisk into Sorrow’s, and they both beg for more, and more, and more.
Until they go still. And then they tumble.
Sorrow and Envy cling to one another, coming with entwined shouts. Their mutual climax spasms through the cavernous halls, and it goes on, and on, and on.
At last, they collapse into stunned silence. Boneless, she traces his nude backside, and he brushes the edge of her breast. For a long time, they’re quiet, thunderstruck, exhausted.
Finally, they muster the energy to roll onto their sides. Still touching, they tangle themselves up, their limbs braided.
They swap goofy grins, unable to quit staring. They whisper into the night, interpreting shared memories, and clarifying misunderstandings, and shedding light on past actions. They talk over one another, and bicker in amusement, and laugh with remorse.
Like they did over the course of three days, the conversation flows from one subject to the next. All in all, it’s imperfectly perfect.
Envy purrs and snacks on Sorrow’s jaw.
Sorrow’s fingers dip low to fondle him.
This only gets them riled up again, which is fine. It’s going to be a long, steamy night. And a much longer, steamier life.
By dawn, Sorrow is one-hundred percent fucked. And happy.
The bedding is a mixture of linen and fleece, since they’d combined the two after making love for three consecutive romps, after she’d taken him into her mouth and made him roar, and after he’d licked her into a fainting spell.
Envy sleeps on his stomach. The blankets barely cover the swells of his ass, with those tight indentations and smooth skin. Sorrow traces his slumbering body with her fingertips, then swears affectionately under her breath. It should be against celestial law for one being to look like him. But she knows his flaws as intimately as his attributes, and she loves them in equal measure.
Slipping into her robe, she pads outside to the lagoon. She watches the water sparkle, wher
e his tethered boat bobs over the surface, and the burgundy ferns sway.
On the opposite side of this refuge, a waterfall enclave of baths, and basins, and pools awaits them. She plans to return sometime today, to make Envy show her more hidden crevices, preferably ones in which she can moan as loud as she likes while he bends her over a watery embankment. Because even with all this love business, some things like lust don’t change. In fact, the love only spurs them on, their desires rarely satiated, if the past few hours are anything to go by.
Sorrow’s hair drapes over her chest. A private rush of blood oozes into her cheeks.
Is she blushing? Probably.
That’s fine. Besides, only one person is allowed to see her this way.
That person is coming this way. A shadow falls across the ground, and a pair of arms weave around her waist, and a dangerous mouth nibbles on her lobe.
When Sorrow tilts her head to give him better access, a husky voice mussed with sleep flirts, “Hubba hubba. I could get used to this.”
She nestles into him. “Which part?”
“You. Me. Pain. Pleasure.”
“You think we can handle it?”
“So far, so good.”
“Then it helps that I love you.”
“I love me, too.” When Sorrow flings back her head and guffaws, he squeezes her playfully. And when she angles her face toward his, Envy grins. “But I love you more,” he promises before claiming her mouth.
Sorrow parts her lips, and her hand dives into his hair. With every resonating sweep of their tongues, she feels the truth down to the marrow of her bones. And she returns the heated kiss, because the feeling is mutual.
That’s their choice. That’s their fate.
Envy traps her against him and whispers in detail all the things he wants to do to her while cornered like this, with the open world shimmering ahead of them.
At which point, he carries her into the lagoon and proceeds to demonstrate.
32
Envy
Six archers are already there when Envy and Sorrow arrive.
Love, in a white dress and slouchy boots, with her raven hair snarled in an unruly bun and a naughty expression tweaking her face.
Andrew, with his snowy hair, boyish snark, and selfless pewter eyes.
Anger, his shoulder-length hair tied halfway back, and his windswept countenance rested, allowing those graphite irises to shine with peace.
Merry, in her pastel tulle dress with a sweetheart neckline and high-top sneakers, her skateboard settled a few feet away.
Wonder, a cherub with a nomadic gaze, a cascade of marigold blonde hair, and a corsage of wildflowers.
Malice, a golden devil in leather, with a perverse but cunning tongue.
They stand beside the bank of a tranquil lake, with the great stargazer of Fortune’s Crest rising in the backdrop. The water mirrors the sky. Celestials dapple the atmosphere without sequence or order, creating an erratic, crystalline arrangement.
That’s how they’ve always been.
Disorderly but resplendent. Messy but eternal.
The archers wait for the final pairing with varying smiles of amusement, some more impish than others.
Malice’s laser gaze knows a thoroughly satisfied couple when he sees one. “Now that’s what I call a graphic afterglow,” the demon coos. “Nom, nom, nom.”
On her way past Malice, Sorrow swipes him upside the head, causing him to bark, insulted.
Merry offers Envy and Sorrow a set of pulsing lanterns. As they accept them, the misfit goddess’s pink ponytail matches the swooning flush in her cheeks as she rejoins Anger, who tucks her close to his side. Newly healed from his injury, he’s taken to mortal t-shirts and jeans rather than his old tunic and hose.
They form a ring, each holding a lantern, the flames highlighting and shadowing their faces. Envy grins, sticking close to Sorrow, whose smile puts yet another dent in his heart. He needs to stop this, stop fawning over her all the damned time, or he’ll never be able to concentrate again.
He focuses, aware that Sorrow’s rolling her eyes at him. Albeit, lovingly.
Wonder’s gaze brightens. Although the blazes illuminate the starburst scars embedded into her hands, she is more than just her wounds, and she knows it. “Are we ready for this?”
“To a new legend.” Malice glances at Wonder, love eclipsing his diabolical mien. “And hell, it’s about time.”
“A legend that won’t be hidden,” Wonder says. “That anyone can find, because they’ll know where to look.”
“To gods and goddesses who can love,” Love adds.
She bumps hips with Andrew, who laughs. “In whatever messy way they do.”
“To imperfection,” Anger follows, a hoop earring flashing from one ear, a stud winking from the other.
“No more banishment,” Merry says. “To a life where all deities may dwell in whichever realm they call home.”
Sorrow smiles. “To the past.”
Envy smirks. “To the future.”
In addition to relearning their magic, they each plan on indulging in their passions whenever they can. Rather than focusing strictly on humans, they will focus on themselves as well, and they’ll be elated for it.
No more control. No more denial.
Henceforth, it’s all blessings and inspirations.
It’s destiny and chance, hope and trust.
Should immortals wish to control anything, it shall be limited to their own souls. Although deities will remain the Fates, with its Court and Guides and archers, they will be the Fates unto themselves. No one else.
With that in mind, they make their vows and release the lanterns. The boxes of light float into the air, into the sky. Knotting their hands together, the band watches until their vows have blended with the stars, until it’s impossible to tell one from the other.
The dome glitters, accepting this promise.
Motes glow from the trees. Hyacinths bob across the summit. The sea ripples, and fuchsia foliage embroiders the cliffsides.
Eventually, this group will each have their own destinations.
Love and Andrew plan to live in her old glass house, tucked in the frosted forest of a mortal woodland, where they first fell in love. That way, they can watch over Andrew’s stepfather, and the shopkeeper named Miss Georgie, and their friends, Holly and Griffin.
Occasionally, Love and Andrew will write notes to those beloved mortals. Nothing annotated but enough to touch the ones they care about, to let the humans know that Love—or Lily, as they’d called her—and Andrew are near.
Anger and Merry will return to her observatory home in the Celestial City, with its Carnival of Stars and the formerly exiled deities who have chosen to remain there.
Wonder and Malice will build a life together in the Archives, in the dormitory tower where they clashed and connected. They’ll spend their days surrounded by magical books, perhaps digging up additional legends.
As for Envy and Sorrow, he cannot wait to burrow in the cavern with her. Their refuge near a waterfall enclave, where everything changed.
But it’s not the end. It’s the beginning.
They’re a new class. They plan on seeing a lot of each other, spending time in one another’s domains. Because that’s what friends do.
That’s what family does.
First, they have another job. Speaking of the Archives, somewhere in the valley between the bluffs, the ancient library awaits them, along with hundreds of archers.
Wonder shuffles in anticipation, her green gown sweeping the blossoms around her unshod feet. “We should head out, dearests. The Hollow Chamber is not going to rebuild itself.”
“We have a few hours yet,” Anger reassures her.
“In that case, who’s up for a swim?” Envy asks. “I don’t know about you, but my splendor needs replenishment.”
“A night swim,” Merry chimes. “How romantic!”
Andrew and Love quirk their brows at one another. “On your m
arks,” he prompts, leaning into racing position. “Get set—”
“Go!” the goddess shouts, sprinting ahead.
Love, Andrew, Anger, Merry, and Wonder vault toward the water while howling to the sky.
Sorrow pats Envy’s shoulder. “This will require getting your outfit wet, pretty god.”
“Think again, mate,” Malice says, stripping off his leather sweater, followed by his pants. Wearing nothing but a devilish grin, he charges down the hill with a maddened cackle, his arms widespread, the fletching-and-quill tattoo bunching across his skin.
“Good point,” Sorrow concedes. “Though that’s more of him than I needed to see.”
“Don’t lie,” Envy teases. “He has a remarkable derriere. Only not as remarkable as mine.”
To prove it, he peels off the suit he’d donned for this occasion and then waits, knowing what Sorrow will do. She disrobes from her vest and skirt, but she leaves on her combat boots.
Envy gawks at the sight, his retinas flaring across her naked curves. Only the reminder that they’re not alone keeps his body from losing control. However, he plans on doing some erotic damage to this goddess later. So he commits the visual of Sorrow to memory, for when he’s got her alone in the enclave, where he can fuck her sweetly beneath their choice of waterfall.
Sorrow struts backward while crooking a finger. Then she yelps, whipping around and running toward the lake while Envy chases her with a predatory growl.
They reach the lake just in time. Malice pushes Anger into the water. Then Love pushes Malice. Then Wonder pushes Love. Then Sorrow pushes Wonder.
Then Andrew pushes both Envy and Sorrow.
Then he jumps in after them.
Malice dunks Envy’s head under, then attempts to pants Anger, then darts away as both gods splash after him.
Love hops onto Andrew’s back and plants her lips all over his laughing profile.
Anger twirls Merry in a circle while she flings her head to the stars.
Wonder floats on her back until Malice snatches her into a fervent kiss.
Waist-deep and dripping, Envy sidles up to Sorrow. Taking her hand, he presses her palm to his beating chest. “Go deep.”
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