His eyes flash, and I see the danger in them before he covers it quickly. “So, shall we try this again?”
“Yeah, arsehole, we shall. Give me your fucking name and I won’t stab you in the fucking face!”
“Ooh, ouch. That did look like it hurt Aethel.”
“It killed her.”
“Hmm, so it did. Fine, you win. Dastian’s the name. God of Chaos.”
I stare at him, my blade still hovering in the space between us. “God of Chaos. Brilliant. Just what I needed this morning. If I thought the brooding one was a pain in my arse, the fun one is about to outdo him.”
His grin widens, and I can see the copper catching in his sodden hair as the rain continues to pelt down on him. “Oh, Dre’s been that charming already? He does have a way of making everything sound like the end of the world.”
“Maybe because it is,” I snap, lowering my blade slightly but keeping it ready. The runes aren’t glowing, which is either a good sign or a very bad one. “What do you want, Dastian?”
“Want?” He spreads his arms wide, as if embracing therain. Water streams down his face, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. “I want to see what all the fuss is about. The mortal who killed Aethel. The slayer who closed a divine fissure with her own blood. You’re quite the celebrity in certain circles.”
“I’m not interested in being a celebrity.”
“No, you’re interested in killing things.” His eyes flash that molten gold again, and I feel a pulse of energy, heat, and power ripple through the air between us. “Which is why we’re going to get along famously.”
“We’re not going to get along at all. You’re going to get out of my way and stay out of it, or you will find out how painful it is to die with a blade in your face.”
He laughs, a bright sound that cuts through the rain. “You really are delightful. Dre is right to be obsessed.”
“He’s not—” I stop myself, because I don’t actually know what Dreven is. Obsessed seems dramatic, but the arsehole did show up in my garden and make cryptic threats about vacuum power dynamics or whatever. “He’s not anything. He’s a stalker.”
“Semantics. Listen, I’m not here to fight you. I’m here to offer you something Dre won’t.”
“And what’s that? A personality?”
His grin turns wicked. “Oh, burn. Good one, but no. The truth. Without all the doom and gloom wrapped around it.” He leans in, close enough that I can see flecks of red in his golden eyes. “You want to know what’s really coming? What crawled out of that hole before you sealed it?”
My stomach tightens. “You mean apart from him and you?”
His mouth quirks up at the side. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it, slayer.”
“So, inform me, oh wise one.”
He tuts. “You have to earn that. So far, you have been very rude.”
I gawp at him. Rude? He showed up here after crawling out of a hole in the ground, startling the crap out of me, and I’m the one being rude?
“Rude?” I repeat, incredulous. “You want polite? Try not ambushing people on their doorsteps at the arse-crack of dawn.”
He shrugs, utterly unbothered by the accusation. Water drips from his nose. “It’s nearly eight. It’s not the arse-crack of anything. But when you put it like that, it does sound a bit dodgy. I prefer to think of it as enthusiastic networking.”
“Right. Enthusiastic stalking, you mean.”
“There’s that word again. You and Dre really need to expand your vocabulary.” He tilts his head, studying me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. “Look, I get it. You’ve had a rough night. You’re tired, you’re sore, and now there are three devastatingly handsome gods on your doorstep making your life complicated. But here’s the thing, Nyssa—can I call you Nyssa?”
“No.”
“Excellent. Here’s the thing, Nyssa. That fissure you sealed? It was open for exactly seven minutes and forty-three seconds. In that time, a lot more than just Aethel, Dre, Voren and yours truly slipped through. Some of them are worse than others. And some of them...” His expression darkens, the playfulness draining away like water down a sink. “Some of them make?—”
“Three?” I interrupt him sharply as my brain catches up. “Who is Voren?”
Dastian’s grin returns, but there’s a sharpness to it now. “Ah, so Dre didn’t mention his favourite antagonistic companion? How typical. Voren, God of Wraiths. Bit of adick, talks to dead people, has terrible taste in coats. You’ll meet him eventually, I’m sure.”
