Deliberately, she dips her chin at him, eyes smoldering beneath the fan of her lowered lashes. My gut knots itself, and I hurriedly look away. Demi assured me I had nothing to worry about when it came toher friendship with the East Wind. So why does my throat sting with bitterness?
“She does.”
My head swivels toward the East Wind. His gaze has gentled, and he traces the scooped neckline of my dress with a callused fingertip before catching a tendril of my hair and tucking it behind my ear. When his fingertips brush the lobe, a fresh wave of heat splits my skin.
His touch does much to temper my envy of the goddess, enough that I can calmly face her and say, “Thank you again for organizing my dress fitting. I really appreciate you for that, Demi.”
“It’s no trouble. I’m happy to help a friend.” She flutters her fingertips at a passing server, coaxing the man closer to provide a refill. “Arin and I have a booth in the back. Won’t you join us?” She points to where Arin nurses a tumbler of whiskey. When he catches my eye, he waves. I wave back. The East Wind waves to no one.
“Actually, Eurus and I were going to grab a table for ourselves, if that’s all right w-with you.” I claim the East Wind’s hand, vaguely noting his surprise.
Her eyebrows pinch with tempered humor. “I understand. It’s the evening before the final trial. Who knows if it will be your last together?” Before I can begin to dissect that statement, she adds, “We’ll be around, should you decide to join us,” then saunters off.
Her parting instills a subtle agitation in my bones, the desire to call her back and demand an explanation. “What do you think Demi meant byWho knows if it will be your last together?” I ask Eurus, pitching my voice over a colorful riff from the guitarist.
“Does it matter?” He is still peering at our clasped hands. “As far as I’m concerned, this tournament is already won.”
Fair point.
Eurus glances around the space. Unexpectedly, a table becomes available by luck. Or rather, the East Wind glares so hard at a group of deities that they abandon their table as though it is land ceded in war. I fight a smile as I take a seat, draping my coat over the chair back. “Was that really necessary?”
“It was.” Rather than sit on the opposite side of the table, he selects the chair closest to me, wings splayed out in a cascade of ebony scales. Our knees touch. I pretend not to notice.
A server drops two tankards of ale onto our table. Eurus takes a healthy swallow. In the gloom of our isolated corner, I watch the length of his throat work, the play of ocher light dancing along the bridge of his nose and the cut of his cheek. It is a marvel to see flesh, to know he is real.
As though sensing my gaze, his eyes catch mine. I yank my drink closer, take a hearty gulp–and nearly spit it out. “Ugh.”
“Not very pleasant, is it?” he asks, expression wryly amused.
My tankard hits the table with a dullthunk. “Not really, no. I thought everything here tasted of ambrosia.”
“A common misconception. The truth of the matter is, the gods enjoy a foul-tasting ale every now and then.”
“I can’t imagine why,” I choke out.
His mouth stretches wide then, parting around a set of beautiful white teeth. I stare at him, stupefied. “Your smile!”
It is gone by my next heartbeat. “Apologies.” He sounds furious and hurt. “My scarring sometimes pulls my features into unpleasant shapes.”
“It’s not that. I’ve just… I’ve never s-seen it before.” My ears tingle with heat, and my face, and my chest. “It’s really quite lovely. Your s-smile, I mean.”
He appears to have been made deeply uncomfortable by my admission. Fearing I have overstepped, I quickly attempt to repair the damage. “I’m sorry. I simply wanted you to know I don’t see any part of you as distasteful, but I know I’m not always the best with w-words. I think you are h-h-handsome.”
“Handsome,” murmurs the East Wind thoughtfully. His eyes meet mine over the rim of his glass. They darken subtly, and my belly heats. “Do you know what my father used to say when I was a boy, in the hours after he had spent torturing me?”
I shake my head.
“He told me I was worth nothing, and that this pain was a gift. For millennia, I believed him. But having met you, I now see that the shame he felt toward me, the hatred and anger, was just a byproduct of the mistake my mother had made.”
“What do you mean?”
He stares at a point over my shoulder. There is a distance between us, though he sits within reach. “I was not my father’s son.”
“What?” I lean closer, for his voice is swiftly buried under the cacophony of the tavern.
“My mother had an affair, though to this day I do not know with whom. Following my birth, I assume my father suspected something was amiss. He did not have proof, but he had his doubts. Like my brothers, I inherited my ability to control the winds from my mother. But I also inherited a power none in my family had—power over storms, rains, lightning. I was on the cusp of manhood when my mother finally admitted to my father the truth of my birth,” he says. “He killed her, and the abuse began not long after.”
One of the servers collects the empty tankards from a nearby table and hangs them over her curved horns before moving off. When I glance toward the booth Demi and Arin share, I detect the goddess staring our way. Quickly, I turn my back, wondering what she finds so interesting about our conversation.
