“I know, but I think we need to defuse the situation, not keep it hostile.”
Holden held her gaze for a moment before turning away and instructing his colleagues to release me.
Rather than rushing towards her again, I spat at her feet, just missing the black boots she wore. I should have aimed for her face. It was no more than she deserved for doing this to me. This mortal thought it was fit to bring me down to her level.
Powerless.
Weak.
What had Hunter been thinking when he cooked up this idea?
There was no way they’d devised this alone. There was a single plant in existence that could taint our divinity. A single plant that could weaken the power we’d been gifted with. The next time I saw Hunter, I’d knock some sense into his thick skull.
Scott looked disgustedly at the glob of saliva on the floor, brought her dark eyes up to my face and then without another word, turned away from me.
“Come back here,” I demanded as she cut through the centre of the room.
The disrespect made my lip curl into a snarl. I hadn’t dismissed her. I hadn’t allowed for the conversation to end. Scott threw a look over her shoulder, contemplating my order before thinking better of it and walking to the end of the lab.
The sheer fury of being ignored ricocheted through my system and made the veins at my temple throb.
How fucking dare she?
How dare this mortal walk away from me as if I meant nothing to her? As if my words, my demands, were suggestions she could brush aside.
I wouldn’t forget this slight. She’d pay for her ignorance towards me. Hunter may have had his own ideas about what needed to be done down here, but I quickly compiled my agenda that involved reminding every single mortal in this room of who they were working with. Starting with Scott.
Throughout the entire morning, I refused to cooperate with the team as they tried to begin the project. If they expected me to work, they would have to give me something in return. I met anyone who approached me with vicious hostility, reminiscent of a caged animal. That was what the cuffs had reduced me to. My dignity had been stripped away, to help these pathetic beings feel safe.
If they wanted safety, they should have thought twice about agreeing to this imbecilic plan.
Scott kept her distance from me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. More than anyone in the room, it was this woman who made my blood boil. Even as she left the lab, strolling down the corridor, checking her phone, I couldn’t stop thinking about how desperately I wanted to destroy her.
I’d ruin this woman, and in the wreckage, I’d find a sense of peace.
Down on the ground floor, I grabbed a much-needed cup of coffee in the breakroom.My ears pricked at the surrounding conversations. Some of my colleagues had already collected samples, while others contemplated removing the cuffs from their subject. I gritted my teeth together so forcefully an ache ran along my jawline. The success of others only highlighted how dramatically I’d failed this morning.
If I hadn’t been wary before, the brief interaction with Grayson had proven how they couldn’t be trusted. Gods cared for themselves above all else.
There’d been something so vulgar about his actions. An attempt to headbutt me, and when that failed, spitting in my direction. Grayson had been furious when I walked away, but I didn’t plan to give him any more of my time than was necessary.
I hadn’t agreed to E.L.I. to be the subject of abuse. I’d signed the contract because of the prestige it would bring my name. That dream was quickly fading, if no one on my team could get the prick to calm down long enough so we could take samples from him.
“Holden said you aren’t having much luck.”
Gareth joined me at the coffee machine. He popped a pod into the top and set it to start. Mechanical whirring sounded between us before a thin stream of coffee ejected into his cup.
“He hates being here,” I explained, unimpressed that Matt had reported back to Gareth. “He hates us. How are we meant to work with that?” I asked, frustration lacing my words.
“Find a way, Scott,” Gareth told me unhelpfully.
Visions of me grabbing his coffee mug and tipping it over his head swam through my mind. Shirt stained and hair sticky and wet from caffeine, I wondered if Gareth would be so blasé about my struggle or if I would have hammered home the point that he had given me a nearly impossible task.
“I’m sure Holden has some ideas,” he added, picking up the mug before I could act on my impulse.
I liked Matthew. He was polite, made an effort, and was very easy on the eye, but he also liked to think that men could do it all. If he cracked Gray before any of us, we’d never hear the end. Yet another victory that would be added to the stories he regaled us all with over a drink at the pub.
Irritated by the possibility of that reality, I muttered, “I’ll speak to you later.”
