Astrid flicked her chin towards Malik. “Go,” she ordered the girl with ginger locks.
The girl lifted from the ground and started forward, expression fully vacant.
Finnian’s eyes widened. “Malik,” he wheezed. “I’ll—do it.”
Malik twirled his knife with a disturbing smirk. “I must say, it is a joy to watch you bleed.” He cocked his elbow back, the glint of the blade catching on the lampposts stationed at the edge of the mausoleum, aiming it directly for Finnian’s face.
Enough of this.
Cassian’s form flickered with the taste of vengeance strong on his tongue. It surged within him like a conviction.
He materialized before Malik, the tip of his blade meeting the seam of Cassian’s pec.
Cassian caught Malik by his wrist, stopping the blade from piercing through his shirt.
With his backside pressed against Finnian, he did his best to hold his weight on the base of his toes to avoid crushing the young god.
Malik came closer, unknowingly lowering his head into the jaws of a monster. “Unless you have a death wish, I suggest you remove yourself from my sight.”
Cassian had never paid the triplets much attention during his visits to Kaimana. Up this close, though, he could pinpoint the similarities between their faces and Finnian’s—the hollow cheeks, pronounced brow bone, and the same honey-amber complexion. Theonlyresemblance of their kinship. Beyond those few traits, he could see the cat-like eyes of Mira, her superior ego, and her coldness embedded like a web around their souls. Not a trace of their father’s kind, empathetic nature.
Cassian would gladly teach them a lesson.
He leaned into the blade, puncturing a hole through the suede material of his tailcoat and through the meat and flesh of his chest. With a chilling curve to his lips, Cassian said, “You and your childish toys do not frighten me.”
The rush of his divine power thrummed in his blood as he set it forth onto the god.
Malik staggered away, mouth opening and closing like a fish begging for air. The magnitude of a spiraling illusion ensnared him.
How would a middle god of slaughter feel without satisfaction in his kills?
“Brother!” Astrid charged forth in a flurry of pink rose petals.
Cassian plucked the blade from his skin and tossed it aside, his eyes flashing up on the blur of silver locks charging towards him. “You’re next.”
A honeysuckle fragrance filled his nostrils. She reappeared with her hand on his shirt, her chest pushing against him, her eyes, two pools of black, reaching into his. A delicate lullaby hummed in his ear, the melody sensual and lighting his bloodstream like a match, lulling lustful urges into his thoughts. How her breasts would feel in his palm, her hand around his?—
Cassian cupped her jawline and stuck his thumb in between her lips.
She lightly bit down on his skin and fingernail with a teasing smile.
Ignoring the allurement of her charm, Cassian pressed the pad of his thumb down on her tongue, forcing her mouth open.
His divine power shot like oil down her throat.
She gasped.
Cassian removed his thumb from her tongue and watched as she scraped down his torso and fell to her knees in a strangled mess of breath and trembling limbs.
How would it feel to no longer enthrall the eyes and hearts of those in her presence?
Vex raced forward. One step in and Cassian’s divine power coiled around his head from behind, like tiny, blackened mambas prying into his face. It yanked him back and seized through his eyes.
He let out a broken cry.
How would it feel to be alone? Hideous and meaningless to everyone?
Cassian fixed his attention back on Malik. “If you do not get out ofmysight, I can assure you, death will be something you beg for.”
