Buildings lined the steep cliffs, with warm lights decorating the streets. A moat ran between the jagged bluffs. It’d seemed the village had been rebuilt since his last visit.
He flicked his index finger against his thumb, his anger and anxiety frothing like sea foam in his system.
With a hiss, her bold presence filled the room.
Acacius continued to stare out through the glass. His divine power swelled like a cresting wave, begging to crash down on her.
She didn’t speak, and neither did he.
The stiff silence festered between them.
He wanted to give her a chance to explain. She was anything but stupid. If he were to guess, she’d have expected him to be here, waiting for her. Up until now, she’d been good about keeping her presence concealed from him in the city.
Her heels clicked across the hardwood into the kitchen, and she opened one of the cupboards.
From the corner of his eye, he watched her pop the cork out of a bottle of wine and fill a glass with the pale-gold liquid.
She journeyed to her sofa, and took a seat, relaxing back into the cushion with her legs crossed.
So, this is how she wants to play.
The tips of his ears grew hot as he stalked over to the sofa across from her, plopped down, and met her low-lidded gaze.
She sipped on her wine.
He waited.
“You never show the most sinister form of your Olethros,” she finally said, placing her glass on the table between them. “Why?”
Of course, she would continue to pry—to fish out more information.
A harsh laugh scuffed out of him. “You believe you are in a position to inquireanythingabout me right now?”
Fucking unbelievable.
She exhaled, dulling her sharp posture, and she shook her head. “I do not wish to fight.”
“Then enough of the games, Marina.” He leveled her with a somber look. “Did you know that I would come for you after Ruelle’s death?”
Marina held his gaze for a long moment. “When I was ready to be found, Viviana and Mansi spread my winning streak in the Pit around Isolde, knowing you would overhear it. I assumed your Olethros would be keeping tabs on me, but then it occurred to me that you wouldn’t place them so carelessly, where Chaos and Ruin was not needed.”
When will you ever learn?
He smirked, darkly amused with his own stupidity.
The resentment that he felt for Marina resuscitated in his chest, and he rested his elbow on the arm of the sofa, balling his fingers into a fist. His palms itched to latch onto her throat and squeeze, to hear her beg for his mercy.
“So, you went along with my revenge war just to keep my attention off the Himura demigod?”
“Yes.” It left her the way most things did: unemotional, cold, and without remorse. The word writhed under his skin.
Acacius laughed, a manic sound rippling from his jaws.
After years of his life spent repeating the same mistakes over and over, it was comical that he’d ended up right back where he’d been with Ruelle—underneath a goddess’s heeled boot once more. The strings of his heart kept twisting around another’s, just to have them cut once more.
Such a fucking fool.
Those were the words Marina had said to him in the Land of the Dead, twirling the syringe of the Himura demigod’s blood in her fingers with her untouchable arrogance.
