She erased the space between them and stood on her toes, slipping her arms around his neck. The silk of her hair grazed his skin and stuck in the stubble on his jawline.
His throat tightened. He squeezed his fists at his sides, refraining from hugging her back. It felt too much like this was the end, like she was saying her goodbye.
“If you come for the child, you will have to finish me off with his blood first,” she murmured next to his ear. Her tone held no contempt or self-righteousness, only a soft acknowledgement of their connection. As someone who cared for him, but who would not break her own resolve for him. It was something that Acacius deeply respected her for. “Your Olethros, your Chaos, nothing will touch him.”
It was a declaration, a new war between them, bloodshed that would undoubtedly end with one of their lives on the line.
A fight that he no longer desired with her.
Acacius closed his eyes, feeling the deadened rage in his heart as she let him go.
“It’s your move, Acacius.”
20
THE ONLY IMMORTAL THING
Marina
Acacius vanished,his departure resounding like air between teeth.
The tension in Marina’s muscles gave way and she slumped back against the wall, her breath draining slowly from her lungs.
She pressed her knuckles into the bone of her sternum in an attempt to ground herself.
From the moment she’d decided to confront the Herald in Hollow City, she knew Acacius would come for her, and the pointless revenge she indulged in with him would be over. What stood between them would finally be real and true, and whatever it was that they were doing would finally cease.
The passion, the games, the moments she caught him looking into her, reaching out to brush her hair from her face, talking her down from a breaching moment of panic. She needed all of it to stop.
Perhaps he could let go of her betrayal back in the Land of the Dead, but in the end, he wanted Naia stripped of her power and Ash dead.
His departure ached in her chest.
She pushed off the wall and teleported into her kitchen.
Do you know what became of Torin for laying a hand on you?
She ripped the cabinet drawer open and fumbled to grab one of the bitter bars of dark chocolate that she kept stocked inside.
Her stomach swirled with delight, and a wretched part of her wished she’d been able to witness the god’s misery.
Are we more than just enemies who fuck our loneliness away?
Ripping open the foil, she broke a square off and bit into it. The depth of the cacao mixed with a subtle sweetness overtook her tastebuds, masking her scattered senses for a brief moment.
We are nothing more than that.
The pang in her gut pulled like stitching in her skin the more she lied to herself. Still, she refused to dwell on the feeling. They were nothing more than a lonely set of souls, satiating each other’s needs.
It infuriates me, Marina, the way I feel for you.
The touch of his nose against her cheek still lingered; his breath spreading down her neck like warm bathwater; the threading of his fingers through hers, holding onto her tightly.
Longing welled up inside of her, to have it all again.
She planted her palms down on the countertop and supported her weight against them. Head hung, she stared down at her red fingernails, fighting the itch to teleport to Tavora and lose herself in him again. Marina hated that she needed him—that she didn’t want to quit whatever they were doing.
But that was their problem—avoiding issues and conversations, as if they did not exist.
