Chapter 18
18
TLALLI
Y eah, Elias was definitely fucking in Heaven: that was all Tlalli could think right now as she attempted to get her lungs to work properly again. She was (only slightly, of course) irritated that he had never fucked her before, especially given the fact that he seemed to have learned her body in a matter of moments following first contact. Every sweet spot and soft target, he’d hit, and he’d done so with the kind of fervor few had ever offered. In fact, other than Cahuani, she couldn’t name anyone who had fucked her so thoroughly.
Maybe if she could just convince Elias to come with her?—
No. No, that was not possible. This was where it ended. There was no room for false hopes like that.
The peaceful quiet the conservatory had known prior to their encounter was restored once they gathered their bearings. She imagined that if anyone had come in here, they had likely fled the moment they heard the screaming, and if not, well... She couldn’t find it in herself to care. If someone had stumbled upon the show, she only hoped they appreciated it. After all, it was one afternoon only. She wished she had recorded it.
To her horror, though, she found herself reluctant to leave Elias, taking her time to work up to it. Yet eventually, she had to get back to Cahuani and tell him about Anthony. They had to be prepared for anything, and right now, Cahuani was sitting upstairs unaware. That thought put her on edge as soon as the lust cleared from her mind.
She still wasn’t sure if she should tell Cahuani about this little engagement with Elias. She doubted it would matter. It shouldn’t, at least, but... Well, it mattered to her. She had promised to be honest with him, and although that oath likely didn’t extend to something like this in his mind, it did in hers.
But Cahuani’s feelings weren’t exactly her concern at the moment. No, it was her feelings that were giving her pause. Feelings she would’ve sworn did not exist an hour ago. And what the fuck was she supposed to do with that?
“All right, so we split up and steer clear.” She sighed, carefully concealing her ulterior motives although that now felt like pulling teeth. “Stasis is probably safest. Whatever Anthony’s going to do, let him deal with the consequences. We already did our parts. He has the chalice. He knows the job is to deliver it. If he fails to do that, that’s on him.”
Elias nodded as he stared out the window. “Just...” Suddenly, he turned back to her, his eyes intense. “You promise me you won’t go lookin’ for him.”
“I want nothing to do with him, so I promise you that,” she returned quickly. She had plenty of more fun things to do than go looking for that kinda trouble. “Let me know if you hear from Michael. You know he won’t call me directly.”
He nodded, gripping her shoulder, then squeezing it once before letting go. He was about to leave when he suddenly turned back to her again. “And listen. You’re worth a thousand of Anthony, all right? I’m gonna make sure you get the credit you deserve when we get back.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him it was too late for that.
She waited a few minutes in the conservatory before she, too, left, projecting herself back to Cahuani’s room. He was sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee in his hand, his ankle propped on his knee and his tablet propped against it. All at once, her heart swelled. The room grew smaller yet the distance between them remained far too large.
“Everything all right?”
He must have seen something alarming in her face because he quickly set his tablet and coffee down on the end table. Before he could stand up, she was mounting his lap. Then she took hold of his face and pulled it to hers.
She kissed him hard, swallowing the breath he had been unable to expel and demanding more with a probe of her tongue. His hands grasped at her thighs and back and arms, eager to pull her closer as she tried to melt into him completely. Again, she was renewed by a drink of his mouth. Again, she was restored by the touch of his hands.
When she pulled back, he followed, eyelids heavy. She held his face at a reasonable distance. Eventually, his eyes fluttered open fully, but before she could speak, he did.
“I hope that wasn’t an apology.”
Her brow furrowed. “What would I be apologizing for?”
He shrugged. “I may have passed by the conservatory to make sure things were going well, and they did in fact seem to be. I didn’t stay long though, I promise. Only a moment or two.”
She blinked and tried to find another meaning to the words only to reach a dead end. He smirked at her, his fingers coming to dust along her jaw.
“As I said, I hope it wasn’t an apology.”
“You’re not angry?” It was the only thing she could think to say.
“Why would I be angry? I don’t own you, princess, at least not outside this bedroom. And I’m not saying I don’t care, either, so don’t go getting it twisted. I just mean I want you to have everything you want.”
She licked her lips and relaxed her hands against his neck, but she still couldn’t find words. Not because she was ashamed or embarrassed that he’d seen her fucking Elias but because she now had to grapple with the fact that she and Elias were over, that the conservatory was likely the last time she would ever see him.
Cahuani would be enough. Of course he would be enough, but she was selfish. At least right now, in this moment, she wanted more than enough.
Cahuani softened, both of his hands cradling her face even though she could not look at him. “You care about him, don’t you?”
A laugh absent of amusement trickled down her chin. “I didn’t think I did three days ago. I didn’t even think he liked me until an hour ago, so...” She shrugged it off quickly. She couldn’t do this, not now. There was too much at stake. Forcing herself to meet Cahuani’s probing gaze, she took a deep breath. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. We had our moment. The moment’s over. I’m not looking back.”
She wanted to know what was going on inside Cahuani’s mind. Sure, she could poke around if she wanted to, but that felt like a violation, so she wouldn’t unless he allowed it, and she didn’t have the courage to ask. Because she knew he was telling the truth when he said he wanted her to have everything she wanted, and the last thing she wanted at the moment was for him to be worrying about how to get that for her.
He seemed to accept the finality in her tone, nodding and pressing another kiss to her lips. When he pulled back, a soft chuckle left his lips.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, desperate to shift the mood in the room if not the one inside her head.
“You’re not very good at behaving.”
Her lips curled slowly. “Don’t act like you didn’t already know that, Papa Bear.”
“Oh, I certainly did.” He shook his head slowly, his eyes twinkling. “Mm, what am I going to do with you?”
“Oh, you’ve proven very creative in that department thus far. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Well, the bondage seemed to do wonders.”
She licked her lips. “For both of us... Though if you were in need of inspiration, there is that party tonight.”
He tilted his chin upward, surveying her features. “You want to go?”
She shrugged. “I mean, we don’t gotta get completely involved. We’ll give the mortals their space, but watching over them shouldn’t mean we can’t have any fun.” She paused a moment. “—But I know parties aren’t really your thing, and you didn’t actually say you wanted to go when you mentioned it, so... I mean, we don’t have to go. We can absolutely stay here and get creative ourselves. The storm will likely pick up again anyway, and besides, a competition feels like a waste of your skill.”
“And I cannot imagine a greater prize than watching you cum.” He licked his lips, and her eyes trailed after the motion of his tongue. “But if you wanna go, it would be a shame to waste the opportunity. Besides, we deserve to enjoy our last evening here. We’ll just do as you said, keep a bit of distance between us and the other partygoers. It’s a very large estate. I’m sure we can find a stage of our own.”
She fought to keep her smile from faltering, but when it proved too much, she burrowed her face into his neck. She knew she still had to tell him about the rest of the meeting, specifically what had happened with Anthony. He had to know, but the words refused to form upon her tongue. They felt like a bad omen in and of themselves, like whether she spoke them or not was irrelevant.
That wasn’t true, of course. Whether she spoke them or not was the difference between a prepared Cahuani and a Cahuani caught off guard. The latter would do no one any good.
Well, no one but Anthony.
“Anthony stole the chalice,” she blurted out. Easing into it felt pointless. “The fake one, of course, but... Elias thinks it’s the real one, and he thinks Anthony might try to use it to start a fight.”
“Well, that won’t work,” Cahuani replied, allowing the subject to change without pause. “We know it’s fake.”
“But we can’t find him, Cahuani. If he thinks he has the real one, don’t you think he’d be rubbing it in our faces? And why would he take it if he wanted y’all to so he had a reason to attack?”
“Maybe he wanted Elias to think we did take it, so Elias might back him. I mean, that’s the mission, right? Get the chalice by any means necessary?”
“He had to know better. He had to know Elias wouldn’t simply take his word for it, and... I don’t know.”
She went quiet, trying to discern what it was that was putting her on edge now that she was focused on the mission once more. He was right. The demons had the real chalice, and Elias was safe and sound. They were already wary of what Anthony might do, so what more was there to worry about?
“What are you thinking?” he asked softly.
“I’m thinking we still don’t know Michael’s role in all this. I’m thinking that maybe he knows more than we think he does, and not just about Anthony.” She bit her lip. “Honestly, for all we know, we all just walked right into their trap.”
By now, that seemed to be the only real explanation for Anthony’s ability to act in the fashion he had since arriving. Like he was always going to be the point of impact. And why would the Dominion even attempt to honor the treaty when they had been attacking demon strongholds for months now? The demons had kept them at bay and let it be, refusing to be goaded into a war, but that would only last for so long. The angels had to know that too. And here, in a neutral zone...
Fuck. The angels didn’t even have to kill the demons. They only had to kill the Puri’s beloved Nahualli sorcerer. They knew this because the Puri had spared Cahuani after they stole the amulet. The demons could excuse an amulet. They could excuse a few critical wounds and destroyed buildings. They would not excuse the death of Cahuani.
“Anthony came here for me,” Cahuani concluded aloud for both of them.
She met his eyes and saw her despair reflected at her, a despair that deepened as more pieces fell into place. Michael was not just expecting the war to start here—he had sent Tlalli and Elias with the man he’d hoped would start it. He hadn’t cared if Tlalli and Elias got caught up in this family feud. He had deemed them disposable too.
That fact didn’t matter so much to Tlalli, of course, because the mission had given her a chance to escape, but Elias... She had no clue what he would do when he finally realized that.
“Forget the party,” she said abruptly. “We should leave.”
Cahuani slowly shook his head. “No, we aren’t gonna leave.”
“Why not?”
“If we leave, I run, and if I run, I only delay the inevitable.”
“But this isn’t about you. This is about the entire world. And every mortal here.”
“That is why I must stay. What if we leave and he attacks the mortals to get us back here? No, we have to stay until this ends, even if the truce expires first, and when the time comes, I’ll face the monster I made.”
“Cahuani—”
“If he kills me, he starts a war. If I do not kill him, I do.”
She opened her mouth but quickly closed it again. It took her a moment to understand what he meant, but once she did, she realized he was right. Because it was the same logic she had used to justify her own aims tonight. If they did not end Anthony’s plans tonight, they would only grow bigger, stronger, more dangerous to more people.
Cahuani couldn’t be held liable if Anthony attacked first even once the auction truce ended. In fact, if Anthony attacked after the truce ended in an area, it was Cahuani’s duty to stop the aggression. If Anthony failed to kill Cahuani, Michael would either have to let it be or start the war himself. And Michael might just do that, but that would still be better than letting him manipulate the Puri into becoming the aggressor.
Elias used to say that when the war started, the most important thing to each side would be the optics. Tlalli finally understood what he meant.
“Okay.” She expelled a heavy breath. “But then I have to find a way to formally leave the angels. It would all be for nothing if you defeat Anthony and they still use the accusation of my ‘abduction’ as a reason to attack.” He seemed to only just realize this, too, but before he could back out, she gripped his face firmly. “You’re right, Cahuani. We have to do this the right way. It was foolish to even consider anything else, and... Look, I know the Puri are used to being the villain in stories, but we cannot let Michael win. We cannot let him get away with trying to play the victim again.”
Cahuani was already nodding as if he’d been thinking she needed to leave this way all along. He likely had been but had been so devoted to keeping his promise to her that he’d tried to ignore it. She could appreciate that, but she was done trying to flee. The war was inevitable, yes, but it did not have to happen here. It did not have to happen to her. She had a choice.
“I’ll talk to Xaphan,” he said after a long silence. “As soon as the truce ends at midnight tonight, we’ll put the Puri on alert. They can find a way to ensure you get the audience you need to leave properly without having to step foot in the Garden even if Anthony doesn’t make a move.”
“And what about tonight? What if Anthony just shows up here and tries to start things off in the hallway?”
“We just have to steer clear of him until the morning. If the Orfani are in danger, we act, but otherwise, we evade Anthony at all costs.” It took Tlalli a moment to remember “Orfani” was the Puri’s word for mortals without magic. “If we’re lucky, the mortals will leave here in the morning without any issue. At least then, no matter how things go with Anthony, we don’t have to worry about them. It’ll be fine.”
Now she had to laugh, not because of how confident he looked but because of how easy he made it for her to feel just as confident.
“And you’re good with him finding out about this?” she asked, tilting her head.
“What? That I’m fucking you?”
She snorted. “That I’m fucking you .”
“Mm-hmm, whatever you say, princess. Regardless, it’s of no consequence to me. I don’t really give a damn what he thinks anymore. The only angel whose opinion I care about is yours.”
She grinned. “That’s a good answer.”
“Yeah, I thought so too. Now”—he pulled her closer and ran his hands down her thighs—“about this party theme...”