Touch (Dark Gods: Selfish Myths #1)

4

Men are stupid. That’s all there is to it.

It happens at the edge of the park, near a rusted bench. Far too many sensations assault Love at once that it’s difficult to sift through them. The only ones that stand out are the stenches of territoriality and resentment.

Behind Andrew’s back, the brutish man pauses beneath the glare of a streetlamp. Love narrows her eyes. Contain yourself, brutish man.

The troll at his side is a nonentity until she notices his wicked leer and paddle-sized hands, which are out of proportion to the rest of him.

The brutish man treks toward his prey, with his troll skulking beside him. They flank Andrew quickly. Humans can be fast when they want something.

“Hey,” the brute greets while the troll flicks his cigarette at Andrew’s feet.

Andrew skewers his gaze toward him. “Griffin,” he sighs.

Like a temptation, the longbow weighs heavily across Love’s back. She resists and closes her eyes, hunting for emotional signs from her mortal. Again, she encounters a wall, impenetrable to her powers. She does, however, locate his pulse, a steady heartbeat that drives Love crazy during the split second she hears it.

They will not touch him.

Yes, they will if they wish to. Though from the throb in his temple, Andrew will touch back if he must.

Love should feel reassured by this. Except she’s too busy picking a rock off the ground and crushing it to powder.

It’s against immortal law for her to interfere with human dealings unless it relates to matchmaking. Taming brutes is Anger’s job, though Evershire isn’t his jurisdiction. He’s stationed in one of those cities overrun by traffic, where he’s pacifying the hysterical tailgaters of this world.

“Not trying to run?” the brutish man named Griffin patronizes. “Pretty brave.”

“You’re drunk.” Andrew tapers his eyes at the other man. “Take him home.”

“That’s all you got to say?” Griffin slurs, alcohol lacing his breath like toxic fumes. “I thought we could be friendly, but see? I don’t understand some stuff. Like why you got a problem with my woman.”

“Jesus,” Andrew mutters with a humorless laugh. “Go sleep it off.”

“I’ll fucking sleep it off when you apologize for twisting her ankle.”

In the bookstore, beautiful Holly had mentioned an earlier incident between her and Andrew, which had to do with her ankle. She must be the one Griffin is talking about.

He tips his head. “Was that your pathetic attempt to get her attention?”

“Maybe if I were still twelve,” Andrew remarks.

The implication earns him a glower, the makings of a grudge swarming through the adversary’s blood. “Then again, I forgot. Someone like you doesn’t need to work that hard for attention, right? Must be an ego trip, earning an upscale living from writing about monsters who fuck.”

Love regards Griffin flatly. Evershire is a tourist village, a destination in which the residents require inheritances or self-made fortunes to afford property. So unless this brute is a squatter, he’s no different than Andrew. Although considering the latter’s house, his affluence might indeed surpass most people here.

Still. Mortal privilege is mortal privilege.

Andrew grimaces but stays quiet. It’s a wise move. Best not to contradict this adversary, for it will only sharpen the brute’s incisors and won’t change a thing.

“Doesn’t matter, either way,” the troll sidekick remarks. “Holly’s off limits.”

Griffin spreads his arms. “We’ve talked about this, haven’t we? Haven’t we had nice talks?”

Andrew slits his eyes in mock bafflement. “Nice?”

“You don’t think I know how to be nice?”

“Hell. I didn’t even know you could pronounce it.”

Love drops her head into her hands. Cursed mortal!

The brute’s jaw clenches. “What’s not nice is getting in my woman’s way all the time. I was on the phone with her not too long ago, and what a coincidence. You two bump into each other again.”

Love recalls Holly talking on the phone in the bookshop.

“She hung up on me,” Griffin says. “Then she called back and said you ran into her in some store. You hear me, asshole ?” The man punctuates the last word by shoving Andrew, and he doesn’t stop. “You need to watch where you’re going . Were you trying to get her attention ? You want my woman ?”

Shove. Shove. Shove.

“Just goes to show. When you don’t come out of the hermit hole you dug for yourself, even fame and that fucking photogenic face of yours only goes so far. Women like their men to actually leave the house for more than handiwork at a bookstore. As if you have a decent track record of keeping a female around,” the man slurs. “Even your mother didn’t find you worth sticking around for—”

Andrew’s fist smashes into Griffin’s face. Blood splatters the snow as the brute stumbles backward and hammers into his friend.

Fury contorts Andrew’s features, though it doesn’t serve him fast enough to deflect Griffin’s answering blow, which cracks into the side of Andrew’s jaw. However, he ducks the next punch and backhands Griffin, breaking open the man’s lip and spritzing more crimson.

All appears victorious until the troll sidekick takes Andrew down by sweeping under his legs. At which point, Love seethes, forcing herself to be still, to keep her hands off the archery.

She can’t intervene. She simply cannot .

Griffin kicks Andrew in the stomach, making him keel over and cough into the snow. As the brute squats to complete the job, Andrew jolts into motion. Well played, for the bluff gives him an advantage as he seizes Griffin’s throat and barrels his knuckles into the brute’s mandible.

Bone cracks. The brute howls and staggers while Andrew lunges to his feet, unaware of the troll charging at his back.

Arrows would be too clean a kill. Instead, Love rips a metal bar off a bicycle rail. She leaps, strikes, and rotates away so quickly the inferiors barely see the object flying toward them. But oh, they feel its impact. The bar flips and pivots. It pitches the troll sideways, sending him spinning into the snow, and before he’s landed, she wheels and rams the makeshift weapon into his ribcage. He coils into himself like a snail while hacking up globs of blood.

Meanwhile, Griffin catapults toward the bar. Although he can only perceive the floating rod and not Love, Andrew sees the man’s trajectory and unleashes a feral growl. Bolting in front of Love, he snatches Griffin’s arm, cranks it at a vicious angle, and lands another blow to his skull. At the same time, Love circles around Andrew and lashes at the backs of Griffin’s knees, depositing him on top of his friend.

Andrew looms over them with a murderous expression. In unison, Love falls into a crouch at his side, each of them braced for another round.

The men belt out a string of “Fucks” and flee the premises, several of their bones bent at misshapen angles. Love launches to her feet and whirls toward Andrew. He twists at the same time, staring at her in disbelief. They watch each other, clouds of frost slicing from their mouths as winter returns to its customary, silent self. His gaze burrows deeply, surveying her condition, looking for injuries and finding none, then consuming the other details about her that don’t belong in this world.

Thank Stars, she’d kept her wings concealed. It is bad enough that Love has brought this mayhem upon herself.

She drops the bar and runs. Her boot heels disturb the snow as she bolts into the forest, where she scrambles up a tree fronting a bridge that arcs over a dry brook. Shielded from view, Love counts to ten. He’s there by the time she finishes, his heavy respirations sounding as though his mouth has been plugged for centuries until now.

Love growls. She should have outrun him, yet she hadn’t been swift enough. The same thing had happened as she’d climbed her loyal tree the day before, when he’d witnessed her exposed pussy under the skirt. And while the only mortal she cannot read is Andrew, her physical strength against humans has waned in intensity, otherwise those men would no longer possess their ligaments. From the impact of her attack, limbs would have detached from their bodies.

So. Perhaps this is the beginning of her demise.

Andrew halts at the bridge’s threshold. His eyes trace the branches, his silence a pesky thing that cannot be deciphered. In mortal psychology, emotions and feelings are different. But The Stars determine the rules, not humans. To her kind, emotions and feelings, body and mind, are the same. Deities have the power to sense all these facets in mortals, and for that reason, Love is skilled at interpreting mood.

But without cues, she is lost. Condemnation, she is not a fucking mind reader!

“Why do you pull this shit and then evacuate the premises like someone’s lit a match to your ass?” Andrew shouts. When she makes no reply, he turns to leave. “Whatever. Thanks for the help, but I didn’t need it.”

“Yes, you fool. You did!”

He wheels around, triumphant. “She speaks.”

Everlasting shit. He’d provoked her. “He tricks.”

“He does,” Andrew answers. “He also has questions. Lots of them.”

“She isn’t going to answer.”

“Her cunt slickens for him, the wetness seeping through her panties.”

Love tenses, her skin prickling with a strange sensation. The words sound recited like…

She peeks down at the paperback he’s wiggling at her. The one she took from the store, which must have fallen from her coat.

“You drop this bestseller?” he mocks.

Cursed mortal. She will throttle him with her bare hands. She will lodge an arrow down his snarky throat. She will—

“I’m happy to keep reading,” Andrew projects.

Love sets her teeth. She’ll never give him the satisfaction of responding.

“The vixen knows what she wants, and she wants it multiple times, and she wants it now. In seconds, she’s flat on her back and clawing at his skin in ecstasy. By God, she’s a selfish little myth in her smutty, black dress—”

Love lands on the bridge, her boots smacking the wood planks several feet from Andrew. The instant she hits the ground, he slaps the book closed with one hand. “Since I own the copyright, I may have embellished.”

“Well done,” she concedes.

The book falls to his side. Surveying her from head to toe, Andrew hisses, “Did either of them hurt you?”

Those mortals couldn’t have accomplished that with a bulldozer. Nonetheless, Andrew’s mercenary question pumps blood through her veins. Any glib remark Love can make fails to reach her tongue.

Satisfied when his second inspection reveals no wounds on Love’s body, he appraises her scanty dress next and glowers for a different reason. “Button the coat.”

Her plans for retaliation are forgotten. Yet again, this mortal has the nerve to issue a command.

“I do not take kindly to orders,” she warns.

Andrew raises his eyebrows, daring her to say that again. “It’s below freezing, you’re wearing less than a yard of fabric, and I’ve seen your naked ass under that dress. Button the fucking coat.”

He has seen more than her bare buttocks. Yet the protective edge to his voice gratifies her ego. Perhaps she doesn’t have to be coy about her dress.

Defiantly, Love allows the coat to fly open and flap in the breeze. Keeping her eyes on him, it takes a moment to locate her hips and prop her hands there. “Perhaps I’m a succubus.”

“Maybe you’re trying too hard,” he retorts.

“Perhaps you’re clueless.”

“Maybe I’m a challenge. Maybe you have no idea how difficult I can be.”

“Did you injure that woman on purpose?” she demands, refusing to believe it but determined to make certain. “The large one’s mate. The female he was talking about.”

“Holly? I didn’t do anything to her, but good luck explaining that to Griffin. Once that fucker gets an idea into his head, there’s no stopping him. He was chasing Holly through a parking lot when she ran into me by accident and tripped. That’s all.”

That is not all. In the bookshop, a blush had suffused the woman’s cheeks. Griffin or no Griffin, the female is as drawn to Andrew as the rest of the village. Perhaps it’s his success, his evasive nature, or his sculpted face. Feasibly, it’s all three.

Love cannot help herself. “Do you like her?”

Andrew tilts his head. “You mean the way I like coffee?”

“Answer me!”

“Are you fucking serious?”

His question is loaded with incredulity. He just saw Love combat two beastly men with unearthly speed. True, his romantic prospects are not important, and he hadn’t shown any vested interest in Holly beyond her injury. Still, Love’s inability to read him takes precedence over logic.

Andrew crosses over to her, approaching with measured steps. While he absorbs Love’s presence, she does her utmost to maintain her dignity. Deities rarely get flustered. Yet the way this man looks at her… restless energy sparks across her flesh, as if he’s injected a combustible substance into Love’s veins.

“They couldn’t see you,” Andrew says. “Not just because you moved too quickly.”

Even so, she hadn’t been quick enough. Not if he’d been able to catch up to her.

“You’re not real,” he intones. “You can’t fucking be real.”

The turbulent way Andrew says this stalls her breath. She has broken a rule by allying with this man. Moreover, Love shouldn’t be moving in his direction. Yet she steps nearer and raises her hand, palm up.

Without hesitation, he lifts his own hand, his fingers slipping through hers, both glazed in dried blood from the skirmish. In weak moments, Love has lamented her inability to connect with others, but never has she mourned the vapor her body becomes around humans more than now.

“I cannot touch or be touched by you,” she explains. “So no, I’m not real. Not in that way.”

The mortal’s frown is too enticing for his own good. “You rammed the shaft of your arrow against me yesterday. And in the park, that metal bar—”

She grabs the paperback with her other hand, mimicking his earlier action and wiggling it in front of him. “It’s different with objects of your world. They’re links.”

He reaches out to trace one curve of her longbow with his free fingers, then lowers his arm. “You were following me.”

Love pockets the book and nods. “I was.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the only one who can see me.”

“Why?”

“Because no one else has the power.”

“Why?”

“Because no one else is… special.”

“Bullshit.”

“What?” she demands.

“Come on. No one else is special? That’s a platitude, a cop-out, and ignorant as fuck.”

Fair enough. And he’s right on all accounts. The adjective had sounded cheap at best, even as she’d spoken.

Contemplating a better—and safer—excuse gets Love nowhere. Thus, she opts for blatant rejection. “You haven’t earned an answer to why I can see you. But perhaps I shall tell you in the afterlife, provided we end up in the same fiery place, which is unlikely.”

His mouth twitches, withholding sudden mirth. “You’re assuming I won’t follow you into Hell.”

“You’re assuming I’m the one who’ll end up there. What if I told you I’m a perfect angel?”

“Or a troublemaker. You know, if you had a tail, I would yank on it.”

“If I had a tail, I would also have claws.”

That masculine smirk widens. They remain with their palms floating against one another. Andrew of the pewter-gray eyes stares at their hands, his face brimming with fascination.

“And just how long were you following me?” he inquires.

Ah. Despite her resistance to his previous inquiry, other certain truths will get this man to trust her. Therefore, Love wags the book once more. “Long enough to discover that you pen narratives.” Apparently, her mouth has a will of its own. “Thank you for the note.”

A purple bruise, courtesy of Griffin, puddles across Andrew’s jaw. “What about the question I wrote? Who are you?”

The glossy darkness surrounds them, snow collects on their shoulders, and the far-from-innocent inquiry hangs by a thread in the air.

Do not tell him.

Yet around this mortal, her tongue has the tendency to misbehave. Pulling her hand from his, she tucks the book in her pocket, offers a fiendish bow, and flashes a devious grin. “My name is Love.”

Andrew’s lips tip sideways. “Is that so?”

“You have an objection to that?”

“I don’t have a problem with beautiful things.” His gaze fastens onto hers. “Tell me your story.”

Love comes to her senses and retreats a step. “This is dangerous. I cannot stay here.”

“Dangerous for who?” The human moves after her, his voice sharpening. “Is someone after you?”

She’s confused by his instinct to think of her safety first. “I’m not the problem. It’s a risk for you . Pretend you never saw me.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I should never have preyed on you to begin with.”

“Preyed? As in, I was your next meal?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I wanted to toy with you, not eat you.”

Now that he’s confirmed her protection isn’t at stake, Andrew’s irises kindle like torches. His gaze cuts a path down her body, as if she has offered herself for lunch. Or rather, as if he’s contemplating allowing Love to sink her teeth into him. The effect makes her canines ache.

That’s not the half of it. Tingles climb up her thighs and probe the slit of her cunt. Stunned, Love shuffles in place, desperate to rid herself of the intrusion.

Indeed. The reference to eating had been unwise.

Andrew drags his tongue across his teeth. “Now that we’ve eliminated cannibalism as a factor, enlighten me. If you’re so toxic to my wellbeing, what are you?”

“Nothing.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Nowhere.”

“Nothing. Nowhere,” he imitates. “Not good enough.”

Marvelous. He’s as obstinate as she is.

To Love’s dismay, she still cannot decipher what he’s feeling. However, his expression speaks volumes, flashing with ambition. “I’ll make you a deal.”

“Deals are untrustworthy,” she hedges.

“And you’re apparently unsafe to be around. Yet here we are.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“You’re right, because I like what I see. Call me a masochist, but I want more time to soak it up before letting go.” He moves closer, his shadow touching hers. “You’d like me to pretend I never saw you? At this point, you’ve ruined that option. But for you, I’d be willing to try just about anything. Providing you try something else with me first.”

She frowns. “Such as?”

“Midnight,” he murmurs. “Give me until midnight with you.”