Touch (Dark Gods: Selfish Myths #1)

13

“I cannot do that!” Anger seethes.

“Of course, you can,” Love argues. “You simply refuse to!”

Barking out a savage growl, the rage god whacks a container of engine oil. It flies across the auto repair shop, and one of the mechanics ducks at the last minute to avoid getting his skull crushed. The container smacks against a wall, dents the facade, and hits the floor. A group of startled men twist and stare, searching for the culprit.

“Jesus,” one of them utters.

“What the living fuck?” another one asks.

Ulrik pokes his hard-boiled head out from beneath Griffin’s car. He scans the shop, then mutters, “Hate this ghost village.”

The remark brings to mind the arrow Love shot into Andrew’s house.

Drilling tools and blaring rock music fill the repair shop’s garage. The space smells of mortal aftershave, fatigue, and Anger. He’d been holding back. A true strike, and that container would have exploded. Or more to the left, and the rusted motorcycle beside them would have taken the blow and launched into the air.

Love quirks an eyebrow. Anger’s incensed by her involuntary summons—not that he’d needed to answer—and had refused to speak with her at Holly’s residence.

Anger grouses about having a job of his own to do. It’s on the tip of Love’s tongue to suggest he was probably in the neighborhood anyway, given he’s been spying on Love, but she prefers to ignore that fact.

They’d followed Ulrik’s truck as it dragged Griffin’s car away, with its surly owner tagging along. Holly’s lover has parked himself in the waiting room and is presently alternating between tearing through a magazine and texting his mate. Love hopes Holly hasn’t gone to the bookstore in the meantime.

She wants her to. Naturally, she does. But not without Love to accompany her.

Love’s least favorite god broods next to her, looking tall, cantankerous, and inconvenienced. That fierce expression must exhaust his facial muscles.

“They’re perfect targets for you,” she solicits. “An ounce of your power will —”

“Enough,” he bites out. “I cannot do what you ask. Not outside of my territory and not impulsively. It’s our law.”

“The Fate Court will forgive you in this case.”

“They don’t give a rat’s ass who’s fucking with your mortal. Matter of fact, they won’t mind if the assailants disembowel Andrew with a hatchet and spare us the trouble.”

Love bares her teeth. “Keep talking about him like that, and that same hatchet will find its way across your throat.”

“Not long ago, you argued that killing him was the pragmatic route.”

“I’ve said many things in the past. If you require a reminder, The Stars have spoken. They wish for me to match the human. In which case, The Court will care a great deal if interlopers divert my task.”

Anger scowls. “Even your dramatics are beginning to sound… abnormal.”

Human. That’s what he was going to say.

“If I’m being dramatic, you’re being careless,” Love rebukes. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

The god’s jaw hardens. “I see pettiness isn’t beneath you.”

“Need I remind you we’re deities? Pettiness comes with the territory.”

“And now you expect me to do your bidding merely because you say these men are temperamental. Everyone in this forsaken world experiences fury. What I do is about more than that.”

Fuck. Fair enough.

Theirs is a mindful job, for which they’ve trained extensively. Simply because archers have the freedom to choose their targets—Andrew being a rare exception—it does not mean they’re allowed to take advantage of that liberty by shooting whomever they wish.

Granted, she has played with humans on plenty of occasions. Yet it’s never without a purpose. Even when it entertains Love to puncture mortals with unrequited passion or sexual gluttony, there’s always a reason, an intended outcome. There is matchmaking, and there is the opposite. One just happens to be more of a guilty pleasure than the other.

In any case, she hadn’t called out to the bane of her existence on purpose. But since he’s here, the subdued side of his magic will resolve this vital matter. Like Envy and Sorrow, he can incite emotion if it’s necessary for human motivation or growth, to help mortals learn a lesson. But like Envy and Sorrow, this rage god most often reduces the emotion, chiefly to calm people down.

“I need help,” Love petitions. “Trust me.”

Anger’s booming laughter shakes the ground. “Trust you.”

Usually, his sarcasm cuts to the quick. Love consults the inner workings of her soulless soul for a droplet of pride, something that signals she’s offended. However, there’s no room for egotism.

“I cannot do this with them in the way. They’re dangerous to my…” She inhales whiffs of grease and engine oil. “My target. They’re detriments to matching him. I don’t know how else to prevent it.”

Yes. That last part is difficult for her to admit.

And fine. There might be room for pride, after all.

Her mind drifts to Andrew. What’s he writing? Eating? Touching?

What is cold to him? What is heat?

Love’s mind stumbles back to the present. Anger contemplates her features, the hoops in his ears flaring with sharp light. “Last time I checked, the nefarious Goddess of Love was a master manipulator. At least when you’re not fetishizing human touch. Jealous rivals and meddling family members are scarcely out of your comfort zone, much less your experience. Matter of fact, you typically find romantic interlopers amusing, if only to add more pawns to the board and take the matchmaking game to the next level.”

“I marvel how you’d know all that, oh mighty Omniscient One.”

“So Wonder disclosed that I’ve been monitoring you now and then.” Anger scoffs while adjusting his fingerless gloves. “I regret nothing. Despite your skills, you’re prone to irrational bouts of sentiment and occasionally require surveillance.”

Goddammit, Anger!

“Very well,” Love grits out. “I need you to spy on me and keep those fiends from thwarting my task, thus endangering our future. So yes. You’ve won. Are you satisfied?”

Her throat feels uncomfortable. Living in the forest is a quiet affair, yet from the moment Andrew first pried a word out of her, everything inside Love has been loud and hysterical. Tantrums have been spewing out of her, into the world where she cannot take them back.

“These circumstances are different,” she beseeches. “You know they are. Our survival has never been at stake. Trained or not, I cannot take the risk here. I need a guarantee. My arrows don’t have the necessary power.”

“Be careful,” Anger cautions through his teeth. “Your voice is approaching high tide. Any more of this, and you’ll be mistaken for Lunacy.”

He’s not helping that tide. She’s dealing with two incessant human oafs, and Anger fancies this a good time to reward her with mockery. Besides, there is no deity called Lunacy. It’s an offensive term, and it’s not an emotion.

The rage god sighs. “The Stars have given consent for our rulers to intervene if your efforts fail. If you wish to protect your mortal, you’ll shoot him before you’re on the brink of collapse and The Court is obliged to maim him.”

Andrew is not her mortal. He shall never be hers.

A whisper slips from her mouth. “Anger. Please.”

The god must see in Love’s expression something forlorn because his pupils soften, then flash like explosives. Swearing under his breath, he bolts toward her, the force of his movement urging Love to retreat.

Her reaction works like a barricade, halting Anger in his tracks, restraint pulling taut across his features. He checks himself, a covert and unaggressive emotion dulling his orbs. It’s so unexpected, so unsettling, that Love braces herself, waiting for whatever is afflicting him to subside.

Another cacophonous drilling noise grinds through the garage from one of those horrible tools, the vulgar sound coming from the belly of the shop, as if someone is attempting to forge a crater into the ground and locate the earth’s core. The mechanics emanate whiffs of stress and depression, one of them humming to herself while another takes a cigarette break.

Ulrik’s entire consciousness is narrowed to his occupation, which involves harnessing a new tire onto Griffin’s car. Currently, the older man is the only soul who emits no particular stink, as if anything remotely resembling life and spirit have been squeezed from the test tube of his body. Love would almost call that a talent if it didn’t mean complimenting him, and if she weren’t determined to ruin him for eternity.

Eternity happens. An arrow slices through the air and plows into the man’s heart. He flies backward and rolls from side to side across the ground, groans of pain grinding from his mouth.

Love turns toward Anger just as he lowers his bow, his countenance steely. “Never say I don’t listen.”

Because he’s Anger, his strike is even harder for mortals to recover from than her own arrows. It looks as though Ulrik’s having a coronary. The other mechanics drop what they’re doing and charge his way, but he bats them off while one of the men fishes out his phone to dial an emergency number.

Anger cuts through the garage with Love on his tail and takes care of Griffin in the waiting room, shooting him in the chest. Love won’t lie to herself. She relishes watching him topple out of the chair and flop around like a flounder. Meanwhile, the mechanics are too preoccupied with Ulrik to know what else is happening.

An archer decides how long the magic of their weapons lasts. It could be anywhere from seconds, to an hour, to a year, to forever. The sizzle of Anger’s arrows indicates he’d released life shots. The antagonists will behave themselves from now on.

Minutes later, a wailing ambulance swerves into the parking lot. Its presence is unnecessary, but that’s for the humans to find out. Before they reach the emergency room, Ulrik will be fine, as will Griffin, who has finally been discovered.

She and Anger relocate several paces from the shop.

Twisting toward the rage god, she murmurs, “Thank you.”

“We both chose iron,” Anger replies in concession. “Perhaps that means we understand each other better than we think.”

He jerks his longbow across his back, the motions accentuating the fire tattoos blazing up his forearms as if the sun has branded him. Once more, those volatile eyes flash on Love. A joke shall diffuse whatever thoughts are kindling there, but Love cannot think of one. As a shadow manifests, her eyes drift over his shoulder, drawn by instinct.

Andrew.

He stands at the back of the ambulance while the paramedics load his brittle stepfather inside. It looks as if Andrew had been walking alongside the man’s stretcher when he’d noticed Love. The mechanics must have called him.

His eyes drag from Love to Anger in surprise. Love’s steps backward, then feels something strange against her elbow, a quick but tentative pressure.

A touch.

Anger’s touch. He’d reached out to alert her, or perhaps to steady himself since he’s never been seen by a mortal before and is daunted by Andrew’s penetrating gaze. Then his fingers disappear. The forsaken god evanesces, which makes them both appear guilty of something.

Andrew stares at the place where Anger had touched Love. Amid the bookshelves in Georgie’s shop, she’d claimed there was no one like her in this world. No other souls who can put their hands on her.

As if it’s been twisted by a wrench, Andrew’s visage tightens, viewing Love for the liar she is. When he climbs into the ambulance, the mortal doesn’t spare her another glance. The emergency vehicle skids onto the road and speeds down the lane, the siren howling and the red lights rotating as the frigid landscape swallows the conveyance.

She doesn’t understand why he’s furious, nor does she comprehend the sudden restlessness in her limbs. Love may have lied, but she’d never said she would tell him everything.

Or perhaps he thinks Anger is her mate. Well, let him. She does not have time to play into this drama. The panic is unpleasant, and it’s doing unfavorable things to her composure.

Love returns to her tree and attempts to rest, but she tosses and turns—as best as anyone can toss and turn on a branch. The memory of Andrew’s livid expression, how it contorted the bruise on his mandible, makes a mess of her. She has no book to distract her thoughts, the weather is uneventful, and the forest is vacant of all other life, as if it only has room for outcasts like her.