36
Not what she expected. Love had anticipated a ruthless comment or snide exit speech. Instead, the words watched and kiss leap out at her.
He gestures to the pond. “The Goddess of Love feeling a mortal’s touch before my very eyes. Your powers were slipping, yet you did not care. Reckless thing, you are.”
Her next question astonishes them both. “Did you also watch us fuck?”
It’s rare to behold a stunned Anger. Yet his jaw ticks. “Not the first time.”
Love sucks in a breath. He must be referring to what occurred after she and Andrew had abandoned the tree stump and went inside, where they exhausted one another in a variety of positions throughout the night. In another life, she would smash her fist into Anger’s face for that violation, such a trespass into her and Andrew’s privacy. Yet in addition to outrage and protectiveness, compassion pacifies her reaction.
Anger’s features twist, despite how extensively he works to cover it up with an insult. “I arrived after you were finished with each other outdoors, then remained only long enough to watch you swallow his cock and arch beneath him. That was more than enough. Seeing you fuck a human for any longer would have repulsed me. I returned the next day, hoping you’d gotten the taste for him out of your system and were prepared to save The Dark Fates. Instead, I manifested here just in time for your arrow to falter.”
She shakes her head. “Why do you hate me?”
His gaze slices toward her. “I do not. But we’re the same arrow. We’re iron.”
“Love and anger are not the same. I will not believe that.”
“That’s your choice.”
“And it’s your choice to deny me a true answer.” She’s scarcely in the mood for riddles, but suddenly she’s nervous. If Anger’s being evasive, it means there’s a crucial reason why he has scowled at Love all their lives. And that reason has to do with that incident at Holly’s house, when he almost snatched Love into his arms. That, and the way his eyes presently shift to the occupied cottage, then back to her.
“I do not hate you,” he bites out, tearing the words from a hidden place, much like deeply buried roots. “I’ve never hated you.”
The quiet woods make room for a tension more intrusive than whenever Love and Anger have bickered in the past. In the interim, every word from his mouth skewers through Love.
“Oh.” Her back sags against the cottage wall. “I… I see.”
Anger veers his gaze away, his facial muscles flexing as though something heavy resides there. “As I said, love and anger are equal in many ways.”
It’s more than that. She has witnessed Sorrow’s depression. Anger possesses what humans call a short fuse. Envy is prone to spite. Wonder cares enough to find things out. Yet that is not the extent of who they are.
Wonder had confessed to feeling something tantamount to love for that human male she’d once tried to contact. And Anger has just done the same. Perhaps Envy and Sorrow are capable of this pivotal emotion as well. Perhaps it’s the unique way of their crew. They are the veins of love itself, so inclination may have been swimming inside them undiscovered this whole time, and someday every Dark God will follow suit.
For the first time, Anger’s gaze isn’t hostile as it returns to her. “I watched you long before The Court asked me to. I watched you whenever I could, a glimpse here and there, abandoning my post too often. You were so different from us, which could have gotten out of hand. I took advantage of that excuse, as the leader of our crew, when I first went to The Court about your male. Too bad they stopped believing my defense after a healthy interrogation, and I admitted I wasn’t reporting everything I saw between you and him.” His irises soften. “You looked too damn happy to expose.”
“Anger,” she whispers, empathy sliding across her tongue.
He chuckles grimly. “How many times have I told you? Do not say my fucking name.”
For once, Love obeys him. She bites her tongue until it’s liable to bleed.
“From the beginning, you frustrated me,” he confesses, those dark pupils filled with her reflection. “But I adored you anyway. Every look, every gesture, every breath. For two millennia, I have kept each facet close, no matter how much it pained and enraged me. You have always been impossible to resist.”
On the day of Wonder’s torture, Love had tried to help the goddess. Afterward, when Love had been confined in the dark, Anger had visited, reached out, and offered a comforting touch. Yet she had mocked him.
All these years, his outbursts about Love behaving herself were not only the products of militant decorum, but also concern and the feelings he’d kept secret. Fates, she must have driven him to distraction.
From his pocket, Anger withdraws a black, fringed object. “You dropped this.”
A lone feather. He must have found it in the snow, after the battle and before she lost her wings.
Love doesn’t know what comes over her when she moves forward. Pausing inches from him, she accepts the plume, then frames his granite face with her free hand, tipping it down to hers. Maybe she owes it to him for retrieving a piece of her wings, or for that time when his hand materialized under the door after The Court had locked her up, or the way he’d lied to their rulers and then braved a snowstorm for her. Yet most of all, it’s his sacrifice. For he’d kept her and Andrew’s secret safe.
Love’s heart belongs to Andrew. It’s her beloved mortal who needs her right now.
But this is farewell. It’s Anger’s banishment, and his eternity, and his only moment, and her fault, and the only comfort she can give. And perhaps… it’s a gesture of compassion and an honest admission, a sliver of what this rage god could have made her feel someday, what he could have meant to Love in due time.
“I won’t forget you,” she whispers.
“I wish that were true,” Anger rasps while stroking her face, consuming the sight of her. “Again, I’ll live. Make sure you do as well.”
Tentatively, Love shuffles nearer. “May I?”
His eyes blaze, then fall closed, a hiss tearing from his lungs. “Yes.”
It’s a mere brush of her mouth on his, but it’s no less urgent, no less profound. Anger exhales, his breath rushing out like a storm, fierce and unbridled against her skin. He leans into this faint kiss, his mouth tipping into her own, harsh but restrained, breath hot and ragged on her skin. The embrace is tender but lacking passion from Love, whereas it’s fervent and tormenting for Anger. While their parted mouths slant and rub, then press together in a fleeting kiss, his arms band around Love’s waist, holding her in that strong way she predicted he could.
For this moment, she lets him. As she hears his comforted sigh, it makes all the difference.