Chapter 4
Grace .
It suited her. She’d been gracious to drunk-as-hell Rae, who’d been fucking rude to her. She moved with gracefulness. She was grace personified.
I didn’t know why I was there. Why I was even in her presence .
It felt like the universe was laughing at me.
Or maybe the goddesses. I’d just known as soon as I’d seen her that I couldn’t walk away.
There were a million reasons why I should have—for both of our safety—but the moment she’d asked me to come with her, my decision had been made.
I couldn’t even blame drugs for my reckless decision this time. I was completely sober and aware of the risk I’d be taking by leaving with her.
Grace was moving around in the kitchen tucked behind a wall off the living room, making our drinks, and I took advantage of the time to look around her apartment. It was nothing like the shithole Dad and I lived in above the tobacco shop.
The sofa was a dark blue velvet, layered with artfully placed black and white cushions and a fluffy white throw.
Fairy lights were strung up above the couch, underneath an enormous mirror with a dark wood frame.
Most of the furniture was polished dark wood, from the trendy coffee table to the low bookshelf.
And there were plants everywhere —hanging from the ceiling, in cream or terracotta pots all over the surfaces and the floor.
I thought people only lived like this on Instagram.
My heart, which had slowed from the alarming level it had been at, picked up the pace again when Grace reemerged, two glasses of fizzing Prosecco in her hands.
She was so fucking pretty in her weird white knitted pants and matching crewneck sweater.
Her brown skin looked impossibly smooth, and her black hair hung almost to her waist, curling slightly at the ends.
Everything about her features was elegant —pale, jewel-colored eyes, thick curled lashes, a dainty nose, pouty mouth, and a pointed chin.
I felt like a filthy heathen in her presence, but judging by the fluttering pulse at her neck and the blush on her cheeks, she didn’t mind that so much.
Maybe Grace was the one agathos uptown girl who wanted to know what a daimon downtown man was like, and if that was all she was willing to give me, I’d probably take it.
“Um, shall we sit?” Grace suggested nervously, setting my glass down on the coffee table near where I was standing and motioning at the L-shaped couch.
She perched herself daintily at one end and I sat at the other, pushing some decorative cushions out of the way to make room.
I kept my distance, not wanting to crowd her even though it felt like every cell in my body disagreed with that sentiment.
Goddess, her apartment was so nice I felt like I was dirtying it up by just existing here.
“So, er, the heart attack sensation,” she began, before taking a generous swig of her wine and placing the flute down on a coaster on the coffee table. She folded her hands into her lap, her knuckles turning pale as she twisted her fingers nervously.
I’d never wanted to hold someone’s hand so much.
She must have cast some agathos magic on me.
“It’s still happening,” I noted, my heart still beating faster than usual in my chest, though it wasn’t as urgent as it had been.
It wasn’t just that either. Every inch of my skin, every nerve in my body felt hyper aware of her presence.
I definitely wanted to have sex with her—she was stunning, regardless of whatever else was happening to me—but whatever this feeling was, it went deeper than that.
“For me also,” Grace replied with a tight smile, smoothing her hands over her white pants. “I can see you’re hoping I have answers, and honestly...I don’t. Not really.”
Comforting.
“You didn’t do some kind of agathos voodoo on me?” I asked skeptically.
“We don’t do voodoo,” she replied, stricken. “Our gifts are only for good—”
“I was joking,” I assured her wryly. “I don’t really know what you do, but I assume it’s not black magic.”
“You don’t know what we do?” she asked, tipping her head to the side.
“No more than what you know about us, I assume.” I leaned forward to grab the glass and did my best to ignore the fizzing bubbles as I took a long pull of the Prosecco. “You think we do bad things to hapless humans,” I guessed, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Don’t you?” Grace asked with a nervous laugh, glancing at an enormous white candle in the center of her coffee table like it held all the answers to the universe.
“We don’t influence humans to do anything they don’t already want to do.
” I shrugged, tipping back the glass to finish the sweet wine.
Our curse was that we were driven to help them along that treacherous journey whether we wanted to do it or not, but we only encouraged their worst existing instincts.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” I asked, feeling the corner of my mouth twitch.
“Sorry, I’m...having a breakdown, I think,” she laughed weakly.
“I sort of want to pretend that you aren’t a daimon, which I know is stupid, but it would be less overwhelming.
I feel this...this connection to you, and the only kind of instant connection I ever expected to feel like this is a soul bond. ”
I laughed humorlessly because there was no way that was a fucking option. I knew agathos women had multiple lovers that their goddess chose for them, but we didn’t have an equivalent.
I wasn’t even entirely sure I had a soul.
“Daimons don’t have soul bonds,” I replied eventually, shaking my head.
We weren’t meant for a life of monogamy.
I’d never had any kind of long-term relationship.
No one I knew ever had. We fucked around, made little daimons with humans who had no idea they’d spawned devil children, and that was that.
“I know,” Grace said quietly, staring at the white candle like it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. “Agathos only have soul bonds with each other. It can’t be that.”
I flopped back on the couch, pushing my hair out of my face and tipping my head back to stare at the ceiling.
I didn’t want her to see my face at that moment.
I felt weirdly exposed. There was part of me that was disappointed by her answer, which made no sense.
I should be grateful if anything, like every other daimon would be.
If I’d ever wondered if I was a faulty daimon, there was no fucking doubt in my mind now.
“So, where are your soul bonds? You have a few right?” I asked the ceiling.
It had always weirded me out that agathos were all about purity and morality and yet their women had multiple lovers.
They were discreet about it because it didn’t fit in with their country-club-and-picket-fence vibe, but it was knowledge that was passed down from generation to generation when we learned about the agathos.
“I don’t have any,” Grace replied, and the sadness in her voice was enough to snap me out of my own funk.
I straightened up to look at her, noting that she was twisting the ring on her left hand so aggressively I was surprised she hadn’t ripped her finger out of the socket.
“I’m meant to. I’m 25, so I should have met them all by now, and I haven’t even met one. ”
That seemed a little too odd to be coincidental.
“You, uh, you sure we can rule out the soul bond thing then?” I asked, brow furrowed. “How do you find out for sure if someone is your soul bond or not?”
If we had to fuck for answers, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make that also wasn’t a sacrifice at all.
“I really wish I knew more,” Grace said quietly, looking a little wistful.
“It’s deliberately not spoken of so we can experience the magic of it for ourselves.
All we’re really told is that we’ll know when it happens, but the process is considered sacred.
I’ve probably said too much already, considering… ”
Considering I was a daimon.
“Anyway, I don’t know much. Just that there’s a call that’s meant to be undeniable. I’m supposed to feel it and follow it to where he is. And then the process repeats until I’ve found all four of them.”
The reaction I was having to hearing her describe a process happening with hypothetical dudes was fucking irrational. Whatever this thing was that was tying us together, Grace was never going to have agathos soul bonds. I’d make sure of it.
I’d kill them before they got to her.
In the back of my mind, I realized that my response wasn’t healthy, but I could at least partly attribute it to my daimonic nature. We were selfish. Greedy. Covetous.
I wanted to possess Grace. To keep her to myself.
“And what are you supposed to do when you find them?” I asked, my voice hoarse with barely suppressed jealous rage.
The noise she made could best be described as a squeak. Her long black hair fell in front of her face and she didn’t bother to push it back again.
Was she…embarrassed? That did help a little with the rage. I never wanted her to feel uncomfortable, and that in itself was a startling realization.
“I’ve heard from friends that the bond pushes them together. They said I’d feel, er, a sense of urgency until we, you know.” She gave me a pointed look and I stifled the urge to laugh.
I didn’t know. Got married? Lit a unity candle? Sacrificed a baby lamb to her megalomaniac goddess? I didn’t understand anything about her people and how they did things.
“Consummate,” she whispered, eyes wide.
There was that jealousy again. I didn’t want her consummating anything with anyone other than me, and obviously that wasn’t happening. Just saying the word had made Grace look like she was about to pass out.
“So there’s supposed to be this overwhelming push to do that,” I surmised, attempting to focus and speaking slowly, not wanting to spook her more than she’d already been spooked.