Chapter Ten #3
The moment we crested the threshold into her building was like undergoing a time change.
I felt as though I’d boarded an international flight, departing from the land of male activists and landing amidst gorgeous, powerful Amazons.
Strong, wealthy, florally perfumed women milled about in black dresses, in pantsuits, in structured outfits, in trench coats, in whatever they damn well pleased, eyes forward, chins raised high, not an apology in sight.
It was miraculous.
I raised my chin to match, casting my eyes down for no one, marveling at what little I knew of our guest speaker.
I knew of her origin lore, of course. I’d been one of millions of American students who’d endured a fourth-grade teacher’s attempts to educate us on Greek mythology when we’d first heard of the Gorgon woman who turned men to stone.
Perseus’s role was irrelevant. This was not his rally.
As for her modern personification, I knew of Alessia only peripherally before this morning.
I’d watched clips of her speeches, snatches of her best moments as she addressed Congress and international crowds, reposts of her tweets, and I even remembered filming a video to a songified version of one of her more famous feminist clapbacks.
The seven of us had done a deep dive on the internet, supplemented with preternatural knowledge, all piled onto the king bed in the suite in the hours before our makeovers.
We’d gone to Adrien Vail’s studio armed with as much as we might have hoped to know.
We’d crossed the picket line of protesters—little more than raving lunatics who decorated the exteriors of abortion clinics and pride rallies—with the grace and gravitas of dignitaries who were meant to be there, rather than five nobodies who’d hacked into the system with the help of a demon who was particularly adept with technology.
We’d barely made it through the atrium, en route to our seats, when we were stopped.
It wasn’t me, but Azrames, who was grabbed.
Silas slipped his hand on my back as if ready to push me out of the line of fire and sprint me from the vicinity like the Secret Service amidst an assassination. The two of us, human and angel, remained frozen as we carefully watched the events play out.
I was horrified at the flashback of seeing a woman I shouldn’t have—spotting Anath in the corner of a fertility clinic in Bellfield. There were horrid pros and cons to peeking behind the veil. This exchange was not meant for me.
I rattled through what I could do, how I could help, how I could save my friend.
The woman who’d snared his attention was not in the congressional attire ready to sweep Milan’s runway, but a drapey, champagne silk dress that did nothing to conceal her lack of brassiere.
Her long black hair had been slicked back and left down.
She was more shapely than a Renaissance painting, from her pillowy breasts to her supple ass, her curvaceous hips to the soft apples of her cheeks.
She was sex personified.
“Azrames,” the woman purred, pearly teeth biting into her painted lips with sensual intentionality.
The entire group, armed with our sigils, witnessed his seizing.
Confusion sent the rest of us reeling. We needed to remain silent and cool while still responding to the obvious presence of another being who belonged firmly behind the veil.
The fact that neither Az nor Silas had identified the woman as a supernatural threat before she was on top of us did nothing for my sense of calm.
She kept her fingers on his arm as she looked over his shoulder at his retinue.
“And…my, my. What do we have here?” Her gaze returned to the demon as she asked, “Keeping company with a blasphemous author? We knew you worked closely with a human, but truth be told, this isn’t what I’d been picturing. ”
He plucked her fingers gently from his arm, tucking his other hand behind his back as he gave her knuckles the same respectful kiss he’d extended to all of us. “I’m at a disadvantage, I’m afraid.”
His charm knew no bounds. Hell, everything this man did was so fucking sexy. I stood and watched with my jaw on its hinge as I tried to make sense of the interaction.
Priscilla bumped into me, giving me a pointed look before mumbling, “Conversation, conversation, conversation, words, words, words.” She then smacked my shoulder, laughing lightly as if I’d told the most delightful joke in the world.
Her attempts to appear conversational while we were all blatantly staring did little to soothe the tension.
My eyes widened with comprehension. We couldn’t stand there dumbfounded. We were in a packed atrium filled with humans, steps from the auditorium. A statue-still group of fashionistas gawking at a blank space would draw attention.
“Watermelon, watermelon,” I said, if only to communicate that she was right. We had to look occupied.
This probably wasn’t why Azrames had told us we needed a witch on our team, but it sure as hell didn’t hurt.
I laughed back, playing the charade of our joke as the others took our cue. Admittedly, I was not giving the lip-synced chitchat my best effort. I needed to know who had stopped Azrames, and why.
“Oh, you don’t know me? I’m hurt.” The mauve of her lower lip protruded dramatically.
He made a polite bow, giving a winsome, cocky smile as he said, “You’re a goddess, with or without the title. Though, given my inability to spot you, I assume it’s the former.”
I admired his smooth negotiation of unknown waters. He was smart, but that didn’t shock me. Exuding this much charm, he would have made a pretty penny in sex work if avenging angel ever failed him.
“Shri,” she said.
He straightened his back at that. “Shri,” he repeated. “A Sanskrit name with many meanings. Today, they’d tell you it means light, radiance, and beauty. But”—he dragged his eyes over her with complimentary intentionality—“I’m guessing you picked it because it means luster.”
“Oh.” She squeezed the hand that still held her own. Manicured brows shot skyward. “You are good. Any guesses?”
“Rati, at long last,” he said with another bow. “It’s an honor.”
Well, shit. I recognized the name from my days scouring mythological texts for my next Pantheon book. She was not just a love deity. Azrames was holding hands with the Hindu goddess of love, lust, and carnal pleasure.
I looked over my shoulder to see how Silas had taken the greeting, but he’d gone into a warrior’s stance with his hands clasped behind his back, looking straight ahead as he ignored the exchange.
I loved and hated the display before me.
I admired Azrames to his core. And I despised any world where his character was questioned. But maybe that wasn’t what was happening. She didn’t appear angry. In fact…it seemed as though she was hitting on him.
I couldn’t pinpoint the spiking horror as years of mythological studies trickled through my veins.
It didn’t quite feel like jealousy. There was an unfamiliar protective energy that urged me to wrap my arms around him, to drag him away, to do everything in my power to position myself between my friend and this literal goddess, but it sourced from nowhere logical.
She wasn’t going to eat him—at least, not literally.
And even if she did have him in her crosshairs, why should I care?
She wouldn’t hurt him, probably. I wasn’t dating him.
It couldn’t be the feeling of seeing someone hit on my friend’s partner, as Fauna was no longer in my life.
I shoved her freckles, her copper and silver curls, her irreverent smile out of my mind.
My heart ached when I thought of her sweet tooth, the way she’d wrapped me in her arms or tucked me into her side as we’d sat on the couch.
My heart bled at the memory of her laugh.
I yanked the thoughts out at the root, tossing the weed of my love for her as far as I could fling.
Why should I guard what she’d abandoned?
Particularly as she’d spent twenty years away from him, leaving him to patiently restock cookies, hoping she might return.
She’d sucked and fucked her way through the realms as an icon of irreverent nonmonogamy.
Azrames deserved someone who would show up for him. Someone present. Someone who…
I took an axe to my line of thinking.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. I didn’t want to think of Fauna.
Azrames was in the company of the goddess of lust and passion, and that was no one’s business but theirs. At least, that was what I wanted to think.
Maybe I would have believed it if I were a better person.
But I wasn’t.