Chapter 3 Reckoning
RECKONING
Marina
Unhinged bastard.
Marina’s pulse surged against Acacius’s hold around her throat.
It’s him.
Gooseflesh rippled up her nape. She could feel him everywhere—his Chaos infesting the air like a chemical burning her flesh; in the crowd above the pit in their barbaric cheers; the flutter of brown mottled insects in the flickering frames of light overhead.
She’d known Acacius would eventually come for her. In fact, she’d counted on it.
The dominion Ruelle had over him was what ultimately drove him to ask Marina, of all goddesses, for help.
Acacius did not reach out to others, something Marina had observed over the centuries.
The High God was much like her in that regard—independent, with isolating tendencies, always keeping to his own realm.
It took Marina no time at all to notice the desperation in his plea when he’d sought her out to request assistance in locating the small dose of Ash’s blood that Finnian stole. A task that she obliged with delight, intending to take advantage of the High God blinded by his own stupid love.
Truth was, his request was her seed of hope, one that quickly sprouted and ripened into an opportunity to avenge Mother and make Finnian pay for what he’d done.
Obviously, her plan had not worked out.
Father was dead. Finnian lived happily ever after.
And now here Acacius was, pinning her to a wall, his face—all broad, soft angles and defined features—inches from her own with a malevolent glint in his eyes, all too eager to make her suffer.
His ivory-blond hair was damp and pulled back.
Strands curled behind his ears and at the sides of his neck.
Marina twitched her index finger, flaring her divine power and forming a blade between them, its ends dripping with her darkness.
She flicked her finger, and the motion directed her weapon forward in an instant, its sharp edge slicing cleanly through Acacius’s wrist.
If a god puts their hands on you without permission, then simply cut them off.
He stumbled back a few steps, his severed hand falling next to Marina’s boots. Crimson seeped down his forearm and soaked the fabric of his rolled-up sleeve. A river spilled onto the concrete floor. Her chest clenched as it sprayed across her forearms. Luckily, she wore lengthy gloves.
Relieved that none of it managed to get on her skin, she watched Acacius as the bastard glanced down at his gushing wound and back up at her with a deranged grin, chuckling.
“Neat little trick.” His limb grew back together from the wrist up, quickly stitching each of his knuckles and fingers how they were just moments prior. “I wonder who taught it to you.”
“Just an arrogant god that I once met.” Marina pushed off the wall using her elbows. “He’s fucking deranged now.”
Thick, wraith-like shadows fabricated like fog across the pit.
She extended her arm. A dark mass gathered in the air and took the shape of a saw, thick with jagged edges, and she swiped upward.
Acacius reared back on his heels, missing her attack.
Marina teleported into the shadows surrounding them, breath shallow, lungs burning for more. Her pulse pounded in her skull, adrenaline hot in her veins. It was the most alive she’d felt in the last four months.
This was nothing. Acacius was more powerful, but she was smarter.
You know there is an easier solution.
The impulse to conjure her nightrazers swelled in her fingertips.
Her stomach dipped at the thought; she was uncertain what the outcome would be.
No.
Tension twisted behind her ribcage.
I can do this on my own.
Let him get close.
Let him think he will have his way.
A hand caught her from behind, wrapping her hair around his fist and yanking. Pain ruptured across her scalp as her feet lifted from the ground, and like a river stone, she was thrown across the ring.
She crashed through the wall, the impact crumbling the rock like an explosive detonation, and threw her out on the other side. Her vertebrae cracked.
Deities jumped around the room in tufts of smoke to clear out of the way.
Something sharp pierced her skin down to the bone, and her back met a solid structure. Wood shards of furniture penetrated through her shoulder and into her tailbone. Agony wailed up her torso and screamed in her chest.
She gasped, her breath sputtering in her throat as thick liquid filled her lungs.
The strong taste of iron invaded her mouth.
She coughed, attempting to clear her airway, curled in a ball on the floor of a dark room.
Through the commotion, Marina made out the distant sound of jazz under the ringing of her ears.
Silky, low lights danced around the walls. She recognized the sparkling light fixtures and the leather settees. A continuation of the elegant atmosphere of Salon de la Rose Rouge.
She pushed up on her palms to a sitting position, rushing to assess the liquid oozing down her temples.
The flesh under her breast quickly stitched back together.
Exposed muscle and tissue rubbed against the torn fabric of her body suit, the skin attempting to close around the object that jutted from her shoulder blade.
She ground her molars in response to the burning, drowning sensation seizing in her lungs, wet and flooded with blood, and reached back to wrench the wooden stake from her ribcage.
The release poured a fresh stream of blood down her spine, and a surge of it filled her insides. The copper-tasting liquid welled in her mouth, and she choked, spitting it out onto the floor.
Acacius was a High God, which meant he could easily inflict damage to her beyond repair, the same way Mother had with Finnian. Marina would need to tread with caution and try to avoid his strikes as much as possible.
She crawled up on her shaky knees. Her breath caught from the jarring of her spine popping back into place. Pain lanced through her insides like a sword slashing down her chest, convulsing the muscles in her arms.
She rolled her neck and let out a long breath through her nose, assessing the condition of her lungs. The blood was draining back into her veins where it belonged.
Dust from the crumbled stone drifted in the air, and in its ominous fog, Acacius emerged from the jagged hole in the wall of the lounge, grinning like the masochist he was.
Marina straightened her arm, forcing the bone to set back into place. The click of her elbow reconnecting echoed up her arm and into her jaw.
She ground the soles of her heels into the floor as Acacius’s figure blurred. Her body tensed, bracing for the worst as he materialized in front of her, his hand lunging once more for her throat.
She took a step back, her thighs meeting a stool under the bar top, and curled the fingers of her hand into a fist. Pinpricks of darkness fabricated above Acacius and dropped on him like small leeches, sticking to the tops of his shoulders.
He halted, his attention shifting to his torso as he attempted to peel off the slithering manifestations of her Night.
She ripped up the stool and threw it at him.
The furniture collided with his outstretched hand, busting into smithereens.
Chips of wood flew about, and he advanced toward her, a predatory twist still in his golden eyes.
The shadowy leeches clawed up his neck and over his cheek.
A trail of blood stained the pale skin of his chin.
Another stream painted the arc of his throat, disappearing under the collar of his shirt.
They festered and ate into his flesh, and yet, he didn’t seem to care.
Marina jutted out her jaw in frustration and shot her hand up. Black smoke coiled from her palm where a thick spear formed and lunged into Acacius’s abdomen.
His lips split in a vicious smirk that was all teeth as he pushed against her pitch-black weapon.
It carved through his gut and penetrated out the other side of him.
He didn’t so much as hunch over or pause to rip it out.
The bastard continued walking until the weapon was completely through him.
Not a glint of pain or fear, only the wicked gleam of a monster.
Fucking maniac.
Marina’s tailbone pressed against the edge of the bar, her heart jumping wildly in her throat.
Let him get close.
He stopped in front of her, cocking his head. One of the shadowy parasites crawled up his face and obscured his right eye.
Marina swallowed, her pride controlling every muscle in her expression. Like hell he would see her fear.
Let him think he’s won.
“Oh, Rina.” He chuckled out a low rumble, planting his palm on the bar’s surface behind her and caging her in. His lips brushed her cheek, and she suppressed a shiver up her spine. “You’ll have to do much better than this.”
She knew that. Acacius was a five-thousand-year-old god. One of the first in existence. If she wished to beat him, she would need to match his Chaos, destroy him, just as she did with all the others before him who stood against her.
But you want him to bring you pain.
The thought whispered in the back of her mind.
It was a sadistic, self-deprecating desire to feel any other form of pain, to replace the ache burrowed in her chest, prying deeper with each breath, like a splinter lodged in her ribcage. An ache that had plagued her since Father’s death.
Acacius tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. His delicate touch pricked her cheek, and she had to push the urge down to bite his fucking fingers off. “I have so many ways I intend to make you suffer,” he murmured.