Chapter 16 THE HOT SPRING
THE HOT SPRING
Acacius
Acacius watched Marina adjust the neckline of her dress, noticing that the ruby jewel of her body chain was off center.
Without thinking, he reached over and fixed it for her.
Marina tilted her head up at him, the start of a sinister curve carving up the corners of her lips. “You must be starved to already want another taste.”
Her jewelry hypnotized him. More times than not, he caught himself watching the sway of whatever chain or jewel dangled between her breasts.
Every piece matched, always full sets. Though, he only caught glimpses of her earrings behind the shine of her hair.
The bracelets she wore ranged from dainty and simple to eccentric and eye-catching, like the one that connected from her wrist to her rings by a thin, golden chain.
He’d never smithed something as fragile as a piece of jewelry, but perhaps he could try—
What are you saying?
He focused back on Marina, refusing to be a lovesick fool once more. They were only fucking while trying to outwit and kill one another, as deities do. Nothing more.
“My appetite is voracious,” he said in return with a dark smirk. “Be careful, or you will be my evening meal as well.”
“Your hunger hardly frightens me.” Marina flicked her long hair over her shoulders, glancing around at the temple. “Speaking of frightening, the Heralds that were inside all vanished.”
“They know when to be gone.” Acacius turned and started toward the vaulted threshold at the end of the hall. “Follow me.”
She fell into stride alongside him. “I have places that I must be.”
Acacius gave her a sidelong glance, watching her gaze follow the long lines of grout in the crevices of the stone floor. “You avert your eyes when you lie. Are you aware of this?”
She glowered up at him, clearly unamused by his observation. “And where are we going?”
Acacius smiled as smoke twisted up from his feet and swallowed them both.
They materialized in front of a set of large, stained oak doors at the end of a corridor deep in the walls of his fortress. His favorite room.
Before entering, he shifted to face her. “Tell me something.”
“No.” She took in the ivy-infested brick around her.
He ignored her defiance and asked, “Why have you kept your monsters from our fights?”
From the moment he attacked her in the Pit in Isolde, he expected her infamous nightrazers to swarm him. However, they had been strangely absent.
At first, he assumed she was holding them back to grow her hand-to-hand combat strength, but then she’d decapitated Torin, knowing the attack would get his blood on her, which triggered a traumatic response. Why didn’t she use them then?
The question wouldn’t stop nagging Acacius’s mind.
After a wave of silence, she exhaled sharply, meeting his inquisitive eyes. “I do not wish to rely on others to win my wars any longer.” She maintained the distant affliction in her voice, but Acacius could hear a twinge of something else. Defeat? Shame, maybe?
“Yet you seemed to struggle in the arena the moment Torin’s blood decorated your skin.”
She rotated her head, hiding her face from him. “I do not like to get blood on me. It deadens my senses, causes me to spiral as it sinks into my skin.”
He could sense her discomfort. It was a perfect opportunity to pry deeper and exploit her weakness for future conflicts.
“Why?” His tone softened, assuring her that she was safe to open up.
She jutted out her jaw, staring down the shadow-lit corridor.
“Evander.” She spoke in a decibel barely above a whisper. “The night he trespassed in my bedchamber. I cleaved his head from his neck before he could...”
Before he could finish his assault.
Acacius recalled her words on the day of the god’s punishment. He never could forget the weary look in her eyes as she recalled how Evander touched her without permission.
A knot constricted in Acacius’s chest.
Back in his mortal days as a boy, he laid in his cot, holding his hands over his ears to mask the screams of scared women in his village. Cassius would boil water for tea, and Iliana would embrace him and hum to mask the sound.
As he got older, his fear bristled into rage toward all the men who took and took, as if they were entitled to whatever or whoever was in their path.
Acacius began greeting them in the deepest part of the night, with blades that sawed through their wrists and released their greedy hands.
Men were fragile, but gods were not.
Acacius had little tolerance for those like Evander, and as he watched Mira punish him, he imagined all the deranged ways he could make the god atone.
Marina licked her lips and pulled back her shoulders, finally meeting his gaze. “When I retaliated against him, his blood showered over me. Ever since then, I lose control when I make another bleed and it gets on my skin. It makes me feel as if I’m still being hunted, as if I’m never truly safe.”
He did not expect her to share to this extent with him. Marina was smart. She probably assumed he would use this information against her in their next fight, and yet, she didn’t hold back. Why?
Perplexed as he was, Acacius empathized with her struggle.
His brow furrowed. “It does nothing if it’s your own blood?”
“When I was younger, I attempted to overcome the trigger by running a knife down the length of my arm, lathering it against my skin, but it was no use.”
Acacius’s stomach churned as he studied her expression, hunting for more information. The idea of her harming herself tore through him like grapeshot.
Marina held his eyes with a subtle somberness. “When the blood surged out, I still felt protected, like my body knew it was my own tangible energy.”
Acacius pursed his lips, disturbed by the harsh visual. Violence usually enthralled him, but not this time.
Words of comfort climbed up his throat.
He swallowed them down. Bringing her to his hot spring was enough. Offering her comfort would cross their line into a territory he had no interest in exploring with her.
He ignored the tangle in his gut and pulled open one of the doors, gesturing for her to enter with a wave of his hand.
She stepped through, and he followed closely behind.
A cloak of steam drifted from the crimson surface of the hot spring.
Climbing roses wrapped around the pillars that encircled it.
White moths fluttered in and out of the lancet windows.
Acacius had busted out the glass himself long ago, kept it from reforming.
He preferred the crisp wind while he slackened his muscles.
Marina held up her hand and a moth landed on her polished fingernail. It crawled up to her knuckle. Others flitted around her, their translucent, moonstone wings like stars against the contrast of her sable hair.
“Welcome to my sanctuary,” Acacius said. The insects’ tiny legs grazed over his backside, taking refuge on his shoulders.
Marina’s finger twitched, and the moth flew away.
She fixed her attention on the hot spring. “The water is, well, red.”
Acacius rubbed at his chest, still bare from when he left his workstation in the cavern.
“You might be familiar with the Bleeding. It took place when my siblings and I all became deities,” he explained.
“After we defeated our respective personified beings, we were each cast into our own realms and bled for days on end, draining every last bead of our mortal blood. Iliana soaked in the clouds of her realm, Cassian sprouted the Serpentine Forest with his, and I floated in this hot spring. The water never returned to a normal hue, stained from the exit of my human coil.”
“How grotesque.” Marina’s blank expression made it difficult to read her thoughts. He suddenly wished for the version of her from a few minutes prior, opening up about her damage.
Acacius rubbed the pad of his thumb with the tip of his index finger in a repetitive motion, perturbed by his own sudden generosity. “You may use it anytime. Throughout my years, I’ve come to learn that exposure therapy is the best way to color over one’s scars.”
This coaxed her to look at him, flitting her eyes around his face with intrigue. “May I ask what sort of trauma you, the primordial High God, had to overcome?”
He let out a staggered chuckle, finding irony in what he was about to say.
“Blood, actually. Just like you. I was gutted, hemorrhaging for days on end. Afterward, the world twisted around me when even a speck touched my skin, and I felt as if all the breath was stolen from my lungs. The mental abrasion is something I share with each of my siblings. Though, Iliana pretends otherwise, always feeling the need to be the perfect one. And Cassian, well he is the strongest, always able to conquer his fears with totality.”
“There has to be at least one perfect one in a group of siblings.” Marina attempted an unconvincing smile.
“Is that your way of saying you resonate with my sister?”
She gave a lousy shrug, sauntering over to one of the columns and running her fingers along the grooves of the dark stone.
“I suppose. The triplets are worthless. Finnian is too selfish, and Naia never believed in herself enough. Therefore, responsibilities were piled on me, while everyone entrusted I would always get things done correctly and efficiently. I imagine your sister can relate.”
Acacius scratched the back of his neck, unable to argue. “As much as I hate to be the Finnian within my set of siblings, you have a point.”
“So, you overcame your fear of blood by bathing in this spring?” She peered down at the steaming water. “Is it… sanitary?”
Acacius laughed. “It’s not flowing with my blood any longer.
The water is simply blemished with the vermillion of centuries past.” He peeled out of his tight boots.
“And yes, I forced myself to return to it years after my experience. It took me nearly a decade to step back into the hot spring, and another to enjoy its waters without hyperventilating.”
Marina shifted to where he couldn’t see her face again. “Does blood still affect you?” Her voice grew smaller the more vulnerable she let herself be.
Acacius slid his boots off to the side and sighed, attempting to sift through five millennia of memories.
“Sometimes. Usually, the moment takes me off guard, depending on where my head is. Spiraling is easier when already near the edge. Though, I am able to work through the symptoms of my panic by unleashing my Chaos onto something or someone else.”
Marina peeked back at him, rolling her eyes.
Acacius gave her a grin, enjoying the way her lips quirked, as if she couldn’t resist a smile of her own.
He unbuttoned his pants and slid them off his waist. “I am going to soak. Would you like to join me?”
The glimmer of joy melted from her expression as she looked down at the scarlet water. He could feel her nervous energy sizzling in the space between them. It manifested in the stiffness of her shoulders, slowly climbing up to her grinding molars.
He’d learned from their encounters throughout the months that Marina revealed her emotions in subtle shifts of her body.
It made sense, given her mother and the notorious impassive demeanor that was expected of her.
He was willing to bet the previous High Goddess of the Sea trained her daughter to never release her blank expression and cold disposition, to treat them as if they were her armor.
“Instead of entering completely,” he said, internally berating himself for caring, “you could dip a toe in, or one of your lovely manicured fingernails.”
“No, I want to—” She halted, her eyes drifting slowly over his boxer briefs.
His impure thoughts began to swarm like wildfire, his blood crackling beneath his skin from her intense stare. He wanted to burn in it—lose himself inside of her all over again.
“Like what you see?” He flashed her a teasing smirk.
Her gaze rose back up to his face, her pupils dilating and devouring her irises. “Yes, actually.”
Acacius licked his lips, shaking his head.
The need that welled up in him was manic, like an itch that he couldn’t contain.
They’d fucked less than an hour ago, and he craved her all over again, as if their fusing would never be enough.
If she weren’t a goddess, he would’ve believed her to be a witch, ensnaring him in an enchantment.
“You take me by surprise when you answer so truthfully,” he confessed, his body flushing under her fierce gaze.
She cocked an eyebrow, a small grin pinching her cheeks. “Would you rather I lie?”
Clearly, she was enjoying this.
He removed his underwear, fully aware of her casual drift back down to his firm length, and sent her a playful smile before turning toward the spring. “Never.”