3. Sin
3
Sin
silk bindings
Hatred is an emotion that Nymphs experience in fleeting little puffs. Not to this degree and never to the point that my mouth waters.
Oberlin yanks on the new metal collar at the female’s neck, and she rises to bare feet with her chin up and her hands balled. The chain length is too short between her collar and his hand, but rather than bend for relief, she lets the rough brackets claw into her skin.
No cowering. No submission.
This female could never be called docile.
I wonder how in the ever-seeing Gods she wound up in the dirty clutches of Ephesus Oberlin.
Or I would, if it weren’t for the marks riddling her body. The latest circular ring smoking like an incense in one of Apollo’s temples.
Not for the first time since stepping out of the Atlanta heat, I crave to kill my contact.
Oberlin waves away my attention as if she’s only a fish swimming against the current, helpless and silly. “A new acquisition struggling with the rules,” he explains. “She will learn.”
The end of his prod burns neon blue and punches into her stomach.
She doesn’t flinch, she seethes, lips peeled back to bare straight white teeth.
“Phoenix,” I blurt, redirecting the focus to me instead of her. “I’m looking for a Phoenix.”
I yank my attention from the female to Drake and wink as if to say, she’s not our problem. Stick to the plan before we all end up sharing a grave .
Rigida and utterly fuming, black hair falling in his face, Drake drops back into his seat and closes his eyes. Under the swirl of music, a chair cracks under the returned weight of Lev, Paul Bunyon’s prototype.
Oberlin tows us back to our table, ignoring the leash in his hand. “A Phoenix,” he echoes, spilling whiskey into both our glasses.
The female stands at his side, jaw like iron, light brown eyes piercing a hole in her owner’s throat. He wrenches, knotting the chain around his knuckles, and his prod clicks on.
He hits her once, telling her down, then again when she refuses, and before he can whack her a third time, I set my palm on her shoulder and shove until her knees buckle and she crashes to the floor.
There’s no dishonor in going along, especially if it means protecting yourself.
Oberlin’s mustache wiggles, displeased with my help. And he may think I’m less than the dirt beneath his feet, but he also knows I could kill him before he had the time to turn his prob back on.
“Many seek a Phoenix,” he says. “Incredible lovers, those. They learn your desires and meet them eagerly. I wouldn’t have guessed that to be an issue for you.”
“I’m a collector of sorts,” I lie. “Phoenix is one I haven’t yet tasted.”
“A rare treat indeed.” He taps his prod on and off like one would click a pen. Hisses of the blue sparks shine in the Diakonos’s furious gaze.
She doesn’t blink or flinch and I …
I’m inexplicably protective of her.
Each flash of blue makes my body tense. Betrays my mind. Rescuing a Diakonos—especially one as feisty as her—is not in the cards tonight. Under no circumstances can the Blackguard afford more enemies, more setbacks, another lost lead.
We have one goal. Find the king’s killer and free ourselves of our curse. The only creature that might get us closer is a Phoenix.
I refocus. “Have you any contacts for such a … delicacy?”
“I could get my hands on a Phoenix in a fortnight. I have a friend downtown, squirrelly and nervous, but the good collectors are like that.”
I keep my calm, strangling the urge to sit up, ram a knife into his palm and demand he retrieve one in two days’ time and bring it directly to me.
We’ve been searching for over three months, coming up with smoke and whispers, following slippery tangled trails.
A Phoenix can offer us information, provide clues regarding King Kadmos’s abrupt and violent end. Perhaps even tell us why one of their own kind would stalk straight into the palace and blow it up in black flames when they once fought at Kadmos’s side.
They are a logical lesser creature, and we need to know why they’d douse hope for a better future, cursing me and my brothers in the process.
I’ve been to a dozen clubs just like this. Up and down the coast, deep in the sun belt, leapfrogging from one foul tasting haunt to another.
This is it. We’re so close. I can’t blow it.
I trail a finger along the rim of my glass, projecting distraction and nonchalance, even as I say, “I’d pay well for speedy delivery.”
“Don’t think you’d have anything left after buying a Phoenix from me.”
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how well the pay is for males of our talents.”
More pride swells off him. Streaks of pepper.
I can barely taste it over the lemon.
My gaze slips to the fold of the Diakonos’s strong legs, the gentle curve of her ankles.
Extraordinary.
This close to me, she should feel calm under the waves of my influence. They should dim her rage and offer her peace of mind.
Yet I seem to be having the opposite effect.
Oberlin strokes his prod, eyeing the beauty on her knees. “You obviously know how difficult it is to procure such a rare catch if you came to me. I am the best at what I do.”
“I’d never insult you by saying otherwise.”
“Of course.” Oberlin is a sponge for praise, chest swelling bigger. “For me, it’d be no more than a well-worded conversation, but I’d only be willing to speak on behalf of a very loyal customer.” His eyebrows tip toward the line of females still standing as tight-lipped and dead eyed as soldiers facing impossible odds.
I pool comfort and congeniality into him in subtle, calming bursts. “Today, my friend, we are only here for our drink.”
“No one comes here to drink, Sinis. They come because they are thirsty. Which one of my lovely ladies would you like?”
“They are too lovely to—”
“You wouldn’t want to insult me, would you?” he asks sharply. “Take care of your comrades as well. Two for the sadist bastard.”
My smile strains.
Drake, the sadist bastard, could slice ten of Oberlin’s organs clear from his torso without granting him the mercy of passing out. He’d cut and snip and butcher without noticing the time dripping by or hearing the screams, registering the blood.
And Lev, right now, with a stomach packed of sloshing vodka and a half hour’s night sleep, could stalk across the room and crush Oberlin’s skull between his hands. A male whose strength and size rivals that of only Heracles.
Doesn’t matter.
Skills that were feared when we were protectors of the king have been forgotten. Dismissed.
We couldn’t protect the king so what can we do?
“I wouldn’t dream of dishonoring you, Ephesus,” I say, friendly, pressing agreeable, malleable thoughts into him. Keeping calm. Ignoring the female baring her teeth at me.
There’s a reason Drake and Lev, or even our leader Atlas and his bullish attitude, were not placed in charge of this operation.
The same reason I was plucked from my own beheading to join the almighty Kingsguard.
People love me.
“But how can I be expected to choose?” I croon to Oberlin, swirling my drink, approaching the females.
“Take them all if you’re as rich as you say.”
Ass .
Smiling, I stroke my knuckles down the arms of a Hamadryad with skin the same bronze color as a drachma. The tension in her shoulders droops at my touch. Her eyes flutter closed.
“Tame,” Oberlin notes from behind me. “A sweeter lover doesn’t exist.”
I step to the next, gifting her some peace with a tuck of her red hair behind her ear.
“Best on the knees,” Oberlin squawks, continuing his notes as I give each female a moment of quiet respite. “Big mouth. Skin of velvet. Talker. Good against a wall.”
“I’ll staple you to a wall if you touch any of them,” a scratchy voice hisses.
The prod zaps on.
She doesn’t dodge, she tenses, muscles bunching and bracing for the strike.
I snatch Oberlin’s prod by the hilt, an inch from the Diakonos’s throat.
She glares at me as if she’d rather have been struck than receive my help.
Oberlin’s mouth is agape.
Shit .
I grin, wolfish, as if embarrassed. “I want the fighter.”
“She is not for sale. She’s not yet up to the standards I set. Needs a hard hand.”
“Then who better to break her than me?”
This makes him chortle, sends his grubby eyes trailing up and down my body, as if he can see what my own experience has stripped from me.
“A whore training a whore.” He smiles as if he’s invented irony. “What the future may hold. But I fear I am too fond to let her be molded by anyone else. There’s something satisfying about knowing it was you who dealt the death toll, is there not?”
The sweetest lie wouldn’t conceal my disgusted tone, so I nod.
Vacated from his seat at the bar, Lev offers a meaty hand to the white-haired female draped in purple and leads her upstairs after the bouncer unclips her.
Drake follows tight behind him, casting me a sharp look before snapping gloved fingers for the two Nereids shivering on the end to follow him. They're opposites, one with rich dark skin and one pearlescent, clutching hands, both terrified to be alone with the realm’s foremost torture master.
Lemon stirs in the air, blasts my skin.
“We’re not pets,” the Diakonos fighter growls. “Hades have you, you despicable—”
“Enough,” Oberlin snarls, threatening to strike.
I throw out power, weaving and pushing a jovial spirit into Oberlin as I say, “I enjoy a challenge. It’s so easy for me to convince females to join me in congress. The little fight, the moment where they think they have a modicum of power, is so tempting.” I slice him a flirtatious smile. “Naturally, a man of your strength understands.”
“Well, yes …” he trails off, brow furrowing. His mouth opens and closes.
I’m pouring it on now, shoveling agreement into him.
There’s a chance he’ll go insane.
Mashing and molding emotions can warp the mind, convince it of unnatural things.
Atlas’s stern voice snipes in the back of my head, repeating the same thing: for the right few to win, countless must lose .
A phrase he’s pounded into my skull for every lost soul and every abandoned soldier. Every time we left a town in rubble for the name of Kadmos.
I divert some agreement into the fighter, but she’s not looking at me. She’s twisting her wrists against the restraints, scraping skin, trying to pull free.
I can still pick the shy Diakonos with big blue eyes. Escort her upstairs, lock the door. Ease her to relax enough to talk, or simply give her time to be in charge of her own body. Mess my hair up, rip my shirt, pay handsomely, and leave.
Repeat it for a week straight until Oberlin considers me worthy. Until I have a Phoenix.
Through sheets of dark brown hair, I watch the fighter’s teeth clench. Her eyes are trained on the door upstairs that Lev and Drake disappeared through as she works furiously, quietly, on escaping, taking advantage of Oberlin’s distraction.
A spirit like hers should not be broken.
I can’t leave her.
I flood Oberlin with ease and leniency. “Allow me a turn, as a show of a great relationship to come. After all, I have six more brothers.”
“Uh …” He blinks slowly, dragging his face to me. “Well, I …” He’s bumbling and confused as his body enters internal revolt. His fingers slip on the end of the Diakonos’s leash.
I lunge.
She’s faster.