“What did you do there?” His eyes bleed red in their totality.
Meanwhile, I feel my own shoulders relax down my back. “Oh my.”
He roars and the wind causes my ears to pop. Spots fill my vision, and I laugh as he throws me across my living room and I hit the far wall. Pain ricochets through my back. I float to the floor, landing on one knee, a wide grin on my face exposing my newly sharpened teeth.
The Marduk advances on me, white face darkened by his rage. His tattoos seem to swirl on his skin as the wind picks up in the room. If my foyer looked like Monika’s, he’d have turned it upside down by now. As it stands, there’s nothing here but two pieces of heavy furniture.
“If you go near that coffee shop again, I will—”
“You will what? You know that I’m only letting you rough me up as a courtesy.” I rise to stand, my dick flopping about. I place my hands on my hips and laugh. “I could kill you here and be done with you forever.”
“I know that, which is why I have contingencies in place should I fail to return. You touch me, and Bia finishes what she started with your girl.”
“Excuse me?” I hiss, voice soft. Dangerously soft.
The Marduk’s eyes flare. His fists hang heavy at his sides. He’s in a black tee and black jeans, black boots, no coat. “Don’t go back to that coffee shop. That’s where I meet with the Tratharine I need to meet with. I don’t need youChampionscluttering the space, and until you officially change sides and make your new allegiance to me and the other true Tratharine public, I don’t want you there. Ever. Are we understood? You do this, and Monika will be fine. I already met with her and had the chance to scatter her body parts into a thousand pieces and, as a courtesy to you, left her intact.”
My right eye twitches. I feel electricity skitter up and down my back. I don’t speak, don’t respond to his threats. Don’t let the anger I feel toward Monika for meeting with the Marduk dismantle me entirely. I merely watch him disappear into the sky and listen as my cell phone alarm finally stops blaring, warning me of an incoming projectile.
And as I stand there, wishing I’d have struck him dead and worrying over the reason that I didn’t, I let the plans I’d been ruminating on earlier change yet again. Fuck, marry, destroy,kill. Or kill, destroy. Either way, the Marduk cannot and will not live.
Chapter Twenty-One
Monika
It’s been three days since I—or anyone—has heard from or seen Taranis, so needless to say, finding him standing in too-short sweatpants with a hole cut in the ass for his tail to pop through in the middle of my bedroom as I get out of the shower is ... unexpected. I shriek.
Taranis exhales heavily. He blinks a lot in a way that makes him look really soft and almost approachable for a seven-foot-tall alien monster, and then he has to go and ruin it by opening his giant mouth. “Good, you’re finished. Put this on. Let’s go.”
He tosses some clothes onto my bed—he must have gone through my closet and picked something out, and I can’t say I’m not impressed with the selection. But considering it’s the middle of the day on a Thursday, I can’t imagine where I’d need to wear these thigh-high boots and this formfitting sweater dress, especially when he’s dressed like that.
“Um ... what are you doing here?”
“Picking you up for our date.”
“What?”
“Get dressed. I’ll wait.”
“We’re fighting,” I remind him.
“Yes, excellent. Now, get dressed. I’ll wait for you outside.”
I’m so bloody confused. I start to drop my towel, and he immediately covers his eyes. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” I say in a low voice.
“Yes, but we’re leaving, and if I open my eyes and see you in all your glory, we won’t. So put this shit on, do your hair or whatever the ladies do or don’t, and come on. You have five seconds.”
I scoff and watch him bumble out of my bedroom, knocking his horns into the doorframe and cursing before he ducks and tries again. I chuckle, and then I start to wonder whether I should bring up the contracts he gave me earlier this week or ask him if he’s okay or just ... what the fuck is happening? But I don’t do any of that. Instead, the idiot I am—the same idiot who agreed to go on missions for Mr. Singkham or spy on Taranis or even become a war photographer in the first place—pulls on the sweater dress and thigh-high boots and follows the world’s greatest double-crossing superhero-villain to wherever he wants to take me.
And where he wants to take me?
The circus.
“Are you serious?” I ask him as Nicoleta pulls up in front of a venue guarded by a high fence, behind which stands a massive white tent, with people dressed all kinds of crazy flocking to it. I start to laugh as he ducks out of the car and offers me his hand.
He’s got a grumpy face on that relaxes when he pulls me toward him and then hooks his arm around my waist and holds me even closer. “It’s supposed to be fun.”
“It’s the circus.”
