I had been intimate with men in group settings with Ash since everything with Phillip, so it wasn’t like this was my first time having sex with a man again, but it was my first time with someone so heavily connected to Chandler. I prayed I could enjoy myself even in the slightest, especially when I twined our bodies and began moving my hips. A rush of familiarity snaked through me, and I found myself enjoying the act more than I thought.
Ambermourn always used my body in a very strict, regimented way. He loved to hold my hips and press his fingers into them, just to feel the way I moved inside him, and without fail, he did this again tonight. He was a biter, so I knew I'd have marks in the morning I'd have to hide, and or have Ash heal when I went home. I hated that she would see them on my skin, that she would know what I’d done, but reminded myself that we both agreed to this, and at the end of the day, she would trump anyone in the universe as my desired partner.
I wasn’t enjoying myself the way I did with her, but I couldn’t deny that he was a good fuck. Our bodies acted like old friends reconnecting, reminiscing with one another on a level I wasn’t quite aware of. The way he breathed, moaned, gasped, all the way to the sweat on his skin and his heartbeat under my fingertips felt so familiar, yet still foreign. As much as I wanted to enjoy myself, every thrust was only a reminder that this was for show, that as soon as he got what he wanted, I would get what I wanted.
And that was proof that he was a backstabbing traitor.
As I suspected, Ambermourn was barely able to keep his eyes open long enough for me to request a shower. His naked body lounged across the chaise as I picked up my clothes, leaning down to peck the corner of his lip. “Hey, sleepyhead. I’m going to shower real quick, if that’s alright?”
“Of course it is...” he moaned back, blinking heavily against light from a floor lamp.
I flicked the switch and pulled a throw blanket over his shoulders, tucking it around him carefully. “Get some sleep. I'll be back before you know it.”
“You know how to wear a man out...” he chuckled before sliding his arms beneath his head, pulling a pillow forward to snuggle into. He did look quite innocent but now was not the time to fall for his charm.
I slipped out of the room, closing the doors behind me firmly before going to investigate what he had left on my body. Sure enough, the mirror revealed bite marks across my waist, neck, and inner arms, even decorating my wrists. I swore to myself at that but flicked the shower on and hopped in as quickly as I could, so I had more time to investigate.
Once I was dressed, I made my way to his office and pulled my phone loose. I turned on a side table lamp and spun the chair around, sitting down carefully so it wouldn’t make a lot of noise. I shuffled through the papers carefully, but with urgency, as I knew time was not on my side.
A few things caught my eye.
First was a list of all the Original Gods, with their elements, names, and current status in the world written out. Ambermourn somehow knew that each God had been awakened, and the whereabouts of these Gods. Odrikius’s campus was next to most of their names, but the only one with a question mark beside them was Pandora, who had a separate note beside her name that read, ‘looking for’ written in fine ink.
“What do you want with Pandora?” I hissed under my breath.
My next find was a list of the rulers in Gehenna. Icheiris’s name was crossed out, and Isadora’s now added, as well as Decimus and Phillip, which meant he had already lied to me. He knew Phillip had been hired, as was evident by these notes.
“How does he know about the demons we hired?” I wondered.
“He has to have people lying in small places,” Hannah commented.
“Yes, but what people? The information he has… he should have nothing to do with the Original Gods. What could hepossibly know about them?” I ground my teeth and snapped a few photos before looking to the stack of books he was currently restoring. I picked up the first one and flipped the pages open, surprised to find it was one of Seraphine’s old academic journals. She had written reports on the Four Horsemen, studying our mannerisms once we had been bound by our pact, and had a slew of discoveries written in her delicate handwriting. I, at the time, did not know much about her studying us like this, but figured she would considering how complex our connection was.
The next book was authored by Endymion, and was titled,De Creatione Fabularum, or roughly translated as The Creation Myths. Each page had a different telling of demons and monsters he had created during his time as a God. This copy looked to be a duplicate, but held many of his personal notes, added at the last minute. Under the Four Horsemen section, there was a note attached below where my name had been added as an afterthought.
The summons of these Horsemen, when spoken, will unleash the apocalypse on Earth. They are created as a means to an end, a purge of humanity should things turn sour. Now that their circle has been completed, it is only a matter of time before I or someone else recounts this spell. I am growing impatient with Erasmus’s creations, and think a reset would be a necessary event.Then again, that would give me away, and I don’t want that to happen. I only hope it isn’t spoken by those with ill intentions.
A caveat of this spell is that, if not activated once every thousand years, the possibility of the spell activating on its own is high. Those close to Atlas Crawford should be careful of this. I will have to do what I can to prevent premature eruption, if possible. These Gods… such fragile creatures in such catastrophic plans.
“Make a pact with demons who can start the apocalypse. Great idea, Atlas...” I growled to myself, shaking my head. “But the spell hasn’t activated before? Why wouldn’t it-...? Oh, my powers. They were so weak at my two-thousandth year mark that it probably never activated, but it didn’t when I was a thousand, either? This makes no sense!” I groaned in defeat and pulled on my hair. “Fucking Endymion and his riddles!”
“I bet he still has this book, the original copy, that is. You should ask him when you get home. Then again, everything he ‘plans’ ends in catastrophe, so Gods knows what this means for you and the other Horsemen,” Vincent sneered.
“This fascination Ambermourn has with the Horsemen is really odd. Why would he be so obsessed? Is this something that can connect with Pandora?” I asked, puzzled.
“Maybe, if she wanted to put Nick up to the ultimate test. Or she might just want to wreak havoc on the Humans. Then again, if she wants the world reset to rebuild it... starting the apocalypse is a sure-fire way to do that,” Hannah added.
I smacked a pen on the edge of the desk. “How would Ambermourn get involved with Pandora to begin with, though? I doubt they know each other?”
Vincent paled under the light of the lamp. “Unless she reached out to him. She might have found out about his ties to you and Chandler and found out this information from him. Atlas... what if he’s trying to free Pandora?”
I gripped the edge of the desk tightly. “If that’s the case, why not go after Nick? Nick is the one who has her bound mostly, in his personal Realm at that. He would need Nick over me to free her, so what good am I?”
“You’re his father. If Ambermourn can do something to hurt you, it would surely prompt Nick to give him what he wants. Nick is too attached to you.”
“I wonder how long he’s been watching us…” I breathed in horror.
Ambermourn’s weak voice echoed from down the hallway. “Atlas? Lover?”
