Page 80 of Queen of Tempests and Sin

She ignored me, breaking off a piece of pastry with maddening calm. ‘And,’ she added, chewing slowly, ‘I think you have major feelings for him, too.’

‘Don’t be absurd! I don’t do love. I told you that.’ But the words snagged—barbed wire in my throat. Did I… did I love him? His words echoed, unbidden: You are mine. I am yours. I hated the shiver they sent down my spine.

‘I agree he’s an arrogant cock-womble,’ Sephy said, smirking faintly, ‘but honestly, Cordie… he’s different with you. He’s completely smitten.’

‘He’s a god,’ I shot back, heat rising in my cheeks. ‘He’ll chase me, fuck me, use me, and then discard me. That’s what gods do.’ The lump in my throat felt the size of a golf ball.

Sephy leaned forward, voice soft but steady. ‘I think you’re doing him a disservice. Just my opinion.’ She lifted a hand, silencing the protest already forming on my lips. ‘Listen, Cordie—love isn’t perfect. It never is. It needs tending, like a plant needs sun and water. People can learn. People can adapt. And when it’s worth fighting for—when it’s real—true love doesn’t shatter; it bends, it twists, it reshapes itself until it fits. That’s what makes it endure.’

She hesitated then, something unspoken shimmering between us, before she added quietly, almost reluctantly, ‘But it only works if you let it. If you thaw that ice you keep wrapped around your heart.’

Her words hit like a sucker punch to the ribs, and of course, the image of him was forefront in my mind: sea-green eyes, stormy and beautiful… and that infuriating smirk. The man I kept telling myself I didn’t—couldn’t—love. Because if I let myself, my frozen heart might start to thaw, and that was a risk I wasn’t sure I could take.

I swallowed hard, forced a shrug, and muttered, ‘Yeah, well… I kill plants. Can’t even keep a cactus alive, so I’m hardly the poster girl for tending love.’

Sephy’s lips curved, sly and amused. ‘Good thing he’s not a plant, then. He’s a storm… and storms don’t die easily.’ She reached for her pastry again, a wicked glint sparking in her eyes. ‘Besides… you’d have to be blind not to see it. Poseidon’s completely gone on you. And honestly? Watching the king of the sea trip over his own dick for you is the best entertainment I’ve had in years.’

I glared into my coffee, heat crawling up my neck, but the sly sparkle in Sephy’s eyes told me she knew she’d scored the point. I didn’t argue… I couldn’t. Her words clung, heavy and unshakable, filling the quiet between us until it was all I could taste.

Bronte broke the silence as she stepped through a teleportation gateway. ‘Come on, you two. We have work to do! No time for coffee and gossip.’ Sephy jolted, nearly sloshing her coffee over the table.

Bronte stood, hands on her hips. ‘You’re both sitting here like you’ve got nothing better to do than sip lattes and wax lyrical about love lives, when in fact, there’s an actual crisis waiting.’

I arched a brow, deadpan. ‘You’re a walking crisis.’

‘And you’re walking with me,’ she retorted, snapping her fingers as if she expected instant obedience. The wards around her flickered faintly, golden light licking her fingertips—subtle, but a reminder she wasn’t above hexing us into compliance.

‘What crisis?’ Sephy asked, suspicion lacing her tone.

Bronte smirked, annoyingly vague. ‘The kind that’ll make sense when you see it.’

‘Uh-huh.’ I leaned back in my chair. ‘Translation: “I’m dragging you into trouble, and you’ll thank me later.”’

‘Exactly.’ Bronte’s flashed a wicked grin.

Sephy set her cup down with a click. ‘Cordie can’t leave the Underworld, Bronte. You know as well as I do… Poseidon will lose his mind if she steps one foot out of Hades’ wards.’

Bronte rolled her eyes so hard I thought they might hex themselves. ‘Oh no, the big bad sea god might throw a tantrum. Hold the tide!’ She flung her arms wide in mock horror. ‘Honestly, Sephy, if he’s going to pitch a fit every time Cordelia breathes outside his line of sight, maybe he needs to buy himself a leash and be done with it.’

My cheeks burned, equal parts fury and something far more dangerous. Bronte simply arched a brow, daring either of us to argue.

‘Bronte,’ Sephy sighed, but Bronte only snorted.

‘No, seriously, Sephy, do you hear yourself? “Poseidon will go mad.” Newsflash: gods always go mad. It’s their bloody hobby.’ Her gaze cut to me, sharp as a blade. ‘Question is, Cordelia… are you your own woman, or are you just Poseidon’s latest shiny plaything? Because if you’re waiting for his permission slip, Sephy and I will go without you.’

The air snapped between us, thick and tense, and my spine went rigid, anger flaring through my veins. Plaything? That word sliced straight through me, and I hated how it lodged somewhere deep.

‘Excuse me?’ I snapped, my voice sharp enough to cut glass. ‘I’m nobody’s toy, least of all his. Just because the arrogant sea bastard thinks he can lay claim to me doesn’t mean I’ve rolled over and grown a fucking collar.’ I forced a smirk, even though my chest ached. ‘You should know better than anyone. I bite back.’

‘Good to hear, now move your asses before I drag you both through this portal myself.’ She flicked her wrist and the air shimmered with the beginnings of another portal. ‘Trust me, dolls, the sooner we deal with this, the sooner you can come back to your over possessive, narcissistic gods.’

A few minutes later, I was standing in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of a graveyard beside the crumbling shell of some ruined church. Weather-worn crosses and shattered slabs leaned at crooked angles, the dead staring back with stone eyes. Ancient trees hunched overhead, their twisted branches rattling in the wind, and I shot Sephy a look. She looked irritatingly calm, like we’d just popped out for brunch.

‘Where the hell are we?’ I hissed at Bronte.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Cool your jets, doll. We’re in Ireland. Got a rogue gargoyle to sort.’

My brain screeched to a halt. ‘Ex-fucking-scuse me? A what?’