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“You’re right. Of course, you’re right,” Hale replied immediately, his voice deferent. Harbor may have been younger than Hale, but everyone respected him and treated him as a leader of sorts. Not because he was loud and bossy like the agathos leaders I’d known tended it to be, but because he was calm and assertive.
Harbor always knew what to do.
“We saw her cousin growSpartoijust a few days ago,” Harbor continued thoughtfully. “Anesidora sent giant, monstrous scorpions out of the ground to do her will. Who’s to say she didn’t have a hand in this also?”
I swallowed back the same bitter jealousy that rose up every time the outcast agathos here talked about Grace in hushed, reverent tones. It was wrong of me to feel jealous. I didn’t envy what Grace was going through—not really. But we were cousins, we’d been as close as sisters, and we were both cursed to be broken agathos, ruined in the eyes of our community.
So why wasn’t she as unhappy as me?
I’d watched the viral videos of her taking on goddesses and angry agathos while I hid away here, cleaning cabins and battling nightmares, and wondered how our paths had gone in such wildly different directions.
“You have a fever,” Harbor murmured, his palm feeling like a sheet of ice where it pressed to my forehead.
“I’ll be okay,” I assured him.Remindedhim. Wounds I inherited from others would heal without medical intervention, though it cost me a little of my own life each time. With each healing, my time here on this earth grew shorter.
I thought being a Hygeia was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. And then I almost got my soul bond killed with my cowardice. I deserved to be a Hygeia. I deserved every day that I lost.
“You were making beds,” Harbor mumbled to himself, stroking my hair in the most dreamy, inappropriate way. He hadn’t been given to me by the goddess. He’d been given no soul bond at all. I shouldn’t let him touch me, but I just couldn’t seem to help myself. Harbor was the only light in my life, the only one who didn’t look at me and see the scarred, ruined agathos. The one who’d listened to the Basilinna and the Elders and fought back against the supposedly evil daimons, and who’d sacrificed her own soul bond in the process.
I sat somewhere in the middle of failed hero and complete monster, depending on who you asked.
“Making beds, with no one else around,” Harbor muttered. “No one should have been able to hurt you. What are we going to do, Mercy? If I can’t keep you safe here, I can’t keep you safe anywhere.”
Chapter 5
Iawokewithastart, immediately shaking off the remnants of the dreamscape as Dare groaned next to me. I had no idea how long we’d been asleep, but it must have been a while. Sunrise filtered through the window, and I could hear the clinking of pots and pans coming from the kitchen below as the Kakodaimonistai shuffled around, preparing breakfast.
Bullet slid off the bed, shooting me a wink as he quietly crept out of the room. Wild stood, having apparently been watching over us from a chair in the corner as we slept. Cute.
‘You okay?’he signed, glancing between me and Dare.
I nodded as I responded. ‘I need to talk to him.’
‘I’ll bring you food,’Wild replied, before slipping silently out the door behind Bullet. His ability to move quietly despite his daunting size never ceased to amaze me.
“Well, I feel like shit,” Dare rasped, massaging his eyelids with his thumb and middle finger. My cheek was still pressed against his bicep, and now that the immediate chaos had subsided, I felt the beginnings of the bond between us starting to blossom with the physical contact. “This is not how I wanted to meet you, Grace. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. What can I do?” I asked quietly, wriggling further into his side instinctively. “Do you need me to get Marek back? I’d hoped most of your injuries would be healed—”
“Oh they are, I think,” Dare assured me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer until my head rested on his chest. “I haven’t slept or eaten much recently though, and my inner Philotes is acting up,” he added with a quiet laugh.
“Can I…” I trailed off, swallowing thickly. I didn’t have the best track record when it came to immediate physical intimacy with my soul bonds. For one reason or another, we’d always ended up putting it off. Pretty often that reason had been me and my inability to get out of my own head.
I didn’t want to repeat those mistakes with Dare for a whole host of reasons, but especially because we’d missed so much time together already. Guilt that I’d put this off competed with the fresh wave of guilt that I was happy he was here, because it meant Bullet took one step closer to…
No, I wasn’t ready to think about that. I wouldn’teverbe ready to think about that.
“Can you what?” Dare prompted, shifting slightly so he could look down at me. My hand moved before I’d even consciously decided to move it, tracing the matching rose designs that were inked on his skin, trailing up either side of his neck. Dare groaned, arching into my touch. “Shit, you should know that Philotes daimons are touch addicts, and I haven’t been touched a lot lately. That feels really good and soothing, and I don’t want to make it weird but Imightcome in my pants if you keep going.”
A surprised laugh escaped me, my fingers stilling for a moment, resting over his thrumming pulse. “I was going to ask if I could touch you, but I seem to have lost control of my limbs.”
“You don’t have to ask,” Dare replied, his voice dropping slightly. “And I still feel like total shit, so I’m not suggesting anything more than a cuddle right now, but if you’re comfortable with it, I’d really like to take my shirt off. I mean, it’s kind of bloody so I don’t want to wear it, but also the more skin to skin, the better.”
“Oh, of course!” I sat up instantly, while Dare moved much slower, pushing up on his forearms until he could yank his tee over his head and collapse back onto the mattress. For a moment, I stayed where I was, staring down at the canvas of his body and marveling at his extensive tattoos. They were symmetrical, each side of his body a mirror reflection of the other. The designs all seemed to be nature-inspired—flowers, waves, flames, all converging and intertwining over his skin.
“My sleeve,” Dare groaned, holding up what had been his injured arm, the design now interrupted by a jagged scar. Just the effort of raising his arm had his muscles shaking, and I hoped Wild returned with food for him soon. “Then again, a scar is better than being dead.”
“Definitely better than that,” I agreed, lying down next to him again and draping my bare arm over his stomach. Should I take my top off too? Was that too forward? “So, um, tell me about yourself?” I winced at the awkward question.
