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With a single lurch, they fling themselves into the kiss. Envy groans, his mouth swooping down and clamping with hers. Sorrow cries into him, their lips spitting and clasping.

Their bodies go nuts, arms clinging, fingers scraping. Their mouths clutch and roll.

His tongue pries her apart and flexes into her mouth. Sorrow grapples with his back, beseeching for more. A prolonged moan slips out as their tongues meet and lap together.

It tickles. It torments.

Repeatedly, they switch direction, tasting each other from different angles. His mouth spreads her. Her mouth rides his. Their tongues fuse, licking into one another.

Sorrow’s nostrils flare. Envy growls, kissing the shit out of her.

Her hands fall, clinging to his waist. Humming, he grasps her face and arches those lips, plunges in and out, matching another rhythm they’ve achieved, though not as real, never this real.

Breaking away, he plants harsh kisses across the upper bow of her mouth. Finally, she catches a glimpse of his ruined lips. The sight is too much, just too much, so she snatches him once more. He smirks into the kiss, hungry and wanting.

Where’s that fucking tongue?

Sorrow catches it, driving him to maddening noises. Her fingers rock up his abs and ascend to his jaw, securing him in place. His tongue writhing with hers, Envy’s touch descends to her bare ass, scooping her there and smashing her against him. It’s mayhem, a beautiful wreckage of lips and tongues and moans.

He plows in again, and she yields again, and they start again.

And now she knows what passion feels like.

16

Envy

And so does he.

And it dawns on him that he hasn’t felt this sort of passion before. Not for her.

Or at least, not for a very,verylong time…

17

Envy

There’s a star that winks in the sky. The celestial woos the constellations, vying for attention, its glow illuminating the bottomless swell of violet. This gesture dazzles the planets, attracts the moons, and amuses the stars. The pompous little thing should humble itself in the presence of superior lights, yet the galaxy excuses it, because this star is too stunning to deny.

The star is also competitive. It attempts to outshine its neighbors and succeeds with finesse, wearing its radiance to its best advantage.

It’s a pleasure to receive such a wink.

Beneath the stellar canopy, the five members of the Fate Court and an assembly of Guides quirk their lips. Clustered around the stargazer that perches atop Fortune’s Crest, these observant rulers and mentors agree. The star is boastful and beautiful, a veritable source of jealousy and vanity.

Hence, it bears the marks of a pride god.

“He is ready,” the Guide of Envy predicts.

With the Court’s blessing, the female mentor extends a cupped palm and summons the star, which dives from the firmament and lands with a flourish into her hand.

***

Sorrow

And there’s a star that drowns in the sky.

Not far off, tucked beneath a luminous moon, this celestial is lonely. It hovers by itself, a misfit taking the brunt of its neighbors’ grievances—the blinding glare of anguished planets, and the dullness of moons in mourning, and the dejection of black holes, and the weeping of meteors with no place to land.