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Chapter

Thirty-Three

CHAOS

T he musty scent of this underground lair we’d claimed for our secret meetings infiltrated my senses, making my lip curl in disgust. It reminded me far too much of my past life. Times when we’d been captured and held underground. When I’d been forced to fight my way out and leave my men behind.

My arms were crossed and face set in a scowl long before Grim ever deigned to show himself.

He appeared in the doorway and immediately clocked my expression. “What?”

“What happened to ‘if you’re not five minutes early, you’re late’? Or does that only apply to us?” I snapped, gesturing to the other two horsemen who’d already joined me.

Grim’s unaffected reaction told me everything I needed to know. That was exactly the case. He adjusted the cuffs of his shirt and leaned against the doorframe, gaze trained on me. “Well?”

“You’re not even going to come inside?”

Sin chuckled. “I told you this would happen. Grim thinks the only secret meetings that matter are the ones he sets up.”

“He’s usually the only one who has something worthwhile to say,” Malice offered.

I shot him a withering scowl. “Traitor.”

“I’m simply honest. Grim is the oldest. He’s the most patient. Death will wait out anything because he knows he will win.”

Flinging my arm in Grim’s direction, I asked, “Does that look patient to you?”

“Actually, yeah,” Sin said, giving Grim a cursory once-over. “Definitely doesn’t seem like he’s got anywhere else to be.”

I turned my attention to Malice, who was nodding along with Sin. “Pretty much the definition of patience.”

“Fuck all of you.” A pulse of power ran through me, causing the ground beneath our feet to quake.

“Chaos, are you quite finished with your little temper tantrum?” Grim rumbled as he inspected his fingernails.

It was all I could do not to throw something at him. “We think Merri needs to know the truth.”

Grim arched a brow. “The truth?”

“Yes.”

“And who is . . . we?”

“Jerry and Todd,” I deadpanned before rolling my eyes. “Who the hell do you think I’m talking about?”

“So I’m to assume this is a decision the three of you have come to together?” Grim asked.

“Don’t lump me into it. I’m still on the fence,” Malice said.

The three of us turned to Sin, who stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “It doesn’t feel right keeping it from her anymore. It was one thing before we knew her and cared about her.” He sort of mumbled that last bit, almost like he was embarrassed by the admission. “Now it just sort of feels shady. I don’t like lying to her.”

“You’re not lying to her. You’re just not telling her the whole truth,” Malice offered.

“I’m far from the morality police, but I’m pretty sure that’s lying.”

“A lie of omission is still a lie,” I said.

“That’s a stretch. We are keeping something from her for a very specific reason.” Grim finally pushed off the doorframe and entered the room, leaving the door open.

“Shoe on the other foot, would you feel the same if it was Merri keeping something from us?” I asked. “What if she was using us to try and get knocked up? Would you be okay with that?”

Malice couldn’t control his reaction to that, his lip curling in disgust and his eyes flashing with rage.

I knew exactly what I’d done with that one. Malice had intimate knowledge of what that exact scenario felt like. He’d be much more sympathetic to our request if I could make him see the similarities. Surely a three-to-one vote would go in our favor.

“But she’s not,” Grim said simply, as if that magically canceled out the point I’d just made.

“Grimsby, you cannot possibly imagine this ending well if she finds out we’ve been scheming behind her back this entire time.”

Grim’s expression remained stoic, his eyes meeting mine briefly before he shrugged. “Then she hates us. It doesn’t matter at that point, does it?”

“I’ve been working so hard to get her to like me. I don’t want Merri hating me when she finds out. None of you can say you don’t care if she hates your guts. You all like her just as much as I do.”

I shifted uncomfortably where I stood, finding myself in the uncommon position of agreeing with Sin. Now that I’d gotten a taste of what it could be like to have Merri, I didn’t have any intention of letting her go. He was right. I did like her.

Malice looked uncertain, which didn’t surprise me, but Grim’s reaction did. It was so rare to see any tangible emotion on his face, and right now, he was pissed.

“And this is the exact reason we cannot tell her. Why are you incapable of seeing that?”

As he finished speaking, his face flickered, revealing something I hadn’t seen in centuries. His true face. Sin blinked, taking an unconscious step away from the angry horseman. I didn’t blame him. No one wanted to be present when Grim let that side of himself out to play.

“What do you mean?” Sin asked.

“We cannot afford for Merri to be upset with us and thereby isolate herself. We must accomplish our goal. Don’t you get it? The feelings of one do not outweigh the lives of millions. We have to succeed. We have to impregnate her. If we don’t, we may as well just hand her over to Lucifer right now because what the fuck are we doing here if we aren’t serious about putting a stop to this?” Grim’s shadows spread across the floor, betraying his irritation. “We can’t risk her falling in love with any of us either.”

“Why not?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Because we have already seen her loyalty. She’d choose staying with us over saving the world. We can’t allow that to happen.”

“How are those mutually exclusive?” I asked, for once not being able to follow the logical path he was setting.

“Because we will always be who we are. Our purpose will not change simply because we averted this apocalypse. It will still fall to us to begin another, which means we can never give her back the same. We will never be free to choose her over the destiny set before us.”

My gaze swung to Mal, who’d gone painfully quiet during Grim’s outburst. “Do you agree?”

“How can I not? We are who we are, Chaos. It is unchangeable.”

I knew that any hope Sin and I had of swaying Malice to our side was gone. Grim had made an excellent point. No matter what happened with this apocalypse, we were still the horsemen. We didn’t exist for things like love and companionship. That future was not available to us, and it never would be. Merri deserved better.

She deserved a life that had the potential to include some kind of happily ever after, not some bastardized version of whatever relationship the four of us might offer.

“Fuck,” I whispered, more upset now than I’d been before this meeting started. It had been so long since I’d known hope I’d forgotten the hole it left when it was torn away.

“I can tell you finally are starting to understand our situation,” Grim said, not unkindly.

“You know what? Don’t invite me next time,” Sin said, shoving away from the wall and striding toward the door. “I fucking hate book club.”