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Malice’s mouth tips up. He’s never made his obsession with books, reading, and information a secret.

The cult has just never made the connection between him and the local human library, much less analyzed his interest in The Archives, even though they know he got banished for snooping there.

Instead, they’ve chalked it up to a quirk, the tool of a smart god who uses knowledge to his corrupt advantage.

Calamity sets a palm on Malice’s shoulder, halting them under a metallic buttress. Rather than ask what knowledge Wonder has, the god makes an assumption. One that isn’t entirely wrong.

“There’s also talk going around about Merry’s allies,” Calamity intones. “That campaign she’s been building? Some are saying her allies now include the newly banished elite crew. Again, it was hard to swallow until about five minutes ago.”

Malice deposits both sets of archery against a column. “Merry glamoured them to her side. They have it in their heads to crusade for free will.”

The god scoffs. “Good luck with that. The important part is what that has to do with us.”

This cult isn’t interested in free will, despite Merry’s previous attempts to recruit certain outcasts from this territory.

The ones who weren’t exiled for nefarious reasons but rather got kicked out of their homeland for being unsuitable as acting deities.

To those, Merry had made an exception, for all the good it did her.

Malice has earned his share of trust on the west side. As a result, few deities have ever left his turf over the millennia.

But from the cult’s point-of-view, having the most elite crew of Dark Gods band with Merry means those enemies now outrank everyone here. Free will aside, how will that affect things in the long run? Should this cult attempt to draft Anger, Sorrow, and Envy away from Merry?

Not going to happen. The cult doesn’t know that yet, because they don’t know all the details.

Hence, they must be drawing their own conclusion about why Malice took Wonder.

They think he’s planning to torture details from her about whether the elite crew’s alliance with Merry is going to create problems for the west side.

Good. Let them think that.

Malice hasn’t shed light on his upcoming travel itinerary.

Nor does he plan to. What he wants with The Archives and the incapacitated goddess swinging from his shoulder is his business.

Besides, the question whether his cult should consider this newfound alliance a problem is fair.

It’s what he’d expect from this defensive, territorial lot.

Malice hefts Wonder securely against him. “We’ll figure it out.” He pats the back of Wonder’s thigh. “Guarantee it.”

But Calamity’s eyes have relocated to Malice’s immediate right. “I’d say so.”

Ah, fuck. That glazed look says it all. Not to mention the piercing sting at Malice’s throat.

Slowly and carefully, he twists his head, vigilant of the knife poised at his throat. Several inches to the side, his gaze collides with a pair of livid green ones. The goddess’s eyelids are open, pupils dilating with fury as she holds the blade to his neck.

Oh goodie. She’s awake.

Actually, the goddess has been conscious for a while.

If her palpable rage is anything to go by, Wonder was feigning sleep for long enough to overhear the dialogue.

Definitely long enough to swipe the butcher knife that had been strapped to Calamity’s belt.

And for sure long enough to register how Malice has been carrying Wonder, with her ass pitched in the air, her tits swishing like windshield wipers across his jacket, and her cunt rustling against one shoulder blade.

Fuck. Here it comes.

Wonder goes ballistic, yanking back her arm and thrusting it toward his jugular.

With a hiss, Malice whips out his hand like a snare, catching that reflex before it impales his neck.

Burying his fingernails into her arms, he increases the pressure until breaking skin, crimson popping from her flesh.

Wonder growls and releases the weapon, which clatters to the cobblestones.

And then she really unleashes. Chaos ensues, the goddess flying into a murderous tantrum. Shrieking around the gag, she flails her arms and legs, kicking and ramming her fists into his side.

Every head in the graveyard spins toward the commotion. Half of them step forward with their archery nocked, while the others keep a wide berth, too shocked by the sight of their leader wrestling with the famous Goddess of Wonder.

Malice shoves past Calamity. Stalking down the colonnade, he tosses a warning snarl to the incoming deities, which grinds them to a halt. No one points a weapon at this goddess, and no one touches her but him.

The cult watches as he lugs the thrashing goddess from the colonnade to the stone entrance of a celestial mausoleum among the gravestones. “Now, now,” he says, smacking her ass on the way. “Behave yourself.”

But like fuck does the goddess do as she’s told.

The female screams bloody murder around the gag and rams her knees into his tailbone, the impact wrenching a hiss from his lungs.

She scratches, claws, and cuffs every anatomical place within reach, being so thorough Malice is lucky his dick isn’t in range of her knuckles.

Squatting, he flips the bitch right-side up and drops her unceremoniously onto the mausoleum steps and moves swiftly. Only not swiftly enough as the heel of her foot rams into his jaw, a bone-crunching noise renting through the air. Throbbing pain explodes on the side of his fucking face.

“Christ,” he grits out, then blocks her as she lunges.

Capturing Wonder’s wrists, he clamps a set of chains around them. Then he proceeds to her ankles while blowing air through his nostrils. Shit, that hurt.

The goddess bolts his way, the irons snapping her limbs back, securing them to the structure. Tit for tat. Karma is a beautiful thing. This part of fate, Malice doesn’t have a problem with.

Hunched over, he massages his jaw while cocking his head and watching the female wear herself out. Eventually, she comes to her senses and slumps, panting like a feline.

Her eyes sizzle like atomic bombs, impossible to deactivate.

When she’s done wasting her energy, Malice wipes his hands. “Comfy?”

“Ffuggg jooou,” she grumbles through the wad of cloth.

Not hard to puzzle out those words. “Seems one of my letters has gone missing.”

Her eyes narrow. “Snoo wasth?”

“So what?” Malice tut-tuts. “Nice try, but I’ve never bought the innocent act.

Did you really think I wouldn’t know the weight difference after living with my stash for longer than some of these buildings have existed?

At some point, you slipped one of my letters from the pack.

Collateral damage, I assume? Clever minds think alike, seeing as I’ve laid the same claim to your corsage.

That said, I wasn’t born yesterday. It’s been more like—” he wiggles his talons, “—two-ish thousand years.”

The goddess’s face scrunches. He doesn’t have to say more. If she had given him all of the envelopes in the first place, they wouldn’t have needed to take this detour.

What’s done is done. Never mind the corsage, since that battle of wills is putting them at a stalemate. Wonder wants to reach The Dark Fates as much as he does, but they’re not going anywhere until he’s got the final letter.

She hesitates, then mumbles something. The sound is low, so mellow that Malice squints, intrigue climbing across his fingers. He plucks the gag from her lips, which glisten as she laps her pink tongue over the chapped skin.

A carnivorous sound pushes against his throat but never makes it out. His gaze leaps from that destructive mouth to the rest of her face. “Mmm. There’s the spirit. Looks like you’ve finally got something productive to say—”

A globe of spit hits Malice’s face. The gelatinous crap spatters across his features, saliva oozing down his skin.

Wonder is leaning forward, the manacles straining. Her eyes gleam inches from his, daring him to punish her for that cheap trick. Small pumps of air shoot from her mouth to his, racketing up his bloodstream.

With a venomous chuckle, he wipes the spittle from his face. “That’s right, Wildflower. Make yourself at home.”

Then he shoves the gag back into her mouth.

What a shame to muzzle such a pretty voice, but whatever.

This goddess isn’t the only one with a knack for quick thinking and underhanded tactics.

Immortal pomegranates are sedatives when they get overripe, a potent drug he’d used on Love while abducting her to his vault.

Then during his escape, he’d prepped a similar gag for Wonder and stored it within the bookcases, later swiping the toxic cloth on their way to retrieve his archery.

The scent of jasmine wafts from her body. Starlight glosses her dark hair.

Malice’s gaze clicks to the lines of blood on Wonder’s biceps, from where his fingernails had nicked her skin. Because she’s watching, he resists the urge to glower. At least he hadn’t gone for her scars.

Pebbles scatter as Malice surges to his feet and stalks away. As he cuts a path through the graveyard, all eyes follow his movements until he plants himself in a chair between two eight-feet-tall headstones engraved with constellations.

A minute later, a bottle hovers in his periphery, condensation dripping down the glass. Without taking his eyes off Wonder, Malice curls his digits around the bottle and tips back the contents. A hint of licorice douses his taste buds, the stout pouring down his throat, quenching the dryness.

Wonder festers from her corner, ignoring hundreds of keen looks from the cult. Instead, she levels every ounce of rancor toward him.

Whoever offered him the bottle crashes onto the seat next to Malice.

The braided hair identifies Scorn, who twists open his own beer and elbows Malice.

“Not that I didn’t miss you, but damn,” he marvels while appraising Wonder.

“You’ve got your hands full. That was like watching the opening act of an enemies-to-lovers porno. ”

While the god rattles off shit Malice can’t hear, the goddess skewers him from across the cathedral’s cemetery. Wonder’s pupils brim like water in a pot, reaching a boiling point that’s liable to poach his scrotum.

“Brood and stew all you want. That performance hides nothing.” Scorn nudges him again, then jerks his chin toward Wonder. “You expect me to believe you don’t want to fuck that?”

Malice clenches the bottle, a small crack chipping through the glass.

Calamity delivered the memo to everyone about Malice filling them in later. Too bad this nosey, horny, dead-god-walking doesn’t know to quit while he’s ahead. “Mmm, mmm, mmm,” Scorn admires. “Look at that fleshy body.”

Malice takes a deep swig, alcohol sloshing across his tongue, his teeth scraping the lip.

“With all that ground to cover, I bet it would take a lot of time to make her squeal.” The god sniggers, the sound producing a tick in Malice’s jaw. “You know what the Dark Gods say. The bigger she is, the deeper her cunt—”

While locking gazes with his captive, Malice’s arm launches sideways.

The bottle punches into Scorn’s face, smashing on impact.

Glass shards detonate, the vessel splitting to pieces and ripping apart the god’s perfect bone structure.

Fountains of blood squirt into the air, turning his features into a lawn sprinkler.

The deity howls. His palms shoot to his face, glass slicing his nose and eye sockets, among other places Malice doesn’t give two shits about. All that matters is the god’s lips are shredded to slaw, rendering him incapable of another diatribe for at least forty-eight hours.

“In other words,” Malice drawls. “Shut the fuck up.”

Hoots resound across the graveyard since this spectacle is nothing new between outcasts.

Crimson drizzles from Malice’s fingers, and his eyes remain pinned to Wonder’s shocked irises.

Her pupils bloat, slicing from Malice to the bleeding, bellowing god, then casting around for her weapons and potential exit routes before returning back to him.

Resourceful as ever. And consistent.

Malice grins, issuing a private challenge. Your move, Wildflower.