Page 18

Wonder

They smash into the tree. A guttural response pumps from the male’s throat, the noise pressing against his bunched mouth. He hunches into Wonder, his hands braced above her head, his palms flat against the trunk. The projectile has pierced between his shoulder blades.

A jacket rustles against her bodice, the former emitting the scents of leather and vellum.

Golden waves hang around his ducked head while he processes the hit.

A scream grips Wonder’s lungs. But then his face lifts, aggravated irises stapling Wonder to the bark.

Rancor, annoyance, and inconvenienced pain crease his features as he reaches behind and yanks the arrowhead from his back.

No sprays of blood. Nothing other than a gash in his jacket, the leather having obstructed the death blow.

A lucky fate. Yet he couldn’t have known that in advance. Not against an elder’s arrow.

They stare at each other. Malice glares as though Wonder is to blame for the wound, as if she’d forced him to shield her.

Then the tenacious vibration of a bow breaks the spell.

Pain forgotten, something savage flashes across his countenance, a livid expression she has never beheld.

Yet the vision evaporates as swiftly as it came.

In its place, a vicious leer stretches across Malice’s lips before he rotates, his bow loosing an arrow that fractures the one flying toward them.

The stranger charges. On a manic snarl, Malice leaps like a wolf, meeting the opponent halfway. With ferocious precision, he nocks and shoots, twin arrows launching toward the female’s eyes, aiming to impale her sockets and fasten the goddess to the nearest trunk like a science experiment.

The goddess evades this onslaught by a hair’s breadth. At which point, Wonder breaks from her paralysis and rushes into the fray.

The elder is mightier, her own arrows blocking Malice’s brutal attack. Yet her disjointed technique implies she’s stumped by this murderous display within a peaceful land.

Wonder and Malice move fluidly, bending and spinning as if they’ve practiced against each other for a thousand years.

They’re a sphere in motion, their bodies synching.

When he blocks, she strikes. The demon moves seamlessly around Wonder, wielding his longbow like liquid, twisting and firing in a ruthless sequence.

The difference is he targets areas that will kill the assailant slowly, prolonging the anguish to the point of mercilessness.

Malice doesn’t fight like he wants to survive. He fights like he wants to punish, to torture his opponent, and to enjoy it. As far as the demon’s concerned, he’s been invited to play in a sandbox, which he plans to demolish afterward.

And he’s skilled. Very skilled in this art.

So caught up in the moment, Wonder and Malice swerve in unison. They halt, their weapons inadvertently pointing toward one another. He blasts her with a bad-boy grin, to which she rolls her eyes.

They swerve in opposite directions. Grasping an arrow between his fingers, Malice lashes it at the stranger’s abdomen, hellbent on spilling her intestines.

When he misses by a fraction, Wonder intercepts before he has a chance to try again, cuffing the female from behind and sending her to the ground.

The elder folds into herself and goes still. But thankfully, she’s alive, her lungs inflating with oxygen.

Malice and Wonder jog backward. Her joints shake, her chest pounds, and respirations saw from her lungs.

The demon god hacks out blood, then rounds on Wonder. Those mercurial pupils flare like onyx stars, checking her up and down for who knows what contemptible reason. Only when he’s given her a thorough once-over does the shameful gleam return.

He grins at Wonder if he’s just had an orgasm. “Miss me, Wildflower?”

“You son of a bitch,” she snarls, endeavoring to keep her voice down. “You think this is funny? The elder will remember this attack.”

“Then let’s make things permanent.”

“Are you serious?”

The bane of her existence spreads his arms, sarcasm dripping from his tongue. “No, I’m fucking joking.”

“Stay away from her.”

It’s the wrong request. Unrepentant, Malice whips out an arrow and points it toward the female’s prone body.

“Stop!” Wonder dives in front of the projectile, her fingers catching the arrow mid-flight. Disgusted, she hurls the weapon to the ground, where it flashes back into Malice’s quiver.

A second shot launches, which she thwarts with her quartz arrow, splintering Malice’s death strike in half. On his third attempt, she pivots and cuts off the blow with her archery, knocking his weapon off course so that it flies into the wild before reappearing in his cache.

Frustrated, Malice targets Wonder’s sternum. She returns the favor, zeroing in on his heart.

Heaving, they glower at one another. He tried to slay an elder, and they’ve been here for less than an hour.

“Move,” Malice fumes. “Or I’ll force you.”

“Disarm,” Wonder instructs. “Or I’ll make you.”

“Haven’t you heard? You shouldn’t tell a demon god what to do. It’ll put him in a vengeful mood.”

“I thought you were smarter than that.”

Malice’s arm tenses, the implication sinking in. An instinctive act of bloodshed will prove his temper is stronger than his foresight. If there’s anything he values more than impulsiveness, it’s intelligence.

But lacking any recourse, Malice maintains a steady aim. Wonder does as well, thinking, wheezing, thinking, wheezing. “I know what to do.”

“So do I,” he baits.

“Do you wish to be sloppy or strategic?”

With a muffled “Fuck,” he lowers his weapon while she disengages and forages through the undergrowth. Gratitude floods her at the sight of a lacy flower, which she plucks from the soil. Kneeling beside the deity, Wonder slips the petals into the female’s mouth.

Tilting the goddess’s head changes the angle of Wonder’s view. And that changes everything.

She reels back. Oh, no.

No, no, no!

Yes, she knows this goddess. Wonder had spent centuries training with her. The Guide looks the same, with those dimples and that sage-colored hair.

“Harmony,” Wonder utters.

That’s what the female had named herself after passing her role on to her charge. Harmony used to be the Goddess of Wonder, and now she’s the Guide of Wonder.

The Guide’s temple swells, and lacerations mar her countenance. At the sight, Wonder’s face drops into her palms. She permits herself a moment, then recuperates just as Harmony would have coached her to do.

Up close, Wonder finally notices the brass archery harnessed to the female. If only Wonder had recognized it earlier, or if only the goddess had perceived Wonder’s quartz arrows. It’s the height of neglect, especially among trained warriors.

Yet perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. For if they had perceived one another, then what? Ultimately, it’s too risky to bring Harmony into this.

Resigned, Wonder finishes the job, nudging the flower deeper between the female’s lips.

The petals will dissolve and seep into her mouth, creating an agent that will mend the goddess’s wounds even faster than normal.

It shall fix the evidence, the damage they’ve done to her, then kindle an essential symptom akin to recreational drugs.

Hopefully, Harmony shall sleep through that part.

Wiping her hands, Wonder whispers apologies and gains her feet. In the silence, Malice stares with an inquisitive expression, to which she clarifies, “The goddess will think she was hallucinating.”

He quirks a brow. “Guess that’ll work.”

At his wince, she recalls the shot Malice took to the back. He shall have a terrible bruise later. Perhaps a minor breach in his skin that will clot within minutes. Although he’ll survive, the brunt must be agonizing.

Rolling his shoulders as though that will help, Malice surveys the fertile woodland, appraising it like a buffet of narcotics. But before he advances, Wonder pivots in front of him. “Do not even think about it.”

“Who?” He presses a hand to his chest. “Me?”

“We’re not here to harvest celestial drugs.”

“But it would upgrade the sex. Just imagine enhancing the flavor of fucking.” His decadent eyes roam over her curves. “Like salt to a dish.”

She will not—she will not —let that crass reply melt any region lower than her navel. They haven’t been trespassing for long, and already he’s being difficult. To say the least, cracking frivolous, vulgar jokes while in enemy territory is wasted on her.

That… had been a joke. Hadn’t it?

“Where were you?” she reprimands.

“Here, there, everywhere,” he says.

Never mind. Wonder massages the bridge of her nose. As she does, the devil’s humor fades. Stalking up to her, his head bends to study her hand.

A slit of blood carves across her wrist scars. The crimson is dry, which means it must have happened earlier, when they transported themselves here. Naturally, it had been a bumpy ride. But based on the demarcations, it hadn’t been from her arrows, but from his.

Malice’s jaw stiffens, a muscle beating there. Wonder swallows, a voltaic surge blitzing across her fingers, although he isn’t touching her.

But when he glances up, Malice’s features are as smooth as a mirror, authentic but only on the surface. “Hmm. Sorry,” he remarks, sounding nothing of the sort.

Wonder jabs a finger at him. “You got the date wrong. Look at the sky. Look at the sleeping body on the ground. The Stars haven’t shifted, and our people are milling about. It’s not Stellar Worship yet.”

“Yeah, I may have botched the calendar. I’m a god, but I’m not perfect. Anyway, what’s one night early? There will be, what? One or two keepers guarding The Archives? We can handle that, provided we don’t avoid them entirely. It’s a big fucking building.”

“You bastard.”

“That would require having a father, which would require being a human. You know something I don’t?”

She winces. “Just get moving.”

That Malice would interpret this differently should have been her first prediction.

In two strides, the demon backs Wonder against a tree, his shadow devouring hers like a cloud overcasting a tulip.

His width and height span her own, enveloping Wonder in the nerve-wracking, masculine scents of leather and vellum.

He looms within stabbing distance, bracketing a pair of steel arms against the bark on either side of her head, his muscles straining to break free from the sleeves.

Although Malice is broad and tall like the males in her crew, he’s in a category all his own. For one, this devil has the most sculpted throat she’s ever beheld. That, and a torso built for rock climbing.

Not one word. He doesn’t say a single lewd, offensive, contentious, destructive, or threatening word to her.

Instead, the demon levels Wonder with those despicable ash-colored eyes, the irises glittering with intimidation.

Wonder lifts her chin, stunned to discover how this places their lips in close proximity.

His breath ghosts across her mouth, and his orbs swallow her whole like a delicacy, the demon’s heft blockading the forest.

Suddenly, Wonder’s bodice clings too tightly. Her breasts rush across his jacket zippers, the contact disturbing, spawning a flurry of hate-induced sensations. Her nipples pebble, and her clitoris throbs, the compression sneaking between the pleat of her cunt.

How dare he evoke this inexcusable response. How dare she allow her body to react.

Wonder ignores the reprehensible drum of her heart. She holds his gaze, refusing to back down. He would do well to remember the numerous times she has wiped the floor with his backside, such as the night when he targeted Love and Merry, at which point Wonder had tackled him to the ground.

Not to mention recent events, when he escaped and stalked her through the human library stacks. She has bested him before, and she will do it again.

For a ghastly length of time, Malice engages without blinking. Fates. How does he do that?

His probing eyes sizzle like powder kegs. The effect is so jarring, it delays Wonder from noticing his hand bunching up her skirt. Air winnows between her legs, his fingers rustling beneath the garment, wrists skimming her inner thighs.

An outraged gasp clots Wonder’s throat. Before she can process, much less attack him, he drops the garment as if it has scalded his flesh.

Raising his hand, an envelope materializes into view, pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Malice’s pupils gleam, ridiculing Wonder for assuming. At last, he turns away while tucking the missive among the rest in his jacket.

Blessed oxygen returns to her lungs, his scent expiring on a breeze. But damnation! Although she had betrayed the letter’s location, Wonder had also counted on him struggling to find it. Yet when has this master conniver ever struck her as the obtuse type?

Malice takes several steps, then changes his mind. Veering back around, he raises a clawed finger, as if he’s forgotten something. “By the way.” Returning to where she peels herself from the trunk, the demon gets in her face. “I hate you too.”

Then he turns and melts into the woods, the arrowhead laceration peeking through the hole in his jacket, the darkness consuming him.

With renewed fury Wonder gnashes her teeth.

So the detestable god remembers what she said before they traveled here.

Good. That means her opinion has an effect, which is worth taking advantage of when the time comes.

His wrath toward Wonder is explicable. For one, he’s the God of Malice. Hostility is in his nature. For another, she kept him prisoner in his home, a place that might have been a refuge, his spite festering like an abscess.

Whatever guilt she might have endured days ago, perseverance wipes it away like a clean slate. And very well. She can handle Malice’s burgeoning grudge on that account.

Yet Wonder pauses, uncertainty crawling like a scorpion across her skin. Because why does Malice sound like he wants to punish her for an entirely different reason?