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Wonder

So much has happened in a brief period. Here she is, newly exiled in The Celestial City.

An ancient refuge for immortal exiles, where humans also reside while unaware of the deities dwelling among them.

Ostracized from The Dark Fates pantheon, Wonder and her allies teeter on the brink of war with their homeland.

A battle of fate versus free is simmering.

Their prisoner had been dismissed as well, his expulsion having occurred long before Wonder or her friends arrived here. Because Malice attempted to manipulate and kill them all, he’s an additional problem that must be contained.

The next morning, Wonder descends into the vault and finds the demon swaying back and forth, the joints of his rocking chair creaking in tandem.

He’s lucid and reading his book. Despite the chains hanging like a dead snake from his ankles, one long leg balances roguishly atop the opposite knee, coarse dark jeans straining across his waist and thighs.

With the tome propped on his lap, the text spreads wide, offering itself like a sacrifice to his voracious eyes.

A permanent blaze kindles from the fire pit.

Sharp orange light slithers across the walls, and the fragrance of pomegranates clings to the room.

The fruits’ essence had been an enigma until recently, when the crew discovered a courtyard in the library’s north wing, where a pomegranate tree canopies the quad.

Bulbous burgundy produce hangs from the branches like ornaments, which accounts for the lingering scent in Malice’s domain. He must favor the large berries.

At the slide of Wonder’s foot across the floor, the rocking chair pauses, and the creaking stops. An unkempt head lifts from the page. Eyes the color of ashes flash with recognition, then gleam with mockery.

The impact sears Wonder’s skin like a blister. Though, the stirrings of heat must be an illusion. It’s impossible for deities to feel temperature.

Well. There are three exceptions.

Anger, the capability originating from his tattoos.

Love as well, following her brief stint as a mortal.

Lastly, Andrew; newly acquired immortality aside, the man is still human, having retained his original senses.

The trio has described the effects of heat and cold in tangible detail, but still.

Malice should not be capable of eliciting such physical responses in Wonder.

The demon god’s voice oozes through the crypt like tar. “Well, well, well. It’s my lucky day. Not only is the fire busy down here—you know, busy being fire, doing hot and bothered things—but I’ve got company.”

Setting her teeth, Wonder approaches with diligence.

The hem of her dress swats her legs, the motions snagging his attention.

It’s a frank move, how he rakes his gaze up her limbs, then stalls on Wonder’s hips.

Those nefarious pupils glow like coals, the impact probing under her skirt as if he knows where best to penetrate.

It’s working. Blackened fissures dart up her tailbone. To Wonder’s annoyance, Malice’s fixation on the lower half of her body reaches other tight places as well. The same recesses his gaze is targeting beneath her dress.

How deplorable that he provokes such a reaction. She’d been prepared to wear her detachment like battle armor, when really she should have simply worn pants.

Wonder balances a tray laden with refreshments, including a fruit bowl, plus a choice of nectar or coffee. The third option of arsenic—from Anger—Wonder had covertly discarded.

Dishes clink as she sets the tray on the fire pit’s rim, within Malice’s shackled reach beside the rocking chair.

He regards the provisions with a scoff. “You might want to step back, unless you’d like that snug little bodice stained.

The wetter it gets, the easier for your turgid nipples to peek through. ”

Wonder slits her eyes. “Spit your drink at me again, and I’ll tip the leftovers down your gullet until you asphyxiate.”

Malice tsks, slapping the book shut with a single hand. “Your upbringing should have taught you the merits of being on the offensive. Otherwise, you’ll never win a strategy game.”

“I don’t play games.”

A smirk cuts across his face, a dangerous incline capable of tripping someone and snapping their neck if they’re not careful. “I do. Matter of fact, I invent my own. It takes the kink to the next level.” He inclines his digits at the provisions. “Feel like dining with me?”

“I’m more partial to cherries and peaches.”

“I wouldn’t mind tasting what you like.”

The reply leaks out of him like steam from a kettle. The demon enunciates each word as though sampling them on his palate, the flavors dissolving in his mouth, the flicking tip of his tongue manifesting across her flesh.

Unbidden images flash in Wonder’s mind. Her open thighs. His bent head. And that conniving, disrespectful tongue.

She shoves the montage from her mind. In reality, Malice’s reply is either an enticement, intimidation, or an insult. With him, one can rarely tell the difference, which is the point.

Yet if he minces words with this much expert cunning, she cannot fathom what other acts those shameless lips are capable of.

Malice possesses a life-threatening beauty that belongs in a crime scene.

Harsh contours. Sinister brow. In the beginning, the despicable twist of his mouth had wracked her from head to toe.

Now the impact has condensed to a few choice spots, unforgivable places that chafe, irritation enhancing the reaction.

“Starve, for all I care,” she clips.

“For all you do care,” he croons, the rasp taking on a curious note as he steeples his digits.

Stars. All he’s missing is a pair of horns curling like cornucopias from his head. But in that case, he’d resemble a satyr instead of a devil.

Malice swipes a pomegranate from the fruit bowl. While balancing the object between his fingers, his nails trace the skin delicately. “Pomegranates,” he muses. “This is niche for a nutritional choice. What makes you think I like these?”

“Don’t you?” Wonder probes.

“I think you’d like to find out. I think you’d get off on knowing a great many things.

I think you expect me to savor these plump baubles.

Why is that?” Without waiting for an answer, he continues, “I think you’re looking for a validation or proof to the contrary.

Against her nature, I think the Goddess of Wonder is searching for a guarantee, to keep from dwelling on hypotheses.

So that she doesn’t have to…” He pretends to contemplate while twirling his free hand, the manacles clinking.

“What’s the word?” Then he raises a finger. “So that she doesn’t have to wonder.”

“For one thing, your ‘home, away from home, away from home’—as you like to call it—reeks of the fruit. For another, need I remind Your Majesty that he requested a pomegranate for breakfast from the courtyard?”

“Now that you mention it, I did. Call me a fickle being.”

“I’d rather call you an asshole.”

“Can’t I be both?”

Whether he’s being serious or sarcastic is up for debate. In any case, the reply stabs Wonder between the ribs. She takes the question too literally, a pair of faces materializing before her, each the spitting image of one another.

“No,” she says from the hollow of her stomach. “You cannot be both.”

“Sounds like a double meaning.” His incisors dig into the rind, biting clear through the pomegranate’s shell.

With every crunch, Wonder pictures the burgundy seeds bursting in his mouth, juice leaking down his tongue, tart and sharp.

How marvelous it would feel to wedge that pomegranate down his esophagus.

Even so, every break of the skin plagues Wonder’s flesh. Like a misdemeanor, the sinuous motions of his mouth accelerate her pulse.

He swallows, the muscles of his throat contracting. “Tell me. Yes or yes? Am I right? I like being right.”

As her gaze eyes snap from that mouth to his eyes, Wonder feigns a grin. “And how often are you actually right?”

He stops chewing. His mouth falls, flattening to a plank.

After a spiteful moment, he tosses the pomegranate into the bowl as if bored by the conversation, the discarded fruit rattling the tray. Reclining, he switches tactics, brandishing the book at her, its contents circulating around the myth of Hades and Persephone.

“Pomegranates that taste of deceit,” he reflects. “Rather symbolic and fitting to my choice of reading material. And by ‘Your Majesty,’ I hope you mean King of the Underworld. The title has a nice ring to it, and I’ve always felt a kinship with that god.”

“You would,” she snubs.

“Oh, come on. You’re not one of those readers who finds him lacking, are you? If you ask me, Hades was misunderstood. For instance, he’s the only god who didn’t cheat on his wife.”

“You mean the wife he abducted?”

“I prefer to call it a grand romantic gesture.”

Wonder sneers. “You wouldn’t know romance if it kneed you in the cock.”

Malice widens his eyes. “Is that what romance does?” he exaggerates. “I’ve been missing out. Anyway, humor me. Argue the point. I look forward to our book-a-thons so often I’m constantly forgetting to keep score. And you know you want to.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“Rookie mistake, Wildflower. That’s nothing but an invitation to root out your demons. Me, being a demon god and all.” But when Wonder remains tight-lipped, Malice leans farther back and scrapes a finger across his chin. “Hmm. Have you ever tippy-toed through the library’s romance section?”

She will not oblige. She will not respond. She will not engage.

“This classic tale has merit,” Malice concedes. “But there are some pretentious mortal retellings of the myth. Christ, it’s always about the self-aware maiden taming her dumbass-but-muscular abductor. Who’ll win the battle? More importantly, will they fuck before or after the first plot twist?”