someone listen to you for once.”
“Are you,” his dark eyes narrowed, “doing something to me?”
“No, I’m not feeding from you, I swear.” I returned to standing upright, his gaze following my movement. “But your inclination is to trust me, to unload all these burdens you carry for others.”
Stavros shook his head again, this time rubbing his forehead with a groan.
“Didn’t sleep well last night, did you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
Yes, because I wasn’t in your dreams. The knowledge hung between us, unspoken.
His hands dropped to his lap and Stavros leaned back in his seat, eyes studying my face with an interest that was more than his usual sexually potent stare.
“I’m not the only tired one, am I?” he asked, frowning. Concern, worry. I wasn’t sure if it was for me, or for his people because of me.
“I am also not sleeping,” I said, lips quirking as I shrugged a shoulder.
Stavros just shook his head. “It’s not that. You...don’t look much better than you did when you arrived.”
“Gee, Stav. No wonder all the ladies come panting after you,” I teased, my smile growing brittle. He was right though.
Stavros didn’t have many markers of the priesthood. He was weak when it came to restraint, intensely eager when it came to violence against Hell, and reluctant when it came to offering counsel. What he was, was empathetic.
You have to tell them anyway, I thought.
“I can’t sustain on just...scraps. Especially not if I’m going to be staying away from the rest of your people,” I said, looking down at my own lap, fingering the seam of the leggings I’d been given.
“You said you wouldn’t—”
“And I meant it.” I looked up and met Stavros’ hard gaze. “But at some point...in a week or so, I may become dangerous. Weak, but dangerous. You’ll have to think of somewhere to...put me. To keep me away from everyone.”
Stavros stiffened as I sighed, accepting that I may have just handed over a kind of confession, one that might end up leading to me withering away to nothing in a dark, small room in a basement.
He leaned forward, frowning, hands splayed against the surface of the desk. The emotions came quick and I breathed them in, but it was just licks in comparison to what I needed. “Why did you come here? If you can’t survive in this place then—”
“Because I would rather starve to death here, with mercy, than end up back in Hell,” I said, holding his stare, watching the whip lashes of horror, anger, and sorrow rushing through his eyes. “It’s not a joke, Stavros. It’s not a ploy. I will tell you when it’s time.”
7
Sins of the Flesh
Deyva
Searing iron, my flesh burning like incense in offering. I knew better than to thrash, to fight against the binds, knew the way the coal-hot metal would sizzle and peel away at my skin, but this was wrong. I wasn’t meant to be here. I was safe.
“Deyva, Deyva,” he taunted. “Playing children’s games with me? Hiding in holy nooks and crannies as if I can’t find you. My little lost treasure.”
I panted, pulling on the chains, whining as the cuffs ate down to bone, arching away from the acid-washed stones nipping at the flesh of my back.
“I am impatient, my Deyva.”
His hooves scratched over the floor, closer, closer, whispering warnings.
“It would be better if you returned before my impatience becomes anger.”
He hasn’t found me. I am hiding. I am safe.
“Deeyyyyva.”
“Deyva.”
I woke with a gasp, a massive figure framed in the door, shoulders wide enough to fill the space, fire at his back. I scrambled back on the couch, down to the floor, ashamed of my own terror, but not foolish enough to let him get his hands on me a second before I had to.
“Whoa! Deyva, hey. Hey, it’s me.”
He stepped into my room and I growled. Hands went up into the air, a mild gasp sounding.
“Deyva? It’s Stavros.”
Stavros. Sanctuary. My hand wrapped around my ankle and I moaned, falling forward and hiding my face against my knees. I wasn’t burning. Kimaris had found me, but only in dreaming.
“Shiiiit,” Stavros breathed softly, and he scuffled forward, dropping to his knees.
The idiot didn’t have enough of Zach and Kais’ caution. I was still feral, still the animal from the dream, but he scooped me out of the corner and into his arms, pressing my bundled form to his chest. He smelled clean, soapy, like he’d just come from a shower, and some of my tension unwound. Nothing in Hell smelled like