Chapter 4

Catfights and Prowling

Katerina opened the gate into the courtyard of their apartment building off of Toulouse and was immediately blasted with loud music. Oh s**t, she thought to herself. She recognized that playlist. It was Devlyn's angry, pissed off, leave-me-alone playlist.

As she carefully made her way to Devlyn’s quarters, she could hear the goddess singing just as vehemently.  Something, or more likely somebody, had definitely set her off this afternoon, most likely while she was prepping the bar for tonight’s festivities. Three guesses as to the culprit, and the first two didn’t count.

She walked into Devlyn’s room, singing along just as passionately to Black Velvet that was currently streaming out of the Bose Surround sound system. Clothes on hangers were piled on the bed with Devlyn sashaying to and from the closet with more clothes draped over her arms and then dumping them on the bed.

Katerina raised a delicate brow when Devlyn looked up at her but didn’t stop her mission. Not particularly caring to be ignored, she finally asked as she leaned a hip against the wall, “Is it time for a wardrobe change?”

“Not just that, but yes. Some of this definitely needs to be taken to Good Will. Seriously, look at this!” She held up a slinky black Chanel silk dress. “This is from two seasons ago, and this one,” she said, snatching another black dress off the rack, “is almost identical! Why do I need two dresses exactly alike? This is ridiculous! All vanity!”

She threw the two dresses onto an ever-mounting pile by the door. Katerina barely suppressed a smile as she mentally sorted the Christian Dior ball gown, an Oscar de la Renta evening gown, a Gucci cocktail dress, and the rest of the expensive pile. All of the clothes were exquisite and most of them timeless.

She picked up one of the Chanels. “This was one of Coco’s first. It’s quite original and priceless, Devlyn. You’ve kept this dress for decades and now you’re trashing it?” She didn’t screech, but she really wanted to. She also wasn’t going to add that it was one of Devlyn’s favorites, but then she ruined that resolve by adding, “you treasure this dress.”

“Treasuring clothes is a waste of time and proves how shallow we’ve become.”

“Huh-uh. Excuse me from your psychotic attempt at self-actualization. I love clothing, and I really don’t care if the world thinks that’s shallow. I’ve suffered first-hand the so-called depths of humanity.”

“Well, I’ve decided to prioritize my life. Starting with my closet.”

Katerina pushed herself off the wall to casually stroll over to the large bed in the middle of the room. She draped her body across the turquoise bedspread. She looked down at her fingernails, studied them, removed the gunk that had dared to acquire beneath the left pinky. Absentmindedly she remarked, “This couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the reappearance of Nykosas, could it?”

Devlyn poked her head back out. “Bane,” she corrected firmly as she threw a blue button-down shirt at Katerina’s head. “And no, this has nothing to do with that dratted man.” She went back to her task, tuning out Katerina’s next question with the intro to Tough Lover.

Katerina’s lips formed a sly smile. She needed a tough lover, eh? Surely War was one of the toughest of all. “Speaking of Bane, have you seen him since that night? Or is he AWOL again?”

She heard a grumbled, “I’ve seen him,” from inside the closet. “And he’s just as aggravating and adamant as ever.”

Katerina rolled her eyes, knowing Devlyn, while hiding and trying desperately to rearrange her life by rearranging her wardrobe, couldn’t see such a gesture. “There could be worse fates than ruling the world with him by your side.”

“He’s an a*****e,” was Devlyn’s only reply.

“I think he’s handsome.”

Devlyn momentarily reemerged, teal eyes narrowed. “Yes, you do, don’t you?” she said slowly.

Katerina gnashed her teeth in frustration. Any woman would have to be blind not to find Bane attractive, and even then, his smell and touch were just as potent as his face. She had no plans whatsoever relationship with Devlyn’s betrothed, at least none that didn’t involve helping Devlyn figure out what really needed to happen. And while the sudden distrust immensely annoyed her, she was nonetheless pleased by her display of jealousy. One of only jealous of things one considered one’s own. In some part of her, Devlyn considered Bane to be hers, which was good. He was hers. She just had yet to truly accept it.

“I don’t understand, Devlyn. If you don’t want him, why can’t I have a little fun with him?” she pushed. Let’s see just how much she’ll claim him, she thought.

That question brought Devlyn completely out of her closet with barely contained fury. “No,” she stated firmly.

“Why not?” Katerina asked with a shrug as she twisted her body around to lay on her back.

“I forbid it.”

Katerina’s arched brow rose a good two inches. “And who the hell are you to forbid to forbid me from anything?” Devlyn had never said anything like this, had never pulled rank on her before. Even as she thought it, she felt a tug inside of her. Her goddess had decreed something, and as a minor deity, she was forced to comply. Usually only Eros had that kind of control over her. Strange, but there was too much else going on to further that thought right now.

“Devlyn, just admit that you want him. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. It’s what you are meant to feel, meant to do.” Try for understanding first, Katerina

thought. Empathy can go a long way.

“I’m not going back with him.”

“I think the time has come when you really don’t have much of a choice in that.” Why couldn’t she just open her eyes and see the truth? She was bound to him, and there was no way of getting around that. No one had said it had to be forever. She could hate him all she wanted in fifty years, after they had done their duty.

Devlyn looked as though Katerina had physically slapped her with her words. “No.”

“You’re being stubborn and childish.”

“I am stubborn and childish.”
                Katerina swung off the bed and walked around to where the smaller woman stood just behind the hope chest at the foot of the bed. D****t, her patience was reaching its end. “You’re a f*****g goddess who’s acting as though she’s being forced into time-out. Grow up, Devlyn, and rule the world like you’re supposed to.”
                Devlyn’s mouth stood agape. “How the hell have I managed to live all this time with you?”
                “Because I always told you the truth. It just so happens that this time, it’s not what you want to hear.”
                Devlyn stayed perfectly rigid in front of the bed. She was afraid that if she moved she would strike her best friend, and getting violent would not be a good thing for either of them. Devlyn had a pride thing, Katerina had a vanity thing, and both of those vices lead to rash reactions to bad emotions. They just seldom took them out on one another. Where was Aren when they needed him?
                “Look, I love you so much. You are my best friend and closest companion. Hell, you’re my only companion. But recent events would have been horribly received by me on the best occasions. I can’t take the thought that you are attracted to him.”
                “What upsets you more, Devlyn, the fact that I was attracted to him, or the fact that he was attracted to me? In your eyes, which one of us was faulted for that?”
                “You should have known!” Seeing them that night on the dance floor had made her see red. At the time she attributed it to his sudden presence. Now, she wasn’t so sure. They’d been dancing, bodies intertwined, him whispering in her ear. Oh gods, the image still crawled into her gut and sat there like cement.
                “How, Devlyn? Tell me, how? You’ve made damn sure that I remain in the dark about him. I know hardly anything about him, other than what he is to youand the name you call him. There was no way for me to have been prepared. None. My mortal life worshipped your pantheon. And yet you never once told me Bane was Nykosas. So grow up, you spoiled little brat.”
                “What did you call me?” Devlyn asked slowly.
                “I called you a spoiled-little-brat. I don’t believe I stuttered. And I know you understand me perfectly well. In the days of my homeland, you would have been stoned to death for your idiocy,” Katerina said darkly.
                Devlyn tilted her head and said with feigned wide-eyed innocence, “You mean instead of for f*****g the chieftain’s son and refusing to marry him?”
                Katerina simply stared coldly at Devlyn, meeting her squarely in the eyes.
                Devlyn met that look unflinchingly, her eyes on fire as she stared into Katerina’s green ones, so cold, so blank and unemotional. Devlyn hoped and feared in the same instant that she had finally pushed Katia over the edge and into the fight she so desperately wanted tonight.
                Katerina’s lips curled in a disgusted snarl, eyes only showing for a moment the blaze hidden in them, and turned on her heel from the room before she did something she could never undo. She would not strike Devlyn first. They might be friends, confidantes, and all the other pretty epitaphs Devlyn used over the years, but at the end of the day, Devlyn was still a member of the high deity court, and protocol was demanded or Katia knew she would lose her place as a muse, and she so loved all of the benefits of her job. Devlyn could have her killed, soul gone forever, if she didn’t do it herself first.
                She was almost to the door when Devlyn’s unreleased anger overtook and possessed her body. “Get back here and fight like the warrior you claim to be!” she yelled at her back.

Katerina turned around, hand on the doorknob, smiled wickedly, and replied, “A true warrior chooses her battles wisely, my lady.”
                Katerina’s eyes never really caught the complete movement of Devlyn’s body as it jumped and pummeled straight at her. It was more of a blur of hair and skin in an obscure shape headed in her direction. And then it stopped. Devlyn wasn’t about to let her miss this.
                The blow was hard and sharp and Katerina felt it all the way to the back of her skull. Had she been anything close to human, the strength in that punch would have cracked her skull as easily as breaking a brittle nail. It was all instinct in the hand that backlashed its way across Devlyn’s face. The utter shock and surprise that ran coursing throughout her body she never let reach her face. Devlyn wasn’t going to know the astonishment she was causing. No. Her reactions were undeserving of such satisfaction. Devlyn did attack her, forcing all of her weight at Katia’s midsection in an effort to knock her down and tackle her.
                Katerina truly did not know how to respond. She didn’t start this fight, but she damn well knew she was going to lose it. She didn’t start the fight, she just lost it. Great. Even being half a foot taller, she didn’t have the goddess’s strength, and she didn’t have that kind of built up rage and aggression in her, at least none that she hadn’t blocked herself from tapping into.
                The fight was on now. Katerina was not the type to merely sit back and submissively take a beating. She defended herself without doing too much damage to Devlyn. Pain would only increase her adrenaline, if she could even feel anything by now. Katia blocked punches, pushed back, but overall kept herself in the defensive. Devlyn had to get this aggression out. It wasn’t healthy by any means. Better let her unleash it now on Katerina instead of a fight with Nykosas. She doubted War would so restrained.
                The emotions in the room were charged enough that they could almost literally reach out and touch them. Katia could take quite a beating and heal rapidly but she knew that despite that, she was going to have to use her best glamour for a few days until the bruises wore off and her cracked cheek bone healed. She had just punched Devlyn in the mouth when Mariad walked in the room.
                “Mon Dieu, what in heavens’ name do you girls think you are doing?” she shouted as she rushed to them. Mariad was the closest thing to human they had in their entourage. At fifty-two, Mariad was an aging witch with salt-and-pepper hair and clean ivory skin that was beginning to wrinkle. At five-foot-three, she was far from physically imposing, but the very aura surrounding her demanded attention. She was one of many over the centuries implored by the Cynthonian gods to watch over Devlyn and those within her train.
                “Stop!” she yelled and moved to freeze them when Devlyn merely tossed a hand in her general direction that sent the witch flying back a few feet in the air to land in a heap near the door. “This was not a part of my agreement to baby-sit you,” she grumbled. She sat up, carefully feeling if anything were broken.
                With the hand distracted for an instant, Katia used that moment to put her legs between their bodies and forced her legs straight to fling Devlyn off of her, in hopes that a moment of hesitation would bring reality back into her mind. Man, the wrath of a goddess was a b***h to suffer through.
                Devlyn looked around the room, at Katerina who was crouched, a snarl twisting her lovely face into a warrior’s mask, waiting for another tumble, bleeding from the mouth and nose, wrist twisted in an unnatural position. And Mariad, lying on the floor, slightly dazed. She had done this, caused pain on those she held most dear here.
                Devlyn was truly ashamed of her own behavior, lashing out at others to help her come to grasp with her inner turmoil. It was too humanistic. She really was acting jejune. But words cut deep and she was in no mood to be forgiving. She looked squarely at Katrina and growled threw gritted teeth an omnisciently warning, “Get out.”
                “Devlyn, please, just calm"“
                “I said get out!” she screamed with a wave of her hand, forcing a sudden surge of power to rapidly fill the room. The power held an almost iridescent quality to it, heavy and thick, and Katerina wanted to drown it was so encompassing. Tight and straining like a rope around her neck, the power crawled through the room, slowly encircling her like a python about to strike, although the power was already attacking through every pore, making her want to choke and sigh at the same time, as the invisible heat coalesced around her.

Katerina stood up slowly, head raised but eyes averted. She knew right now all of her training in propriety and etiquette was necessary. It seemed fear and rage, when mixed together, could bring out the lethal in Devlyn. It also brought out the goddess and all of the power that that entailed. To breech on etiquette and her place among the deities right now could mean her entire existence. Devlyn had been raised as a goddess, with protocol and form. Right now, every bit of that which was innately ingrained in her was demanding respect. If she met her eyes now, like human’s, especially in America, to show all the emotions going through her, to speak through her eyes, the goddess would see it as a sign of equality, of dominance, or even of rebellion or defiance. And the earth goddess would kill her for that.
                She gracefully, carefully went to the door and lightly closed it behind her, careful not to make even the most remote sound.
                Once the click of the door permeated the silence in the room, Devlyn dropped to her knees in a heap and sobbed. Laying her head in her lap, she cried earnestly for her naivety and stupidity, her anger and her outlet. Mariad slowly walked over to her, dropped down and put her arms around Devlyn’s shoulder in a naturally motherly gesture to comfort a very lost child.

Mariad knew that though Devlyn was quite old, she was still very young in many ways. Time and years, she knew, were relative, and a person learned many things in time relative to their lifespan. Half of her life was gone, already spent time well used, but young Devlyn’s life was only just beginning. She had so much more to learn.

                The minute Devlyn felt Mariad’s embrace to be comforting, her arms slid around the older woman’s waist and she pressed her cheek to her bosom like a small child would his mother. “Oh, Mariad, I’m so sorry.” Mariad let her weep. She had never before witnessed Devlyn in such a state of conflicting emotions, and she had never seen her act on both intensities with so much fervor. The goddess and the child coming out so suddenly was scary coming from a being that held such power.

Errie, God of Death, and Merrick, God of Vengeance along with Aren and age-old friend and demon Kris sat around Bane at a secluded table on the second floor of Temptations, an array of empty and unopened bottles of kasysis in the middle, and another being poured, not quite accurately though quite precisely, into a snifter by Bane.

The two brothers cast amused glances at their quite inebriated middle brother. “I don’t give a bloody well f**k anymore!” he mumbled belligerently.

“Of course you do,” Merrick scoffed offhandedly. “You know very well what is at stake, and it is a lot more than either of your happiness.”

Bane glared at his older brother and measured him up. He may be the God of Vengeance, he thought, but I can take him. “I know what’s at stake.” It wasn’t just them, but the entire world. He looked over at his younger brother. “You take her!” It sounded right. She didn’t want him, then mayhap Errie could gain her trust. He said the words, thought he meant them, until a flash image of his beautiful Devlyn intertwined with Errie had him reaching for the bottle once more.

Errie gave a short laugh. He liked Devlyn, loved her as a sister, but if he was going to be bound to a particular woman for eternity, Devlynaria would definitely not be his first choice. Though she was wonderful in her own temperamental way, and he would not change a thing about her, for his mate he wanted someone full of light and life, to contrast his darkness and the death he represented.

            “That would accomplish nothing,” Errie told him as he shot back his own swallow of the tingling liquid. Even if she would acquiesce, I’m half Greek, and we would still have the same apocalyptic problem.”

            More was on the line here than love, Bane knew that. It would probably be a lot simpler if there was nothing between them, they could agree to come together to accomplish what needed done, and then they could go their separate ways. But he did care for the teal-eyed little wench, cared too much, and it clouded everything else when it came to her. He had proven that for over two thousand years now, and he was getting damn well tired of proving himself to someone that wasn’t even aware of it.  Nothing between the two of them was simple.

            “I don’t care!” he snarled, then turned back to Merrick. “You’re full Cynthonian. You take her, you deal with her then! I’m done with it!”

Merrick burst out laughing, a resounding guffaw that rippled throughout the proximity. “You don’t mean that. Besides, with the history between Katerina and me, she would be just as unwilling to accept me, and we would still have the same problem.”

Bane took another swill. “Then it’s your turn.”

Merrick shook his head. “I’m not in love with her, I wouldn’t take her ridiculously delusional feelings into account, and I would force the girl to accept the inevitable. There would be no going back from that.” He gesticulated toward Aren, but it wasn’t quite Aren that he was seeing. “Then the three of you would hate me. Katerina would never forgive me.”

Merrick took his own very large gulp, trying to drown his own bitter thoughts of love. How could he be so pragmatic on how to deal with Devlyn, but let one single muse get under his skin and mess with his head more than any other being in all his life put together? He didn’t want that kind of attachment, didn’t need it. Watching Bane and Devlyn proved that unpredictable women only led to a man’s senility.

Bane sat back. He knew he would kill Merrick before he would let his brother do anything so savage to her, and Merrick knew that too. He could push off his responsibility in theory all he liked, but everyone at that table knew it was all boastful talk. He loved her, and he wasn’t going to let any other man touch her. He gave a wry, dark smile. “So once again the burden of our dear Devlynaria falls to me.”

He looked up, belatedly remembering that Kris and Aren were sharing in his bemoaning. “So what have you two to say on this? You both know her as well as we do. Any suggestions?”

Kris and Aren looked at each other, silently thinking about Devlyn, and about anyone who felt strongly for anyone else. Aren turned back to Bane, knowing the perfect accord he shared with Kris. “She does feel for you. She wouldn’t act so vehemently otherwise. So the answer is quite simple: make her jealous. Make her jealous and push her into fighting for you.”

They continued passing around the bottle, Bane liking the idea more and more. They allowed the topic to momentarily drop. A camaraderie had sprung up between the allies over the years, under the severely lacking personal radar of the ladies. Even Katerina felt a certain safety with Kris and Errie, and even begrudgingly Merrick. And Aren had developed a few useful tricks over the years’ imprisonment sharing a body. He could drop the line completely between their essences, blocking out her ability to feel him at all while in control of a physical form.

No one else would know about their revelry tonight, and they enjoyed the moment while it lasted.  Merrick and Bane grew to their most lethally witty, and the gods spent a good amount of amusement teasing Kris about the nymph Merrick had loaned him, asking Aren if the females of the new millennia compared to lasses when he first roamed the earth. Though they all spent a fair share of time with the more traditional bout of ruthless mockery of Errie’s half Greek origins.

“So how long do we have to enact this comedy of errors?” Kris asked the trio before him.

The brothers’ eyes met across the table, a silent conversation striking up between them, before Bane looked away and out at Aren and Kris. “Three months,” he said before he shot down the last of his glass.

Kris paled. Aren turned red. “Three months? Three f*****g months? Why the hell did you let it get this far? Why are you just now here?” he stormed. He did not typically raise his voice to any of the gods, especially not the Cynthonians, but his own anger, combined with Katia’s fury was beyond his control.

            “I was stupidly trying to take her feelings into consideration.”

            “Until the last minute?” Aren pressed.

“No, that would be my brother’s pride,” Errie filled in. “He wanted her to come to him of her own accord.”

“So why haven’t you been here bloody seducing her?” Aren demanded. “You’ve had two thousand years�"”

Bane’s temper exploded as he rose from his chair and stood over a still-seated Aren. “I know exactly how long Devlyn has been here.”

“Sit down, Nykosas,” Merrick said mildly. “Three months is plenty of time for you to seduce Eyes, or at the very least make her see reason.”

Bane swung around to his older brother. “Don’t call her that.”

Merrick arched a dark eyebrow. “I will call her whatever I damn well please. She is my friend, she is my sister-in-law, and she will be the mother of my nieces and nephews. I have known her longer and better than you, my brother, and I have earned the right to call her a pet name.”

“And I haven’t?”

“No, not according to her. What you have earned the right to is to call her yours, even though she is not aware of the sacrifices you made for her.” 

Bane sat down, well aware that he was making an a*s out of himself. His brothers meant well enough, hell they were all here supporting him as he drowned himself in his sorrow like some whelp of a human. He just didn’t know how to deal with Devlyn, much less his feelings for her, and everything depended upon the two of them. He could think like Merrick, decide that it was time to force her into reason, but then the last twenty-seven-hundred years would be in vain. He had let her stay down here to protect her from the harsh realities of their world. To take her by force would undo that completely.

But he was going to brush those thoughts aside for now. It had been decades since he had shared a night with these guys. This group of men before him was a brotherhood unlike any he had ever experienced in his long existence. His brothers were devoted to him out of blood, but something thicker than that made all five of them kin. They all shared a love for the earth goddess, and they would all put their very existence on the line to protect her, and as a result, they would protect each other. They were friends. And friends were a rare commodity among immortals.

Another hour of jocularity past before Aren stood up rather abruptly. “I’m afraid, gentlemen, that my time with you all has come to its end. If we are to keep up this farce in the face of male camaraderie, I must go and check in with our fair goddess.”

The teasing only continued, until one of them made a comment on Aren being “p***y whipped” and Bane saw red and nearly came out of his seat. “Sit down, Nykosas. I’m no more whipped by Devlyn than anyone else at this table. But at least I’m man enough to admit it. Also, none of you have to live with the chit.” And he made his departure.

The jesting continued until one dark thought entered Bane’s mind so abruptly it was out of his mouth before his drunk mind could stop it. “How the hell do you make a goddess jealous?”

That gave them all pause, made them stop and look from one to the other. It was Kris who had the insight to answer. “Some of her demonic sisters have called upon her, reminded her of her duty, rather interspersed over the past few years. It’s about time for the next little visit, I’d say. And who better to spring up some jealousy in our fair, half-lighted Devlyn than one of her half-demon sisters?”

It sank into each of their minds like fast-working quicksand. One of her sisters, it sounded too good to be true. The only problem would be which sister to choose to divulge this nefarious plan, for not all, or even any, of these dark women were to be trusted with much. All were deadly, some merely sociopathic among their own kind, and only a few could pass as human in the mortal world. They were all beautiful though, some more so than others. But Bane had one in mind, one sister that matched Devlyn in so many ways, one sister who resembled Devlyn enough in looks, but one whose soul was as dark as the sea. One sister who represented enough contradiction to Devlyn to make her, if possible, feel enough of that overwhelming jealousy to get her motivated into claiming what was hers.

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Changed this scene from its previous version. It was just missing something. It was one of the first scenes written, and so much had been transformed and revealed that I felt this scene needed touching up. Let me know if you like the change.