A fire in the flash

“I wonder what it is about him that inspires such emotion in you.” His lips had begun to draw back, losing color and then the flesh itself, exposing his teeth and fangs as the tissue around his eyes, his eyelids, and the skin below began to sink in, leaving nothing but the bone behind. “And what it is about me that incites fear from you.”

A sour taste gathered as a near-hysterical laugh choked me. Was he seriously asking that? While he was turning into a godsdamn skeleton right in front of me?

“It makes me want to hurt him,” Kolis snarled. “Destroy him.”

Everything in me froze.

“But I won’t. I won’t. There must be balance, one way or another,” he said as if reminding himself. And holy fuck, that wasn’t reassuring. A shudder went through him, and the shape of his lips filled out. His eyelids returned, shielding the unholy burn of eather. “Without it, there is nothing.”

I stared at him, wide-eyed.

“There are no realms. No me,” he said. “No you.”

“Uh-huh,” I murmured.

Those eyes opened. Several moments passed as Kolis became more…fleshed out. “You were afraid of me before, when I first lost you and brought you back. It wasn’t until the end of our time together that it changed.” He exhaled long and slow. “But this time, you’ve shown very little fear of me, even if you’ve felt it. That’s changed.”

Looking upon Kolis now, after watching him lose his hold on his temper and let go of the façade that hid what he was, all I could think about was how Tavius had physically changed when he grew angry or was about to do something particularly heinous. He hadn’t flushed or become erratic. When that darkness in him took hold, he’d grown very still, almost lifeless, except for the gleam in his eyes. That fevered, crazed look I’d seen once before in a dog that had become sick, causing it to foam at the mouth and bite at the air.

Kolis had the same gleam. “You showed it when I last left you,” he said, the eather receding from his skin. “And you show it now. I don’t need my nephew’s talent for reading emotion to know that, nor my brother’s foresight.”

“Foresight?” I asked, unable to stop myself. “Eythos could see the future?”

“Not in the way you would think,” he said. “Eythos was given…heightened intuition. Knowledge of what should not be known to him.” A smirk twisted his lips. “He didn’t always utilize the ability or listen.”

Clearly.

“But I understand why I would frighten you now. I spoke of wanting to harm someone you care about. You saw me as I truly look—as I really am beneath the beauty and gold of the very last of the embers of life. You saw me as I was before and will always be. Death. That would terrify most,” he said. “But you were afraid before all of that. Uneasy from the moment I entered, in a way you weren’t before the last time we were alone. That, I don’t understand.”

One thing I’d never managed to learn when dealing with Tavius was how to proceed with caution when he got that glint in his eyes. I had a sinking suspicion I was about to repeat that mistake as my mouth opened. “You truly don’t understand why I’d be uneasy after what you did?”

A muscle ticked at his temple. “I apologized and promised it would not happen again.”

As if that erased what happened?

Kolis stared at me, waiting.

Apparently, he believed his apology and meaningless promises did change everything.

They didn’t.

But I had to say something. I cleared my throat, my mind racing. Of course, I knew I should accept his apology. Tell him it was okay. Say I’d enjoyed it, even though I clearly hadn’t. But I…I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything but the truth. “You…you did frighten me.” My fingers curled inward. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

The skin between his brows puckered. “I apologized,” he repeated.

“I know,” I said. “And you promised that it wouldn’t happen again. Neither of those things makes what happened okay.”

“Then let me repeat myself once more. I told you it would not happen again,” he said, frustration sharpening his tone. “Which you just acknowledged.”

My control slipped. “You forced yourself on me.”

The corners of his lips turned down. “I know the display of my love for you was intense.”

Love? He called that a display of love? It had been a show of jealousy-and-anger-fueled punishment—one he ended up enjoying.

“I lost control,” he said as the churning moved up my throat. “That is all.”

For a moment, I was struck silent by his response. “You didn’t just lose control,” I said, a part of me unable to believe that I had to explain this to a more-than-grown-ass man. “You bit me again without my consent, and you found pleasure while doing so. An apology and promise will not make that okay.”

“What will make it okay?” he demanded, his cheeks deepening in color. “I wish to start anew with you. Tell me how I can make that possible.”

I stared at him, trying to understand how he could think this was something one could make okay. Like what experiences had he lived that gave him the impression that one could start anew after violating someone? Yes, he was a Primal god, and they operated under rules and norms I would likely never understand, but that didn’t excuse his behavior now or before with Sotoria. That wasn’t a good enough reason.

But then it struck me. And it was plainly obvious. There was no excuse. Just as with Tavius, this was simply how Kolis was. And maybe something in his past made him this way, but I couldn’t give an actual fuck about what it might be, because no reasons were good enough. Mortals and gods alike had all been through horrible things, but not all of them turned into this. Aios was a good example. So was Ash.

So was I.

But what I did care about was Ash, so I tamped down my rage and gave Kolis what he wanted. Mostly. “I need time.”

“Time?” he repeated, his brows lifting.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “I need time to trust that you will honor your promise.”

“My word should be good enough,” he stated flatly.

My gods, I was two seconds from losing my shit. “I don’t know you—”

Kolis was suddenly right before me, eather crackling in his eyes. “I am the King of Gods. You know that. It should be enough.”

He was out of his mind.

I held myself still, even as my heart hammered. “This is not helping.”

Several long, unsettling moments passed, then he stepped back. “You’re right.” The essence faded from around him. “I will give you time.”

I didn’t believe that. If he couldn’t understand the wrongness of his actions or chose not to, he wouldn’t respect my request for time. He wasn’t capable of doing so. And that wasn’t a justification or an excuse. It was the terrifying reality of who he was, whether he was all the beauty and gold of the embers he’d stolen or Death.

“I will give you time to feel more comfortable around me,” he continued. His shoulders bunched in my silence. “Say something.”

Go fuck yourself. I wanted to say that. Or I hope you die a slow, terrible death that lasts thousands of years, you sick motherfucker.

“Okay,” I forced out instead. “Thank you.”

“Good.” Some of the rigidness eased from him, and that well-practiced smile instantly returned as he placed his glass on the table. “Nyktos is coming out of stasis and should be in a position to be released in the next couple of days.”

There was no mistaking how he attempted to downplay what he’d done to Ash with his word choice. It wasn’t a change in position. It was a change in his health.

A demand to see what kind of state Ash was in rose to the tip of my tongue—one that would surely make things worse for Ash. Because I’d heard the struggle in Kolis’s voice when he reminded himself that there must always be balance. It was something he was very much capable of forgetting.