Sinners' Kingdom #1: The Book of Lust (Complete)

79

Of all the times for them to reappear—how could this get any worse? We were in the middle of actual deserted wilderness, not a sign of civilization about so our only reflective exit was the currently disturbed lake surface. While being pinned here by a rampaging monster that only seemed to grow bigger every time I fearfully looked back at it, the sirens had to become a literal headache once more with exactly zero invitation. Shouldn't they be afraid of being torn to bits by the snake monster! Shouldn't they still be hiding and keeping well away from us! Hadn't they all fled earlier because of it or something? God—everything was still so scrambled and chaotic in my mind, but none of it mattered anyway, did it. We were so close to the winged serpent titan that if it really wanted to, in two seconds flat it could ignore Mammon, slither right over, and crush me to a pulp with no argument. I didn't even really understand why it hadn't done so yet. Mammon was dangerous, powerful, and he could tear apart any man in the blink of an eye, but surely that enormous monster could just throw him off if it really wanted to?

My life hung on a thread, on the whim of monsters. It really, really didn't need sirens join in in fucking it up even more. Again.

That Lust forgot to lay the usual empty words of comfort on me as soon as we both noticed the sirens was telling. His crimson eyes that flashed and narrowed as he stared up at the gray mass lapping back and forth across the sky could spare no glance for me—and for good reason. Before, he and Mammon had been so cocky, never doubting for a second that they could handle the inferior sirens because they were powerful Princes, far incomparable. Now? He was in tatters, and so was Mammon.

Things would only get worse. The monsters of Hollywood and their computer generated destruction were all glamorous fantasy, never showing the true, grisly consequences of defenseless victims crushed underfoot. Or swallowed whole. Again. Dead, just like that, with my guts likely on the outside of my body as I took to the grave the last hope of the Solaria line.

And all its triumphs and secrets.

... Yeah, right. Me, bullied by some shitty giant birds and an abomination of nature snake? Not without a fucking fight. Not before I got all the answers to my questions. Every single one.

There was only one thing to do.

Become the biggest pain in the ass I could ever humanly be.

"Let me down," I ordered. "Give me the whip."

I didn't know where the strength to claw up the Command came from. No, I did know, but I wished I didn't, because the roiling, winding, smooth-scaled sensation sliding about in the very center of my being felt oddly and terrifyingly familiar as I glanced back again at the serpent that visibly froze on the bank. It ignored Mammon ripping into another of its dragging white wings and turned its grotesque-beautiful head this way and that, as if searching for a scent in the air. The white-filmed eyes, I realized ever so belatedly. That was why its eyes were so eerily pale and colorless. The monster was blind all along. It must have followed Lust and me this far on scent alone, or whatever other senses it relied on, and now that Lust had taken me into the water, the scent must be compromised.

"Didn't you hear me? I said, let me down." I forced my gaze to return to Lust and glared at him. My aggressive confidence swelled, growing into its new skin. Call it fake, call it forced, but if faking it was what it took to finally take my control back, then I would fake it to the end. I squirmed in Lust's arms and dug my fingertips between my thigh and his hand where the whip's handle had been trapped. "Give it to me! Now!"

It wasn't my imagination after all. Before, when I tried to Command Lust, it had been like trying to pour water out of an empty vessel, tipping it over and shaking it wildly only to get the rattling of pebbles back as an answer. Now, even though the braided strands of power twisting out of me were still wispy and delicate, barely more substantial than a breath, they were worlds stronger, pulsing with life hard-earned.