Chapter Eight

"Tenjin, I implore you to reconsider this."

Tenjin simply ignored Tsukuyomi's words to smile at us, clearly already plotting devious plans in his head as he drummed his fingertips together. Of course, Yiuwa wasn't amused as he glared at the smaller deity.

"If you think a simple barrier spell will contain us, you are sorely mistaken," he said. Tenjin batted his lashes innocently, then dropped the act as quickly as he'd whipped it out, giving Yiuwa a bored stare as he folded his arms over his chest.

"And if you think that I, Tenjin the god of scholars and knowledge, would play with a run-of-the-mill barrier, you are utterly stupid," he announced, "See, my barrier is special. It's not only a magical barrier, but one infused with electricity. You can try and escape as much as you like, but you're going to end up tempura on the other side."

"I don't even know what that is," Yiuwa said under his breath and Tenjin gave him a long, irate stare before looking at Tsukuyomi.

"Fine, you can have him," he said, then looked at me, "But I get to keep that one."

"I'm not leaving without Rowan," Yiuwa warned him. Tenjin shrugged.

"Then welcome to my lair, because your Rowan is staying here."

"Not his," I deadpanned. Tenjin smirked, reaching up to tap his fingertips to his throat to indicate the mark on my neck.

"I'm no fool. I know what that mark means, or at least, the gist of it," he said, making Yiuwa's eyes widen in surprise, "There are certain species in our universe that still use the mating mark. It's rare, but not unheard of. Now, none of ours look like that, but I came to the correct conclusions anyway. You two are mated, and something tells me if that if I were to harm your beloved, you wouldn't be too happy."

"You wouldn't dare," Yiuwa seethed, moving forward and actually getting in front of me to block Tenjin. I glared at Yiuwa, annoyed, then moved around him to look at Tenjin, who appeared all too ready to accept Yiuwa's challenge.

"Enough," I said, making Tenjin glance at me, "Let's make a deal." Tenjin's eyes sparkled at that.

"Oh?"

"You can research us as much as you want in two days. Then we get to look at the tablets and leave," I stated. Tenjin arched a brow.

"Two weeks."

"One week."

"A week and two days."

"One. Week."

Tenjin narrowed his eyes. He clearly didn't like the idea of being given a time limit. He was considering it, though. He wasn't stupid. He knew that Yiuwa and I would destroy his barrier and escape anyway, when it came right down to it. If anything, it appeared more like he was trying to show off his abilities to Tsukuyomi, considering his dark eyes kept glancing off to the side where Tsukuyomi stood in distress.

"Fine," Tenjin agreed after a moment, "But I get to do any tests I want to, from biopsies to blood draws and I want displays of the curses and their details."

"Fine," I responded, making Yiuwa tense, "And we want to read the tablets and have as much time as we wish with them in order to copy the information."

"As long as they remain in my home," Tenjin said. I inclined my head. Tenjin looked pleased with that, but made no move to get rid of the barrier. At our intense stare, he shrugged before tucking his hands into the sleeves of his robe.

"Never said I couldn't protect my home," he answered. Nobody said anything at this point. Tenjin accepted that, then gestured for us to follow him. We obeyed and Tsukuyomi stuck close to my side while Yiuwa stood on the other, both of them basically boxing me in, much to my irritation.

"This isn't a good idea," Tsukuyomi muttered to me as Tenjin led us through the hallways of his home, revealing not ancient paintings, but diagrams and sketches of things from architecture to the human body to demon bodies and even one for the Kraken beast.

"We don't know what his tests will consist of," Yiuwa agreed grimly, "Rowan, my beast has yet to be released in this universe. If it becomes enraged--"

"You'll calm it," I said, making Yiuwa's eyebrows go up in disbelief, and I glanced at him, "You are ancient and all-powerful, are you not? You controlled your beast before and you shall do it again. If not, then just think of it this way-- at least none of us will be alive for the end of the universe."

"Our souls will be," Tsukuyomi said in a hiss.

"Not for much longer," I answered back.

This could be a good thing. First of all, Tenjin would get what he wanted and so would we, so it seemed fair that we tit for tat this whole mess. And secondly, perhaps there was a way of getting rid of the mark on my neck. The last thing I needed was Yiuwa getting in the way. And he was already beginning to irritate me. Standing in front of me as if he were a shield and I was some helpless damsel.

That pissed me off.

Who did he think he was? Who the hell did he think I was? And did he forget about my curse, or did he think people could bypass it?

Tenjin led us underground to his laboratory. It was certainly impressive, and reminded me a lot of Hades's. The latest in technology from robotics to hygiene, models to computers. The long counters were made of stainless steel with black cupboards and shelving units all filled with various things floating in jars. Even large test tubes revealed full sized corpses of random demons and animals from other realms.

Glancing to the side, I noticed a window that looked into another room. A room full of creatures in cages, and I frowned slowly. All of them bore collars around their throats and were crammed into their cages. And not all of them were animals either; some of them were demons, sitting with their knees drawn and arms wrapped around themselves tightly.

I looked back to Tenjin as he stopped at a computer to do some data input.

"Do they bother you?" Tenjin asked suddenly, making me blink and turn to look at him. He didn't look up from typing, his fingers flying over the keys with expertise.

"Are they here by free will?" I asked. Yiuwa and Tsukuyomi exchanged wary glances before following my gaze into the next room. Tsukuyomi said nothing, simply lowered his eyes, and Yiuwa immediately looked outraged.

"No," Tenjin replied, "And before you call PETA on me, or the demon version of it, you'll be happy to know that all of my test subjects are blacklisted."

"Blacklisted?" Yiuwa asked.

"Creatures scheduled for execution," Tsukuyomi replied softly, "Tenjin orders his subjects from other realms' dark places. For example, Gehenna or Tartarus. Even some of the souls in Purgatory end up here."

"They're remarkable for study," Tenjin said, "Nobody misses them and I get to poke things with needles and make them cry."

"That's cruel," Yiuwa said immediately. Tenjin smirked, then stepped away from the computer and led us to the window to look inside. He tapped his knuckle on the window, indicating a cage that was toward the center of the room. Inside, a very large muscular male sat with his arms chained up behind him, attached to the bars of the cage, his ankles shackled to the floor, a collar around his neck. His dark hair was matted to his head, his stormy gray eyes watching us with pure malice.

"This one is my favorite," he said, "His name is Sin, and very aptly named. You see, he's a former Sumerian bastard demigod. Still a demigod, but his pantheon disowned him for killing his mother and leaving her corpse on the front steps of her temple. He also hit up a few other pantheons, killed a few other gods--"

"Wait, killed a few gods?" I asked immediately. That made no sense. Killing gods was not an easy feat and if you killed the wrong one, you'd disrupt the balance and plunge the universe into chaos.

"Oh, right," Tenjin said, shaking his head, "My mistake. His mother was the goddess Azimua. His father is commonly known as the God Killer."

"Alexion?" Yiuwa asked in disbelief. Tenjin inclined his head.

"You know gods of that region. Always sleeping with whomever catches their eye," he replied, making Tsukuyomi glance at him distastefully, "Anyway, Sin here caused quite a mess of bodies in his wake and he needed to be stopped before he wiped out all god-kind. So, he was imprisoned in Purgatory for a few hundred years before he started back up again. Fortunately for me, Thorn was looking for a new home for this piece of treasure, so I took him into my home, gave him a nice comfortable cage, and hours of torture. I mean, study."

"Killing your mother is rather awful, killing a goddess is worse, but that can't be all," I said. Tenjin got an evil glint in his eye as he turned to look inside at Sin, who abruptly snapped his head to glare at us, those eerie stormy eyes flashing and his fangs baring.

"His mother was pregnant," Tenjin replied smoothly, backing away from the window, "He cut her open from clit to throat."

"Christ," I muttered. I looked inside at Sin. He sat there, glaring at us, a look of feral malice in his eyes. I got an incredibly bad feeling from him and moved away from the window, turning to face Tenjin, who looked happy to have disturbed everyone with the male's story.

"Shall we begin?" I asked. Tenjin inclined his head and led us back over to the computer so he could finish the last bit of data input before he took us to what appeared to be a doctor's room in the corner of the lab with a curtain that separated it from the rest of the room.

"I'll do you first," Tenjin said, turning to me and I inclined my head. Beside me, Yiuwa growled low in his throat. I stared at him and so did Tenjin before the corner of his lips lifted in an amused smirk.

"I'll let you two hash it out while I get my supplies," he said, backing away and disappearing through a pair of double doors. I turned to Yiuwa, who wiped a hand down his face in irritation.

"Stop," I ordered, making Yiuwa glance at me, "This is a simple deal. Contrary to the mark, I am not your mate or whatever. This is not a silly fanfiction where I swoon over your fruitless attempts to protect me from nothing. And for the record, I do not need your protection. I've lived thousands of years without anyone else, and I plan to continue to do so." Yiuwa's eyes flashed at that. He was clearly annoyed by my words and fully prepared to argue.

"I don't care what you say," he responded, "It is built into me on a personal level to protect those that are close to me."

"I don't even know what fucking blood type you are."
"QJ."

"What the fuck is that?"

"I believe your people call it A negative."

"Jesus Christ," I groaned, turning away from him and shaking my head before I cast him a long hard stare, "Keep your protests to yourself. This is the deal we made and I consent to his tests. He's just like Hades. Once you feed their curiosity, they're done with you and want nothing to do with you because they got what they wanted. Just a few pokes and pricks and this'll be over quickly." Yiuwa stared at me for the longest time, grinding his teeth.

"He said he wanted to trigger our curses," he said after a moment. I frowned, folding my arms over my chest.

"So?"

"So that means triggering my beast," Yiuwa muttered. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"I told you, you will control it--"

"Not with you around," Yiuwa argued, making me glance at him, "Don't you understand what he means? He's going to trigger my beast by hurting you."

"Nobody can hurt me," I deadpanned, making Yiuwa tsk and roll his eyes, "I mean it. The worst that could ever happen to me has already happened. Nothing he says or does to me will hurt." Yiuwa fell silent at that. His eyes swam with pain, but I avoided them and noticed Tsukuyomi staring at me. I glared and he averted his eyes awkwardly.

No sooner had I finished speaking did an eerie crack sound through the room. Tsukuyomi looked up curiously and I frowned, a bad feeling settling in my stomach. Yiuwa stepped forward before I could say anything, his hand reaching out and pulling back the curtain. In a blur of motion, a huge male came out of nowhere and slammed into Yiuwa, grabbing him by the head and slamming it into the floor.

"Shit!" I cursed, throwing my arm out to keep Tsukuyomi back. I recognized the male pummeling Yiuwa as the one Tenjin had shown us named Sin. Up close and personal, Sin was bigger than I expected. He was practically Yiuwa's size, only rippling with thick bulging muscles. He was baring a pair of elongated fangs, his fingernails turning into claws as his stormy eyes flashed red, then back again. My eyes widened in recognition.

"Fuck, fuck," I said, taking a step back. The savage raw hatred and rage rolled through the air like a thick suffocating fog.

"What are you doing, help--" Tsukuyomi was cut off as Yiuwa's eyes flashed red and he bared a pair of huge fangs right back at Sin, who snarled. Sin took a swipe at Yiuwa with his claws, but Yiuwa caught his arm, dragged him forward, and their heads collided with a sickening crack that made Sin roll backwards off him, clutching his head and growling in pain. Yiuwa spat blood on the floor, rising up slowly, his fangs glinting in the lights as his red eyes glowed.

"Source above," Tsukuyomi whispered as he realized what was happening.

"He did it on purpose," I seethed, piecing everything together, "He released Sin, knowing he was cursed with the Beast. And that he would attack Yiuwa." The moment I spoke, Sin's head snapped toward me and his red eyes zeroed in on me, his fangs dripping with saliva.

"And I think he just found Yiuwa's weakness," Tsukuyomi said grimly.