“Oh my gods—I am so sorry—I don’t know what—I didn’t mean?—”
But she had meant it—oh gods, she had. Some traitorous part of her was suddenly awake, humming like it had been waiting for this all along, and now it was thrumming through her veins, hot and shameless, even as the rest of her screamedabort, abort.
Splice’s barklike skin had gone taut, fine lines etched around his eyes like tree rings. His mouth was slightly parted, and his strange gaze bored into her like he didn’t understand what had just happened, or why it mattered so much.
Goldie went cold all over, then flushed so hard she thought her earrings might melt off.Say something. Make a joke. Scream into a pillow. Throw yourself into the godsdamned sun.
She laughed, too loud, too bright, and shot to her feet like a cork out of shaken champagne. “Well! That was… awkward. Stellar job, Goldie. Really crushing the post-trauma etiquette handbook.”
His still staring, still unreadable eyes remained on her.
“Don’t mind me,” she went on, clapping her hands once. “Humans do this thing sometimes. Grief sex! Someone dies, big feelings happen, and you thinkyes, clearly the answer is to make out with the bark-covered man-entity who carried me out of a murder scene.Whoops. My bad.”
She turned and made a beeline for the kitchen before Splice could respond, rattling around with mugs and the tea tin just to have something in her hands. “See, death and adrenaline? Messy cocktail,” she called over her shoulder. “Add in your whole stoic leafy protector thing, andbam,recipe for questionable decision-making. Sorry. Won’t happen again, I promise.”
She heard him enter the kitchen but kept her focus on the tea leaves.
“You speak of ritual,” he said, his voice quiet and close.
She turned, brows knitting. “What?”
“The grief sex,” Splice replied, and the clinical term landed like solemn scripture in her apartment. He stepped closer, the air shifting with him.
“In older days, desire was ritual. Maidens went barefoot into the wilds to be blessed. Couples sought fertile ground. The grieving came begging for rebirth. Mycor gave freely, without shame, for he is the cycle: blossom, fruit, rot, seed.”
As he spoke, something stirred. A faint light threaded his skin, green-gold veins kindling beneath bark-shadowed flesh. His gaze was steady, burning.
“I have stood for him countless times, accepting the offering of those who needed blessing but feared the Thornfather’s deeper wildness. It was joyous. It was sacred.”
Goldie’s mouth went dry. She could almost feel the sunlight in the fields he described, the pulse of bodies, the musk of loam and skin. Her breath hitched. And there it was again—that traitorous hum in her blood, sudden and shameless.
Splice moved closer until the kitchen counter was at her back and he was right there, a breath away. She tilted her head upwards, very suddenly aware that his shoulders were broad as a sturdy tree trunk, that quiet power radiated in the lines of his frame, and if he bent his headjust sohis lips would reach hers.
“Is that what you wish?” His hand lifted and settled lightly at her neck.
Up close, he was beautiful in a way that didn’t belong in kitchens. His face was all sharp hollows and gleaming edges, like wood sculpted by water and wind. His eyes began to glow faintly as he moved his thumb gently against her skin.
“Um,” she whispered. “Okay?”
His gaze dipped reverently to her lips. “You are the offering,” he intoned, the words sounding older than time itself. “I am the ground that accepts it.”
He bent his head and claimed her mouth in a lingering press that coaxed a startled moan from her throat. His lips were cool at first, then searing as he deepened the kiss, tongue sliding against hers with unhurried hunger.
Heat rippled through her like a spark catching dry tinder, each nerve alight, her body arching toward him before she realized she’d moved. The taste of him was wild earth and green things after rain, and she wanted more.
Fine tendrils began to slip free from his fingers, curling down her shoulders and arms. Their touch was feather-light but insistent, coaxing her closer. She gasped into his mouth, her hands flying to his shoulders for balance. He radiated warmth like sunlit stone, his chest a steady furnace pressed to hers.
Between breaths his lips brushed hers, his voice a hushed chant.
“Root to root. Breath to breath. Seed to soil.”
Each syllable carried a pulse of power, sinking into her as surely as the kiss.
Something under her skin shuddered awake, wild and wordless, and she whimpered. Her thighs clenched, heat spiraling low in her belly.
His mouth brushed the corner of hers. “Blossom.” His lips grazed her cheekbone. “Fruit.” A breath of a kiss to her forehead. “Rot.” His fingers finally ghosted over the curve of her hip. “Seed.”
Gods, it was weird. Hot, but weird. Like receiving a horny blessing from a priest of the wilderness. Arousing in a way that made her shiver, but also unsettling, like she was being turned into a living altar.
