He steps aside and I see that we are in an enclave outdoors. Rocky walls and plants enclose a small area made of stone, with steps leading down to a pool of water that steams in the air. He walks on a narrow ledge to my right after closing the door. I stand at the top of the wet steps, unsure of what to do.
He is undressing. “Get in,” he tells me.
I look over at him, but he doesn’t look back. The robe slides from his dark skin and I have a full view of his magnificent body: muscle, his round buttocks, the crisscrossedkryththat now glows a duller yellow. He is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.
“Get. In,” he repeats, without looking back at me.
I walk down the steps to the pool of water and dip my toe in. It’s hot, but not so hot I can’t get in. Just unpleasantly warm. I look back at him. He is naked, the full magnificence of his body on view, his cock enormous between his legs. He glares at me, and a ripple of yellow flashes through hiskrythlike lightning.
I look back at the pool. I wonder, vaguely, if he’s going to drown me here, but I don’t dare ponder the question too deeply. Not even emotionally; somehow I know I’m safe from Rysethk harming me.
But I want more than that. My eyes start to sting with unwanted tears.
I shrug the robe off and toss it aside, onto the stones. There are no steps into the pool, so I have to sit down and drop my legs in, then drop into the water. The stone is dark, and I have no idea how deep it is. A little bit of panic rises in my body as I keep sinking, so I kick my feet violently to try to swim. I scrape the bottom and curse, then stand on the rocks. The water comes up to my neck. I tread water anyway, to keep my balance, and I turn slowly toward Rysethk.
He is walking down the steps already. He points at the far end of the pool. “Go over there,” he says sullenly, looking off to the side. “Turn around.”
I hesitate, but then I do as he asked, treading over to the opposite side of the pool. I put my arms on the rocks and hold them, turning my head slightly to see in my peripheral vision that he’s entering the pool.
He stays on his side, standing stiffly once he’s in the pool.
I let my body float up, knowing that he can see my figure in the water, hoping that he’s looking at me, hoping, on the one hand, that I’m enticing him. On the other hand, I hope that I’m not, because I don’t want to cause him trouble, because I know that I’m playing a dangerous game.
“What will happen?” I say, my cheek turned slightly toward him.
He doesn’t answer, so I turn around more fully, and I see that he’s staring at my legs, his features hardened.
“Rysethk,” I say. “What will—”
He reaches for my foot, catlike in his speed again, and grasps my ankle gently. Then he pulls me toward him, and I turn as he does, until my body is close to his. He moves toward me, and when we collide, my legs wrap around him. He continues back toward the far end of the pool where I started out, until my back is against the lip of the pool.
“You must never, ever say those words again, Anya Mann,” he growls. His face is close to mine, his eyes large, consuming me. He seems angry, and fear travels through me in electric ripples. But along the underside of my thigh, I feel his cock pulsing to life again, enormous, warmer than the water, and the ache between my legs overpowers my fear. I move my body, slipping over his skin, until his cock is aligned with my pussy. I cannot break with his stare, no matter how intense it is.
“Which words?” I whisper, and his cock throbs. A growl curls inside his chest, vibrating against my skin, and I can feel his arousal traveling through his whole body. His cock flexes, pushing up against my clit, igniting the soreness left by the first time he entered me.
I pull on him with my legs, and his cock slides inside of me, filling me, stretching me again. Hiskrythseems to catch fire, lighting up, electrified. I put my lips on the large pattern across his chest, and the effect is instantaneous: a pulse of energy runs through him, and his cock flexes inside of me. It delivers an excruciating pleasure to the root of my clit, almost tipping me over into another orgasm before we even get started.
It’s at this moment that I realize I have power over him, as much as he has power over me. Even as I feel his claws against my skin, and the shiver of dangerous, fearful lust they bring travels down my spine, I’m emboldened.
“I love you?” I ask him. “Are those—”
He thrusts hard and deep inside of me, pulling my head close to his chest and plummeting deep inside of me.
“Do not…” he breathes into my hair. He pulls away, and before he speaks again, I move my mouth to his. When he kisses me, he’s hungry, and the hunger travels through his body and into mine. As with other times, hiskrythis transmitting something to me—his pulse, his desires, his feelings—but now they are not calming. They are maddening, infatuating. “…say those words,” he finishes, taking a breath.
He is fucking me slowly, and I can barely keep my eyes open because the pleasure is so overwhelming.
“I love you,” I say anyway.
“…say those words…” he breathes, grasping my hair almost painfully, looking down at me.
“I love you,” I repeat, and this makes his cock pulse, bumping against my cervix, straining my flesh. I gasp, as another orgasm overcomes me, a tsunami of pleasure that threatens to knock me unconscious, stars gathering in the sides of my vision. He presses me to his chest to muffle my screams, and then he comes again, his seed filling me, hot and delicious.
We shudder together, clinging to each other, for many minutes. He pulls away suddenly, leaving my body, but still staring at me, almost in disbelief.
I reach for his arm, and he shudders when I touch him, looking down at my hands on his pulsingkryth.
He looks back at me. “Anya,” he says. And then his eyes harden. “You must never speak those words again. Do you understand me?”
