I remembered how maddening my heat was and the months leading up to it.
Did Desmond suffer the prevalent wet dreams?
Was his knot bordering on painful damn near all the time?
If so, how could the man walk with a straight face?
How was he not sequestered in his room, coming multiple times a day?
How could he walk around like everything was fine?
“Of course, I can swim,” I said.“I just don’t like the water.”
“What don’t you like?”he asked casually.
Though the man annoyed me most of the time, when he wasn’t trying to tell me all the things I was doing wrong, I didn’t dislike our casual conversations.
“For starters, there are deadly things in the water,” I said, wrinkling my nose.“Sharks.Poisonous fish.”
“Sirens?”Desmond said, flashing his bright purple peepers at me.
In many ways, he seemed younger than twenty.But in other ways, he seemed older than the rest of us.I rationed growing up with parents who famously pushed out their neighboring kingdom would do that to a person.
“Yes, the deadly siren will be present today, won’t she?”I drawled.
Desmond chuckled.“What, uh, happened between you two?”
I didn’t give much thought to my situationship with Wanda.It happened.She used me, the same way everyone else did and at the time, I’d felt slighted, but only because I wanted more than to be appreciated for what wasn’t even a skill, but just who I was as a monster.
I didn’t want more withher,I just…
Wanted to be enough for someone.And then Anne came into my life, and that ended terribly, and then she died, and...
“Wanda decided she preferred pussy to my knot.”I shrugged.“I didn’t really care.I knew when we started messing around it wasn’t going to last.I knew her reputation.”
The air was tense, thick with awkwardness as we rounded the stairs toward the back.
“What...”Desmond cleared his throat.“What was it...like?”he asked carefully.
“What was what like?You’re going to have to be a little more specific, Dezzy.”
He scowled at me, but did not correct me.It was the one attack I had that irritated the piss out of him, but now that everyone had taken to calling him Dezzy, he was less obliged to argue with any of us.Secretly, I think he liked it.
“Sex.With a siren?”He blinked.“Or rather...sex...period?”
The way he asked was almost clinical.Like he truly didn’t know how things worked, or how it was supposed to work.But I guessed that was par for the course.He hadn’t experienced heat, so he hadn’t been driven by the madness to fuck until he couldn’t see straight yet.
“With Wanda?It was...okay, I guess.I mean, creatures with lust magic, it’s just part of the package, you know?It’s wild at first, when you go into heat, but the more you do it, it just kind of loses its spark.”
“You grow bored?”he asked.
“Not bored, just...it’s like eating the same meal every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.It fills you, but eventually, the taste is just expected, and there’s no excitement in it.But it does its purpose.It sates you enough that you can live.”
“So, I am not missing much, then.”His shoulders slumped.
“Oh no, you’re missing out,” I said, and he scowled.“But you’ll get there.Some day.Your heat will come.”
“I’m not so certain it will, but I appreciate your trying to make me feel better.”
