I love my home and I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite part of it. The butterfly garden, with its immortal butterflies, the library with cozy nooks to read in, the common room where the Intare get together to play games or watch TV, and let's not forget about my dressing room. There were so many wonderful places to spend time in Pride Palace and my bathroom was one of them.
Done in an art nouveau style, in shades of autumnal golds and greens, it opened off my bedroom and stretched back in a rectangle. To the right of the bathroom door, the fireplace—open on both sides so both the bathroom and bedroom could enjoy it—crackled with flames despite it being Summer and the middle of the day. I like to have a fire going while I bathed, it feels luxurious and relaxes my dragon.
Along the left wall, a counter held two sinks with a mirror above them, the mirror bordered by frilly, art nouveau flowers. At the back wall, a shower stall took up the left corner and a water closet was on the right. A dressing table filled the space between those two, with another frilly, floral-bordered mirror above it and a gold stool before it. I don't know why I bothered with moisturizers, I didn't need them. I guess I just enjoyed the way they made my skin feel. Or maybe it was the ritual of it that was hard for me to give up. Gods, humans, and faeries—we all love rituals.
In the middle of all of this, a massive, sunken bathtub mimicked the shape of the room, so large that it was more like a pool. Long, wide-mouthed, golden spigots perched over three sides of the tub, ready to fill the thing in minutes, and a ledge ran along the walls to form a continuous bench. The fourth side, that nearest the sinks, had a set of steps instead of a spigot, descending to the bottom of the tub.
I felt wasteful every time I took a bath but it wasn't as if there were a water shortage in the God Realm. Honestly, I don't even know where it came from. I designed the palace to have plumbing and voila, there it was. I let the magic figure out how to get water into the pipes. I've often used the showerhead that hung over the tub—and yes, there's a shower at the back of the room and one with the tub; it's good to have an extra shower when you live with so many men—instead of filling it and that's what I had intended to do then.
But Viper had followed me into the bathroom and turned on the bathtub's spigots.
I looked over my shoulder at him as I stripped. “You want a bath?”
“I do.” He grinned. “You want to join me?”
“Well, it would be a waste of all that water not to.” I sat at the dressing table naked and started brushing my hair.
Viper came to stand behind me and took the brush from me. He smiled at me through the mirror and started to brush my hair. My hair was long and could be a pain in the ass to brush so I wasn't about to reject the offer. Plus, it feels nice. The gentle strokes shivering up the strands, Viper's hands lifting the weight of my hair, and the bristles massaging my scalp. I sighed and watched him in the mirror.
I'd made that body. Every time I thought about it, it made my head spin a little. ImadeViper's body. I had given him magic and life. But that didn't make him mine. He was mine because he wanted to be. As I wanted to be his. And I suppose that's far more miraculous than making an entire person without giving birth to them.
I couldn't take credit for his looks though. Some of my husbands had worried that since I created Viper, his body must be everything that I found desirable; my dream man made flesh. But that wasn't the case. I blinked when I realized I hadn't told him that. I'd told the other men but not Viper.
I stared at Viper's powerful body: the broad shoulders, sculpted chest, and thick arms. I admired the fall of his short, raven hair—a touch longer now, and his angular features. I could feel him through our bond, see the piece of him inside my mind as a silver mist, but that represented his star magic, not him. Why was this body a representation of Viper's soul? What did it mean? I had only accessed and guided the magic of creation, I had no insight into its reasoning. Did the slant of Viper's cheekbones imply that he had a sharpness to him? Did the breadth of his shoulders mean that he could endure anything? Did those sensual lips suggest... well, that much, at least, I could be sure of. Viper had never fallen short in bed, not even his first time.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Viper's voice went low—somewhere between arousal and curiosity.
“I didn't choose your appearance.”
He blinked. Stopped brushing. The hand holding the brush dropped to his side. “What?”
I smiled and turned in my seat to face him. “That doesn't mean I don't like your body.” I slid my hands up his taut stomach and grinned wickedly.
Viper caught my hands in one of his. “What do you mean, you didn't choose my appearance?”
“I've remembered more about what happened. When I took you from the Void, I allowed your soul to influence your physical body. In a way,youpicked this form. I only chose your eyes and I did that in honor of your magic.”
Viper's face fell. He looked crushed.
I stood up in surprise. “Why are you upset? This is the real you. You don't have to feel as if I picked man-parts I preferred and slapped them together like Dr. Frankenstein. You are whoyouwant to be with just a touch of me there.”
“But I don't care about how I look.” His jaw clenched before he went on. “I was proud that you had chosen this body. Relieved, in a way.”
“Relieved? Why?”
“If this was what you wanted, there was no possibility of you not liking something about me. You wouldn't...”
“Reject you?” I asked in horror.
“I was certain that I was what you wanted,” he corrected. “Hell, Vervain, I'vebraggedabout it. What made you think that I'd prefer to know that this is whatIwanted, notyou?”
“Our fight,” I whispered. “The things you said. I thought you'd like to know that you are your own man—from the top of your head to the tips of your toes.”
Viper let out a sigh and released my hands. He tossed the hairbrush onto the dressing table, then took my face in his hands. “I didn't mean those things. I said them because at that moment, with you acting as you had and saying what you did, I felt...”
“Oh, Gods,” I whispered as I pulled back. “You felt ashamed. Ashamed that you were mine.”
Viper swallowed roughly and shook his head. “I felt ashamed that I belonged to you. Body, soul, and heart: they're all yours, Vervain. And you were belittling me.”
