He tightened his hold on her nape and thrusted until his release came. A blissful detonation.
He slapped his hand down on the arch beside her head to hold himself up. Rapturous tingles swam up his spine. His body convulsed, and he let out a sated exhale, riding out the high as he filled her completely.
Fuck.
It’d been so long since the woe had dispersed in his chest. For the first time since Ruelle’s death, he felt lighter, like he could breathe. The feeling was only temporary, and the act was agonizingly cliché, but he didn’t mind feeding into a vice. Even if it was Marina.
Acacius straightened and stepped away until his back met the wall, letting a sweet delirium take over.
He tucked himself back inside of his pants, watching the sticky, white river of his seed leak down her thigh before she shimmied her dress into place over her waist.
A possessiveness flared in his chest, fulfilled by the fact that when she departed and returned home, she would have to face the evidence of their time together. He hoped she felt an inkling of arousal when she did so—another gratifying way Acacius could plague her thoughts.
The velvet material fell back around her legs. She smoothed her palms over the fabric.
Acacius’s eyes drifted up to her face—her makeup still immaculate, proof of her glamor—to her disheveled hair, matted and frizzed where his fingers gripped moments prior.
When she lifted her chin, Acacius met her usual blank expression, like a mask flawlessly perfected. Acacius had just slipped through that barricade, whether she wanted to admit itor not. There was no going back now. He’d memorized it all—the way her teeth sank into her bottom lip, how her eyes squeezed shut, the breathy cries that escaped her.
The look of rapture on her face with him deep inside of her was better than any revenge he’d plotted thus far.
“Don’t follow me,” she commanded, breaking the silence. Dark tendrils crept around her, cradling her ankles.
Acacius flashed her a smile, shaking his head as he pushed back the loose strands off his forehead. “I told you once already, Rina. There is nowhere you can hide from me.”
She tilted her head, and he swore a smirk dusted her mouth. “Your plan to revoke my title failed.”
“You’re right,” he said, his eyes glimmering. “That means it’s your move now.”
Marina stared at him, a spark dancing in her gaze, almost as if the idea of meeting againexcitedher.
A thrilling sensation quaked under his skin, darting quickly through his veins and manifesting a ribbon of his divine power in the space between them to reach for her.
Before it could make contact, like a gale cutting through smoke, her darkness swept her away.
Part Two
Devoured As One
13
LEGACY
Marina
“You slept with Acacius?”Viviana’s glass of gin hovered inches from her lips, the flat note in her tone clearly expressing her opinion on the matter.
Marina finished the rest of her wine. The alcohol fanned the blaze in her bloodstream. It was something else to focus on, other than reliving the moments with Acacius in his cavern.
Gods,she pinched the bridge of her nose,I had sex with him. Under Moros.
Mansi barked out a laugh, aiming her gun. “That’s my girl.”
The shot rang through the dive bar, and the deity sprinting across the platform stumbled on his feet, the bullet oozing blood from the bloom on his torso.
Dark Quarry’s patrons continued chatting amongst the bar and crowded tables, not bothering to glance up at the god in the shooting range choking on his wounds. The place was a regular spot for Mansi to test out her newest creations.
The deity dug the metal from his liver and looked back at Mansi, a disturbing smile that was all teeth crawling over his face.
