He was inside her, even now.
Lingering.
Blinking in the half-light, she stared at her feet. Seeing whatwasn’tthere.
Bruises.
Cuts and scrapes.
There should have been signs of the battle he’d waged upon her body. Evidence that she’d been fucked raw. Ravaged by scale and claw and greedy, ravenous appetite for every scrap of female flesh.
But there was only this.
A swollen belly, clumps of clinging sand glued to her skin, and a tiny wound pulsing blue.
It wasn’t natural, how quickly she’d healed.
But then… was there anything natural about drowning in the Aegean Sea, only to be crushed beneath an Athenian trireme, revived by a son of Poseidon, and remade as his chalice?
A humorless laugh bubbled between chapped lips.
She remembered it in flashes. The pulse of him grinding inside her. His girth swelling, stretching her rim when he’d climaxed, pumping an impossible pressure into her womb. The splash of seed when he tore himself free with an inhuman roar…
She was covered in it.
Itchy with sand and clotted cream.
It had hardened while she lay unconscious on the beach. A cast of itching shame she couldn’t simply brush away.
Because she was unclean.
Filthy.
A monster’s whore.
She staggered to her feet with a single, desperate thought screaming in her mind.
Clean.
She had to get clean.
Even if it meant braving the sea to do it. Even if she had to endure the scornful, unblinking gaze of the sun, she would wash herself clean of the monster’s sperm.
Splashing into the shallows, she collapsed in the surf with a hiccuping sob. Eyes leaking painful tears as the light stabbed into her skull.
The sea greeted her with a cool embrace, lapping gently at sensitive skin.
Stooping, Kore splashed her face. Scooped water over her arms and chest. Scrubbing every inch she could reach.
Still, the sand clung.
Falling away in stubborn clumps.
Wading just a little deeper, shins wet with lapping waves, she kept her eyes fixed to any hint of what lay beneath the surface, and bent to work.
“Come on,” she hissed, clawing at the grime. Scrubbing until her skin was raw and unblemished. Pristine, despite what she’d endured beneath the bulk of a colossus rutting above her.
Hands flashing, Kore scooped water over her belly. Her thighs.
