There’s more detail to the story that I omit. Like how I struggled to sift Thibault back to this palace. I’m… tired, I think. Me. A god.We don’t tire.We must force ourselves to put our human body to rest. Force it to eat. The only base physical need I don’t mind is one of a much different sort of appetite.
An irresistible and sensual one I rather like.
I search for a response and find one. “They will see a magick man proclaiming to be a god. That’s no different from what I imagine they deal with most any night with the drunks who stumble from their taverns.”
Thibault finally lifts his head. “Neri and I will go, Fia. Together. I’m sure Zahira and Callan want to go as well, to see their loved ones. Admiral Rooke is gone now.” His eyes flick up at me, the first and only recognition I will receive for that traitor’s death, I’m sure. “And with Vexx dead as well,” he continues, the knot in his throat bobbing as he no doubt thinks about his woman. “I have to hope we find everyone safe, and that we won’t face much opposition in Malgros, if any.”
I can’t stop glaring at Thibault, and he glares back. He doesn’t want anyone to sense the tension inside him that’s tight enough to snap, but I feel it as though it’s my own.
“Surely I’m not the only one who fails to believe you’re just going to leave this land and travel north as if last night never happened,” I say, determined to push him toward his breaking point. “That is the ideal scenario, but we all know you’re turning your mind inside out trying to conjure a way to realm walk like your lover when, even if you succeed, there’s no possible way you will find her.”
He drops his hands to his sides, his body going rigid as he curls his long fingers into meaty fists, making me smile at the ease of my handiwork.
“I have crossed from the living realm to the realm of the dead,” he says, voice hard, words sharp as knives. “I have walked where only spirits trod. Now I know I did it forher.I was looking forher. I think I’vealwaysbeen looking for her, even if my mind didn’t understand. Even if it latched onto any other reason for my actions. Because my soul knew. It knew I would find her in the valley, and so I went there. It knew she would eventually be a witch in the vale, and so I took witches. That part of me didn’t recognize her until she grew older and became more like the woman I once knew, standing there surrounded by night and fire with rage in her eyes and a scythe in her hand. That part of me would’vediedfor her that night in Silver Hollow. It would’ve done anything to protect her and keep her safe. It helped her return to me from the prince and the Shadow World’s grip. So howdareyou tell me that I cannot find her. Howdareyou think that anything will keep me from her.”
The room goes deathly quiet, every person still as he seethes with enmity for me. He leans onto the table and levels a glare on me that would set me alight if he only held that power.
“Three hundred years ago,” he goes on, “the love I felt for Raina, buried though it might have been, became my driving instinct. That part of me sought immortality, at whatever cost, a need masked by my guilt for Colden, so that not evendeathcould become a boundary. So believe me when I tell you that time won’t stand in my way either. It hasn’t yet.” The air around him vibrates with anger and power. “If you were capable of caring for anyone besides yourself, you would understand such things. But love is not meant for the heartless, is it? You might now walk around like a man, but you are nothing more than a selfish god who will never know what it is to love or be loved. I’m trying to do what’s right for my people. The pain and worry and loss I feel is all-consuming. But I will go to Malgros. I will tell the citizens who you are and help convince them that they need to prepare for conflict. But if I figure out a way to reach Raina before then, you can fucking believe that I will disappear.”
I narrow my eyes on him. “Oddly, I find that admirable, Un Drallag. Because the fact that you’re willing to abandon your people to save your woman, much the way Moeshka fled to rescue his prince, tells me that you’re not so perfect after all.” I crook the corner of my mouth. “Because you’d let this broken continent fucking burn if it meant you were saving Raina Bloodgood in the process. I don’t have to know love to understand the obsession that comes with it.”
He says nothing in retort because he can’t.
Because I’m right.
“Now,” I say, feeling as though I’ve regained control of the conversation. “If you want me to go north with you, ask nicely.”
“Fuck you,” he grits out, though the fury on his face dampens. In its place, a cocky smirk forms as he looks past me.
I smell her before I see or hear her. My little dictator.
“We’re going with Alexus,” Nephele says from behind me. Bent over the table as I am, I straighten and turn a glance over my shoulder toward the open doors. She limps across the polished stone floor, Hel at her side, and comes to stand only inches away from me as Hel joins Rhonin.
“Somebody’s being a bad girl,” I say, keeping my voice low between the two of us.
“Get used to it,” she replies, and I have to bite back a smile.
I haven’t had enough time to truly enjoy being reunited with my body. I wasn’t able to bask in the desert sun, to relish the heat of its rays on my skin. I’ve tasted nothing delicious, and outside of those few decadent moments with Nephele on the mount, smelled nothing of delight, touched nothing that caused my nerve endings to crave more.
But now, I relent to the notion that I might understand Thibault’s fixation and obsession better than I care to admit. Because standing next to Nephele, scenting her once again, I almost feel drunk off the rosy musk between her legs, the lavender and lilac perfuming her damp hair, the blood pulsing under her skin, the magick alive in those glimmering witch’s marks that trail beneath the collar of her tunic. It makes me ravenous for one thing.
Her.Naked and writhing in my bed as I bury my tongue, my fingers, my cock deep inside her sweet heat.
The thought makes my mouth water, my gums aching to release my fangs, an involuntary reaction of my more feral side, a side I cannot wait to set free. But there’s something else. A need I have no definition for. I suppose three hundred years of forced celibacy as a spirit, and nearly a decade desiring a living woman I thought I’d never have, left me with an ache that won’t be satiated until I get what I want.
IfI haven’t fucked up beyond repair.Ifthe curse Asha obsessed over, the one I never gave any heed, doesn’t rob me of everything I yearn for.
Nephele tilts her pretty face up toward mine. This close, I can smell the salt from her recent tears. I can still see the effects of her spell in the gaunt hollows beneath her eyes, too, but she pretends to be perfectly composed and meets my gaze without a glint of reservation.
“Alexus doesn’t have to ask the God of the North for his aid,” she reprimands. “This is why you’re breathing air again, or did you so quickly forget? Your purpose is to help us when needed. If Alexus Thibault says we journey north together, then we journey north together.”
She turns her face away from me and stares across the table at Un Drallag.
“We,”he says, gesturing between himself, Zahira, and me. “Notwe.”He draws a quadrangle between the four of us.
Nephele grips the back of the chair in front of her, pale knuckles turning pink. “The wolf is undermycharge,” she challenges. “I go where he goes. That isn’t going to change for a very long time. But beyond that, if you think I’m staying here and not going withyouto help my people, then all that flying has gotten to your head, my friend. Because I’m going home to Winterhold. To prepare everyone I possibly can.”
“Until I can scope out the situation, Nephele, you’re safer here,” he argues. “Shielded by Fia’s protections. The North does not have such security anymore. When war comes, the Watch will do what they can at the coast, but we are much smaller in number and in power, with a large mass of land to cover.” He stabs two fingers into the table, as though his next words are final. “For now at least, I want youhere.”
