Aching for her, I lift the fingers of my free hand to my nose as I pump with the other. I can still scent her pussy, so much better than before. She carries a divine, sweet musk between those legs, a musk I’m not sure I’ll ever get enough of.
When I come, the release almost buries me all over again. I smother my grunts and moans in a pillow, biting my teeth into the down. My muscles strain and jerk against the soul-clenching spasms that don’t relent for long minutes as ropes of cum mark my stomach and chest over and over again.
I don’t forget anything, but I’ve forgotten the intensity of rapture. Time dulls the sharpest edges of memory for everyone. Even gods. Even memories of how euphoric an orgasm can truly be.
But now I fucking remember, and it only makes me want Nephele Bloodgood that much more.
* * *
“It’s good. I promise.”
Nephele and I sit at a small table in a cozy room I’ve never seen before here at Starworth Tor. It’s a reading room with deep green walls covered with shelves of books and painted flowers. A large window overlooks the rose garden, but our view is of another gray, rainy seaside day. The frigid downpours that rolled in early this morning have been so heavy and constant that returning to the barracks to look for Eryx, which is where Nephele believes him to be hiding, needs to wait. There’s no scent outside save for that of rain and sea.
I lift my eyes from the bowl of steaming, brown sludge she’s served me. “Can I be honest?”
“Of course.”
“I’m thrilled you’re feeling better, and that your appetite has returned. Truly. But I don’t eat.” I give her a lascivious waggle of my brows. “Food, that is.”
She lifts a spoonful of the stew in question and pauses at her mouth, the apples of her cheeks reddening even though she ignores my last words. “Ever? Not even humans roasted on a spit?”
A one-sided smile tugs my lips at her reference to last night. “Not unless I’m brutally wounded, and this body needs a little extra care to thoroughly heal. Then I can eat just about anything.”
“You just came out of the grave. I would say that’s enough justification for feeding yourself. What’s that saying? Your body is a temple?”
As I spread my napkin across my lap, I stifle a laugh. “I treated mine like a temple last night. Worshiped it like a god. Three times, in fact.”
Nephele swallows thickly, gaze locked with mine. “I knew you were awfully chipper for some reason.”
Her wards are up and tightly woven today, but I can see thoughts flashing across her eyes.
“I could be happier, believe me. I’d hoped you would join me.”
She looks down at her stew, her voice a shade different. “I won’t say the thought didn’t enter my mind.”
“And yet you chose against it.”
“Yes. My talk with Alexus was… tense. To say the least. Bit of a mood killer.”
“And now you have to talk to me.”
That’s why we’re here, anyway. A few hours after revealing her thoughts on Eryx’s whereabouts to me and Thibault, and that perhaps we could reach him without civilian involvement, she knocked on my door and asked if I’d have lunch with her so we could have that talk she mentioned last night. I wouldn’t have turned down an offer to dine with her even if she were serving duck liver. Which I hate.
She sets her spoon down and props her elbows on the table. “Yes, I do. I promised. So where to begin?”
I’m a bit taken aback by how cordial she’s being. I’d expected regret. Angry regret. Angry regret aimed at me like a dagger. Not lunch and conversation. The wolf in me is suspicious, but there’s another part of me that doesn’t give a good godsdamn why we’re here. As long as we are.
“What did Ingrid say?” I inquire. “She’s the Memory Catcher you and your sister saw the last time we were here, yes?”
A list of topics and questions formed in my mind last night while I attempted to force this body to sleep. I could’ve started this chat with the curse and its correlation to Nephele’s illness that has mysteriously improved. Or I could’ve asked how in the bloody Nether Reaches she managed to use the aether.
But odd as it feels for me to even care, I want to talk with her.Reallytalk with her. Beyond our bickering and discussing my resurrection and the fall of our empire, we haven’t had much in the way of normal conversation. So I choose an easy-to-navigate entry point and force a bite of stew.
A small, pleased smile quirks her lips as I chew. “Yes, the Memory Catcher. That’s her. But I didn’t actually see her. She wasn’t home. I waited, but dusk started to fall, and I figured I needed to head back.”
“And yet you ended up at the barracks.”
Another bite. Another pleased look.
