“Oh, you have teeth, do ya?” The man turned to his friends, all of them laughing in unison. “All of us have teeth around here.”
“I’ll ask you once more to take your friends and be on your way.” The god said calmly. “You have no place here.”
She’d had enough. The bastard wasn’t listening to anything and Aziel was only going to get himself into trouble with Gorford again if he made another bloody mess on the floor. She released a groan, wrapping her hands around the leg of her stool and working her way around the bar. Aziel watched her, utterly perplexed, as she lifted the stool over her body and slammed it into the back of the burly man’s head. He teetered there for a moment, making nonsensical noises, until he toppled to the floor.
Aziel looked up at her from the wreckage, a few broken glasses having shattered—shards of it now embedded into his skin. The other hecklers were closing in around their friend, shouting and cursing at Nymiria as if the bastard hadn’t had it coming. Before they could come within feet of Nymiria, Aziel was standing protectively in front of her.
“Get out.” Aziel repeated. The men shifted in response, hesitant. “Get your friend, and leave.”
They protested the entire time, but still began leaving the tavern. Nymiria snorted, watching as they dragged the man out by his ankles.
“Shame that a little girl had to rise to your defense and be the one to take him down. You’re nothing but a cockless, spineless bastard!” One of the men snarled.
Nymiria couldn’t explain what came over her. Perhaps she was still too overwhelmed with excitement, but she lurched forward, her hands balling into fists as she charged after them. “Howdare you call him cockless! He’s got a nice fat cock!” She cried. “Huge!”
“Alright, I think you’ve had enough fun for tonight. Time for bed.” Aziel said from behind her.
The world was suddenly upside down, her body feeling heavy as it slumped against something hard and strong. Seeing black fabric cupping a perfect buttocks, she realized that Aziel had slung her over his shoulder and was now carrying her up the stairs. She used all of her strength to brace her hands on his back and push herself up, extending her finger at the prick that was still standing wide-eyed at the door. “And it’spierced! Just for me!”
Aziel’s grip on her thigh tightened, holding her to him firmly as she squirmed. “Hush!”
Nymiria didn’t know where they were going. The room was spinning, and her stomach swirled with nauseating fire. She slumped back down, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing her eyes shut. Before she could center herself, she was flying.Falling. And landing on something soft that bounced her around when she hit it.
A bed.
That was definitely a bed.
The hammer was chiseling away at her brain, right there in between her eyes. Her body ached, but whenever she shifted to alleviate the ache, it felt far too heavy for her to move.
She was too hot. Too…
Hot.
For six months, Nymiria had the displeasure of waking up to drinking sickness after having too many of them, but this wasnothing like that. She didn’t feel nauseous, she couldn’t even really feel the pounding in her head.
No, all of it was muffled by the sweltering heat that’d consumed her body. She shifted against the sheets, barely noticing that the cotton sheets from the night before had been replaced with black silk and that she’d been changed.
She remembered vomiting all over the floor in a room above the tavern, apologizing profusely as Aziel cleaned her with a damp cloth. She remembered the way his pupils flared when she told him that she missed the way his hands felt on her skin.
And, then…
Heat. A heat that burned so deep in her belly that she wanted to claw at it, turn herself inside out to get rid of the discomfort. She remembered the frightened look in Aziel’s eyes as she groaned and mewled loudly with each stroke of the cloth against her skin. It was as if a beast had come alive inside of her, instilling in her a certain craving that could not be satiated.
And then it went dark.
She pressed her thighs together, biting back a low moan when she felt that burning, aching emptiness from the night before. That was the only way that she could describe it—ahunger, an empty feeling that could not be filled, that wouldnotgo away.
Her stomach clenched as a wave of that heat pulsed through her, traveling to the place between her thighs that just…wanted.
“Nymiria.” The sound of his voice snatched her attention, her whole aching body gravitating to him—searching for him with such desperation that she almost cried. She could smell him, not the usual overwhelming scent of cherry blossoms. No, this scent was just as pungent, just as intoxicating, but entirely different.Primal.
Something she’d never scented on him before.
“Nymiria, I need for you to try and breathe.” He pleaded, his voice strained as she arched towards him. He was standing overher now, the cloudiness in her mind clearing just enough to see that he was holding a damp cloth. “I think you have a fever.”
A fever?Impossible. She’d had fevers before. Bone-deep, body-aching fevers. This was nothing like that. She reached out her hand and grabbed at his wrist, forcing the cold, wet cloth against her skin. It eased the burning just a fraction, but not nearly enough—not eventouchingthe mind-numbing desire between her legs.
Aziel had never seen anything like this. One moment, she’d been perfectly drunk and the next, she’d looked at him with a crazed and pitiful look in her eyes, as if she’d lost all control of herself. He could see the desperation in them, could hear the fear in her pleas. He thought, for certain, that she’d been poisoned. The only thing he could think to do at the time was render her unconscious and carry her back to the palace. Just an hour before, he’d called for Hilla. When Hilla was left just as stunned as himself, the young witch went to retrieve Dieve.
