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“You are a terrible person,” she whispers, though she's already reaching for the hem of her shirt, her fingers trembling just a little less than they were a minute ago.

“I'm a Torture Administrator,” I remind her, already shedding my own tunic. “Making people feel things is literally my job description. Now, get in the water. We’re on our final countdown, and I intend to spend every free second of it being remarkably unprofessional.”

The secondary runoff channel turns a blackened, murky grey as I dunk our clothes into it, swishing them around in some meagre attempt at cleaning them. Then I wring them out and hook them over a high-pressure vent; the hot exhaust catching the fabric, snapping them dry in seconds. Behind me, Chain-Chewer finds a length of abandoned pipe to gnaw on in a grinding lullaby for the damned.

I slide into the basin first. The water’s a warm, liquid embrace that laps against my ribs, coaxing the tension out of my silver skin. Eden follows, her movements slow and tentative until the heat hits her. She lets out a long, shaky breath, her shoulders finally dropping an inch. The steam rises around us, thick and white, turning the industrial hub into a private sanctuary of humid stone. It’s a temporary haven in the middle of Hell.

She looks like a fever dream amidst the rot. The water slices across her waist, magnifying the supple curve of her hips below the surface. Her hair’s plastered to the side of her neck in sodden strands, drawing my eye down to the aching swell of her breasts, where her nipples have already peaked into hard, dark points from the temperature shift, aching for a touch rougher than the water.

“I'm going to miss you,” I murmur. Then I draw a deep breath and dive beneath the surface, the silken weight of the water closing over my head.

The world above vanishes, replaced by a suspended silence. Down here, everything is a muted, golden-red blur. I move through the warmth until I find her, my hands gliding over her thighs, fingers digging in to anchor myself to the only real thing in this entire hollow realm.

I lean in, the water swirling between us, and press my face right against her pussy. My tongue meets her lips, and I lick her from top to bottom in one long, broad stroke that defies the pool.

Her hands scramble down through the water, frantically searching until they find the obsidian ridges of my horns. She grips them tight, holding on for dear life. I can’t hear her moan—the water steals the sound, muffling her cries into nothingness—but I can feel the vibration of it shuddering through her thighs against my cheeks.

My lips close around her clit, sucking hard, my tongue swirling around the sensitive nerves. At the same time, my hand slides up, finding her entrance, and I thrust two fingers deep inside her, dragging them upwards right against her g-spot.

Her thighs clamp around my head like a vice, a desperate, crushing pressure that threatens to crack my skull. Her grip on my horns tightens until I feel the sharp dig of her nails scraping uselessly against the obsidian ridges.

A sharp, prickly tingle spreads through my chest, the water pressure weighing down on my ribs, demanding I surface for air. My body screams for oxygen, the instinct to breathe fighting against the instinct to consume.

Fuck that.

I ignore the burn, pushing it down until it’s just another form of heat. I’d rather drown right here, suspended in this golden-red silence with the taste of her beautiful, mortal release on my tongue, than take a single breath that isn't shared with her. I increase the suction, swirling my tongue, curling my fingers harder, determined to wring every drop of pleasure out of her before I let myself up for air.

Her pussy pulsates hard around my fingers, and the warm, salt-sweet gush of her release washes over my tongue, sweeter than the water, heavier than the current.

I’m ready to surface. My lungs are burning, black spots dancing in my vision like little voids. But before I can move, she shoves me further into the water by my horns, driving me down until my back hits the slick floor of the basin. I look up, stunned, my instinct to fight warring with the haze of pleasure as she crashes her body against mine.

She seals her mouth over mine, and blows.

A burst of stolen oxygen hits my burning lungs, expanding my chest. She’s sharing her breath. She’s keeping me under. My gaze stays locked on her, bewildered, my hands instinctively gripping her waist to anchor us.

What the fuck?

She pulls back just an inch, her hair floating around her face like a dark, chaotic halo. Her eyes are wide, terrified, and she shakes her head sharply, pointing a trembling finger toward the surface.

My eyes follow her finger, looking up through the churning water. Above the surface, a grid of cold, clinical blue light is scanning, sweeping back and forth.

Maintenance.

The blood in my veins runs cold, the heat of the moment instantly doused. If that grid breaks the surface tension and hits a solid object, it triggers an alarm that will bring half the Grey Archive’s guards down on our heads.

My mind races, panic spiking through the afterglow. Our tunics and trousers are right there. And Chain-Chewer… saints below. The beast is in the corner chewing on iron pipe loud enough to wake the dead. He’s supposed to go dormant when he loses visual contact with an owner, but the damn thing has the stealth capabilities of a landslide. If he decides to crunch down on a bolt right now? If that scanner picks up the sound? We’re dead.

Please, you stupid, rock-made mutt. Be quiet.

I hold Eden tighter, my hands bruising her waist as the blue grid sweeps directly over where our clothes are by the vents.

My lungs are screaming, my ribs a cage of fire. The need to breathe is a physical violence, clawing at the back of my throat, turning my blood to acid. Eden’s staring up at the light, her face pale and ghostly in the refraction, her lips pressed tight in a thin, desperate line. She looks like she’s already drowning.

The blue light pauses.

My heart stops dead in my chest. It hovers there, suspended on the surface tension, bathing the water in a cold, clinical glare that makes the red warmth of the pool look like a crime scene.

Move, I command silently, every muscle in my body coiled to spring, to fight, to tear that drone out of the air. Just fucking move.