“It told me that you appeared willing to be packaged and presented to a stranger,” he said as he began rinsing the soap from my hair. “It told me that you seemed eager to be given away, even though you likely had no say in it. No choice.”
I inhaled swiftly, hating that what he said was exactly how I appeared. “You could’ve looked upon me and seen someone brave enough to fulfil a deal I never had a say in.”
“I saw that, too.” He lifted the strands of my hair, rinsing them clean of soap. “I knew you were brave. I knew you must be honorable.”
My stomach churned. Honorable. What honor lay in what I must do? There was…and there wasn’t.
“But that was not what I felt when I looked upon you,” he continued. “What I sensed, what I tasted in the back of my throat, was the bitterness of fear. The tanginess of anguish and hopelessness. And the saltiness of determination and resolve. That was what I felt when I saw you. A girl who was barely a woman, forced to fulfil a promise she never agreed to. I knew you did not want to be there.”
The accuracy of his words rattled every part of me, including that place that had been relieved when he refused. But there was no way he could’ve known that. “You could tell all of that from looking at me for a handful of moments?” I forced out a laugh. “Come on.”
“Yes.” His fingers wove through the strands, working at the soap. “I felt all of that.”
“You have no idea what I was feeling—”
“Actually, I do. I know exactly what you were feeling then and what you’re feeling now. Your anger is hot and acidic, but your disbelief is cool and tarty, reminding me of iced lemon. There is something else,” he said as my heart stuttered, and my eyes opened. “Not fear. I can’t quite place it, but I can taste it. I can taste your emotions. Not all Primals can do it, but I have always been able to, as all who carried my mother’s blood in them could.”
Chapter 24
My hands slipped from the tub to the cooling water as my heart thundered. “Really?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
I sucked in several breaths. “You can tell what I’m feeling?”
“Right now, it’s just disbelief.”
“That…” I was glad I was sitting down. “That seems like a really intrusive ability.”
“It is,” he agreed, placing the pitcher aside. He didn’t move. Neither did I. “That’s why I rarely intentionally use it. But, sometimes, a mortal or even a god feels something so strongly, I cannot prevent myself from feeling what they do. That is what happened when I looked at you. Your emotions reached me before I could block them. I knew that as willing as you appeared, you were not.”
What did you do, Sera?
My mother’s panicked cry echoed. I closed my eyes as harsh realization swept through me. Sir Holland was wrong. My mother had been right. That insidious voice inside me had been right. It had been my fault.
Pressure constricted my chest and throat as I shook my head. No. That wasn’t true, either. It wasn’t only my fault. I opened my eyes. “I was…scared. I was to marry the Primal of Death,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I was anxious. Of course, I felt hopeless. I felt like I had no control. But I was there. I was still there.” None of that was a lie. “I knew what was expected of me, and I was willing to fulfill it. You were not.”
He was quiet, but I felt his gaze on me—on my back. “No, I wasn’t. I had no need of a Consort forced to marry me. And whether or not you were willing to carry through doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t your choice. It never was.”
“It is my choice to honor the deal,” I argued.
“Truly?” he challenged. “Your family would’ve allowed you to refuse to take part in the deal? To refuse a Primal? Are you saying that you were in a position to refuse? One where the expectation hadn’t been drilled into you since birth? There was never any consent in your choice.”
Gods, he was right. I knew that. I had always known that. I hadn’t expected him, of all people, to acknowledge or care about that, though, especially since it had been the deal he’d made. But that didn’t change anything. Not what the deal did for the kingdom, not what my birth signaled, or what I must do.
I opened my mouth and then closed it as a different type of emotion reared its head. Respect. For him. For the being I needed to kill to save my kingdom, and for the Primal who had unintentionally become the source of my misery. How could I not respect him for being unwilling to take part in something I truly had no real choice in?
Confusion also followed because had he not considered any of this when he first set the terms? He could have set any price. He’d chosen this.
Another thought occurred to me, and my head jerked up so fast, it tugged on the skin of my upper back. “Are you reading my emotions now?”
“No,” he answered. “And that is the truth. I know to keep my…walls up around you.”
I wasn’t sure if he was suggesting that I was highly emotional. Regardless, I was grateful he had his… “What do you mean by walls?”
“It’s like the Rise around Haides and the lands but in here.” He tapped a finger on the side of my head. “You build them mentally. They are shields of sorts.”
“That sounds…difficult.”
“It took a very long time to learn how to do it.”
“There’s something I don’t understand,” I said after a moment. “Why did you even ask for a Consort? When you made the deal, you could’ve asked for anything.”
“The answer you seek is a very complicated one.”
“Are you suggesting that I’m not clever enough to understand?”
“I’m suggesting it’s a conversation that should take place when you’re fully clothed.”
“And you don’t run the risk of me attempting to drown you?” I snapped.
Ash chuckled as he wrung the excess water from my hair. “That, too.” Using one of the pins I’d removed, he twisted the length of my hair, pinning it so the ends didn’t fall back into the tub. “I hope my services this evening lived up to whatever expectations you may have had.”
Immediately, my mind flashed to a different sort of service, and I wanted to punch myself. Hard. “They were passable.”
My response got another laugh from him. “If you’re done,” he said, rising. “I can put the balm on your wounds.”
I was still dumbfounded by his ability to read emotions—still irritated by his refusal to answer why he had asked for a Consort. But I gripped the edges of the tub. Water splashed as I rose and turned to where he stood.
His chest was so still, I wasn’t sure he breathed, but the white, luminous wisps in his molten-silver eyes churned wildly. The intensity of his stare scalded.
Attraction. Desire. He was definitely attracted to me. He wanted me. I reminded myself that was something I could definitely work with. “I’m wet.”
“Fuck,” he rasped, his gaze tracking the droplets of water as they coursed over my breasts, the curve of my stomach, and headed lower still, between my thighs.
My skin tingled everywhere his gaze followed. “Can you help me with that?”
The tips of his fangs became visible as his lips parted. “Trouble,” he murmured thickly. “You are trouble, liessa.”
Something beautiful and powerful…
I couldn’t help but feel that way as I stood there. “A towel,” I said, chasing away some lingering drops of water just below my navel with my hand. “I was hoping you could hand me that towel.”
One side of his lips tipped up as his stare followed my hand. “Yeah.” He reached out without taking his eyes off me and grabbed a towel from the shelf. “I can help you.”
Heart thrumming once more, I stepped out of the tub. I tipped my head back as he approached. Ash said nothing as I reached for the towel.
“No,” he said, his chin lowering. “You asked for my help.”
Wordless, I remained standing as he drew the towel along my left arm and then my right, fully aware that he was staring down at me
. Heaviness filled my breasts as he dragged the towel over my stomach, where my hand had been, and then over my hip. My skin felt as it had when I’d sunk into the steaming tub, except this heat invaded my blood and pooled.
“I’m not sure you will appreciate what I’m about to say. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t,” he said. “At least now, I know what you feel when I touch you.” He smoothed the towel up my stomach and between my breasts. The hair on his arm grazed the insides of my breasts, causing me to gasp. “That sound you make? It’s not forced.”
It wasn’t.
The tips of his fangs dragged over his lower lip as he moved the towel over the aching peaks. I jerked at the sharp swirl of pleasure I felt. “You don’t let me do this because it is your duty. What is expected of you.” He moved around me, swiping the towel over my back, careful to avoid the welts. “You allow me to touch you because you enjoy it.”
And that was true. It shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t enjoy any of this. I should remain removed from this part of my duty. Calculating. But there was no denying the tight tremor of anticipation coiling its way through me. There was no denying that I desperately wanted to feel. Like I had at the lake when I was just Sera, and he was simply Ash—just like he’d said earlier. “Are you reading my emotions?”
“I don’t need to.” The soft towel rasped over my lower back. “I can tell by the flush on your skin and how it…hardens in the most interesting places. The hitch of your breath, and the way your pulse quickens.”
“My pulse?” I whispered, legs strangely weak.
“Yes.” His cool breath danced over my bare shoulder. “I can feel that. It’s something that even a god can feel. It is a…predatory trait.”
I shivered in response to his words and where the towel now roamed, following the curve of my backside. My skin practically vibrated as that curl of anticipation coiled tighter, this time below my navel and then again even lower.
“You want my touch.” He guided the towel down my legs and then back up between them. His breath now touched my lower back. My eyes closed, but my mind provided the image of what I could not see—the Primal of Death kneeling behind me. “And that want?” His towel-covered hand slipped between my thighs, gliding over the throbbing flesh between them. Another ragged sound left me as his hand moved back and forth, gently rubbing. “It has nothing to do with any deal.”
It really didn’t.
“And what…what does that—?” I gasped as the cool skin of his arm brushed my heated, not even remotely dry flesh. “What does that change? You said you still have no need of a Consort.”
“I don’t.” He moved that damnable towel away from me, sliding it over my side and then between the crease of skin at the hip. He rose as the towel slipped between my thighs once more. I shuddered at the feel of the cold skin of his forearm pressing against my lower stomach. He moved the towel in soft, short circles. “But that doesn’t mean I am not interested in certain aspects of this union.” The cool tips of his fingers grazed my arm as he stepped closer to me, near enough that I felt his breeches-clad thighs against the backs of mine. “Just like that doesn’t mean you’re not interested in those very same aspects.”
The utter arrogance in his confident assumption irked me—and emboldened me. “There is very little about those aspects I find all that interesting.”
“You don’t?” The towel-covered hand continued moving slowly, tauntingly.
“No.” My hips jerked and then started to move, following his lead. His lead. Gods, it should concern me how quickly I’d lost control of this seduction. It would. But later.
“I think you lie again,” he murmured, a hint of a smile in his tone. “You’re as interested as you were when you begged me to kiss you at the lake.”
“Your memory is faulty. I gave you permission to kiss me.”
His fingers grazed the side of my breast as he moved his hand up and down my arm while moving the towel between my legs. “Or demanded that I kiss you.”
“Either way, that is not begging.”
“Semantics,” he murmured.
“It’s not.” I widened my stance, giving him better access.
“Really?”
“Really.” My eyes drifted open, and I looked down, past the puckered peaks of my breasts to where he had the towel snagged around the wrist of his hand.
“Lying so prettily, yet again.”
“I’m not lying. You’re just overconfident—” I gasped as he dropped the towel, and the cool length of his fingers replaced the soft material, pressing against my bundle of nerves. “Gods,” I breathed, immediately swamped by a riot of sensations as the tension curled so tightly, I felt breathless.
“No,” he murmured, his thumb swirling against that sensitive nub. “You are not interested at all in those certain aspects.” He sank a finger inside, parting the flesh.
I cried out, grasping his arm. I hadn’t forgotten the shocking contradiction of his coldness against my heat, but no memory did it justice. I shook.
“I remember how you showed me the way you like it. I play that over and over in my head. I could write a fucking tome on it by now.” His thumb continued moving. “When I’m fisting my cock, I remember how you held my hand against you at the lake.”
“Oh, gods,” I gasped. “Do you…do you really?”
“More times than I should admit.” His finger pumped in and out of me, bringing me closer and closer to the edge.
Suddenly, all that curling tension unfurled as fast and unexpectedly as a streak of lightning. It came on hard and fast and shockingly. If he hadn’t folded his other arm around my waist, there was a good chance the pounding waves of release would’ve taken my legs out from under me.
Ash’s fingers slowed, and only when my hips stopped twitching did he ease his hand from me. Several long moments passed as he simply held me there, our bodies only touching from the waist down. Neither of us spoke, and I had no idea what he was thinking, but as my body cooled, I realized that my attempt to seduce him had failed spectacularly. I had been the one seduced.
I sat on the bed, facing the closed balcony doors as the top of the robe I held closed pooled at my elbows.
Ash walked forward, unscrewing the lid on the jar he’d brought with him. “This will probably feel cold against your skin at first,” he said, sitting behind me. “And then it will have a numbing effect.”
I nodded, feeling off-kilter from what had transpired in the bathing chamber. He’d walked away before I even had a chance to regain control of the situation, the sign of his arousal a thick, hard ridge pressing against his breeches as he unhooked the robe and handed it to me. His restraint when it came to his pleasure was quite impressive.
The touch of his fingers brushing some of the curls that had fallen free from their twist aside steered my mind to the present. A spicy and astringent scent reached me. “What is this ointment made of?”
“Yarrow, arnica, and a few things native to Iliseeum,” he told me. I sucked in a sharp breath as the salve touched one of the wounds. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I lowered my chin. “It doesn’t hurt. It’s just cold.”
His hand moved, spreading the balm over my skin. He didn’t have to do this. He hadn’t needed to wash my hair. Both acts were kind but didn’t match what he’d done to those gods on the Rise.
Which hadn’t stopped me from enjoying his touch. Gods. I should feel ashamed, but I didn’t. Maybe because my conscious mind recognized that I was destined to do far worse things.
For some reason, as I sat there rather obediently, I remembered what I’d wanted to ask while in the bathing chamber. “How old are you? Really?”
“I thought we already established that my actual age doesn’t matter,” he said, parroting my words back.
“It didn’t when I didn’t know who you were.”
“I’m still the same person who sat beside you at the lake.” His balm-covered fingers slid up my shoulders. “You know that, right?”
; Was he? “How would I know that?”
“You should,” he answered as the coolness of the ointment started to fade, replaced by the numbness he’d promised.
“We may not be complete strangers, but do we really know each other?” I reasoned. “You talked as if killing should always affect a person, leave a mark that never fades. But you have—” I pressed my lips together. “I don’t know you at all.”
“You know more than most.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’ve never spoken about the first person I killed. Not with anyone but you,” he said, his hand leaving my back. I heard the lid turning on the jar. “No one knows it was someone close to me.” He took hold of the collar of the robe, lifting it to cover my back and shoulders. “Nothing I told you at the lake was a lie.”
“If everything you said was true, then why do you have gods impaled on your wall?” I demanded, tightening the sash around my waist as I twisted to face him. There was absolutely no pain from the movement. “How can killing leave a mark when you do things like that?”
“You think…?” The white aura behind his pupil bled into the silver. It was a beautiful effect and a slightly terrifying one. “You think I did that to them?”
“When I asked you why, you said they served as a reminder that life is fragile, even for a god.”
Disbelief flickered across his features. “How did those words incriminate me?” His expression smoothed out quickly. “Yes, they serve as a warning, but not one I issued.”
I stared at him, stunned. Could he be telling the truth? I wasn’t sure what he’d gain from lying about it. “If it wasn’t you, then who did it?”
The swirling in his eyes abated as he reached out and picked up one of the curls that had fallen over my shoulder. “I am not the only Primal god, liessa.”
“Who did that, then? Who would be willing to anger the Primal of Death?”
“You have no problem attempting to anger or argue with me.”
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