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“Thank the gods.” He sounds legitimately relieved, which only makes me flush deeper. “Much as I want to fuck that pretty little pussy of yours, I think you broke my dick last ni?—”

I cover his mouth before he can finish the sentence.

Memnon’s eyes blink sleepily open, and I can feel his lazy, languid grin beneath my hand.

He reaches out and strokes my cheek.Aww, is my mate embarrassed?

“Last night never happened,” I say. Just sex. It was just some casual, highly erotic sex. That’s all.

Oh, itdefinitelyhappened. That memory is up there with finding you and marrying you the first time around.

I close my eyes and inwardly wince. I see he’s taking last night in the complete other direction.

He runs his knuckles over my bare flesh. “Are you sore?” he asks, his brow furrowing.

I open my eyes and shake my head, even as I feel the throb from between my thighs. “I’m fine.”

Memnon frowns, studying my features. “Fine,” he echoes, testing the word out. I think the sorcerer is coming face-to-face with this expression for the first time. “I don’t believe you. We fucked a lot—I wasn’t gentle.”

I remember. I asked him not to be.

I groan and bury my face against his chest. The things I said, the things we did…

Definitely hexing whoever made that batch of witch’s brew.

Memnon laughs softly, rubbing my back and pressing me in close against him. It’s strange that these types of touches are new yet also old and familiar.

“My little witchisembarrassed,” Memnon says, sounding both surprised and delighted by it. He kisses the top of my head, the action oddly endearing. “I also don’t believe you’refine.”

As he speaks, I feel warmth spread out beneath his palm and along my skin. It soaks into my flesh, and my various aches and pains vanish.

I lift my head and give him a grateful look. Now is when I push him away. Only…I don’t want to. And I know this is how all bad ideas begin when it comes to Memnon—giving the guy a chance—but right now, as I stare at the sorcerer’s scarred, inked torso, the past feels like it’s rising up from the depths.

On a whim, I run my hand over his skin, tracing his various tattoos. I had asked him not so long ago to tell me what they all meant.

Now I don’t need to.

“Your first hunt,” I say softly, tracing a ram with a twisted torso on his arm. “And your first animal kill,” I say, moving my fingers over a fallen deer. My hand moves to a horse whose body is decorated with swirls and stripes. “Your first battle,” I say. My fingers move to another fallen ram with designs on its body. Looming over it is a fanged predator. “Your first human kill,” I say. “Andyour first brush with death.” My touch moves up to his neck. “Here’s my familiar, and—” My fingers glide to his other shoulder. “These are the various tribes you unified, and here are more whom you defeated.”

My hand drifts to the skin above his heart. “Here’s your family crest,” I say, tracing the dragon, “and…” He was planning to add the tree of life around the dragon as a representation of me and the bond that ties us together, but he was cursed before he got the chance.

Memnon watches me like he’s hanging on to my every word. I realize how truly lonely it must be for him, living in this modern world where no one understands who he is or where he came from or what his life was like. His people are hardly more than a shadowy smudge in history books.

“It’s still surreal that we had an entire life together,” I murmur.

Memnon’s eyes turn sorrowful, and his hand slips down my torso, his index finger tracing a design over my abdomen, right where, long ago, I carried his child, and right where, long ago, Eislyn shoved a knife through me and ended that possibility.

“But wedidn’thave an entire life together, little witch,” he says softly. “Look at me. I may have been in my prime by ancient standards, but by yours, I am young.Wewere young when things ended. You and I were robbed of our life before we could fully live it.”

I have to breathe through my nose, just to alleviate a sudden tightness in my chest. Once the feeling abates, I exhale. That was then. This is now. He and I may have once shared something real and amazing, but things are different.Iam different. And Memnon has been unforgivably cruel to me.

I pull away a little, gathering my blankets against my chest like a shield. I clear my throat. “We should talk about the witches who have been murdered,” I say, trying to get the focus off our relationship and on to something else.

Memnon raises an eyebrow. “Now? You’d like to discuss this now? When the taste of your pussy still coats my tongue and your thighs are still slick with my?—”

I cover his mouth again before he can finish the sentence, my cheeks heating. His eyes go right to my blush, and I feel him laugh beneath my palm.

“You will tell me about the murders,” I command him, removing my shaking hand. I don’t know what I’m thinking, insisting on this. I’m in no state to solve anything—not when I’m in my problem-making era, the man in my bed case in point. But last night keeps playing on loop in my mind, and if we don’t focus on the most sobering topic I can think of, I might justfixate on how good it felt to be fucked again and again by this man.