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Ruby swallowed over a suddenly thick throat. She imagined him a century from now, the sadness fading until he barely remembered why he was sad in the first place. Someday, he would forget everything about her.

She forced a smile. “Maybe my soul will come here after I die.”

He sat up, water sloshing over the side of the bathtub. “Don’t.”

She blinked, taken aback by the ice in his voice. “What? It could happen. That’s one way mortals come into your realm, right? They die with something big unfinished. You could… show me where I’m meant to be.”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t guide you.”

“Why?”

He gazed at her with that dark, intense gaze that never failed to take her breath away.

“Because…” he began, his voice cracking with inhuman hissing.

Then he stopped, his hands coming up to cup her face. He stared at her like he was drinking her in, like he really was about to take that decades-long sleep and wake up to find her gone.

“Because I would want to keep you here,” he admitted roughly.

Ruby’s heart thundered. He wanted to keep her? Could they even betogether, when she was a soul without a body? It sounded like a special kind of agony, being near him and never being able to touch him. And yet it meant so much that he said it—even if he was only being sweet, even if he would regret it tomorrow, and even if he would take it back if he actually saw her dead soul walking toward him.

There were a hundred ways this could play out. But for now, she believed him.

She grabbed his skull mask and dragged him down for a kiss.

He surged up, wrapping her in his huge arms. Bone dug into her cheek, and Ruby reveled in it.

She sucked on his tongue. It tasted like blood.

“Fuck me,” she begged. “I want you in me.Allof you.”

She wasn’t thinking about the ritual. She could only think about his broad chest under her, his cock hardening where she was kneeling above it.

He groaned and tugged her back by her hair. “You can barely manage half.”

“I’ll make it fit,” she promised.

For a minute, she even believed it. He had stretched her last night, and she was still loose enough for him to slide in two fingers. Not to the hilt, but she rode his fingers until she was sitting snug against his palm, his fingers fluttering against that spot that made her gasp.

“I can do it,” she breathed. “Give it to me, I can take it.”

She reached into the bathwater and gripped his cock. It wasn’t as enjoyable underwater since she couldn’t feel the slickdripping out his slit, but she rubbed anyway, feeling it harden even further under her touch.

Slate moaned as she ground down determinedly on his fingers. “Patience, little witch. You aren’t even wet yet.”

She laughed, gesturing at their damp bodies. “I’m wet! I’m the wettest I’ve ever—oh.”

Slate smiled, his teeth showing under the mask.

“Not wet enough,” he said in a low voice.

Ruby dropped her head against his chest, panting. She had forgotten he only considered her wet after she came at least once.

He slipped a third finger inside her, holding her close as she jerked in his arms.

“Stretching so well for me,” he murmured. “So eager to have me inside you.”

“Yes,” she gasped. She kissed his chest and dug her teeth into his cool skin, wondering if this was how he felt when he pressed his fangs against her: the urge to bite down, to take, todevour. She wanted to eat him whole, blunt teeth be damned. She wanted to have him in every way possible.