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He leaned back in his chair, his arm coming up to rest along the back edge as his eyes met hers.

She held them, hoping to squash his cunning attitude like a bug, but the deeper she stepped into them, fear prickled down her spine.

Malik had an infatuation with murdering small wild animals since he was old enough to walk.

He was a middle god of slaughter—born without a conscience.

Naia gripped the end of her fork to keep from jabbing it into his neck and shoveled flaky tilapia into her mouth.

Vex shrugged. “Or she is a prude.”

“Being a prude and not knowing how to fuck are vastly different.” Astrid dipped her chin, looking at Naia through silver lashes. “Do you need a demonstration, my dear sister?” Her elbows propped on the table, the position pushing her breasts together, luring in any pair of eyes. “I would be happy to show you.”

As a middle goddess of beauty and seduction, it was Astrid’s specialty. Often skimping around the palace in revealing gowns, on the laps of a new deity every night; tempting the married and toying with mortals. Astrid had created a name for herself as the Temptress of Kaimana.

With Vex, a middle god of beauty as well, they were a frightening pair. They could wreck kingdoms and conquer lands with nothing but their flawless faces and devious ways.

Naia rose from the table.

If she sat with Astrid for another minute, it would end with her sister peeling shards of the table’s stone from her face.

“Thank you for your words of advice.” Naia bowed her chin in goodbye before leaving. Her breakfast churned aggressively in her stomach, threatening to climb its way back up as Astrid’s vulgarity stuck with her.

As Naia took her usual path through the courtyard, she reflected on her discomfort from the conversation. Not because it had to do with Solaris, but with fucking. The way Astrid spoke of sex was erotic and meaningless. A form of mere pleasure and entertainment.

When Naia fantasized of sex, it was sensual, vulnerable; to express her love for the other person in ways words could not.

She longed to find someone to love, to be loved by; someone who she could pour out her deepest parts with; someone she never had to second guess; who would stand up for her when she needed it, who looked at her as if she were made up of the sun.

Naia believed her person was out there somewhere, waiting for her.

Naia remained in the palace library with stacks of books for the rest of the day. Her solace of dusty pages and creased spines; a steaming cup of chamomile tea under the amber hue candlelight, reading of the Mortal Land—cultures and countries, wars and governments, science and religion, landscapes and all the animals it housed.

It was a dream of hers to walk on mortal soil. Prior to her younger days, when her father first told her of it, a compulsion sat behind her sternum to go. She had no clue where, but she knew she did not belong beneath the sea. Something was waiting for her above.

She was nose-deep into the medical studies of their mortal flesh—how when it was injured, it took weeks, or even months, to mend itself; how some could be fatal and kill them. She learned of medicines and individuals, known as doctors, who could heal their wounds and broken bones with nothing but knowledge and tools. Mortals’ perseverance utterly fascinated her, regardless of how frail they were as a species.

Naia was grateful for her immortality. It was a privilege not to live in a constant state of worry that she would wake up and discover her organs had shut down for some unknown cause. How were mortals not eaten up with paranoia each day? It was puzzling how much could inflict such substantial damage on the vessels carrying them through life.

She took a sip of her lukewarm tea when a gust pushed through her hair.

A familiar twinge of power crackled in the air, sharpening Naia’s senses. She was no longer alone.

Naia lowered her tea back onto the table beside the leather-bound settee she was curled up on. Straight ahead, in the shadows between the aisle of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, Mira stood with Solaris at her side.

They stepped into the light of the room. The air solidified in Naia’s lungs.

She gauged them both closely.

Mira was in front of Solaris, the sharp glint of her pale eyes shining in the candlelight as she glared at Naia.

Solaris stood with his head down, avoiding Naia’s eyes.

Given the time of the month it was, Naia could assume why Mira had appeared with Solaris. Dread gripped her by the throat. By Solaris’s defeated disposition, somehow Raksa had figured out they’d been tricking him when they were supposed to be laying together.

Naia shut the book in her lap and lifted from the settee, spine straight to combat the pull in her body, begging her to run away. She refused to cower and give Mira satisfaction.

Squaring a look at her, Naia asked, “And if I do not wish to lie with him?”