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It makes zero difference, because Envy’s gaze shutters. His expression is of the frenetic sort, disorder leaping off his face and gluing her to the spot.

Sorrow indicates the garments. “This has nothing to do with you.”

His engorged pupils jump from her clavicles to her face. “I may be unsteady when it comes to the Goddess of Sorrow, but I’m shrewd enough to know that none of your actions have ever had to do with me.”

Sarcasm. Acrimony.

Good. She can handle that. “Huh. I’d counter that by pointing out our bawdy sexcapades, but as you accurately described it, I used our romps purely to get the randiness out of my system. It wasn’t about intimacy. It was just a cheap solution to external frustrations.”

You intimidate me.

There it is again. That thing he’d said, dangling between them.

This is a terrible idea, but how far can she push that confession?

Sorrow dumps her hands into the robe pockets and juts out her chin. “You may have had the universe fawning over you, but if you had tried seduction with me, your dick would have rusted like a pipe before you succeeded.”

Envy whips around, stalking over the glass shards and into the shadows.

Sorrow startles. Where is he going? It’s not supposed to be that easy.

Well, ha. Whatever. She told him off. She—

Fuck. Fuck, he’s changed his mind. He’s not leaving. He’s striding back here, and thrusting his digits through his hair, and ruining that fantastic mane, and crap, he’s not stopping. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Sorrow breaks into a run. Like prey, she leaps across the cavern as if someone has lit dynamite at her heels, skirting Envy’s arm as it lashes out to catch her. Yelping, she bolts into the nearest artery. It’s the wrong direction, but it’s too late, too late to turn back.

She whips her head over her shoulder. He pounds across the chasm, closing the distance, those ailing ribs be damned. If he’s hurting, he doesn’t show it.

The intent look on his face is neither friendly, nor playful. The only suitable classification isambitious, his features narrowed as if hunting a target with carnal hostility.

His hell-bent expression is a straight shot to the groin. A swirl of desire tears up her limbs and causes a rift in the tight spot at the apex of her thighs, breaking her wide open.

Sorrow’s pulse hammers against her chest, anticipation thrashing wildly beneath her breast. Tumbling into the niche where he stores those fashion renderings, she backtracks, passing her makeshift room. Grasping a corner wall, she jets around the bend into his wardrobe alcove. They leave the space in shambles, shirts and belts falling off shelves and wall hooks littering the floor.

Everlasting Fates! If he doesn’t give a fig about the wardrobe’s state, that means shit has gotten real.

Blasting into his sleeping chamber, she makes a flying leap across the mattress, then hops over the stream and hustles back toward the entrance.

Envy charges, aiming to cut her off at the pass. Sorrow ducks and dodges.

Reaching the main cavern, she hops over discarded cushions and punts the chairs in his path, which he whips aside. She wouldn’t blame an outsider for mistaking this for some demented mating ritual.

Clamping her hands over her mouth, she staunches a laugh. The repressed noise must reach his ears, which propels him to a greater speed.

How is it possible to feel mirth, and fear, and arousal at the same time? Does she want him to catch her? Not unless they’d like to make a disaster of each other.

Because she knows. She one-hundred percent knows what this is, what will happen if he gets his hands on her.

With her feet slamming onto the ground, Sorrow bats the hair from her eyes.

The boat!

She barrels over the threshold. Bounding into the tethered vessel, she yanks on the cord with such force that it breaks. There’s a pole similar to the one from the star-shaped vessel that carried them through the rapids, except this shaft stands at the prow instead of the center.

Hyped up on adrenaline, Sorrow twists the column, light springing from its length as the vessel slides across the lagoon. She stumbles. Easing up on the lever, it slows down but shaves through the water swift enough to evade Envy, who halts at the rocky base.

On a whim, she flashes her middle digit and mouths,“Na-nana-nana-naaaaaa.”