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I hated seeing her upset and frazzled. Anger looked so wrong on her face.

“Because I’m not someone who should be in Tartarus,” I finally said.

A flush of embarrassment hit me finally saying the words out loud.

“And neither are you, but if you choose to live here, that’s on you.

I’m not evil and bad, and I will not remain with the cretins and heathens of Tartarus.

” The room felt like it was closing in on me.

Every word I said felt sharper, angrier; every ache to touch her felt stronger, more frenzied.

“You called me a heathen before,” she said.

“I meant it sarcastically.” I was silent for a minute.

“Fine. Then we are nothing,” she said, but her words were still thick with need. “Give me the pendant. Please. You know I will not leave Tartarus and will not follow you to the Elysian Fields.”

“I know,” I said. I would have given almost anything for her to leave with me, including the pendant.

“So give me the pendant,” she said, her voice quivering close to tears as she hit her fist against my chest. “Give me the pendant. It’s nothing to you and everything to me!”

I grabbed her wrists to stop her assault. “It’s not nothing to me,” I said. “If I give you the pendant, I will no longer have Cal and Mendax. The tie to Cal will be severed and most likely transferred to you.” My words echoed in the silence. Her wrists relaxed in my grip.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” she said in a low voice, “you would pick my sister over me. ”

“That’s not what this is, Anna. They’re my only connection to anything else. They’re the only thing I have left, my only friends, and I-I can’t be attached to you like that and be in the Elysian Fields!”

“And what are we?” she shouted. “Are we not your friends?” She gestured wide as if Walter, Eletha, and Bexley were in the room with us.

“Of course you’re my friends,” I said.

“Then why can’t you stay with us?” The crack in her voice nearly buckled me. Her eyes closed at the end of her sentence, as if she’d been hoping to not say it out loud.

My chest physically hurt. “I can’t keep doing things for everybody else. At some point, I need to choose what’s good for me. I’m keeping the pendant, and I’m going to the Elysian Fields. I’m sorry,” I stated, hoping it was obvious that was my final decision.

“I thought we might have had something special,” Anna said. “I know you feel it. Don’t you know how rare this is?” She had moved close to my face and all I could focus on was her mouth. “Give me the pendant,” she said softly, running her palm up my chest slowly.

I closed my eyes at the sensation. “Anna, please.”

“Not until you give me the pendant,” she said defiantly. “You’re not the only one who gets to make decisions for them- selves and be selfish.” She ran her hand all the way down to my waistline, pulling my shirt out of where it was tucked in my pants.

I was frozen, unable to move, curious to see what she would do next—needing to feel what she would do next, completely at her mercy.

She wrapped her arm around my neck and pulled me in, rasping in my ear as her thick, heavy voice skittered throughout my mind and body: “Give me the pendant.” Her mouth pushed against mine, parting my lips in a forceful kiss, full of impatient need.

My knees shook from the sensation. “Anna,” I said, meaning it to come out in a plea for her to stop being so seductive .

“Come on,” she said. She kissed me again, pulling my mouth to her neck.

I was struggling to stay strong. My hands roamed across her stomach and her breasts. “Anna, you don’t want this. Not like this. Not when we have to say goodbye.”

“You’re wrong, Eli. I do want this,” she whispered, slightly more gentle and sincere.

The thread inside of me snapped.

Her back slammed into the door with a rattle as I moved her against it, tilting her head to the side so I could lavish her neck with kisses and bites.

She let out a soft moan that sent a shiver down my arms, and I locked each sensation away in my most prized memories.

I lifted the hem of her shirt and pulled it off, exposing her beautiful round breasts.

She let out a cry of pleasure when my mouth wasted no time in covering them with nips and kisses.

Her legs wrapped around my waist. My head fell back at the feel of her open body pressing against my stiff cock, and my hands palmed her ass.

No feeling in the world compared to having her this close.

She kissed me roughly, both of her hands pulling and tugging at my hair.

It was a whirlwind of chemistry and need.

Neither one of us seemed capable of touching the other fast enough.

She thrust herself harder against me and I felt every warm fold of her most delicate parts through her thin pants.

“Anna,” I groaned as a shiver overtook my body.

Our kiss deepened as we each fought for more.

She repeated her previous movements, pressing her body into me and sliding down until she had to break the kiss to let out a small cry of pleasure.

I found her mouth again and widened my palms across her ass, squeezing and kneading as I slowly slid her up and down, feeling the length of my cock part her lips and slide across her barely covered clit.

“Oh, Eli!” She panted as her nails dug into my shoulder.

I dropped to the ground where we stood, not bothering to try and make it to the bed.

I needed her now. I couldn’t wait another second.

I laid her on her back gently, putting my palm on her chest to show her I wanted her to stay flat.

I pulled my shirt over my head and threw it to the side.

Immediately her hands covered my chest and arms, and I had to gently push her back down.

I hooked my fingers into her thin pants and pulled them off, taking a moment to look at her blushing pink pussy.

She thrust up slightly and I couldn’t help but smirk.

“What do you need, heathen? Do you need my hand? My mouth?” I asked her as my palm moved across her stomach and breasts.

Frustrated and already on the edge, she put her hands out to her side by her head and lifted her beautiful pussy again.

She let out a low growl and tried to climb back on me.

“No words, huh? You’ve gone feral,” I grinned.

I rose up on my knees and removed my pants before quickly kneeling and lifting her legs wide, the sides and backs of them resting on top of my thighs.

I bit my lip as I took her in. “Is this all for me?” I whispered running my hand over her.

I rubbed her clit in a slow circle, relishing in the slippery, erotic haze I was in.

Her hips bucked and I pushed two fingers inside of her as I leaned over her.

As soon as I was within reach, she grabbed my shoulders and began to work her body in rhythm with my fingers.

My eyes flickered closed. I was barely holding on.

“Eli!” she called out as I moved my fingers faster, hooking at just the right spot. “Fuuuck me!” she moaned, about to come. I stopped and removed my fingers. She looked up in alarm.

I leaned back, gripping her thigh with one hand and squeezing it where it rested over top of mine. My eyes held hers with unbridled heat as I slowly licked her slickness off of my fingers. “Do you want me to fuck you or make love to you?” I rasped.

Anna bit her lower lip and took me in with hooded eyes as she thought for a moment.

She sat up and moved her arms around my neck.

Our eyes locked as she positioned herself to where my cock stabbed the inside of her thigh.

Her eyes moved to my lips for a second as she reached her hand between us and gripped my cock tight.

My mouth dropped as I exhaled. She rubbed the head of me against her wetness and matched my exhale before she pushed my tip inside of her and bore down on me.

Goose bumps covered my body as her warm, perfect body slid around me.

“I want to make love to you,” she whispered before kissing me gently.

The air shifted in the room, and though the impending sense of urgency remained between us, it had morphed from a passionate need into one that came not from seeking pleasure but something deep in the nooks and crannies of what lay in our hearts.

Our bodies turned to one as our rhythms synced into slow, sensual thrusts, our eyes the only thing communicating to the other apart from our lips.

We both were incapable of separating our mouths from the other’s as our kisses matched our slow, intense thrusts.

I felt every moan across my lips. As our rhythm picked up, a few stray tears dripped from Anna’s eyes, and I kissed them away.

There was so much more than physical touch in this moment.

We came in unison, collapsing on the floor as we caught our breath, still holding tightly to one another, each refusing to be separated before we had to be.

After a few minutes I felt something in the back of my mind and I realized I had put up a wall, which I lowered immediately.

‘Eli.’

Fuck.

‘Can you hear me?’

“It’s Cal,” I said to Anna, who rolled over and sat up suddenly alert.

‘Are you okay? What’s going on?’ I asked her.

‘I’m okay. I had some trouble with the baby.’

‘Is the baby okay?’

‘Yes, she is fine.’

“She,” I said both out loud and in my mind. “So it was a girl.” Anna covered her mouth with her hands and squealed. “Anna is with me. She is beside herself.”

‘It’s proving to be a lot more complicated than I had anticipated. ’

“I didn’t know girls were that much more difficult than boys,” I said with a smile.

‘That’s not why?—‘

Mendax suddenly jumped in. ‘Calypso, there is a man here wanting to bother our daughter. Do you perhaps know what this is about and why I should not remove his head?’

‘This is why’, she said. ‘It’s Bartleby, my love. He’s the healer I’ve been working with. Ten is due for her three-month check.’

‘Three-month check?’

‘I don’t recognize him,’ Mendax snarled.

‘That’s because you killed the last healer,’ Cal grumbled.

‘He made her cry! No one makes my daughter cry and lives.’

‘You see?’ Caly laughed. ‘Do you see what I have to deal with now? He will hardly let me hold her unless she needs to be nursed, and even then he watches over the door like a guard.’

‘Three-month check?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t reach out sooner; life has been hectic. We have made some serious advances with the study of magic though, that I’d love to tell you—Cal began but I cut her off.

‘How has it been three months? I just heard you cry out in birth yesterday,’ I said, suddenly feeling alarmed.

‘Are you still in the tiers? Time doesn’t really exist in Tartarus, not in the way it does for the living,’ Mendax said.

‘I can’t talk now. Ten is eyeing the window absolutely begging to go on a walk.

Are you going back to the lab, Caly? We’ll see you for dinner. Tarani is bringing over her husband.’

Her husband. Tarani had gotten married. I’d missed everything.

‘Yeah, sorry I can’t stay either; we are working with some combustible magic and I really need my full thoughts on it.’ Cal trailed off, and then they both left.

“They sound really busy and happy,” Anna said after I had filled her in.

“Yeah. It’s like they’re too busy for me now,” I muttered.

A knock at the door sounded. Anna and I looked at each other.

We were still lying on the floor naked. She jumped up and grabbed her clothes but was much faster than I was, and when the door opened with a loud creak, I jumped and scrambled to cover myself.

In the place of the open door was nothing but blackness.

The kind of darkness that was only seen in empty portals.

“The portal,” Anna said. “We—we must’ve all passed lust, though I don’t know how.” She made a point of looking down at me with a hedonistic grin.

“Love isn’t lust,” I whispered. She nodded softly.

“I suppose it’s on to the tenth tier,” she said rather sadly.

I wasn’t feeling much happier. Silence overtook us as we took our time getting dressed. We went up to the doorway and entered the portal to the tenth and final tier with one final look at one another.