Page 36

LILY

I felt him before I saw him.

Felt his presence like a fire at my back. A shadow over my body. A chill from the winter wind. I turned to face him, to see those dark eyes as they burned into mine. I’d barely reached him when he outstretched his big hands toward me.

I blinked, and then I was somewhere else.

I sank into the soft sand beneath my feet. Felt the cold turn into a moist warmth that coated the skin. The sound of flames was replaced by the waves that beat the shore. A breeze moved through my hair, but I didn’t feel a sting of cold.

He watched me absorb our surroundings with a deep calm in his eyes.

His hands were still on me, and they cocooned me further, circling me like bars to a cage of a willing prisoner.

Like he’d been thinking of me all day, he pulled me close and kissed my burning lips with his, angling his neck down so our mouths could meet.

A rush of excitement and desire hit me hard like a sword against a shield.

Every moment we were apart was spent in angst, waiting for us to be reunited, for the return of peace and joy that only he could bring me.

I’d never had a lover I missed when he was gone.

Never had a lover I missed before he even left.

He carried me into the little hut he’d built with his bare hands, a sight I would have loved to have watched from the shade of a palm tree, sweat trickling down his back and arms. When I felt my back hit the straw mattress, I yanked his bottoms off like it was our first time or our last, when it was neither.

He undressed quickly then removed my clothing before he dominated me, folding me into a ball underneath him before he sheathed his big dick in my wet channel, wet because I’d been thinking of him all day.

His body was tight and firm over mine as he fucked me hard, one hand finding its way into my hair, his other gripping the back of my thigh as he gave me his dick like he’d never given it to me before.

“Wrath…”

His hand moved to my throat and held it.

I moaned because I liked it. I liked being possessed by a man I should fear with every fiber of my being. Liked knowing he could crush my spine or steal my soul with a flick of his wrist. And I also liked knowing he would never do any of those things—at least, not to me.

He suddenly rolled me onto my stomach and moved back over me, his dick returning to my slickness much easier now that his flesh was soaked.

He entered me hard, his pelvis against my ass, and he ground me into the sheets, making my clit feel the pressure of his weight and the power of his thrust. He fisted my hair and tugged it back like it was reins and I was his horse.

“Oh fuck…” My hands automatically clutched the sheets on either side of me.

He pounded into me from behind, his mouth near my ear, his slightly labored breaths audible and sexy.

He already felt too big to handle, but at this angle, it nearly felt like too much.

But there was no such thing as too much dick, and I came around him with a moan that sounded more like a whine and a cry, the tears streaking down like the rivers of veins along his neck and arms.

He thrust into me harder when he heard me come, pounding to the finish line so he could fill me with the load he’d reserved just for me.

His thrusts suddenly became abrupt and uneven, and his breaths were mixed with the moan that escaped his throat.

He slowed until he stilled, his hand coming free of my hair that he left in tangles.

He slowly removed himself, making me wince because it was still a tree trunk whether it was full or not. He lay back on one of the pillows and pulled me into his chest, wanting me even if it was warm and he was covered in sweat.

He kissed me again, cupped my face and kissed me like what we’d just had wasn’t enough.

But it wasn’t enough for me either.

I moved on top of him, straddling a mighty oak, and kissed him with my ass in the air, his seed trailing down the inside of my thigh. He must have felt it drip down onto his flesh because he gave a moan, gripped my hips, and tugged me down to him.

His dick was already hard again, probably because it’d never fully softened, and I sank onto his length with ease, the arousal between our flesh so potent, we were slick like rain on the rooftop. I dropped as far as my body would allow.

He looked up at me like I was the sunrise after a storm. Like I was the first flower of spring. Like I was all he ever wanted. He propped himself up on one arm and grabbed my hip with the other, guiding me up and down his length at the pace he wanted—nice and slow.

I moaned for him like he hadn’t already made me come, because the dick of a god was the best I’d ever had. I rose and fell, sheathing him with more cream, watching him fall into the endless depths of desire that had already taken me.

“ Xivin …” His skin was blotted red with the desire that burned deep in his flesh. He’d just blown my mind and my body with the way he’d taken me, and it was so enjoyable to do the same to him, to make him weak because it felt so damn good. “Fuck.”

We lay in the darkness of the hut, the moonlight and starlight bouncing off the surface of the water and giving us some illumination. Nothing was said as we relaxed there together, my fingers gently grazing over his chest, my body on fire from the intensity of his stare.

The flames of desire between us should have been extinguished long ago, but every night, a new log was tossed onto the fire and the blaze burned hotter than it did before.

My heart beat for a man who didn’t have a heart at all.

I longed for his stare and his touch, and I felt comforted knowing he was watching me even when I couldn’t see him.

I’d be a slave to a Barbarian right now if he hadn’t used his command of the dead to ensure I lived.

“What are your thoughts?” he said quietly.

My eyes lifted to his, realizing that was one thing he couldn’t take from me. He could watch me without being seen, but he couldn’t hear the thoughts inside my mind. “What are yours?”

His hand moved over mine, and he placed it where his heart should be. There was nothing there, no beat or thud, a silent graveyard where life had once been. “My heart beats when I’m with you. And it beats true.”

This road we’d traveled had been filled with the beauty of wild jasmine and the excitement of lit braziers. A moment ago, it had felt endless, but now it felt completed. Barren sand stretched out as far as the eye could see. There was nothing but death.

My hand suddenly weakened in his, and I pulled it away.

His eyes had been calm and enigmatic, but they sharpened at my sudden movements.

I sat up in bed when the anxiety took hold, when I was suddenly scared out of my mind. I hugged the bedding to my chest and noticed him sit upright from the corner of my eye. A moment ago, I’d been so comfortable I could have drifted off to sleep, but now, I wanted to run. “This is over.”

Instead of challenging my statement with his refusal or confusion, he only stared at me.

I waited for the litany of questions, the scorching interrogation, but it never came.

After a minute of pained silence became several, I turned to look at him.

With the same intensity he wore whenever he looked at me, he stared at me now, making me feel smothered by him even when we were a foot apart.

“I didn’t foresee this either. Hundreds of years spent in darkness had numbed me to the world.

My past had numbed me to myself. When you came to my shores, I felt a magnetism that was stronger than the forces of Xian and the Realm of Caelum.

I should have fought the hold, but I let it pull me to you.

I followed this river to a cliff, a cliff that will kill any who topple over, but I let it pull me to the edge anyway. ”

I wanted to look away, but he was just as magnetic to me as I was to him.

“I loved a woman before, a long time ago. I didn’t expect it to happen again.”

I sucked in a rushed breath and dropped my stare.

“You already know this, Xivin .”

I swallowed, feeling my flesh carved down to the bone.

“This is presumptuous, but I think that feeling is reciprocated.”

My heart was racing harder than a speeding horse. Faster than the flapping wings of a heavy dragon trying to take flight.

“An open secret between us…”

I tightened the blankets around me when I felt a chill in the air, a frost on a tropical beach.

“I—” I’d never been with a man so straightforward and transparent, someone who shared vulnerable thoughts that most men would deny or hide.

He was unafraid of everything, even himself.

“We need to end this before…it’s too late. ”

“ Xivin , it’s already too late.”

I turned to look at him once more.

With a calmness, he stared at me with eyes the color of earth filled with flecks of gold.

His intensity had waned, but he still radiated strength in the straightness of his spine, in the power of the muscles packed on his limbs and core.

When he was mortal, he must have been the most sought-after man who ever lived.

Whoever he loved had been the luckiest woman alive.

“All you have to do is ask me to leave and never return—and I will honor that wish.”

My sternum cracked from the pain.

“But I don’t want this to end, and neither do you.”

“We have no future, Wrath. I can’t be in a relationship that no one can see.

I can’t tell my father that the man I’ve chosen is the God of the Underworld.

I can’t explain to Khazmuda why I’ve chosen to spend my life with someone who once served the man who killed my father.

There is no way this will ever work. Of course, the first time I find someone I want for more than a night happens to be the most unavailable man on the planet. ”

“I’ve never been unavailable to you. I’ve been here with you most nights. I’ve stood in your presence during the day. I’ve come to know your world and everyone who matters to you by standing at your side—even if you couldn’t see me.”

“You know that’s not enough.” It was enough right now when I pretended this was only an arrangement and nothing more. But the warning in my heart now blared like a horn at the beginning of war. My heart was vulnerable to swords and arrows and death.

He went quiet, staring at me with thoughts hidden behind his gaze.

I hadn’t noticed it right away, but it had become clearer that he was from another time.

His mannerisms were different, and his words were always particular and few and far between.

He was the strong and silent type, but he also had an unfathomable depth that couldn’t be reached with a pickax.

He didn’t play games like most men I knew.

Being hundreds of years old had made him more mature than anyone I knew, besides Khazmuda and the elder dragons.

“We can be together—in the underworld.”

My heart gave a squeeze at the suggestion.

“You would keep your soul.”

“But I would be dead.” My hand absent-mindedly went to my heart and felt it beat like a stampede of hooves.

“To the world above. But you wouldn’t feel it below.”

“But I would have to leave behind everyone I’ve ever known and loved.”

His eyes suddenly softened in sadness.

“I—I can’t do that.” I couldn’t believe I even entertained the idea enough to reject it. “I can’t do that to my father, not after what he’s been through. I can’t abandon my kingdom when my father has chosen me to rule. I can’t hurt my mother like that, or Hawk or Zehemoth.”

“You’re right.” His eyes shifted out the double doors to the water. “It was wrong of me to ask.”

“Is there any way you could…be mortal again?”

His eyes stayed outside on the water, a heavy silence accompanying his palpable despair. “No.”

“Have you tried?—”

“Many times.” His neck suddenly looked strained, and the cords became taut like a pulled rope.

“I’ve tried to escape my fate many times, but I’ve never been as lucky as your father.

I haven’t had a dragon bind itself to my soul.

I didn’t have a woman who would never question my loyalty to her and would run to the ends of the earth to get me back.

I’m trapped in this forced servitude for all eternity, my soul slowly corroded by the foul deeds I’m forced to complete against my will. ”

A layer of tears formed on my bottom eyelids. Warm like the water at the shore, they spilled over the edge and silently flowed down my cheeks. I dropped the sheets and crawled to him on the bed before I hooked my arms around his neck.

He wouldn’t look at me. “Don’t pity me.”

I pressed my face into his cheek, my tears catching his skin and streaking down to his chin.

“ Don’t .” He spoke quietly. “I understood the terms when I made my choice.”

My fingers moved into his hair as I rested my lips against his warm flesh, silently crying as I held him, when what I really wanted was for him to hold me, to comfort me when my soul was free and his wasn’t.

I cupped his cheek and brought his lips to mine, but at first, he resisted. He didn’t want my comfort or affection. He didn’t want my sympathy. As always, he wanted to carry this burden alone. The way he’d done these last three hundred and seventy-seven years.

I brought him to me again, and this time, he stayed. He let me kiss him, and after the feel of my desperate lips coated in salt, he kissed me back. Kissed me slowly and hard, his hand digging into my hair.

I moved into his lap as my arms circled his neck, kissing him with more passion than I’d ever felt before. The fire between us erupted into an inferno, but it wasn’t fueled by lust for the flesh. It was fed by the bond between our hearts, the magnetism that pulled us together and didn’t let go.