Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
To Kiss a Demon
Erevos
For a long moment after their bodies stilled, Erevos did not move.
Lyssena remained on his cock, her arms loose on his torso, her breath shallow and spent against his chest, and he was acutely aware of every place where they were still joined, of the warmth enclosing him, of the pulse inside her that had not yet settled.
He felt . . . different. Full.
When he finally moved, easing his hands more securely beneath her thighs, he lifted her slowly, and the motion caused his still semi-hardened cock to slide free of her body with a slow, slick withdrawal that drew a sensitive tremor through them both.
Erevos watched the place where they separated. Her body released him reluctantly, and a thick trail of his seed followed after, spilling down the inside of her thigh in dark streaks that glistened against her flushed skin.
He stared.
Demons did not reproduce. They did not spill seed, and yet he had.
He adjusted his hold on her, cradling her closer against his chest. Lyssena’s head rested just beneath his chin, her hair damp at the temples, her lashes heavy as she looked up at him with that soft, open gaze that made something inside his chest grow unbearably warm.
He had barely cooled from their mating, and already that look burned heat through him again.
“Erevos,” she murmured, her voice faint and breath-warmed, “do you . . . want to kiss?”
The question caught him off guard. “Kiss,” he repeated.
She nodded, her expression turning shy. “I have never done it before,” she admitted, her fingers curling lightly against his chest. “But I think I would like to try.”
Her gaze flickered to his mouth, or rather, to the sharp rows of teeth that filled it.
“I am only . . . uncertain,” she added, “because you have so many of those.”
Erevos had devoured fear with those teeth. Therefore, he had never considered them an obstacle.
“How,” he asked, his voice gentler than its usual timbre, “should I kiss you?”
Lyssena hesitated, then lifted both hands slowly and placed them on his face; her palms were warm against the shadowed planes of him. Her touch alone made him still.
She studied him, her green eyes dancing between his, and then—with a small inhale—she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to the space just below his teeth, where his lips would have rested if he had any. The contact was light. It was warm, and it lasted a second.
It was not violent. It was . . . delicate.
When Lyssena pulled back, Erevos was unsure what had just happened.
“I want to understand,” he said at last, his tone solemn despite the bloom beginning to spread through him.
Her brows lifted.
“Again,” he clarified, leaning down to her face.
A small smile curved her mouth, and she pressed her lips to him once more, this time lingering a fraction longer, her fingers tightening against his jaw as though testing whether he might bite.
He did not.
He only absorbed the sensation, the softness, the warmth, the faint taste of her breath.
When she withdrew, she let out a small, breathy giggle. Warmth bloomed through him all over again, curling through his shadows until they shifted around them like a living embrace.
Erevos tightened his hold on her just enough not to restrain, only enough to ensure she remained exactly where she was. He did not yet understand kissing or the fluid he had spilled.
But he understood that he wanted to learn everything with her.
“I think it may be time to clean up,” Lyssena said.
“Yes,” he agreed at once.
He brushed her hair away from her forehead and carried her from the kitchen, his feet making no sound against the shadow-formed floor.
The hallway beyond was almost done. While his songbird slept, Erevos tended to the house.
His current project was the breaks on the walls.
He wanted to make them even and to have Lyssena enjoy the decoration and texture, rather than empty surfaces.
Soon, the house would be complete, and it would be worthy of her.
He glanced down at Lyssena, imagining her wandering these halls, choosing fabrics and shapes, imprinting herself into every dark corner until the place bore her mark as much as his.
The thought brought him joy.
When they reached the end of the corridor, he nudged open the door to the bathing chamber, where the water he created stayed warm and steamy.
Lyssena shifted in his arms. “I need to . . . relieve myself first,” she admitted, her cheeks pinking despite everything they had just done.
He carried her directly to the waste pot tucked near the far wall and set her upon it.
Lyssena blinked up at him. “I am not a child,” she said, looking at the pot, then back at him. “I can do that myself.”
“I am aware,” he replied.
She paused. “Then why did you carry me to it?”
“You are required to be placed upon it,” he said. “You are tired.”
Lyssena stared at him for a long moment, then huffed a faint breath. “That does not mean you must supervise.”
“I am not supervising,” he countered, folding his arms as he remained exactly where he was. “I am observing.”
Her lips twitched despite herself. “Unbelievable.”
“And yet,” he said, “you remain seated.”
She tried—and failed—to suppress a smile before shaking her head and lifting the hem of her gown out of the way.
When she settled properly onto the pot and finally relaxed enough to let go, a soft sound filled the quiet chamber, and almost immediately she winced.
Erevos straightened.
Pain flickered across her face, and his shadows sharpened instinctively along the floor.
“It burns,” she admitted through a small exhale, her brows drawing together.
His gaze darkened. “Why?”
“My mother told me it might,” Lyssena explained, her voice steadying as she focused on breathing through her discomfort. “The first time can make everything . . . tender.”
Erevos was very displeased with himself for knowing so little of mating and its consequences. He had never thought he would ever experience it; he never had any interest in it. At all.
Now he knew he had to understand every piece of the process. He was a curious demon, of course.
“It is swollen,” she added, gesturing vaguely between her thighs. “I will need to put medicine there. Something soothing.”
“What medicine?”
“An herbal salve,” she said. “There are women in my village who make it. It helps calm the skin.”
His mind moved quickly through possibilities—shadow synthesis, matter shaping, reconstruction of known substances—but he realized with a great amount of irritation that he did not possess sufficient knowledge of mortal herbal combinations to recreate it accurately.
He could bend shadows or fracture realms. But he did not know how to craft a village woman’s soothing salve.
“I will acquire it,” he said.
Lyssena blinked at him. “Acquire it?”
“I will go to your realm and retrieve this medicine,” he clarified, as though stating the most obvious solution. “You require it.”
She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. She was too tired to argue with a demon-god who treated inter-realm travel like walking into another room.
By the time she finished relieving herself, the initial sting had dulled slightly, though she still looked swollen and flushed.
Mortal bodies expelled waste even after ecstasy. Fascinating.
With a small motion of his hand, he bent the matter within, dissolving the liquid and its remnants into fine, harmless particles that shimmered before dispersing into the air and vanishing entirely, absorbed back into the architecture of shadow itself.
Lyssena stared.
“That is convenient,” she murmured.
Erevos looked mildly pleased. “Yes.”
Then he crouched before her again, his hands returning gently to her waist.
“Now,” he said, his voice softer once more, “we will tend to you.”