Chapter 5 Lily #2
My eyes dropped at the thought because I’d come to live for his praise. To see my self-worth in the mirrors in his eyes. “I think I feel braver than I actually am because I know you’re there, always watching.”
His eyes remained locked on mine, not blinking as if he expected more words to follow.
“Because you know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.
” His hand slid into my hair again, and he cupped my face as he moved into me, kissing me as his body slid on top of mine, pinning me to the mattress underneath.
His kiss was hungrier than usual, like he was desperate to have me from our time apart, or because my political dance with King Ithaca had fed his flames rather than doused them.
He pulled off my bottoms without interrupting his kiss, his body already naked beneath the sheets, his hardness pressed against me when he came close.
There was little variance in our consummation, his body always on top of mine, doing all the work while I lay underneath him.
Simple and straightforward, but passionate and fiery, it was lovemaking rather than fucking, something I hadn’t really done with anyone else.
He sank inside me and watched my chest rise with the huge breath I took. One arm pinned my leg back, and he pressed his forehead to mine as he thrust inside me, eyes locked on mine as if there was no such thing as too much eye contact. He could stare at me forever. “Xivin…”
“I don’t want to go.” The sky turned from black to midnight blue, meaning dawn was just two hours away.
I should have slept while I’d had the chance, but the opportunity to bed Wrath seemed rarer.
With my responsibilities as queen, I knew my time with him had become limited.
People would notice if I disappeared without explanation, and because I was Queen of the Southern Isles, it would cause a panic.
He sat up against the headboard, eyes level with mine as I sat on his lap.
He was just that big, a living tree with the wisdom of roots that dug so deep into the earth it was as if they had been there since the dawn of time.
He stared like he always did, memorizing my face as if it were the last time he would see it.
Sometimes his look reminded me of my father’s, not in the intention, but the intensity. My father wore his love on his sleeve and showed it deep in his gaze. Wrath was the same way, but with a different kind of affection.
“You said…you loved someone before.”
His expression didn’t harden like I’d just intruded in his space. It remained open and vulnerable, like I was the only person in the world who had full access to him. “I did. With all my heart.”
Was I ridiculous for feeling a surge of jealousy? To know that he’d cared for someone before me? Yes. But I still felt it anyway.
“Have you loved someone before, Xivin?”
I’d never told him I loved him. He hadn’t actually said it to me, at least not directly.
But it had somehow been communicated irrevocably.
I felt it every time we touched. Felt it every time he looked at me.
Felt something so intense that it left me breathless every time I was with him.
“No.” My eyes dropped, and I severed the connection between our stares.
“And now I’m pretty sure I never will.” How would I ever love another man after Wrath?
How would I ever be happy when I’d met someone who was everything I’d ever wanted?
“I’m not stupid. I know I should leave while I still have some strength in me to walk out the door, but I can’t. ”
My eyes remained down on his enormous chest, a behemoth of a man who could easily carry me in a single arm.
If someone asked me to describe my fairy-tale man, it would be Wrath, not just in appearance but in soul.
A man who said very little but every single word was packed with a punch of intention.
“I asked the Covenant to release me.”
My eyes lifted to his, gripping hope I knew didn’t exist.
He gave a slight shake of his head. “They’ll never let me go, Xivin.”
“Can’t—can’t you just run?”
He shook his head. “That’s not how it works.”
“Then how does it work?” I asked. “Because my father escaped, so you can too.” Maybe if I said it with enough conviction, it would miraculously be true. “There must be a way.”
“The difference between us is, I’m the god of the underworld and he was a mortal servant.”
“What does a mortal servant mean?”
“It means he still had a soul.”
“And…you don’t?”
He stared at me for a while before he answered. “It’s complicated.”
“I want to understand.”
His eyes darted away like he needed a moment to gather his thoughts before he spoke.
“My predecessor was an eater. That means he would eat souls to sustain his power. Then he became the god of the underworld and a giant of force. But you can only become an eater if you don’t have a soul yourself.
They coerced me into taking his position by threatening to make me an eater, and that is something I refuse to do.
I’d rather be abandoned in the void than sustain off someone else’s essence. ”
All of this…was disturbing. “The void?”
“It’s nothingness. Neither Xian nor Caelum. It’s where Bahamut went when your father killed him.”
“But you do have a soul.”
“If your soul isn’t absorbed directly, exposure to darkness in Xian naturally corrodes it.
It’s like rust on an iron blade or the souring of milk.
Bahamut never took my soul because I served him faithfully and executed his orders without hesitation.
He seemed to spare me out of some form of allyship…
or loyalty. I’ll never know. And perhaps he assumed my soul had corroded long ago, so he never bothered to check. ”
“How do you know you still have it?”
“Because I can feel it,” he said simply. “It’s not the same as it was, but it’s still there.”
“How—how has it survived all this time?”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “The true answer will never be known, but I believe it’s because I came to the underworld under different circumstances than most. Most people exchange their souls for revenge, power, or greed.
I did it to save someone I loved. Perhaps my soul has more light in it than most. Perhaps it’s immune to the dark misery that lingers in every corner.
A place like that can turn anyone mad, and there was a time when the misery felt like too much.
But I carried on, wanting to be different from everyone else in that place…
even though it didn’t really matter in the end. ”
“But maybe it will matter. Because if we can get my father back, then why can’t we get you back?”
He stared at me for a while before he took a slow breath. “Since I’m god of the underworld, I’m not sure how that would be possible. I may have my soul, but I also have the iron grip of the demons that control me.”
“Can they be killed?”
“As they’re not living, that doesn’t really apply.”
“But Bahamut was.”
“Because he became mortal when the portal was open.” He released another breath, this time filled with frustration. “I don’t want our time together to be muddled by the dark reality of our circumstances. Let’s speak of something else…or I return you.”
“But we’ll have to speak of it at some point, Wrath. Because we both know this can’t go on forever.”
His eyes shifted away again, and this time, he remained quiet, like he refused to engage with me on the matter when he explicitly put an end to it.
“And the longer it goes on, the harder it gets.”
“I said I don’t want to speak on this further,” he said, his eyes still averted.
“But—”
“I know this will end at some point.” He turned back to me, his eyes heavy in anger, but anger that didn’t quite seem reserved for me.
“I know you’ll walk away and live a mortal life with a man who will love you deeply.
You will have children and have a life that you deserve.
Be the fairest queen of all. And you will know happiness every day of your long life, while I…
” He swallowed. “While I watch from afar just to see you…despite the anguish it causes every single time. I used to wish I’d made a different choice, but if I’d made a different choice, I never would have met you.
And having you in my heart, even if it’s only temporarily, has somehow made my time in the underworld worth it. ”
Tears had crept into my eyes the second he started to speak, and now they threatened to break the dam of my eyelids. The anguish he carried transferred into me and the misery were so much to take, but he had to take it every single day of his dark existence. “Wrath—”
The world shifted underneath my body, and then I felt the bedroll in the cave. I jerked up to search for him, but the cave was empty except for Hawk and the dragons. Tears still pooled in my eyes, and they started to streak down my cheeks, like the rain that continued to fall outside.