Chapter 30
Jessamine left Elric’s heart with her soul in that realm where only the Deathless One could go. And even though she was still angry at him, there was a certain amount of pleasure that came with knowing her man would get down onto his knees and let her carve out his heart when he made a mistake.
Holding that still-beating organ showed her just how much power she had over him.
Elric hadn’t been joking when he said she had his heart. She’d held it in the palm of her hand and watched as he looked up at her with rapture in those eyes and she… believed him.
She believed he wanted her soul to keep him company. That he was an empty, aching man who had been so lonely he’d thought peering into memories would make him less so.
They came back to the realm of the living, and she opened her eyes to stare at their reflection in the mirror. She knew she would forgive him for all this. He knew how wrong it was and that of all people, she had never anticipated that he would betray her.
It hadn’t been the right thing to do, but he had done it for the right reasons, and he was a god. He had done it because he’d been so lonely that he wasn’t thinking straight. And perhaps a bit because he did not understand that it would hurt her.
She knew what it was to feel lonely, even while surrounded by crowds of people.
Breathing out, she looked at their reflection and wondered what had brought them here.
This time, he left his hands on her shoulders, his gaze meeting hers as they both surveyed themselves in the mirror.
A pale young woman seated with a brush in her hand, and the dark shape of a god looming behind her.
He was too tall, his fingers too broad, the scars on them catching the delicate silk of her dress.
But somehow, she’d never seen a more handsome sight.
He swallowed hard as he noticed his scars had caught on her dress, his hands still lingering where she had previously not let him touch. “Jessamine?” he asked, his voice a little uncertain, as though he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to speak.
“Yes?”
“We should get you out of this dress.”
The underlying question was there. Did she want him to touch her?
Did she want to allow him that gift? Because now that he had bared his soul to her, she knew that it was a gift.
Every time she let him linger in her body, find solace in the moonlight of her form, as he had claimed, it was a balm to the aching wounds that ran centuries deep.
She stood, still watching him in the mirror as they both backed up. Like they were dancing, their bodies were so harmonious with each other that she knew how and when he was going to move without ever looking at the step he was about to take.
“We need to talk about one more thing,” she murmured, even as his hands slid away from her shoulders and down the wings of her shoulder blades.
“What do you want to know, gravesinger?”
His talented fingers made quick work of the knot at the waist of her robe. Soon enough, the ties of her wrap loosened, and she just barely caught it before it slid off her.
“The creatures that we left there, the ones I burned. They were infected. Does that mean all the infected have had their souls taken?”
“We’ve already gone over this, Jessamine.
A magical malady like that would suggest that none of them have souls.
Not a single one. The mindless nature of their being is to spread that strange curse through touch, and that makes more sense now.
It’s a curse that grows on its own without someone continually conjuring it.
A rather impressive creation, even if I do hate that it was likely influenced by the Crone. ”
“You don’t ever call her your sister,” she mused as his fingers toyed with the ends of the robe ties. “Why is that?”
“She came into this life an old woman, and it’s rather hard to imagine her as a sister when my only memories of her are as an old wrinkled bat.” He paused, the backs of his fingers pressing against her belly. “But you know very little of my family dynamics, I’m now realizing.”
“I know very little about you as a person, Elric.”
“There isn’t much to know. I was alive, and then I died.
Repeat for centuries on end. You know, I used to pray to the gods as well.
My siblings could hear any prayer, even those uttered by another god.
I prayed the first time I was sacrificed, carved into pieces to make it a glorious sacrifice that would give the witches the most power.
None of them offered to save me, and not a single one offered comfort.
” His face twisted with disgust. “My family was not a kind one.”
The front of her robe parted, and she held on to it with her arm as she looked at him in the mirror. “No, I don’t suppose it was.”
“The gods are difficult on their own, but they had expectations that no one could ever live up to. I was the youngest, you see. And they all had their own opinions on what made a god good. The more they told me, the less I believed. But it does not surprise me that of all the gods to linger, it would be the Crone. She had the closest to my kind of power, death and life as pieces in her chess game. If she wished, she could give them power over the dead, knowledge of the spirit realm, and even raise up servants from bodies that souls had long since fled. The priestesses were basically witches, if one looked at them from the outside.”
“Is that what I should expect to fight against? Priestesses?”
He looked… troubled. Elric didn’t reply immediately.
Instead, he reached out and took the robe from her hands.
He drew it down her form, allowing the darkness to pool at her feet and his eyes to heat with hunger.
She could see how much he wanted to touch her.
How much he wanted to draw her hands away from her breasts so that he could look his fill.
But he didn’t touch her. At least, not like he wanted to. Instead, his warm palm landed on her waist and he gently turned her toward the bed. “Sit, nightmare. Let me brush your hair before you sleep.”
“I’ll admit, this isn’t what I thought we’d be doing.”
He shook his head at her, retrieving the brush from the vanity while she sat on the middle of the bed and turned her back to him. With her legs curled under her, she was far more comfortable than sitting at the vanity.
And then his voice was right in her ear, deep and guttural with emotion. “I have to earn the right to touch you again, my nightmare.”
A shiver trailed down her spine, but then he was brushing her hair with infinite care.
She’d already taken the pins out, so it was easy for him to slide the brush through her long locks.
He took his time, being careful with every knot that he came across.
The silence between them was no longer heavy, though.
Instead, it was the comfortable silence of two people who knew each other’s souls.
Even if it still stung to think that he had hers. Still, on the end of that thought was the reassurance that she now owned his heart.
It took a long while before he sighed. “I think we may be dealing with priestesses.”
“Why does it sound like that upsets you?”
“Because it does.” The brush smoothed through her hair so gently, at odds with the violence in his voice.
“I always considered them misguided. Witches understand that magic has a price. They have always known that they must sacrifice to gain power, even if the sacrifice is something very dear to them. Magic is not something to take lightly because it takes from you. Priestesses believe that magic is their right. Their magic was given to them by a goddess because they are better than anyone else.”
“That does sound dangerous. Not because they are more powerful than us, which I do not believe them to be. But because they think they have a right to what they are no longer able to access.”
“Precisely. And my fear is that there are more of them. If they are using pieces of the Crone’s body, then they should almost be out. Which will only lead to them becoming desperate to get more power.”
She let those thoughts roll around in her mind until she could figure out what was bothering her most about it. “If Leon promised them more power…”
“Then they will do anything to get it. I fear he believes there is a way to bring back the gods. I could not hazard a guess as to why, unless he believes that he can control them once he brings them back from the dead.” He replaced the brush, his calloused hands smoothing down her bare arms before he got off the bed.
She could feel the ache in him, because it was the same as the one in her. They were different now. She had no fear they wouldn’t mend this, because she’d already forgiven him. But it was an odd, gnawing sort of hunger as she watched him walk away from her.
Elric set everything right on her vanity, the brush at a perfect angle, and all the perfumes settled where they would be easy for her to reach in the morning. And then he braced himself on the wood, his head hanging as he stared at the gnarled circles of wooden knots.
He was the picture of defeat. A man who had nearly lost everything and who must have believed that he would never get it back.
A knife twisted in her heart, because even though she was dreadfully angry at him, that didn’t change how she felt. She feared nothing could change how she felt about him.
“Deathless One,” she said, her voice a low murmur. “Come put me to bed.”
He moved only his head, looking at her with those dark soulless eyes. “You try my patience, gravesinger. If I put you to bed, I will not stop there. And as you said yourself, I need to earn your trust.”
“What I meant was that if anyone was going to punish you, it would be me. I do not give you permission to punish yourself.”
He turned with a gleam in his eye. But still, he did not come to bed. Instead, he leaned against the vanity and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re making it hard for me to atone for my grave error.”
Jessamine rearranged herself. Draping her body over the pillows, she leaned back on her elbows.
It put her entire form on display for his gaze to rove over, and she knew how beautiful she looked to him.
Because now she’d seen the covetous way he clung to her soul and her past. Her entire future was his, anyway.
He just didn’t know how badly she wanted to give it to him.
“Good. I want it to be hard for you.” But her eyes danced down his body to the bar of his cock, which already pressed against his pants. He always looked so handsome in black, and she’d been wanting to tear his clothes off him since the moment she’d put her eyes on him.
He, apparently, had different ideas. “Jessamine. I am making up for what I did. I will not fall under this spell of yours.”
“You should fall under it. You’ve been a very bad god, and I am offering a way for you to make up for it.”
She quirked her brow at him, willing the god in her room to bend to what she wanted. Needed. There was a fissure between the two of them, and she wanted to fill it with burning passion and arduous panting in her ear until they both forgot that they’d been arguing only moments before.
“Jessamine.”
“Come here, Deathless One. I will not beg. But I will make you beg, if that is what you wish.”
She could see the muscles of his arms and chest bunching with need. He seemed to swell, every bit of him, from his shoulders to his cock, all of it suddenly larger than it had been before. His eyes turned into black holes, obsidian darkness staring back at her like a predator from the shadows.
He swallowed hard, his eyes never leaving her, before giving a sharp, stilted nod.
She tilted her head to the side. “You want to beg?”
Another nod. This one accompanied by bared, flashing teeth and a tongue that ran over his lips.
Leaning farther back into the pillows, she slowly spread her legs. Felt the weight of his gaze travel up her long, pale limbs. “Then you may beg to touch me. But only if you really want to.”
He bit his lower lip, those teeth pressing down so hard she was afraid he’d draw blood. “Oh, I definitely do.”
“How badly?”
“There are no words to describe how much I need you.” He prowled toward the end of the bed, an unleashed beast who only barely had control over his own reins. But she knew all she had to do was say a single word and he would freeze.
He put one knee on the bed, then a hand, bracing himself to crawl over her, until she lifted a single foot and planted it on the muscular cap of his shoulder.
“Stop,” she said.
He froze.
“In your shadow realm, you said I have your heart.” His gaze flicked up to hers, and she could see the worry in them.
This was a ragged-edged wound. One that was still bleeding, while all his previous torment had healed in some way or fashion. But his feelings for her still affected him. They still made him ache.
“Say it again,” she said.
“You have more than my heart,” he said, his fist curled so tightly on the sheets that his knuckles were white. “You have every bit of me. Every piece of my heart is yours, every beat of the organ is in your name. You own my body, my heart, and my power.”
She took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring.
She’d made him show all his cards. It was only right that she do the same.
“I love you. But those words are not strong enough for the connection we have. Love is fragile. Love can be broken. We are bound, you and I. Soul, heart, mind, body, power. All of it. Bound together and woven in a web of pain and ruin. We will destroy all that stands in our way and piece it back together in our own image. This is more than love. It is an obsession, and perhaps a poison that I will never escape. Nor do I ever wish to rid my veins of it.”
He broke free from his frozen state to run his tongue from her ankle against his shoulder up to her knee. He was shaking as he said, “I am begging you, gravesinger.”
“What do you want, Deathless One?”
“You,” he gasped against her skin, pressing his open mouth to the sensitive skin at her knee. “I’ve always fucking wanted you.”
A flare of triumph burned in her chest, and she opened her legs further. “Then have me, god of my soul. Consume me with your darkness and purge your guilt inside of me.”