Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
The single word—yes—hung between them, fragile and monumental, rewriting the very air Goldie was breathing.
Her gaze locked on Splice, drinking him in. The want wasn’t just in his strange, beautiful leaf-shadow-green eyes. It was in the corded strength of his forearms, the way his hands clenched and unclenched like he was fighting himself.
The air thickened, clinging to her skin like humidity before a storm. It carried the scent of damp earth, the narcotic perfume of green things unfurling, and beneath it, him. Bark and moss, loam and petrichor, a wild note that made her ache to bury her face in his throat and just breathe him in.
This is for the Thornfather, she reminded herself desperately. A sacred rite.
The Grove Core might want a ritual. The Thornfather might need one. But gods and goddesses, Goldie desired it. Desperately. She wanted Splice’s mouth, the weight of his body pinning hers, his breath gasping in her ear. She wanted him.
Her breath hitched. “So…” The word slipped out husky, stripped of her usual sparkle. “Um… how do we start?”
The question felt impossibly foolish, impossibly small for the magnitude of what they were about to do. There was no grimoire for this, no five-step guide to seducing a force of nature in order to save his god.
She almost blurted something witty, ready to ruin the moment with her own nerves, when Splice’s voice cut through the tension, impossibly gentle.
“How about we start… slow?”
Splice extended his hand. She met him halfway, her fingers trembling as they slid between his.
A current shot up her arm and slammed into her. His bark-like skin rasped against hers, alien yet so right it made her dizzy.
Something brushed faintly in her chest—an echo, like the Grove Core was leaning in to listen. Not intrusive this time, just the ghost of a whisper, stirring the hairs on her neck.
Goldie shivered and steadied herself by bringing her other hand up, tracing the ridged veins and whorls on the back of Splice’s wrist. He shuddered violently, as if her touch scraped his nerves raw.
Then he was cupping her jaw, his thumb tenderly stroking her cheekbone.
“May I kiss you?” His voice was a low, rough murmur, laced with hope so earnest it broke something inside her.
A helpless laugh escaped. “Sweetie,” she breathed, her own voice unsteady, “you’re going to have permission to do a lot more than that—”
The words were cut off in her throat as Splice closed the distance, claiming her mouth with his.
The kiss was everything and nothing like she’d imagined. It began tender and reverent, almost like a question. But then a low groan tore from his chest, raw and starving, and the gentleness scorched away.
His mouth moved harder against hers, urgent, devouring. His tongue pushed past her lips, sweeping into her mouth, tangling with hers in a slick, desperate duel. She met him with equal fervor, answering fire with fire, surrendering to the heat that surged between them.
His lips broke from hers just long enough to murmur against her skin, “You taste like summer rain. I could drown in you.”
Goldie’s hands grew bolder, sliding beneath the hem of his shirt and pressing flat to the solid plane of his chest. His skin was slightly rough and warm, like wood warmed by the sun. It sent a jolt straight to her core.
Then, his mouth was on her throat, open and hot, dragging kisses over her pulse. She gasped, head tipping back, a soft moan spilling free before she could stop it. His hands clamped her hips, no longer tentative, guiding her backward until the floor caught her and she was sinking beneath him.
He loomed over her, all shadow and heat, eyes torn between holy reverence and profane hunger. The weight of his body pressed her down, pinning her in the best way, and she arched against him, the friction pulling another ragged sound from her lips.
“I have attended rites of pure creation.” His voice was a guttural hum that vibrated through her bones.
“Rituals where life was sung into being from soil and starlight. But this…” His mouth grazed her collarbone, teeth catching lightly on her skin.
“This is the first time I have ever truly felt the magic.”
Her nails dug into his chest, desperate, shameless. “Splice,” she gasped.
“With you, this isn’t a duty.” His breath burned against her skin, his voice becoming lower and darker. “It’s a craving.”
As he spoke, vines unfurled from the flesh of his arms. They slid across her skin like silken fingers, smooth and warm, one curling tight around her ribs, another tracing the edge of her collarbone.
One bold tendril slipped beneath her shirt, its leafy tip brushing the sensitive underside of her breast before spiraling inward, teasing her nipple.
She arched off the moss, a moan tumbling from her lips, shameless and raw. Heat pooled between her thighs, soaking her leggings, every nerve ending lit up and begging.
“I ache to taste you,” he growled against her throat.
The vine at her stomach dipped lower, pressing against the fabric at the juncture of her thighs. The blunt pressure on her clit made her vision explode with stars.
A full-body shudder seized her. “Yes,” she gasped, voice thick and desperate. “Gods, Splice, please—”
And then everything stopped.
The vines stilled, their exquisite torment cut short. His mouth lifted from her skin. He pulled back like he was dragging himself out of quicksand, face twisted in conflict, and pushed upright. His gaze flicked toward the unmoving Thornfather in the shadows.
Goldie blinked, the haze of desire so thick it clogged her thoughts. Her skin still crackled with hypersensitivity, her pulse throbbed in her throat, and the ache between her legs was a living thing, sharp and unrelenting. She sat up slowly, her limbs trembling with the effort.
“Oh. Right. The ritual. I guess…” She forced a weak grin. “Haven’t we already begun?”
Splice’s answering smile was faint, tired, aching with restraint. He shook his head. “Sadly, not in the way that matters.”
The hunger in his gaze dimmed into something heavier and quieter. “I’ve never performed a ritual for this situation,” he confessed. “You and I will have to… feel our way through it.”
Definitely want to be feeling my way through this. Goldie swallowed hard, trying to herd her horny brain back into something resembling order.
“Okay,” she whispered, the word catching in her throat. “But you have to tell me if I’m doing it wrong. I’m just a hedge-witch, Splice, not some… I don’t know, dryad priestess. And you’d better not be comparing me to any of your past ritual partners—”
“Marigold,” he interrupted, his voice impossibly gentle. “Beautiful one. Please.”
He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. The simple contact snapped her back into herself, grounding her even as her body still trembled with wanting. A soft, almost pained chuckle rumbled through his chest, vibrating into her.
“You don’t need to sparkle your way through this,” he whispered. “You are perfect, Goldie. More than enough.”
The words struck deep, silencing the frantic chatter in her skull.
Her breath shuddered out, shaky but steadier, and she let her eyes fall shut for a moment.
Until instinctively, she lowered one hand to the mossy floor.
Splice mirrored her, their palms flattening against the green, and together, they reached for the god slumbering beside them.
Her fingers brushed the Thornfather’s gnarled, bark-covered shoulder; Splice’s hand settled near his hip. A faint coil of whisper stirred in her chest, as if the Grove Core was awakening within and it, too, was watching.
Desire still throbbed within her, but when she opened her mouth, what came out was not a moan. Words spilled unbidden from her lips, instinctual and heavy and certain.
“Great Thornfather, root of the forest, hear the voice of the soil that sings your name. Feel the pulse of the life we share with you.”
A low hum rippled through the moss, and the leaves on the Thornfather’s brow trembled as though stirred by a hidden breeze. Splice’s vines unfurled from his wrist, stretching across the god’s withered skin. Where they touched, a soft light pulsed, green-gold and alive.
“Green be deep,” Splice intoned, his voice a low vibration that sank into the earth, then climbed back up through Goldie’s spine. “Green be still.”
Her breath caught. She could feel the words as he spoke them, sliding through her like the first thrust of something thick and inexorable. Her nipples tightened against her shirt and her body pulsed with treacherous, hungry need even as ritual light swelled around them.
Splice looked over at her, and in the quiet glow of his eyes, she saw a melding of magic and desperate hunger.
“Blossom,” he murmured, the word a command, not a prayer. He lifted his hand from the ground and cupped it against the swell of her breast.
Through the thin fabric of her shirt, she felt his heat scorch her skin, and a sharp, involuntary gasp escaped her lips.
“Fruit,” he whispered, and his other hand moved, lifting from the Thornfather’s skin before sliding down her stomach with agonizing slowness. His fingers brushed the waistband of her leggings before his palm came to rest flat against the mound of her sex.
He applied a firm, knowing pressure, and Goldie felt the slick, hot wetness soak into the fabric, a testament to her body’s shameless answer to his call. A violent shudder wracked her frame, a choked sob of pure pleasure lodging in her throat.
As if in response, the Thornfather stirred. A single, luminous petal on the crown of branches at his brow unfurled.
“Rot,” Splice breathed against her neck as he leaned in, and the word was not about decay, but about the fertile, messy, glorious breaking down that precedes new life.