Chapter 6 #2
“Yes,” he confessed, pulling back reluctantly to meet my eyes again. “But…I can come back afterward, if you wait for me.” He was hesitant. Shooing away his hope, perhaps? That was something I definitely understood.
I kissed his pretty lips. “Of course I’ll wait for you.”
“Alright.” We begrudgingly disentangled from each other, and I smoothed out his hair as we stood.
“I’ll just be here,” I assured.
“Hmm. Actually, do you want to see?” He offered me his hand and a flirty grin. “It takes a bit of momentum to reach the Underworld. It is probably pretty.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I said yes anyway and took his hand.
The next thing I knew, we were standing on top of a high tower, surrounded by stars, with the wind blowing recklessly in our hair.
I looked out over the railing and recognized the temple courtyard.
We were at the top of my tower, standing over the high ceiling of my room, above my sleeping sisters.
From here we could see all of the temple, and most of the city, stretching out to the farmland on the horizon.
Thanatos pointed out to the fields beyond the city wall. “Watch there. I will try to be quick.” He kissed me again and fluttered his wings, setting dancing violet souls alight. There were so many today, each a tiny piece of a divine glow.
I watched, entranced, as he flapped his wings once and rose easily into the sky.
How had I forgotten that he could fly? Almighty Zeus.
In my defense, he did seem to like teleporting more.
And he flew so strangely, too: lazily and effortlessly, out of sync with the movements of his wings.
I had to remind myself that this wasn’t really what he used them for.
Almost immediately all I could see of him was a streak of violet moving across the sky, speeding out toward the fields like a shooting star.
I ran, wide-eyed, to the edge of the tower and leaned anxiously over the railing to watch.
Approaching the fields, the violet light arced, then began to fall, faster and faster, straight at the ground.
I held my breath on instinct as it met the horizon; but at the moment of impact, the glow simply winked out of sight.
Dear gods. I supposed I should have remembered that the Underworld meant down.
I stared, dazed, at the spot where he’d vanished.
The fucking Underworld. Since we’d met I’d seen so many incredible things.
Too bad for my sisters—my sight was clearly the best!
It was worth the price of never sharing what I knew.
The gifts in the room beneath my feet could never surpass mine, because they didn’t get to see Thanatos.
I smiled dreamily as I waited atop the tower, looking out over the city. My lips still tingled from his kisses. I hadn’t asked how long it took to fly across the river Styx, but it didn’t matter to me, so long as he ended up right back here.
I traced a dozen constellations before Thanatos returned to me. Having barely heard the sound of wings behind me, I squeaked in surprise when I felt his arms around my waist. “Hi,” I giggled.
“Hi.” He hugged me and swayed before twirling me around to face him. “I am glad that you waited,” he said, and he flashed me a half-smile. “But…I can still go, if you want me to.”
“Why would I want you to go?”
He gave me a pained sort of look. “I just mean—I am Death, you know,” he reminded, as if I’d somehow forgotten.
“And that makes things strange. I only mean, you never have to do anything with me if you do not desire to.” Was he still so hesitant, after all of this?
His shyness was cute, but the deeper implication made my heart ache.
I took his hands and guided them deliberately back to my waist. He pulled me flush against his body at the invitation, his grip warm and eager, and I splayed my fingers across his chest, wishing that there wasn’t so much fabric between us.
“Have you just spent your flight convincing yourself that I couldn’t truly want you? ” I accused gently.
“I suppose I have,” he admitted. He stared hungrily at my lips, his face so close to mine that we practically shared each other’s breath.
“Well, stop that,” I whispered. “I want to kiss you, Thanatos. Do you want to kiss me?”
“Yes.” The word escaped him as a yearning sigh, barely audible against the breeze around us.
“Then kiss me.”
So he did. He claimed me, the stroke of his mouth fierce and possessive, as if my waiting atop this tower had shattered a piece of his restraint.
Dizzied by his fervor, it was all I could do to loop my arms around his neck and cling to him.
I mirrored the caresses of his lips and tongue, clumsy in my technique but finding that I cared little for precision in the face of my cresting desire.
My body was hot and sensitive, and every place we touched tingled paradoxically with both desperation and satisfaction.
Thanatos angled my chin to his liking, then buried his face in my neck, only to freeze with his lips hovering over my pulse.
He let out a growl that weakened my knees.
“I want to be rougher with you than I am permitted,” he protested.
He punctuated his complaint with a deliberately delicate kiss to my neck.
“I would enjoy that, if not for the danger of being caught,” I admitted. My mind swam, fogged by the intoxication of his taste and his touch. The danger. “Oh, wait!”
“What is it?” he asked in alarm.
“I—we can’t—if someone looks up here, they’re going to see me tonguing the air!” I couldn’t help but giggle at the absurdity of that image, despite my seriousness. “And I have no idea how I’d talk myself out of that one,” I added.
“Oh, right. Well then, I will take us back to our room.”
Reality twisted until the stars around us were replaced by the walls of our familiar gazebo, where Thanatos tugged me possessively back into his lap on the bench.
He continued to press hungry but careful kisses into the oversensitive skin of my neck and throat.
He cinched his hands firmly around my waist, clutching me against his body, and I became acutely aware of the hard column of his arousal pressed against my thigh.
A swell of pride rushed over me, chased by a sense of naive embarrassment. What was I meant to do with it?