Chapter 22
Nyssa
The scent of spun sugar wakes me. It’s barely dawn, but light enough for me to see through the gloom.
“Do not move,” Dastian murmurs, crouched next to me, his eyes on something above me.
My natural instinct is to look where he is looking, but this time I gulp and stay still. The scent of sugar is coming from him; he is that close to me.
Something is hovering over me, and it’s not looking to cuddle.
“What is it?” I ask, not really wanting to know.
“Not sure,” Voren murmurs from my other side. “But it’s not benevolent.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Just tell me it isn’t Surgeon Scissors.”
“Nope,” Voren replies. “Something much worse.”
“I didn’t think there was much worse than him?”
“Who told you that?” Dastian asks, sounding genuinely surprised.
“I said he was much worse than the face licker, not all the things,” Voren says.
“That’s comforting,” I whisper, my muscles locking up.
Slowly, against every survival instinct screaming at me to roll off the bed and run, I peel my eyes open and turn my head slowly.
I curse myself for being so fucking curious all the fucking time. My petrified groan sticks in my throat, making me want to cough, but I daren’t.
Directly above me, hovering like a spider made of nightmares and old lace, is a woman. Her neck is broken, twisted at an impossible angle, so her face hangs parallel to mine. Her eyes are empty sockets leaking black fluid, and her mouth is stitched shut with thick, rusted wire.
A drop of the black goo falls, landing on the duvet inches from my knee. It hisses, burning a tiny hole through the fabric.
“Get. Rid. Of. It,” I mutter through a jaw clenched so tight, my head starts to pound.
“I’m trying,” Voren grunts, and that tells me everything I need to know about how up shit creek I am.
“Try harder,” I grit out, trying not to stare, but it’s like a traffic accident… you can’t not.
He grunts, and I lose patience as the thing stares down at me, dripping goo and god only knows what else. “What kind of Wraith god are you?”
“The kind that is trying to save you. She doesn’t want to leave. She has unfinished business. Big. Time. It’s personal.”
“What?” I squeak. “I didn’t do anything!”
“She knows who you are, and she isn’t happy.”
“Voren!” I scream as the ghost woman opens her maw, ripping the wire and shrieks.
I close my eyes, my hands over my face, but then it goes quiet, and I gulp, opening my eyes.
She’s gone.
“You did it,” I breathe out.
“Mmm,” he murmurs and flings himself on top of me.
His cock grinds into me, hard and ready to wreck.
“Hey!” I snap when he leverages himself over me and undoes his pants. “What is this?”
He grips my wrist as Dastian snickers next to us and places my hand around his cock.
It’s straining, veiny and bulging. Voren thrusts his hips forward once and then dumps his cum all over my hand and wrist. He is panting hard, his eyes white as he shudders through an orgasm that feeding from the ghost woman clearly kickstarted in him.
“Fancy her, do you?” I growl, trying to pull my hand away.
He clamps down harder, not ready for me to release him, his gaze boring into mine with an intensity that makes me uncomfortable. “Stop fighting us,” he rasps, his free hand coming up to squeeze my neck. “Your bad attitude is attracting the worst of the worst, slayer.”
“My bad attitude?” I snarl, and he squeezes tighter, making me gag.
He finally releases my wrist, and I bring my hand up to wipe his cum over his muscular chest, still bare after I ripped his shirt last night.
“Marking your territory, slayer?” he growls softly.
“Don’t ever use me to make yourself feel better, ever again!” I hiss, and then my cheeks flush as I realise that I am the world’s biggest hypocrite.
He knows it as well and smirks at me. “Call us even, slayer,” he says and releases my throat before he rolls off me, his cock still hard, cum smeared on his chest, as Dastian looks on like this is just an ordinary day.
“Well, this is an interesting dynamic,” he murmurs, eyes narrowed as he climbs onto the bed, lying down across the foot.
“Did that ghost really turn you on?” I ask, turning my head to stare at Voren.
“Not her. Her anger, her need for revenge, her absolute, unbridled fury. It feeds the void, Nyssa. And the void is a hungry beast. It’s a rush.”
“It’s sick,” I say and stand up, glad the sun is rising. It makes this place feel less creepy. “I need that shower.”
“You can’t go down to the village,” Dastian says. “Remember?”
“I remember you saying there was no plumbing here.”
“I said there was a bucket and a well out back.”
“Fuck you. It’s freezing, and I don’t live like I’m in the dark ages. If I don’t get hot water in the next ten minutes, I’m going to start testing exactly how volatile I am against these walls.”
Dastian sighs, sliding off the bed with a fluidity that is entirely unfair for this hour of the morning. “You mortals and your creature comforts. It’s a wonder you survived evolution.”
“We invented plumbing. You lot were too busy smiting people to bother with sanitation.”
He grins, his eyes flashing with that molten gold mischief. “Touché.” He raises a hand, snapping his fingers.
One second, we are standing in the haunted guest room, and the next, we are outside at the far end of the back garden, where a small lake sits serenely against the backdrop of the countryside. “No,” I say, crossing my arms.
“The house is too old for plumbing. This is the best we’ve got.” He turns towards the water, stripping off the mortal way and showing me his hot god-bod, that isn’t as bulky as Voren or Dreven, but no less muscular. His bare arse is pretty cute, and the tattoos down his back are interesting.
He doesn’t hesitate. With a whoop that echoes off the surrounding hills, he launches himself into the grey water. The splash sends a spray of icy droplets onto my boots, and I shudder, wrapping my arms tighter around myself.
He surfaces, shaking his hair like a wet dog. “It’s refreshing! Come on, live a little.”
“It’s hypothermia waiting to happen. I’m not getting in there. My nipples could cut glass just standing on the bank.”
Dastian grins, a wicked, boyish curve of his lips.
The water around him churns from a sudden, violent bubbling.
Steam rises from the surface, curling into the morning mist. The grey, uninviting lake water turns a vibrant, tropical turquoise around him.
The heat radiating from it hits my face, and I almost moan.
“Better?” he asks, looking entirely too smug.
“Show-off,” I mutter, but my resolve is crumbling faster than the masonry at Marrow House.
I look down at my ruined clothes. I smell like Voren’s sex dungeon, ancient dust, and fear. Modesty left the building about thirteen orgasms ago, and frankly, I’m too tired to care if a god sees me naked. Again. I toe off my boots and peel off my leggings.
“Turn around,” I command, though my heart isn’t in it.
“Not a chance,” he replies cheerfully, his eyes glowing molten gold amidst the steam.
“Fine. Enjoy the show, pervert.” I strip off my hoodie and underwear, shivering in the biting air for a split second before I slip into the water.
It’s bliss. Hot, bubbling, moan-inducing. I sink down until the water laps at my chin, closing my eyes as the heat seeps into my bones.
“See?” Dastian says, drifting closer. “Chaos has its perks.”
“I suppose it does,” I admit, dunking my head under to wet my hair.
The heat wraps around my scalp, loosening the headache that’s been threatening to split my skull open since I woke up to a ghost drooling on me.
When I surface, pushing the sodden strands out of my eyes, Dastian is closer than before.
The steam swirls around us, creating a private little pocket of tropical humidity in the middle of freezing Ireland.
“Don’t get used to it, slayer. I can’t be your personal water heater forever.”
“With the amount of trouble you lot bring to my door, a hot bath is the least you owe me.” I start rubbing my arms, desperate to get the layer of sweat, grime and Voren’s scent off me. I suppose it would be too much to ask for soap and a sponge.
Dastian watches, his gaze dropping to the water line where my breasts are bobbing just beneath the surface. He doesn’t even pretend to be gentlemanly about it. “You’re scrubbing like you’re trying to take the skin off.”
“Just trying to feel human again,” I mutter, turning my back to him to wash my neck.
“Human is boring,” he says, his voice right at my ear now. I stiffen, but I don’t move away. His chest brushes my back, hot and solid, sending a jolt of awareness through me. “And you, Nyssa, are becoming anything but boring.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“From the God of Chaos? It’s the highest praise there is.
” His hands settle on my shoulders, his thumbs digging into the knots of tension there.
I stifle my groan. Badly. I don’t want to encourage him.
I’ve already loosened my morals to unacceptable levels by fucking first Dreven and then Voren in quick succession.
I can’t add a third god to my body count. At least not the sexual one.
“Good?” he murmurs.
“Don’t stop,” I reply before I can stop myself.
His thumbs work their way down my spine, finding knots I didn’t even know I had until he obliterates them. It’s embarrassing how quickly I melt back against him.
“You’re dangerously good at this,” I murmur, closing my eyes.
“I have magic hands. Literally.” He slides his palms around my waist, pulling me flush against his hard chest. The friction of skin on skin under the hot, bubbling water sends a jolt through me that has nothing to do with the temperature. Dastian is like a live wire, unpredictable and electric.
“Is this part of the therapy?” I ask, though I make zero effort to move away.
“Why not?” He kisses the sensitive spot just below my ear, and the water around us fizzes like Champagne, tiny bubbles popping against my skin.
I turn in his arms, the movement slow and heavy through the water, until I’m facing him. His eyes are molten gold, swirling with amusement and a heat that rivals the lake. “So, are you going to try and fix my soul, or just distract me until the next disaster hits?”
“Fixing is boring,” he whispers, his hands sliding down to grip my hips beneath the surface. “I prefer reinventing.”
“Reinventing sounds exhausting,” I manage to say, though my argument loses all structural integrity when I wrap my legs around his waist. “And frankly, I’m tired.”
“Adrenaline is the best cure for fatigue. Or lust. I find the two are often interchangeable.”
“You’re a bad influence.”
“I’m the God of Chaos, sweetheart. It’s literally in the job description.”
He doesn’t wait for permission, and honestly, at this point, pretending I’m going to stop him is a lie I’m too weary to tell.
He kisses me, and it’s nothing like the other two.
Dreven was a command; Voren was a desperate need.
Dastian is a live wire snapping against wet skin.
It’s frantic, fun, and tastes like popping candy and trouble.
Sparks skitter across the surface of the lake as his tongue sweeps into my mouth.
I groan, digging my fingers into his wet hair.
I’ve officially lost the plot. I’m naked in a magical jacuzzi with god number three, while a ghost likely watches from the window and the world probably ends in the background.
“That’s it,” he hums against my lips, hiking me up higher so I’m buoyant in the water, my breasts pressing against his slick chest. “Kiss me like the world is ending.”
“It probably is.”
“The Tidewraith is back.”
Dreven’s voice echoes around us, and I turn my head to see him glowering at us from the water’s edge.
“Seriously?” I groan. “Now?”
“Ancient creatures don’t usually wait for convenient times,” he says, clapping his hands, which annoyingly removes me from Dastian’s grip and onto the shore.
“Hey,” I snap. “It’s freezing, and my clothes need burning.”
He moves into my personal space, and I shiver as he runs his hands down my arms. In an instant, I’m dry and clothed with my blade in my hand. I stare into his eyes before I look at the blade. “Don’t put your magic on my blade again,” I murmur.
“You left it in the entrance hall. Someone had to return it to you. You’re welcome,” he adds dryly, ignoring my glare.
I tighten my grip on the hilt. It feels annoyingly perfect in my hand, balanced and ready.
Behind us, Dastian wades out of the lake.
The moment his foot leaves the water, the tropical turquoise drains away, replaced instantly by the murky, freezing grey of a standard Irish morning.
The steam vanishes, and the temperature plummets.
He doesn’t seem bothered by the cold or his nudity, strolling up the bank with a casual swagger that suggests he knows exactly what he looks like.
In that handy way these gods have, he snaps his fingers and is dried and dressed, ready to kick arse.
“I thought you handled the Tidewraith,” I say, looking back at Dreven.
“Not well enough,” he mutters. “Come.”
He strides off, and I follow like a meek little slayer at the command of a god.
I roll my eyes.
Oh, wait…