Chapter 17 #2
They protested the entire time, but still began leaving the tavern. Nymiria snorted, watching as they dragged the man out by his ankles.
“Shame that a little girl had to rise to your defense and be the one to take him down. You’re nothing but a cockless, spineless bastard!” One of the men snarled.
Nymiria couldn’t explain what came over her. Perhaps she was still too overwhelmed with excitement, but she lurched forward, her hands balling into fists as she charged after them. “How dare you call him cockless! He’s got a nice fat cock!” She cried. “Huge!”
“Alright, I think you’ve had enough fun for tonight. Time for bed.” Aziel said from behind her.
The world was suddenly upside down, her body feeling heavy as it slumped against something hard and strong.
Seeing black fabric cupping a perfect buttocks, she realized that Aziel had slung her over his shoulder and was now carrying her up the stairs.
She used all of her strength to brace her hands on his back and push herself up, extending her finger at the prick that was still standing wide-eyed at the door. “And it’s pierced! Just for me!”
Aziel’s grip on her thigh tightened, holding her to him firmly as she squirmed. “Hush!”
Nymiria didn’t know where they were going.
The room was spinning, and her stomach swirled with nauseating fire.
She slumped back down, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing her eyes shut.
Before she could center herself, she was flying.
Falling. And landing on something soft that bounced her around when she hit it.
A bed.
That was definitely a bed.
The hammer was chiseling away at her brain, right there in between her eyes. Her body ached, but whenever she shifted to alleviate the ache, it felt far too heavy for her to move.
She was too hot. Too…
Hot.
For six months, Nymiria had the displeasure of waking up to drinking sickness after having too many of them, but this was nothing like that. She didn’t feel nauseous, she couldn’t even really feel the pounding in her head.
No, all of it was muffled by the sweltering heat that’d consumed her body. She shifted against the sheets, barely noticing that the cotton sheets from the night before had been replaced with black silk and that she’d been changed.
She remembered vomiting all over the floor in a room above the tavern, apologizing profusely as Aziel cleaned her with a damp cloth. She remembered the way his pupils flared when she told him that she missed the way his hands felt on her skin.
And, then…
Heat. A heat that burned so deep in her belly that she wanted to claw at it, turn herself inside out to get rid of the discomfort.
She remembered the frightened look in Aziel’s eyes as she groaned and mewled loudly with each stroke of the cloth against her skin.
It was as if a beast had come alive inside of her, instilling in her a certain craving that could not be satiated.
And then it went dark.
She pressed her thighs together, biting back a low moan when she felt that burning, aching emptiness from the night before. That was the only way that she could describe it—a hunger, an empty feeling that could not be filled, that would not go away.
Her stomach clenched as a wave of that heat pulsed through her, traveling to the place between her thighs that just… wanted.
“Nymiria.” The sound of his voice snatched her attention, her whole aching body gravitating to him—searching for him with such desperation that she almost cried.
She could smell him, not the usual overwhelming scent of cherry blossoms. No, this scent was just as pungent, just as intoxicating, but entirely different. Primal.
Something she’d never scented on him before.
“Nymiria, I need for you to try and breathe.” He pleaded, his voice strained as she arched towards him. He was standing over her now, the cloudiness in her mind clearing just enough to see that he was holding a damp cloth. “I think you have a fever.”
A fever? Impossible. She’d had fevers before.
Bone-deep, body-aching fevers. This was nothing like that.
She reached out her hand and grabbed at his wrist, forcing the cold, wet cloth against her skin.
It eased the burning just a fraction, but not nearly enough—not even touching the mind-numbing desire between her legs.
Aziel had never seen anything like this.
One moment, she’d been perfectly drunk and the next, she’d looked at him with a crazed and pitiful look in her eyes, as if she’d lost all control of herself.
He could see the desperation in them, could hear the fear in her pleas.
He thought, for certain, that she’d been poisoned.
The only thing he could think to do at the time was render her unconscious and carry her back to the palace.
Just an hour before, he’d called for Hilla.
When Hilla was left just as stunned as himself, the young witch went to retrieve Dieve.
She’d been sleeping fine until now, her body completely defying the blackened state he’d put her in.
He hated himself for this. Not only because he had no idea on how to help her, but because of how his body was reacting. Nymiria looked to be in pain, her screams and groans rivaling that of someone who’d been severely wounded.
And he couldn’t resist it.
He tried his best to restrain himself, even going so far as to dig his nails into his palms and wrists in hopes that his own pain could distract him from what he was feeling. He wasn’t this person—he couldn’t be that person.
But the smell of her, the way her body moved, the way her lips parted and the shaking breaths she panted…
No. He closed his eyes. No.
The door to his sleeping chambers burst open and he watched as Dieve waddled into the room with an overside bag. She was supported by her cane, her face twisting as if she’d smelled something rancid.
“Gods, I’m surprised that every male within a mile radius hasn’t tried to beat down the door to get in here.” She chuckled. “What seems to be the issue here?”
She was too calm. Far too calm for him to relax.
He glanced at Nymiria, wincing when she gripped at the hem of her dress and pulled at it. “I need to know what is wrong with her.” Aziel stated firmly. “She’s been in immense pain, her body feels as if it’s on fire and—”
Dieve moved around Nymiria’s body. With each poke and prod at her glistening flesh, her body arched and writhed, as if fighting against itself.
Aziel’s hands were clenched, the leather of his gloves squelching as he stepped closer to the bed.
The old witch whispered something to Nymiria, who simply looked back at her with a wide, frantic expression and nodded.
“She’s entered Caddat.” Dieve sighed, hobbling closer to him.
Aziel’s brow furrowed, but before he could question it, Dieve waved away his concerns with the flick of her wrist. “This is natural for women of full-fae lineage. Women of an undiluted bloodline go into a state of intense fertility, a calling of Cadaith, some would say. It is the mother’s way of letting a female know that she is ready to welcome a child.
” She released a sigh and shook her head.
“I am surprised that it took nearly twenty-six years for her to experience this, but perhaps she’d been without her Grace for too long.
Or because of the near-constant glamour she wore in Yaar.
Peculiar, but not unlikely. I have heard that other fae women, ones who have mixed bloodlines and cannot enter this stage naturally, take tinctures to mimic it. ”
Aziel merely blinked back at her, worry shadowing his impassivity. “What do we do?”
Dieve glanced back at the bed, watching as Nymiria released a near-growl, her legs rubbing together.
Aziel’s whole body reacted on impulse, seemingly urging him closer, a wave of arousal nearly bringing him to his knees.
“I can have Phyona make her a tonic for relief, but it will take a while. A day, at most. Until then, well… that is between the two of you. But as mates, it’s only natural for you to bring her relief. ”
“Relief?” He frowned.
The witch nodded. “Intercourse, Aziel. Or a form of it. She is extremely fertile at the moment, so if you do not wish to bring a child—”
“I’m infertile.” There was no emotion in his voice, but the urgency still lingered.
Brows rising into her greying and wild hairline, Dieve pursed her lips.
“She is the Goddess of Life. She has the ability to bestow fertility unto anything that is barren. Have the two of you had relations with one another before?” At the slight bristling movement from the god before her, the discomfort visible in his rigidness, Dieve let out a soft chuckle.
“No need to be bashful, we’re all adults here.
” She shook her head and limped towards her medical bag.
“But I will warn you, since the two of you have been intimate with one another, there is a likelihood that the infertile is not so infertile any longer.”
If she’d told him this at nineteen, Aziel would not have believed her. But since the time that he accepted his godhood and now, he’d come to learn that the possibilities as a result of their powers were nearly endless. And the mere thought of him fathering a child, especially at a time like this…
His jaw clenched, heart thundering when Nymiria breathed another moan from their bed. “You should make the tonic. And, perhaps, something to prevent…”
“Pregnancy?”