Chapter 30 #4
Her skin heated immediately. Though the thought of it had her clenching her thighs to quell the throb that formed between her legs, she was thoroughly enjoying them just being together.
Good gods, she never believed those words would even enter her mind.
It was more of a shock to her than the thought of him having his face between her asscheeks.
Even so, her heart battered against her ribs just from being close to him.
It was wholly different from when they’d first met.
And while so little time had passed, there was so much that had changed.
Her whole world had been turned upside down.
Even if she abandoned this bed with him now and never returned to his side, she would never look at the world the same way again.
And even if she ran from him, she would always find her way back to him. The universe, the unknown forces beyond, would ensure it.
After explaining to him what the Rune Witch had done for her, Aziel insisted upon changing her dressings, despite her protests.
Though there was no pain, there was still fear of an infection occurring and when Nymiria voiced that Desi was far more skilled in this area than he was, he merely shot her a playfully hateful glare and began tugging at the bindings wrapped around her center.
“You do realize that, as an assassin and a guard, I have had to tend to quite a few wounds.” He deadpanned.
Nymiria smirked into her pillow, forcing herself not to arch into the gentle glide of his fingers. “What about magic wounds?” She hummed.
Aziel chuckled, his breath cascading along the slope of her spine.
He was awfully close. Far too close for her to ignore it.
“Yes, love. Even magic wounds. We were going up against our fair share of Mystics. Some carried iron blades and some carried blades laced with poisons, or enchanted with spells.” He tugged a single strip of the binding out from under her and tossed it to the floor.
“I once came across a man who had been stabbed with an enchanted blade that made it so he would never be able to speak the name of his assailant. To this day, he would not even be able to tell you what the individual looked like.”
Interesting.
“Were you the one who stabbed him?” She peeked over her shoulder just enough to catch a glimpse of him smiling, a small chuckle rousing from deep within his chest. “Aziel!”
He quirked a brow in her direction, still smirking. “What?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He shrugged. “He would never be able to tell you if your assumptions are true.”
Nymiria bit back her grin, burying her face in the pillow as he slipped out another cloth.
She was silent for the rest of the bindings and when her back was revealed to him, she heard him suck in a sharp breath, his thumb grazing over the skin that, only a few hours before, felt as if it had melted away.
“Does it look awful?” She asked.
She couldn’t see him shake his head, but she could feel his fingers poking and prodding at the tender skin. Not enough to hurt, per say, but enough to cause discomfort. “On the contrary, my love, there is not a single blemish where this rune once was. Not even a scar.”
Her heart gave a solid thud, her stomach swirling with excitement and fear as she reared up and peered over her shoulder.
By the gods, he was right. The rune that was shaped like a witchlock on her spine was now nowhere to be found.
In its place was smooth, pale, and unblemished skin.
Not a single imperfection. The other two runes remained, just as gnarled and hideous as before, but the other was gone. Gone.
“Your body has started to heal you faster.” Aziel said lowly. “Your Grace should start to show again soon.”
She didn’t know how she felt about that part. While it excited her, she had no idea what to expect. If her Grace was extremely powerful or if it was just as her mother always said—parlor tricks.
Upon seeing her teeth nibbling at the skin on her lips, Aziel released a sigh and moved around the bed so that he could see her better. Nymiria tracked his movements, eyes filled with worry and silver-colored tears.
“What you are feeling is normal, moonflower. When I accepted my godhood, I was terrified of what it meant for me. To be fairly honest, there was quite a lot of drinking involved in those first few months.”
“You were scared?”
He smiled and extended his hand towards her to trace over her quivering chin. “Who wouldn’t be?” He tilted his head to the side.
“How old were you when you accepted what you were—when you assumed your role?”
“Nineteen. On a dark and dreary day filled with killing and sin. I’ll never forget it. But, I would say that anyone who has had a horned god cloaked in darkness appear in their room to tell them that they are to rule the Otherworld would not be something one forgets very easily.”
Nymiria tugged the sheet still slung around her bottom half until it covered her completely.
Aziel watched her as she tucked the fabric over her breasts and scooted herself over.
“Would you like to lie down?” Her heart should not have thundered the way it did when he hesitated, nor should she have felt like she was breathing for the first time in her life when she watched him climb into the bed with her.
He kicked off his shoes immediately, but his body was still stiff. Too rigid and too far away.
There were so many questions she would have loved to ask him about his godhood, but it seemed as if it physically pained him to do so.
Aziel’s head turned in her direction at that moment, a soft smile twitching to life.
“It seems as if you were disappointed in becoming the God of Death.” She said, finally.
Aziel only sighed, his thumb grazing over the starched crease in the leg of his trousers.
“I was already surrounded by so much death, Nymiria, I believed that I was being punished for the crimes I’d committed in the name of my father.
” He went still for a moment, his eyes thoughtful as they lifted to stare at the open room.
“Once I forced myself away from the bottle and stopped groveling, I spent quite some time traveling between here and the Otherworld—with Teigh and Greia before they relented to the ether. I learned how to traverse through realms, how to outsource my Grace. I learned that being The God of Death was not always a curse. Death is mercy to the suffering. Whether it is a man riddled with sickness, or a wife praying for her abusive husband to die so that she can finally live… it is merciful. I watched Teigh take the souls of millions to the Otherworld. I watched him deliver justice to the wicked, give hope to the hopeless, and offer refuge for the lost.”
It was beautiful, really. But as Nymiria peered up at him, she could see the crease in his brow, the words that danced on the tip of his tongue that spoke of the darker moments. The ones that he would probably never speak of. Because death was not always merciful. Sometimes it was just painful.
“The innocent lives that are taken from the world too soon are what haunts me, moonflower. There are people in the Otherworld who never deserved the deaths they were dealt and I cannot do anything to interfere.” He sighed.
“Making the transition as painless and welcoming as possible is the only bit of comfort I can offer them.”
“And what of life?” Nymiria muttered. “I don’t know what I am supposed to do—what my purpose is.”
Aziel stared down at her, but he was still deep in thought.
She could see the gears in his mind turning, the fleeting emotions that flickered over his face, one after the other until he finally spoke.
“Greia was far more strict than her husband in terms of who would take her place when she died. She claimed that she’d hand-selected her heir—a child born of both bloods, who knew the workings of Life and what it represented. ”
She’d been a follower of Greia her whole life.
Her mother sent her to temple every other day, requiring her to learn about the goddess’s journey and her purpose.
Greia and Teigh were below Cadaith, the mother goddess, and each god that worked with Cadaith protected their own realms of power.
Greia fed her life into the earth, nurturing the soils, and everything that came from it.
She granted people who had been trying for years to conceive a child the ability to produce one, she directed people towards cures for illnesses, she brought rain during droughts, and warmth to bitter cold.
Life was to protect all living things and offer reprieve and protection to those that needed her.
But she was not all flowers and sunshine.
Greia could be vicious and quick to anger.
Nymiria always believed that it was Greia’s one flaw—that she could take away just as quickly as she gave without a single ounce of remorse or understanding.
Without even a warning. But Greia did not want people selfishly taking the gifts she bestowed upon the world.
If a lowly farmer prayed for help and then gained riches from the crops he produced and the riches turned his heart sour, Greia would take it all away.
If a mother who prayed for children was cruel to them, she would find ways to protect the innocent.
Even if it meant sending death after the mother.
“How do you do it? How can you be here, but also be a thousand other places at once?” She asked.
Aziel smiled. “The pedestals. Just like The God Stone in my room, the pedestals at the center of the portals work the same way. You offer your blood and it carries your blood into the earth, spreading through it like roots to a tree until it pulses into the earth.” He shrugged.
“The God Stone is for more… specific things.”
Nymiria’s body went rigid, the image of her blood flowing through the runes filling her mind. “Like what?”