Page 112 of Alien God

Eventually, I got to the point where my heart was banging so hard in my chest that I couldn’t swallow another bite. Brekken benefitted from my loss of appetite – I placed my half-empty bowl on the floor beside him

“Food! Food! Pretty pretty Torrance two-legs give! Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!”

His many excited yelps were cut off as he began madly lapping at the bowl. Even though the dishes were fairly large compared to what I was used to on Earth, the bowl looked tiny under his head.

I bid the others goodnight and left the kitchen. I wondered if I should go back in there, grab my cloak, and walk outside for a bit. Try to use the cold to clear my head. But, as if pulled by some invisible and inevitable tether, my body began to move, my feet carrying me through the tunnel that led to the Eve Tower.

I mounted the stairs, passing floor after floor, room after room. My heart beat so quickly it felt like it was trying to run right out of my chest. To escape the body that was betraying it. It had climbed all the way up to my throat by the time I opened the bedroom door with a shaky hand.

My breath whooshed out of me. In a rather anti-climactic turn of events, Wylfrael wasn’t there.

Probably should have expected that, considering how he’s barely here at all these days.

The stab of disappointment infuriated me, and I decided to make myself busy until he eventually came back. A bath. I hadn’t had one yet today, and if something did happen when he came back...

Oh, my God. Why should I care if I’m clean or not for him?

I wasn’t sure if it was pride about not being seen as an unhygienic human, or if, pride be damned, I just wanted him to be pleased by the state of my body. I told myself fiercely it was the former while being afraid it was probably the latter.

I started up the bath, undressed, and slipped inside.

The holes in the tiles were about halfway up. When sitting on one of the built-in benches, the water created glorious pressure on the muscles on either side of my spine. I sighed, leaning back, as warm water massaged my back and began to fill the tub, covering my feet, my ankles, rising up my calves. I couldn’t rest my feet on the floor of the tub while sitting on the bench the way someone larger, like Wylfrael, could, so I swished my feet back and forth in the steaming water. Humidity made my skin dewy, dampened my hair until it stuck to me. I gathered it up, pulling it into a heavy twist on the top of my head, secured with nothing but its own weight. I closed my eyes as the water rose higher, nearly to my knees, almost submerging the bench I sat on.

“Bath time, little bride?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. My eyes flew open, and I slammed my arms over my chest to cover myself.

Of fucking course this would happen. Of course, my timing would be this bad, or his just that good. I should have known he’d come back in here at precisely the worst time.

Or maybe, in some unmentionable part of myself, I’d known he would. I’d wanted this to happen and hadn’t been able to admit it.

No! I argued against that thought. I did not plan this!

At least... not consciously.

Wylfrael looked magnificent, as always. So beautiful it almost made me hate him all over again. He’d come in and closed the door behind him, something I hadn’t heard above the rush of water, and now leaned against it, wings relaxing downward and to the sides, arms crossed over his broad chest.

“Uncross your arms,” he said, a command that sounded soft, belying the knife’s edge of authority to it.

“You uncross your arms,” I snapped, rather idiotically, but I couldn’t quite string together coherent thoughts while hot and naked and wet under Wylfrael’s gaze.

Surprisingly, he obeyed. And perhaps unsurprisingly, he came closer, gliding into the room like fire licking further into the house it meant to destroy.

When he reached the edge of the bath across from me, he stopped. His face was taut, but ultimately impassive. It was only a tremor running through his wings and tail, and a thick bobbing of muscle at his throat, that gave him away. That, and the swelling at his groin. I lifted my chin in triumph, glad that I wasn’t the only one so affected by the situation. I could see his control, and see what surged beneath it. Magma under ice.

He kept his voice even, a slow drawl, as he undid the laces on his vest and slipped it off, baring hard muscle and stars. “I could use a bath as well.”

Oh, fucking hell.

“Don’t come in here,” I said, wrapping my arms tighter around myself and scowling. “Get your own bath.”

“This is my bath, little bride.”

I wanted to come up with some clever quip, but I couldn’t. My words were completely lost to me as he kicked off his boots and ridded himself of his trousers.

My breathing hitched as I took him in, standing completely nude before me, for the first time.

The first thing I noticed was that the stars were everywhere. Not just on his chest and wings but all the way down his thick, muscled legs to his feet and even...

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