Page 57 of Bloody Bargain
This wasn’t like the drop of blood he’d stolen with a brazen smirk at Owena’s bed and breakfast. The realization that I hadn’t kissed anyone for real since Gavin back in Boston on our one date hit me like a train. D’abel filled me up with his bold-faced affection and the gentle stroke of his tongue as it split apart and danced with mine.
Tears sprang to my eyes and I smashed them closed. This ancient elemental was more human than I was, wearing his love and devotion to me like the richest of king’s robes. It undid the woman I used to be, the version of Tessa that had been a social, snuggly, energetic friend and lover. I missed her, and despite how deep I’d hidden her, D’abel knew she was there somewhere.
Thisis the hunt he’d referred to.
All of me, for all of you.
My hands bit into his tight waist without conscious thought as I pulled his hips to mine. He loomed over me, cradling the back of my neck with his claws in my curls. A moan cracked in my throat as I licked his front fangs and the membranous seam of his jaws.
D’abel pulled back with a shudder.
“Dagger, dinner, dagger, dinner,” he chanted. A wobbly huff left my mouth as he pressed our foreheads together. “We will continue this for dessert,myn chalis.”
I nodded, stepping back. D’abel’s smile was just an innocent wisp as his heels hit the precipice above the sea.
“Stay safe,” I told him, gathering my armor back around me.
My b’adruokh stepped off the edge and disappeared into the ocean. The wind picked up and I hugged myself as a massive shadow displaced the surf. He swam into the distance, the spines along his eel-like tail breaking the surface into ribbons of sea foam.
Once his leviathan shadow was beneath the waves and beyond the continental shelf where I could no longer track his movements, my attention drifted to Dafydd and the distant figures standing along the banks near Morfa Nefyn. I tied my boots and picked up my knife, turning the hilt absently in my palm.
I would die if I went inland. No question.
But the itch to destroy those figures on the shore was a palpable temptation. It was a familiar, single-minded compulsion, and I sank back into that numb comfort easily. Away from the disturbing warmth of D’abel’s love. Away from the frigid ache I felt in my soul.
“Careful, love,” came a caramel smooth voice from behind me. “Self-sabotage is delicious, and we're hungry.” I spun, my knife pointed on instinct at the throat of the void demon.
No.Shit.
Not a void demon.
A god.
22
Tessa Voss winced and swore inwardly when she saw us, but despite knowing we were a god, she kept her knife aloft, its point mere inches from our nose. Its miniscule power was enough to make our nostrils itch. We grinned, enjoying her inner turmoil.
Void demon? No. God? Yes. Does it matter…?
We withdrew our hands from behind us and flipped D’abeloloa’s ancient dagger by the hilt. It sang, the otherworldly power of its blade washing us both in dangerously electric tension. Every blow with this knife was the final cut. The end. We savored that edge of promised oblivion because the grass was always greener on the other side, and even gods could yearn for death.
Tessa bent her knees and shuffled a step back to keep us at arm’s length, ready to fight. Her will bubbled like champagne, so resolute and unwavering as to make our cheeks prickle with thirst. We held up our hands in surrender and chuckled.
“Calm,fyxen.Tell us, how does one surrender in style these days?” we asked. Tessa’s brow scrunched, and her glare traveled across our forehead.
“Did you just call me a vixen?”
We didn’t answer right away, instead basking in this new feeling. A feeling we hadn’t felt since leaving our familial pantheon. Five eyes opened vertically along our brow and shesawthem. Even we could not see ourselves. No shadow nor reflection cast upon any surface. No fingerprints, skin cells, hair, or oils. We left no trace in the world for mortals to remember us by and could only know ourselves by feel. We were Mother’s ultimate hunter. And her ultimate test of faith.
But Tessa Voss saw us. She neither wanted nor expected anything from life save a small ember of hope D’abel had planted in her as surely as he wanted to plant his seed in her womb and forge the first generation of elementals since the days of myth and lore. Our throat felt dry as we smiled with nonchalance, ignoring the building addiction her simple gaze could cause us.
“Hm? Oh, we suppose.Fyxen,foxen,daughter of Voss… It’s all the same, isn’t it?”
She blinked, the hold on her knife faltering just so. We denied the impulse to snatch at her wrist, an old hunter’s instinct that no longer served us. But Tessa noticed–of course she did–and shored up her grip.
“I’m sorry I stabbed you with a fork.”
We grinned, swallowing down the taste of her insincere apology.
