Page 55 of The Deathless One
“It’s nice to meet you, Elric Hellebore.” She didn’t know why saying it felt so important; she just knew she wanted someone to say his name. She wanted him to know that his name existed beyond the strange markings on a book that the world had long forgotten.
And then it was like a fog lifted. She watched the shadows obscuring his face slowly peel away from the bottom. Without a thought, she ghosted her thumb over his revealed lips. Almost too full for a man, but now she could see the way they twisted with a sneer that was strangely attractive. A scar bisected his top lip, and then the shadows revealed a long, hawkish nose that had been broken many times and dark eyes with slashes of black brows, each one with a scar on either side. Bone-white scars that nearly glowed on his face.
He was devastatingly handsome. His eyes saw straight into her soul, like some kind of bird of prey. A single curl escaped his tamed hair, just as she thought it would.
And she stood there, staring into those harsh features with her breath caught in her lungs. Because her thumb was still pressed against his lips. Because he stared at her with eyes that saw too much. And because his tongue gently licked her finger, and suddenly she could think of nothing else but that warm, slick touch.
Those lips.
Those eyes that flashed with something more than just a deep power inside him, but a power that she suddenly wanted to feel inside… her.
The front door opened and closed, the slam shuddering through her body even though she was stuck in this position. She couldn’t move. She wanted to see what he would do if she pushed her thumb through those plush lips.
It was a wicked thought. A thought that never would have occurred to her before she met this man, this monster who made her want to be something wild and free.
His lips shifted, and that tongue flicked against her thumb one more time before she felt his hand move around her waist. He dragged her closer, and she knew she should stop him. She should end all this madness before the two of them did something they couldn’t come back from.
But she didn’t want to stop him. She didn’t even struggle when his scarred hand scooped beneath her hair to clasp the back of her neck. Her hand trembled against his lips and jaw as he dragged her so close she could feel his breath play across her cheek.
“Elric,” she whispered.
And oh, it felt like she’d uttered a curse into the world. Like she’d summoned a demon and released him out into the wild. She knew this wasn’t how to free him, but to her, it felt like he was suddenly real.
So much more real than he had been moments before.
The hard planes of his chest pressed against her. He slid his thigh between her legs and something—someone—woke deep inside her. A woman she didn’t recognize, but who knew exactly what she wanted and screamed that she would claim it.
Just an inch. That was all that separated her from the knowledge of what a god tasted like.
But then the door to this room opened, the statues of dead gods suddenly felt like nosy onlookers, and she felt him fade from her grasp.
Gone was the god in her embrace, and all she was left with was a sense of emptiness in her arms.
“Jessamine?” Sybil asked, a laugh at the end of the word. “Are you practicing for some prince who’s coming to sweep you off your feet, darling?”
She let out a breath, her arms falling to her sides. “No, no, I suppose I was just… daydreaming. That’s all.”
“Daydreaming. Right.” Sybil clearly didn’t believe her. “Do you mind helping me bring all this in? I was lucky enough to come across a few chickens that had gotten out of a garden. I don’t think the farmer will mind all that much if they’re missing, but it is a rather suspicious amount of blood on our doorstep. I had forgotten how much I adore having a coven, even if it’s just you.”
“Of course, I’m happy to help.” She barely even registered the words that she was saying.
Her mind was still lingering on moments ago, when she’d almost kissed a deathless god.
“She knows something,” Elric muttered, standing in the shadows as Sybil worshipped with an ancient spell. “I don’t like that she’s keeping it to herself.”
“You seem very invested in this girl for reasons that are far more to do with the personal than the necessary.” Sybil kept her eyes closed, her hands moving over the altar where a dead chicken bled out. Her bloodied fingers traced runes on the stone. “I don’t understand why you’re so interested in what she’s hiding, and why you aren’t focusing on training her to resurrect you.”
“She’s not interested in summoning me to this realm for good. I have to earn her trust.”
“Is that so?”
“She’s said as much.” He huffed out an angry breath. “Why are you arguing with me about this? You should want me to have my full powers back. That’s the only way you will get all your powers back as well.”
Sybil cracked one eye open to look into his gaze, and then shrugged. “I’ve lived this long without the full extent of my powers. And as I said, I was the weakest of the coven. I do not know what true power feels like.”
A lie.
He could sense it in the air, hovering between them. She even held her breath for a few moments, waiting for him to call her out on that very lie. After all, he had seen what she did with that infected man. She had more power in her than she wanted him to know, but he wasn’t sure how, when he had given her so little.
