Page 87 of Between Sun and Moon

I was surprised by how slow her regeneration took. Three weeks had passed since I’d brought her here. Any other immortal would have been fully healed by now.

But not her.

I had never met a deity so lacking in the ability to heal themselves. Everything about her I found juvenile . . . Some goddess she was.

She was pathetic, really, I thought to myself as I caressed a strand of her silky hair—so soft against my rough, calloused fingers. I let it slip away, caught in the act as her eyelids slowly opened.

Lurching upright, weakly, she moved away from me, towards the other side of the bed, which, considering its smallsize, didn’t allow her to get very far. Her feeble movement was no better than a newborn fawn. I bit back my need to reprimand her for moving so hastily when she was still so incredibly weak.

“Get away from me,” she hissed.

I was tempted to reach for her, but I steeled myself instead. I let a smirk twist my mouth as I purred, “Hello, Little Goddess.”

“Why am I here?” she asked, her gaze falling to the grizzly fur draped over top of her. She raised a linen-wrapped arm and pressed the back of her wrist against her forehead. “I am not sick with fever,” she murmured to herself at the same time she noticed the gauzy fabric I’d wrapped around her arm. She pulled her arm down and studied it.

My brow raised ever so slightly. “Do you not remember your husband tossing you across the room and snapping your neck?”

She looked at me, horror filling those enormous blue eyes, rimmed wide with white. “No,” she argued, shaking her head, fighting the memory as it returned to her. “He would never do—”

“He did.” I cut her off before her pretty, pretty lips could finish that useless lie.

She looked down, her eyes darting back and forth as she remembered what she was trying so desperately to block out. Tears brimmed on her lower lash line before one slipped forth, tumbling down her cheek. And then another. And another.

On pure impulse, I rose from the chair, leaned across the small mattress, and swept the back of my finger over the small stream of tears flowing down her cheeks. She did not jerk away from my touch—that was a first. And for the briefest of moments, her gaze met mine and I . . . I could have fallen to my knees.

She was devastating.

Unable to help myself, my fingers lowered. Gently, I traced her jawline. I watched her, waiting for her to push my hand away like she had done a thousand times before.

But for some reason, right now, she was letting me.

My fingers lowered to her delicate, ivory neck. The contrasts between us, in our skin tones, of how large my hand was in comparison to her purely female neck, it spoke to some territorial part of me.

“Why do your bones not correct themselves?” I asked, marveling at the buttery softness of her skin. Mortal men spent their lifetimes chasing after gold, but if they were to take my place right now, they would find the metal severely lacking. For there were no riches that could compete with her. And that bothered me more than I cared to let on.

“I don’t know,” she answered, still studying me just as much as I was studying her.

“You take a long time to heal, as well,” I added on.

“Sometimes it varies. The healers say that my body acts almost more mortal than immortal at times.” Her eyes widened ever so slightly, and she nervously began to chew on her bottom lip, her actions speaking loudly—she regretted telling me something that I could easily use against her.

I couldn’t blame her. She was right to fear me.

An immortal’s body acting mortal? There were only a handful who could do that.

“You are not the first of your kind,” I said as my thumb pressed against the slight divot beneath her bottom lip, slowly I tugged it from her teeth, causing her wet, plump lip to spring free. I was tempted to take it between mine.

“What do you mean I’m not the first of my kind? The healers said no one has had such an ability before.” Falling into old habits, she pulled back from me, yet when she spoke, her voice held no malice.Interesting.

“Then your healers are either imbeciles or liars. The Goddess of Free Will is able to make her body age just as a mortal’s would. She lives a natural mortal life, dies at a time of her choosing, and then is reincarnated again. If you are indeed like her, I would suspect you are able to reincarnate as well.”

“I’ve heard of her. She is one of the Three Spinners.”

“She is,” I confirmed with a slight, single nod.

She was quiet for a moment, the cogs in her mind turning so loud I could hear them. Then, she said, “If I wanted to talk to her . . . do you know where I could find her?”

“When she must work, she lives with her sisters. Their home is inside Mount Kilangor. But she’s a bit of a nomad, so she typically isn’t there,” I rumbled—still transfixed on her pouty, pink lips.

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