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The angel doesn’t answer. A flush crawls up the back of his neck and into the tips of his ears, and his shoulders tense. Nur leaves him to stew. He has no intention of waiting. He’s full and content, Arsene’s cool dismissal insignificant in the face of the satiation that settles into his bones
That’s all he cares about. It’s a mutual exchange, nothing more.
Chapter 13
ARSENE
Nur is holdingcourt across the camp. Hot anger simmers in Arsene’s gut as he watches. The hollow is lounging—the only word that could possibly be used to describe his relaxed pose, propped against one of the wagon’s wheels, long legs stretched before him. His hands rapidly stitch a tear in someone’s shirt while his eyes are on the listeners, and he tells a story.
His audience? Pups, ranging in age from five years all the way to near-adulthood. And the subject of the story is demons.
Arsene is no fool. The hollow has replaced a few words here and there, but the prominent figure in his tale is the King of Hell and his cronies. Though the young humans are rapt, interjecting with their own opinions and directions, Nur remains firmly in control of the story’s outcome. Because, of course, it’s nothing more than his own experience.
Arsene forces his eyes back to the grindstone. An assortment of knives lies on the bench next to him. One of his ongoing jobs is to keep them sharp, something he’s practiced at—a lifetime of military camp will do that—but doesn’t particularly enjoy. Just like he doesn’t enjoy digging ditches. Or cleaning pots. Or repairing armor.
It’s not the jobs. He’s done all this and worse on the battlefield—worseas bad as burying the stinking bodies of the dead, some his, some theirs. So no, the jobs don’t get to him. It’s the way they’re handed to him at the end of a long pole. The way no amount of work would ever land him where Nur is, regaling the little ones with tales of his bravery in a skirmish.
He doesn’t want or need that. So why does it sting?
Because I’m not any closer to getting what I do want.
Every step he takes seems to carry him further from his true goal. Especially letting a vergis-scented creature from the depths of Hell rut against him while he feeds on Arsene’s soul. Especially when his own body reacts so strongly, so violently, that he explodes without even putting a hand on himself.
It makes real what he fears most—that there’s another, deeper reason he capitulated to the bond. A reason he can’t afford to even think about.
Maybe I’m so broken that I want him. Monster or not.
He scowls at the knife in his hands.
It can’t happen again.
He wants it to happen again.
He aches to press Nur into the ground and spread his thighs open and taste the slick that trickles from his hole. To push inside and stuff him with seed like he’s a good vergis who deserves it?—
A strange sound drifts across the camp, and Arsene looks up. Nur is laughing, his teeth bared for all to see, his scars twisted up as he bends in half.
A fist squeezes Arsene’s chest and he looks away. He can’t let himself give in again.
It happens again.And again.
Nur comes to him in broad daylight, simmering with frustration. “You can’t put me off like this.”
Arsene glances around furtively, but they’re alone with only the dogs for company. He digs the blade of the shovel into the hard earth and leans on it with a scowl. “I’m not putting you off. It’s only been two days.”
“Two days is too long,” Nur insists, radiating hostility like a wild animal. The look in his eyes saysdanger. Why does that give Arsene a twisted thrill? “I’ll jump you right here. The humans can watch. Do you want that?”
“I wouldn’t let you.”
But the truth is, he doesn’t know if he could stop Nur. His body doesn’t know how to resist.
“Tonight,” Nur says.
That night, Arsene rises to a frenzied peak as his soul is sucked out of him. Nur’s ecstasy reverberates down the bond and their shared pleasure echoes in on itself again and again. He buries his cries in his palm and spills like it’s his first time.
Two nights later, Nur waylays him again.
This time Arsene fights, but Nur is persistent. He climbs into Arsene’s lap and grinds down on him while his eager tongue laps the blood dripping from his neck. Arsene’s hands fold into fists against the longing to yank him closer and tear the human clothes from his lithe form, to open him up and show him what it should really be like as a primus and vergis. He hates it.
