Her thumb brushed the curve of his cheek. “We’ll help him together. You can take care of me. If you want to.”
She leaned closer, lips brushing just beneath his cheekbone in a whisper of breath. “Would you like that?”
A slow pulse flickered at his throat, betraying a shiver beneath all that stoic restraint. “I… yes.” The words sounded dragged out of him, reluctant but real.
A surge of heat in her belly and tangled with the heavy ache in her chest. The air shifted. A ripple shivered through the atrium, clear and resonant as a bell-strike.
For a heartbeat, Goldie’s own voice wasn’t hers alone. Another lower, older tone wove through it, as if the Grove Core itself had leaned forward to ask the god through her:Is this what you want?
Mycor stirred. His eyelids fluttered open, gaze dim but intent. One vast hand twitched toward her, yearning, fragile. His voice rasped like leaves crumbling underfoot. “Yes.”
Goldie exhaled. “Okay,” she whispered. “Yes. We’re doing this.”
The words drifted into the air like smoke curling against glass. Sparks of magic rippled down her arms, setting her skin aglow. Power and want. Hope and heat. Everything inside her tangled into something unsteady but undeniable.
“Don’t worry, big guy,” she murmured, steady despite the storm gathering beneath her ribs. “I’ll make you feel better. Just hold on a little longer.”
She looked back at Splice. His dark eyes met hers with a raw, searching intensity that made her shiver. His jaw tightened, the muscle ticking hard beneath skin gone pale with strain.
“I’m still not happy about this,” he murmured, rough as gravel, his fingers tightening around hers. Then he leaned down, brushed his lips against hers, soft and fleeting.
“Go on,” he said, voice low and thick.
Goldie let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-shudder. “Okay… always the awkward part.” Her mouth curved. “Good thing I wore a skirt today. Easy access. Way better than the leggings fiasco the other day.”
With a nervous little wiggle, she slipped her panties down her thighs, kicking free of them. For a heartbeat she hesitated, the scrap of silk dangling from her fingers. Then, with a crooked grin that was equal parts tease and trust, she pressed them into Splice’s hand.
He arched a brow, a glint of humor flickering through his tension. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted the fabric to his face and drew in a breath.
Goldie’s pulse stumbled. Heat flared low in her belly, sharp and sweet. “You’re bad,” she whispered, voice breaking on the word.
His smile was faint, pained at the edges, but there. “Only a little,” he said softly.
Her pulse hammered as she drew a steadying breath and turned back to Mycor. She slid her hand down his arm, fingers trembling as they wrapped around the god’s open palm. His skin was bark and stone, rugged beneath her touch, yet pulsing faintly with a fragile, living warmth.
The Thornfather murmured, low and resonant, a sound that seemed less like speech and more like the earth itself shifting. It thrummed through her bones, vibrating with old power and aching need.
Goldie lifted her other hand and brushed her palm across his cheek with tender reverence. The god’s massive frame jolted beneath her touch. A rush of warmth flooded from him,thick and radiant, sweeping through her body until the world hummed with green-gold light.
The Grove Core inside her flared in answer.A surge of emerald fire seared through her veins, racing outward until the air itself seemed to catch. The atrium shuddered. The ground pulsed once beneath them, a deep, heartbeat thud that sent ripples through the pool at their feet.
Mycor drew in a sound that might have been breath, or might have been the rustle of every leaf in the Grove Core. When he spoke, it was not a whisper but a tremor: the low rumble of soil stirred by rain.
Goldie’s smile softened, tender and awed. Her fingers tightened around his large hand. “I feel your pain,” she whispered, her voice rough with emotion. “Let me ease you.”
She turned back Splice, her smile crooked, voice low but thrumming with heat. ““When I get that feeling… ” she half-sang, off-key and deliberate, “I want… sexual healing.”
Splice let out a ragged exhale, a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh. The hard edge in his gaze flickered, softening into something achingly human. “You’re impossible.”
Her grin brightened, teasing and tender all at once. “And you love it.”
The word hung there—love—small but incendiary, catching in the air like a spark on dry grass. The space between them seemed to thin, charged and fragile, one breath away from breaking.
Goldie’s breath left her in a trembling sigh, her whole body drawn taut with nerves and heat. Splice’s dark gaze met hers. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her temple, soft as a vow. “Go ahead,” he whispered.
Goldie closed her eyes, steadying herself, willing her breath to even out as she gathered the hem of her dress. The fabricwhispered up her legs, baring skin inch by inch until it pooled at her hips.
Then she looked down.
