What did it mean when you asked a god whether you were in a cage and he grinned?
Lyssena was absolutely horrified by that reaction. She had agreed to go with him, but now, seeing that grin stretch across his face, she was suddenly very concerned for her safety.
Was this still better than marrying Kaan?
She didn’t know the answer to that, and so, instead of dwelling on it, she blinked slowly, took a long breath, and tried to calm herself down.
“I would always do as you wish, greatest Erevos,” she whispered, swallowing down the dread that had begun to rise in her throat.
She was no longer thinking about how soaked her gown had become, how the dark ink-water clung to the fabric and made it translucent all the way up to her chest, until Erevos said: “Do not move.”
She didn’t.
She froze, staring at him with wide eyes, waiting silently for whatever would come next.
His hand moved slowly from her wrist, down the arch of her arm, up to her shoulder, and the motion made Lyssena gulp again, her breath catching as she followed the path of his fingers.
Then his hand rose to cup her cheek, his palm so large it covered half her face and some of her scalp. Erevos began to trace the outline of her face, circling it slowly.
What for? She didn’t know, and truthfully, she was far too distracted to ask.
She was too focused on counting the number of times her heart pounded in her ears, too wrapped up in the sensation of his touch as his fingers drifted downward, gliding along her neck, circling her throat with the same slowness.
He didn’t press, he didn’t choke or threaten, and yet he was so focused, so utterly absorbed in what he did, that it truly seemed like he was doing something far beyond simply wanting to kill her.
Lyssena realized she had been foolish to think he might kill her because Erevos wasn’t preparing to harm her; he wasstudyingher.
She felt his arm wrap securely around her waist, drawing her closer until her breasts pressed against the hardness of his chest, the soft curves of her body yielding against his unmoving form. His massive, stone-like abs compressed against her soft belly, and for a long, quiet moment, Erevos looked at her, and she looked right back at him.
That was when she noticed that he didn’t breathe.
His chest did not rise or fall, did not move at all. She, however, was breathing fast and shallow, and every exhale brushed against his skin, as though her breath were painting warmth onto him.
Her body was growing hotter by the second, and Erevos suddenly became still. Their position made her tilt her head up to look at him, her chin raised because of how tall he was, and how close they were now. So close that her hair fell behind her like a dark curtain, damp and trailing down the length of her back.
She couldn’t tell where he was looking—at her eyes, her nose, maybe even her mouth. His gaze was impossible to read without irises or even pupils, only those endless purple orbs glowing faintly in the cave’s dim light.
But he was staring.
And then he was touching her face again.
Not her cheek this time. His claw traced slowly across her brow, then down the bridge of her nose, and Lyssena could feel the heat rising to her face, turning her skin red not just from the warmth radiating from Erevos but from her own overwhelming embarrassment.
No one had ever touched her like this.
No one hadeverlooked at her like this.
He was studying her with such intensity that she couldn’t look away. The soft sound of water droplets falling echoed through the cave, and beyond that faint rhythm, the only other sounds were her breathing . . . and her pounding heart.
When Erevos’s claw reached her lips, he slowed. So much so that it barely hovered above the curve of her mouth, and Lyssena forgot how to breathe altogether.
More than that, she felt a strange, building heat gathering between her legs.
Erevos pulled back slightly, his claw no longer brushing her lip.
“What’s that?” he asked, and Lyssena squirmed in response.
What could she possibly tell her god? That his touch made her excited? That every movement of his hand, every inch of his closeness, set her skin aflame with a heat she had never known before?
