She couldn’t help herself. He was tall and muscular and so impossibly gentle. She couldn’t deny those things, not even to herself.
“I . . . ” she murmured, before letting out a noise so high-pitched and sudden that even Erevos flinched.
Lyssena immediately glued herself to his chest, hiding from the gaze of her god, tucking herself into the dark safety of his neck and shoulder.
Was it a sin to feel aroused in the presence of a god? Had any god ever touched a human like that before?
She covered her face with her hands, heat flooding her cheeks, and buried herself deeper beneath Erevos’s chin.
“I want to wash up. Please,” she said, her voice muffled against her palms.
She couldn’t believe she was attracted to a god.
Lyssena felt a deep vibration rumble through Erevos’s chest. Was it a hum? A growl? Did gods even growl?
“Of course, Lyssena. But you cannot be truly clean if you have clothes on,” he said, his voice low as his claws glided slowly through her hair.
“I know . . . ” she whispered against his neck, her words barely audible, just as she felt her gown begin to lift from her skin.
Her god had decided to undress her.
She couldn’t take it seriously, not when Erevos was a god and could do anything he pleased, not when she was the onetrembling and flustered, the one making everything so difficult with her tangled thoughts and human shame.
And so Lyssena made a decision to stop huffing and puffing against her own nerves and simply wash herself.
She sat upright, raising her arms above her head as Erevos carefully lifted her now completely soaked gown. She had nothing to cover her breasts, but at least her cunt remained shielded by the linen that clung to her thighs. Still, as the fabric rose inch by inch, she felt every thread like a part of her being peeled from her skin, and when the wet cloth finally slid over her nipples, she realized how hard they had become, how unprepared she was for this flood of sensations overtaking her body.
“Your scent is very sweet, Lyssena,” Erevos murmured, his voice thoughtful, curious, as if he were making a divine observation. “I wonder why it has changed.”
By the time he finished speaking, her gown was gone, folded neatly and placed on a cave floor, and his hand—his large, clawed, shadow-dark hand—was cupping water to pour over her head.
The warmth flowed down her scalp, her neck, her back, and Lyssena exhaled slowly, letting the sensation anchor her. But she remained painfully aware that she was bare before him.
And yet, Erevos didn’t seem to mind her nudity at all. He didn’t gawk, didn’t leer; he simply watched her with the same calmness he always did, as if her being unclothed was just another form of truth.
That should have comforted her, and perhaps it did, but something inside her wilted, too. Was it disappointment?
Well, what had she expected? For a god to be aroused by a mortal girl? That was the question she should have been asking, instead of fretting over imagined slights.
Perhaps it was for the best.
Lyssena dipped her hands into the warm pool, scooped water into her palms, and began washing.
Chapter Seventeen
A Mask to See the Truth
Erevos
His songbird’s scent still lingered in Erevos’s mind as he shaped his shadows into the delicate face of a bird. A songbird, to be exact.
He heard Lyssena’s footsteps as she left her old bedroom and made her way through the quiet hallway. When she stepped into what was now her new room—the one where Erevos stood—she tilted her head and asked, “How do I look?” swaying her hips from side to side.
The shadowy gown he had crafted for her hugged her form well, but Erevos believed that anything would suit her. Everything she wore in the human realm had looked good, had enhanced the curve of her body, the softness in her shape, the warmth of her skin.
“It suits you well,” he said, setting the half-formed mask on the table beside him. “Would you want shoes?”
At that, Lyssena nodded, and Erevos began walking toward her.
