That demon had likely fed too deeply on lust, had drowned in it until it twisted him.
“So you’re a male!” Lyssena said, her voice hesitant, the words curling upward into a question. “Uh . . . right?”
Was he?
Erevos glanced down at his body, at the legs that mirrored a man’s well enough, the shape that had always simplybeen. He had legs, yes.
So . . . there was that.
As he turned his gaze back to Lyssena, he noticed that her face had changed color. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose now flushed a warm shade of pink, the exact hue of those soft-petaled flowers that bloomed in the human realm when spring began to stretch its fingers across the land.
The Void had no seasons.
It knew no cold or warmth, no change of light or wind, no changing of sky or soil. And yet Erevos had always been curious about how the world moved through its cycles, how color faded and returned, how trees shed and regrew, how snow, which he had only seen in the human realm, fell like frozen ash from the clouds.
But spring . . .
Spring was when the human realm became its most colorful, its most alive, and he remembered it vividly. It was in the spring that he’d seen Lyssena in one of the most memorable moments in his life.
She had been sitting beneath the angled bend of a tree whose trunk curved like a question, her form framed by a halo of pink blossoms that trembled in the wind, and she had looked ethereal.
The same shade dusted her cheeks now.
Songbirds sang the loudest when the world was pink and full of bloom, when the air was warm, and the sky was blue, and Erevos thought it suited her. His songbird, so full of color and warmth.
And in that moment, he thought he wanted to devour her, to cage her inside himself, to hold her so close she would never again be beyond reach, to fold her into his being until no part of her could be taken or lost.
Everything about her was just . . .
Perfect.
“Then I am a male, Lyssena. I can call myself god if you wish me to.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Where Sweetness Lingered
Lyssena
Lyssena was so wet she didn’t know what to do.
Erevos was too much all at once. Too overwhelming, too close, too intense, and she had no experience in situations like this.
She couldn’t tell whether he was flirting with her or not, or if this was simply how Erevos always was—deep-voiced and calm, but with a way of speaking that melted her from the inside out.
She was lost.
All she could see was his face, his broad shoulders, the thick curve of his arms braced above her, his body a hovering menace she didn’t fear but felt drowning in.
She breathed slowly, tried to keep herself calm, tried not to stare, but failed. Because how could she not look at him? Her male-non-god-god, as strange and beautiful as he was, and she found herself wanting . . . more.
She just didn’t knowwhatmore meant yet.
Although . . . there was one thing.
She couldaccidentallylift her knee—just slightly—and finally discover whether there wasanythingthere. She’d seen him standing, of course, had tried to look without staring, but whenever Erevos was facing her, he was always looking at her, and she had no idea what she was even looking for.
Before she could ask the second question that lingered in her mind, her knee lifted—just slightly, accidentally—and pressed against him.
