He mirrored my enthusiasm, sighing at my kisses, running his hands all over my skin. His hair was already disheveled, his face flushed. I stroked my hand from the base of his cock to the sensitive tip, and was rewarded with a moan and an involuntary flick of his wings.
“Wait,” he panted, pulling back. “Cyrie, wait. Before I lose myself…”
“What is it?” I slurred, half drunk on the euphoria of touching him.
Thanatos stroked my hair away from my face. “Last night, I regretted having not admired every bit of you, then, while I had the chance. So just…will you just lie there for me now? Just let me look at you. I want to savor you this time.”
“Oh. Okay,” I agreed, my cheeks burning.
He stole another kiss, then propped himself up on an elbow beside me. I rolled onto my back, reclined against two pillows, and watched as he drank me in.
His gaze raked over my body, hungry and burning. He brought his free hand to my neck, and with a single finger he traced a path from my throat, down my chest, all the way to my navel. On his way back up, he deviated from the path to cup one of my breasts. His thumb stroked circles around the peak of my nipple.
I bit my lip to quiet myself against a surge of feeling, struggling to hold still while he admired me. As he wordlessly continued, shyness crept up to accompany my lust. Last night had been a culmination of raw need and emotion, a transcendent release from the tension that had been building between us. Now, he could be more measured. He could study all of me, open and exposed before him.
But I needn’t have worried. Thanatos sighed heatedly and smirked down at me. “You are the most beautiful woman thatI have seen today,” he declared. It seemed a strange wording…until I remembered who else he’d seen today.
I gasped. “Thanatos, you can’t say that! Do you want to start a war?”
“I can say what I like, so long as no one hears.” But just as quickly as it had formed, his endearing grin dissolved into trepidation. “I…I mean what I said,” he realized. “Dear gods, Imeanit,” he repeated frantically. “It should not be possible. What does thatmean?”
“That you love me?” I suggested timidly.
“I do. Ido,” he ranted. “I—fuck! What am I doing?” He sprang up to sit in a rapid, startling motion.
“What’s wrong?” I pleaded, the heat in my face turning back from desire to embarrassment.
He drew the crests of his wings forward, around his own shoulders, as if sinking behind a shield of feathers. “I want you so badly,” he moaned. “But we cannot keep this up forever! I am not just going to reap you one day. I am going to end up actually killing you! How can I do this to you?”
“No. Stop.” I fought my emotional whiplash as I pushed myself up to sit, too. “Listen. Do you love me enough to let me choose you?”
“What?”
“Love isn’t just attraction,” I said, setting my hand on his knee. “It’s understanding and respect, too. Can you respect my choice to risk myself? If we’re going to be together, we have to do this with our eyes open.”
Thanatos cupped my face in his hands. The sadness in his eyes conflicted with the flush that still graced his pale cheeks. “Perhaps you are right. I can respect that. Butareyour eyes open? How can they be? How can you love me when you know that I will take you one day?”
“I want you to take me in every possible way until that day comes,” I insisted.
“Do not dismiss me, Cyrie,” he pleaded. “Even should you live the longest life, you can be certain that I will reap someone dear to you. When I do, I will not be sorry for it. How can you love me then?”
I closed my eyes as a pang of bitterness washed over me, irritating a wound long since scarred over. When the swell of emotion passed, I gripped his wrists and gently pulled his hands down from my face. “You say that as though you haven’t done so already,” I said, folding his hands into my own.
His expression turned to genuine shock. “I have? You have never mentioned it.”
I sighed. “Well, perhaps I didn’t want to hear that you don’t remember her soul.”
“Whose?”
“Lady Helena’s. She was the daughter of Demetrius, of Halieis.” I paused, just in case recognition were to spark in his expression. Instead, his brow furrowed and he shot me a guilty look. As expected. “It’s alright, Thanatos,” I said. “I know you can’t remember everyone. I never thought you would—that’s why I never asked. It gives me peace enough to know that you carried her.”
“Who was she to you?” he asked, brushing his thumbs softly over my knuckles.
“She was the one who cared for us as children, once we became oracles. She tutored us. Taught us to read. Fed and entertained us, too, until we were deemed too old for that. She died eight years ago.”
“I am to blame for ending her time with you,” he said carefully. “Yet you still wish to risk yourself to be my lover?”
“You are a facet of nature,” I breathed. “I could no more fault a river for flowing. I could never love you less for it.”
