The faint shape of a rippling doorway appeared a few feet away from me, Medusa stepping through it seconds later.
Relief hit me like an uppercut. “Thank goodness.”
My snake shifter friend, her ochre skin half covered in emerald scales, approached me, concern etched all over her face.
“What happened, sugar?” She crouched beside me, her unblinking amber eyes flashing at the elf. “Is his body meant to bend like that?”
I winced from the rapid rise in desperation within the Heart of All.
“And why is his penis on view?” she added.
Goodness me! I told her what’d happened while covering his dignity with my hand.
Respectfully, she kept her eyes on me, tucking a strand of sleek brown hair behind her ear. “Your people need you.”
Tell me something I don’t know.“I can feel it.” Scarlet light painted her body, the Heart of All growing in brightness as it pulsated harder.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.An endless drum of anxiety, and too much to ignore.
“I’ll stay with him,” she offered, getting to her feet.
Immediately, I rebuked her suggestion. “I can’t leave him.”
“He’ll be safe here with me,” she countered softly.
I stroked the side of his face, unreasonably drawn to him, the honeyed taste of his blood and the saltiness of his semen lingering on my tongue.
Special.
So special.
And a killer…
“Silvanus?” Medusa said.
I can’t take my eyes off this executioner.“Yes?”
“Put him on the sofa and go to your people.”
Her words skewered me with reality. There was nothing like a friend to be the tonic you needed to clear your focus.
“Alright,” I said.
She gave me some space, striding into the kitchen.
“I’m sorry I have to go,” I told Paris.
Why was I doing this? Sexual contact was one thing, but these feelings were another. We were supposed to be enemies on mute, nothing more. The best we could hope for would be a friendship. Possibly. Definitely not this messiness.
A line had to be drawn here, no matter how good he tasted.
That line has already been crossed,my mind threw back at me.
A spiral of thoughts, or grief, and the pull of my people attacked at once, landing blows, summoning a wicked ache in my skull.
No more. No more. No more. No more.
They pushed me harder, joining forces in one constant pounding.
