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Her gaze roves around, anywhere but me.
When my grip tightens, she lets out a gasp of pain. “Y-yes.”
“You lie so sweetly,” I murmur, forcing her to kneel up on my lap, kissing her bruised wrist from my handling. “It’s almost believable.”
“I’m not lying. You have just done so much, I don’t know how I could ever –”
I capture her mouth with mine, appreciating how she yields so easily. Maybe she’s telling the truth. Maybe not. She takes my lashing tongue and croons at the intrusion, that heat rising in her core. I could take her here on my new table.
But that would spoil all her hard work.
I relinquish her with a sigh. “Your debt is insurmountable, human. I don’t think you will ever be free of me at this rate.”
She flits off to finish serving us, throwing expectant glances on occasion.
I watch her every sensuous move. It’s as if she’s trying to torture me, but I don’t think she knows she’s even doing it. There is so much more to my human than meets the eye, and perhaps this dinner will give me the perfect opportunity to delve a little deeper into her strange proclivities.
I do my best to stop torturing her as she sits in her seat and serves me up first.
“I don’t need sustenance.”
“I know,” she says, though her cut falters slightly. “I just wanted to thank you.”
Arie places the cut on my plate before spooning the strange herbs she requested next to them. For both of us, she does this, taking her time to make the spread presentable before offering it to me. I have waited for her to ask what manner of meat I provided, but she never does, taking little bites of the rich dark cut with notable pleasure.
I do as well, surprised that dark elf pairs so well with phenson.
I look her over anew, intrigued that she seems so capable after having nearly died in the desert searching for me. And I can’t keep quiet any longer.
“What brought you to the desert?”
Her chewing slows, and her eyes go vacant like they often do when she is speaking to no one. “I was looking for others like myself. A settlement of humans, perhaps.”
Confusion mars my gentle expression. “Why?”
“Because I have spoken to no one in a very long time. When Mother and I came out here, it was just us. And then it was just me.”
She struggles to answer, and I can see she’s holding something back.
It’s a curiosity to me, watching as she works through the emotions, almost losing herself before snapping back with a smile that hides such pain behind it. She does what she must to survive. I have witnessed it in great tragedies, those I have been a party to. Denial and deflection. “But that was years ago. She went away a long time ago.”
I don’t require my magic to know her mother died. I can see it in the way doubt flickers over the certainty of her expression. What grief it must have been, for her to lose herself with the absence of her only companion.
As I mull it over, something strange happens.
I feel pain lance the corners of my eyes, and wetness forms there. It never overflows, but I have to blink it back as Arie finishes her meal. I look to mine in silence and allow myself to enjoy the human sentiment.
18
ARIE
Peliel is like the sun. Warm, all-encompassing, bright, comforting. A panacea to all the ailments that I have known I carry and even the ones I don’t.
His touch, soft like silk, makes me shiver like I am nothing but a wilted tree, so weak and fragile that even the smallest gust of wind threatens its stature. Sometimes I wonder how a creature such as this has such a nurturing nature deep within him, but I dare not question my luck out loud. Whenever he runs his fingers down my cheek, my knees buckle and my heart starts beating fast, like I’m frightened by the mere suggestion of his power.
But I am not scared.
Divine skin, divine hands, divine face. I am blessed by him, and it’s with this confirmation within myself that I feel what I am, rather than what I’m not.
