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“If you wish for me to...” A florid color overtakes her visage. “Toworshipyou, in any way like last light and the nights before. Then I will do so, whenever you like.”
“You enjoy your worshiping duties, then?” My lips curve into a sickly smile. She is turning into a well-behaved pet.
Is this what I am feeling? Pride in myself for finally having a dutiful worshiper? No. I know what pride feels like. This is definitely something else. These feelings of mine are towards her.
“Yes...” she says, thistlelike. “Having been alone by myself for so long, I have never known how good it would feel to do such things. I like being able to show my appreciation for you.”
“Perhaps we should come up with new ways for you to show your appreciation.” My hands caress down the sides of her body. “And should you do anything I do not approve of, I’ll have to create more interesting forms of punishment for you.”
“I’ll do my best to never upset you.” she proclaims.
“That is exactly what I like to hear.”
“I don’t deserve to belong to someone as beautiful as you, Peliel...”
“Nonsense,” I say without thinking. “You belong to me.” I step back away from her for the moment. “I care a great deal about all of my things.” As I take her hand in mine, I walk her to the entrance.
“You are just as important to me as the lands that are mine.” I wave my hand out in front of us, showcasing the vastness of my territory. “It is all mine to use and enjoy, the same way you are. Continue to provide me with the worship, respect, and praise I am due, and I will continue to allow you to partake in the honor of doing so.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“I deserve to have you. Of that, I am certain. Thus, the inverse must also be true.”
“Which is?”
As I bring her out to bear witness to the grandness of my domain, I begin to understand those feelings that have taken hold of me. This must be how those humans felt before I found her. The truth of these feelings is simple now. I would destroy the rest of this world if it meant protectingher.
“You deserve to be mine, Arie.”
26
ARIE
Peliel’s fickle mood confuses me, but his look is one of deepest adoration. I cannot imagine living without his fierce attention.
“I deserve…”
“Is it so foreign a notion?” He traces my cheek with two fingers, which let off a soft glow as they chase to my mouth and thrum my lower lip. “That you may be worthy of affection, as well?”
My heart soars, and I lean into him.
Again, he gathers me against his chest, a welcoming embrace against the chill of evening rushing over the desert.
Tears sting my eyes. “How did I get so lucky?”
He chuckles, leaning in as if to offer his cryptic wisdom. Instead, he tenses, his whole body becoming like a vise around me. I go slack, not from the absence of self-preservation, but because if he means to destroy me, there is nothing I can do to stop him.
“Don’t. Move,” comes his hushed warning in my ear, so unexpected it makes me shudder. “We are not alone.”
There are others?
Curiosity gets the better of me, and I crane my neck to see them. “Are they –”
“Human,” he says with a measure of disgust. “I must have grown so accustomed to your scent that I did not recognize theirs on the wind.”
“Let me see.”
“They don’t want you,”comes a niggling little voice I don’t quite recognize. It’s not Warren’s soothing murmur, or even Ezekiel’s harsh tone, full of resentment. It’s someone else, a nameless voice that’s been following me since Peliel brought me here.“You are ruined. You have become a whore for your god, and they will kill you for it.”
