Strength (Curse of the Gods #4)(25)

The further down Siret’s hand travelled, the more I could sense his magic slowly rolling over me—not that I needed to actually feel his magic to know that I was now naked, because his fingers didn’t pause in their downward motion, travelling over my belly, my hip, before pushing between my legs. I lifted up onto my toes, my arms stretched behind me, held at the base of my spine. I dropped my face against his chest, my sounds of pleasure caught against his bare skin as my legs went immediately weak. He was taking away my ability to stand while keeping me upright with his grip on my wrists. It was bordering on painful, but I didn’t want to break free or stop him, because his fingers were driving me insane, sending liquid heat through my body.

There was nothing that I could do to take control of the situation, to drive our encounter in the direction I wanted it to go. If it hadn’t felt so amazing, I would have fought him; I would have tried to gain the upper hand somehow, but I had no strength to fight. I gave in, letting him drive me closer and closer to the edge, before he pushed me mercilessly over.

I slumped against him as I cried out, emotion welling up inside me, and he immediately released my wrists, cradling me gently in his arms. I didn’t know why, but tears were gathering at the corners of my eyes, a strange elation filling my chest. Undead sex was different to … swimming.

“Don’t say undead sex,” Siret muttered, laughter in his voice, though it had a roughness to it that only served to remind me that we hadn’t actually had sex, yet. I let my body ride the heavy wave of emotion as I pushed into him. I could feel every inch of his skin beneath me as we sank down to the cold stone floor. I wanted to wonder why the room wasn’t furnished, as the rooms had been at Blesswood—why there weren’t rugs and blankets, couches and beds—but as soon as the questions jumped into my mind, they were pushed out again at the feel of Siret’s smooth skin beneath my fingertips. I straddled him, my knees settling on either side of his.

“Put it in,” I demanded, still struggling a little to breathe.

“That’s … really not how this goes,” he replied, and I could hear the laughing grimace in his words.

“You don’t put it in?”

“No, you do put it in … I meant that you don’t say things like ‘put it in’.”

“Well I do, because I just did.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

I reached down, my hand wrapping around his hardness again. He groaned heavily.

“Put it in,” I repeated.

This time there was no laughter from Siret, but his eyes burned. Branding me. Claiming me.

His hands clenched and unclenched at my waist, until he eventually pulled my hand away from him and grabbed my hips, pulling me onto him. He entered me, our bodies immediately finding a shared rhythm as though we were starved, and maybe we were. I felt deprived of them—all five of my Abcurses. In a way, there was an emptiness between us now, one which had been there since my death. Like we needed to secure the soul-bond between us. It wanted us to acknowledge it—to give ourselves to each other.

Siret was losing his grip on control, his touch becoming more demanding, his god-strength leaking through his caresses. It wasn’t painful to me the way it might have been before Rau’s curse had hit me—now, I revelled in it. I returned it twofold, until we were finishing together, a pile of limbs and laboured breathing. He never stopped touching me, the entire time his hands gliding, rubbing, soothing. His lips feathered out over my temple before finding mine, and it was the most natural thing in the world to tell him how I felt. I opened my mouth to say the words, but he was already saying them, his voice a husky whisper against my hair.

“I love you, Soldier.”

I really had to die more often if this was the reward.





Six





Siret was cradling most of my body, his hands gliding across my skin, but still the cold crept inside of me. It was so cold, and I could feel a draught … which shouldn’t have been possible inside a cave.

“What’s wrong with this room?” I murmured, shivering against Siret.

Before he could answer, there was a burst of light from across the room. I was on my feet in a flash, hidden behind over six foot of angry god.

Angry naked god.

“Oh shit,” a nervous voice exclaimed.

I peeked around Siret to find a sol standing there. A male, with shoulder-length dirty blond hair pulled back at the nape of his neck, held there by a piece of leather. He had in his hands a single throw, thin, not at all warm looking, and a small pile of clothing.

“You have less than a click to tell me what the hell you’re doing in here.” Siret’s voice sounded all drawly and calm, but I was touching his rigid back. He was anything but calm.

“Uh, I’m … this … what.”

This sol was definitely going to have a heart attack if he didn’t calm down. He also seemed to be spending an awful lot of time staring at the ceiling, and since it was dark and a single-toned stone up there, I couldn’t figure out what was so fascinating.

“He’s trying not to look at you naked, Soldier,” Siret informed me. “Because then he knows I’ll throw him off this cliff.”

Right, I had forgotten we were both naked. “They’re just boobs,” I told the sol, still trying to get around Siret, who was still shuffling me back. “We all have them, mine are just bigger than yours.”