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Enosh
“Snap the lass’ neck and have yer brother bind her soul.” Orlaigh lowered a tray onto a stool beside the bed, filling the room with the sweetest warm apple scent. “Ye’re even crueler if ye hold her here forever alive.”
I glanced down at the mortal sleeping beside me, muscles soaking up her warmth like a seed after an age of frost. How long since I’d last touched a woman? Nearly two centuries.
“Bound corpses make poor bedmates.” Tried it once, didn’t care for it. “I much prefer her alive and warm.”
“Already the lass sleeps at the first yawn, even if she just woke. Keep her body from decaying as time ought to and ye will slowly drive her insane.”
I combed my fingers through Ada’s blonde tresses. If my little mortal woke now, she would blink up at me with bright blue eyes. Finger stiff from an old fracture, skin scattered with scars of various sizes, and a heart that beat strong albeit with a concerning irregularity… for a god formed to perfection, her imperfections fascinated me the most.
Safe for her inherent depravity.
She’d tried to run from me.
Remnants of anger surged through my core at the memory. Fingers itched to break her neck with little more than a thought and bind her soul to her body. The dead had little interest in leaving the Pale Court. Even if they wandered, they always returned to their master.
I was Ada’s master.
Her body was bound to serve me…
… in death, yes, but who was there to judge?
I shifted closer to her, veins surging with that deep-rooted yearning to rut between her legs until bone shattered around us, setting her ablaze at her core—and myself right along with it—burning so hot together that eternity would lose its dreadful meaning.
That… proved an issue.
The dead obeyed.
The living warmed.
I could not have both.
Such a frail, unpredictable thing this… mortality. Oh, how I envied man for his ability to die. Come to think, hadn’t I been created to mirror mankind? Was made of flesh and flaw?
It was only right that Ada now sated the desires of my flesh and suffered the crimes of my flaw—utter possessiveness.
My little mortal had come to me.
And I would keep her.
For eternity.
If it came at the cost of her sanity, then so be it. Nothing the God of Whispers couldn’t ease in exchange for me to keep his harem of corpses smelling fresh.
“She shows no fear toward the dead.” Not like Njala had, ever so displeased with the Pale Court, no matter how I’d shaped it to her wishes. “No disgust.”
“It’s the world ye created with yer absence.” Orlaigh glanced back at where I tugged a fur higher over my little one. “She’s a bo
And she might succeed.
Ada had marked the bone from chamber to throne room, had taken detailed assessments of the gates, and had quickly discovered the miserable state of my corpses. Over the span of eternity, opportunities for escape would abound.
The thought alone filled my veins with anguish that clenched my teeth. It coursed through me so rapidly, already her neck offered itself to break. Until she inhaled and a handful of breasts pressed against me, their warmth coercing me into a state of… calmness.
No, I very much wanted her alive.
But how to keep her from ru
The word promise echoed, but I quickly banished it from my mind. A mind so stuffed with memories of pacts, vows, and pledges sworn by mortals—most broken within the first decade. What good would it do to offer Ada certain freedoms for her promise to remain by my side, ever so faithful?
Nothing.
Oh yes, my little mortal would pledge her loyalty and love, swear an oath from the sweetest of lips, and then she would break it. She would run from me. Abandon me to eternity, my wicked, wayward mortal.
The past had taught me no different.
“I could keep age from her flesh and break her legs in three places.” An acceptable compromise, buying me ample time to chase her down should she ever escape my kingdom.
Orlaigh shook her head and laid out the dress I’d made for my woman, braided from the softest of hairs. “If ye want the lass to hate ye even more, breaking her other bones is the way to go about it.”
Whatever else would I want?
Love?
My breathing hitched at the thought and panic clawed my chest when it no longer expanded with Ada’s inhale, robbing me of her warmth. Of all the things existence had cursed me with, my ability to love was the worst torture—second only to my inability to die.
No, the vicious sentiment of mankind was neither needed nor desired, for I would claim all parts of her form, again and again, until we were so consumed with each other that love paled in comparison.
Besides… “Twisted. I merely twisted them.”
“Ye hurt her.”
My muscles tensed. I despised pain, but my woman had left me no choice. That mankind had apparently demoted me from god to king beyond the Æfen Gate didn’t bode well, and so, I’d had to make a point.
“She’s waking.” This close to her, I sensed it so strongly: heart beating slightly faster, ears twitching at the sound of my voice, body temperature rising. “Did you bring enough honeyed milk for the both of us?”
Orlaigh raised a brow. “Ye want… milk?”
I offered her a stare that invited no further remark, thumb stroking over Ada’s side to rouse her quicker, no matter how I envied her for this mortal need. “How blessed she is in her ability to sleep away half of eternity.”
I took the warm cup Orlaigh handed me before I sent her for more milk, then watched my mortal waken. The way she stretched sinews and muscles sent a tingle through my limbs.
It extinguished when blue eyes narrowed at me with contempt. “Why are you here?”
“I have no reason to be elsewhere,” I said. “My kingdom has become so dreadfully dull ever since I denied your dead entry, the bit of effort it takes to rest the beasts is negligible.”
She shifted away from me underneath the furs, but no further than my arm hooking around her waist allowed. “Did you sleep beside me all night?”
“My form requires little of it.” Sleep only ever came to me in those rare moments of calm and completion, which had last been over two hundred years ago, my mind weary beyond exhaustion. “But I watched you throughout, yes.”
I had stroked hard flesh that hadn’t known touch in just as long, shaft jerking with the desire to spill my seed deep into her womb. So long since I’d bedded a woman. Still, I understood she required her sleep and so, I hadn’t disturbed her.
I allowed my mortal enough freedom to prop herself up onto her elbow before I handed her the cup. “Warm milk with honey. Orlaigh also brought us fried apples, buttered bread, and cured ham.”
“Us?” She hesitantly took the cup, sweetening lips that had been so skilled around my cock. “Do I have to eat breakfast with you?”
“Whyever not? Even if my form doesn’t require it, I enjoy good food like any mortal.” I broke off a piece of bread and held it to her lips. “Eat. We both know you’re hungry.”
A frightened woman would have refused with an excuse. A docile woman would have eaten from my fingers with a thank you on her lips. And a naïve woman would have slapped the bread from my fingers with a snarl.
But not Ada.
Snarl, my little mortal did.
But then she reached for the entire platter of bread, draped ham over one slice, loaded the edges with fried apple, and started eating even before she lowered it to her lap.
Too proud to accept food from my fingers.
Too smart to refuse it altogether.
After all, escape required strength.
It didn’t displease me as much as it should have; no, it charmed me more than was rational or sane. A dull companion slowed time only further. What an intriguing creature this mortal was. How could this woman hold my gaze with her chin held high, while guilt brittled her bones and shame soured her flesh?
I devoured the piece of bread, moaning at the smoothness of freshly-churned butter coating my gums after such long a time. “How did your husband die?”
Her gaze immediately dropped, going adrift somewhere in the furs. “Climbed the falls over at the Fork of Almach searching for pinweedle moss. The rock was wet and he slipped. A fisherman found him at the bottom of the falls, his body trapped between rocks. Said he drowned, but I think he died the moment he hit the rock. Took a chunk of his head out.”
An accident, yet I sensed how guilt infested the marrow in her bones. “You’re blaming yourself for his death. Why?”
Her head sunk, along with her voice. “Because I sent him up there.”
Neither flesh nor bone were free of failure. Why blame herself for the slick on the rock, the cutting breeze along the fall, or the misstep of a limb? She did to such a degree that the weight of it cumbered even my shoulders.
“Had you love for your husband?”
“What I had was a roof over my head, food in my belly, and my own garden.” She grabbed another slice of bread, eyeing me warily, observing, thinking… scheming. “Even without love, I had it better than most. Only took his belt a dozen or so times.”
“And what offenses deemed pain an appropriate punishment?”
She shrugged. “Talked back in front of the townsfolk, mostly.”
Yes, she was a mouthy little thing, but I quite liked it. It made for excellent entertainment. “Have you not been quiet and obedient?”
My little one shoved the bread around in her mouth as she spoke, lacking all the graces of nobility, but they’d started to bore me a good while ago, anyway. “I’ve sometimes been quiet. Now and then, obedient. I’ve certainly never been both at the same time.”
“And did the punishment correct your… defiance? Should I fashion a belt from the next beast coming to the Pale Court? Maybe it’ll cure your desire to escape.”
“Nothing cured in our home but the salted ham hanging from the rafters.”
My chest ached as neglected muscle pushed a faint laugh from my lungs. “So outspoken, your loyalty to a man this rotten confuses me greatly.”
“John was a good man.”
“So good, he only took a belt to you a dozen times? I despise pain, Ada. But not as much as I despise those who inflict it without mercy.”
“Because you have a right to speak of mercy?” Shaking her head, she tossed what was left of her bread onto the platter, the blood in her veins thickening with dismay. “Yes, my husband whipped me, as do all others. But he never kept me under lock and key, never forced himself—”
“Calm your heart.”
“—on me, even when he swayed home drunk from port, and he certainly didn’t push his length up my… my burning arse…”