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Behind me, his unfinished cock slapped against his stomach, but it was his agonized groan that brought a smile to my lips. Enosh stared up at me with widened eyes. He bucked underneath me uncontrollably, dug his hands into my waist, frantically shifted me toward his cock once more.
But it was too late.
He grunted and jerked underneath me as he spilled his seed over his stomach. Or onto the train of my dress? Who could say?
“Friction.” I leaned over, letting the tip of my tongue lap at his earlobe. “It is in your nature to move, buck, and rub in search of it. But remove it while you succumb to pleasure, and it hurts. You might be a god, my master, yet that won’t keep your cock from making you look rather mortal in this moment.”
His hand shot to my crown but a second later. “It seems as though you are begging for punishment.”
“It seems as though you stopped begging for my forgiveness.”
A beat of hesitation.
For the first time, my husband seemed positively stu
With a sigh, he eventually released my crown, and a hint of pain moved in the depths of his irises. “Will you forgive me?”
That would depend on what forgiveness bought me. “You nearly buried me alive.”
“Only nearly, and not quite alive.” When I said nothing, letting the silence stretch thin between us, he finally nodded in defeat and raked a nervous hand through his hair once more. “I was… convinced you were scheming to escape and find refuge with my brother.”
“And you weren’t entirely wrong.”
He stilled, and even his chest stopped mid-inhale. “Explain.”
“You want my forgiveness for tossing me into a grave?” I sat straight, reacquainting myself with the man beneath the mask and how out of sorts he looked. “I will explain, but you will listen until I am finish—”
“Little—”
“No interruptions!” I ignored the snarl coming to his lips, the flash of teeth as though he were close to biting my mouth off. “Then you will take me to Yarin so he can confirm what I’ve told you is true.”
His lower jaws shifted and his eyes narrowed. “You have a great many requests.”
“And you have a great many things in need of forgiveness.” And it was time that he learned exactly why. “Do you want it, yes or no?”
“I shall be so quiet while I listen,” he ground out. “For your forgiveness, I shall do this.”
And I blurted it right out.
“Njala has been in love with Joah even before she came with you to the Pale Court. The affair brought Lord Tarnem no political benefit, so he broke it up and gave her to a god in exchange for an army.” I watched first confusion, then old misery crack through Enosh’s face in the shape of wrinkles webbing from the outer corners of his turbulent eyes. “She continued to see Joah whenever she left the Pale Court—something Orlaigh tried to talk her out of but could not. And so, she helped keep it a secret.”
His features hardened. “You sound rather certain.”
“Because I can prove it.”
Maybe. Hopefully.
I told him about the day I found Orlaigh scolding Lord Tarnem, how I couldn’t keep any food down in Elderfalls, and how the grains had sprouted. The more I told him, the more his body stiffened against mine. When I told him of my chat with Lord Tarnem, Enosh tilted his head back until his throat bobbed as he stared at the black sky.
“Enosh, the daughter you thought you lost was mortal for a reason… You were able to sense her because she was never yours.” I took his hand, flattening his palm atop my wounds. “This one, you ca
He didn’t move, didn’t speak.
Only gulped.
His eyes glistened with the wreckage of age-old beliefs and the destruction of a lie that had turned a loving man into an enraged god. His face showed every wrinkle of anguish forming between his brows, every twitch of shock jumping along his jaws, every tremble of doubt hushing across his bottom lip.
“I…” Shaking, his fingers brushed over my belly, “I have.”
Another spark of hope.
Another stab of pain.
As expected.
Enosh’s gaze trailed toward the child corpses as though he couldn’t bring himself to look at me, and something else shaped on his features—something I’d never seen on him before.
Guilt.
When he brought his eyes back to meet mine, he cupped the back of my head and tugged, only to let a whisper break against my ear. “Guilt and sorrow, hope and sin. The madness of their whispers lies within.”
Light blinded me.
I clenched my eyes shut and my ears pricked at the cacophony of moans and laughter, interrupted only by the clinks of metal against metal. The smell of moist air faded, along with the songs of crickets, quickly replaced with the sweetness of wine.
That, and Yarin’s voice.
“Oh, how I love surprise visitors. You have arrived just in time for the fun.”