“Really?”
“Really.” My eyes drifted open, and I looked down, past the puckered peaks of my breasts to where he had the towel snagged around the wrist of his hand.
“Lying so prettily, yet again.”
“I’m not lying. You’re just overconfident—” I gasped as he dropped the towel, and the cool length of his fingers replaced the soft material, pressing against my bundle of nerves. “Gods,” I breathed, immediately swamped by a riot of sensations as the tension curled so tightly, I felt breathless.
“No,” he murmured, his thumb swirling against that sensitive nub. “You are not interested at all in those certain aspects.” He sank a finger inside, parting the flesh.
I cried out, grasping his arm. I hadn’t forgotten the shocking contradiction of his coldness against my heat, but no memory did it justice. I shook.
“I remember how you showed me the way you like it. I play that over and over in my head. I could write a fucking tome on it by now.” His thumb continued moving. “When I’m fisting my cock, I remember how you held my hand against you at the lake.”
“Oh, gods,” I gasped. “Do you…do you really?”
“More times than I should admit.” His finger pumped in and out of me, bringing me closer and closer to the edge.
Suddenly, all that curling tension unfurled as fast and unexpectedly as a streak of lightning. It came on hard and fast and shockingly. If he hadn’t folded his other arm around my waist, there was a good chance the pounding waves of release would’ve taken my legs out from under me.
Ash’s fingers slowed, and only when my hips stopped twitching did he ease his hand from me. Several long moments passed as he simply held me there, our bodies only touching from the waist down. Neither of us spoke, and I had no idea what he was thinking, but as my body cooled, I realized that my attempt to seduce him had failed spectacularly. I had been the one seduced.
I sat on the bed, facing the closed balcony doors as the top of the robe I held closed pooled at my elbows.
Ash walked forward, unscrewing the lid on the jar he’d brought with him. “This will probably feel cold against your skin at first,” he said, sitting behind me. “And then it will have a numbing effect.”
I nodded, feeling off-kilter from what had transpired in the bathing chamber. He’d walked away before I even had a chance to regain control of the situation, the sign of his arousal a thick, hard ridge pressing against his breeches as he unhooked the robe and handed it to me. His restraint when it came to his pleasure was quite impressive.
The touch of his fingers brushing some of the curls that had fallen free from their twist aside steered my mind to the present. A spicy and astringent scent reached me. “What is this ointment made of?”
“Yarrow, arnica, and a few things native to Iliseeum,” he told me. I sucked in a sharp breath as the salve touched one of the wounds. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I lowered my chin. “It doesn’t hurt. It’s just cold.”
His hand moved, spreading the balm over my skin. He didn’t have to do this. He hadn’t needed to wash my hair. Both acts were kind but didn’t match what he’d done to those gods on the Rise.
Which hadn’t stopped me from enjoying his touch. Gods. I should feel ashamed, but I didn’t. Maybe because my conscious mind recognized that I was destined to do far worse things.
For some reason, as I sat there rather obediently, I remembered what I’d wanted to ask while in the bathing chamber. “How old are you? Really?”
“I thought we already established that my actual age doesn’t matter,” he said, parroting my words back.
“It didn’t when I didn’t know who you were.”
“I’m still the same person who sat beside you at the lake.” His balm-covered fingers slid up my shoulders. “You know that, right?”
Was he? “How would I know that?”
“You should,” he answered as the coolness of the ointment started to fade, replaced by the numbness he’d promised.
“We may not be complete strangers, but do we really know each other?” I reasoned. “You talked as if killing should always affect a person, leave a mark that never fades. But you have—” I pressed my lips together. “I don’t know you at all.”
“You know more than most.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’ve never spoken about the first person I killed. Not with anyone but you,” he said, his hand leaving my back. I heard the lid turning on the jar. “No one knows it was someone close to me.” He took hold of the collar of the robe, lifting it to cover my back and shoulders. “Nothing I told you at the lake was a lie.”
“If everything you said was true, then why do you have gods impaled on your wall?” I demanded, tightening the sash around my waist as I twisted to face him. There was absolutely no pain from the movement. “How can killing leave a mark when you do things like that?”
“You think…?” The white aura behind his pupil bled into the silver. It was a beautiful effect and a slightly terrifying one. “You think I did that to them?”
“When I asked you why, you said they served as a reminder that life is fragile, even for a god.”
Disbelief flickered across his features. “How did those words incriminate me?” His expression smoothed out quickly. “Yes, they serve as a warning, but not one I issued.”
I stared at him, stunned. Could he be telling the truth? I wasn’t sure what he’d gain from lying about it. “If it wasn’t you, then who did it?”
The swirling in his eyes abated as he reached out and picked up one of the curls that had fallen over my shoulder. “I am not the only Primal god, liessa.”
“Who did that, then? Who would be willing to anger the Primal of Death?”
“You have no problem attempting to anger or argue with me.”
“I’m not arguing with you now.”
One eyebrow rose. “I feel as if every conversation we have verges on an argument when it comes to you.”
“It was you who started arguing with me.” I watched him. Lashes lowered, he appeared absurdly focused on separating the mass of curls.
One side of his lips curved up as he drew one of the curls straight. “You’re arguing with me now.”
I threw up my arms. “That’s because you’re saying—never mind.”
Ash released the strand of hair, his faint grin fading as his gaze met mine. “What do you know about the politics of Iliseeum?”
His question threw me. “Not much,” I admitted. “I know that Primals rule the Courts, and that gods answer to them.”
“Each Court is a territory within Iliseeum with more than enough land for each Primal and their gods to carry out their time as they see fit. And each Primal has more than enough power to do whatever they would like.” He rose from the bed and went to the table. There was a decanter there that hadn’t been there before, along with two glasses. “But no matter how powerful any one being is, there are always some who want more power. Where what they have is not enough.”
A chill swept down my spine as he pulled the stopper from the decanter. He poured the amber liquid into two short glasses. “And for them, they like to push other Primals. See how far they can go. How much they can push before the other lashes out. In a way, it can be a source of entertainment for them.” He carried the glasses over. “Whiskey?”
I took the glass he handed me. “Are you saying that another Primal did that because they were bored?”
“No. That was not done out of boredom.” He turned from me, taking a long drink. “That was done to see how far they could push me. Quite a few Primals enjoy…pushing me.”