It is, bar none, the loveliest sight in both realms.

Bryony’s eyes stay closed as she runs the washcloth lower, dipping between her legs to clean in firm circles. “You watching?”

“I’m appreciating,” I correct.

“Is there a difference?”

“Watching implies a certain distance.” I shift against the headboard, chains clinking. “What I’m feeling for you right now borders on the religious, except less holy.”

Her violet gaze finds mine across the steam-hazed distance. “Less holy. That’s interesting, coming from a god.”

“Even gods can be brought to their knees by the right kind of temptation.”

“Is that so?” She bites her lip. “What does it take to tempt a god?”

You, I want to say. Just you, existing in the same room as me.

But the words that emerge are different, darker: “Right now? The sight of you touching yourself while I can’t.”

A delicate shiver rolls through her, but she just drops the washcloth and starts rubbing her cunt in firmer circles. “I’m enjoying you like this. All chained up and desperate for it. Maybe I won’t let you touch me at all.”

I lean forward, pulling against my chains. “Do it harder. Pinch your nipple with your other hand.”

A shuddering inhale, and then she’s obeying, cupping her breast and rolling her nipple between her fingers.

“Good. Now get those fingers nice and deep in your pussy. Show me how you fuck yourself when I’m not there to do it for you.”

Her eyes stay on mine as she plunges two fingers in, head thrown back as she works herself.

I let out a sigh. “You’re so pretty when you do that.”

It’s the biggest tease, being forced to sit here and watch her take her pleasure while I’m chained up. She rides her hand in a slow, sinuous roll of her hips. I feel the echoes of her building release through the bond, each spark of heat. Feel her climbing higher, chasing relief—

“Come,” I tell her, lacing my voice with the dregs of my power and shoving it at her. “Now.”

“Oh, gods,” she gasps.

I soak in her expression: the half-parted lips, the delicate furrow between her brows as she bucks against her palm. Her lashes flutter shut as she climaxes. A fierce, savage pride detonates in my chest because that’s all for me. She’s all mine.

Her chest heaves as she comes down. Her eyes are soft and hazy when they find mine again.

“Get over here,” I say. “After what Alexios put you through, you deserve to be worshipped properly. Don’t bother drying off.”

Water sluices over her curves as she rises from the bath. She steps out and walks toward me with all that glistening skin on display, pristine and wet and prettily flushed, nearly vibrating with pent-up need.

“Crawl up here and let me taste that pussy,” I murmur.

She braces a hand on the headboard as she climbs up to settle her knees on either side of my face. Close enough for me to feel the heat of her, smell the sweet scent of her arousal.

Bryony jolts with a sharp gasp as I kiss her pussy. The first taste of her bursts across my tongue, sweet and filthy. I’m greedy for her. For every moan and shudder. I flatten my tongue and drag it over her clit in a slow circle, again and again, varying the pressure.

She grinds down. Her fingers twist in my hair, holding me right where she needs me. I commit to memory all the places that make her sigh, that have her squirming, nails sinking into my scalp as she rides my face. And it’s a devastation—a kind of unmaking I’ve never known to be used like this.

This is what worship should be, I think, drunk on the taste of her. Not blood on altars. Not fear and genuflection. This.

By the time she’s shuddering apart on my tongue, I’m so hard I ache with it.

“I need you,” I pant. “If I’m not inside you in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to lose my mind.”

Bryony doesn’t hesitate. Just shimmies down my body until she can get my trousers unbuttoned, shoving them down to free my cock. I exhale sharply at the first tentative stroke of her hand. My hips buck into the contact. She lowers herself onto me, both of us groaning at the slick glide. The weight of her on top of me is hot and perfect, and I can’t do anything but lie there and let her use me.

She sets a slow pace. Hips rising and falling, each downstroke forcing me deeper. I am drunk on it. Drunk on her. Reduced to base instinct, to the animal roar of mine mine mine.

Her head tips back on a moan as she finds a more urgent rhythm. She rides me in uneven grinds, dragging a little on the downstroke, close and deep and absolutely devastating. So warm and tight and wet for me. She’s something I never knew I wanted, but always craved. I spent centuries in my grief feeling like I needed to bite and claw and fuck and ruin, but this—she—is everything I ever wanted.

The shackles bite into my wrists as my hands fist with the need to grab and claim—

“Keep using me,” I say. “That’s it. Ride me hard. Take everything you need.”

Her nails are a sweet, stinging pressure where they sink into the muscles of my chest for leverage. When she reaches my wings, I groan helplessly as she trails her fingertips along the bottom edge.

“Which part of these is most sensitive?”

“Coverts,” I manage between panting breaths. “Closest to my shoulder blades. Dig your nails in.”

The instant she curls her fingers into the short feathers there, everything whites out. Rapture screams through every nerve ending. My spine arches. My hips surge up to meet hers, chasing that blinding sensation.

“Fuck. Like that. Just like that, Chosen.”

“I love you,” she says roughly. Riding me harder, taking me so deep. “I love you so much.”

It only takes a handful of sharp, desperate thrusts before I’m falling over the edge. I shudder through it, still arching into her. She shatters moments after with a fractured cry. I watch her shake apart on my cock, committing every detail to memory. The spill of damp hair over her shoulders, the heaving swells of her tits, her lips parted.

Our breathing is loud in the hush as we come down.

“That’s three,” I say when I can speak again. “Let’s see if I can wring another four out of you before dawn.”

*   *   *

The stench of other demis clings to her skin, and it’s driving me out of my mind. Even after she’s bathed and fucked me, I can detect traces.

Bryony’s curled against my chest, finally peaceful after all that pain. I won’t disturb that. Not when she fought so hard just to make it back to me. Still, I have to know.

“You don’t have to tell me everything,” I murmur into her hair, hating how the chains keep me from properly holding her. From wrapping her in my wings. “But at least tell me how many there were.”

She goes rigid. I track the sudden spike of her pulse, the shallow draw of air. The bond between us pulses with echoes of remembered humiliation.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice is too steady, too controlled.

My Chosen has many talents, but lying to me sure as fuck isn’t one of them.

“Yeah, you do. The scents of other demis were all over you when you showed up in the cell. It’s still there.”

She flinches. “They didn’t hurt me.” She pulls away and sits up, hugging her knees. “They just…”

“Just what?” The words come out as a growl.

Bryony swallows hard. “Spat at me,” she says quietly. “Called me names.”

I count to ten in every dead language I know. Then I do it again, forcing myself to breathe and bank the inferno raging beneath my skin.

“Let me get this straight,” I manage. “Alexios made you march past dozens of hostile demis while you were barely conscious?”

Right. Alexios just earned himself top billing on my murder list.

“No one touched me. I handled it.”

So then why does she look so small? So fragile?