My arm sunk right along with my shoulders, because half of it was true. Enosh had never caused me physical pain—at least, not the kind that came without pleasure. Except for when he’d twisted my legs, and even then, he’d quickly dulled the pain away.

Still, I couldn’t ignore how his eyes returned to ungiving coldness, positively unfazed and remarkably severe to any unknowing stranger… but not to me. I saw how his thick inky shadows of lashes betrayed a potential crack for me to squeeze through and reach the gentle core of his heart.

It was there, I knew.

It had to be.

I straightened on his lap and let a strand of his raven hair run through the clasp of my fingers. “Aside from your excursion beyond the Œten Gate, I haven’t witnessed you leave to spread rot.”

His face turned impossibly stiffer as his gaze followed the motion of my finger, watching how I trailed my nail over the tooled motifs on his cuirass. “What?”

“For the children,” I clarified. “Wasn’t that our agreement? I return to you no matter what, and you rot the children?”

A scoff, then he harshly gripped my wrist and removed my touch as I figured he would. “Our agreement is null and void, for you did not return.”

Now I dared a scoff, along with how I once again ran my nail along the furrows in the black leather that spun across his chest. “I’m here, am I not?”

“Delivered by death.”

“If that’s not the ultimate definition of returning no matter what, then I wouldn’t know what is.” Continuing upward along his high-cut collar, I let my fingertips trail over his hardening jawline. “Besides, you never clarified the specifics. All I know is that I’m here, and you’re not out there.”

His brow arched higher as though to say, your obstinance knows no bounds.

In truth, I couldn’t bring myself to care about my old goal of getting Enosh to resume his duty. What did I care about the likes of Rose, who’d gotten me killed? The priests who’d chased me? What had anyone at Hemdale ever done for me, aside from casting their harsh judgment?

Enosh dug his fingers into my cheeks, turning my face away for his teeth to lay siege on the still artery on the side of my neck, where he nipped me. “The gall you have, my little wife, expecting that I would spread rot to the sons and daughters of those who have wronged me.”

“They have wronged me, too.” I leaned into his rough touch and tilted my head, inviting his teeth to torture me while I cupped his face. “Yet here I am.”

“Here you are.”

Another harsh nibble here, a sensuous lap of his tongue there. I’d once called Enosh unpredictable in his godly whims, but that was before I’d spotted his pattern of divine punishment.

My suggestion angered him, and his arrogance left him no choice but to hide it behind the excruciating ecstasy of his hot lips against my skin. He would work me into another frenzy, soaking his bruised ego in my unanswered puddle of want.

And I would let him.

Rejection burned twice as much when the blood was heated—one of the three things I knew could make the god’s rage grow too large to be contained by a mask. And if one wouldn’t do… well, then I had to try for all three at once.

And pray I wouldn’t end up woven into the throne.

Faking a moan was easy enough as he let his slow, deliberate exhale fan along the length of my jaw. Dear god, only the devil himself could make me writhe on his lap and ignore the pain of bruised seatbones in search of the rock-hard bulge hidden beneath his breeches.

I let my thumb trail over the arch of his brow. “Stand by your promise and spread rot.”

As haughty as ever, he slapped my hand off his face with a tsk, all while gently playing with the curls between my legs, letting tingles spread around my labia. “I have half a mind to rot that tongue of yours instead.”

I stopped my writhing, willed my throat to suppress all sounds of pleasure. “Am I free to go, then?”

His fingers stilled around my cunt for as long as it took him to push a boisterous laugh from his lungs. “What makes you think that I will let you leave?”

“Since our agreement is null and void, I’m under no obligation to remain with you for eternity.”

He clung to the smile the laugh had left on his lips and stroked two fingers inside me, his palm rubbing against my clit at each thrust. “You are still my wife.”

“A poor one by your standards, just as you’re a terrible husband by mine.” Curses, the way he shoved me around until his hard length pressed against my arse wasn’t helping my focus, but I wouldn’t give in so easily. “Might as well divorce.”

That earned me the crushing clasp of his hands on my waist as he turned me to straddle him. He yanked me by my hair until my face nearly collided with his, bringing my mouth just close enough to his, as though luck was on my side for once. Yes, this would play out as planned. Maybe.

Enosh’s breathing quickened against the shell of my ear where his lips circled in non-kisses. “Oh, naive little mortal. Wherever would your brittle legs carry you if not back to the Pale Court? Back to your husband, your god, your master?”

My gaze wandered to Lord Tarnem, whose eyes rested on me, but he would have to wait. “Is Yarin not also my master?”

For a moment, I could have sworn I heard Yarin’s chuckle somewhere in the back of my mind… until Enosh’s hiss pulled my attention back to him.

“Scheming to escape me again so soon?” He clasped my chin and brought my lips to his, leaving no more but a hot sliver of quaking breath between them. “A fortnight in freedom and my little one believes herself something other than mine? I would have chased you to the edges of the world.”

“No need to chase me,” I whispered against his lips, following them, shifting my head in pursuit of them whenever Enosh evaded the impact. “I would have returned.”

“Liar.” His breath teased my mouth to chase his seducing lips. “You told me you considered freedom. That you had… doubts.”

“Yes, I had doubts.” I rocked my hips, rubbing myself against the length of his cock as I moved on to the second thing that never failed to impact him—honesty. “Who was the man in the forest? Was he real or only in my imagination so I could justify the things he made me… feel?” At that last word, the tremble of his lips shuddered the air, and his fingers loosened their clasp on my cheeks. “I doubted you would ever return to your duty after the attack, cursing my dying father to wander for eternity. So what was the point in coming home and leaving him behind to suffer alone?”

I shifted back and let his hand fall off my face, fighting the invisible pull toward him so I may inspect the chinks on his face. A small wrinkle between his brows. A slight gap between his parted lips. A gaze that slipped to my lips, strained to meet my eyes, then slipped again.

“I doubted all those things.” With another rock of my hips, I leaned over once more, and brushed my lips against the corner of his mouth, delivering the final blow—affection. “But then they found the corpse of a rotting boy, and I realized that I wanted to return to you. Not for a deal, or a vow, or some ceremony, but of my own choosing. Because the man I was returning to was worth it.”

Aching for this kiss, I pressed my chest against the groaning leather of his armor, shivering at the mercy of desire. My lips hunted for his, encouraged by how his stuttered breaths gave me guidance. Heavens, Enosh’s entire body quivered against mine.

Kiss me!

Our mouths connected.

My lips scalded, not from the heat of his kiss but how they dragged over the sharp emerging stubble along Enosh’s jawline as he turned his head away, sanding my anticipation back down to anger.

“So ambitious,” he growled and shifted his head back, staring at me with a positively smackable grin. “Did you believe me foolish enough to fall for your deceit so easily? To allow those lying lips anywhere near mine?”