Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Then there she was in front of me, panting, eyes hazy, cheeks flushed.
I raised my hand, slipping my fingers into my mouth to get one last taste of her.
The movement had a needy little whimper escaping her already.
“You were supposed to be healing,” she said, taking slow, deep breaths.
“Feeling a lot better now,” I assured her.
I did, too.
Damn near healed, even the deepest of wounds and the most complex of breaks.
She looked a little better, too. There was some color in her face. The bruises under her eyes didn’t look as intense.
Maybe orgasms helped her regain some of her life force.
I wouldn’t pretend to know anything about demigods and what kept them going, but if coming helped, I was happy to be her orgasm dealer.
“Ready to go tiptoe around some bears?” I asked.
“Gods, no,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let them nibble you. That’s my job now,” I added with a smile as I pulled her back to her feet. She brought her pants back up with her, then took a long, deep breath.
We said nothing as we made our way out of the cellar. The party inside the estate sounded more subdued than usual, so neither of us spoke as we inched away from the house and toward the woods.
Reaching down, I grabbed Nox’s hand, slipping my fingers between hers, silently directing her toward the cave.
“What is it?” I asked, feeling her stiffening, her head cocked to the side and brows pinched.
“I don’t know. You don’t… feel that?”
“What am I supposed to be feeling?” I asked.
“It’s hard to explain. It’s… a pulsing. You know how when you listen to music loudly enough, you feel it in your feet? In the walls?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I don’t feel that.” But I wasn’t part god. It made a lot of sense that she might sense things that I couldn’t. “Where does it feel like it’s coming from?”
She sucked in a deep breath, glancing over at me.
“The cave.”
“That cave?” I asked, nodding toward the one with the snoozing bears. I swear I could practically hear them snoring from here.
“Yes. You didn’t feel it when you went in?”
“No. Nothing. But I trust you. We should check it out. Go deeper than I did.”
“Okay.”
“Alright, hop on,” I said, turning and dropping down to a squat.
“What?”
“Hop on. You’re gonna piggyback it until we are past the bears. Don’t want you accidentally stepping on a paw.”
“Oh, ah, alright. I guess,” she said, stepping closer, then tentatively reaching around my neck.
The second I felt her leg hook around me, I reached back, grabbing her thighs, hauling her up, then starting to walk.
She was stiff for a minute or two. Then, slowly but surely, she melted into me, her head resting against my back, her heartbeat a steady thrum against me.
The beginning of the cave yawned open before us, the air dipping several degrees. Nox curled tighter around me, trying to snuggle closer to my warmth as I walked deeper.
The bears were nestled past the first curve, their two massive bodies huddled close.
I stepped past them, body tense, worried they might startle and we’d have to run for our lives.
As soon as we were past them, I could feel Nox release her held breath.
“This is about as far as I got last time,” I whispered to her, still aware of the bonded bears. “But it looks like it goes deeper.”
It, in fact, went a lot fucking deeper.
“You alright?” I asked, feeling Nox getting tense.
“You don’t hear it?”
“The pulsing?”
“No. I mean, yes. That’s still here. But the noise.”
I was pretty sure I heard bats. But I was equally sure that wasn’t what she meant.
“What does it sound like?”
“I don’t know. It’s… awful. Like something is piercing my eardrums. High-pitched, I guess.”
“Is it new?”
“A little bit after the bears, I noticed it. It’s gotten worse the further we’ve gone.”
“Do you want to turn back?”
“I want to know what’s creating it.”
“Okay,” I agreed, starting to walk again.
“I can walk,” she said.
“Nope.”
“But—“
“It’s cold in here. You gotta stay close to stay warm.”
She didn’t object to that.
At least, not until we got to the deepest part of the cave.
Her body dropped from me, her hands pressed hard to her ears, her eyes huge as she looked at what was in front of us.
CHAPTER TEN
Nox
It felt like something sharp and hot was piercing so deep into my ears that it was penetrating my brain by the time I slid off of Daemon’s back.
Even with my hands pressed to my ears, it didn’t ease the pain.
But I was so distracted by what I was seeing that my hands fell away.
Daemon’s gaze slid to mine, brows raised, eyes round. “Is that…”
“Nemesis,” I said, my voice barely audible.
I’d been looking for her so long that I was starting to think it was a fool’s errand, that I was just so committed to it because it gave me the illusion of power in a powerless time.