Chapter Eighteen

Aliana's POV

"They're all gone!"

I swallowed hard...

No one had believed in the old gods for a long time, a millennium, maybe. They’d all vanished from the face of the earth, yet the world moved on. Stories became myths, myths became bedtime tales. In the end, humans even forgot the gods they had once feared...

Still…

In a way, my heart understood his pain. And why would he want answers? If I woke up after centuries and found the world I knew gone – if all but a handful of humans remained – I would want answers too...

He exhaled, the sound more like a sigh of centuries than of moments. I didn’t need to tell him. My silence was more than enough confirmation to him that what he initially believed to be true.

“Have you,” I asked, wanting to distract him. And because the question was burning my insides to the point that I almost felt sick. “Have you ever slept with her?”

He just looked at me for a hot second and then--- burst out laughing!

“Even if I wanted – which I don’t!” He said with such finality that every doubt in my mind was washed away like a bad dream. “She is Erebus’s muse. She’d never see me that way, nor would her lover ever allow me to live if I did.”

Relief washed over me, stronger and more intense than I would want to admit. Why did I feel this intense connection to him? Why was I so possessive over him, even when my logical mind told me I had no right to? And more importantly, there was that word again…

Muse!

The way he talked about it made it seem like something sacred. Something not even the gods messed with…

I wanted to know what it meant! Why, every time he said it, did it make me feel closer and closer to him? As if threads were being strung between my heart and his. Why did I keep feeling like my soul was enmeshed with his...

And why he kept calling me his...

Before I could ask anything else, he stood in a fluid motion and effortlessly pulled me with him. I gasped in a screech, the only thing I could do was to latch myself onto him, or face the floor...

“Come, little girl!” He said, with that infuriating, heart-melting curve of his lips. “We both need a shower.”

“Stop calling me little girl,” I chided again despite clinging to him like a kid koala. It still annoyed me that he kept calling me something that you’d expect someone to call a small child.

It honestly put me off...

Ani didn’t answer – just smirked that way only a man with horns could, and with long strides, he walked us to the bathroom. The air inside shimmered faintly, as if the room itself breathed with magic. Having gotten used to that feeling by now, I spun, wondering what I was in for now.

And once more, my breath was stolen!

The bathroom had been transformed into a cathedral of marble and light. Steam curled through the air like ghosts, and the shower wasn’t so much a shower as it was a waterfall spilling from a carved archway of black stone. So big it could fit ten people easily, as it glimmered faintly like liquid silver under the soft glow of unseen lanterns…

The water cascaded in smooth ribbons, the sound a low and hypnotic hum that filled the space. My reflection shimmered on the surface, everything feeling almost unreal as I took it all in…

Suddenly, Ani was behind me, pushing me under the spray. The warm water cascaded down my body, leaving a warm tingle wherever it touched. Cursing, I tried to move the water out of my face, looking up at him and ready to give him hell for scaring the living daylight out of me.

But before I could, his hands came up, pulling my body into his, and gladly let me feel his excitement. He bent down, kissing me and stealing away any will of my own, smiling against my lips. His smile was knowing yet filled with something soft and deep that I couldn’t quite name yet...

“Search your memory once more,” he purred softly, his voice heavy and rough with desire. “In modern times, that word would mean little girl, yes, but from when I’m from, it meant something else.”

“From when?!” I exclaimed, hating that it kept taking me by surprise that I was talking to a god who’d been around for as long as human civilization. Sighing, I decided it was best not to ask and just focus on the rest of--- well, everything else that didn’t make sense!

“And what do you mean---?” I continued, but was cut off, when Ani suddenly reached up, tapping the side of my ear as if he’d flipped a switch or something...

“Do you understand now?” He asked, his voice distorted and echoed. But more importantly, I realized that he was speaking a language I’d only ever read. In ancient scripts that my father had forced me to read…

Who could I possibly understand him?!

He didn’t reply…

Not to the first or second question, and I had a feeling that this was going to be a habit with him. Then again, would I really understand if he tried to explain? He’d once told me that it was magic, that it was the only way for me to even have a basic understanding of his powers.

Maybe I just wasn’t meant to understand…

So instead of arguing with this rock, I took a moment to think. To actually open my mind to the possibility that magic was real. That the language he spoke wasn’t English, but rather what my mind translated…

Little girl…

I listen to the words again, hearing him say it in his native tongue.

“Little one?” I wondered out loud. “No...”

It wasn’t quite right. The word… it was an endearment! I’d seen it used in poems and stories about sweethearts. A declaration of more than just love. It was a statement that they were more important than their own heart.

More than their own life...

“Precious one!”

I realized, stunned as I looked up at the horned beast. All this time, he’d called me that. Ever since we first met, he’d told me who I was to him...

He reached up, caressing my cheek before pulling me in for another kiss...

“Precious One...”

The word echoed in both languages, distorted yet clear as day and all-consuming. Like doom and promise rolled into one…

Ani hauled me off the floor, my legs automatically wrapped around his middle. As if my body knew what we needed, even if my brain didn’t. His thick shaft entered my body in a swift motion, finding its home and rhythm deep inside my heat.

I threw my head back, holding onto him as if he was the only thing that kept me grounded as he took me to heights I never believed possible. As he gave me pleasure that had my body shattering around him, until he was the only one who could ever put me back together...