I groan and take up any form of stance I can. My fingers clench hard around the engraved hilt of the dagger and I lunge forward. The blade sinks into the jelly as easily as it did the man from Tuesday night. Its insides swirl with dark fake blood, but when I remove the blade nothing comes out. Orthia looks at the jelly and then at me.
“Good girl,” she purrs, a smirk forming on her lips as she watches me pant. Her eyes don’t leave mine when she says the words and it makes my cheeks heat. The words send a jolt right to my clit like her tongue had flicked across it. “Oh, that does work.”
“Love,” I grumble and feel their rumbling in my head.
“Did you think they wouldn’t tell me about your little affliction?” She asks. The way she says affliction is aimed to humiliate me, but I have long since gotten past any sort of shame around sex. I’m game for most things as long as we’re all consenting.
“A little praise and Del turns to a puddle. What a weak woman,” she taunts me.
I don’t get why she’s doing this, but that smirk is still in place. She’s not wrong. Praise from Love, from her, does turn me into a puddle. I crave those simple words from them, but I am not weak.
Orthia keeps taunting me. Panting turns ragged as my anger swells. My limbs tingle and the dagger in my fist feels lighter. Adrenaline is pumping through me, finally. I lunge for the jelly.
The blade punctures higher, but instead of the blood, a rush of bright pink swells into the stab wound. My colour glows inside the jelly and a rush of energy flows through my blood until all I can hear over the rushing in my ears is a chanting for more. I shove the blade deeper and watch the Jelly Man’s insides turn pink. My breathing is ragged, but I draw the knife back and shove it in again.
As quickly as it appears, the glowing pink is sucked out of Jelly Man. With a heavy, tired grunt, I pull the dagger from his chest and it falls to the ground. My fingers shake uncontrollably, my knees give out. I can hardly suck in a full breath, let alone warn Orthia, but she is already catching me. For someone who is a few inches shorter than me and maybe half my weight, she is incredibly strong and fast.
God, I bet she fucks hard.
I’m blaming that thought wholly on how fucking exhausted I am. And how warm her touch makes me. It coats all of me until it feels as though I’ve been lying in the sun for hours. She steadies me from collapsing further but then takes her touch with her. Now I am just sweaty.
“Better, you even summoned a bit of your power that time.”
She crosses her arms in such a way it pushes her tits up and I shamelessly stare. They are small, but that is all I know. Orthia is always dressed head to toe. I want to see all of her.
“Why are we doing this?” I ask.
“Because killing is easy, but feeding on the essence of a human is difficult. You have to be able to summon Love’s power so they can draw it from the meat. The more they feed, the stronger they become. But each time they use their power in our world, it drains them and us. When we bring them here wholly, they will be able to feed as they please. They will be free.”
I groan. “That’s so much.”
“You can do this, Delphini, as long as you take this seriously,” she promises, before slowly cupping my damp cheek.
Warmth shoots through me at her touch. I want to drown in that warmth and not sweaty gym clothes. After a heartbeat, she leans into me, laying me down on the floor until she is straddling me. I smell pomegranate on her skin.
Without thinking, I run my nose against her neck to breathe in more of it. Summer days, hot sunshine, the wonders that ocean waves would wash up on the beach, the memories it pulls from me make my skin tingle and pussy throb. My lips part, ready to taste her again, ready to feel all of her, but then she pulls away.
I killed a man for her.
That’s another issue altogether. It’s been three days since that night. When she kissed me, that’s all my mind focuses on when I think about that night. Not the stabbing, not the way the fabric of that man’s shirt hindered the knife or the way he still clung to me in death. Those are like puddles compared to the flood warmth of Orthia’s lips on mine and the tentacle that acts as her tongue exploring my mouth.
I want to crawl into her skin until she can’t tell us apart.
“Don’t think she is without needs,”Love murmurs through my thoughts.“She desires your touch, she wants to devour you.”
So why hasn’t she done that? Why is it that whenever I try to talk about our relationship, she leaves the conversation? It’s like she would rather walk into the sea in those moments than have a discussion about us. What is she so scared of?
She takes hold of the hand I have raised to cup her cheek with, and even as warmth explodes from the touch, a trickle of misguided fear has me flinching before she twines our fingers together.
“I can’t let you fail,” she continues, voice softening as her other hand strokes my plush sides. “If you can’t feed Love their promised souls, they will take you instead. I’ve only let it happen once, Delphini. I can’t let you get distracted from what’s important.”
“Our relationship isn’t a distraction.” I place my hand on her cheek, letting the warmth relax some of my shaking muscles. Orthia leans into my touch, nuzzling into my palm.
“Wife,” she hums, her lips brushing across on the inside of my wrist.
I take a deep breath before seizing this moment with her. She looks at me with hunger when I pull her mouth to mine. My fingers scrap against her scalp and the short hairs as her lips part for my kiss. Orthia releases my hand so both of her can caress my body. Her tongue dives into my mouth, the suckers teasing my teeth as she takes control of the kiss.
She leans forward and rises up higher on her knees to apply more pressure to our kiss. There’s hesitation when my tongue dips into her mouth. She tastes like sweat and pomegranates. The coiling feeling in my belly grows tighter at the flavour. I’m chasing the taste of it, my mind and body hungry for more of her. She shivers, but she doesn’t pull away. Her fingers graze the underside of my breast. I moan against her lips and bring my hand up to cup her nape.
