Page 82 of What Sleeps Within the Cove

They were single-minded in their pursuit, training as if their lives depended on it when they were already dead.

Even in that effort, Rheaghan never touched his magic. Instead, he focused in on his technique and his breathing, remaining calm in a way that many of the others seemed unable to do. “Why doesn’t he use his magic?” I asked, looking toward the mockery of a sky and thecave ceiling above my head. He couldn’t reach the actual sun, so did that mean that his magic didn’t exist here?

“He does not remember himself to be the God of the Sun, so why would he even think to attempt such a thing?” Medusa asked, and I realized just how stripped down the loss of one’s memories left us. It wasn’t just the loss of those he loved, but it was the complete and total loss of himself and everything that he was.

It was a fate worse than death, I thought.

One that I hoped one day I could free him from.

FIFTY-TWO

CALDRIS

Xela worked to pull Estrella’s hair back into a loose ponytail as it dried from her bath, leaving my mate to wince as she forced her waves into submission. Leax had introduced the woman from the settlement who had barely spoken a word as she guided the others to the homes that they would occupy for the night, remaining behind in ours to help Estrella prepare herself for dinner.

Her presence was the only thing that kept me from making us very, very fucking late the moment Estrella had stripped out of her armor, sinking into the warm waters that filled the bathtub with a groan that sank straight into my balls. I grunted as I stood from the bath myself, ignoring Estrella’s possessive glare in the moment before I managed to wrap a towel around myself.

Seeing the woman help her dress had made me jealous enough, the sight of her hands pulling and pinching at the white flowing fabric that she wrapped over one of Estrella’s shoulders and guided down to enrobe her breasts and waist, before folding and tying it in acomplicated pattern that left the rest to fall to her ankles in a cascade of fabric. It parted up the side of one of her thighs to her hip, revealing far more of my mate than I cared for.

The woman never so much as glanced my way, focusing all her attention on doting on Estrella. She was not one of the sacrifices from the Tithe, instead a human woman who had been raised within the confines of Tartarus and helped her family look after the land that eventually became home to the sacrifices.

“My family is all looking forward to finally meeting you, my Queen,” Xela said, her chattering increasing the moment we were shut away in the privacy of our cabin. “We have passed down stories of your coming for generations.”

“Why would your family know that I’d pass through the settlement?” Estrella asked, confusion lacing her brow with tension. Xela opened the drawer to the vanity where Estrella sat, pulling the headband I had given her from it and carefully weaving it into Estrella’s hair. It was bright against the darkness, like a warm star in the night sky.

Xela did not pause before she continued on, adding golden adornments like large dangling earrings and a necklace as I dressed in the clothing she had provided for me. My own clothes were made of the same soft, billowing fabric as Estrella’s, trousers cut from the cloth. A golden belt held them up at my waist, a single stretch of cloth hanging over one side of my chest. The clothing was so reminiscent of what I’d worn before the Fae and humans had gone to war against one another, so easy and comfortable compared to the restraining armor I’d begun to don during our war and never stopped wearing. This clothing felt vulnerable, whereas armor served as protection—even if it could not ever protect me from the worst of my enemies.

The swath of fabric kept my left side visible, the swirling marks of myviniculumpurposefully revealed to display my place at Estrella’s side.

All my life, I’d believed my mate would wear the symbol of my ownership on her skin. That it would be her who needed my protection, her who others needed to know belonged to me. I’d thought myself to be the greater power in our relationship, but in this world, in this place, I was merely the mate of the one who mattered.

It was oddly refreshing—satisfying in a way—to have the only expectation of me be to smile and look pretty. I grinned with the thought, earning a glare from my mate as she waited and listened toXela’s half-coherent mumbling as she worked to decorate Estrella’s face with kohl and paint her lips the color of blood.

She looked every bit the role of the Goddess adorned in these simple clothes, her face decorated with just enough embellishment to bring out the stunning green of her mossy eyes and make her lips look as if she’d fed from me.

The thought struck me with a pang of desire for that very thing, to feel her lips pressed against me as she licked blood from my skin and drank me down. Her glare heated as she recognized the thoughts, her pink tongue darting out to wet her lips as Xela tutted. Estrella ceased to hear her, instead focusing in on the portrait I painted for her in my mind—the way my tongue would feel on her skin as I unwrapped her from her gown like the greatest gift I’d ever received.

She turned away from me to look in the mirror as if that would stop her from seeing my thoughts, as if it would stop me from tormenting the woman who consumed my every waking moment. Even in my dreams, her figure haunted me, tormenting me with the memory of how she felt on the inside. The way she took me so fully, letting me sheath myself to the root in her pretty pussy that the Fates had molded just for me.

She gritted her teeth and tried to shut me out as I leaned against the edge of the bed, crossing my arms over my chest and watching my mate struggle to focus on what Xela was telling her. “My uncle Leax and I are both descended from the same line and have known of your coming for centuries, my Queen,” she said, the words penetrating the haze of lust that I’d pulled Estrella and I into so easily.

Estrella blinked, trying to insert herself back into this moment, into the here and now so that she could comprehend the implication of Xela’s words. She swallowed, wisely choosing not to bother asking. We both knew how Xela and her family had come to know that Estrella would pass through the Tithe settlement centuries before she actually did; we both already knew that the Fates were responsible for this understanding just as they had been for every other twist and turn her life had taken.

“Did the Fates happen to tell you why it was so important that I pass through this place?” she asked, twirling her hands in her lap. She made eye contact with Xela in the mirror, holding her gaze as the woman’s hands paused with a soft bristled brush that she used to apply a quick sweep of golden rose to Estrella’s cheek.

“To gather your army, of course,” Xela said, her brow knittedwith tension and confusion. She shook her head softly, smiling as she continued with her work and repeated the rouge on Estrella’s other cheek. “Do you truly not know what this place has been intended for all this time?”

“My army?” Estrella asked, glancing toward the single window that pointed to the steps out from our cabin. It was, admittedly, the largest of the homes within the settlement, well-furnished even though it did not appear to have been used recently. It was clean and maintained, as if waiting for the time that someone would come to occupy it even if only for a night. Those who had been sacrificed were no longer sparring, the field at the village center empty and still, but I felt the way Estrella’s gaze pored over it. She was imagining all those who had trained here, their dedication to being the best as we’d witnessed it, not understanding the purpose of why.

Most of them had been human in life, and while that hardly mattered in Tartarus, what good would it do to have an army of humans at her disposal?

Especially if they were already dead.

“We have no use for sacrifices here, contrary to what the Sidhe believe. We have more souls than we know what to do with,” Xela answered, stepping back from Estrella and studying her handiwork. Estrella followed after her, staring at her reflection before turning to Xela and waiting for her to explain. “But the Fates knew that you would one day need allies to help you take back what was always meant to be yours. Few would be so brave as to risk Mab’s wrath to support a single woman, no matter how powerful she may appear to the undiscerning eye.”

“But they’re human,” Estrella said, echoing what I’d already worked through in my head.

“What has died will never truly be human, my Queen. Bringing them back, releasing them from Tartarus, always has untold effects on a being. There is no telling what they may be when they are finally free from this place,” Xela said, moving toward the door.

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