Page 13 of Jailer to the Death God
“Let me know when you plan to have Rose’s funeral.” The words taste wrong in my mouth. “Anything you need, if it’s in my power—” Grief turns my tongue leaden.
Rose’s mother embraces me. “We know, Vale. I mean, Your Majesty.”
“It’s always Vale to you,” I whisper against her shoulder.
She squeezes me tighter, the two of us locked in mutual agony.
I haven’t had a hug like this in days. Maybe weeks.
After a long moment I force myself to pull away, and we take our leave.
With Rose’s family taken care of, I must return to the palace and try to get some sleep. I’ll have to order a room to be prepared for my captive god.
It’s so strange to even think those words. Rose and I—we summoned the death god himself.
I place my hand upon the ritual book, lying beside me on the carriage seat. Maybe, before I sleep, I’ll read some of it. Perhaps there is more information in those pages about dealing with an egocentric god.
6
The young Queen—Vale, they called her—has fallen asleep in the carriage. Her neck hangs forward at a dreadful angle. It looks almost broken. She’s making a strangled wheezing sound, as if her airway is being partly constricted. Very annoying indeed.
I’m still in my “human healer” form—not that I care if my horns tear up the roof of the Queen’s carriage, but I didn’t like how it felt when the sharp tips grated through the padding against the metal underneath. So many odd and irritating sensations. I don’t remember being so irked last time I was in this realm. Of course back then I was mostly outdoors. I certainly wasn’t being carted about in a coach or subjected to the rasping snores of an exhausted monarch.
How in the Pit does that wretched sound come out of a well-bred girl like her?
Fuck it. I refuse to endure the rest of this ride with that noise going on.
I lean across the space between the seats. Gingerly I extend my fingertips and push against her forehead, shoving her back against the seat.
But her head simply lolls back into its previous position.
Fine. This requires a firmer kind of intervention.
I clasp her shoulders in both my hands and tilt her upper body against the side of the carriage. Despite my attempts to prop her upright, she slides forward, her cheek dragging along the frosty window. The snoring is worse now.
Growling with frustration, I move her ritual book to the bench where I’m sitting and switch to the seat beside her.
From my new angle, I take her shoulders and adjust her position again. In doing so my forearm brushes across her chest. She’s still wearing the heavy cloak, but the swell of her breasts beneath it is obvious. She’s gifted in that area.
My heartbeat quickens, and I pause a moment to mentally assess the sensation. I’m not sure why it occurred.
When I’m reaching across her like this, her scent pervades my senses, penetrates my mind. She smells familiar—coppery blood, incense, bodies that have just begun to decay, sweat on fevered skin. She smells like death.
Like home.
An ache forms in the center of my throat.
As I nudge her head into the corner of the carriage again, her brows contract and she gives a quiet, distressed little moan.
Heat roars through my body, instant and overpowering. It’s primarily centered in my genitals. Blood surging into my cock, lifting and stiffening it.
Feeling my penis harden and extend is as disturbing a sensation as it is beguiling. A flicker of pleasure traces along its length, coiling in my abdomen, where my muscles tighten with need.
I’ve been around plenty of human women. Mostly dead ones. Maybe fifty or so live ones during my various sojourns in the mortal plane. None ever made me react like this.
I am having my first erection.
I shove myself away from the Queen, appalled.
