Page 95 of Payne's Envy

“But I’m sure it will stop, eventually. I know it’s a horrible time to bring a child into this world. We can try to distance ourselves. The heat went away before in the past. It might again.”

“So, you don’t want me to get pregnant?”

“I want nothing more than to start a family with you. You’re everything to me.” He hugged me closer, and my pussy rubbed along his dick.

I shuddered, and he rocked himself upward, hitting my clit perfectly.

“I’m not like a normal male. I don’t think our ability to reproduce is as quick as other species, given how long it took me to get to this point with you. If we choose to wait, we’re waiting a long time. I’m okay with that if you are. I’m also okay with not waiting.”

“Will I birth babies or dragons?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “All I have is instinct. If you’re scared—”

“I’m not scared. I’m thankful for the chance to have children with you.”

He stopped torturing my clit with his rocking and looked me in the eye. “Don’t you want to know how you are like me?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to tell me.” Placing my forehead against his, I whispered, “I’ve always been waiting for you.”

____

Payne's choice of living location took me aback when we reached his house. He chose a place on the outskirts of the City of the Dead—opposite of Grim’s woods on barren lands. Not even the foulest demons ventured there because of the overwhelming sense of doom. The demons said the wicked souls of the ones my father never caught came to live there after death. That they chose isolation instead of meeting the Grim Reaper. The Devil would torture any poor soul descended from a Reaper.No one wanted that afterlife.

So, the demons called that area The Decided because the dead grew mad in no-man's-land.They were correct in their assumptions. Souls wandered, but they were so twisted and demented all they did was scream. A Reaper couldn’t descend them if they tried. There was nothing left of who they were. Just a screeching black blob flying around.

“No wonder I couldn’t find where you live.” Goose bumps raised on my skin, and I rubbed my arms. “How have you handled living here for so long?”

“That’s the thing.” Payne shrugged. “The dead never affected me. I wonder if it’s because I was never a part of this world, so they leave me alone.”

“Maybe.”

I studied the weapons mounted on the wall.

“Don’t worry. I don’t plan to stay here anymore. I think it’s time to move back to the woods. It’s time for us to create our own home.”

“I can’t believe you stayed here,” I said again.

My heart hurt. I was so uncomfortable just being there for a few minutes. Reapers sensed too much death. I enjoyed being away from it when I could. Even if those things were no longer souls, they felt like they were dying.

“I spent so many nights here, wondering what the hell I was. And what I had done to you.”

I turned around to see him staring, eyes glistening.

“I looked everywhere in the Underworld and human world. I spoke to anyone I thought might know something about me, but no one knew. Each year was agony because I kept wondering when I’d lose you. When you’d stop waiting, when you’d stop trying to reach out for me because I always pushed you away.”

He walked up to me, grabbed my hands, and kissed each of my knuckles.

“You don’t remember what happened, and you never will because you burned from the inside out to withstand my love, Joy.”

“I burned?”

Dad wasn’t lying when he said he watched me burn.

“Come.”

He faded us into the woods again. I recognized the area immediately because of the pesky fireflies. As a kid, they had drugged me countless times, but the bugs’ light show was amazing to watch. Payne took a few steps backward, away from them, pulling me along. “Careful. I’ve not fed them this time.”

“This time?”

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