Page 75 of The Demon Crown

Varya smoothed her hand over his chest, her fingers lingering on the planes of muscle before she sighed. “I remember too. But I also remember how to let those memories go, Greed. Right now, I want to celebrate the lights and the coming of the full moon. Will you do that with me?”

“I have never celebrated with your people before,” he grumbled. “I don’t even know why I’m holding this.”

“Do you not?” she gestured all around them. “We paint ourselves before the gods. Our ancestors did the same to honor those who watch over us and gave us the beauty of our world. The paint connects us with every color on each of us. The sky, the sands, the flowers, and the wind.”

Humans. They were so fanciful.

Greed eyed the paint in his hand, the gold that would look so lovely on her skin, and he thought perhaps he could play along. If only to see what she looked like with his marks all over her.

“Fine,” he relented. “Show me what to do.”

Ach, that smile. It would be his undoing.

She took his hand and brought him to a small open part in the sands, right in the middle of the crowd. Sinking down to the ground with him, she ignored all the stares and whispers that burst into life.

Drums started up somewhere. He hadn’t seen the musicians before on his walk here, but he had noticed very little. And now, he barely focused on the beat as she dipped her fingers into the paint.

“What symbols are you drawing?” he asked.

“Runes,” she replied. “Everyone paints something different. I paint the ones that my mother showed me before she died.”

Her finger glided along his cheek, painting a symbol there and then moving to the opposite cheek. Her touch flared something hot inside him, as always. He wanted to tackle her into the sands and push himself inside her warm heat. Crowd be damned, he wanted to hear those little breathless noises she made as he brought her to the highest peak of pleasure.

Instead, he held himself very still as she glided her touch down his neck to his arms.

“You should have worn less,” she said with a flirty flick of her eyelashes. “I cannot cover you in as much paint as I’d like.”

“You may paint me whenever you wish.”

“And anger the gods?” She tsked. “I think not.”

He’d had enough of this. Greed palmed her thighs and dragged her into his lap. Legs spread wide over his hips, he looped an arm around her waist as she gasped. Her arms fell over his shoulders, the plate hanging limp from her fingers as their lips barely touched. “Fuck the gods,” he whispered against her mouth. “I’m the only god you need to appease.”

She shuddered in his arms, but leaned back for him to stare down the length of her body stretched out on top of him. “You’re supposed to paint me,” she whispered.

Right. He was supposed to do that, wasn’t he?

He had gotten so caught up staring at the woman in his lap that he’d forgotten he was still in a crowd of people. Clearing his throat, he shifted his hips, so he wasn’t pressing quite so hard against the seam of his pants before he reached for the gold platter.

“Right,” he muttered, trying to get his thoughts back to where they needed to go. “Paint.”

What would he paint? He wasn’t a human. But he wasn’t a demon either. No one here knew that.

Eyeing the woman in front of him, he wanted to tell her. He hadn’t ever told anyone, but he wanted to spill out all the information and pour it into her, so she was the only person in existence that knew he wasn’t some demon lord or god that had fallen from the sky.

Swallowing hard, he dipped his fingers into the paint and trailed one line down her jaw. “When I was young, this kingdom looked very different. There was sand, but also jungle. There were humans, but they were few and far between. Small tribes that followed the herds across the entire kingdom as they migrated.”

“I didn’t know you were ever young.”

He chuckled and trailed twin lines down her throat. “I was never born, if that’s what you’re hinting at. I came into this form fully grown. But I was not always like this. Once I was young and weak. Merely a spirit who wandered throughout the kingdom feeding upon whatever taste of greed I could find.”

Her brows wrinkled. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want someone to know.” His fingers danced over her delicate collarbones, skated over her shoulders, as he highlighted every part of her with gold that he thought delicate and beautiful. “I fed, but I still starved. Until I came to this kingdom, where there were so many greedy people who wanted everything they couldn’t have. And I grew glutted with their greed, larger and more powerful than any other spirit. That’s when I met them.”

“Them?”

“My brothers.” He trailed his fingers over the globes of her breasts, dipping beneath the low fabric for just a single touch. “They, too, had found kingdoms where they could feed and feast. It was then that we discovered we could take these forms and sustain them. That we would be even more powerful with a physical form on the plane where no one wished to have us.”

---