“W-why did you sniff me?”

He could see her chest was heaving.

“I thought you were afraid, so I was making sure,” he answered truthfully. “It is hard to tell through the water.”

“You were trying to smell fear?” Her eyes softened, her brows drawing together more in thought than emotion.

“You made a strange noise. If I smelt fear, I was going to ask you if you wanted me to put my gloves back on.”

But she didn’t smell of fear. That wasn’t why she’d made the noise, and he couldn’t understand why she had then.

She gave a laugh, but it didn’t hold humour. Rather, it seemed more panicky than anything.

“I–I wasn’t scared, and that tickled.”

Orpheus tilted his head in confusion.

“I didn’t know humans were ticklish on their necks. Only on their feet and underarms.”

Her face had already been flushed, it often was because of the warmth of the bathwater, but he thought it may have darkened ever so slightly.

“Sometimes we can be.” Her gaze was averted, her bottom lip pouty. “I-it’s fine. You can continue. I didn’t mean to fret.”

She returned to rest against the tub’s curvature and Orpheus hesitantly dipped his fingers into the oil.

Desire still clung to him, but it wasn’t as intense as it had been. He washed her back, starting somewhere that was less... intimate before he moved to her sides and then down her abdomen.

Her stomach dipped when he palmed down past her navel, but he barely noticed it as his fingertips felt the tickle

of the blonde curling hair of her pubic mound.

Despite his efforts, the flame of desire in his gut was heating once more to build into an inferno.

He reached for more oil, almost forgetting he needed to, as a pulse ran rampant through his body. It ruffled the inhuman parts of him at the foray of his fingers dipping into the slit of her body at the apex of her thighs. Lips caressed his fingers, while a hard nub he was curious about pressed against his flesh as he moved through her slit.

She dug the nails of both her hands into her thighs, her body twitching like she’d suppressed the urge to move under the touch.

Then he came out the other side between her cheeks. He washed both, giving each a singular, appreciative knead.

The hard part is over, he thought with a strain.

His fingers itched to explore this part of her, to delve. His control had almost faltered, his need had been overwhelming. It was soft, and slippery, and had so many different textures that he wanted to discover them all.

But he knew she didn’t want him to, and he was cleaning her because he had to. Orpheus wanted her to like his touch, wanted her to like him, want him. But he doubted she would, and he was sure she’d be horrified to know he felt this way about her.

He thought her beautiful, and the more at ease she became with him, the more he allowed himself to see it. She was a complete contrast to his darkness, everything light.

Now that he was moving down her legs, his desire eased once more to allow doubt to fill him. I am becoming fond of her. She was making it too easy for him to allow hope.

He didn’t want to bear that pain, but her actions, her words, even this request that he remove his gloves and give him the joy of feeling her directly, was hard to ignore.

I want her. To stay, to become his companion, to ease him.

He’d liked many of his offerings, but none so much as he did her already. She’d been with him a week, from the

moment that he took her from the village to now, and he was closer to her than any of the others.

Yearning was the emotion that caused his eyes to slowly fade back to blue as he washed her second foot. He drew his claw under her foot simply because he wanted to hear the sweet song of her laugh.

She didn’t.

When he looked up swiftly, he met her eyes to find they were glued to him with her chest rising and falling in a rapid rate.

She didn’t laugh.

“This usually tickles you,” he said with surprise making his voice high. He did it again only to find her brows twitched.

His hand slipped over her ankles, his claws that he’d unsheathed to tickle her, scraping over the flesh of her calf as he lowered her leg. A strangled noise came from her before she covered her mouth with both hands.

His head tilted swiftly to the side to the sound, the rattling of bones coming from him. The noise she’d made caused him alarm.

“Is something the matter?”

“Nope,” she squeaked behind her hands. “All peaches and cream here.”

He shook his head. I don’t understand. Then he rose to stand, having completed the spell that required he wash her from head to toe by his own hands.

“I am done.” He waved to the folded cloth he had prepared for her to dry herself. “I will leave now.”

She only nodded as he made his way around the tub and left. She didn’t leave the bathing room as quick as she usually did, lingering in there for far longer than she ever had before.

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A bony head floated in darkness. His bony head floated in darkness. The skull of a wolf with the horns of an Impala antelope.

Reia felt as though she was floating underwater, but she could breathe, and it didn’t feel cold. It didn’t feel like anything, like swallowing nothingness.

His glowing orbs were shining a bright blue, shielding away the frightfulness of the void surrounding them by giving her light and comfort. She was riveted to them, unable to look away.

Her attention was drawn to him even when it seemed like he was floating around her, and her head spun to keep her gaze on him. She didn’t know where she was or what was happening.

A Dream? She thought. Not a nightmare, it felt too safe for that.

A trailing stroke of a sharp claw down her spine made her gasp as a shiver shot through her. She tried to search for the hands that touched her, but they disappeared into the blackness before she saw them.

She found Orpheus’ floating skull once more.