Chapter 5

ChapterFive

He didn’t like admitting the little mortal might be right, but... she was right. He’d thought bathing would help the fever. The water in that pool was certainly cold enough to ease the heat in his body. But then all of that had backfired.

His fever was worse. The night time chills and sweats made it difficult to sleep, and throughout all of it, the worry battered through his skull.

Why wasn’t he healing?

He and his brothers had always healed faster than the mortals. He could suffer through a sword wound and continue fighting. By the end of the battle, he’d be covered in blood, but never with a scratch on him.

Damned Bonescraper. The knife was somewhere. He’d forgotten what he’d done with it, but he needed to throw it off the edge of his kingdom. Let it sink into the darkness where the monsters lived. At least then it couldn’t hurt anyone else like this again.

Or any of his brothers. The last thing he needed was to unleash a weapon like that upon his own kind.

If only he could heal a little quicker. He’d felt a bit better in the stream, but then he’d gotten worse. How did one heal when they were in a mortal body? This body had always given him trouble, but never like this. Greed knew he and his brothers were closer to mortal than spirit these days, but this was ridiculous.

Rolling over again, he heaved a sigh and tried to curl up tighter. If he dragged his knees in toward his chest, maybe he could contain the heat he was losing. And if he wrapped his arms around his chest, then that felt a little better. Of course, it made his heart do some strange beat and race, but maybe that was just the side he was lying on. If he rolled...

“Would you stop?” a voice hissed.

Right. He wasn’t alone. He had a very unwilling partner in all of this, who was insistent that she would stay on the far side of the cave. She was so far away, he could only see the faint glow of her foot in the moonlight.

“Stop what?” he asked, his teeth chattering. “If there was a warmer part of this cave, then I would find it, woman.”

“Don’t call me woman.”

“It is what you are.”

“I am more than just my sex,” she snarled. And then he swore he heard her mutter something about heartless demons, thinking the world revolved around them.

Ah, but arguing did warm him up a little. A shiver shuddered through his spine, but he found his lips curling into a smile. “I’m sure you are. A woman who steals from dangerous men, then carries her king to safety, and now... I’m not sure what you’re doing in the shadows over there, but I do hope you’re having fun.”

“I swear to all the gods, I will walk over there and step on your throat until you stop breathing.”

A zing of pleasure arched up from the base of his tail, so powerful he wasn’t certain if it was pain or desire. He groaned, low and deep in the back of his throat, “I wish you would.”

The rustling sound of leaves moving made him wonder if she’d rolled away from him. Maybe he’d pushed their argument too far. He wouldn’t be surprised at all. She didn’t seem to enjoy talking about sex or anything of the sort.

Except then he heard the rustling from right behind his head and froze when he felt the touch of a hand around his neck. Eyes blinking open, he stared up into her angry expression. Not her foot, but her hand, wrapped around his neck like a collar.

“Don’t test me, demon,” she ground through her teeth. “There is nothing I would like more than to leave you here on your own. No one would find you. And if they did, then I would be long gone.”

“Perhaps.” He placed his hand over hers and squeezed a little harder. “Move your fingers like this though, darling, or you’ll cut off my blood flow. You want to limit air, not blood.”

Her eyes widened as she realized what he was suggesting. The thief released her hold on him quickly, shaking off his hand as he chuckled.

She shook her head at him, displeased with the direction their conversation had taken. Again.

“How can you even think like this when your lips are blue?” she muttered.

Then he realized she was sitting in nothing other than her underclothes. Her leathers had gotten wet. Of course, he’d forgotten that she wouldn’t be able to sleep in those.

He hadn’t thought she would be beside him in nothing more than her underwear and a wrap around her breasts, though. She was... tiny. Muscular. Her sinewy body flexed with every tiny movement, and she shivered often. She was more athletic than most women he’d entertained, and he hadn’t realized just how much he liked that. The woman was...

Freezing. Just like him.

He’d been with Lust and Selene for far too long. Those two lovebirds had turned his attention away from the pleasures of the flesh and more toward what a woman might actually want. The sorceress had ruined him, damned woman.

Or maybe she’d just made him realize he didn’t mind helping others if he got something in return.

Uncurling his legs felt a bit like he was trying to force ice to bend. But he somehow managed as he rolled himself toward her and opened his arms.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“We’re both freezing. Desert nights can get dangerously cold, and both of us are wet.”

“Who’s fault is that?”

“Mine, little viper.” He shook his head at her spitting acid, before gesturing again with his hands. “Now come here.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She looked uneasy. Far more than he’d expected.

But she had to know that this was entirely about heat. He wouldn’t put her in a situation where she felt he would take advantage of her. He’d let her stick her hands down his pants and feel how much he’d receded into his body in cold if that made her feel better.

She bit her lip and as he stared at that plush pillow between the flashing white bite of her teeth, he had second thoughts. Maybe he wasn’t as cold as he’d thought.

“Fine,” she muttered. “But this is only to get through the night. Don’t take this for anything other than what it is, demon.”

“I won’t,” he replied with a snort.

She turned her back to him and scooted closer. She snuggled in hard, slamming her back to his front, her arms wrapped firmly around her chest. But that also meant that her rather impressively hard ass was right up against his cock and he’d be damned if it didn’t twitch for her. Because, by the gods, all this woman was in his arms and he wanted to curl her up even tighter.

Through gritted teeth, he asked, “Fine?”

“Fine.”

But he felt another shiver shake through her body and couldn’t take it anymore. Greed snaked his arm around her waist and tugged her even tighter against his chest. He curled his legs up against hers and then sighed as her warmth sank into him.

She was stiff for a few moments before relaxing in his grip. She even wiggled her shoulders a little closer to his chest, her own sigh echoing through his mind as he wondered what sound she would make if he did something else. Like tug her a little closer, just a bit lower. She was so small, he’d have to move her underneath his chin, but then he could slide between those hard thighs and...

“You’re thinking out loud,” she muttered. “Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Talking about sliding between my hard thighs. They aren’t that hard, you know.”

Oh, she wasn’t going to say something like that without him taking advantage. Greed slid his palm down her waist, over her hip, and down to one of the thighs in question. He grabbed onto it, his palm holding onto the meat of her muscle. “Feels pretty hard to me.”

She sniffed, but he thought it might be with a little pride. She wasn’t ashamed of her body, no. But her words made him feel as though she’d almost goaded him into touching her.

Did she want him to touch her?

He suddenly leaned up on an arm, looming over her and staring down at her face in the darkness. “Are you giving in?”

“Giving in to what?”

His next words were little more than a growl. “Me.”

She rolled too, looking up at him with all that golden hair spilling around her head. “The only thing I’m giving in to is your body heat. You’re taking this in the wrong way, Greed. I should go back to my shadows.”

But she wasn’t moving. She was staring at him with a look in her eyes that he was oh so familiar with. Hunger.

And his breath caught in his chest at the sight of it because it was so infinitely beautiful, even if she wanted to deny herself. He licked his lips, then looked down at his hand still on her thigh.

“Greed isn’t always a bad thing,” he mumbled. He tracked the movement of his hand as he slid it back up her hip to her flat belly that flexed underneath his fingers. “Sometimes greed is giving in to what we really want. To what we really desire.”

His hand moved again, sliding in between her breasts and up to her throat. She swallowed hard against his palm, and he looked back into those lovely blue eyes that were filled with so much hunger it sparked his own.

He leaned a little closer, her breath fanning over his lips. “So what do you want, little thief?”

Oh, he hoped he knew what she wanted. He hoped it was that she wanted to warm herself on him more than they were now. To send their hearts racing together as they beat the cold and the darkness away for a few moments.

And gods, he was right.

She grabbed the back of his neck with a surprisingly firm hand and slammed her mouth into his. They tangled together, lips and teeth and tongue. He tasted her, all bitter and acidic as she was sweet. She nipped at his bottom lip with her teeth, and he gladly opened for her.

This first time, he’d let her think she was in control. He’d let her take what she wanted, and the woman took with all the ferocity of the lioness he’d once compared her to. This thief devoured him whole.

She kissed with her entire body. Her hand holding him in place, her other trailing down the bare planes of his chest. One of her legs came up and coiled around his thigh. Not enough for him to rub against her as he desperately wanted, but still enough to connect them even further. As though she couldn’t stand to be so far from him.

And through it all, he held himself still and careful above her. Letting her take. Letting her touch. Letting her learn his body in whatever way she wished.

Until she pulled back, her cheeks darkening in the silver moonlight. Doubt warred on her features, and it seemed as though the world slammed down upon her.

“I shouldn’t,” she whispered, but then she licked her lips and stared at his. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Ach, my turn now,” he growled.

Greed lunged for her. He’d given her time to learn him, to take what she wanted, and now she owed him the rest.

He scooped the back of her neck with his palm, not caring that she let out a hiss of pain as he pulled her hair. He dug his other hand into her waist, yanking her up against his chest as he hovered over her like the animal he was.

And she met him. By all the seven kingdoms, she met him in the middle and unleashed all his dreams upon him. Her legs curled around his hips, giving him the perfect opportunity to place himself between her thighs where he wanted to be. He ground into her, spiking pleasure nearly into pain as he bit at her lips.

At some point he’d pinched her jaw between his fingers, too hard, but she didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. Her hands gripped him back, her nails digging into his back, and it was perfection.

She was exactly what he’d been waiting for. This wondrous, impossible woman who would fit into his collection better than he’d ever thought possible.

Heat consumed him. Desire burned through his body and he couldn’t think. Couldn’t be anything other than the animal who bit at her, devoured, and needed to slide down her body and eat until they both were satisfied.

But the moment he shifted, he felt all those wounds on his back and ribs opening up once more. Warm blood slid down his torso and dripped over her hands, onto her skin, and he hoped she would ignore it.

It wasn’t the first time he’d wanted to fuck covered in blood. He hoped that maybe, just maybe, she was as messed up as he was. But she wasn’t. She stopped him, her hand holding onto his ribs and forcing him to freeze.

He stared down at her swollen lips, her eyes that searched his features, even though she had to know what was there. He wanted her. Gods, she could feel him pressed up against her inner thigh if she just focused.

How could he not want her? How could anyone not want her?

She slid a hand up between them and held her fingers up to the moonlight. Her hand was coated in blood, slick and thick, dripping from her palm and down her wrists.

“We have to stop,” she whispered, still staring at the blood.

“I’ll heal,” he growled. Greed bent low to capture her lips again, but she turned her face away from him and all he kissed was her jaw.

“You won’t, though.” She shook her head and then shoved his chest with her palm. Surprisingly strong, she almost forced him onto his back with just that little movement. “You’re not healing like normal, Greed. Remember? We have to stop.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Then dream about it.” Still, she was a little more gentle as she arranged herself. She laid her head on his chest, her arms wrapped around his torso and her leg thrown over his. “I refuse to hurt you any more than you’ve already been hurt, you stubborn demon.”

He had the sudden fear she might hurt him, anyway. His thief was a person, not some treasure that he’d found lost deep in the sands of time. She was a living, breathing person who could deny him if she wished. She could leave his castle and never join his collection of beautiful things. Time would tarnish her. Other people would touch her, bruise her, leave blemishes he wouldn’t be able to heal.

Wrapping an arm over her shoulders, he tugged her a little closer and pressed a kiss to the top of her hair. “What is your name, little thief?”

He felt her smile against his chest, her lips pressed to his bloody skin. “You can call me whatever you want, Greed.”

“What if I call you treasure?”

“It’s better than thief.”