The tinkling sound of the crystals gets louder and a hum comes from the base of my brain, making my muscles immediately relax. It feels like I’m getting a scalp massage.
Instinctively my feet move toward the water. The ground looks like sand but when I step on it, it doesn’t shift. On closer inspection, it’s like a type of extra soft white moss that my feet sink lightly into.
The lake is wide and continues around corners and bends, the crystals rising out of the surface like towers. I want to go swimming. I don’t know if it’s safe but suddenly it’s all I want to do, this pressing need to get my body wet. I step into the lake, bathwater warm, and when I get into my waist, I realize that the water isn’t just reflecting the crystal cave ceiling, it’s actually glittering. It’s as if someone dumped a million tons of glitter into the water and it twinkles and shimmers around me in a pale lavender that shifts to milky white, depending on the light.
Soooo pretty.
I dive in, feeling the water caress me like a lover’s hands, then come to the surface. I’m smiling. I’m laughing. I’m happy. What a magical place.
I do some slow laps, marveling at the beauty around me. I feel like I’m being drugged in a very good way, how one feels with a cold beer on a hot sunny day.
I lazily swim back to the shore and then sit in the shallows, watching my hands create patterns in the swirling sparkles.
There was something that Lovia told me about these caves, but I can’t remember now. Something about how it helped her communicate with Sarvi. Is that what’s happening here? Is being around the crystals making my mind expand with their energy? Is this like some giant meditation den? I don’t mind the idea of that. I doubt I could get any kind of private self-care or meditating done at Shadow’s End.
She had also said something about the water. That I should drink it?
Yes, it seems to say to me. You need a nice drink after sweating so much. You must replenish yourself.
I cup my hands and bring the water to my hands, drinking it down. It feels cool on my throat and I swear I feel it sink all the way down through my body, like I can actually feel each cell being hydrated.
Freaking trippy.
I sigh, leaning back on my elbows. The crystals chime and twinkle, the slabs of amethyst above me shine like iridescent purple teeth. The hum at the base of my neck intensifies.
I feel good.
More than good.
I am high as a fucking kite.
Shit, I think, but then I laugh, because who cares?
Then I notice the water rippling, moving, a wave coming toward me.
Faint panic moves me to my knees, ready to get up.
Just as a dark head breaks the surface, black hair flowing around it.
Tuoni rises from the depths like the God he is. I see him in slow-motion, his large hard body sparkling with milky lavender, the rivers running down every carved plane of muscles, over his massive chest, his grooved abs, the tight Vs that run along his hips. His cock is sticking right up already, as if he’s come here to fuck me and I automatically find myself getting wet with the urge to lie back and just spread my legs.
What is happening to me?
“Here you are,” he says to me gruffly. His shadowed eyes seem to glow silver under the light of the crystals, and his runes burn white. He is completely naked aside from brown leather gloves that go up to his elbows, and somehow that makes him look even hotter. Definitely didn’t know I had a glove fetish until I met Death.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice sounding far off, like it doesn’t belong to me. Heat presses inside me, a gnawing feeling between my legs, a hunger that I know won’t be going away.
It’s very distracting.
“I was worried,” he says.
I raise my brow. “Were you worried that I was hurt, or worried that I’d run?”
“Both,” he says.
I try to give him a look of disdain, but it turns out I can’t. I’m feeling all disdain slip away. All emotions seem to still. All I feel is…feeling.
My body, wanting his in a most desperate, visceral way.
It wouldn’t be so bad, a voice inside tells me. Just to let your thoughts slip away, just succumb, just be. It’s how the Gods do it. They feel. They don’t overthink. They don’t let their emotions dictate what they do or don’t do, they just feel. Let that part of you take over. Become the Goddess you are.
All my resolve disappears.
My body turns to fire.
I give him a salacious grin as I bend over and scoop the glittering water into my hands, about to take another drink.