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He spat into my mouth.

Every instinct told me to recoil. Yet I found myself swallowing it greedily and licking my lips.

“There’s my depraved goddess,” he praised, shoving my mouth back over his cock. “I bet your monster doesn’t disrespect you like this.” His movements were erratic and uncontrolled, sliding against my tongue and hitting the back of my throat. I moaned against his flesh. “I bet he doesn’t give you all the dirty things you secretly crave.”

My pussy fluttered at his dirty words as he used my hair to shove his cock into my mouth, fucking into me with no restraint.

I took it all, digging my nails into the flesh of his hips to anchor myself against the thrusts.

His moans tore from him, head tilting back against the chair as his whole body tensed. He held me down on his cock. Thick coils of heat hit the back of my throat, and I swallowed them down almost greedily. Power swelled beneath my skin as he shuddered through the spasms of his release.

His hands loosened from my hair, and he gently pushed me off him.

“Feel how wet and needy that cunt is for me?” he whispered.

Of course I could. I ached for his touch and I hated it.

The need for him to touch me was as strong as the urge to rip out his throat. “I hate you,” I seethed. “You should have let me go.”

He tsked as he stood, shrugging out of his shirt and leaning down to drape it over my bare shoulders. “That’s how you’re going to stay until you can admit it’s not hate you feel for me. Until you beg for me to please you.”

He walked past me, sliding on his trousers and walking towards the door of the cabin.

“Besides, I didn’t think you would want to miss the reunion with your monster.” He chuckled softly, pausing with his hand on the door handle. “We meet him at moonrise.”

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving me cold and trembling as I knelt on the floor.

Silence settled over the cabin, broken only by the slow groan of timber beneath the sea and the frantic rhythm of my own heart.

I should have felt relieved.

Instead, the truth poisoned every fragile thread of hope trying to stitch my shattered heart back together. Rythos didn’t know I was the one who had caused his curse, and when he learnt I’d slept with Helion…

A numb feeling spread through me, like sea water seeping through cracks in a sinking ship.

He would never forgive me. But I finally knew how to save him, and my life was a price I was willing to pay.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Whispering Isles

Rythos

“We are out of time.” I rubbed my thumb over the strip of fabric I’d torn from Lyra’s pillow slip. The faint glow of the blood moon crested the horizon, mocking me for my failure to hunt a sea serpent.

I was sailing into a deal without the requirements, and I knew if it came to a fight, I would die trying to get her back.

“You need another blood bag,” Solas said, eyeing the shadows digging beneath my skin to create more pulsing black veins. They spread from my chest like a map of pain.

What I needed was to get Lyra out of Helion’s arms. To kill the god that made me into this beast.

“Maybe you should have two,” he added with a shrug. “You are going to need to use your shadows, and having Lyra’s blood in your system will help.”

I grunted at him in agreement, and he disappeared, leaving me at the wheel of the ship.

The Whispering Isles crested the horizon, growing closer with every gentle gust of wind.

Bryony took the stairs one at a time, her dark waves blowing in the wind. She had become accustomed to her legs since being on board, and while her ability to repel sea monsters had been a burden lifted for Solas, she had been nothing but a pain for me.