Page 27 of Incarnate

Nonetheless, I smile when her ache mirrors mine. The expression feels foreign on my face. I have not smiled in a very long time.

"Leave it off for a moment longer... just to feel you."

She is silent, but obeys. Or rather, she doesn't disobey. It was never easy commanding the storm...

It's one of my favorite things to experience, to feel the stormy ocean listen to me. When she loves me so greatly that she subdues her waters. She has never been tame, and I have never wanted her to be. I just wanted her alive. But these moments, when she chooses to be still, when the tempest holds its breath because I asked, there is nothing in any Realm that compares.

"Are you well?" I ask. "Is wherever you are safe?"

"I am fine."

My heart races, my gaze moving all over the city below. "It is natural to want to come back to me... just as I think of you every day."

Her side of the bind floods with warmth, and the force of it nearly pulls me from this balcony. I want to kill every creature between us and bathe in that warmth alone, hoard it, consume it, let no one else feel what is mine to feel. The possessiveness is so immediate and total that my claws extend without conscious thought.

"You should know," I begin, carefully, because what I am about to say is both true and strategic, and she will not be able to tell the difference, "that if you go on your mission to save those lives, you can be swept away by this new world. You are not whole in yourself.”

She doesn't respond. But I can feel her listening.

"I have a strong suspicion about who has you, and what her desires are. The Godless are dangerous for you. Our bind is your anchor, Nara. Without it sealed, without me tethered to you at full strength, you are vulnerable. You cannot return to your Realm with me or my protection, and those borders are weak. You will be exceptionally vulnerable."

"I don’t know who to believe, like I said.”

The bitterness in her voice is directed at the trickster, not at me, and I savor that more than I should.

"What is one life compared to many?" I ask, and I let her hear the edge in it. Let her understand what her friends are willing to sacrifice. Let her understand that I am the only one in any Realm who would choose her over everything. "Ask whoever you are with what happens if the Godless get too close while our bind is weakened."

Silence.

I want to tell her more. I want to tell her that if another male touches her, if she beds another before the bind is resealed, the thread between us will sever permanently. I will have to forge a new one, rather than repair what we already have. I only forced it to begin with because of what the Godless had done to her Realm, and how it damaged her the most… How they syphoned her energy from the coastlines, poisoning her waters. It was also to ensure she could not return there without some kind of anchor in the Underworld.

When she initially fled, it halted the progression of the Godless, but it cost Nara greatly.

I can feel her thinking. The bind is translucent between us now, her thoughts not quite readable but their shapes visible, like watching someone move behind frosted glass. She is weighing something. Deciding.

Then a voice from her end, muffled, distant, as if someone is calling to her from another room: "Penelope..."

My entire body goes still.

Penelope.

I grin, and it is the grin of a demon who has just been handed a key. "Thank you, Penelope," I say, and I can feel her panic spike through the bind like a blade through silk.

The connection severs, and the silence is total once more.

I move to the dark of my throne room, vanum blood drying on my skin, the gargoyles watching from the ceiling with reflective, white eyes that see nothing and everything.

Penelope.

I stand in front of my throne made of dragon bones and wood of pirate ships.

"Summon the Primus," I say to the empty room, knowing the gargoyles will carry the message. "I want every record they just gathered to be searched for the name Penelope."

If another male so much as breathes in her direction with intent, I will remove his lungs and let him watch me do it.

The storm that has been hovering over Nethram for days returns as rain hammers the glass. Lightning fractures the sky, and I begin the search for anyone with that name.

P E N E L O P E