Chapter Twenty-Five: Under the Moonlit Sky

*

His arms were heavy and breathing hurt. The day had drawn long and worn him down utterly. He grit his teeth and clenched his fist, growing tired and deepening the weariness. Expending the energy to get mad felt wasteful at this point. He’d need every ounce of strength to continue the gauntlet the next morning and, before that, not go insane from having to deal with a psychopath.

Rolling his eyes as he approached, Aiden couldn’t help but admire how the moonlight shimmered off Leyla’s darkened wings and pale skin. But even that thought required too much energy and was whisked away by the brain fog.

She waited for him on a large rock just outside of the forest’s boundary. Large grass grew up to her ankles and surrounded the rock, hiding a large part of its size. She’d changed out of her full battle armor and wore something more akin to lingerie. A midnight cloak wrapped around her shoulders and arms, flowing calmly behind her. Around her neck, a simple locket hung down with a small amethyst in its center.

Her arms propped her up on the rock as she leaned back and looked up at the sky, her violet eyes reflected the beauty of the moon’s rays. If he didn’t know any better, he’d almost think she looked peaceful, almost kind and innocent as she stared upwards.

Her scythe rested against the end of the rock, leaving him plenty of space for him to sit beside her. Thinking nothing of it, he took the space and sat, the hard rock painful against his aching muscles. He wanted nothing more than to fall over and curl up, sleeping through the night and maybe the next ten days.

Knowing better, he leaned his back flat against the rock and stretched out the tightness. He ignored the blood staining his clothes and arms. As far as he’d seen, there were no facilities to wash himself. If there were, he didn’t think he’d be permitted to use them anytime soon.

Not as long as he lived.

Veletya and the peoples’ grudge against him and his ran deep. They didn’t try to hide that fact, not even a little. Amongst all the people in the Town, Leyla was the only one that didn’t stare at him with disdain or hostility.

The sparkle in her eyes as she stared at the moon was one he’d seen directed at him. Things that interested her, things she found odd, interesting, or curious, those drove her more than any sense of morality or attachment to Volk, Veletya, or the Valkyr. Things that challenged her also provided whatever feeling she thrived off of.

Oddly, he related.

Splayed out across the rock, he put her out of his mind and simply stared upwards. He soaked in the ambient noise. The swaying grass as the soft winds blew. The subtle shifting movements of predators stalking their prey. The quiet rustling of the prey, unaware of the predator’s gaze, scampering around to find food.

Aiden hadn’t stopped moving for so long, he’d failed to appreciate the beauty all around him. Like Earth, Midrath lived. There was more to the space between realms than fighting for control, trying to grow stronger, and figuring out cosmic secrets with the expectation of doing it all then and there.

All of that had gone unnoticed. Now, while his body and mind were more tired than ever, he just listened, content with doing nothing. Even though he knew Leyla wished to speak, he didn’t care. She would speak when she wanted to, and he would rest until then. If she never spoke, then he would still be content to lay there.

He wouldn’t fall tomorrow, so he’d have another opportunity to talk to her if they didn’t speak.

Just being there without having to do anything next relieved a lot of the built up pressure over the last month. The fighting had drained him of all the repressed frustration and pent up fury.

His head cleared more as he smelled the fresh air. No blood tainted his nostrils like a thick fog, nor did the smell of blistering corpses left out to stew in the hot sun while he fought. A slight hint of humidity made him wonder if the bathing area was far away.

The moon looked like a brilliant gem, shining there in the sky. The longer he watched beside the Fallen girl, the more at peace he felt. Truthfully, he was grateful she was there. She could’ve been anybody at that moment. Just the presence of another person that wasn’t immediately trying to kill him made him feel less lonely.

Even if he embraced the fighting and bloodshed for the sake of progression, it broke him down to little more than a warrior surviving in combat, barely worthy of being called a person. His abilities improved by leaps and bounds, yet that all felt hollow. His resolution to fight to the end of the gauntlet hadn’t waned, but the motive behind why he fought had changed.

Fighting in the gauntlet required him to let go of all that negativity if he wanted to survive. Throughout the day, he’d gotten used to not harboring the resentment and rage of being a Candidate. Being whisked away from Earth, being shown visions of a possible invasion and manipulated from the first moment, having to survive and learn to fight for his life, and then also figure out how to manage a city and thousands of other people when, only a month ago, he was nothing more than a senior in high school.

All that pressure left, and he bid it farewell.

Idly, he reached up with his hand and brushed against the midnight feathers only inches from his face. They looked soft and felt even softer. For several seconds, he brushed his fingers against those feathers softly, simply enjoying the gentle pressure against his fingertips.

It didn’t last long. Leyla’s amused grin drew his attention and made him realize his tired mind clearly had gotten lost in la-la land. When he withdrew his hand, she frowned and made a sound of annoyance.

Like her necklace’s gem, her eyes shined like amethysts as they fixated on him. No trace of that predatory nature showed now. His tired and relaxed mind drank in her moonlit visage again, admiring the way her silver locks hung just over her shoulders and the look of her plump yet soft lips. Her nose, cute as a button, and her delicate ears with the same thematic amethyst gems dangling calmly all created a dissonance.

The demurity she displayed felt authentic, but it didn’t match the image of her he held in his mind.

The impulsive predator. A sleek and sexy panther, deadly and beautiful.

Her battle prowess hadn’t changed, only the appearance. The more he observed this calmed side of her, the more he felt certain. Maybe it had something to do with Apex Predator, maybe his mindset had changed since coming to Midrath, but he recognized an uncomfortable and uncanny level of familiarity.

She lifted her leg, long knee-high socks doing little to cover the pale, soft skin not covered by her outfit. To even call it an outfit was a generous assessment, only her groin and breasts covered by the little bits of leather. She oriented herself towards him and rested her leg on his, meeting his gaze.

Moonlight flashed against her scythe’s blade as it shifted from its resting position to where the blade pressed against his throat. With a small grin, he looked up at the moon and lost himself in watching it, caring little for the threat.

The threat didn’t exist.

For a few seconds, she kept the blade there, but when he didn’t react, she grinned and placed it back where it had rested before. Her second leg lifted from the ground and rested next to the first, then she leaned forward and rested her pale hand against his chest.

“Does this not bother you?”

“Do you really care if it does?”

“The hunt isn’t fun if the prey doesn’t try to fight back,” she grumbled, smacking him in the face with a feathery wing.

“You’re not hunting me.” He pulled himself up and slowly pushed her legs and hand off. “If that were the case, you wouldn’t be so comfortable.”

“How do you figure?”

He blankly stared back at her.

She tried smacking him with her wings again, and he moved just far enough to not exacerbate his tired body while still avoiding the attempt. “I’m genuinely curious. How do you know my comfort doesn’t come from knowing that I can kill you at any point that I choose?”

“Try it.” That familiar predatory glint sparkled in her eyes for a moment, but his unflinching gaze gave her pause. “You’ve seen for yourself what I’m capable of, even if I don’t have access to my Arcana because of these,” he said, pointing at the chains around his limbs, “but I’m so much more than that. Just imagine if you didn’t inhibit my ability to generate internal Essence. Do you think you are my match?”

She tilted her head, her fingers testily tapping against her scythe. “So I should just kill you now.”

“Go ahead,” he said, grinning. “Things would get rather boring if you did that. Let me ask you this. Do you think you can still stop me if I tried to return to my people? Do you think I’m kept here because I think I can’t get away?”

“Is that not why you continue fighting?” she asked, tilting her head. The thoughts visibly played out on her face, her features scrunching in confusion, understanding, and then excitement. “You’re challenging yourself!”

Within a second, she was on top of him, her sparkling amethyst eyes alight with the same intrigue and interest he’d seen before. He grabbed her wrists, wrapped his legs around her torso, and twisted with what little energy he had.

They fell off the rock and into the grass, the length obscuring them entirely. The moonlit reflected in her eyes as she stared up at him, licking her lips. “You’re far more interesting than I initially gave you credit for, Candidate Aiden Pearce.”

She still had access to her magic, but she didn’t try to resist more than a few struggles here and there. He watched her perverse actions in disgust, imagining Anna’s twisted face if she were to see them as they were.

Aiden leaned in close, pressing their bodies together, and whispered softly in her ears, “I could and should kill you right now. I agree with you though. You want to see me as your servant, your slave, and I want you as mine. I don’t think you have the will to resist either. Not if I really tried. Honestly, I should thank you for this path you’ve helped me recognize and pursue. Were it not for these,” he pointed towards the restraints that continued to inhibit his Essence regeneration, “I’d have continued handicapping myself.”

There came a point in life when one had to make hard choices and maintain the conviction to follow through with those decisions. The path hadn’t been revealed to him until he’d been captured. The Valkyr provided bodies for him to test himself against, day in and day out. Leyla’s shackles took away the easy choice for him.

Rather than run from the hard choice, he’d temper himself in blood. Until then, he had been a blind man.

“You may think yourself a predator, but in the hierarchy of the world, you are like a sheep to me.” Apex Predator and all its draconic might slammed into her, and she groaned as her face warped in discomfort. “Just think for one second about how things would’ve turned out had I been in full form. You and Veletya would’ve been bugs, and you can see that. You lucked out into opportunity and recognized a kindred spirit. For that, I allow you to live and look forward to completing the gauntlet so I may decide whether you’re worthy of being my subordinate.”

She wriggled her neck to the side and pressed her lips against his neck. Both of them were in vulnerable positions, but neither made a move to end things. Rather, she nibbled against his neck and giggled cutely.

Disgust flitted through his stomach like a nest of hornets, and he rolled over off of her. Staring at the moon, he took a deep breath. The Essence in the air filled his lungs and invigorated his body. Now that he knew what to look for, he could isolate the energy from the air and breathe in a large quantity of almost raw energy.

The bindings took whatever entered his pathways and spread to his limbs, but his strained heart and lungs felt far better. The aching in his back, legs, and arms numbed until they returned to as normal as he could get. His bodily weariness faded as he continued, but his mind still felt as if he’d tried to do calculus for the entire day. Remaining sharp and focused, aware of every detail near him and calculating the proper response while assessing risk and return, drained him.

But now he knew he could manage.

Experience allowed a warrior the ability to assess and adapt when things went south. Fighting against so many Valkyr had been an entirely new level of pushing himself. Not because they were strong, but because they were relentless. All the monsters he’d fought had a limit to how many would come for him and provided Essence that rejuvenated him as he fought and absorbed them.

Little had challenged him aside from the two Shadowborn Bosses protecting the incubator in a long time. The uneasy feeling had pressed down on him like a suffocating weight he couldn’t identify.

He had Leyla and the countless Valkyr that had stained his hands with their blood to thank for being able to identify what those things were.

Turning on her side, she leaned on an elbow and smiled, something kind and genuine just as she’d appeared before. “I can’t dispute anything you’ve said. I recognize you as a kindred spirit, this much is true. My home world, before we were selected to participate in a game we didn’t know anything about, was a glorious place. If it hadn’t been eradicated entirely, I would offer to take you there one day.”

“You expect me to survive the gauntlet.” He pursed his lips, ignoring the urge to determine her motives. Anything he tried to think up would be far too complex for what drove her.

“You’ve become powerful. I smell the hints of a higher being on you in that magic you used today. To be recognized by one of them and hone yourself as much as you have in such a short amount of time—that talent is rare among any world. Even before you gained that, Veletya and I weren’t your match,” she admitted, chuckling to herself. She pursed her lips. “I don’t have an issue with recognizing your potential for greatness or your current or past battle prowess. I’m very interested in seeing the heights of what you’re capable of.”

“But?”

“Do you know why there are so few Fallen and so many Angels?”

“I’ve told you already. I know nothing of your people,” he said, shrugging. “Before coming to this world, my people hadn’t discovered other races, let alone any semblance of the system, Essence, or any proof of gods existing. We have mythology, but for us, all of the gods are just stories to tell to establish a societal morality and understanding of one another. To even pretend that I know a damn thing about the difference between Fallen and Angels, aside from the magic and appearance each of you have, would be a blatant lie.”

“Are you a liar, Aiden?”

“Not if I can help it. If that’s what’s required of me to survive, I would, and I’d do so with a clean conscience.” He’d spoken the words with absolute conviction, surprising himself. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Nodding her understanding and sighing softly caused him great confusion. When it came to her, all of his expectations for how she’d respond meant nothing. When he thought he’d figured her out, he only found out more and more how little he understood.

“The difference between people like myself and people like Veletya is rather simple. In our society, Angels are seen as honorable warriors who deserve an honorable death. Fallen like myself receive no such treatment and are believed to meet The Immortal Father.”

Aiden recognized the title. “Kyriall? What does he have to do with any of this?”

Surprise flashed through and colored her face. Seconds later, she frantically looked around, eyes widened in horror, before hissing, “Don’t speak his name!”

“Why not?” he wondered aloud, thinking of the blessing Blizzy had received. He held that information to himself and waited for her to calm and answer his question.

Visibly upset, she took his wrist in her hand and dug into his flesh with her nails. The pain didn’t bother him, her nails unable to pierce through his Durability. “Speaking, or even thinking his name, is considered taboo for us Fallen. Does your world have a concept regarding the afterlife?”

“There are many. We have Heaven and Hell. Angels and God—a singular, powerful entity that created all that exists—manage Heaven. Hell’s governed by The Devil, also commonly referred to as Satan or Lucifer. There are others, but I think this is what fits the most with what I’ve heard about Valhalla and Halla,” he answered, explaining far more than he meant to.

The whole time, she listened and remained quiet, nodding along to his words. “The Immortal Father is Halla’s overseer, similar to the idea of this Lucifer your people believe in.”

“Got it, but I don’t understand why that matters? Why is his name regarded as taboo to the Fallen and not the Angels?” The more she told him, the less he understood.

The implication that beings in the two afterlives could interact with the world in ways that those in the Upper Realm could… It left him unsettled. Committing what she’d said to memory, he vowed not to repeat Kyriall’s name aloud since he planned to raid the Immortal’s domain in search of Khione’s stolen pieces.

Huffing a deep breath, she closed her eyes. Her shoulders relaxed as her breathing relaxed, and her nails stopped trying to draw blood. When she opened her eyes, they stared back at him with a deep heaviness. A sadness so deep hid behind the facade of psychopathic crazy, and it called to him.

His heart ached in a way he didn’t like.

The urge to comfort her felt foreign and invasive, almost making him flinch away from her. Refusing the gut urge, he waited for her to speak.

The wait didn’t last long.

“All Valkyr are born as Angels. To become a Fallen, one must forsake Angelic teachings. This can happen soon after birth if one’s nature is deemed unworthy or over time. I never cared for the afterlife as an Angel, and soon after, I found myself a Fallen. I couldn’t understand why I was different, shunned by the people I loved and cherished like some filthy vagrant unwilling to pick up a weapon to fight for their beliefs.” She wiped her eyes, and he acted like he’d witnessed nothing of the sort. “I only ever wanted to understand, and for that, punishment and suffering became my life.”

Again, that urge to take away her pain sent his head spinning. Ignoring it would no longer work as it made focusing on anything else impossible. To listen further, he did the only thing he could think of and took her hand in his.

She intertwined her fingers in his. That confidence she oozed prior, the grace of a predator, all of her bravado vanished as the true turmoil she faced within revealed itself entirely. Tears trickled down her cheek in a stream. When she tried to reach up to wipe them, he turned towards her and grabbed her hand, shaking his head.

“To cry is not a sign of weakness,” he said while lacing their fingers together. “I can’t imagine what something like that might do to someone.”

She cried quietly, looking more and more to him like someone hurting rather than an enemy he needed to slay to achieve his goals. The thought weighed heavily on his heart. If he couldn’t bring himself to kill her and Veletya fell to her scythe, he didn’t know what he’d do.

He didn’t know, but he didn’t need to figure it out now.

While she cried, he resolved himself to keep to his word and find a way to make her a subordinate. Something about her resonated with him. He didn’t want to kill her like he did Veletya, and even then, his desire to kill Veletya wasn’t based on any kind of hatred.

Oil and water.

As Leyla had said, Veletya acted as an Angel through and through. She seemed zealous, devoted to her people and her cause to an unhealthy degree. He guessed she’d willingly die for her beliefs and seek an afterlife in Valhalla. All that awaited the Fallen before him was a doomed fate at the hands of Kyriall, a being similar to the manipulative gods he began to loathe, simply for seeking an understanding of the Valkyr faith.

This world isn’t fair. I knew that before, but seeing her like this now just drives home that fact again.

Her tears stopped. Carefully, he freed his hands and raised his shirt, only to realize how filthy every part of him truly had become. Dropping the shirt, he looked for anything else he could use and found nothing.

He lifted his hands to her face, and she leaned forward to meet his hands. With her cheeks in his palms, his thumbs cleared away the wet streak. They stayed like that for a moment longer before he leaned back and dropped his arms.

“You make no sense to me, Candidate Aiden Pearce.” She blinked twice when he grinned. Tilting her head cutely, her lips curved downwards. “Does my pain and confusion amuse you?”

“Not at all. I completely agree with the sentiment. You baffle me in ways I can’t describe, but it’s not a bad thing.” He looked down at his bloodied clothes and wished for a bath. Taking in a deep breath, he used his Water and Air Disciplines in tandem to trace the liquid in the air. As he’d suspected, he found a river not too far away. The more he thought about the grime, the more uncomfortable and distracted he became. “I really need to wash up.”

Nodding understanding, she took his offered hand. They rose together and walked in the direction side by side, continuing their conversation.

“So your people hate you and have stripped you of any hope for an enjoyable afterlife. That doesn’t explain the taboo thing,” he said, reminding her of where they were in the conversation.

Her cloak dissipated into shadows that faded away in seconds. She turned around and unzipped the back of the almost-dress, mostly-lingerie. She rolled her eyes at his hesitance and turned around, revealing her bare back.

“What the fuck?” The words escaped from his lips, but he couldn’t help himself.

An intricately formed stigmata of pulsing black and violet centered in the small of her back and spread up her spine and to the base of her neck. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of overlapping figure eights made up the base. In the absolute center, something like liquid lighting wriggled beneath her skin.

Unable to stop himself, he brushed his forefinger against the spot and winced as she flinched away and let out a pained cry. Wincing himself, he withdrew his finger sharply and observed the agitated thing contained within the stigmata.

“Excuse me for repeating myself, but what the fuck? What is that?” Like a bundle of worms, it tried to escape from that centralized space. An effort in futility, apparently. The stigmata contained it, but whenever it moved, he could tell it bothered Leyla. “I don’t know what I’m looking at here. Help me out.”

In seconds, she zipped up the skimpy garment and turned on him. Everything in her gaze screamed a desire to fight. The tension lingered for several long seconds before he crossed his arms and pursed his lips.

“Sorry. Shouldn’t have touched the creepy thing without asking first.” When her features softened and returned to how she’d been previously, the hint of killing intent disappeared. Every couple of moments, she’d shoot him a hostile look and then calm herself again. He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly and looked up at the moon. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

Huffing one final, displeased breath, she relaxed just like he’d found her when he first approached the rock and when she’d finished crying. “You didn’t know.”

“So?”

“Fallen are more powerful than Angels by a large margin. Forsaking Xenith’s beliefs results in being left to one of three entities. First, there’s Kinnai, Inheritor of Chaos. Then there’s Ariveth, The Immortal Father’s beloved daughter and Progenitor of Devastation. Third and final, Esan’Arul, Champion of the Apocalypse.”

To Aiden, all of those had one thing in common: trouble.

“And?”

“It is customary for one of each to claim a Fallen. In rare circumstances, even two may agree to share a claim to a newly forsaken.” She held up three fingers. “That stigmata is the result of the experimental love child of all three.”

“Excuse me, what?” he blurted out, eyes fixating on his finger. For a second, he’d thought it would spontaneously combust, rapidly decay, or… something horrific. He looked back up at Leyla and saw her grinning. He dropped his hand and sighed in relief. “Not gonna suddenly die a horribly tragic death. Got it.”

“Not yet, no.” She winked at him and began walking again. Shadow tendrils subtly shifted the underbrush and cleared a path ahead all the way to the river. Gesturing, she asked while grinning, “Shall we?”

The gut urge to refute her and tell her to go away or stay on the shore warred with the strange feeling he got from seeing her hopeful gaze. She looked between him and the water, its surface reflecting the beauty of the moon.

Feeling too tired mentally to fight against her since she’d do whatever she wanted anyway, he nodded and grumbled, “Fine.”

Stripping down to his birthday suit left him feeling exposed and vulnerable in a way he didn’t enjoy much. He didn’t have confidence issues with his body, but he didn’t know how to feel about Leyla who giggled behind him.

As hard as he tried, Leyla wouldn’t let him continue trying to ignore her naked body. She dipped herself into the water and swam forward a few feet before turning around and grinning slyly.

Blood rushed to his cheeks as he continued doing his best to ignore her and focus on washing the blood and dirt out of his clothes. Cleaning his whole outfit took less than five minutes, and he rested them over the lowest branch of the nearest tree to dry.

As he did so, he couldn’t help but feel her burning gaze locked onto him. When he finished securing the garments and verified that any grime and residue from the last several days no longer remained, he faced a hard and inevitable decision.

Layers and layers of blood, sweat, and dirt had stained his clothes so deeply that he couldn’t avoid getting in the water if he wanted to cleanse the feeling of disgust that pervaded his mind.

His feet squished into the muddy shore as he back stepped slowly to the water’s edge. The closer he got, the more sludge-like the earth beneath his feet became until his feet slipped into the warmth of the water.

Before he could react, the shadows around his legs lurched forward while the ones around his arms did the opposite. Being pulled off balance with such force surprised him. He couldn’t stop himself from slipping and falling backwards into the water where Leyla caught him, pulling him close and nuzzling her chin in the crook of his neck.

“Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around his stomach and splayed her fingers across his toned abs. The warm water and her soft skin didn’t help him relax at all, but she ignored his tenseness and whispered, “The Immortal Father is taboo among the Fallen because of his Reapers. If he so wishes, he could send them after me. Even here, he can reach me. Midrath’s authority isn’t set to stop him from crossing over due to the need to collect those that have died. He can’t crossover personally, but his Reapers aren’t limited by such things.”

That sounded about right.

Ignoring his current circumstances—or maybe because of his current circumstances, he couldn’t tell at that moment—he thought about the other beings similar to Kyriall and the way they acted as a whole. None of them thought their actions would bear consequences.

Despite the authority of Midrath keeping them restrained within their designated realm, proxies seemed to be a common occurrence and got around Midrath’s authority. Aiden suspected some of the members of the team that watched over them and managed the system he currently used weren’t beings of the Upper Realm.

Otherwise, nothing made sense. How else could the gods manage the system? Or bring Candidates into Midrath. If they couldn’t pass through the barrier between the Upper Realm to navigate the Mortal Realm because of Midrath, then someone—or something—had to be aiding them.

Or maybe Midrath’s authority had holes they’d either poked over time or had been set in place long ago.

The answer couldn’t be determined until he could sit upon the throne, and that wouldn’t happen until he’d completed the Destiny Quest.

Baby steps.

Eventually, he accepted the current circumstances and relaxed in Leyla’s embrace, the warmth of the water soothing his body. Even if he’d recovered a lot, his body still remembered the fatigue he’d only recently done away with.

That didn’t matter now. The comfort of her soft body pressed against his mattered, even if he knew it shouldn’t. In the back of his mind, guilt screamed at him and told him to think of Anna and those back at Zion.

What would they think if they saw him at that moment?

I… don’t care.

The incessantly nagging voice shut up after that. Even if he was confident in his capability, he didn’t know what tomorrow would hold. The gauntlet would come. Death would follow shortly after. Whether that be his or more Valkyr, he couldn’t say for certain.

His confidence in himself and the potential aid from Khione reassured him, but one slip of his attention could mean his death. He might never make it back to Zion and his people. Surely, they would grieve him if they were to fall, but the Celestials proved that the Valkyr were a lot of things.

But they weren’t wasteful.

His people, even if they weren’t free, would live if he fell. He didn’t want that, didn’t plan for any negative outcome, but the day’s events showed him what was in store for the foreseeable future. Hell, the elites hadn’t even challenged him yet, apparently held back from fighting until the grunts gave up on challenging him.

Either way, his power grew. Every moment in combat, he learned a new application of the free form magic. The experience he gained, even if the risk might cost his life and the freedom of the others, was invaluable. If he managed to survive, he wouldn’t be the same as before.

So much had changed since that raid. The threat of the incubator loomed, but it didn’t feel as threatening. He also didn’t feel like it was solely his burden to bear. In the coming days, the monster hordes placed in Midrath would come spewing across the lands. There would be losses of territory and life, but his time away had done a lot for him.

The challenges he faced weren’t impossible to overcome, even if he had setbacks.

“You’re thinking too much, Aiden,” Leyla’s soft, husky voice whispered in his ear. Her warm breath felt welcoming, tickling against his neck. “Quit thinking so much.”

Pale hands roamed across his body, touching every part of his chest, shoulders, and arms. Her loose grip allowed him to turn and wrap his own arms underneath hers where they rested on her wide hips. His hands wrapped around her waist, firmly gripping her soft skin.

The sounds she made took away any sensibilities and resistance that may have remained. Leaning forward, he kissed her neck as he slid his fingers up down and beneath the water.

“That’s better,” she breathed.

The moon watched on, the only witness.