Adelaide Forrest

his heart beating in tandem with mine.

“What is this place?” I asked, wonder lighting up my eyes as he led me to the very base of the hill, which, standing apart from the other foothills, was more like a butte. Where the path started up the side, curving around to create an easier to manage incline, someone had carved steps into the stone in the areas where it became too steep. More stone lined the path as we rounded the bend to the back of the hill, the surfaces stained with age and cracked from what appeared to be years of neglect.

Trees lined the path on the outside, where Caelum walked beside me, shielding us from view if anyone happened to look up at the butte. On my right, I lifted a hand to trail over the stone of the face. As if the earth itself had melted away to make the walkway, the same stone that lined the steps went as high as I could see when I tipped my head back.

His fingers swept the hair off one side of my neck, his breath warm against my chilled skin. He chuckled as he undoubtedly watched my skin pebble with his proximity. “I think you can guess how they celebrated.”

I asked, glancing at the haunting face of the God of the Dead. He sat on one of the chairs carved from stone at the side of the hot spring, two humans kneeling at his feet between his legs. His hair barely skimmed his bare shoulders, the rippling muscles of his physique bulging with effort. One of his hands was buried in a woman’s hair, pulling her toward his bare waist, with the entirety of his swollen cock revealed.

Holy Gods

. He tugged his tunic out of his trousers, tearing it off over his head. With me kneeling at the side of the pool, I was immediately reminded of the humans kneeling for the God of the Dead.

I glanced up at him, finding him staring down at me intently

I jolted when Caelum grasped my hand in his, lifting it to touch the place where the edges of the Mark curved onto his chest. His eyes closed at the moment of contact, and a shudder wracked my body as a feeling of comfort overwhelmed me.

Touching his mark, feeling the warmth of it flooding through me, felt more like home than the cabin I’d shared with my family ever had. Like the other Fae Marked were always meant to be my true home, the place where I belonged.

“Do you not worry that I might bite it off if you put it near my mouth?”

“But I’d know a few moments of perfection until you did.”

My fingers traced the ends of his mark hesitantly, unable to turn my attention away from the drawing and focus in on his history and the atrocities he’d committed.

They were the same color as mine—and Caelum’s.

For the ones who find freedom in the dark.