Scarcely daring to believe what she was doing, Elara reached up and removed the delicate sealant from behind her ears, one, then the other.

Never in her entire life had she revealed her Naiad respiratory organs to another Druvarian. Never would she dare.

And now she was doing it in front of him. For him.

How had she reached this point? Goading this Highguard to reveal his desire, knowing instinctively that his undeniable curiosity of the creature that she was and his longing for her was becoming too difficult for him to resist, and yet always believing that he would stop himself from crossing that line.

By her foremothers, how wrong she had been.

Just when she thought he could not surprise her again, he did something else to rock her core—something indisputably intriguing.

As curious he was of her, so too she was of him, and she wanted more. She wanted his pain, his passion, his strength, his sorrow. Everything. It was as if she sought to take him down with her under the surface and hold him there, wrap herself around him, breathe herself into him and let the current take them where it would. They would drift together, she and him.

This was to be their bargain with each other.

She would give the most important part of herself to him, and he would give her everything in return.

Turning her head to the side, she bared herself to him, her spine stiffening as he reached for her, his fingertips stopping just over where he longed to touch.

"Wait," he said, almost to himself. "Not like this."

Pulling her down onto the bed, he positioned her on her side, facing away from him, and she found herself strangely complying, her hand curling around the cushion as he lay behind her, raised up on one elbow so he could get a better look.

He was barely touching her, but her whole body burned with the heat of him. She squeezed her thighs together, and arched her back. 

"Be still," he demanded of her, as his fingers began to trace the outline of the delicate folds of skin behind her ear.

She shivered under his touch, an involuntary reaction to his exploration of her most secret flesh. No one had touched her there since her mother had been alive, but that had been a different kind of touch. Her mother had always sought to keep their true identity concealed, painstakingly teaching Elara how to apply the skin sealant, ensuring that all the edges were seamless and unpuckered. Young Elara had always understood the necessity, but she'd hated it too. Hated that the most important parts of her had to be hidden away, erased from sight as if they did not exist at all. As if she did not exist.

As Juda shifted closer, his fingertips moving lightly now with the direction of the skin folds, she could feel his breath there, warm but shallow, as if each movement of his fingers thrilled him.

"What does this feel like?" he whispered. "To be touched here?"

Elara tried but failed to stifle the shallow gasp as he purposively increased the pressure. He was smiling now; she knew it without even having to look at him. Just a small curve of his lips, his breath quickening. If she reached down behind her, she knew he would be firm in her grip.

"It feels... good," she managed to reply, even as her hand clenched a fistful of coverlet into her damp palm.

"Only good?" He sounded disappointed.

The loss of his touch felt like a punishment then, sudden, and harsh to bear, but his palm simply moved to cup her throat, the stroke of his fingertips, replaced with a stroke of his tongue. Light. Warm. Wet.

"Fuuuuuuuck," Elara hissed, gritting her teeth as the pleasure throbbed from her neck down to between her thighs.

"Now tell me that only feels fucking good, witch."

She moaned into the bedcushion as he increased the pace of his strokes, sometimes toying with the edge, sometimes sucking at it with soft pulls of his mouth. Pushing his knee between her thighs, she opened for him instantly, her body weakened by the intensity of his relentless mouth on her neck. She'd been right. He was hard, and he moved his hand down from her throat to between her legs, matching the rhythm of his mouth and tongue with his fingers.

Elara couldn't bear this for long, she knew she wouldn't—the pleasure was too much, too overwhelming. She could already feel it building, the warmth spreading, softening her bones, and quickening her breath.

Reaching back between their bodies, she palmed his cock, his almost pained groan humming against her skin. He sucked harder, curling his fingers over her tender flesh.

The water had always been everything to Elara. Her safety. Her comfort. Her pleasure. It would be hard to explain to those who did not understand the water, just what it gave to the Naiad. To be able to breathe. Swim. It made her feel alive in ways that nothing else could, but this—this thing that he was doing to her? By her foremothers, it came a close second.

"Juda..." she gasped. "Juda, please."

He laughed softly against her skin and she was surprised at how much she liked to hear it. It was deep, throaty, raw, and the sound of it curled around her like an embrace.

"I like hearing you beg. I like hearing you say the words," he said, mimicking the very words she'd said to him in the Naiad temple.

"And I'd like you to fuck me, but your hesitancy is as irritating as you are."

"No hesitancy," he said, pushing her hand away so that he could guide himself into her, pressing her pliant body into the bed. "Not for you."

Elara clawed at his thigh, pulling him against her and positioning her body just right to find the deepest, most delicious angle of his thrusts. His hips pushed against her behind, one hand tightening its grip in her hair, the other clutching her waist and as he began to rock his body with hers, his mouth never left her tender folds of skin. He grew more confident with each stroke of his tongue, teaching himself where to lick where she responded most, learning just where to suck gently, where he could increase the pressure.

Never had she been fucked so intensely. Never had any man explored her like this, consumed her like this. Never had she given so much of herself. His hand slipped between her legs again, caressing in slow, easy circles with the flats of his fingers, as he moved inside her.

His pace was increasing now, his thrusts harder, deeper and she hooked her leg over his, opening herself to take in as much of him as she possibly could. His breath was sharp and rough against her ear, his fingers teasing her madly.

The room was full now—not just of his pain, which she could hear with every raw rasp of his breath, could feel with every hard thrust into her—but of them, the scent of their sex, the sound of their moans, the heat that radiated from their bodies. He had asked if she could bear it all, but Elara couldn't ever imagine not having to bear it now.

She could feel the dampness on his body pressed into hers, the way his hips moved, and she was lost to it all, feeling the pulse of her orgasm radiate outwards, like ripples upon water. She cried out, whimpering into the cushion at the power of it as it crushed the breath in her throat, as if his hand still gripped her there.

Juda barely let her finish before he was grabbing her hips and pulling her onto her knees—her legs were still trembling—forcing her to brace one hand against the wall. He drove into her then, all muscle and bone, pain and sorrow, and she took it all, feeling him fill every part of her, feeling his heat under her skin.

His thrusts were harder now, his groans rougher as he kept one hand firmly grasping her hip, the other entwined in her hair. She begged him for more, to not stop, to never stop.

"Elara," he said, the guttural growl raw in his throat. "Elara..."

When he came, the force of it was so wild and powerful as he crashed into her, inside her, and Elara gave into it, feeling the waves of it pull her under so deep that she wasn't sure how she'd ever resurface, or if she even wanted to. It felt relentless and strong, just like the water, and the thought of that rocked her almost as violently as his orgasm did.

When he was done, he pulled her back and held her against his chest, feathering kisses behind her ear, his palms cupping her breasts, until finally, their ragged breathing calmed, even though his heart still pounded hard against her spine, and hers fought inside her chest.

How could this be? How could it feel like this?

Like the water, she thought again, just like the water...

***

Their desire carried them through the remainder of moontide, sometimes feral and powerful as it had been the first time and sometimes, they just floated like driftwood, exploring each other's bodies with lazy, soft touches and curious mouths.

As Elara lay entwined in Juda's arms, listening to his deep, sleep-fuelled breathing, the indigo skies outside slowly gave up their darkness, the first, subtle light of morntide bringing with it the bitter tang of sea salt on the breeze. Elara loved the high waters at the cusp of moontide, their depths dark and unfathomable, but the break of morntide always brought with it a freshness that filled her lungs with hope, even if just for the short time she spent embraced within its hold.

Hope seemed as distant as the Dreynian mountains now, far out of reach across the Setalah, and as the light grew, the farther away hope travelled. She could reach for it if she tried, here in this room, with him pressed into her body as if he had always been there, but the ebb and flow of the water would always carry it out of reach. She knew that, as much as she knew she couldn't stay.

Neither of them could.

Unfurling herself from his body, still sweat-beaded from the sex, Elara slipped out of bed, searching for her clothing. As she stood to tug her britches over her hips, she turned, flinching to see his hard gaze upon her as he watched her from where he lay.

"I have to go," she said. He hadn't asked. Hadn't said a word. Yet she felt the weighty question hanging in the air between them nevertheless. "I have to find Kelena."

"Kelena?"

She hadn't mentioned her friend to him, they still hadn't discussed just why she'd risked everything to kill Koh-Miralus. What was the point? It was done.

"Kelena..." he repeated, as he sat up, before his eyes widened, understanding sparking within the darkness he held there. "His young wife. Tala Koh-Miralus."

She knew the name, of course. Tala. But Tala was dead, floating somewhere under the Setalah, with her lover by her side. It was Kelena now. Kelena always.

"You know to go back to Grimefell will mean death for you," Juda said, as she pulled her tunic over her head, which was starting to throb a little again. "They will be looking for you, if not yet, then soon. This very tide, they will send the Order to find you."

She knew what he meant by that.

They will send me to find you.

And if they did, what would he do? This man who had given her everything of himself, over and over. This man whose scent lingered still on her skin. Whose touch she still felt so keenly upon her body.

He would do what he was ordered to do and he would bring her to her knees to face the dreaded justice of King Aldolus Ban-Keren and everything would be over. Finally, it would be over and she would have failed her mother and her foremothers, just as that whispering voice inside her head always told her she would.

"I have no choice," she said, pulling on her boots, barely daring to look at him. "The silk merchant has sent his men to search for her. I think they're close. She's in danger."

Juda grasped her wrist, his palm damp and warm. "He's dead, Elara. What can he do now?"

"He might be dead, but his men are still alive and maybe the news has not reached them yet. Kelena said he has brothers, a large family. What if they are involved in this? She's no safer now than she was before."

"Then tell me, what was the fucking point?" Juda's voice hardened. "Why kill him if it would change nothing?"

Elara whirled around to face him, fury sharpening its edge on her flesh. "It would change everything! That monster did not deserve to live after what he did to her! You did not see her, Juda. You did not see what he had reduced her to. The agony she suffered at his hands. That man deserved death and nothing more. I had to do something. I had to do it for her."

"For her? Or for you?" His tone had softened, but it grated on Elara, twisting her anger into knots that she could not unravel. She wasn't sure she even wanted to.

"Did she even ask you to kill him?"

"Of course, she didn't," she snapped, shrugging off his grasp. "She does not even know what I am. None of my friends do. How can I tell them, Juda?"

He blinked, confusion crinkling his brow. "You think they would betray you?"

She stood up again, looking about the bedchamber and remembering. Her cloak was downstairs, in that strange empty room where life feared to make its home. "I am not just an enemy of the King. I am an enemy of the people. I'm the reason they suffer. I'm the reason they thirst. I'm the reason the King will deny them the water this tide. Did you even know that? Did you know of his plans?"

His silence answered her question, but he held her gaze anyway, cold and defiant.

Of course, he had known. He would be there this tide, if not scouring the slums for the trade runner who had much to explain of herself, then he would be at the port, guarding the precious fucking water from those who needed it the most.

Elara snorted in disgust and shook her head. "Everyone betrays, novice. Everyone."

Juda flinched, shadows creeping into his face. "So, we're back to that, are we? Novice. Witch. Aren't you exhausted of being so fucking predictable?"

He loved to twist her words, she'd noticed. Loved to throw them back at her like daggers, pierce her flesh with each one, his mouth turning cruel and thin, when she knew it was beautiful and skilled at far more than just harsh talk and insults.

"I don't have the luxury of being anything but." She defended herself with his words now. "My whole life has been about regimented habit. Hide my true self from plain sight." She touched the point behind her ears. "To watch. Be wary. Distrust those whom I love. Distrust those that trust me. I have to be predictable, because to dare to be spontaneous and free and unconstrained in this world, is to risk everything."

The understanding in his eyes hurt her, cutting deep into her chest as if it would carve the very heart from her body. They had risked everything together, she and him. The witch and the novice. They had dared to be spontaneous and free and unconstrained from all that would seek to bind them, all that would keep them apart, and once she walked out of this place, it would be just as it had been before.

This room would revert gladly to pain and to sorrow, and Elara would go back to being alone.

Moving to the edge of the bed, she clutched the back of his neck and pulled his face to hers, so she could crush her mouth upon his. He tasted of her and of them, and everything inside her yearned for him, just as it yearned for the water.

"Elara, please, don't do this," he said, grasping her hand, tangling his fingers with hers. "Don't go back to Grimefell. Go to the Naiad temple and wait for me there. I will come for you."

She smiled. She had to leave before his pain and his sorrow fastened itself to her back and pulled her to the floor.

"On your own, or with the weight of the King's Guard at your back?"

Again, his silence beat its fists against her bones.

"Then, fair morntide to you, Highguard. Remember to make no sign of recognition if you find me in Grimefell. Let us be enemies and strangers still.  For your sake."

She kissed him again. Once more. She had to.

For once she walked away, she feared she would never taste him ever again.

It would be, she thought, as sadly predictable as the rest of her life.