Chapter 30: Hunger

Perhaps love did not always need to be found in peace and peace did not always settle into love. Love could burn up, all-consuming like a wildfire as it fed upon kindling. It could burn in the ears and in the throat, but it could burn in the chest and in the belly. Eris was a being attuned to the cold, ice was his nature, but fire burned in the pit of his belly as if he were a beast slumbering in a hearth. Respite in a place he knew could be his death had made him cocky.

It had also made him very hungry for something more human than a meal. He wanted Marion. All of Marion. To see the dip of their collarbone and have it burned into his memory forever. He wanted to know the feeling of Marion’s hips beneath his touch, to hold them there with nothing protecting their skin. He wanted to paint the elf’s skin with his teeth and worship them as art. He longed to know the heat in Marion’s lips.