The skirmish ended almost as quickly as it began. A cast of Carapace scavenger —gaunt, onyx-eyed things—had slunk from the fog, drawn by the scent of sweat and sex. Nephis's blade flashed once, twice; Sunny's shadows coiled and snapped. Three corpses steamed on the leaf-litter before the echo of the last snarl faded.
Nephis sheathed her sword, chest rising and falling beneath the torn remnants of her tunic. Blood—hers and theirs—streaked her arms; grime and dried cum clung to the inside of her thighs. Sunny wiped a smear of ichor from his cheek, then summoned a memory [Endless Spring], which casie had given to him before departing. The Endless Spring glugged as he uncorked it, cool water spilling over his tongue like liquid starlight. He drank deep, throat working, then tilted the flask toward her.
"You look like you wrestled a chimney," he said, voice low, teasing. "Wash up before you scare the fruit off the tree."
Nephis glanced down at herself—skin filmed with ash, silver hair matted at the ends, the sticky evidence of their morning still glistening between her legs. A bath didn't sound bad. It sounded necessary.
She took the flask, but instead of drinking, she tipped it over her collarbone. Water sheeted down the slope of her breasts, cutting pale channels through the grime. The cold shock drew her nipples tight; she hissed, then let the stream wander lower, over the flat plane of her stomach, between her thighs.
Each rivulet carried away the fight and the fucking in equal measure.
Sunny didn't move to help. He leaned against the great tree's trunk, arms folded, watching with the lazy intensity of a cat at a mouse-hole. The flask's mouth hovered at her navel now; water pooled, then spilled over the swollen lips of her cunt. Nephis's breath caught. She knew he was staring—she felt it, a brand hotter than any flame. Her clit throbbed under the cool cascade, and when she shifted her weight, thighs parting just enough to rinse the last traces of him from her folds, Sunny's pupils blew wide.
Pervert, she thought, but the word tasted like honey. Heat coiled low again, shameless. She dragged two fingers through the water sluicing over her pussy, spreading herself open under the pretense of cleaning. A deliberate show. Sunny's jaw flexed; the front of his trousers tented anew.
"Enjoying the view?" she asked, voice husky.
"Immensely." He pushed off the trunk, stalking closer. "But if you keep that up, lunch is going to be you."
She capped the flask and tossed it back. "Later. Fruit first."
The great tree's lowest boughs began ten feet up, thick as bridge cables and crusted with lichen. Sunny leapt, shadows lashing out to coil around a branch; he swung, caught another, and hauled himself into the canopy with liquid ease. Nephis followed, muscles still humming from the fight and the fucking. Her bare feet found purchase on the rough bark; water droplets flung from her skin as she climbed, sparkling in the fractured sunlight.
Higher, the air thinned, scented with resin and something sweeter—ripe ghost-pears, pale and luminous, dangling in clusters. Sunny plucked one, bit; juice ran down his chin. He caught the drip with his thumb, then leaned across the branch to offer the fruit to Nephis. She took it between her teeth, lips brushing his fingers, and the taste exploded—cool, faintly metallic, like biting into moonlight.
Below them, the Barrows stretched in ashen waves, but up here the world was only bark and breath and the slow, deliberate drag of Sunny's gaze over her still-damp skin. Nephis licked juice from her lower lip, watching him watch her.
"Sunny," she said, soft.
"Yeah?"
"Next time you want to watch me bathe…" She leaned in, teeth grazing the shell of his ear. "Bring soap. And a bigger flask."
His laugh was low, rough, promise and threat in one. "Deal. But I'm still eating you for dessert."