The dark sea had receded with the dawn, leaving the lower trunk slick and black. For days the cycle had repeated: night swallowed the world, they clung high in silence and terror, fucking the fear out of each other; morning bled pale light across the Ashen Barrows and they climbed down to hunt, scavenge, survive.
In the morning Sunny scaled the colossal tree alone. Higher and higher, until the air tasted thin and sweet. He found a new cluster of heart-like-fruit, heavier than before, skin flushed deep scarlet. He filled the makeshift sling across his shoulder (six, seven, eight pieces), then began the long descent.
He dropped the last ten meters, landing cat-light on the springy mat of fallen leaves.
Nephis was waiting.
She stood at the edge of their camp, back to him, utterly still. The seaweed bikini clung to her like a second skin. Two narrow strips crossed her breasts, barely containing their weight, another looped low on her hips, framing the powerful curve of her ass. Salt and sun had bleached the seaweed to a deep emerald that made her pale skin look almost luminous. Silver hair whipped in the wind, strands lashing across the sharp lines of her shoulder blades.
She was staring at the horizon.
Far beyond the Barrows, beyond even the shattered Labyrinth, the great Crater yawned, an impossibly vast wound in the earth. From this distance it looked like a black sun ringed by fire, beautiful, terrible, magnetic. The light that spilled from it painted Nephis in molten gold and blood-red shadows.
Sunny's mouth went dry.
The sight of her like that tall, untouchable, carved from starlight and violent hit him harder than any blow. Blood rushed south so fast it left him dizzy. His cock thickened against his thigh, unmistakable beneath the thin fabric of his trousers.
He must have made some small sound, because Nephis turned her head. One slow, regal tilt. Her eyes those impossible, burning silver eye slid over him, lingered on the obvious strain at his groin, then flicked back up to his face.
A faint smirk curved her mouth. Not soft. Never soft. Predatory.
"Again?" Her voice was low, smoke over steel. "I swear your cock has a death wish."
Sunny swallowed, tried for levity. "Can you blame me? Look at you."
Nephis stepped forward. The seaweed shifted with her movement, riding high on her hips, revealing the sharp cut of muscle that arrowed down between her thighs. She stopped an arm's length away, towering over him even barefoot, and reached out. One hand fisted in the front of his shirt; the other cracked across his ass in a single, sharp spank.
The sound split the quiet morning like a whip.
Sunny jolted, heat blooming instantly across his skin. His cock jerked so hard it brushed his own stomach.
"That," Nephis said, calm and absolute, "is for staring like a starving dog instead of bringing me breakfast." She released his shirt, took the sling of fruit from his numb fingers, and turned back toward their bedroll. "Next time you get hard without permission, I tie you to the trunk and leave you for the tide."
She didn't look back, but the sway of her hips as she walked away was deliberate, cruel, perfect.
Sunny exhaled shakily, rubbing the stinging handprint through his trousers.
Worth it.
Absolutely fucking worth it.