Imoha ran her fingers through Edia’s hair. Her hands stopped at the base of Edia’s skull and pulled her deeper into the kiss. Imoha tilted her head to the side and slipped her tongue between Edia’s lips...

“How’s Shay?”

Surprised by the voice beside her, Imoha broke off the kiss with a jerk of her head, forehead knocking against Edia’s. She whipped her head around to glare at Xxx. “What the hell are you still doing here? Don’t you know when you aren’t wanted?”

Xxx, who was sitting on the ground next to Edia’s chair, way too close to the couple making out, looked up at Imoha with a dead-eyed stare. Completely ignoring her vitriolic words, Xxx asked again, “how’s Shay?”

Imoha’s eyebrows raised and furrowed together, “who?”

Impatiently, Xxx responded, “the boy, the human boy, his name is Shay.... How is he?”

“How should I know?” Imoha rolled her eyes, “I left only a few minutes after you did.”

Xxx leaned forward, “well can you find out? I-”

Imoha raised her foot and pressed her heel to Xxx’s forehead, pushing him away, “I don’t take orders nor requests from you... Now fuck off.”

Though he was stronger than her, Xxx didn’t really fight back and let her push him away. “It’s not your house, you can’t tell me to leave.”

Finally, Edia spoke up with a sigh, “just leave already, Xxx.”

Xxx pouted, but stood, “fine... fine... I’ll go...” Xxx brushed off his knees and took a few steps before pausing. “Oh but do let Shisu know that if he hurts Shay,” his voice deepened and his eyes went fully black, “I’ll kill him.”

*

For the first time, a mortal man held prolonged eye contact with the Sun God.

As he stared into the Sun God’s beautiful golden eyes, Shay’s mind ran a mile a minute. The Sun God wants me to.... No no no, that’s impossible, there’s no way I can...

The arousal on the Sun God’s face disappeared, replaced by a slowly deepening frown, “what’s wrong? Why did you stop?”

Shay bowed his head, thus averting his gaze. Panicking, his heart pounding in his ears, Shay answered, “I- I’m sorry, I just- I’ve never topped before and I wasn’t expecting to- I mean not that there’s anything... I shouldn’t have assumed but I’m not rea- I don’t know what to do and I’m worried that-”

The bed creaked as the Sun God moved. Shay snapped his mouth shut and waited, his whole body shaking. The Sun God sighed and Shay couldn’t help but shake more, tears blurring his vision.

The Sun God took Shay’s cheeks in his too warm hands and lifted his head, eyes widening when tears slipped out of Shay’s eyes and wet his hands. “I’m not gonna force you,” he whispered, brushing away the tears with his thumbs.

The Sun God let Shay go, stood up, and cleared his throat. He pointed at a gold cord that dangled down against the wall, “pull that if you need something, the servants will give you whatever you want, within reason.” Stiffly folding his hands behind his back, the Sun God marched out of the room, leaving Shay kneeling on the bed with drying tear tracks on his cheeks.