We had stopped pretending. The nights that followed our conversation unfolded not as seduction but as something quieter—an unspoken accord. Seth no longer commanded my presence, and I no longer sought him out with the trembling uncertainty of before.
He came to me in the gardens again, where moonlight slid like silver over his skin and turned the water to glass. There were no words at first. Only the sound of the fountains and the hum of crickets.
I had asked what I shouldn’t have when we were sitting near the lotus pool together. “Tell me what it was like. You and Nephthys.”
Seth’s gaze stayed on the pond, where the moon floated in broken circles.
“Mortals like to call it marriage. They think gods wed as they do—contracts and affection tied neatly together. But what Nephthys and I had was older than words. We were balance. Shadow and dusk. She steadied what I shattered.”
“And you loved her.”
“In the way a storm loves the desert,” Seth said. “I brought her rain and ruin in equal measure. She… accepted both.”
He exhaled, a long breath that trembled slightly. “She never feared me. That was her strength—and her flaw. She thought calm could tame chaos.”
I folded my knees beneath me, listening. “And did it?”
Seth’s mouth curved wryly. “For a time. Then came the chains—the priests, the binding rites, the bloodline prisons. She couldn’t follow me into this cage. Maybe she wouldn’t.”
He turned to me then, eyes glinting red like embers. “That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? Whether I still ache for her.”
“I wanted to understand what she was to you,” I said quietly. “So I could understand what I am.”
Seth nodded once. “She was my equal in power, my mirror in the divine. But you…”
He paused, searching for words that did not come easily to him. “You are different. Mortal. Flawed. Infuriatingly alive. You make me remember what it is to feel limited—and I do not despise it.”
We sat like that for a while, the quiet between us stretching thin but comfortable. The garden smelled of lotus and damp sand; torches guttered in the distance, throwing long shadows across the stones.
When Seth finally touched my face, it was with the same gentleness he had once shown only as Ram. His thumb traced my cheekbone as if reacquainting himself with something fragile.
“You could have been anything,” he said. “A priestess, a queen. Instead you stand before me, knowing what I am, and do not flinch.”
“I’ve spent my whole life being feared,” I said. “Maybe I needed someone more terrifying than the rest of the world to make me feel safe.”
That earned a quiet laugh—real, startled, almost tender. “Careful, little blessing. You might teach a god humility.”
“I believe I can teach you many other… human things”
Seth's crimson eyes lit up with excitement. In a second, he pulled me close, squeezing the air between us. The birthmark responded to him again, as if it were something familiar and dear.
“Don't challenge the gods, Enet. Especially not at something they're damn good at.”
* * *
We found our way to the Columned kiosks, where moonlight reminds of spilled milk on the ground. Seth kissed me first—slow, almost reverent. I tasted the faint tang of resin on his lips, the warmth of a man trying to remember how to be gentle.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve touched,” Seth murmured against my mouth, “but it’s the first time I’ve felt mortal doing it.”
The kiss deepened, unhurried but inevitable, heat gathering like the breath before a storm. When his hands slid down my arms to my waist, I didn’t shy away. The air between us seemed to hum—part magic, part want.
Seth laid me back on the sand, the world reduced to moonlight and heartbeat. His touch was different now—less claiming, more discovering. The god who had once ruled chaos moved as if afraid to break the fragile thing between us.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice rough with want as his lips brushed my ear.
I caught his gaze and let my hand roam down his chest, nails scraping lightly. “With desire. What about you, my god?”
Seth’s laugh was low, dark, hot against my skin. “I’m burning. I want you so badly, I almost forgot how to breathe.”
His mouth found mine, and his kiss was almost brutal in its honesty—hungry and impatient, his tongue sliding between my lips as if to claim every secret I had left.
Linen and gold fell away, forgotten in the sand. His hands slid under my thighs, pulling me closer, the heat of his body making me gasp.
Seth looked down at me, eyes roaming hungrily over my bare skin, lingering at my breasts, my stomach, the place between my legs already slick for him.
“Magnificent,” he whispered, voice almost reverent. “True goddess herself. I want to taste every inch of you.”
“Then do it,” I dared, spreading my thighs wider. “Make me beg for more.”
Seth grinned, wicked and eager, then lowered himself between my legs. His mouth was hot and relentless, tongue tracing circles, teasing me until I was writhing, hips bucking against his mouth.
“Gods, Seth—please, don’t stop,” I moaned, fingers tangling in his hair.
He looked up, lips glistening. “You taste like heaven. Say you want me.”
“I want you inside me, now,” I demanded, breathless. “I want to feel you.”
He rose over me, his cock thick and hard, pressing at my entrance. “Tell me how you want it,” he growled.
“Deep,” I whispered, biting my lip. “Hard. Like you’ll never let me go.”
He pushed inside me slowly at first, stretching me, filling me. Every inch of him was pure heat. I gasped, clutching his shoulders, and he stopped to look into my eyes, his forehead pressed to mine.
“Is this what you want?”
“More,” I whispered. “I want all of you.”
With a groan, he began to move, setting a rhythm that was slow at first, deliberate and teasing. Each thrust made me gasp, made me ache for more. Then he picked up the pace, hips snapping against mine, the sound of our bodies meeting lost beneath my cries.
“Say my name,” he demanded, voice hoarse.
“Seth,” I moaned, over and over, as pleasure built and built, threatening to undo me.
He bent to suck a nipple into his mouth, one hand moving between us to rub slow, perfect circles on my clit. “Come for me,” he commanded. “I want to feel you fall apart.”
I shattered around him, crying out, body pulsing with release. He cursed, thrusting harder, deeper, chasing his own pleasure. When he came, it was with a shudder and a growl—a wild, unrestrained god undone.
We collapsed together, slick with sweat, his face buried in my neck. “I don’t ever want to stop touching you,” Seth murmured, breathless.
I pulled him closer, smiling against his skin. “Then don’t.”
For the first time, I believed I wasn’t his echo or his punishment. I was his choice.
And that was enough.