Sunny didn't flinch, not outwardly. But something in his eyes tightened the moment Nephis delivered that final line, her voice cold and amused and dripping with that casual disdain she seemed to wear like armor. He stood there for a beat too long, jaw working, the words caught behind clenched teeth. Then he exhaled sharply, lips curling—not into a grin, but something sharper.
"Oh, yeah?" he said, voice low, bitter-edged. "Then maybe I'd like to see you fuck those monsters."
Nephis blinked once, taken aback just enough for the flicker to register. Her smirk faltered. Just slightly.
But Sunny didn't linger to savor it.
He turned on his heel and walked away.
For three nights, he didn't touch her. Didn't come to her side, didn't grind against her in the darkness, didn't leave his scent smeared on her skin. He slept on the far side of the firepit, back turned, silent and stony-eyed. Cassie, unaware of the sudden rift, kept chattering and humming like always, while Nephis...
...suffered.
It started subtle. The first night, she lay still as always, waiting, pretending not to. Her body tensed when he didn't approach. Her fingers stayed clenched under the blanket, thighs pressed tight together as heat began to pulse through her. When morning came and the mess she was used to carrying on her skin wasn't there, she was restless. Fidgety. She stayed further from Cassie, silent for hours, swordplay more vicious than necessary.
The second night was worse.
She tossed, unable to settle, her breath coming too fast beneath her blankets. Her cunt ached—hot, wet, clenching on nothing. She slipped a hand between her thighs, fingers slicking through her folds, but it didn't help. She needed pressure. Needed weight. Needed him. She touched herself under cover of her cloak, breathing quiet and sharp, but it was hollow. She came too fast, then not at all, frustration mounting with each pulse of denied need.
The third day, she snapped at Cassie. A first.
That night, the fever took over.
She left the camp.
Sunny noticed immediately. He followed in silence, shadows bending to cloak his presence. Nephis moved quick, low to the ground, breathing hard through her nose as if ashamed of her own arousal. Her fingers shook as she pulled away from the main path and crept toward the corpse of a beast they'd slain hours earlier—a great armored hound with massive limbs and a twisted, barbed underbelly.
She crouched over it. Not near its jaws. Near its legs.
Near the thick, knotty appendage that still hung from its corpse, half-retracted, vaguely phallic in its grotesque anatomy. Slick. Vile. Wrong.
Sunny's eyes widened in the dark.
Nephis glanced around—just once—and then licked her lips. Her hands trembled as she reached out, slowly, almost reverently, and brushed her fingers along the slick shaft. Her breath caught. Her thighs rubbed together unconsciously. She didn't even care how filthy it was.
Then, in the trees behind her, a voice.
"Well well," Sunny drawled. "Look at you."
Nephis froze.
He stepped from the shadows, slow and deliberate, arms crossed, his silhouette haloed in moonlight like judgment itself. He wore no expression, not yet—just dark amusement behind his eyes, and something crueler.
"I leave you alone for three days," he said, "and you're out here trying to jerk off a dead monster?"
Nephis didn't move. Her hand was still on it.
"I mean, I get it," he continued, stepping closer. "If I knew you were this desperate, maybe I'd've let you hump its leg days ago."
Her face turned slowly, expression blank—but her cheeks were flushed, lips parted. She was panting. She didn't pull her hand away.
"I told you," he said, circling her now. "If you want me, say it. If not... I'll watch you fuck a corpse, sure. Maybe help you find one still twitching."
Her throat bobbed. She let out a sound—barely a breath, barely a moan.
Sunny crouched behind her. Close. Not touching. Just watching.
"Is this really what gets you off, Neph?" he whispered. "Monsters? Death? Or is it just the humiliation?"
Her breath hitched.
"You said I wasn't yours. But look at you." His voice was velvet and venom. "You're mine anyway."
And she didn't argue. She never would