"What is this?!"

The fogged glass trembled under Old Tomas’s fingertips.

His breath was gone. His heartbeat was the only sound in his skull—a drum, a war drum, a funeral drum, all three at once, pounding behind his eyes, pounding in his ears, pounding in the hollow of his chest where his ribs met and his heart lived and his soul was trying to crawl out through his throat.

Sera was in the tub.

His Sera. His granddaughter. The girl he had raised on lavender oil and talcum powder. The girl who had swung a broken stick at a fence post at three years old and had not stopped swinging since. The girl whose calloused hands he had massaged every night for sixteen years. The girl he had told—the world will try to break you.

She was naked.

Her dark hair was loose—loose, not braided, not bound, not the tight warrior’s braid she had worn since she was twelve. It was wet. It hung in heavy ropes across her shoulders, across her back, clinging to her skin like dark vines on pale stone. Her breasts were visible above the waterline—heavy, full, firm, the nipples dark and stiff, the areolas tight and swollen, the flesh flushed red from heat and from something else, something that Old Tomas recognized with the trained eye of a man who had tended women’s bodies for forty years. The flush of arousal. The flush of a woman who has been fucked.

Her legs were spread beneath the water. He could see the shape of them—the long, muscled thighs, the defined calves, the feet with their calloused soles from years of barefoot training. And between her legs—beneath the rippling, clouded water—he could see the dark shadow. The hair. Untrimmed. Wild. The hair of a woman who had never cared, who had never had reason to care, who had been a fighter and not a lover.

But she was a lover now.

A man was behind her.

He was in the tub. His arms were around her. His hands were on her breasts—not gentle, not tender, but possessive, his fingers sinking into the firm flesh, his thumbs pressing into the stiff nipples, rolling them, pulling them. His skin was dark against hers. His hair was black. Wet. It hung across his forehead and over his jaw. His face was sharp. Angular. Beautiful in the way that a blade is beautiful—precise, dangerous, designed for one purpose.

His eyes were violet.

They had found Old Tomas through the fogged glass. They were looking at him now. Calm. Still. Unhurried. The eyes of a man who has been seen and does not care. The eyes of a man who could erase the glass, the wall, the old man behind it, with a thought.

Raven.

His cock was inside her.

Old Tomas could not see it—the water was in the way, the steam was in the way, the angle was wrong—but he could see the movement. The rocking. The rising and falling of Sera’s hips. The way her body shifted in the water, lifted and lowered, lifted and lowered, the rhythm unmistakable. The rhythm that Old Tomas had seen in the faces of the noble women he massaged—the flushed cheeks, the parted lips, the heavy breathing, the subtle, involuntary movements of hips that had been recently used and were still aching from the use.

"Master," Sera moaned.

The word came through the glass. Through the steam. Through the fog. It was clear. Distinct. It was the voice of his granddaughter, and it was saying a word that Old Tomas had never heard her say, had never imagined she would say, had never believed she could say.

"Please. I have— it hurts. Fuck me harder. Please. Let me enjoy it."

Old Tomas’s knees buckled.

He caught himself on the wall. His old hand pressed against the stone. His fingers were white. His face was gray. The blood had drained from it so fast that he felt the darkness at the edges of his vision, the tunneling, the narrowing, the warning signs of a body that was about to shut down.

He did not shut down.

He stood.

He straightened his back. His old spine cracked. His old joints creaked. His old hands were trembling—trembling so badly that his knuckles were vibrating against the stone—but he stood. He had stood in this hallway for sixteen years, watching his granddaughter swing swords and break sticks and fight boys and refuse to be anything other than what she had decided to be. He could stand now.

He walked to the bathroom door.

His hand found the handle. The iron was cold. He turned it. The latch clicked. The sound was small and final—the sound of a door opening that cannot be closed again.

He stepped inside.

The bathroom was warm. Humid. The steam hit his face. It was thick with the smell of bathwater and soap and something else—something musky, something sharp, something that Old Tomas recognized with the gut-level knowledge of a man who had been alive for sixty-three years and had tended bodies for most of them.

The smell of sex.

The tub was large. Copper. It sat in the center of the room, steam rising from the water, the sides beaded with condensation. Sera was in it. The man—Raven—was behind her. His arms were around her. His hands were on her breasts. His cock was inside her. He had not stopped. He had not paused. He was still moving—slow, deliberate thrusts, his hips rolling, his cock sliding in and out of her from behind, the water splashing softly with each movement.

SCHLUK SCHLUK SCHLUK—

The sound was wet. Rhythmic. The sound of a cock moving in a wet cunt. The sound of flesh meeting flesh beneath water. The sound of his granddaughter being fucked.

Sera’s head was back. It rested on Raven’s shoulder. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was open. Her lips were swollen—kissed, bitten, used. Her cheeks were flushed. Her neck was arched. Her throat was exposed. Her breasts were heaving with each breath, each thrust, each movement of the cock inside her.

"Ah— ah— Master— ah—" she moaned. Each sound was timed to a thrust. Each thrust pushed the air from her lungs in a soft, broken gasp. Her hands were gripping the edge of the tub. Her knuckles were white. Her arms were taut. The muscles in her forearms stood out—cables beneath wet skin.

Raven looked at Old Tomas.

His violet eyes found the old man’s face. They were calm. Still. The same calm they had been when he was erasing shoulders and removing legs. The same calm they had been when he was kneeling before Sera in the blood-soaked room. The same calm they were now, while his cock was inside the old man’s granddaughter, while the old man stood in the doorway and watched.

"Ah," Raven said. His voice was conversational. Light. The voice of a man who has been interrupted during a meal and is mildly inconvenienced. "The grandfather."

Sera’s eyes flew open.

She saw Old Tomas. She saw his face. She saw the gray. The shock. The horror. The grief. She saw everything—the sixteen years of massages and splinters and fence posts and braids and lavender oil and talcum powder and the world will try to break you—all of it, reflected in his old, wet, broken eyes.

"Grandfather—!" she gasped.