The words came from Bella. She was perched on the pond shelf again, tail swishing in the water, golden eyes moving between Viktor and the stone steps where Olivia had been sitting for the last forty minutes.
Olivia.
She sat at the very top step, where the water just barely reached her ankles. Her blonde hair was pulled over one shoulder. Her golden-amber eyes had been watching the entire morning with the specific paralysis of a woman who had been told, reasoned with, seduced by argument and proximity and smell, and whose body had been casting votes for something her priestess training was losing the majority in. Her white robe — the thin morning one, lighter than the formal vestments — clung where the steam had found it. Her enormous breasts rose and fell with her breathing. Her thick thighs were pressed firmly together on the step.
She had been telling herself she was just watching to understand. For twenty minutes.
Then thirty.
