Chapter 1382: Soul Flame

That was the thing with her.

People saw the Goddess and thought first of power, beauty, divinity, the impossible composure with which she carried herself through the world, but there was a side of her that became almost unbearably gentle when she gave it to him. Her fingers in his hair, her mouth lingering at his temple; the quiet ways she touched him when words were too small.

Even now, in bed with the sheets rumpled around them and her lips still warm from his, she caressed his face as though she were memorizing him again, as though he had come back from somewhere dangerous and she needed the reassurance of touch before her heart fully settled.

When the kiss ended, she didn’t move away. Her nose brushed lightly against his, and then she smiled, small and lovely and softer than almost anyone else ever got to see.

Phei stared at her for a moment too long.

The Goddess’s lashes lowered slightly. "What?"

"You’re too beautiful."

"That answer sounded rehearsed."

"You’ll be the death of me. Is that more genuine?"

She almost laughed again, but he kissed her before she could.

His mouth wandered after that; he kissed her cheek, the corner of her lips, her jaw, her throat... he let his lips trace lower over one bare shoulder where the sheets had slipped, then back upward again, giving each place enough patient affection that she began to shift beneath him in a different way now, her body reacted not with helpless laughter but with that softened, romantic sensitivity that came only after you had already been loved once and knew you were about to be loved again.

The slipped sheet bared one breast to the low gold light, pale and elegant, the nipple drawn tight from his mouth traveling so close.

Phei kissed the upper slope and then the peak, slow enough that she made a small sound into his hair, and his hand under the blankets found the other breast and held it as if the holding were part of the kiss.

"Mm."

Still, Phei did not rush.

He kissed and kissed and kissed, tracing her slowly, letting his mouth drift across the length of her in pieces, and sometimes when his lips brushed somewhere too delicately, the Goddess would give a little squirm and laugh under her breath anyway, her hand sliding into his white hair as though she needed something to hold.

It was ticklish at times, yes, and she did laugh softly because of it, but the whole thing was drenched in warmth rather than mischief, almost embarrassingly romantic in a way that only made Phei love it more.

When his mouth reached the underside of her breast she stopped laughing. When it reached the flat of her stomach she opened her thighs a fraction under the sheets and his cock slid through the wet seam of her pussy without entering, the fat head painting her clit, her inner lips clinging to the pass.

He stayed there a breath and kissed her navel instead of pushing in, because the questions were still under the romance and he would not bury them in her body until she had pulled them out of him.

Eventually, even he slowed.

The kisses thinned out.

His hands settled and he pulled her fully against him and simply held her, one hand spread over her back beneath the sheets, the other stroking idle paths through her hair.

The Goddess curled into him with a little sigh and stayed there, all soft limbs and quiet presence, and for a while the bedroom became still except for breath, the shifting of sheets and the faint night beyond the window.

Phei might have stayed like that longer if he had been less obvious.

But the Goddess knew him far too well.

She felt it first in the way his fingers had moved over her, a touch just a little too absentminded, a little too thoughtful. Then in the way his breathing changed whenever silence went on long enough for his mind to return to whatever had been bothering it before desire drowned everything else out. By the time she lifted her head to look at him, she already knew there were questions waiting under all that romance.

"Okay, that’s it Phei!" she said softly.

Phei blinked. "Okay-what is what??"

"What is it?"

He gave her an innocent expression. "Nothing."

The Goddess’s eyes narrowed with fond disbelief. "Phei, my love, I felt the questions brewing underneath all those kisses."

He stared at her.

"And the tickling," she added.

"That was unrelated."

"It absolutely was not."

He looked mildly insulted. "You wound me."

She reached up and touched his cheek. "Be open with me, Phei! Like you said; we’re now husband and wife— for eternity, this is like the second step to prove that after the Mark."

That dissolved the protest out of him.

Phei exhaled through his nose and looked away briefly, then back at her. The Goddess had officially joined his deeper harem now, his Mark rested upon her, another thread connecting her more intimately to the Harem Anchor he now shared with; Soraya, Sienna, Melissa and Roxanne, but what mattered in that moment was much simpler than cultivation, soul bonds or anything mystical.

It was just this: she was his woman and she’d decided to server her old life his completely for eternity by taking his Mark, and she knew him well enough to hear the ache underneath his silence.

"It’s Althea," he admitted at last. "You haven’t asked me about progress. Elena hasn’t said much either. It’s been weeks here, and for me..." He swallowed and shook his head faintly. "It has been in my head ever since I came back. I kept waiting for someone to say something and nobody did. I didn’t want to ruin the mood or bring it in too soon, but it’s been killing me."

The Goddess’s expression softened instantly.

The Ashford Madam lifted her hand to his face again, she brushed a few strands of white hair away from his eyes, and then very gently kissed his forehead. It was such a quiet little act of care that Phei’s chest tightened far more than if she had simply answered him right away.

"Phei, my love," she said, "you may not have been here, but that is exactly what we have been doing; looking for my daughter!"

He went still.

"Worrying. Searching. Moving. Reaching into every place we can. There is nowhere obvious we haven’t searched, and many places far less obvious than that. Ashworth has helped more than once. Hayashi too—thank you for those two, by the way. They have been a huge help."

Phei looked at her carefully.

"The results have been the same," she continued. "No clear trace. No location we can point at and say she is there."

He was about to speak, but the Goddess laid her two elegantly long and delicate fingers lightly against his lips and quieted him without the slightest effort.

"Listen first."

He did.

"The Ashford Family is a Legacy family, Phei" she said softly. "That means there are many things they can do that do not look like ordinary cultivation to people outside families like ours. One of those things is a sort of tracking. Not exact. Not enough to bring Althea home by itself, or she would already be here. But enough to know the condition of their descendants. Enough to know whether the thread of their life still holds or whether something terrible has happened— the Soul Flame!"

Phei’s body tensed.

The Goddess’s hand left his lips and returned to his cheek. "She is fine."

He said nothing.

"She is completely fine," the Goddess repeated. "Alive. Unbroken. Whatever has happened, nobody has done anything to her that would show harm through her Soul Flame. That is why I did not look at you like you expect me to the moment you returned from that frozen nightmare and throw the weight of her disappearance onto your shoulders. Ashworth and Hayashi are stronger than you in the ways that matter for searching right now— that was Sienna’s reassurance, not my words." Phei laughed slightly and as she smiled and continued:

"If they have not found her yet, why should I pressure you as if you alone are meant to carry that failure?"

Phei’s jaw tightened, then eased.

"We search with hopeful hearts because we know she is alive," the Goddess said. "And now that you are back, I am simply glad that there is one more person who will be searching for my little daughter."

Phei’s eyes lowered.

Then he pulled her into his arms again and held her there, tightly, his chin rested near the crown of her head. The Goddess relaxed against him at once, her fingers drifted over his chest beneath the sheets, both of them quiet for a while because sometimes comfort needed space to settle properly.

"There’s something else," he said eventually.

A faint smile touched her mouth. "Of course there is."

"What’s the deal with your family?" he asked. "There’s Elena, there’s Althea, they’re sisters, but as far as I knew you only had one daughter. So what about Althea?"