This is how he worships her. With the slick drag of his tongue over her neck, with the blunt, circular marks of his teeth on her shoulder, with the living flame her cries awaken in his gut.
How does a shinki please his god? Through protecting—through sacrificing. This is what he used to think. He would have given every atom of himself for her.
He still gives it, but not in the way he expected.
He became a nail for her, and her other shinki had exchanged sideways glances. It was, to them, a bad sign that his naming had pierced her. Invasive, disrespectful. Obscene.
He cups her, pressing his fingers against the parts of her that no one else knows about, and considers it prophetic.
"Kazuma," she breathes.
It's in the tone of voice he's only heard from her when she is the fragile god and he is the powerful servant—when he has her willingly at his mercy and it maddens his blood.
This is how he worships her, by paying tribute to her weakness as well as her lovely, smiting strength. He holds her wrists high above her head, both their arms sliding against her hair, and she works feebly to free herself. He doesn't know whether she's really struggling, or letting them both enjoy the illusion of his dominance. He doesn't know if he cares.
"Please," she says, before he sinks into her kiss and wishes he could dissolve on her tongue.
The first time he learned how to worship her, she let him approach her as slowly as he needed. She bore the sting of his guilt, and taught him to see her desire, her emptiness—and, focused as he was on her glory, this had probably been a difficult job.
For a moment, he understands how the elders of the Ma clan had seen him as disrespectful. Reverence equates to distance; praise should be voiced toward an aloof, enthroned figure. Not gasped in rapturous tremors against a lover's ear.
She has untaught him this, and by now he is an astute scholar.
"What would you like?" he asks. His teeth graze her ear, and she arches toward him.
"Tell me."
Her breath quivers in her throat, and catches there when he pushes his hardness against her.
"I want—I want—"
One of his hands sinks into her hair; he jerks her head to the side, and her whisper cuts off in a gasp. The canvas of her throat is already painted bruise-blue and blush-red, and he looks at it in hazy satisfaction. A masterwork in flawless marble.
"You want…?"
Is it a blasphemy to withhold anything from her? Maybe so. Maybe—he thinks—the way he worships her has always been mixed with a little blasphemy. Because she is his god, and that feeling of ownership within himself has never been something he can fully destroy.
"I want you to call me—by that name," she says. She tries to create friction between them, to build up speed where he demands languid, torturing leisure.
He lets her move for a few seconds, because he could do with some relief as well, but then pushes down firmly on her bare thigh with his free hand. Her groan of frustration and need makes his head spin.
"What name, my lady?"
His hand climbs from her upper thigh, so gently that he might be dropping feathers onto her skin, and she tries to wrap her other leg around him. With his weight on top of her, she has very little success.
"You know," she manages to growl, and he smiles into her neck.
It was blasphemy the first time he joined her body as a tiny, dull nail, and it's blasphemy now, but this is how he worships her. The elders of the Ma clan were right about him from the start.
It's blasphemy because he reveres her vulnerabilities, like the supple, delicate warmth he's adrift in. It's blasphemy because he prays for her to lose herself, if only so that he can find her again. It's blasphemy because he hopes she forgets her own divinity—just briefly—so that the moment between them of absolute, violent joy renders them equal.
He worships her in selfishness, and for some unknowable reason, she allows it.
She clutches him like she needs him in order to live, repeating, "say it, say it," sobbing, and he has to. It's the only word he still remembers.
His god. His Veena.