Three young women, all in their early twenties, huddled by the window and peered curiously out of it.
“Let me see,” Kenna whispered. The small woman pressed herself between her friends. They parted to let her push her face up to the window.
The narrow opening looked out over the worn yard of the monastery, populated by a couple of scrounging chickens scratching through the dirt. The iron prisoner cart had arrived earlier that same day, to a good deal of fanfare from the monks. The horses had been unharnessed and taken to the stable, but the prisoner was still inside.
“I thought he’d be covered in markings,” Kenna murmured. “Aren’t they, usually?”
“He’s not from the islands,” Lisse said, her cheek pressed up against Kenna’s to get her own view. “Faluin said they only caught him there. He’s from the south.”
“The Empire?” Kenna asked, a note of wonder in her voice.
Lisse nodded.
Though the Thronden Empire’s northern border was only a week’s journey away, Kenna had never stepped foot there. In fact, she was rarely permitted to so much as visit the nearby village, and never on her own. The monks were too afraid that a man would touch her and render her body useless for the upcoming ritual. Or that she’d try to run away.
Kenna put a hand on the rough stone windowsill and inspected the man below.
She always got an eyeful of the chosen men through the window, but this year was different. This year, she would be offered in the ritual. Later that night, she’d finally get a look at him up close.
And maybe more than a look, if he chose to mount her rather than one of the other women. Intimidating as that was–apart from book drawings and these distant glances, she’d never so much as seen a naked man–she’d be happy to do her part.
She still couldn’t see much, between the prison bars and the window angle and the man’s posture. He sat on the floor of the cart with his knees drawn up to his chest. But she could tell he was muscular and broad shouldered, with long, dark-brown hair and lightly tanned skin.
Kenna nibbled her thumb as one of the monks, brother Faluin, approach the cart.
She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she thought she knew how the conversation would go.
The monk would apologize for the stranger’s rough treatment and blame it on those who had transported him (a lie). He’d tell the stranger the basics of the ritual, and what was at stake, and ask for his help.
It was harder for the god to possess an unwilling vessel. It was important, for the sake of everyone, that the man want to help.
He didn’t have to know that they’d kill him after.
“Who is he?” Kenna asked suddenly. “Did brother Faluin say, when you spoke?”
“A warrior. Captured during a raid,” said Brigit, who was the oldest and also the tallest. “You’d better hope the elixir doesn’t make him violent. I don’t know why they always choose the strong ones.”
“They make better vessels,” Kenna said softly, biting her lip and looking a little concerned. She folded her arms across her narrow chest.
“What is this?” The low male voice of old abbot Claudis cracked into the room like a whip. All three women pulled away from the window and spun.
Kenna looked abashed, cheeks flushed at having been caught neglecting her duty. Brigit just looked disdainful, her head high and lips severely pressed together. Lisse trembled and watched the floor.
“You were sent upstairs to prepare and reflect, not to gawk,” the abbot said, his tone gentler. “We begin soon. Ready yourselves.”
“Yes, holiness,” they all chorused softly. The monk left, but while the other women began to untie their hair and brush it out, Kenna couldn’t help but steal one last glance through the window. Sure enough, brother Faluin was unlocking the door to the prison-cart, and the stranger was stepping out into the yard.
“Kenna?” that was Lisse, sidling up to her and whispering.
“What?” Kenna asked, pulling apart her braid and dragging her fingers through her hair.
“Do you think it will hurt?” asked Lisse.
Kenna glanced sidelong at her friend. Lisse’s narrow face was tight with worry. Though all three women had been awaiting their fate in the monastery for years–since before their first blood–the monks had done little to dispel their anxiety. Being bedded by a ravenous god was a necessary duty, but one that few relished.
Kenna herself had been gifted to the monastery because her parents couldn’t afford her and her brothers after pests destroyed their crops. She knew better than most how important it was to appease the god, properly, every year. The monastery had failed in her youth. She would not be the reason it failed now.
“Hurt? Maybe,” Kenna said softly. “But it’s only one night, Lisse. A small price to pay for the safety of our people, and our land.”
*
The monastery of the hidden had been built above a large system of caves. As the sun fell, they all left the building and descended into the earth.
The first few levels of the underground were smooth, hewn by human hands. Here and there, carvings depicting history sat in recesses in the walls. The monk’s lanterns threw the carvings into horrible relief.
The hungry god, devouring the harvest. The hungry god, sending a plague.
Unpleasant, difficult history. It was the very thing this ritual was meant to prevent from happening again.
Half the monks walked at the front of the procession. Their undyed robes trailed along the dirty floor as they walked.
Next came the three young women, with ample space around them to ensure none of the men touched them.
At the back, another group of monks escorted the warrior.
He had to stoop over to fit even in these larger, hand-carved tunnels. His eyes swept back and forth across the tight passage, trying to make sense of the journey.
And then they were at the end of the carved section, and into the ancient tunnels, the gods-altar, the caverns where the Hungry One lived.
Here the ceilings were even lower, and the walls rough and jagged. Even Kenna, the shortest among them, had to bow her head to fit. Some of the men were nearly doubled over.
The red flames of the lanterns flickered across the strange surfaces, painting with shadow and light as Kenna tried to remind herself to breath.
The air was stale and dank, and the procession silent apart from their soft footsteps.
Down, down, down. At last they emerged one by one from the narrow tunnel and into a cavern so vast that the lantern light could not reach the far walls or the cave roof. The monks in the lead turned to the right, fanning out along the near wall of the cavern. Kenna followed.
At the edge of the circle of lantern-light was a smooth, swallowing darkness on the ground, flat as a black mirror. Kenna knew from the monk’s sermons that it was the Hidden lake. She had never seen it before, never been in this sacred cavern.
Years of her life had built to this moment, and now it was here. Her heart thumped heavily in her chest, and her hands trembled slightly. She was happy to play her part, but her sense of duty could not stop a thread of fear from creeping through her. The air was so dank here, and the light so thin, and the water so dark.
The monks stopped, and she turned over her shoulder. They were all in the cavern now.
Her eyes lit on the strange warrior. Though the lamplight was soft and the cavern mostly shadowed, she could see him far better now than she had through the narrow window before.
He was still naked. His chiseled chest heaved as his eyes swept across the dark, shadowed expanse of the cavern. His jaw was sharp and faintly stubbled, his nose strong. His dark brown hair fell in an unruly mane just past his shoulders. His cock, only half-hard, was larger than she’d expected it to be.
He said something, a word in a foreign tongue that sounded like a question. Brother Faluin answered softly.
Kenna looked away, back to the ground, and closed her eyes.
Then it was time. The abbot gestured towards the dark water. All three women stripped out of their thin dresses.
Shivering, Kenna entered the holy lake with Lisse and Brigit. Washing themselves in the sacred place was the last part of preparation before the ritual began.
The ground was rocky, and they moved slowly into the water to avoid cutting their feet. There was something terrifying about the swallowing darkness of the lake. Within moments of entering all three women held hands tightly for comfort.
Lisse’s hand shook horribly. Kenna gripped it tighter and willed her own body to be still, to be strong. Perhaps she could impart some courage to Lisse.
As the water lapped around their waists, then the bottom of Kenna’s breasts, she could hear brother Faluin instructing the warrior. They did not speak in the common tongue, but in a foreign language. Normally it was the abbot’s job to instruct the vessel, but Claudis must not have spoken the warrior’s strange tongue.
Kenna looked over her shoulder and could see the tall foreigner nodding.
“What happens if he changes his mind?” Lisse murmured softly. They weren’t supposed to be talking, though it would not truly matter until the god arrived. “Will they force him?”
“No, he has to agree,” Kenna said. “He will, though. They always do.”
“What man would say no to a night of pleasure? He’s already seen us,” Brigit muttered under her breath. “And I think he liked what he saw.”
The monks began to chant in the strange guttural tongue of the old ones.
“It’s time,” Kenna murmured.
The women quickly dunked their heads under water and emerged, naked and dripping, back into the lamplight. The warrior’s gaze was less fearful now, perhaps even curious. Kenna could feel his eyes raking up and down her wet body. She fought against the instinct to cover herself.
She was being offered to him, after all. She could not shy away.
It was a clear difference from the monks, who respectfully averted their gazes from the women who were designated for their god.
But the warrior’s eyes did not leave Kenna as the monks anointed him, dabbing his forehead, heart, and loins with extract of godswillow to mark him as the vessel.
She stared back, trying to imagine the warrior’s big hands touching her. He cocked an eyebrow at her and smirked. An eager shudder ran down Kenna’s back. She wondered what it would feel like if he chose her. She’d tried to find pleasure with her own hands countless times but had only ended in frustration.
Then the warrior accepted a small vial from abbot Claudis and swallowed the elixir in one gulp. He held the vial back towards Claudis. Before the abbot could take it, the warrior’s hand jerked, and the vial fell. It clattered to the stone floor, and Claudis bent slowly to pick it up.
The warrior shouted something Kenna didn’t understand, perhaps a battle cry in another tongue, and fell to his knees.
The guttural chanting continued, summoning the hungry god to fill the warrior’s body.
The man heaved and sputtered; his eyes searched between the monks franticly. He took a deep breath. He groaned, and rose to his feet. Took a step, then another. Fell back to his knees, breathing hard.
Kenna felt a sting of sympathy for him. It could not have been easy to have a god rammed into his body.
From this point none of the women would be permitted to make noise. It was said the god wanted their bodies only, and not their voices.
Kenna watched as the warrior’s manhood started to stiffen and extend. She had never seen one before, but surely it wasn’t meant to be that large?
Difficult to see, in the dark of the cavern, but his eyes seemed to darken too. His chest heaved, each breath a sharp, low hiss.
One by one, the offering women were led into the darkness. Kenna was taken to the left around the lake. Bit by bit the landscape revealed itself under the lantern’s glow. Pillars of stone stabbed up like swords, and hung down from the invisible ceiling like icicles. A spit of land cut into the side of the lake like a pier. The monks led her out on it, the dark water to either side.
At the edge of the spit was a great column, so wide it would take three people to encircle it with their arms outstretched. But it was natural, not carved, and rose up into the swallowing shadow. Manacles hung on the sides of the rock, as they had since time immemorial.
The monks, still chanting softly, gestured to show her where to stand. They were careful not to touch her; the scent of a man on her skin would displease the hungry one.
She had not felt a man’s touch, even a hand on her shoulder, in nearly a decade. Not since she had been chosen as an offering-woman to one day complete this ritual.
One of the younger monks clasped the restraints around her wrists, moving slowly to ensure his flesh touched only the metal.
“Tight enough?” he whispered to Kenna under his breath. She shook her head yes and smiled weakly at him.
They were for her own protection as much as for the god’s pleasure. The hungry one had been known, in days long past and forgotten, to carry women into the depths of the lake.
Though it was uncommon to bear a child from this coupling, the monks would not risk the death of any woman who’d been filled by the god’s sacred seed.
Then the monks walked away, leaving her alone. The light receded. Kenna’s breathing sped up as her heart hammered, but she couldn’t say a word.
Then she could just see the pinpricks of lantern-light in the distance, and none of the detail the light revealed.
And then the lights were gone, all gone, as the monks retreated into the tight passageways that led to the surface.
Reality hit. She was chained to a rock some unknown distance below the surface of the earth, in a darkness so perfect she had experienced nothing like it. No natural light reached this place. Darker than midnight, darker than anywhere she had ever been.
Nobody would come to release them until the first rays of morning brightened the horizon, up in the world above. How many hours? Seven, eight?
It would not take her that long to learn her fate. From what she heard, from the women who had performed this ritual before, the god did not take long to choose.
Strangely, though her body was invisible in the swallowing dark, Kenna had never felt so exposed. She shuddered, expecting some phantom hand to reach out and grab her, even though she knew the warrior-turned-god was still across the cavern.
She could tell by sound. Even small noises echoed here and became enormous; a single footfall was like a giant crashing through dead leaves.
Her breath sounded so loud. Could he hear it?
She could hear him. There was a splash, from the direction of the cavern’s opening. He’d entered the water.
Kenna closed her eyes and shivered. The stone behind her was rough and uncomfortable.
Splashing, in the water, coming closer. Her heart hammered until she thought it would burst.
Somehow he was making his way across the cavern without the benefit of sight. She jerked against the chains as her mind filled with panic. Though she had willingly been preparing for this for years, the reality was different than any monk’s lecture. Waiting chained and naked in the dark for a man possessed made her feel like nothing so much as prey.
She squeezed her thighs together and bowed her head.
She could hear breathing now, heavily. And footsteps. First one, then another.
Kenna shuddered and collapsed, until her legs bore no weight and her body was suspended only by the chains around her wrists.
She was not supposed to make sound, but an involuntary whimper snuck out of her.
Her stomach clenched in response: she could not make a sound. She would not let herself be the reason the ritual failed. This was for the good of everyone. Her terror in the darkness calmed. She was doing something good, something important.
And then she felt his breath on her forehead. Her body quivered. She could hear every time his weight shifted.
Suddenly, as if from nowhere. Large, wet hands brushed against the curve of her hip. Kenna bit her lip against a yelp that threatened to escape her as the sensation of his touch, like lighting, seared through her body. The man’s hands closed roughly on her waist. His grip was tight. His breathing deepened, grew louder.
It sounded almost as if he were panting.
In the utter darkness of the cavern, each sensation was magnified, each touch electric.
His head moved lower; she felt his breath against her neck. Was he smelling her? Was that how he navigated this dark cavern?
She could smell him. Sweat, and the strange herbal mix that was the elixir, and leather.
His hands began to roam across her body, slowly squeezing and pinching.
He found her breasts and grunted, moving closer against her. His hands kneaded the round of her chest, his grip hot but still damp from the lake. He panted hard, and then began to pinch at her nipples. Something wet and warm–his tongue? Lapped over one of the stiff buds.
His hard swollen rod jutted against her stomach, prodding into the soft flesh. He rubbed it against her side with a low, ravenous moan.
Kenna clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted so badly to cry out, but she couldn’t.
The man-turned-god gripped her by the waist and pressed her back against the stone. It was inclined a little, so some of her weight was on the rough surface rather than on her feet or wrists. Kenna’s eyes flickered open and closed against the darkness.
His hands squeezed and loosened; then squeezed again. He twisted her nipples, so hard that Kenna couldn’t help but hiss. His manhood dug harder against her stomach, and then his hands began to move again, slowly tracking upwards. A low groan escaped him, its tone rough and ragged.
His hunger was palpable. The god needed release. He needed to fill her body with cum to sate his endless desire.
She exhaled slowly, staring up at the dark nothingness of the cavern ceiling. So this was to be her fate.
Chosen, Kenna thought. She smiled weakly despite herself. Not Lisse, not Brigit. Her.
He grabbed her shoulders, then traced her collarbone until his hands were around her neck. Her eyes sprung back down, meeting only pure darkness, but he blessedly did not tighten his grip on her neck. He only kept moving his hands. Over her face now, feeling her features. He pressed a finger into her mouth. She parted her mouth generously. He drew the finger back over her lips, then leaned down and kissed her.
Though fully an adult, Kenna had never been kissed by a man before. She and Lisse had tried once; Lisse hadn’t liked it.
Now Kenna had no time to think about what to do. His lips were hard on hers, his mouth moving and tasting. He was insistent, but she did not find it unpleasant. She moved her lips in response to his, opening and parting her mouth as her own breathing became heavier. She could taste the herbal elixir on him.
Despite her fear, Kenna felt dampness gather inside her, and a faint throb between her legs. She rocked her hips forward involuntarily, her body begging to be taken, begging to be mounted and fucked.
He responded by putting his hand between her legs and pushing them apart. Kenna’s breath caught in her throat, but she widened her stance as the god required.
Something–not a hand, she was certain–was at her opening. It was hard and thick, probing its way between her lips. That was his manhood. It had to be.
And then he had lined himself up. He thrust his cock inside her swiftly with a grunt of pleasure. Her tight body had no choice but to part around his full, hard shaft. There was a brief, sharp moment of pain.
Kenna jerked forward, her mouth parted around a silent scream. She wished they had gagged her. How was she supposed to stay silent for the length of an entire night?
His hands found her shoulders again. He pinned her back against the pillar as he began to rock his length in and out of her, grunting each time he impaled her body.
His shaft rubbed roughly into her, then dipped into the beginnings of her arousal. The first thrusts were so painful that Kenna had no idea how she could possibly last through the hours it would take to satisfy the hungry one.
But then, with each ramming motion, it became…
First bearable.
Then more than bearable. His shaft spread her wetness through her pussy until all of her was sopping. His big cock slicked in and out of her, fast, ramming against her body.
Then she was holding back an entirely different kind of scream. The man groaned loudly, too. It seemed to feel better for him now that she was wet.
Her lips curled back around a silent cry as the warrior filled her body again. Kenna bucked back against him, her body moving to ride him as rapidly as he was riding her. If she’d known pleasure like this was possible, she would have felt no nervousness about the night.
Her back felt ragged, and each thrust was agony against the hard wall of the stone. But each powerful plunge felt good enough that she didn’t care.
His hands moved lower, moved around her to grab her ass. His breath was a hiss of pleasure as he dragged her forward, off the rock, pulling her body against him as his slick cock drove deeper into her.
He kept pulling her forward, until her arms were at the end of the chains and she could move no further. Kenna swallowed a shout. If he pulled harder he was going to dislocate her shoulders, or scrape the skin off where the metal handcuffs clung to her wrists.
Instinct took over, and she wriggled against him, trying to get herself back to the rock. The frantic twist of her hips only served to ignite the warrior. He tightened his grip on her ass, fingers digging into her flesh as he drove his body franticly into hers. He growled.
He drove her back against the rock. There was slack in her chains once again as her ass slammed against the pillar.
Then he loosened his grip, and began to run his hands back up Kenna’s body. He paused for a moment at her chest, squeezing with a grunt of approval. Then he followed one of her arms to where it became chain.
He gripped the chain and pulled.
She knew it wouldn’t come free. The chains were as ancient as the peace-offerings to the god. He growled, and pulled harder.
And then with a crack of stone it did come free. And then the other one. Pebbles and dirt rained to the ground as Kenna slid forward into his arms.
She gaped at nothing, her breathing fast and panicked. The cuffs were still around her wrists, and the chains at the end of them, but she was free. Lord, how strong this southern warrior was!
Kenna shook. Was he planning to take her into the lake?
She knew she shouldn’t resist if he did. Whatever the god wanted from her, whether she made it through the night or not, thousands of lives depended on the ritual. She had to see it completed. But she didn’t think she could go without a fight.
She pulled back, trying to stumble away from him. He exhaled hard and hugged her against him tightly, gently rocking himself into her struggling body.
Then he pulled her further away from the column and bore her down to the ground.
Her freed arms grappled at the rocky earth for a moment, her head tossed back. Then she lifted her hands and brought them up, to his broad and muscular back, and clung.
Something in his desperate thrusting motions told her he’d just wanted to fuck her like this, on the ground, free of the pillar. She didn’t think he wanted to take her to the lake.
She wasn’t going to die. She was just going to be very sore. She just had to keep accepting his cock. Had to let the god used her however he wished.
His ass hadn’t stopped moving; he kept rubbing his cock in and out of her, grunting with each slick movement as he rammed his shaft deep inside her. What he sought, she couldn’t say. Was it pleasure the god craved, or dominion? What was his hunger, his need?
She could hardly think straight anymore. Each thrusting motion made pleasure sear through her, overwhelming. She needed more.
Kenna’s back arched off the rough ground.
A moan of pleasure escaped her lips. She stiffed immediately and pulled one of her hands away from his back to clamp it over her traitorous mouth instead. She was supposed to stay silent!
With a grunt, he grabbed her wrist and forced it back down to the ground. Then he covered her mouth with his, his lips hungrily pressing against hers. Then his tongue was in her mouth. The warrior moaned into her, the sound quivering through Kenna.
She couldn’t help it. A trembling moan snaked out of her, humming back into his mouth.
He drew his slick shaft out of her slowly, then slammed into her again. She bucked up to meet him, and they ground their bodies together, each pushing hard against the other.
He forced her hips down and kept grinding himself deep, so the stone cut into her back and his hips were heavy on hers. There was a pulsing sensation inside her. Once, twice, a third time.
That was him spilling his seed, she was fairly sure. Kenna had never experienced it before, but what else could that feeling be?
But she knew better than expect it to end. The elixir would keep him going all night, round after round, longer than any natural man could last.
A god, after all, was no natural man. The hunger of a god could not be sated so easily.
So there was a pause that lasted only for a moment, and then he drew himself out of her and pawed her over. She balanced on her hands and knees on the hard stone ground, and felt his seed sliding out of her and down her legs.
And then his shaft rubbed again at her opening and pushed back inside her. Buried fully inside Kenna, he let out a low moan. He lowered his head over her neck. She felt his breath on her, and then his teeth.
He bit her neck, and her whole body clenched. Included in that was her pussy around his thick cock. He growled approval and bit again.
Kenna’s eyelids flickered and she lowered her front half down to her elbows, her forehead resting on the back of her hands as he ground himself forward. He pulled back and then began to move again with a steady rhythm.
His hands were tight on her hips, holding her in place. Each thrust rammed her body against the ground. Her knees screamed with the repeated impact until she was fairly certain they were scraped raw. Still he kept pumping away inside her.
He bent over her, his hands moving up along her waist until he was hunched over her and holding onto her breasts. Desperately, the possessed warrior groaned and humped at Kenna, his shaft bobbing in and out of her wet center.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the darkness. Wave after wave of bliss rammed through her, each thrust of his big cock unbearably pleasureful. Her toes curled and her whole body trembled as the sensation built until it became unbearable. Then suddenly the feeling was gone, an unfamiliar release that left her feeling satisfied in a way that her own hands never had.
But he kept going, his cock pumping away at her tight opening.
Six, seven hours until dawn. Who could say? There was a long way yet to go.
*
Kenna didn’t know when her long ordeal ended. She passed in and out of pain, in and out of pleasure. His hands grabbed at every inch of her, squeezed and dug and clawed at her body. His engorged rod rammed into her again, and again, and again. His breath was hot on her neck, on her nipples, on her lips, and–briefly–on her maidenhood.
At last they both collapsed on the dark stone floor.
Then Kenna drifted in and out of consciousness. She could feel something slick slowly dripping out of her and sliding down to the floor. His seed? He’d cum in her some countless number of times, until he had nothing left to spill. Every ounce of it had been pumped into her. She’d been so filled that at one point each ram of his member had squelched his spent cum out of her pussy and onto the ground. She’d spilled more cum onto the ground than most men could make in a night.
She’d tasted some, too, when he’d kissed her after lapping hungrily at her weeping hole.
She didn’t move to touch herself now, to check whether it was more of his cum or something else dripping out of her body. She couldn’t move. She just lay there and stared into the infinite darkness of the cavern and wondered if morning was soon or far or already there.
Lying with no sound and no light, she had no sense of time. Perhaps five minutes passed, or perhaps five hours, but at last she heard distant footsteps. They grew louder.
She turned her blind head towards the sound, and was rewarded by a glimmer of orange, growing brighter as the monks with their lanterns reached the end of the tunnel and emerged into the cavern.
It felt like another lifetime for them to reach her. She was not the first woman they came to. She could hear her friend Lisse let out a pained sob as they released her: the first sound Lisse had made all night.
At last the monks drew near, illuminating Kenna’s surroundings.
They froze, all four of them, eyes wide and taking in the scene.
Never had an offering been ripped from an altar. The shackles were still around her wrists, but the chains led to nothing.
One by one, the monks fell to their knees and made a holy sign across their faces.
The southern warrior was stirring, slightly, next to her. He groaned and pushed himself up on his arms, then shuddered. Kenna watched with a distant concern as he heaved and then emptied his stomach of some dark sludge–the elixir, certainly. That, or the god leaving him.
Three of the monks jumped to their feet and hurried to him. One buckled a chain around his neck. The warrior stumbled upright, trying to push them off, but he was too weak after the long, pleasureful ordeal. He buckled and wretched again, his body doubling over as a shudder ran through him.
The fourth monk unfastened the shackles on Kenna’s raw wrists. Then he helped her up, and wrapped her in a soft blanket. She wobbled on her feet. The space between her legs burned; tears rolled out of her eyes. The monk put a hand on her back and urged her forwards, stumbling towards the exit of the cave.
She turned over her shoulder to look at the powerful man who had ridden her all night.
He was on his knees, his hands bound, the chain around his thick neck. His eyes burned into her, pained and confused. There was a question there she could not answer. A disbelief, a betrayal.
Did he think the monks would let him go free, after he had agreed to participate in the ancient ritual?
Quickly, she turned back around and stumbled away.