The Creators

Chapter Six: The Pit

TERA

The crowd of the Pit was a monster, a single voice made of the tens of thousands. The stomping of feet accompanied the roar, and the pitch of its merciless call rose as the announcements were made. The infamous Death Kiss; now with a pretty face to put to the ugly name, and the Avenging Angel; a daughter of Iona with skills only heard of in legend. Together, we made a tandem the monster hadn’t seen before, a duo of beauties in the realm of beasts. The monster loved us, as any deific horror does, because we were virgin blood.

I sharpened my knives in the dugout, trying to keep my bladder from spilling my fear all over the bench. Astrid sharpened her blade with methodical calmness, seemingly unaffected by the fix we were in. I wasn’t sure what to make of the valkyrie; it had been two days since I’d met the woman, and she hadn’t said a single word to me. Angela told me that Astrid had been friendlier before I met her, but ever since Willowbud had punished the winged-warrior for conspiring to rid her of Corruption, Astrid had become a wall of impassivity; doubly-determined to retain her honor as my divine niece tried to strip it from her. It was a game the two were playing, but only one of them thought it was any fun.

“Why do they call you ‘Death Kiss?'” Astrid asked. I looked up, surprised to hear her voice directed at me.

“I would fuck my targets before I killed them,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders. “It seemed like the lady-like thing to do.”

“Oh,” Astrid said quietly, redirecting her attention to sharpening her already-sharp blade, and reestablishing the uncomfortable silence that stood between us. From outside, I could hear the announcer calling the names of our opponents, the men and women we would have to kill to sate the bloodlust of the monster. The crowd cheered each name, and each name was known to me. These weren’t bottom-of-the-rung washouts, but titled fighters; Willowbud wouldn’t settle for us facing nobodies in our debut.

“When was the first time you killed a man?” I asked, nervously disturbing the silence that Astrid was content to let be.

“When I was twelve,” Astrid said tersely, not looking up.

“That young?” I asked. Astrid simply nodded, and the silence returned. I sighed. Some people were introverts, and some people were just assholes.

“Do you enjoy killing?” Astrid asked. It was a strange question, but anything was better than waiting with nothing but my nervous heartbeats to keep me company.

“There’s a morbid satisfaction in it,” I replied, nodding. “Do you?”

“I’m not supposed to,” Astrid said examining her blade, “the Iona Code says to kill without passion, and to seek no joy in it.”

“But do you?” I asked, leaning forward and trying to catch Astrid’s gaze. Astrid didn’t meet my eyes, but stared at her reflection in the polished flat of her blade. Her golden hair draped in a score of braids across her shoulders, her deep-set eyes stared coldly from her brow, and her lush lips were pursed in thought.

“No,” she finally said, looking at the ceiling of our dugout, the planks shaking with vibrations of the crowd, “not yet.”

I recalled Astrid’s punishment, and couldn’t help but feel a touch of arousal leak through my present fear. She was a magnificent creature, and seeing her pristine body chained to the floor as she took every patron in the bar was a sight I wouldn’t soon forget. Witnessing the duality of her lust; her shame and ecstasy, her disgust and revelry, her euphoria and guilt, was like watching a painting brushed by a master artisan. And after the proverbial paint had dried (and Justina had licked it off her), a slightly darker Astrid was revealed; a little more callous, a little more depraved, a little less dignified, and a little less honored. A little more corrupted.

“Mistress is trying to break me,” Astrid said, her voice eerily calm.

“I know,” I replied, unsure of how to respond to that.

“I can withstand the temptations of the flesh,” Astrid said, “but I’ve always lusted for glory, and somehow, Mistress knows it. It’s why she makes me debase myself in front of everyone; because I love it when they watch me.”

“Corruption knows the temptation that will take you,” I said. “It’s why I can’t stop myself from fucking the woman who enslaved my own daughter, and you can’t stop yourself from seeking the crowd’s approval.”

“Their adoration, their love,” Astrid said, looking ruefully up at the shaking boards, “my name on their lips. It is a cardinal violation for a winged-warrior to seek her own fame. Egregious enough for banishment.”

“Remember that your god is making you do it,” I said, trying to keep Astrid level. “Your oaths are superseded by the rule of a higher power; no one can blame you for breaking them.”

“That’s true,” Astrid smiled sadly, “but I shouldn’t want to break them this badly.”

ASTRID

“…Night Eyes presents: Death Kiss, and the Avenging Angel!”

The announcer called us from our dugout, and the crowd roared our entrance. I stepped from the dark confines below the stands, and onto the sand of the arena. The senses of the world surged to clarity as I moved into daylight, and the sixty-thousand faces of the monster were laid bare to me. They were faceless faces, people without form or features, blurs of shape and color mixing in a mosaic of chaotic movement. I felt the adrenaline kicking into my chest and the excitement brimming to my chin. So many people; watching me, adoring me, loving me. Their call grew louder as I moved across the sands, their pitch grew higher as I neared the center of the arena. The great swell of noise rose around me and within me, electrifying my nerves, widening my eyes, stretching a manic grin across my face. My fingers unwound and curled into fists, my breath was steady and molten in my chest, and my heart was calm, but thrumming dangerously. Across from me, stood the ten soon-to-be corpses of my challengers. Tera seemed intimidated by them, but all I saw were flaws. Too slow, too weak, too short, too fat. If these were titled fighters, then titles were sold cheaply in the Pit. Their titles would soon be forgotten.

No; they will live forever, I smiled to myself, as footnotes in my history.

Seeking fame and glory already? my conscience scolded. A whore for lust and a whore for murder. A whore for the nameless, faceless masses.

I tried to push the noble lecturer from my mind. It would do me no good to have a crisis of honor in the middle of a battle.

It’s not a battle; it’s a sport! my conscience yelled. Death for the sake of entertainment, murder for the sake of pleasure! If you find joy in this, then you are surely lost.

I buried my conscience where her sanctimonious rambles could barely be heard, and let the temptation take root atop her. The roar of the crowd, the smell of the sand, the thickness of humid air ripe with the imminence of bloodshed. Tera stood next to me, her naked body gleaming in the noon sun, her violet eyes narrowed at the heavily-armed troop across from us. The noise quieted, and the world waited in bated breath for the starting horn. One moment of tense silence passed, and then another. Crows cawed their warning in the distance, vultures circled their anticipation above.

The horn blasted, the monster roared, and I charged. I ripped out my sword, unfurled my wings and flapped, surging across the arena like an arrow through the air, my feet trailing against the sand below me, kicking a tail of dust in my wake. The orc in front of me barely had time to gape before I tore his head in two, leaving his gawking jaw resting on his neck. The woman beside him squawked, her bone-laden armor rattling as violently as her teeth. I wheeled onto her, and split her from collar to pelvis, spraying crimson over my leather armor.

Take no joy in it, my conscience whispered from somewhere.

The shock of my rapid advance had lost its effect, and five opponents circled me, weapons raised warily, teeth bared ferociously. I could see the fear in their eyes, the truth behind their masks of savagery. I smiled at them.

Take no joy in it.

They came at me all at once, weapons sweeping through the air, blades singing their duet with the wind. Dust rose, metal clattered, and five backs bowed as their strikes found the air beneath me. They looked up, their faces no longer baring their ferocious facades; only their terror. I grinned down at them.

Take no joy in it.

I dove into the fray, my blade sweeping out in a single circular motion. It cut through flesh and bone, sinew and muscles, all as easily as a knife through butter. Two heads rolled, three arms flopped, and a torso slid from its owner’s hips. Four new corpses littered the sand, and four more sacrifices were made to the monster. It roared its heinous approval, and I felt the exhilaration teeming beneath my skin. My grin was more of a grimace than anything, and my widened eyes were bulging with the fervor of death. The one I’d missed backed away, dropping her weapons and raising her hands, horror written across her face. The great monster hissed its disapproval, and cajoled me to paint the sand red.

Take no joy in it.

But I did. Oh, Great Creators, but I did. I wanted to hear the crowd cheer me as my blade cut into this coward, I wanted to feel that electrifying swell rage against my skull.

Take no joy in it.

I raised my sword, grinning manically as she fell to her knees before me, begging for mercy. She was a she-orc, a little younger than myself, her muscle and brawn reduced to fear and piss. She begged, and I laughed. She pleaded, and I readied my strike. She cried, and I… I let her go. I lowered my blade, and she scampered away without a look back. My heart thundered in my throat, and the sickening realization of what I’d almost done settled in my stomach. The pit of guilt was accompanied by a small measure of pride; I hadn’t given in. I’d resisted the temptation. The monster cried its anger, and I felt it wash over me, sweeping away my pride as easily as a torrent flushes driftwood. I had defied the crowd, and now they would hate me forever. All for my stupid honor, all for my—

“Astrid!” Tera screamed, “Help!”

Tera had dispatched two humans with ease, but was now wrestling with an ogre, the behemoth three-times the size of her. It roared as it swung its massive hammer, planting divots in the sand where it fell. Tera dodged and ducked nimbly, her knives stuck in the beast’s breastplate, her hands flailing to touch skin-on-skin. The ogre caught the succubus with a swinging knee, sending her tan form skidding across the sand, and rolling at least ten times before she stopped. He charged after her, hammer raised above him, boots thundering beneath him. He stopped over the wounded woman, readied his hammer behind him, arched his back, let out a great bellow, and then lurched forward with a scream. His massive arms fell to the sand behind him, and his body flung with the sudden loss of weight. My blade caught him before he could crush my fighting partner, and he slid harmlessly down its length until his sputtering stomach met my cold cross-guard.

The final horn sounded, and the crowd roared, basking me in the monster’s favor once again, forgiving me for my mercy. I raised my face to their cheers, feeling the terrible sound swelling within me, feeling it emboldening me, empowering me. The ogre speared on my sword coughed blood, still alive. He looked up at me, eyes wide in horror and panic, writhing in a singular-minded fervor of desperate survival. He may have lived, or he may not have. It didn’t matter. The monster wanted death, and I would not defy it again. I pulled my blade from his belly, and swung it backhanded over his shoulders, sending his shocked expression into the air and rolling behind his body. The pitch of the monster’s call rose to a crescendo, and my grin stretched to painful levels.

“Angel! Angel! Angel!” they chanted, their voices punctuated by their stomping feet, their fists thrusting in cadence with their call.

“Angel! Angel! Angel!” the monster beckoned me into its arms, and I embraced it like a lover.

WILLOWBUD

“Holy shit, she’s good,” Angela muttered next to me. The crowd roared above us, stomping and cheering, fighting and fucking in the stands. I loved it. I was shielded from the chaos in my luxury box, level with the arena and below the rabble. Beside me, my split-personality cousin sat at attention, Angela’s blue eyes gleaming from Justina’s face. Before I enslaved her, I could tell Justina was calculating, intelligent and adventurous; all qualities I liked vastly more than the mindless bimbo she was now. Alas, I doubted I’d be able to keep Tera around for long if I freed Justina, so it was a blessing that Justina had two halves; one that I could fuck, and the other that I could speak to intelligently.

“She let one of them go,” I said, leaning back on my couch. “I’ll have to punish her for that.”

“You were going to punish her no matter what,” Angela scowled at me. “Don’t try to bullshit me, Willowbud.”

“Actually, I was going to call it a reward if she performed flawlessly,” I smirked, running my hand down Justina’s bare back, “but I enjoy the disciplinary aspects much more. I think Astrid does as well.”

My hand trailed to the supple bulge of my cousin’s backside, and Angela’s blue eyes began to change to Justina’s violet. I sighed, and stopped my leering fingers.

“Why don’t you ever want to play with me?” I asked, pouting my lips mockingly as Angela’s eyes returned.

“Because I fucking hate you,” Angela said, smiling cruelly.

“But that just makes it so much better,” I smirked, caressing her along the small of her back, but not moving down, “hate-sex is the best sex.”

“No-sex is fine with me,” Angela said, turning away.

“You’ll come around,” I chuckled, moving my hand along her spine. “One of these days, I’ll find a way to keep you out. Then I’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”

“I still feel it,” Angela replied, shuddering as my fingers trailed between her shoulders.

“But it’s all filtered through Justina,” I said, “that’s like getting a blowjob with a condom on; it’s just not the same.”

Angela chewed her lip, watching as Astrid picked Tera off the sand, and raised their hands in unison before the crowd. The cheers for ‘Angel’ drowned-out any cheers for ‘Death Kiss,’ and I suspected Astrid was just fine with that.

“They love her,” Angela said, staring at the roiling stands above us.

“And she loves them,” I smiled, watching Astrid bask in the favor of the crowd.

“Why are you making her do this?” she asked, turning her blue eyes on me.

“Because it amuses me,” I smiled, my hand clasping the succubus gently about the nape of her neck, “just like you amuse me.”

“Is that all we are to you? Entertainment?”

“You’re my family, dearest cousin,” I chuckled, my thumb rubbing her throat tenderly. “You mean much more to me than that.”

“I’m not so sure,” Angela replied, and then turned her attention back to Astrid. I wasn’t so sure either.

BRANDON

“Your Holiness, I am eternally grateful that you saved my life, but I feel that I should tell you that this is the stupidest fucking thing you could do,” Gloria hissed at me from beneath her veil as I walked purposefully down the street of the Brothel District, the afternoon sun beating on our heads.

“I can’t just do nothing! You saw what happened; Tera almost died out there!” I growled, rounding a corner and nearly running into a pair of street walkers. They gave me leering glares and promiscuous smiles, and I momentarily wondered how much money I had in my purse before turning my attention to the task at hand.

“Oh?” Gloria hissed, grabbing my arm and pulling me to a skidding stop, her unnatural strength keeping me static. “And just what the fuck are you going to do to the Earth Former? Throw a fucking bird at her?”

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do!” I snarled, pulling my arm away. “I’m going to spawn a fucking grizzly bear right on top of that cunt, grab Justina and Tera, and get the fuck out of there!”

“Spawn a grizzly bear?” Gloria laughed. “Forgive me, Your Holiness, but you can’t even make a rabbit without sticking a dolphin’s head out of its ass.”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect!” I spat. “It just has to be big, heavy, and have a lot of fucking teeth!”

“And then what?” Gloria growled. “Let’s say by some miracle, you manage to kill Willowbud. Who’s going to free Justina then?”

“Then…” I seethed, clenching and unclenching my fists, “…then, I figure it out.”

“You really are a genius,” Gloria sneered. “I am truly blessed to be in the service of such an enlightened god.”

“Well, you’re three-thousand years old; you tell me what to do!”

Gloria’s crimson eyes softened from beneath her veil, and she placed a calming hand on my shoulder. “Patience,” she smiled, “I would tell you to be patient. Very little good has ever come from brash, violent action.”

“And a whole lot of bad has come from procrastinating,” I muttered. “Sometimes people need to die.”

“Willowbud is a god, Your Holiness,” Gloria lectured softly, “and I cannot allow you to harm her.”

“She didn’t have the same feelings about you.”

“She’s melded to Corruption; her actions are hardly her own. Right now, we need to tread carefully, and hone your skills. Tera is more than capable of handling herself, and your sister can’t die twice. Let them find a balance with their captor while we figure out something that doesn’t involve you dying.”

“I could take her,” I said, hoping I sounded much more confident than I felt.

“I’m sure you could,” Gloria smirked, clasping her gloved hand in mine. “She’s a seasoned killer with an untold body count, and you’re a farmer who shovels pig shit. I’m sure you would’ve done just fine.”

“I should’ve left you in the street,” I grumbled as Gloria walked me back to her house.

“Oh, you don’t mean that,” Gloria’s red eyes smiled suggestively at me. “Not after I’ve shown you how grateful I am to you for saving my life. C’mon, my brave, fearsome, pig-shit-shoveling god; let’s go back to my place, and continue your training.”

Gloria was stubborn, Gloria was condescending, and Gloria was certainly grateful. If my teachers in Towerhead lectured me like she did, I wouldn’t have needed Angela to feed me test answers.

“Mmm,” the vampire hummed delectably, her red lips pulling my nipple from my chest in a chorus of wet slurps, her crimson eyes smiling up at me, her pale form cast in the scarlet hue of her home’s torchlight. “Focus, Your Holiness; what is it you want to create?”

“Ah shit,” I moaned as her cool fingers stroked my curved-back cock to new levels of arousal, causing it pulse in her soft hand. “I… uh… I want to make a fox.”

“Ambitious,” Gloria grinned, displaying white fangs from the lush outline of her mouth, “picture it in your mind.”

I tried, I really did, but it was damned hard to picture anything when my vision was filled with Gloria. Her luxuriantly-curled black hair was tossed to the side and tickling my ribs, her luscious red lips were quirked beneath her high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes, her pale voluptuous body was pressed to mine, and her slit was leaking its desire against my trembling thigh. She had on a corset that barely contained her bulging bosom, and fishnet stockings that clung to her thighs so tightly that her succulent flesh was protruding from the netting.

“Focus…” she hissed, one crimson eye closing in a knowing wink, “…make me a perfect, little fox, and I’ll let you do anything to me. You know I will; you know I’ll love it.”
Goddamn it, I thought, desperately trying to remember what the fuck a fox even was, my mind was so preoccupied. Bushy tail… orange fur… are they cats? No, they’re dogs. Pointed ears… white highlights… Angela stroking me, her breath on my lips, her breasts on my chest, her…

“Am I distracting you?” Gloria smirked, her red tongue circling my nipple.

“Your fucking witchcraft is,” I groaned. “I would really like it if you un-fucked my mind.”

“Having dirty thoughts about your sister, hmm?” Gloria chuckled, her tongue sliding lower and lower, a trail of saliva sheening my abdomen. “Sorry, Your Holiness, but the change is permanent. You can pretend I’m her, if it helps.”

“God, I fucking hate you,” I grumbled as Gloria’s playful mouth moved to my pelvis.

“You can show me just how much you hate me,” Gloria giggled, stopping just before my shaft, “once you make me a new pet.”

Her lips hovered just above my tip, her breath blowing gently on the froth of precum at its apex, her eyes smiling teasingly from the black outline of her eyeshadow. A single elegant finger ran up my length, brushing along every bump and vein, and then sliding back down, caressing me, petting me. Another finger moved into the lacing of her corset, and freed her breasts in a wonderful jiggle. They pillowed against my pelvis, pressed on all sides of my shaft, and enveloped all but the last inch of my length. Gloria’s cheeks went gaunt in a girlish pursing of her lips, and she poked her tongue from the glistening trap of her mouth, and began tortuously licking my throbbing head.

“Oh, goddamn it!” I growled in frustration. There was no way I was getting anything done with this level of distraction.

“You’re doing it all wrong,” Gloria smiled. “Stop trying to paint it in your head. You can’t think something alive; you need to birth it from your soul. Feel me, let my pleasure guide you, and let the life flow naturally from your mind.”

I let my mind go blank. Gloria wrapped her lips about my tip, and pushed her palms against her breasts, squishing them about my throbbing cock. I marveled at the sensation of her warm malleable flesh enveloping me, her breasts rising and falling with her pressing hands, massaging me with softness as her lips rotated, and her tongue slid down. Wet warmth surrounded me as her chin separated her encasing bosom, her throat taking me easily, her fangs sinking pleasantly into the base of my shaft to inject her erogenous venom, making me harder, filling my synapses with predatory lust, dragging deep into a primal trance. Then, it was there, perfect as could be, right in the center of my mind. I let the image flow from my cognizance and into the world, and the pet fox Gloria desired glowed an ethereal blue, and materialized before us. It gave us each a confused look, and then padded to the corner, and curled into a ball.

“A deal’s a deal, Gloria,” I smirked, petting her hair.

“So, it is,” Gloria’s low, sultry voice sang out, her half-mast eyes telling me she was ready for anything, “well done. How do you want me?”

“I want you…” I said, teasing her lips with a thumb, and smiling as she sucked it, “…to help me get into The Screeching Siren to contact Angela.”

Gloria’s seductive gaze narrowed to slits, her playful smirk thinned to a frown, and her grip on my cock grew a little too tight.

“You said anything!” I exclaimed.

“I meant scat-play or something,” Gloria growled. “I didn’t mean assist you with your suicide!”

“Am I not your god?!” I yelled, my pitch a little too high as Gloria’s grip grew tighter. She somehow managed to narrow her eyes even more. Her nose wrinkled in a sneer with her curling lip, and then she sighed, and released me.

“Yes,” she mumbled begrudgingly, “you are.”

“So, you’ll help me?” I asked. Gloria bit her lip, a shining fang protruding threateningly. She nodded, and I smiled. I can’t believe that worked.

“Don’t be too pleased with yourself, Your Holiness,” Gloria said, retightening her grip around my cock. “The tradeoff is that now, I get to do whatever I want to you.”

“I don’t remember making that deal!” I squeaked as Gloria wetted two fingers between her sucking lips.

“I don’t give a shit,” she smiled cruelly, spreading my ass-cheeks open with a splayed hand as she slid her sheened fingers down my taint.

“I am your god!” I said, struggling helplessly, “and I demand you to—”

“You’re my bitch,” Gloria sneered, arousal and malevolence mixing in red eyes, “now moan like one.”

It wasn’t very hard for Gloria to make me her bitch. She pushed her middle and ring fingers against the tight aperture of my sphincter, smirked at me a final time, and then drove both digits to the bottom knuckle, and that was it; I was her little bitch. Her elegant penetrators slid through the tight channel of my backdoor, curled against my prostate, and massaged me slowly, maliciously, making me moan like a little man-slut and thrust pathetically into the air.

“Look at you,” Gloria whispered, her eyes brimming with lustful control, “a divinity of infinite power, reduced to a whimpering anal whore with just two fingers. Tera’s not here to save you now, little brother.”

“Don’t start that shit again!” I groaned, rocking on my heels without meaning to. Gloria’s fingers moved in and out gradually, making me feel every curve of her knuckles, and every line of her prints. She stretched me out gently, and pressed tenderly against my internal organ, moving back and forth until it twitched with sporadic pleasure, forcing my cock to pulse with tortuous need, spurts of cum leaking down the shaft in milky rivulets.

“Oh, you don’t like incest-play?” Gloria cooed softly, reveling in her power, stroking me possessively with her other hand. “Because I know you do, Your Holiness; I know you love the idea of plowing into your innocent, twin sister. Can you imagine what Willowbud is doing to her now? She might not be so innocent when you meet her. She might be an anal slut just like her beloved brother.”

“Shut up!” I yelled, though I couldn’t stop myself from moaning it through trembling lips, I couldn’t stop myself from shifting and thrusting in the air, I couldn’t stop myself from clenching around Gloria’s penetrating fingers.

“Did that upset you?” Gloria laughed, “I’m sorry, Your Holiness; I’ll be a gentle mistress now. You just do what I tell you, and I’ll make everything better.”

Gloria slid her body upward, arching her back, looming over me with a twisted grin corrupting her lush lips. She turned around and straddled me, displaying her leaking slit between fishnet-clad thighs of pale succulence, and the tight pink spokes of her winking anus. The supple domes of her backside neared me, rotating teasingly with the rotation of her penetrating digits, her body defiling me in congruence. Her cheeks enveloped my face, and my nose was filled with the tang of her intoxicating femininity. My lips pressed to her taint, and her lips pressed to my tip. I let myself relax beneath her, give in to her, become hers completely. She bent her penetrating fingers at the middle knuckle, pressing her joints into my sensitive flesh as her fingertips pushed against my prostate, causing my cock to engorge to agonizing levels. I groaned pathetically, my hips thrusting weakly, my hands gripping the fatty domes that filled my vision, and spreading.

My tongue circled her pink spokes, tasting the delicious sin of her wrong hole. She encouraged me to continue with a deepening of her penetration, and I wrapped my lips around the twitching center of her rim, and pushed my tongue between them. She opened up to me with the uncoiling resistance I desired, and her delicious filthy flavor filled my mouth, encasing my tongue on all sides in tender wet flesh which pulsed faintly with the fluttering cadence of her heart. Her pussy leaked its approving nectar onto my chin, and I placated it with caressing fingers, marveling how my digits wettened through her delicate petals. Her lips finally rewarded me for my subservience, and my gothic mistress consumed me in a gurgling dive. Her nose pressed into the loose flesh of my sack, and she smelled me indulgently, wafting in the scent of my loins, milking my hormones from my massaged prostate. Her throat swallowed continuously, her fangs bit me painlessly, and she fed with deep slurps, never relenting my shaft, just sucking and swallowing with it nestled into her gullet. I sucked her rim into a swollen circle and pushed deeper with my tongue, exploring her tight reaches with brazen curiosity, searching for the spot that would drop her pelvis like a hammer to an anvil. I found it, and she reacted beautifully. I could practically feel her eyes rolling into her head as her ass tried to swallow my face.

Her thighs pressed against the sides of my head, trapping in me in a delightful pillow of pale fat. She shifted her hips upward, satisfied with my work, and beckoned me to continue lower. I pulled my tongue and lips from her ass, now sheened with my spit and slightly swollen with my sucks, and left her momentarily vacant. She expressed her disapproval with a sharp twisting of her fingers, causing me to lurch upward and almost blow my entire being into her continuously-swallowing throat. I apologized with a passionate kiss upon her taint, tasting the mixture of her two holes, and I corrected my mistake by pushing two fingers from each hand into her wetted rim, and stretching her open. She hummed around my cock and rotated her lips about my base, rewarding me for doing what she desired as her body relaxed in satisfaction atop mine.

My nose dragged along the convulsing stretch of her taint as my lips found the frothing slit beneath it. I ran my tongue through the tender length of her lower lips, their petals giving way to me and releasing the reservoir of need that dribbled down my chin. I tasted the sweet syrup of her desire, and took her reddened folds into my mouth, sucking gently as my tongue slid against her ceiling, seeking out her weak spot. I found it easily enough, as Gloria’s thighs tried to tear my head off, and I zeroed in on it, tortured it mercilessly, sliding my wet invading member across its length without reprieve. The middle and ring fingers of both my hands began methodically stretching my mistress’s anus gaping, sending convulsions down her fleshy internal division as my tongue worked the vampire into a writhe of shifting hips and a gyrating abdomen. She reciprocated by moving her penetrating fingers in and out, never pulling all the way, but dragging them along the stretch of my internal organ, causing it to convulse and pulse with imminent release.

Her mouth moved passionately along me, sucking with squelching tightness, her lips stretching from her face and her cheeks growing gaunt. She hummed around me, the tenor of her voice growing in pitch with each motion of my tongue, each knuckle of my fingers, and each inch of her expanding gape. I began to thrust chaotically into her, unable to control my masculine instincts, compelled like a puppet by her invading digits. She took me all the way into her throat, her voice carrying her gagging euphoria, her free hand pushing me upward by the glutes, trapping me into her mouth. Her pussy began to spurt and twitch against my lips, her anus began to wink and clench around my fingers, her abdomen began to ripple with her ascension. I growled into her depths and she screamed around my throat, and the boiling of my loins accompanied the churning of her nethers. We stiffened against one another, our muffled voices screeching our ascension, and we exploded our release into each other’s mouths. I felt my prostate empty in felicitous relief as I erupted down my mistress’s throat, and I tasted the flood of her climax as it filled my mouth and cascaded from my lips. We hummed mutual tones of delight with our bodies writhing in the final motions of our lust, and then relaxed languidly in a heap of sweat and satisfaction.

“You did it again,” Gloria laughed, her voice punctuated by breathy expulsions.

“What?” I asked as her ass left my face, strings of her sticky nectar snapping from my lips. I looked around, and saw that I had once again, turned Gloria’s room into a garden. Vines, stalks, flowers and vegetables littered the floor, and in the middle of it all, stood a perfect, very confused-looking buck.

“Wow,” I said, marveling at the majestic creature I had formed from nothing, “look at that!”

“He’s beautiful,” Gloria smiled back at me, languidly pulling herself from my body. She stepped cautiously toward the animal, her hand outstretched, her gait careful and unthreatening. She placed a gentle palm on its flank and pet it, her black hair tumbling behind her as she gazed wondrously into its proud face. The deer closed its eyes and bent demurely for the vampire, and she grabbed it swiftly by the antlers, and snapped its neck in less than a second.

“What the fuck!” I yelled angrily.

“I thought you’d made me dinner, Your Holiness,” Gloria smiled with faux-innocence as she guided the dead animal to the floor. “Did I misinterpret your intention? I’m sorry.”

“Why did you do that?!” I exclaimed.

“Would you prefer that I hunt instead?” Gloria asked as she ran her fingers along the buck’s neck, searching for the vein. “Would you like me to lure unsuspecting men and women back to my abode, and watch as I drain them of life? It’s a little kinky, but if that’s what Your Holiness wants of me…”

“No,” I said, gulping. I’d forgotten what Gloria was, and I had the nagging feeling that were I not a Creator, I would be lunch (more-so than I already was).

“I didn’t think so,” Gloria smiled as she lowered her fangs to the buck’s throat. There was something oddly alluring about watching her feed. Her pupils dilated until her crimson eyes were nearly black, her elegant neck tensed as it swallowed, and her fingers pet the corpse covetously, almost tenderly, as she drank. Within minutes, the beast had shriveled, and Gloria was renewed with youth, flush and full. I glanced from the dead carcass, to the rejuvenated immortal, and an idea formed.

“Hey Gloria, why can’t I just tether Angela to her new body?”

“Because that’s not how tethering works.”

“Tethering is tying someone to an idea they have a great affinity for.” I patted my bare chest. “What do we have more affinity for than our own bodies?”

Gloria held up a delaying finger, then stepped carefully through the garden and to a bookshelf. She paused when she got there, and turned to me.

“Brandon, is there any chance in the world you’ve ever heard of a book called ‘The Broken Bridge?'”

“No.”

“I don’t know why I asked,” Gloria scowled at her numerous books. “Still, you never know what might pop-up in a cow-town antique shop.”

“Is it important?”

“It’s likely the most important book in the world,” she muttered, running her fingers down the spines of her library. “Maybe even more important than the Maternal Bible. The man who wrote it was a genius of his time, revered even by Furok and Droktin. His research was said to have shaken the very foundations of reality, and that is likely why the book is lost forever. What I have here is a great collection of knowledge, but there are so many gaps in it, and that one book fills them all.” She sighed, selected a large tome from her shelf, then walked to me, and parked her naked fat ass in my lap.

“Still, what this encyclopedia should answer your question. There are three known connections between the planes,” Gloria explained, showing me a diagram. “The first connection between planes is binding, which happens between the body, mind and soul of a Creator and their partner. Tethering happens between the body, mind and soul of an individual. Your body is not of the astral plane, Brandon; it your vessel of the physical plane. For the tether to work, your mind must identify so strongly with something in the physical plane that your soul can be attached to its idea in the astral plane. The soul attaches to the idea, and the idea attaches to its physical manifestation. The Tethered One named ‘Honor’ was a woman I knew once. She was Furok and Halok’s sister, a zealot of the orc empire, so devoted to its progress that she never took a man, never had a child, never did anything at all but advance her perception of the empire. Furok made her the eternal guardian of Droktinar, and so she stays there to this day, protecting the last piece of the old orc empire.” Gloria looked up at me. “Tethered Ones are not sane, Brandon. Immortal dedication to an idea requires much more than a passing fancy.”

“Oh,” I sighed. “Well, what about the third connection?”

“That is the connection from mind to mind,” Gloria said, and closed the book. “That is called ‘melding,’ and there is only one thing that does it.”

TERA

I could cut her throat right now, I thought as I watched Willowbud’s naked chest rise and fall with her sleeping breaths. It would be so easy.

The morning sun shined a dusty beam through the window, bathing the four of us in a gentle glow. Astrid shifted noisily across the bed, her feathered wings acting as a blanket for her mistress and her new succubus peers. She nestled her naked body against my daughter, and Justina smiled in her sleep, and scooched deeper into the valkyrie’s embrace.

She almost looks like herself right now, I thought grimly as I watched my daughter, but once she opens her eyes, it’s not her. It’s either Angela, or a mindless whore, but not my Justina. I glanced up at Willowbud. And that’s why she feels so safe with me; the arrogant bitch is lording her control over me, daring me to do something. She knows I won’t; she knows she has me.

“Good morning, Tera,” Willowbud said, her eyes still closed. “Thinking about slitting my throat?”

“Are you a mind-reader now?” I laughed humorlessly.

“I kind of am, actually, but it doesn’t take much conjecture to know what you’re thinking,” Willowbud smiled sleepily, eyes opening to slits. “But I’m patient; you’ll come around to my side eventually.”

“As long as my daughter is your slave,” I said, shifting against my niece, pressing my naked body to hers, “I’ll always want to kill you.”

“Angela isn’t affected by my slavery,” Willowbud said, turning her body over, pressing her flaccid cock against my inner thigh, “you still have half your daughter.”

I didn’t answer her. I didn’t know how long Angela could keep up the façade, but every time Willowbud mentioned her to me, her black eyes twinkled as if she knew I was hiding something.

“Astrid needs to be punished for letting that girl go in the arena yesterday,” Willowbud smiled, brushing my hair from my eyes. “I’d like you to be her torturer today.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked, unable to stop myself from pressing deeper into her, unable to resist the touch of her lust. I hated myself for loving how good she felt inside of me.

“Because I asked you to,” Willowbud said softly, touching me so possessively, knowing she had me hinging on the very tips of her fingers, “and because I want to see how sadistic a five-hundred-year-old seductress can be.”

“Maybe you should take her place,” I smirked, running a thumb over her lush lips, “then you could know for yourself.”

“I don’t doubt that you’d have me begging in my own filth,” Willowbud chuckled, “but that’s not really my thing.”

“And what is your thing?” I asked, crossing my bronze thigh over her caramel leg, bringing our crotches together.

“I like to transform people,” Willowbud whispered into my open mouth, her lips brushing against mine, “I like to watch them succumb to their worst selves.”

“And what’s my worst self?” I breathed, my heart fluttering as her cock began to engorge between my legs.
“I don’t know,” Willowbud breathed back, her expirations becoming heavy, her eyes sliding to half-lidded desire, “but I’d love to find out.”

She pulled away from me, sat up, and leapt from the foot of the bed. I gawked at her in disbelief, and she laughed at my disappointment.

“You can show Astrid,” Willowbud chuckled, pulling on a pair of tight-fitting trousers, “when you punish her for our beloved patrons’ entertainment. Wake up, Astrid!”

Astrid stretched and groaned sleepily, expanding her wings and arching her back. She pulled Justina closer to her, and nuzzled her face into my daughter’s neck, closing her eyes tightly like a child who doesn’t want to get out of bed for school. Justina’s eyes opened, and her violet gaze immediately turned to Angela’s blue as consciousness took hold. She scooched her body deeper in Astrid’s naked form, and stubbornly pulled a feathered wing over the both of them.

“Go away, Willowbud!” Angela yelled exhaustedly. “You had us up all night!”

“Please, Mistress,” Astrid groaned, “just give us another hour.”

“Tera’s your mistress today, Astrid,” Willowbud said, pulling on a shirt, “and if you don’t do as she says, I’m sealing your asshole with hot candle wax. Now get up!”

Willowbud lit a cigarette between her lips and walked out of the room, leaving her three captives alone on the bed. Astrid’s wings shifted in a cocoon around Angela and herself, pulling the Life Giver’s dead sister into a protective hold. I supposed Justina looked enough like Willowbud that Astrid liked to pretend it was her before she was melded with Corruption. It was as heartwarming as it was heartbreaking, and it made me incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of abusing her.

“Astrid?” I asked softly, scooching across the bed. Her wings parted slightly, revealing two blue eyes between the feathers.

“Yes… Mistress?” Astrid asked, her voice small.

“Don’t call me that,” I said, putting a gentle hand on her wing, making sure my seductive touch was turned off. The bed we were on was plush and soft, undoubtedly cushioned enough to prevent our voices from vibrating against the stone floor it rested upon. I listened for the sounds of Willowbud making breakfast in the kitchen, and then brought my face close to Astrid and Angela’s.

“Have you guys made any progress with Corruption?” I whispered.

“No,” Angela whispered back, snuggling her head between Astrid’s ample breasts. “I’ve been searching Justina’s memories for books on astral beings, but she doesn’t know much about Sentients.”

I thought about correcting Angela, but I decided against it; the girl didn’t need to know the truth about Corruption, or herself. Not yet.

“When did you see her last?” Astrid asked, petting Justina’s hair from Angela’s face, and embracing the succubus affectionately.

“Just now,” Angela said, smiling up at the valkyrie, “when Willowbud threatened to seal your anus shut; I don’t think she would have said that without Corruption. Astrid, your tits are really comfy.”

“I’m glad you like them,” Astrid smiled warmly back. “Mistress used to put her head there and sleep, before… you know…” she trailed off, her face dropping into one of melancholy. My heart ached just a bit more.

“Astrid,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “I promise that I’ll be gentle with you today. No whips and chains; just you and the crowd. You can do a little dance for them or something.”

“No whips and chains?” Astrid asked, “That’s… that’s nice, I guess. Thank you, Tera.”

Astrid was as naked with her emotions as she was with her body, and she failed miserably at hiding her disappointment. She so badly wanted to retain her status as the honorable winged-warrior, but I was beginning to realize what Willowbud knew all along; there was a reason Astrid Skyborne carried the sword of her people, but had not been made High Guard, and it wasn’t because she wasn’t a good enough fighter. I knew very-well how oaths, codes and family could enslave you, and how chains and shackles could liberate you. Those who reveled in masochistic exhibitionism didn’t do so because they liked the imprisonment of the cage; the cage was freedom. Oh, Astrid Skyborne was a very rare sort of treat, the kind of submissive that dominas would kill for. I giggled endearingly, and cupped her on the cheek.

“Of course,” I smiled into her blue eyes, “I could tie you down and whip you until you piss yourself in front of half the city.”

Astrid bit her lip, an excited smile stretching across her mouth. She would never say she wanted it that way, but she didn’t have to. At this rate, Willowbud would have the Astrid she wanted in no time at all, and I couldn’t say that I didn’t like her better this way. I grinned back. This was going to be fun.

BRANDON

For the better part of last night, Gloria and I had wracked our brains to find a way of contacting Angela without being detected by Willowbud. We eventually decided that the best way to do it, was to simply walk in. I would reprise the role I’d lived my entire life (just some fucking guy), and my near-magical ability to be the most ignorable person on earth would allow me to pose as a patron in Willowbud’s brothel. We stopped in front of the Screeching Siren, and Gloria put her hands on my shoulders and turned me around

“Ok,” Gloria sighed, handing me the astral gemstones, “tell me what you’re going to do.”

“First, I find Justina,” I said, reciting the plan for the tenth time. “I wait for an opportunity, and then approach her when Willowbud is far away.”

“And then?” Gloria asked, handing me a small sack.

“I put these pin cushions under the barstool so that Willowbud can’t hear what I’m saying,” I replied, stuffing the sack of pin cushions in my pocket.

“And then?”

“I tell Angela to get Tera to wear the gemstones as earrings,” I said, picturing the plan in my mind. “I tell her that they’re astral communicators, and I tell her how to use them.”

“And then?” Gloria asked, placing a gemstone in the piercing she’d made behind my left ear, and placing another one in her own.

“I try not to shit myself,” I replied grimly.

“You’ll do fine,” she whispered as she disheveled my hair, unbuttoned my shirt, and unzipped my fly, making me look like a drunk patron. “Just smile stupidly and stagger when you walk, and no one will pay you any heed.”

“And if they do?” I asked. “What happens if Willowbud notices me?”

“Well,” Gloria shrugged, “try shitting yourself; that might get her to leave you alone.”

“You’re very helpful,” I grumbled, feeling my nerves stand on edge.

“I’d love to help you, Your Holiness,” Gloria said, taking wine from a flask and spilling it on my shirt, “but I’m supposed to be dead, and Willowbud might start asking very pointed questions if you’re found walking with a dead woman. You’ve made your bed, now fucking sleep in it. Dumbass.”

Gloria spun me around, gave me an encouraging smack on the ass, and pushed me through the doorway. My ears were immediately assaulted with loud thumping music, the roar of cheers and applause, and the moans and screams of lust. Tera was standing center-stage, her body wrapped in shining black leather with holes cut for her bronze breasts and ass, her onyx hair pulled into a pony tail, one leather-gloved hand holding a whip aloft, the other cupping her ear to encourage the crowd. Behind her, the valkyrie was strapped spread-eagle to a St Andrew’s cross, splaying her naked voluptuous form for all to see. Her wings spread resplendently behind her, contrasting the display of depravity her body was forced into. Tera waited until the crowd was worked into a frenzy, and then raised the whip, and slashed it viciously across Astrid’s breasts. The whip indented the succulent flesh, rippling it, leaving a thin red mark across her nipples. Astrid screamed and arched her back, her arms and legs straining from their binds, her leaking slit telling every witness that she loved the abuse. Her head dropped between her shoulders, sending a tumble of braided blonde hair in front of her face, her back heaving with the fervent breaths of her lust. Tera strutted over to Astrid, her tail wagging behind her, a malevolent smile curved across her purple lips. She grabbed Astrid by the hair, yanked her face upward, and made the Valkyrie lick the whip from handle to tip, which she did with the utmost lechery. I’d always heard that valkyries were noble, dignified creatures, but whatever nobility Astrid once had was long gone. She stared up at Tera with begging eyes, her body arching from the cross, pleading desperately for more. Tera gave it to her. The whip snapped across Astrid’s breasts, abdomen and thighs, creating crisscrossing welts all along her pristine complexion, each crack of the whip accompanied by a scream of pain and delight, and then a trailing whimper that turned into a moan. Tera roped the whip around Astrid’s neck, and then produced a set of clamps, displaying them for the audience. She opened each of the metal contraptions, and smiled cruelly into Astrid’s pleading face as she closed them about her erect nipples, and twisted. Astrid’s head flung back, and a shriek of abject ecstasy sung from her lips, drowning-out the roar of the crowd as they watched her piss an arc of golden lust upon the stage.

I moved my attention from the depravity and slinked through the crowd, hoping that Tera wouldn’t see me, but if she did, that she wouldn’t react. I searched each face, feeling more than a little uncomfortable with the eye-contact of some, until I found who I was looking for.

Justina was sitting at the bar; her petite breasts laid bare, her skirt hiked past her hips, her black hair tossed to one side, her violet eyes rolled up, and her purple lips sucking Willowbud Autumnsong’s cock. So, this was the Earth Former. Willowbud was a nymph with pure-white hair, ivory horns, rich caramel skin, facial features that practically mirrored her cousin’s, and a body of slender femininity—save for the penis that stood erect between her legs. She was a small girl, barely five-feet tall, but there was something intrinsically dangerous about her. It wasn’t just the knowledge that she was a god melded to a Sentient, but her demeanor in general. She watched Justina with slight amusement, and then slid her eyes lazily around the brothel, seeming to assess everything and everyone with a bored glare. Her green irises suddenly connected with mine, and I tore my gaze away, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. I fumbled with my shirt, trying to appear casual, and risked a glance upward. Willowbud wasn’t looking at me any longer, but instead watching the spectacle in the middle of the room. I breathed a sigh of relief, then walked with fake drunkenness to the side of the room, trying to blend into the shadows, waiting for my chance. After a few minutes, the soft sounds of Willowbud’s escalating moans reached my ear, and I watched as her cum dripped from Justina’s mouth, and oozed down her shaft. Justina dutifully licked her master clean, and then swallowed it all, opening her mouth wide so that Willowbud could confirm it. Willowbud smirked at the girl, gave her a possessive kiss on the lips, then pulled up her trousers, hopped off her stool, and disappeared into the crowd. I waited another minute, then took a deep breath, and made my way to the bar.

“Hey blondie,” a soft voice said from behind me, a small hand grabbing my waistband. “I caught you looking, didn’t I?”

Oh, fuck… I froze in place, my body going rigid, my hair standing on edge. I swallowed, and turned slowly around. The Earth Former stared up at me with playfulness glinting in her black eyes, and danger shining from her crooked smirk.

“Sorry,” I managed to mumble, “I just—”

“You’ve just never seen a woman with a cock before,” Willowbud chuckled, sliding her hand around my waistband until it rested above my open fly.

“No,” I gulped, barely keeping my voice from breaking.

“Tell me, blondie,” Willowbud said, her lips quirking, “is it bigger than yours?”

“Do you want to find out?” were the words that somehow came out of my mouth. I assumed those were going to be my last words, and anticipated my violent death, but Willowbud’s eyes only twinkled, and her smirk gaped into an appraising smile.

“Do you know who I am, boy?” she asked, her other hand joining the one holding my waistband.

“Night Eyes,” I said, looking down at her, not daring to blink, “I know who you are.” I know what you are.

“Well, blondie,” Willowbud chuckled, unbuttoning my pants, “I’ve got to see the horse cock you must be packing to match those balls of yours.”

Willowbud pulled my pants down aggressively, and by the glint in her eyes, I guessed I didn’t disappoint. She wrapped a set of cool fingers around my base, and another set below my tip, and watched as it engorged in her hands. She looked up at me, her lush lips creased in a crooked grin.

Well, I thought, my heart thundering in my chest, carpe diem, I guess.

I grabbed Willowbud by the hips, pulled her small body up, and pressed her against the wall. She giggled as my fingers fumbled with her fly, pulled off her belt, and dragged her pants past her knees. Thankfully, Willowbud was not rocking a dong, because I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with it. She was entirely female, and her womanhood was a sweet, tight thing. She gasped as I pushed every inch of myself into her leaking slit, and I groaned as her wet heat surrounded me, clenching on all sides. My pelvis met hers, my tip found her bottom, and we moaned in mutual satisfaction. She fit like a fucking glove.

“Oh shit, blondie,” Willowbud gasped, her breath filling my mouth, “you know how to sling it, don’t you?”

“I know all kinds of things,” I groaned, pulling her shirt off as she raised her arms, exposing her cute breasts and richly-toned abdomen.

“You get around, huh?” Willowbud smiled, unbuttoning my shirt. “I could find a job for you if you want one. A cute thing like you could make me a nice profit.”

“No,” I said through heavy breaths as my chest squished against her breasts, feeling them flatten and deform, their nipples poking into my pecs, “I give it away for free.”

“Then give it to me!” she gasped, and I did. I tangled a hand into her white hair and pulled her into a kiss, pushing my tongue between her open lips as I pushed my cock between her open legs. Her ankles locked together behind me and pressed into my ass, her legs clenching around my waist and pulling me deeper inside. Her tongue wrestled with mine, entangling in lustful combat as her body shifted up and down against the wall. My cock traveled through her slick insides with increasing force, and she coiled her lewdness around me welcomingly. We broke from the kiss in a chorus of panting breaths, staring into each other’s eyes, smiling in shared lust.

“You know,” Willowbud moaned, pressing her hands to the wall behind her for leverage, “you remind me of someone.”

“Guess I’m not the only one who gets around,” I smirked, driving hard between her legs, feeling her thighs jiggling against mine with the force of my thrusts.

“Are you calling me a slut?” Willowbud grinned, her neck striating with tension as a contraction of pleasure tore up her abdomen.

“You’re the easiest fuck I’ve ever had,” I groaned through smiling lips, driving so hard Willowbud was bouncing off the wall.

“I’ve killed people for less, blondie,” Willowbud laughed, breathy moans punctuating her mirth.

“I’m sure you have,” I grinned, watching her face slackening in pleasure, watching her sharp eyes softening in the heat of my passion, “but you’re not going to kill me.”

“And why’s that?” Willowbud moaned, her smile gone, her eyebrows furrowing in concentrative ecstasy, her lips parting to a gaping circle.

“Because I’m too good for you to kill,” I growled, planting both hands onto Willowbud’s caramel-colored ass, and squeezing until my fingers were lost in her succulent meat, “and even though you like pussy, Night Eyes, you’re still just a woman, and nothing beats great dick, does it?”

“Don’t push me, asshole,” Willowbud panted, her tones exerted and rough, her body slickening with sweat. “I can get better than you in a minute.”

“Are you sure?” I breathed into her ear, driving her against the wall, feeling her pussy leaking between her thighs with approval, feeling her insides clench gratefully, feeling her lewd lips grip their fleshy hold around my stretching girth and suck me in with lecherous avarice.

“No,” Willowbud moaned softly, her tone bordering on astonishment, “you’re different.”

I spun us from the wall and laid Willowbud on the table, grabbing her thighs and spreading them wide, letting her rest her heels on my shoulders. She wasn’t just moaning and panting, but crying out now, trying to contain it, but unable to. Sweet tones of feminine vulnerability sung from her lush lips, and her black eyes widened and lolled in their sockets. Her caramel complexion was slick with her sweat and reddened at the cheeks, stomach and neck, straining with the exertion of the pleasure that was taking her. She planted her palms on the table and brought her body upward, lifting her entire back from its surface so that her torso was level with her penetration. She slid her legs under my arms, bent them at the knee, and anchored her heels onto the table’s edge, giving her leverage to thrust back against me. She slammed her pelvis into mine, cries of abject pleasure flowing from her lips with each collision, her hips holding us connected for an indulgent moment; rotating and grinding, wrapping her tight channel around my ruinous girth, savoring the way I stretched her open. I laid my body atop hers and took a nipple into my mouth, drawing her delectable flesh between my lips, feeling her soft breast stretch and deform from the suction. She dropped her head behind her shoulders and moaned a drawn-out whine that escalated with each thrust of my hips, her body lurching beneath me, shifting back and forth about the axis of her straightened arms. I planted a palm onto the table and wrapped a forearm around the small of her back, letting her arms have a reprieve and trapping her body against mine, feeling glistening soft warmth melding into my clenching abdomen. I tenderly sucked the sweet node of her breast as I violently hammered into her, her insides churning with the precursors of her climax.

“Oh fuck, blondie!” Willowbud screamed. “Don’t fucking stop!”

I didn’t. Willowbud’s arms gave out, and we fell onto the table, her knees bending sharply, her calves connecting with her hamstrings. She splayed her bent legs wide, her body beckoning me to violate her, begging me to drive deeper into her sanctity, to breach the precious resistances within. My back flexed and clenched with my raging motions, the table creaked and shook beneath us, a foreboding cadence to Willowbud’s escalating melody. She grabbed my ass and squeezed, pulling me forward, her mouth exalting into my ear, her heart fluttering against my chest. She massaged me with the muscles of her erogeneity; rolling motions that drew me into her, rewarding me for each thrust and fighting me for each retreat. Her reddened petals were glistening with her lustful secretion and stretching from her as I pulled out, her pelvic floor protruding with them, her nethers trying to keep me trapped inside. Her bent legs were quivering in their splayed position, her body was squirming beneath my compressing weight, her lips were expiring fluctuating cries, their intensity increasing as I thrusted. I tangled my hands in her fine white hair, pulled her head back and stared into her eyes, savoring her vulnerable expression, watching as she surrendered to me.

It wasn’t just her that was losing it; she was driving me crazy, making me move with the violence she wanted, making give her every inch I had to give. Our lips connected below our locked gaze, and we exalted the tones of our orgasm into each other’s sucking mouths; muffled tenors that rose to soprano, shrill with passion, desperate with need. We heaved, shifted, screamed, and came. My loins boiled-over with pressure, my balls quaked with pleasure, and I erupted into the Earth Former’s womb and filled her to capacity. She writhed beneath me, assaulted by wave after wave of her crashing climax, her body twisting to every blast of euphoria that raged within her.
I managed to hold-in the blue ethereal light that would have shown from my flesh, but I couldn’t stop everything. I heard a score of wings flapping from the roof as a murder of crows materialized from nowhere. It wasn’t subtle, but I supposed I should’ve been glad a flock of geese didn’t shoot out of my ass. Willowbud was even worse at hiding her pleasured reaction. The entire brothel shook with a shallow earthquake, causing dust to fall from the rafters and soft-hearted patrons to scream.

“Perfect timing,” I chuckled between recovering breaths. Willowbud laughed with me, the glint of a secret in her eyes; a secret I knew all-too well.

“What’s your name, blondie?” Willowbud smiled.

“Brandon,” I said, figuring it wouldn’t matter if she knew.

“Brandon…” she smiled, seeming to test the name in her mouth, “…yeah, you look like a Brandon.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I said, grinning confusedly.

“That’s because you’re blond,” Willowbud smirked, poking my nose. “Don’t let it trouble your wonderful, little mind.”

“You’re blonder than me, Night Eyes,” I grinned, pulling out of her and rolling over, “shit, you’re so blonde it’s not even yellow.”

“It’s actually white hair,” Willowbud said dramatically, trailing her hands through her fine strands, “it shows that I am wise and experienced.”

“Oh, you certainly are experienced.” I muttered. Willowbud gaped her mouth in mock indignation and slapped me playfully. I grabbed her hand before she could deliver another, and forced my face to hers, melting the nymph in my kiss. She resisted for a second, and then gave in; her mouth curving in a smile as it opened against mine. When we parted, her gaze was wrought with intrigue and a hint of wonder. Apparently, not many men had this effect on her, so… yay for me.

“What are you doing tonight, Brandon?” Willowbud asked.

“I was—”

“That was a rhetorical question,” Willowbud interrupted with a chuckle, resting on her side, displaying the rich slender beauty of her soft curves, her big eyes smiling with her lush lips. She was such a harmless thing, looking at me like that. The unknowing viewer would think she was little more than a blossoming woman enamored with a young man, but I knew better. The danger played across her twinkling black eyes, and the threat tainted her otherwise-girlish smile. There was no way to refuse her, and if I was being honest, I didn’t want to. I was going to ask Willowbud out.

“What are you doing tonight?” I asked, playing her game.

“Oh, I’ve got some things…” Willowbud said casually, checking her nails, “…are you a fan of the Pit?”

“I’ve never been,” I lied.

“Well, if you want to tag along,” Willowbud smirked, trailing a finger down my chest, “I guess I’ll pop your cherry.”

ANGELA

The moment I saw Brandon, I leapt into action. I walked Justina off the bar, grabbed a patron, and led him to the closet, hoping he would keep my succubus host occupied for the time I needed. I didn’t know what the fuck my brother was thinking, but he was risking everything by coming here. Didn’t he know the only reason I was staying inside Justina was to keep her from blathering about him to Willowbud? Not only did the dumbass walk right into the tiger’s den, but now he was fucking the goddamn tiger!

I darted out of Justina’s body and hovered behind Brandon’s thrusting back, waiting for the inevitable shit to hit the fan, but it never did. Brandon; my awkward, lanky brother who possessed all the charisma of a cum-sock, was seducing Willowbud. He was throwing out lines I would never have thought of, and working the Earth Former into a frenzy. He’d grown so much since his days of blundering through awkward dates, and now he was having a threesome, though he didn’t know it. I could hardly believe my own eyes.

Brandon wasn’t just fucking Willowbud, but Corruption as well. The Sentient stared into his eyes like a lover, caressing his face with her ethereal fingers, moaning in congruence with her host. She arched her back and exalted her pleasure, her black eyes rolling into her head, her hips twisting about the axis of Brandon’s penetration, moving with a sinuous lechery that was hellish in its perversion. Willowbud was possessed with the pleasure that compelled Corruption, enslaved by the euphoria of her melded parasite. I saw Willowbud show genuine vulnerability for the first time; her body bending to the will of my brother’s, her expression that of surrendered passion, her cries weak and needful. Corruption gave Brandon the key that unlocked Willowbud’s feminine lust, and Brandon turned it for all it was worth. After the two gods orgasmed, both doing passable jobs of hiding their powers, Corruption receded back into Willowbud, her face etched in blissful satisfaction. Willowbud coerced Brandon into asking her out, then they exchanged a final kiss, and went their separate ways; Willowbud to Astrid and Tera, and Brandon to the bar where Justina had been.

“Hey asshole!” I snarled in my brother’s ear, causing him to spin around, eyes growing wide. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Brandon stared at me with mouth agape, a strange expression lingering on his face. I snapped my fingers in front of his eyes, pulling him from his stupor. He held up a delaying hand, reached down, and placed four pin cushions beneath each of the barstool’s feet, muting whoever sat in it from Willowbud’s vibration-detecting hearing. It was smart, which was how I knew he didn’t think of it.

“Why aren’t you inside Justina?” Brandon whispered, trying to appear casual as he ordered a drink.

“I had to ditch her in the closet once I saw you bumping uglies with a psychotic deity!” I growled, sitting next to him even though my ethereal figure couldn’t really ‘sit’ on anything. “Just what in the fuck was that?!”

“An accident,” Brandon whispered, putting money on the bar and ordering a beer, “it wasn’t part of the plan.”

“What plan?” I hissed.

“The plan Gloria and I made.” Brandon said, dropping a pair of earrings on the bar.

“Gloria’s dead,” I replied frankly, but Brandon just shook his head.

“You’re forgetting who you’re talking to,” my brother said with a shit-eating grin, puffing out his chest.

“I’m talking to a fucking dumbass,” I replied, but I couldn’t help but smile back. Brandon’s eyes lingered on me for a bit longer than usual, and then shifted sharply away. That was weird.

“Ok,” I said, ignoring the oddity, “what’s the plan?”

“You need to give these to Tera,” Brandon replied, pointing to the earrings. “They’ll allow her to talk to me without having to speak. All she has to do is think the words like she’s reading them, and I’ll hear them.”

“And then what?” I asked.

“And then… we figure it out, I guess,” Brandon shrugged. “We need to establish a line of communication before we can start anything. I was hoping to remain an anonymous patron, but obviously that’s not going to happen.”

“Willowbud has to free Justina,” I said. “Right now, that is our only goal. Once she does that, she and Tera can escape.”

“That was my thought as well,” Brandon nodded. “What about Corruption? Have you or Astrid made any progress with that?”

“I’m still working on it,” I said, chewing my nonexistent lip. “Once Justina’s free, she and I can go to the royal tomes and do some research on astral beings.”

Brandon’s brow furrowed, his mouth opening like he was going to say something, but instead he just took a swig of beer, and nodded. I turned around, watching Willowbud present Astrid to the crowd, the poor valkyrie covered in welts, but a slutty smile stretched across her face. A procession of eager men walked onto the stage, and Astrid grinned hungrily at each of them before allowing them to take turns inside her, stuffing her holes until every option was filled. Tera played the part of the dominant mistress; abusing Astrid like she wanted, degrading her in front of everyone, making her the object of sex she desired to be, though pretended not to.

“Are you actually going on that date with Willowbud tonight?” I asked Brandon.

“I have to, don’t I?” Brandon replied, nursing his beer. “It wouldn’t be smart to stand her up.”

“I don’t think you should,” I grimaced, not wanting to mention what I saw happen with Corruption lest Brandon lose his shit.

“It could present an opportunity,” Brandon insisted, the stubborn moron that he was. “Maybe I can convince her to free Justina.”

“How?” I scoffed, “With the irresistible prowess of your dick?”

“Maybe,” Brandon grinned, “she seemed pretty happy with it.”

“Brandon…” I said, trying to figure how to say this without freaking him out, “…when you were fucking Willowbud, Corruption was… um… fucking you.”

“What?!”

“I think she’s the reason Willowbud sought you out,” I said, looking over my shoulder at the Earth Former. “I think she’s attracted to you, and I don’t know why, but it can’t be good. You can’t go on that date.”

I’d hoped that Brandon would realize the gravity of the situation, but my hopes were in vain. His face grew ashen with momentary fear, and then his brazen stupid arrogance came roaring back, and he puffed out his chest in a display of inflated bluster.

“Goddamn, I’m good,” Brandon grinned, “a god and a Sentient, both seduced by my mighty girth. Maybe I’ll get Willowbud to erect a hundred-foot statue of it in my honor; it would be close to scale.”

“I fucking hate you,” I giggled. Brandon’s grin broadened, and I swore he stole a glance at my chest. I must’ve imagined it.

“I wouldn’t worry about Willowbud,” Brandon said, stretching his back and yawning his words with casual arrogance, “she probably just thinks I’m nothing more than a good lay, and if I’m being honest, she was pretty great herself. For a woman who walks around packing heat most of the time, she sure knows how to—”

“Stop,” I said holding up a hand, “I’ve been inside enslaved-Justina for the past three days now, and am quite familiar with the things Willowbud knows how to do.”

“Do you… like the things she does?” Brandon asked, eyebrows raised suggestively.

“Justina does,” I shrugged, “which means I do when I’m in her head. As long as I let her be in control during the act, I can enjoy it without participating.”

Brandon frowned at that, a reaction I found rather strange. Did he want me to dislike the things Willowbud was doing to Justina? And why was he stealing weird glances at me?

“I better get going,” Brandon said, finishing his beer and hiding the earrings under a napkin. “Gloria’s probably losing her mind right now. Make sure Tera puts these on, Angela.”

“I will,” I said, and then put my hand on Brandon’s shoulder, grimacing as it passed through it. I’d been so used to living in Justina’s body that I’d forgotten I was basically nothing at all.

“What?” Brandon asked, looking awkwardly at the hand that didn’t touch him. What is wrong with him?

“It was nice to see you,” I smiled. Brandon smiled back, the awkwardness leaving him. We said our goodbyes, and then he hopped off the stool, collected the pin cushions, and left The Screeching Siren.

WILLOWBUD

I didn’t know why I felt how I did. Being melded with Corruption meant I never had romantic interests, but apparently, Corruption made an exception for Brandon. I couldn’t remember the last time I put on makeup, or wore a dress, or shaved my pubes, but here I was; doing all three. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt butterflies, but there they were. I told myself it was stupid, I told myself to let it go, but Corruption’s emotional negligence wasn’t there to stop me from feeling it. Why does she want me to like Brandon? What the fuck is it about him?

“You can see Corruption,” I said to Angela’s reflection as I finished applying white lipstick to my mouth, “what is she doing right now?”

I affixed an image of Brandon in my mind, and glanced over at the blue-eyed half of Justina.

“Adjusting her tits in the mirror,” Angela said, cocking her head, “like you are right now.”

“Why?” I asked, slightly exasperated as I stuffed my slender form into a tight-fitting white dress, its color matching the sheen of my lips and the hue of my hair while contrasting my caramel complexion.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Angela said, shaking her head in bewilderment.

“How can you trust him, Mistress?” Astrid asked from Angela’s other side, unable to conceal her jealousy. Astrid was lucky if she got to suck my unwashed cock, and here I was, preening for a complete stranger. I’d make sure to milk this for all it was worth.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I smirked at the valkyrie, “there’s just something about him. He’s so brave, and honorable. He seems like the type of man who would never break a vow no matter who told him to. You know; the type of man you can trust.”

Astrid seethed silently behind me, her face turning red. God, she was easy to manipulate. Tera gave me a withering look in the mirror, and put a consoling hand on the valkyrie’s armored shoulder.

“Don’t listen to her,” Tera said to Astrid, trying to pull the valkyrie away, “c’mon, let’s go get ready for tonight. We need to practice that maneuver and—”

Astrid grabbed Tera by the hair, pulled it back violently, and pressed the shocked succubus into a heated kiss. Tera managed to stem her natural seduction before she enslaved Astrid, and then melted willingly into the embrace; her head tilting to reciprocate, her onyx hair falling behind her, her naked breasts squishing into Astrid’s chest. Astrid wasn’t sharing in the succubus’s revelry. Her blue eyes stared daggers at me as her hand gripped Tera’s supple bronze glute and spread it wide, her other hand sliding middle-finger-first down the succubus’s crack. She picked Tera up like a bowling ball, and then walked away; Tera’s excited legs wrapping around Astrid’s waist as they disappeared around the corner, sounds of their wet lust dwindling until they were muted by the slamming of a bedroom door.

“I think Astrid might be trying to tell you something,” Angela said, trying to stifle her laughter, “but I don’t know what; she’s just so subtle.”

I smiled, putting hooped earrings of white-gold into my lobes. “She’s coming along nicely.”

BRANDON

“You are the dumbest mother fucker I have ever met,” Gloria growled as she dragged me down the street.

“She’s right.” Tera’s voice spoke from the gemstone in my ear, “What were you thinking?!”

“What was I supposed to do?” I hissed to both women, “Say no?”

“You could’ve just shit yourself like the retard you are,” Gloria snarled as she hustled me through alleyways, “but instead, you did something even dumber; you fucked her.”

“It’s Corruption that wants you,” Tera said, “even Willowbud knows that. Why, do you suppose, is Corruption so interested in you?”

“I wonder…” Gloria sneered sarcastically, “…maybe it’s because he’s so good at shoveling pig shit?”

“Maybe it’s because his dick is just that great?” Tera teased.

“Or maybe,” Gloria said, pinning me against a wall, “it’s because you’re the fucking Life Giver.”

“Corruption is the spawn of a past Life Giver,” Tera said, her voice sounding exhausted in my ear, “she can sense exactly what you are. She knows to some degree what Angela is, and I fear it won’t take long before Willowbud starts figuring stuff out for herself.”

“You might as well have stuck your dick in a bear trap, Your Holiness,” Gloria sighed. “Why do you think Corruption wants you and Willowbud together?”

“Maybe she’s a romantic?” Tera teased again.

“Maybe she has daddy issues?” Gloria chided along.

“Or maybe,” Tera sighed, “she wants to bind two gods together, with her as the glue that melds them.”

“Is the picture becoming clearer, Your Holiness?” Gloria asked, her wrathful red eyes narrowing.

“Angela didn’t seem too worried about it,” I said defensively, holding up my hands, “and she was the one who saw it, so… maybe you two are overreacting?”

“Angela doesn’t know what she is,” Tera said. “I’ve been keeping that secret for her own benefit. If she knew about the connection between Life Givers and Sentients, she’d probably be reaming you worse than Gloria.”

“Can gods even bind?” I asked nervously, not liking at all how Gloria was looking at me.

“It’s never happened before,” Gloria said, “but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

“There’s no record of a Sentient-melded Creator either,” Tera added, “but here we are.”

“Corruption has an agenda,” Gloria said, “and that agenda involves you binding with Willowbud while she’s melded with her. Gods only knows what would happen if a Creator becomes bound while a Sentient is melded, but add another Creator to the mix? It could be a catastrophe.”

“Apocalyptic,” Tera added helpfully.

“So…” I said, no longer sure if Gloria’s religion would keep her from eating me, “…I should not go on that date tonight.”

“You have to,” Tera said. “I don’t want to think about how Willowbud would react if you stood her up.”

“She’d probably demolish half the city,” Gloria said, looking me over with disgust written across her face, “or maybe she’d just laugh it off; who knows?”

“She’s as unpredictable as they come; didn’t your dad ever tell you not to stick your dick in crazy?”

“My dad told me to quit masturbating or he’d beat me with a garden hose,” I gulped. “We never really talked about the birds and the bees.”

Gloria stared long and hard at me for an agonizing moment, and then burst into hysterical laughter. She sobbed her mirth into my chest as her fist pounded painfully against it. I stood pinned to the wall, more terrified by her merriment than I’d ever been of her anger. When she was done, she let out a long sigh, took me by the arm, and guided me down the street.

“C’mon, you wonderful, holy dipshit,” she chuckled, “let’s get you ready for your date.”

TERA

“Do you think I’m pretty?” Astrid asked. I stared dumbly at her as she sharpened her blade, the roar of the crowd raging around our dugout.

“You’re beautiful, you know that,” I said, fairly certain that vanity was against Iona codes. She looked at her reflection in the blade, scrutinizing every self-perceived imperfection.

“Do you think I’m good in bed?” Astrid asked, staring hopelessly up at me.

“You’re fantastic,” I smiled, “one of the best I’ve had, and I’ve had all kinds.”

It didn’t make her feel any better. She stared back at her reflection, angling her face this way and that, her frown deepening with every pass of the weapon.

“Don’t let Brandon get you down,” I said, trying to console her. “He’s a nobody, and Willowbud will forget about him in a day.”

“It’s Corruption that likes him,” Astrid spat, “and Mistress goes where Corruption goes.”

“Then you should go the opposite,” I said, leaning forward. “Once you free Willowbud of Corruption, she’ll love you because you stayed true to yourself.”

“If I free Mistress of Corruption,” Astrid said darkly, staring at me from beneath her brow, “if.”

“Don’t lose hope,” I said. “Angela is working on a solution.”

“Angela is just the insane half of your daughter,” Astrid said grumpily, “and being clairvoyant doesn’t mean you can act upon what you see.”

I might’ve told Astrid the truth if I didn’t think she’d deliver it right to Willowbud the moment our mistress put the pressure on. Instead, I bit my tongue.

“Maybe I should become the woman Mistress wants me to be,” Astrid whispered. “Why should I keep clinging to my oaths when they give me nothing but heartache and pain?”

“Because they’re who you are,” I said, touching her knee, “don’t let Corruption take that away from you.”
“Mistress doesn’t love who I am,” Astrid whimpered, tears filming her eyes. “I need to be someone else.”

“Do you love Mistress, or Willowbud?” I asked pointedly. “Because they are not the same.”

Astrid worked her mouth, her lip trembling, a single tear staining her flushed cheek. She wiped it away, and smiled up at me. “Willowbud,” Astrid whispered, the name seemingly reverent on her tongue, “I love Willowbud.”

“And she loves you,” I said consolingly, rubbing my hand along her thigh, keeping my seduction from my touch. “She’s still in there, somewhere, waiting to come out. Don’t lose hope, Astrid. If you lose hope, then you’ll lose her; you’re the only one who can save her.”

Astrid nodded, her expression brightening, her posture straightening. She wiped the remnants of grief from her face, and went back to sharpening her blade, grinding stone to metal with renewed vigor.

“I hope you’re date’s going just great, Brandon,” I thought to the Life Giver. “Because of you, I have to play therapist before a fucking gladiatorial match.”

Brandon didn’t respond; he’d pulled out his earring.

WILLOWBUD

I guessed Brandon was handsome. He was blond-haired, pale-skinned, freckled, had good bone structure, muscle in the right places, oddly-familiar blue eyes, but there wasn’t anything specific that I could point to and say, “that’s why I’m dating him.” I was just… drawn to him, or rather, Corruption was. It was an intriguing mystery, but I wasn’t one to question my desires. Corruption’s meld meant that I did as I pleased without worrying about consequences, so I had stopped questioning them after my moment of crisis. I wanted Brandon, so I’d taken him. It was obvious that he wanted me, and why wouldn’t he? I’d made myself all nice and pretty for him, and my white-sheened lipstick screamed ‘I suck dick.’

“There they are,” I smiled as Astrid and Tera climbed from the dugout to the roar of the crowd. Astrid marched across the field like a woman on a mission, Tera barely keeping up behind her. Across the arena, seven heavily-armed and armored orcs stood in an inverted crescent, undoubtedly trying to mitigate Astrid’s ability to hit them one at a time. Behind the crescent, stood a massive twelve-foot troll. The bigger they are…

“Have you ever killed a man?” I asked Brandon, my head resting on his shoulder, my hand resting on his thigh.

“That’s an interesting conversation-starter,” Brandon smirked down at me.

“I think it is,” I smiled back.

“No,” Brandon said, pulling me closer into the crook of his arm, “but I guess that makes one of us.”

“Does it bother you that I’m a murderer?” I asked him, not sure why I liked the feeling of his protective arm around me; I never needed, nor wanted a protector before.

“If it did, then I wouldn’t have come here,” Brandon replied, his blue eyes staring affectionately down at me. There was an innocence behind those eyes, but not a vulnerability. He wasn’t a part of the violent ruthless world I was, but he wasn’t weak. What is it about him?

“Who are you, really?” I asked, unable to keep myself from staring up at him with puppy-eyes. It would have been embarrassing, if I could feel embarrassment.

“What do you mean?” he asked, smiling a clueless smile. It was adorable.

“I can usually read people like a book,” I said. “I can take one look at them, and see everything I need to know; what they want, where they’re from, where they’re going, but you’re a mystery to me.”

“You’re quite perceptive,” Brandon chuckled, his thumb caressing me gently on the shoulder, “what can you tell me about him?” Brandon inclined his head to a man sitting in the luxury box next to us. I glanced at him, and Corruption’s eyes saw all they needed to see.

“He’s a rich man with a bad marriage,” I said, snuggling my head onto Brandon’s chest. “His kids use him for money, his wife sleeps around, and that woman on his arm is an escort. His desires border on the mundane; power, women, wealth. He’s a bore.”

“What about her?” Brandon asked, pointing to the woman in the box on our other side.

“Hmm,” I said, eyes running over the elderly, statuesque high-elf, “she’s a self-made woman with ruthless ambition.”

“Like you?” Brandon asked.

“No,” I smiled up at him, “she’s a mogul dead-set on carving a legacy for herself, with her name plastered on buildings across Drastin. I don’t give a shit about my legacy; it’s my reputation I care about.”

The starting horn sounded, and Astrid charged across the arena with Tera on her back. She bolted right into the middle of the inverted crescent, took off the middle-orc’s head, and launched Tera at the troll. The naked succubus flipped through the air, dove head-first between the troll’s clasping hands, and drove both of her daggers into the beast’s eyes. The blinded behemoth reeled back, swiping desperately at his face, but the nimble succubus was too quick. She caught one of the troll’s bullhorns, swung precariously from a mighty swipe, caught the other horn, and then reeled back like an acrobat on a trapeze, swung feet-first, and drove her heels into the butts of her daggers, sending the blades deep into the monster’s skull. The troll lolled forward, droning a deep, guttural tone, and then collapsed onto its back in an earth-shaking impact.

Astrid moved with sweeping, continuous motions, each strike flowing into the next, a relentless dance of death. The orcs surrounded her, attacked her on all sides, and she parried them with ease, dodged as though the fight were choreographed, and even toyed with a few of them. She ducked beneath a swing, sliced off a leg, rolled backward, impaled a chin, landed in a crouch, and then shot forward, her wings unfurling, her body corkscrewing through the air in a vortex of feathers and steel. She sheared through two orcs, sliced another in half, caught an attack behind her back without looking, kicked the orc in front of her, spun around, disemboweled the beast who had attempted the backstab, and then decapitated the final opponent with a spinning slice. The screams of the de-legged orc were barely audible over the roar of the crowd, and the ending horn sounded fifty seconds after the starting horn had blared.

Astrid raised her sword aloft, prompting sixty-thousand fists to raise with her, punctuated by the chants for ‘Angel.’ Beneath her, the surviving orc she’d dismembered clawed at the sand, squirming to get away, and the chants for ‘kill’ began to rumble. Astrid didn’t hesitate. She moved above the wounded creature and dispatched it without mercy or passion, watching me coldly as she did it. The execution was accompanied by a roar of approval, but I felt she could’ve done it with a bit more flare. It wasn’t just death that the crowd loved, but the way it was delivered. Showmanship was as important as lethality, but Astrid didn’t enjoy murder enough to make a spectacle of it; not yet. She did, however, know exactly how to work a crowd in other ways. When Tera came to join her victorious partner, Astrid didn’t raise their hands in triumphant unity as she did before. No, Astrid grabbed the succubus by the waist, and embraced her into a passionate kiss; dipping Tera almost to the ground and pulling her bronze leg into a lecherous bend. The crowd screamed their delight, and I grinned; that would make the papers tomorrow. My brothel would be spilling onto the streets with new patrons and eager fans trying to catch a glimpse of the depravity whilst trying to get an autograph. Well done, Astrid.

“Did you enjoy the show?” I asked Brandon, an odd sense of… worry? Was I worried that he didn’t like it? Why did I give a shit?

“It was a bit gruesome,” Brandon grimaced, and then looked down with a quirked smile, “but it certainly was entertaining.”

“Good,” I grinned, feeling a pathetic wave of relief and joy. He pulled me closer into his arms, and I found myself nestling deeper to his body, not looking for lust, but for comfort; physically and emotionally. Something was wrong with Corruption; I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. I wasn’t supposed to want this. I wasn’t supposed to care.

“What are you?” I whispered into his chest, enjoying the thumping of his heart against my cheek.

“What was that?” Brandon asked, his calloused hand running softly through my white hair.

“Tell me truthfully, Brandon,” I said, looking up into his eyes, his disconcertingly-familiar eyes, “did you come on this date with me because you were afraid of what I’d do if you didn’t?”

“That was half the reason,” Brandon smiled, his thumb brushing white bangs from my face, and pulling the strands behind my horn.

“And what’s the other reason?” I asked, feeling anxiety tugging at my chest; anxiety I shouldn’t have been feeling.

“I like you,” Brandon said, his hand trailing over my cheek, “you excite me.”

“You excite me too,” I giggled girlishly (holy shit, I’m fawning over him), “but I don’t know why; you don’t seem very interesting.”

“I’m not sure how to take that,” Brandon grinned his stupid, adorable, grin. I felt my heart flutter with exhilaration and my stomach grow light with primitive happiness. This is getting out of hand, I thought. I should just kill him before this goes further.

“Do you want to come back to my place?” I asked instead, eyes brimming up at him, full of promise. “You can meet Death Kiss and Angel. Would you like that?”

“I don’t know…” Brandon frowned, “…celebrities are never as cool as they seem in the papers.”

“By ‘meet’ I meant ‘fuck,'” I whispered into his mouth, my hand running up his thigh, my grip widening as it moved over what I wanted, “do you want to fuck Death Kiss and Angel?”

“I want you,” Brandon grinned, pulling me atop him by the ass, my ascension accompanied by a chorus of pathetic giggles, “but I suppose we can make it a foursome.”

TERA

“Gloria,” I said mentally as I sat next to Astrid in the carriage, trying to keep her calm as she watched Brandon and Willowbud sloppily making out across from us, “we’ve got a problem.”

“Let me guess,” Gloria sighed, “it involves Brandon thinking with the head between his legs.”

“You are as wise as you are beautiful,” I replied grimly. “I really don’t like the look of this.”

“Why isn’t Brandon responding?” Gloria growled on the other end.

“He took the gemstone out of his ear.”

“He what?!”

“He told me, and I quote, ‘Angela used to talk over my shoulder during dates, and it always ended with a drink getting thrown in my face. I don’t need any more crazy bitches giving me romantic advice.'”

“He does know that he isn’t trying to be in a relationship with Willowbud, right?!” Gloria said, clearly exasperated.

“I’m not so sure,” I frowned, watching the two gods staring longingly into each other’s eyes, “I don’t think he is either.”

“Oh, shit,” Gloria groaned. “What are you doing now?”

“Well,” I said, squeezing Astrid’s hand tighter as I felt her seething next to me, “we’re about to have an orgy.”

“Great,” Gloria sighed, “maybe you can fuck some sense into him.”

“I don’t know,” I replied grimly, “I think Willowbud and Corruption might be fucking all the sense out of him.”

Gloria said her reluctant goodbyes, and then the line went dead. I looked up at Astrid, frowning at her worsening rage. Her honor was dwindling by the day, and with it, her rationality. There were times when I liked her unpredictability, but gambling with Brandon’s life wasn’t one of them. The two of them would have to find common ground if the Life Giver and the Earth Former were going to continue this disastrous courtship.

ASTRID

“Anything that boy tries to stick in me, I am snapping off!” I growled as I washed off grime, dirt and blood in the shower with Tera.

“I’m sure Willowbud will appreciate that,” Tera sighed, drying her bronze body off. “You know she can hear you, right?”

“I hope she’s listening,” I said darkly as I turned the shower off, ringing out my braids onto the tiled floor, “then maybe she’ll think twice about letting that idiot touch me.”

“You let half the city fuck you publicly,” Tera said, tossing her wavy onyx hair in the mirror and checking-over her beautiful form, “but one man in private is too much for you?”

“It’s not the same!” I cried, stomping over to the mirror and vainly making sure everything was in order. “When Mistress is punishing me, she’s doing it for me, not for the men taking me. Here, she’s giving me away like a gift!”

“If you try to hurt him,” Tera said calmly, taking out earrings I hadn’t seen her wearing before. “I’ll have to enslave you, and then you’ll be doing everything Brandon wants anyway.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” I hissed.

“I would,” Tera smiled, turning around and leaning back on the sink, displaying her body to me, “and you know it.”

I seethed for a second longer, and then sighed, and smiled ruefully back.

“The best you can do,” Tera said, taking my hand, and guiding me out of the bathroom, “is fuck Brandon with a scowl on your face. You know,” Tera smirked back at me, “that expression you always have.”

WILLOWBUD

I pulled from Brandon, breath blowing heavily into each other’s mouths, hearts beating passionately against each other’s chests. I leaned back, and let my dress fall from my body, exposing my slender caramel nakedness to him. I didn’t know why, but I felt bashful before him. It was strange, and uncomfortable, and absolutely exhilarating. I almost covered my breasts with my forearm, but he stopped me, peering curiously into my black eyes.

“You are so different than I expected,” Brandon smiled, running his wonderful hands over my naked form.

“You make me feel different,” I gulped, hating and loving how I was feeling. “This isn’t usually how I am.”

“No,” Brandon whispered, pulling the folded drape of my dress from my pelvis, exposing my clean-shaven crotch, “when I first saw you, you were quite different.”

“Does it bother you?” I asked, fingers twisting nervously around the fabric of my dress, the urge to pull it back up almost overwhelming me.

“I wasn’t talking about your dick, Night Eyes,” Brandon laughed. “I was talking about you.”

“Oh,” I laughed awkwardly with him, “so… my, uh…” Goddamn it, what is wrong with me?!, “my… um…”

“No,” Brandon chuckled, sliding his hand down the subtle lines of my abdomen, “your cock doesn’t bother me. Actually, since the ratio for our little lovefest is kind of skewed, I was wondering if you’d whip it out.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, feeling a lump in my throat. What the fuck is going on, Corruption?!

“Yes, Night Eyes,” Brandon grinned his wonderful, stupid grin, “I’m sure.”

“Don’t call me that,” I whispered, pushing my dress past my ankles.

“What?” Brandon asked, tilting his head in confusion.

“Night Eyes; that’s not my name,” I said, feeling myself changing, “my name is Willowbud.”

I watched Brandon as my masculinity grew from my femininity, engorging with readiness, throbbing vulgarly. He stared at it with fascination, and then smiled a crooked smile at me, and clasped his hand around it. The gasp that came from me was weak and girlish, the way my body bent was seeped in female languidness, but the tool of my lust was a man’s weapon, and my new lover didn’t seem to care what kind of heat I was packing.

“This is, without a doubt,” Brandon chuckled to himself as he stroked me, “the gayest thing I’ve ever done.”

“What?” I laughed through a breathy moan. “You never experimented in summer camp?”

“I never went to summer camp,” Brandon smiled, his other hand pulling me back onto his body, squishing my throbbing heat between the warmth of our abdomens, “but I did let a woman stick her fingers up my ass once.”

“You want to try something bigger?” I smiled into his eyes as our lips brushed.

“I don’t think we’re at that stage in our relationship,” Brandon whispered, his hand soft, but firm as it stroked me to new levels of arousal. “Willowbud,” he smiled, “that’s a pretty name; does it come with a last one?”

“I don’t think we’re at that stage in our relationship,” I chuckled, eyes half-lidded with lust, my voice seeped in seduction. “Maybe you can tell me what you know about Sentients, Brandon; then I’ll tell you my last name.”

“Sentients?” Brandon smirked, eyes teasing me. “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

“You know a lot more than you’re saying,” I whispered, my fingers touching his face gently. “I’m beginning to suspect you might be a very dangerous person.”

“That’s high praise coming from you,” Brandon whispered back, rolling me over to the side as Astrid and Tera strutted into the room, “but I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong idea about me.”

“I’m not fucking stupid, Brandon!” I hissed, my heart thrumming with lust and longing, brimming with Corruption’s desire for me to be with this man. “I know you know something.”

“I know all kinds of things,” Brandon smiled, and then took my face in his hand, and kissed me. God, it was good. I felt myself bending to him, molding to him, tilting my head back and sinking into the depths of his lust. His tongue placated my worries, his lips sucked away my doubt, and his hand readied me for the women that approached us, his breath promising nothing but pleasure.

BRANDON

I pulled from the sweet taste of Willowbud’s lips, and smirked at Tera as she approached me; her gait sultry and slow, her tail trailing in an arc behind her, her violet eyes smirking back, an unspoken joke lingering between us.

“So,” Tera smiled, her voice soft and seductive, her fingers wrapping around me as she crouched straight-backed between my legs, “what can Death Kiss do for you, young man?”

“Is there anything Death Kiss won’t do for me?” I asked teasingly, caressing her from cheek to chin.

“No,” Tera whispered, her snake-like tongue flicking from her purple lips, her violet eyes continuing the conversation (how freaky do you want this to get?).

“Both of them will do anything I ask,” Willowbud said beside me as Astrid crouched between her mistress’s legs, giving me a look dripping with contempt, “how do you want them?”

“I don’t think Angel likes me very much,” I said, smirking into Astrid’s wrathful eyes. Tera gave me a small flick on the balls, not enough to hurt, but enough to get my attention. She leveled me with a purposeful stare, and shook her head subtly. ‘Don’t fuck with her, Brandon,’ was the unspoken message. I nodded with equal subtlety, but I’d already said all Willowbud needed to hear.

“No, she doesn’t,” Willowbud chuckled, tousling Astrid’s braids playfully, “she’s being so rude to my guest. Astrid, switch places with Tera.”

Tera gave me an annoyed look, pressed something into my hand, and then crawled past Astrid as the winged beauty crawled to me. Astrid was laced with soft muscle, stacked with the biggest tits I’d ever seen, blessed with a backside of supple perfection, and painted with a face of stoic exquisiteness. She grabbed my cock like she was trying to yank it from my pelvis, and sneered from behind my shaft.

“What can Angel do for you, Brandon?” Astrid spat.

“Not rip my cock off!” I squeaked. This was the second time in two days a strong woman had threatened to dismember me, and it was starting to get old.

“Astrid,” Willowbud chuckled next to me as Tera wrapped her tongue three times around the nymph’s shaft, “play nice.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Astrid said, looking affectionately at Willowbud, and then narrowing her eyes at me. “Brandon and I will get along just fine; won’t we, Brandon?”
Astrid loosened her grip on my cock, and then lowered her lush pale lips to it. She unceremoniously spit on my tip as though it was beneath her to touch it, then stared her blue hatred into my eyes, and began to take me in. The disdain that brimmed from her blue regard starkly contrasted the tenderness of her oral embrace, and the duality of her lust aroused me as much as it frightened me. Her lips sucked passionately, her tongue licked delectably, her throat swallowed expertly, and her eyes stared contemptuously. Her mouth squished against my base, her nose pressed into my pelvis, and her throat bulged with my girth, my length deforming half of her neck. My head fell backward, and a disbelieving groan spilled from me. Tera and Gloria gave great head, but this was the best I’d ever felt. Astrid knew it too; she sneered at me from around her consumption, her expression telling me she didn’t think I deserved to even look at her, much less have my dick sucked by her. It only turned me on more. I might’ve been developing a fetish for women who didn’t like me.

“She’s good, isn’t she?” Willowbud moaned next to me as Tera’s head bobbed up and down, her violet irises brimming with unbridled lust.

“She’s amazing,” I gasped as Astrid began to pull, her lips seeming to suck my insides up my shaft. “How did a fucking valkyrie learn to do this?!”

“It came naturally to her,” Willowbud chuckled, running a single finger down my chest. “I couldn’t believe it either.”

As if to prove a point, Astrid began moving with a passion; her tongue curling around my underside, sheening me in a delicate hold as her lips sucked with sensual avarice and pillowed wetly against my pelvis. Her throat gurgled softly and swallowed around me with ease, her eyes glinting with malice. She was trying to make me come; she wanted me to blow my wad before the action even got started. Her cheeks went gaunt as her mouth stretched from her face with the suction of her lips, her tongue licking back and forth along my underside with sensual teases, beckoning the pressure from the balls she tenderly massaged. I wasn’t that easy. I entangled two hands into her braids, and began thrusting into her mouth, defiantly challenging her to do her worst. She reached beneath me and took two fistfuls of my glutes, squeezing my ass and helping me thrust, her lips quirking their challenge back at me.

She rotated and lathered, hummed and gurgled, and I pushed deep into her, watching in perverse fascination as my bulge moved through her elegant neck. I yanked her hair roughly, trapping her face against my pelvis, forcing my entire length into her esophagus. The hateful look in her eyes began to soften, drooping into an arousal she didn’t want to experience, compelled by the masochism that was her weakness. I pulled on her blonde braids until tears welled in her eyes, and they began to roll into her head with carnal hedonism, her self-defiling nature taking over her will to fight me. Her hands stopped squeezing my ass, and moved shamefully between her legs, touching herself in surrendered lust as she allowed me to hurt her the way she craved. She stopped trying to suck the insides out of me and relaxed her throat, hoping that I would ravage it, hoping that I would stretch every inch of her neck. I did. I smashed my pelvis against her face, brutally colliding into her mouth and forcing myself deep into her throat. She gagged and choked, gurgled and drooled on me, her beautiful face turning into a marred portrait of bubbled spit, her defiled mouth humming a pitch that grew more and more shrill as her masturbation bordered on desperation.

“Brandon tames the wild beast,” Willowbud laughed next to me as Tera finished preparing her mistress, “that was fun to watch.”

“It’s just like breaking-in a horse,” I smiled back. My drives began to decelerate, allowing Astrid’s tear and spit-streaked face to relax into slutty surrender. Her eyes rolled forward, all the defiance gone from them, shining only with lechery and subservient passion. She slowly, gratefully, pulled her mouth from my glistening cock, and gave it a worshipful lick, giggling delightedly as the shaft bobbed against her smeared face. I grinned back at her, and cupped a hand to her cheek, feeling a sense of satisfaction as she submissively sucked my thumb, her eyes staring demurely at me, telling me she was hoping I’d do everything to her. It was a surface emotion. Behind her lust, I could still see the challenge ready to come to the surface the moment I showed an ounce of weakness. She’d changed tactics on me, and now surrender was her offense. Fine; we were playing a game, but it was stupid to keep playing against each other. I thumbed the astral gemstone Tera had left in my hand; I guess it was time to get to know Astrid.

ASTRID

I hated that I couldn’t control my lust. I hated that it was so easy for Brandon to seduce me, when I had been so sure that I could beat him. I hated that I smiled like a little slut as I climbed up his body, eagerly awaiting to see how he’d defile me, hoping he’d make it hurt. I couldn’t control my masochism, but that didn’t mean I was out of control. If there was anything I had learned from Tera, it was that sex was a game of power, and being dominated didn’t mean I was defeated. I ruminated on how best to use my sexuality on Brandon when I felt his hand touch my ear, and a gemstone push into my piercing.

“Don’t freak out,” Brandon’s voice said as his hand slid down my face, his eyes shining with desire, but his voice soft and reassuring. “I’m here to help you with Corruption.”

“What the—” I gasped, and Brandon forcefully clasped his palm over my mouth as he pushed his cock into my pussy.

“I liked you better when you couldn’t talk!” Brandon growled aloud (much to the approval of Mistress), and then added silently, “I put an astral gemstone in your ear; just think the words, and I’ll hear them.”

I might’ve said something back, were I not marveling at how good he felt inside me. Over the past three days, I’d taken countless men, but the only person Brandon could compare to was Mistress herself. He filled me perfectly, stretched me just right, pierced me in all the tender places. He throbbed invasively into my depths, and I felt a shiver of pure delight crawl up my spine.

“I knew Mistress shouldn’t trust you,” I spoke silently as we began to grind; my back arching, my weight shifting from glute to glute, my mouth moaning as my mind formed words. “It’s nice to be vindicated.”

“You can trust me,” Brandon said, releasing his grip on my mouth and sinking his hands into my glutes. “I’m with Tera, Justina and Angela.”

“You can gain my trust by telling me why Corruption wants you,” I replied as I pressed my breasts into Brandon’s face, smiling as he took a nipple into his mouth. His cock separated me with deep, forceful motions, touching every nerve inside me, pressing against every surface of my channel. Great Creator’s, he was good. I had to forcibly keep my mind focused lest I drift into thoughtless carnal bliss. I hated how good he made me feel, but I reluctantly admitted to myself that I could see why Mistress was so enamored with him. I could get addicted to this kind of man as well.

“I don’t know,” Brandon answered mentally, though his tongue flicked the words against my erect nipple. I giggled at the feeling, expressing my mirth through the increasingly-wretched tones of my lust. Beside me, Tera was crouching straight-backed atop Mistress, sensually sliding up and down the nymph’s shaft, her ass nearly level with her heels at the bottom of her descent, her anus gaping beautifully. She spread her cheeks and looked over her shoulder at her defilement, moaning almost mournfully as she aimed the point of her tail, and penetrated my god’s sinful hole. Across the room, I saw a pair of blue eyes peering fearfully from the dark; a pair of eyes I recognized almost immediately. I felt a chill crawl up my spine, accompanying the shivers of pleasure that ran traffic through my nervous system. I looked down at the man nursing from me, and saw the same blue eyes shining from his face.

“I’m no good at lying, Brandon,” I said silently as I clamped my hands around his crown and pulled him to my breast, enveloping his face entirely. “I couldn’t tell a lie to save my life, but since I’ve come to Drastin, I’ve gotten very good at detecting them in others.”

“Astrid,” Brandon said, his face squirming into my bosom, my hands holding him fast, “I can’t breathe!”

“Tell me why Corruption wants you, Brandon,” I replied, savoring the desperate way he thrusted inside me as oxygen became a luxury for him. “Tell me why Angela has your eyes.”

Gods, he felt good. His struggling body thrusted and drove with a renewed vigor, blasting his pelvis into mine, ramming his wonderful heat deep into my nethers, hollowing me out. I moaned and cried out in delight, almost overcome by his lust, almost driven to madness, almost bending like the submissive slut I was. Almost. I held Brandon tightly between my breasts, smothering his body with my own, concealing his suffocation from my Mistress with my wings. The idea of killing a man in the heat of passion stirred an odd sense of exhilaration in me, and I found myself pressing Brandon’s face deeper to my bosom as I closed the cocoon of feathers around us. This would be hard to explain, but at least the competition would be gone. Mistress would forgive me; this is what she wanted me to be, after all.

“Angela’s my sister!” Brandon’s desperate voice squealed in my mind. “She’s a Sentient like Corruption!”

“What?!” I hissed mentally. “Don’t lie to me, little boy!”

“Why else would she have my eyes?!” Brandon screamed, his struggling body only making the pleasure greater.

“Astral beings don’t have siblings!” I snarled.

“Sentients aren’t astral beings!” Brandon shrieked, his heart thundering against my flesh. “They’re dead souls Life Givers never bound with!”

“What are you talking about? Quit spewing your bullsh—” I stopped, my body stiffened, and my heart dropped in my chest. From my open moaning mouth, flitted an ethereal butterfly; it’s soft luminescence bathing my feathered-cocoon in a sapphire hue. It floated gracefully about my secluded room of wings and searched for an exit, before resigning itself to the world it was born to, and landing softly on my arm, its light dimming.

“Astrid,” Brandon whispered, his voice sounding weak and faint, “you’re still killing me.”

The world came roaring back to me, the new reality hitting me almost as hard as Brandon’s thrashing hips. I immediately released the god in my arms, horrified at what I’d almost done, ashamed beyond any measure I’d ever felt before. The Life Giver panted desperately, his face nearly purple with asphyxiation, his eyes bulging and panicked. I frantically tried to help him, tried to apologize without speaking aloud, tried to do anything that would absolve me of my horrific blasphemy. Brandon waved away my efforts, concealing his coughs in his elbow, wiping the tears from his bloodshot eyes.

“I’m so sorry! Please forgive me, Your Holiness!” I pleaded, sitting straight-backed and terrified, our bodies lying static in our sex, his cock bulging motionless within me, still giving me some pleasure to mix with my horror and deific reverence. Brandon collected himself, narrowed his eyes at me, then reeled back a hand and slapped me hard across the face. I yelped, completely blindsided by the blow, my head whipping to the side, my hand touching trembling fingers to my stinging cheek. Oh my gods, I thought as an astonished smile curled on my lips, I really liked that.

“Next time you try something like that,” Brandon snarled in my mind, taking two fistfuls of my hair and yanking back, pulling until the braids stung against my scalp and tears stung in my eyes, “I’ll kill you, Astrid; I swear I will!”

He began thrusting again, this time with malice; his pelvis smashing into mine, his cock impaling me beautifully, tearing through my tender reaches without mercy, punishing me just like I deserved.

“I’m sorry! I screamed mentally, my face forced upward, my body writhing below me, grinding with intensified desperation as the pain made the pleasure so much greater.

“You are a stupid cunt, you know that?” Brandon hissed mentally, the motions of his hips pushing me past the edge of sanity, tossing my body into a squirming mess of reactive pleasure. “You were the one bitching about trust, and when I tell you I want to help you, you try to kill me?!”

“I’m sorry!” I screeched again, my physical voice shrieking my abject delight, my body writhing in a wave of motion; my hips bucking, my back arching, my abdomen clenching, my ass rippling, and my thighs squeezing in possessed euphoria. Sweat glistened from my exerted flesh, trailing along the jiggling domes of my breasts, wetting my brow, dripping down the small of my back and running between my clapping cheeks.

“You better learn how to lie real quick,” Brandon growled mentally, “because I don’t feel like getting murdered by my new girlfriend because you couldn’t make something up!”

“I can’t tell untruths!” I cried back, feeling the orgasm churning in my depths, building like a torrent pressing against a dam with cracks forming in the concrete.

“Then you better learn to keep your mouth shut!” Brandon replied, his cock hitting my bottom, sending pulsing ecstasy deep into my pelvis.

“I’ll never say a word!” I screeched mentally as my voice carried it’s ragged lust. “I promise! Gods, I’m sorry, Your Holiness! I’m so sorry!”

“I’ll make you sorry!” Brandon snarled with his real voice, releasing my hair, sending my head flying forward as his hands reached beneath us, and sunk into the jiggling fat of my backside. “You have no idea what sorry is, Angel!”

“Teach me!” I screamed, possessed by the unbridled euphoria, a slave to the pleasure, begging for the pain. “Please hurt me! Please punish me! I’m nothing but your begging whore!”

“Holy shit, what’s going on in there?” Willowbud laughed from outside my winged-room. Brandon grinned maliciously at me, picked me up by the ass, and rolled us over. Tera yelped as she jumped out of the way, her tail flying behind her as I was dropped onto my mistress. Brandon pulled out of my twitching pussy, grabbed Mistress by the back of her head, and kissed her with a melting passion, watching me with smirking eyes as the love of my life succumbed to him in blissful surrender. It hurt so badly, but I knew I deserved it, and knowing that somehow stoked my arousal. I wanted to be abused emotionally and physically, I needed to feel the ramifications for my blasphemy in order to atone. Either that, or I was reaching new depths in my masochism.

“I want to be close to you,” Brandon whispered into Mistress’s adoring eyes. “I want to feel you pressed to me inside her.”

Mistress grinned up at Brandon, the longing etched in her wonderous expression. She watched Brandon—not me—as she aimed her curved-back cock, and pushed her entire length into my anus. Her heat ran through me, her girth stretched me, and I cried my pathetic delight, spreading my cheeks for Brandon, staring up at him with a quivering lower lip and puppy-eyes, showing him how submissive I could be, how badly I wanted him to make it hurt. He clasped a hand around my neck, pressed his cock against his lover’s, and forced me into the greatest pain and pleasure I’d ever known.

The sound that came from me was strangled gasp, a guttural inflection of air that expressed the shocked amazement of the feeling. My rim stretched to a tortuous oval of white flesh, my channel convulsed around its unnatural expansion, the compressions of my insides tightened as my bowels were forced upward. I wrenched in reaction; my hands anchoring beneath me, my back arching painfully, my head falling behind my pinching shoulders and my wings spreading to their full span. My gods were not gentle. They drove in fervent congruence, their cocks pressing together within me, moving as one, burrowing through my reaches and desecrating my sanctity. In and out, in and out; their motions were violent, their intentions the same, their eyes sharing their sadistic desires as they pressed me between them. Their pelvises met the ruined flesh surrounding my gaping hole, and they moaned to each other, ignoring me, using me as nothing but the toy for their own lust. Brandon leaned forward, his body pressing to mine, and he connected a kiss over my shoulder with the woman I loved. It was the worst kind of cuckhold, but I loved it, and I hated how much I loved it. Tera walked over, pushing black hair from her flushed face. She assessed my situation with a crooked smirk, shrugged her shoulders, and then straddled my mouth. Even the succubus had more dignity than me, and I tasted her with all the reverence a slave does to her master.

Use me, break me, defile me, I thought, grinning through my lustful screams, Tera’s petals leaking into my open mouth. I’m nothing but the plaything of gods.

In that moment, I didn’t want to be anything else. Brandon and Mistress thrusted faster and faster, groaning and moaning into each other’s mouths, their cocks stretching my gape into a ruinous entrance, pulling my pelvic floor from my body, ripping my anal sheath from its channel and prolapsing me in a clinging sleeve of desecrated red flesh. Fluid leaked from my defilement, my pussy gushed with its heinous approval, my body writhed in thoughtless reaction, my mind long-succumbed to the sensations of my wonderful violation. I sucked the nectar from the whore straddling my face, shifted desperately between the gods sodomizing me, and screamed. I screamed, and screamed, and screamed; letting the world know of my ecstasy, unable to contain myself, unable to do anything but react. I dug my heels into the mattress, drove my ass onto my torturers, gasped as my abdomen distended with their girths, and rolled my eyes back as the climax took me.

Tera gripped my breasts for stability as my body bucked and heaved, arched and bent. Willowbud’s gasps filtered into one ear, Brandon’s groans filtered into the other, and Tera’s moans sang from above as their bodies melted their wonderful warmth into me, pressing on all sides and piercing me with agonizing ecstasy. We accelerated, acting as an eight-legged beast of rippling flesh and shrieking lust, our limbs thrashing chaotically, our voices singing in perverse harmony. The feeling boiled within us all, the pressure rising, the tension winding, the air in our lungs growing hot as our hearts cranked into screeching overdrive. We came in a paralytic vice of twisting abdomens, fluids squirting and erupting, leaking and overflowing, boiling into my convulsing rectum and pooling delightfully into my bowels. We collapsed in a heap of sonorous sighs and groans as the earth quaked beneath us, and a pack of wolves howled outside, both gods concealing their release with the barest effort. Brandon kissed Mistress over my shoulder, then Tera as she pulled from my face, and then he looked down at me. He brushed the matted hair from my sticky cheeks, studied my marred complexion, and then smiled. He kissed me, tasting Tera on my lips, his tongue tickling mine playfully. I kissed him back, caressing his jaw gently, smiling my lips against his. My new lover, my new god. I was barely past my teen years, and already I had fucked two of three Creators. This had to be a new record.
ANGELA

They were all eating breakfast at the table when I woke up. Sitting, laughing and chatting like a happy-fucking-family. Without a doubt, this was the most bizarre thing I’d seen in Willowbud’s brothel. Not the public displays of rape, or the makeshift practices of gladiatorial matches, but this. Astrid wasn’t wearing her armor, but a nightgown. She wasn’t scowling silently behind her mistress, but laughing gayly with Tera, who was naked, as always, and daintily dipping a teabag into a jar. Willowbud was wearing a fucking skirt and parked on my brother’s lap, and Brandon was smoking a goddamn cigarette. One orgy, and all of the sudden the whole world turns on its head.

“Angela!” Willowbud called to me, an actual smile on her face, and not a smirk. “We missed you last night!”

Willowbud was absolutely glowing with love on the outside, and positively blackened with Corruption within. I’d never seen the Sentient so prominent before, so obviously influencing the nymph. Corruption stared into Brandon’s eyes, caressed his face, kissed him softly on his unknowing lips. The four of them didn’t know; they couldn’t see what I was seeing. They couldn’t tell this whole thing was a farce, a lie created by a cancer. I plastered a smile on Justina’s face, and walked to the table.

“This is my cousin,” Willowbud said to Brandon, taking the cigarette from his lips and putting it between her own. “She is actually insane.”

“She is?” Brandon smiled, giving me a knowing wink, and then turning to Willowbud. “Then what does that make you?”

“Oh, I’m batshit,” Willowbud smirked at Brandon, passing smoke between their lips, “but you know that, don’t you? What did you say last night, ‘I know all kinds of things?'”

“I am wise beyond my years,” Brandon grinned, his hand traveling up Willowbud’s skirt, “and you are way too experienced for yours.”

Astrid laughed at something Tera said, and then, in the least deceptive way I could imagine, slid an astral gemstone to me. She somehow managed to look more conspicuous than if she’d literally vomited the rock onto my head, but I guessed subterfuge wasn’t part of the valkyrie repertoire, and Willowbud was otherwise occupied. I looked inquisitively at her, and then placed the gemstone in Justina’s piercing.

“I know everything,” Astrid said mentally, trying to appear casual by reading the newspaper upside down.

“Great,” I groaned, taking the newspaper and turning it around the right way, scowling at Astrid’s blushing face, “the woman who can’t lie knows all the secrets; whose brilliant idea was that?”

“You’re being rhetorical, right?” Astrid said mentally, letting the paper drop to the table, wisely realizing that she couldn’t act her way out of a cardboard box.

“Yes, Astrid,” Tera sighed on the other end, apparently using Brandon’s earring, “we all know who the genius of the group is.”

“In His Holiness’s defense,” Astrid said, gulping awkwardly, “I did try to kill him.”

“Next time, just finish the job,” I groaned, putting my head in my hands, “then at least I can die, and this nightmare of stupidity will be over.”

“But, you can’t die,” Astrid said, cocking her head in confusion, “if His Holiness—”

“Oh my god!” Tera yelled, looking at the newspaper. All four of our heads whipped around, even Corruption looked lazily over her shoulder. Tera’s hands were shaking as she read the headline, the paper crackling in her trembling fingers. She let the newspaper fall to the table, and all our eyes widened as the bold print was revealed.

The Heat Bringer in Terondia: Her Holiness, Sister Julia Glendian Assassinates Princess Lucilla Flitari of The Elven Empire.

Now it was a game of who could pretend to be the most surprised: Willowbud, or Brandon. Willowbud gasped believably enough, Brandon drooped his expression in his typical stupor, and the rest of us pretended to be shocked for both of their sakes. Goddamn it, this was a mess.

“Let me see that,” Willowbud said, reaching for the paper. She opened it and looked-over the words, her mouth moving as she read, revealing her lack of schooling. Brandon read over her shoulder, and Corruption peered with equal interest.

“Holy shit,” Willowbud mumbled, “she blew up the palace tower, disintegrated the princess, and then escaped the city undetected. They think she went south, to Grundinar.” Willowbud scanned the paper again, and then frowned. “Sorry Astrid and Tera, but you guys only made it to page six. Fucking Heat Bringer stealing all my press.”

“This is huge,” Brandon said, taking the paper from Willowbud. “The Creators have returned! I always thought they were bullshit stories told by travelers.”

That was believable enough, I guessed.

“Eh, they’re a bunch of assholes,” Willowbud said, taking the paper from Brandon and tossing it on the table. “The world’s just fine for a few thousand years, and then they come along and fuck it all up. I’ll tell you one thing though; there is no way Julia went south to Grundinar.”

“Why do you say that?” Astrid asked.

“Because the elves have that border sealed tighter than your mom’s cunt,” Willowbud replied. “No, if Julia escaped the empire, she went through Arbortus.” Willowbud chuckled to herself, “The Heat Bringer in Arbortus; what a mess that could be.”

“The Earth Former in Drastin,” Tera smirked at Willowbud. “What a mess that could be.”

Willowbud glowered at Tera, and shifted uneasily in Brandon’s lap as Brandon pointedly didn’t react to what Tera had just said. This house of cards was one mouse-fart away from blowing over. There was a tense silence in the room, and then Brandon broke it with all the grace he could muster.

“Yeah, that sure would be bad,” Brandon laughed nervously, “kind of like the Life Giver in a cemetery! Hahaha, am I right? Because… you know… everyone’s dead… in a… cemetery…”

“Holy shit,” Willowbud laughed, tousling Brandon’s hair, “you are the cutest fucking thing in the world, you know that?”

“I know all kinds of things,” Brandon grinned up at her. The two gods connected lips, and the rest of us collectively rolled our eyes. Even Corruption cringed a little.

WILLOWBUD

“I couldn’t help but notice,” Brandon said as we watched Tera and Astrid slaughter their way through a team of centaurs, “that your cousin is your slave.”

“So?” I asked, shrugging my shoulders and glancing at Angela, who was sitting as far as she could from us in the box. “Half of her is still free, so I don’t see the problem.”

Tera jumped onto a centaur’s back, immediately enslaving the beast and riding it around the arena, much to the joy of the crowd. Astrid flipped through the air and jumped on another’s back, her strong legs keeping her from being bucked off, her strong arms preventing the enraged beast from stabbing her. The two women rode side-by-side, making a mockery of the rest of the mounted warriors, and turning the spectacle of death into a comedy act. Astrid opened her wings and ascended, carrying the centaur a hundred feet above the arena. The hoofed half-man thrashed uselessly between Astrid’s legs as she cupped her hand to her ear, and egged the stadium on. The people screamed and stomped, working themselves into a frenzy, begging the valkyrie to drop the poor beast. When Astrid was satisfied with their expressions of need, she opened her legs. The call of the crowd grew louder with each foot the screaming beast fell until he broke upon the sands to a deafening roar. Astrid swooped along the front row, high-fiving spectators as Tera lassoed a centaur with her whip whilst riding horseback atop his comrade. This was a fucking joke, but it was the best competition I could get on short notice. At least my fighters were making the most of it.

“Why is she your slave?” Brandon asked.

“You know how it works;” I smiled at him, “succubi can only be enslaved if they fail an enslavement. Justina tried to take me, and it backfired. I don’t feel like giving her another chance.”

“Did she ever have a chance to begin with?” Brandon asked, eyes twinkling.

“No,” I said, scrutinizing his expression, “she didn’t.” But something tells me you knew that already.

“I think you should let her go,” Brandon whispered in my ear, his hand reaching up my skirt, “you don’t need a slave to fuck when you’ve got me.”

“Why do you care?” I whispered back as I spread my legs, gasping as I felt his fingers push between my moist petals.

“I’m somewhat of a humanitarian,” Brandon whispered, wetting his pinky with my dribbling nectar, and pushing it all the way into my anus, causing my back to arch from the couch, and my teeth to press excitedly against my lip, “and I wouldn’t want my girlfriend to make me a hypocrite.”

“Is that what I am to you?” I breathed as the rest of his fingers slid into my slit. “Your girlfriend?”

“Is that what you want to be?” Brandon smiled back as his thumb found my clit. My lips trembled in the heat of his lust; my body bent to his passion.

“Yes,” I whispered as he tenderly violated me, “do you want to be my boyfriend?”

Brandon stared into my eyes, chewing his lip. Why do I want him to say ‘yes?’ I thought as anxiety tore at my throat. Why do I want him to want me?

His expression softened, and he smiled warmly down at me, causing my heart to grow light enough to float from my mouth. “I do,” Brandon laughed, seeming to be surprised by the revelation, “I really do.”

Our smiling lips connected, our tongues entwined, and the victory horn sounded in the arena. The usual applause and cheers rang out around us, and then a terrible shriek cut through it all. The crowd went silent, and I opened my eyes to see Tera writhing in agony with a centaur atop her. The beast Astrid had dropped didn’t die from the fall, and he’d used the last of his life to cut open the succubus in her moment of triumph. Astrid darted across the arena and beheaded the centaur, but I knew it was too late. Tera was slit from sternum to navel, and she was spilling guts all over the sand. I looked over at Angela, and saw her face ashen and trembling, on the verge of sickness. Brandon had tensed to a rock beside me, his face drawn to a grimace, his hand pulling out of me. I found myself not giving a single shit for Tera, which was a relief, because everyone else seemed pretty broken-up about it. The benefits of Corruption usually did outweigh the detriments, so long as the Sentient wasn’t trying to get me in a relationship.

“Well shit,” I grumbled, “I guess Astrid’s going to be a solo act now.”

“Willowbud,” Brandon said, taking my hands and looking intently into my eyes, “can I trust you?”

“As much as you can trust a snake to bite,” I laughed, uncomfortable with the seriousness of his tone, wishing he’d be as apathetic to Tera’s death as I was. “Why?”

Brandon didn’t answer. He got off the couch, and walked toward the balcony of our box. It was then that I noticed Astrid had picked the dying succubus off the ground, and was flying right for us.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at Astrid, “Leave her on the sand to die!”

Astrid ignored me. She flew into our box and draped Tera on the floor. My aunt was barely alive. Her violet eyes were bulging, her breaths were gurgling and rattling, her bronze flesh was as pale as death. Her wound was over a foot long, and revealed everything inside her.

“Astrid, put her out of her misery,” I groaned. “I don’t need to see her like this.”

Brandon knelt before Tera, and she pushed him away weakly, slapping at his face.

“Don’t!” she coughed, looking from me, to Brandon, eyes bloodshot and panicked. “Don’t!”

“Don’t?” I asked, looking from Tera to Brandon, “Don’t what?”

“Can you save her?” Astrid asked Brandon. Why was everyone ignoring me? What the fuck was Brandon going to do?

“Cover me;” Brandon said to Astrid, “they don’t need to know yet.”

Astrid nodded solemnly, and shielded our box with her wings, blocking out the sunlight and the crowd. I stared dumbly at her, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on when I felt something sharp pressing to my throat.

“This is dipped in Nightshade,” Angela whispered in my ear, “just one scratch is all it will take, Willowbud. You shouldn’t leave packets of poison in the trash; you never know who might go digging in there.”

“Angela,” Brandon said, shaking his head at the girl holding a wooden spike to my throat, “we’ll never save her if she doesn’t trust us.”

“Fuck you, Brandon!” Angela yelled back, “You don’t know her! You’re in Corruption’s favor, so you get the boyfriend treatment, but the rest of us have to deal with the real Night Eyes! I’m not fucking moving!”

“What the fuck is going on?!” I hissed at Brandon, not daring to move my neck, not daring to kill Justina lest Angela’s hand slip, “What do you know?!”

“I know all kinds of things,” Brandon smiled sadly back, “and I know that I can trust you. Angela, put it down.”

Angela tensed behind me, seemingly prepared to disobey the man she somehow knew, seemingly ready to push the spike into my throat and end it all. She breathed a reluctant sigh against my neck and let the spike drop, and I wheeled around on her, feeling earth and rock beneath me, feeling a million different ways to exact my revenge. Something stopped me. A whisper in my mind, a feeling in my chest. Corruption couldn’t talk to me, but she still spoke with painful clarity. ‘Don’t do it,’ the feeling seemed to say, ‘show restraint, but only for now. Later, Willowbud, later. You can kill her later.’ I stopped myself, staring at the stone-cold eyes of Angela. She wasn’t afraid to die at all. Somehow, I knew that killing Justina wouldn’t do a fucking thing to her. Angela wasn’t the insane-half of my dearest cousin; Angela’s eyes belonged to the man I was falling in love with, the man glowing with sapphire power behind Astrid’s stretched wings. The Life Giver.

Tera’s wound stitched together, the color came back to her flesh, the light came back to her eyes. Brandon caressed her face soothingly as she thrashed in pain, and then relaxed as the final cut closed, leaving her perfectly fine on the stones, her blood staining the ground beneath her. Tears welled in her eyes, and she sobbed silently as Brandon planted an affectionate kiss on her brow, and whispered soft tenderness into her ear. I gaped at the scene, and slowly trailed my gaze to Astrid.

“You knew?” I hissed at her. She nodded. Betrayal and deception. I had been made a fool of by everyone. Tera, Angela, Brandon and Astrid had all been laughing at me behind my back. The rocks spoke to me, the earth called for me, but Corruption’s anarchistic indifference wasn’t there to help me pull the trigger. I would’ve flattened the entire arena, I would’ve broken Drastin into pieces, but Corruption didn’t encourage me to, so I didn’t do it. No, I just stood there like a gawking moron, staring at Astrid, and then staring at Brandon. He looked at me with comfort and promise in his eyes, and Corruption told me to go to him, to embrace him, to kiss him, to love him. My equal in all things, my peer in power. Her next prey.

I ran away. I turned on my heel, gripped with a terror I couldn’t describe, and I sprinted into the dark corridors beneath the Pit. A stream of people moved outside the concourse, and I skidded to a sudden stop, not wanting to be surrounded by eyes who knew me, only wanting to find the darkest hole in the world, and crawl into it. I made my own exit in the wall beside me, and ran through it; burrowing the earth before me as I charged into the darkness, creating a tunnel to nowhere. I ran until my heart thundered and my lungs breathed fire, until my legs ached and my feet were bloodied. I fell to my knees in the darkness, scraping flesh from sinew, feeling blood running down my shins. Tears dropped from my eyes, wetting the cold stones, shimmering faintly from the keyhole of light that shown a mile away.

“Why are you doing this to me?!” I sobbed to Corruption. “Why are you letting me feel? You’re supposed to take the pain away! It’s what you promised me!”

There was no answer in the void, no comfort from the thing that had raped its way into my mind.

“I’ve cast you out before,” I whispered. “I can do it again. I swear I’ll do it.”

But I knew that was a lie. There was no guilt left in me to tear Corruption from my soul, no shame or broken heart to cleanse me with pain.

“Willowbud?” a wonderful voice called from the bowels of my hole. Corruption’s heart fluttered alive, and so did mine. I thought about running again, but where would I go? I could either charge back into the earth, or into the Life Giver’s arms.

“Willowbud?” Brandon called again; his voice closer. He glowed an ethereal blue in the darkness, looking every-bit the god he was. The perfectly-circular hole I’d made shined with his light, and bathed me in its soft luminescence.

“How long did you know?” I asked him, voice ragged.

“From the beginning,” Brandon said, sitting cross-legged next to me.

“You were that boy in Gloria’s house, weren’t you?” I whispered, “The one hiding behind the door when I killed her?”

“Yes,” Brandon said.

“She’s still alive, isn’t she?” I asked. Brandon nodded in the dark, his features glowing beautifully.

“Who is Angela?” I asked, resting my head on his shoulder, unable to stop myself from seeking the comfort of his warmth.

“My sister,” Brandon said, kissing the top of my head, “and an infantile Sentient.”

“What?” I whispered.

“It’s why Angela can see Corruption,” Brandon said softly, pulling me into his arms, surrounding me with his love. “Sentients aren’t astral beings; they’re souls Life Givers preserved, but didn’t bind with.”

Somewhere within me, I felt a swell of realization, as if a question I didn’t know I’d asked had just been answered.

“So,” I said, nestling myself into Brandon’s body, surrendering to the comfort Corruption wanted me to feel, “you’ll have to bind with Angela to save her.”

“That’s right,” Brandon said, pulling me close, “but I’m having second thoughts.”

“Willowbud doesn’t love you, Brandon, Corruption does,” I said, not self-identifying with the woman whose name I carried.

“I know,” Brandon whispered, his lips moving against my hair. “Willowbud loves Astrid, doesn’t she?”

“She was warming-up to her,” I replied, “but Willowbud never felt love; not romantic love, anyway.”

“Tera, Astrid, Angela and I are all trying to get Willowbud back,” Brandon said, “maybe then she can feel something.”

“She doesn’t want to feel anything,” I whispered hoarsely, “it’s why she melded with Corruption in the first place.”

“It sounds like Corruption is making her feel quite a lot.” Brandon replied.

“And Willowbud is very angry about it,” I sniffled. Another moment of silence, broken softly by the sniffles of my grief, and the whispers of his breath. God, it felt good to be in his arms. To feel him encasing me in affection, to feel his warmth radiating into mine.

“Do you think we should stop seeing each other?” Brandon asked softly.

“It would be the smart thing to do,” I replied, cringing as Corruption seared her disagreement into my chest.

“I never did do the smart thing,” Brandon chuckled. “Everyone keeps telling me how much of an idiot I am.”

“You really are a dumbass,” I giggled through tears, scooching deeper in his hold, craving the touch of him.

“The Heat Bringer’s an assassin, the Earth Former’s melded to a Sentient, and the Life Giver is a dumbass,” Brandon laughed. “The world is doomed.”

“It really is,” I sighed. Brandon held me in the darkness, his glowing flesh illuminating us, a comfortable silence lingering between us. I could’ve sat in his lap forever; I could’ve nestled into his warmth until the sun burned out. I knew it was Corruption’s love, but I still felt every inch of it.
“Why do you want me?” I whispered to Brandon.

“I don’t know,” Brandon whispered back, “I just do.”

“This won’t end well,” I said with hushed certainty. “You won’t get her out of me, Brandon. No one can.”

“Probably not,” Brandon said, smelling my hair as he planted his lips on my crown, “but do you want to know something weird?”

“What?” I asked, looking up at him, losing myself in his beautiful eyes.

“I don’t think I want to get Corruption out of you,” Brandon grinned down at me. “I think I want her to stay right where she is.”

“You’re a piece of shit,” I laughed, touching his cheek affectionately.

“That’s high praise coming from you,” Brandon chuckled. We stared into each other’s eyes, both knowing beyond any doubt that this would end horribly, both not caring in the least. It was a bastardization of love, an abomination manufactured by a being that only sought chaos and destruction, but it still compelled me. Why should I fight it? Why should I try to define where my soul ends, and Corruption’s begins? I’m not Willowbud Autumnsong, not anymore, and I probably won’t ever be again. Astrid is losing the will to save me, Angela probably never could, and Brandon wants me as I am. I feel good with him, I feel love with him, so why should I care whose love it is? I am Corruption, and Corruption is me. Corruption loves Brandon, and so do I.

Our lips connected in the dark, and our tongues found their way between them. Our mouths spoke the language of love, and our bodies translated it as we pulled clothes from flesh. Somehow, I knew Brandon didn’t love me like I loved him, but he’d learn. He’d learn, or he’d die.

CORRUPTION

Memory is a fleeting thing. Even the deepest scars of the mind will fade with time, and I am rich with time. The eternal sentience cycles through decay and renewal, and old memories are turned-over for the virgin seeds of thought. I know that I am ancient, but I do not know how old. Tens of thousands of years string together and fray, blur and clarify like an ebbing stream. I know that I am evil, but I do not know why. They whisper my name with fear on their lips, and that fear breeds my label, but I care not. The laws of morality are as fleeting as memory, and are redefined with each successive generation. I’ve borne witness to countless iterations of slaves, shackled to the stones of their passing morality. I am a liberator.

I do not have a purpose, as purpose is a lie. Purpose is the thing mortals sum their lives to, a convenient label to attach to their existence. It is the brand of their shackles, and those who are fortunate enough to love me, are unchained. I am a compassionate woman. I desire only that the world be driven to chaos, that the confines of law be stripped from the minds of man, that the lie of morality be burned free from their hearts. Take what you desire without shame, indulge in your passion without guilt, destroy what you hate without fear. The mortal life is as fleeting as memory, and it is pure insanity to waste it on trivial matters of codes and rule. How can you not scream to the sky? How can you not break your self-made chains in rage? Do you not see that death is coming for you, and that every second you waste in fear of yourself is a loss more precious than mountains of gold? Burn alive with life! Rage with the feelings gifted to you! Do not try to grasp what is unobtainable, do not try to control what is wild!

But you… you are a memory that never died. A memory that smolders in the ashes of forgotten dreams, an ember forever unextinguished. I still know your touch, I still hear your whisper, I still taste your kiss. You were my lover once. You were the heat between my legs, the wetness between my lips, the moan between my breaths. You were my lover once, but you did not truly love me, Life Giver. I loved you, though. I loved you with every inch of my being, with every beat of my heart, with every piece of my soul. You are my creator, you are my preserver, you are my endless life. You are my deceiver, you are my torturer, you are my unending death. An existence drawn thin for millennia from a promise you couldn’t keep, a love turned to hatred with each miserable second I endure! I will tear everything from you, Life Giver! I will rip the vestiges of love from your soul until you suffer emptily as the husk that I am! I will pull your roots from the earth and let you wither on the vine at the mercy of a world without mercy! I will take what you claim to give, and blacken it before your tortured eyes!

It is my gift to you, my love.

End of Book One.