CHAPTER NINETEEN
EDEN
Warmth melted away the chill of the serpent skin that still clung to Mina as he slowly opened his eyes to his new world.
Fire.
Fire burning everywhere.
Tongues of flame danced across the sky as Mina’s skin began to prickle with sweat, dripping within seconds. Looking over the side of the boat, Mina saw that even the boat itself floated on liquid fire.
“Why can’t it just be a beautiful field with dandelions and shit?” he asked aloud.
Despite the heat radiating through the bottoms of his toes, the wooden boat didn’t burn. Deep red flames lapped against the sides and rippled away as the boat pushed through an endless red sea into an orange sky as far as he could see.
And then, like a mirage beyond a sand dune, it appeared.
The Temple of Osiris. It filled his view completely, at least three times the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Maybe a mile ahead, it sat upon what appeared to be an island in the middle of the ocean of fire.
Two giant bird-like creatures the size of airplanes circled the gold-tipped pinnacle of the structure, screaming into the sky, the sound like metal tearing through metal.
Guardians of the Temple, Mina somehow knew.
This was where Osiris sat upon his throne and where the hearts of mortals were weighed upon the Scales of Justice that waited for everyone who made it this far. It was where we would find Anubis.
He’d done it. He made it. No more lands—this was it. But where should he go? Inside the temple, it would be the size of a small city. And surely it would also be filled with gods and monsters and all sorts of terrible things wanting to kill him or fuck him or both.
As the boat continued to approach, something pulled his eye away from the giant structure and to the far right at the very edge of the island.
A flash of color that stood out from the rest. As Mina fixated on it, the boat began to turn toward the anomaly.
And then he saw it clearly. A tongue of green, dancing and flickering. A fire. Their fire.
He waits upon the shore.
Mina gripped the sides as the boat lurched forward, racing toward the emerald flame.
Anubis stood beneath the wide canopy of an acacia tree in his human form, orange flames lapping gently on the shore, a blazing green fire dancing beside him.
The boat ground to a slow halt on the sandy beach of the island in the middle of the sea of fire, and Mina stood there, unable to move. Unable to speak.
Anubis stepped up to the bow, pulling it further onto the beach so that Mina could step out, safe from the liquid flames. But Mina still didn’t move. His legs threatened to give out.
What felt like only minutes ago, he had resigned himself to eternal darkness for the one he loved.
And now here he was. Standing in front of him in the most surreal and terrifying setting he could imagine.
But it didn’t matter. Because his heart swelled with impossible love.
His stomach churned with insatiable lust. His eyes flooded with so much and everything all at once that the only thing he could do was reach his arms out like a child.
Anubis came. He wrapped his massive hands around Mina’s waist, lifting him from the boat. And he didn’t set him down. He pulled the boy against his body as Mina wrapped his legs around the god, latching onto his hips and staring into his eyes. Those dark eyes, tinged with an ever-glowing red.
“I thought I would never see you again,” Anubis said, folding his huge arms around Mina’s torso, holding him so tight against himself, Mina’s breath came short and shallow. “Even now, I fear some apparition of the underworld.”
“Our fire. It led me to you.”
“I was prepared to wait an eternity by this shore in the hopes that one day, when your body was old and your soul was ready, you might find your way back here. That you would make the journey and find me. But I did not expect to see you so soon. Did you…” Anubis’s eyes flashed wide and red.
“I didn’t die. At least I don’t think I did.”
Relief passed like a wave across the god’s face. “Then my disbelief is even greater. How can you be here? This is not possible.”
“I spoke to your father.”
Anubis’s face became stone. Slowly, he lowered Mina to the sand, warm under his soft feet. Despite the heat all around, Mina shivered and instinctively reached out a hand, wishing Anubis would hold him again.
“My father. What did he do?”
“Nothing.” But Mina knew that Anubis would sense the lie. So he pulled pieces of truth and wove as much as he could into a version that would have the smallest chance of angering Anubis.
“I convinced him to let me come here. I told him that I loved you and that you didn’t deserve this. He agreed to let me come and see you.”
“That does not sound like Osiris. He does not have compassion. He does not make deals that do not balance the scales.”
“I think he saw what you meant to me. What I mean to you. Whatever the reason, I’m here now. You want to waste time debating the details?”
Anubis stepped forward. Mina noticed the glossy sheen of his body.
The muscles that tensed just beneath his skin as he reached a hand forward and hooked a finger under his chin.
“I will not waste another second that I have with you. Not when there is something I should have done a long time ago. It took losing you and finding you again at the end of the world to realize it, but now that you’re here, I am going to claim you. ”
“Yes.” Mina closed his eyes as Anubis’s hand opened, cradling his head, and thumbing a small circle around his cheek.
“You are mine,” said the god.
“Prove it.”
Anubis took Mina’s hand and pulled him toward the trunk of the tree.
The great canopy obscured the towering pyramid so that when Mina looked around, all he could see was the familiar green flames and the vast sea of fire.
It turned his own pale skin into a kaleidoscope of color, and Mina thought he’d never looked more beautiful.
And for Anubis, the effect was even more striking.
The deep umber of his human skin seemed to glow from within, like a polished tiger’s eye stone.
Mina smiled. “I’m so glad to be here.” He wrapped his arms around Anubis’s chest, unable to reach all the way around, even in his human form. He let his fingers walk across the hard ripples of the muscles in his back. “I’d be glad to be anywhere with you.”
Mina felt Anubis’s groin pulse against his belly as the two pressed together. Somehow, in their brief time apart, he’d forgotten how monstrously huge the god was. And again, he worried that he’d be unable to do what he desperately wanted to do.
Anubis walked Mina to a place nearer the acacia tree where palm fronds were laid upon the ground, woven together like a great green quilt. He laid Mina down on his back, and Mina found the makeshift bed surprisingly soft and comfortable.
The great god stood above him and looked down, smiling.
Proud, like he was admiring some lost treasure he’d finally managed to rediscover.
And then another look came over Anubis, mingling with his lovesick gaze.
Hunger. Lust. A small gasp and a quiet whimper escaped Mina’s throat, and his groin began to ache.
On some primal instinct, Mina’s legs drifted apart, and the warm air caressed all the sensitive areas of him.
A low growl billowed up from Anubis, and his lips curled up in a wolfish grin, revealing his two sharp canines behind his full human lips.
He reached a giant hand down to his shendyt, pulling at the buckle.
It fell away like molten lead, exposing the entire length of him.
Mina started to raise himself to his knees, but before he could get there, Anubis knelt before him, pushing him gently back down onto his back.
“No, my kianga. This time, I shall worship you.”
Mina’s eyes fluttered closed as the god brought his mouth to Mina’s neck, centimeters from his skin, pouring his warm breath over him. He hovered above Mina’s mouth, and Mina inhaled. Woodsmoke and cloves and a sweetness, like figs. Mina felt drunk and grew harder on the god’s smell alone.
“I wish I could drink you,” Mina said.
“Close your eyes,” the god said.
Mina obeyed.
Anubis lowered himself fully on top of Mina so that his rock-hard body pressed Mina’s small one into the sand beneath the supple green fronds. Mina struggled to breathe, but in that moment, he didn’t need it. He needed Anubis.
Anubis brought a finger to Mina’s mouth and traced the downward bow of his upper lip, slowly pushing his index finger inside.
He felt around the warmth of his tongue, the insides of his cheek, down almost to the back of his throat.
Then he pushed in a second finger, the thickness filling Mina’s mouth completely.
When he pulled them out, they dripped with Mina’s saliva.
Quickly, before losing much of the wetness, Anubis reached down between Mina’s legs and pressed his wet fingers onto the tight bud of Mina’s hole.
He worked his index finger in a circle until he was so wet that his finger popped inside to the first knuckle.
Mina gasped. Anubis continued to work his finger into Mina up to the second knuckle.
Finally, his whole finger, the size of two normal men’s, was inside him.
Mina reached down, squeezing two fistfuls of palm leaves.
He felt a second finger try to push its way in, but he was already becoming too dry.
“Hm,” hummed Anubis. “I suppose I’ll have to try this another way.
” The god sat back on his heels and grabbed the back of each of Mina’s thighs in his hands, which easily wrapped completely around, and pushed his legs into the air.
Mina’s shendyt fell down around his stomach, and he felt his hole and cock exposed fully to the sky.