Chapter 19 #3
“What?” I muttered and she leapt back, doing a fucking backflip and impossibly landing on top of the pedestal which had held the coin.
A dark tunic and loose trousers appeared to cover her body, and I swallowed thickly as I tried to regain some of my sanity and ignore the insistent throbbing which was taking place in my britches.
I didn’t know what the hell she was, but there was something about her that was intoxicating, and if I wasn’t careful, I was certain I could easily lose my head with her.
Cassius arched a brow at me as he moved to my side once more and we watched as her features started to change and her metallic skin stretched over a larger frame as she somehow morphed into a man.
“Is this better?” she asked excitedly, her voice unchanged though she had almost entirely altered her appearance.
“I think I did it right, I even have a penis...” She stretched her britches open so that she could look inside them and frowned.
“I think I did it wrong though, is it supposed to be this small?” She dropped her trousers to her ankles and a laugh escaped me at the tiny cock which looked like it had been stuck onto her skin above her pubic bone.
“Yeah, I think you did it wrong,” I agreed as Cassius glanced my way with an expression that said what the fuck is happening? and I responded to it with a shrug because hell if I knew.
“Maybe you should just stick to being a girl,” Cassius suggested hesitantly.
“Right.” She yanked her trousers up again and dropped down from the pedestal.
By the time she’d landed on the ground before us, she was a girl again, just as captivating as before, her clothes becoming a dress which was made of emerald green satin and hugged her figure in a way that may have been even more alluring than her nudity had been.
Her features were a little different than before.
Her skin was almost silver now and her lips were orange, though her face was still as captivatingly beautiful.
“What are you?” I breathed, stunned by her and still at least half convinced she was about to spring an attack at any moment. But perhaps I would be able to die happy if it was at the whims of this creature. It seemed like a better option than most of those I’d been offered in life.
Her eyes widened with realisation and she slapped a hand to her forehead.
“Oh, I’m so stupid, I didn’t do the speech! It’s been so long I must have forgotten - I’ve forgotten most things now anyway - do you want me to go back into the coin and take it from the top or just start again?”
“Err-”
“ Please don’t make me go back in the coin, Master,” she begged suddenly, dropping to her knees before me with wide, terrified eyes.
“Master?” Cassius questioned, and I had to admit that one had me all kinds of confused too.
“Not you,” she said to him, twirling a finger through the air so my right arm was pulled up in front of me. My palm turned to the sky, revealing the chain binding my wrist to the collar surrounding her throat, like I was a puppet being pulled by a string she controlled. “ Him.”
“I’m your master?” I asked, latching onto that and trying not to let myself get caught up in the fear of how easily she had just taken control of me. The collar and chain faded out of sight once more, but I was left feeling even more certain of their ongoing existence.
“You rubbed my coin. You called me forth. I’m The Blessing - you know, all powerful.
..let me do the speech.” She cleared her throat, and her purple hair flew about behind her as her eyes glinted with power again while both Cassius and I stood captivated by her.
“Master, you have woken me from my slumber - I wasn’t actually asleep though so that part of the speech is wildly inaccurate.
I haven’t slept in thousands of years. Or maybe hundreds.
..I don’t really know but I wasn’t asleep, I was awake even when I was dreaming and I might have lost my mind a little and.
.. forget that, I’ll start again.” She bit her lip, almost seeming shy or uncertain, but that couldn’t have been right because she was so…
everything. Before I could figure it out, she cleared her throat and started over.
“Master, you have woken me from my slumber and my power is now yours to wield. I am Kyra, Slave to the Coin, The Blessing, Keeper of Wishes, Maker of Dreams, and anything you command shall come to pass.”
It took me several moments to take in the fact that she hadn’t introduced herself as a goddess, nor claimed to want anything from me or Cassius at all.
I was stunned by her announcement almost as surely as I was confused by it.
Anything I commanded would come to pass?
Was she claiming to hold ancient magic? After all I’d seen of her so far it didn’t even seem too farfetched, but why would she offer up that power to me?
Why did she seem to think I was her master?
I didn’t know if she was confused or if I was the one failing to understand what was happening, but I had a whole host of questions, none of which seemed likely to have a simple answer if the look of her was anything to go by.
“Anything I command?” I asked in disbelief, wondering what the hell I would want even if that was the truth.
She nodded, blinking up at me in a way that made my thoughts scatter and I looked away from her as I tried to figure out what was going on to try and get my thoughts straight without the distraction of her being directly in my line of sight.
My gaze fell on the dead thieves who had come here with us, the six of them laying among the trees near the far end of the garden, their blood staining the unnatural grass and their bodies destroyed beyond any hope of recovery. That seemed like a simple enough test of her so-called power.
“So I can ask for those men down there not to be dead so that Egos won’t kill me?” I questioned, choosing something impossible in the hopes of figuring out exactly how powerful she was, wondering if there was any chance that she could actually do such a thing.
Kyra bit her lip almost nervously and twisted a finger into her unnatural hair as she looked at me like she was trying to figure me out.
But she was the one who had appeared out of fucking nowhere and starting creating clothes from thin air, so I had no idea why she would be afraid of anything I might do.
“Oh, well, okay so not anything,” she said slowly, biting down on her full bottom lip in a way that drew far too much of my attention .
“ Your commands are for you; they can’t affect anyone else.
So I can’t make decisions for another person for you.
If you were dead and asked for me to bring you back to life then I could totally do it, but you can’t wish it for them. I can’t take free will from anyone.”
“If I was dead then how could I ask to be alive?” I frowned in confusion over that odd statement.
Kyra placed her hands on her hips and the green dress she wore turned buttercup yellow, making me flinch and Cassius backed up another step warily.
I didn’t know what she was, but I wasn’t a fool and my instincts had kept me alive up until this moment.
I’d keep talking to her all the while it was distracting her, and then I fully intended to run the fuck away before I found out just how lethal this unnatural being could be.
“You know, I never really thought of that,” she mused. “But I think you’re getting a little too caught up on the few things I can’t do. My power is endless and it’s yours to command for as long as you hold my coin. Isn’t there anything you want from me?”
My mind whirled with all the things I wanted in this world – mostly wealth, but I’d take a whole lot of sex with beautiful women alongside that too, not that I’d ever had to work hard to get that, and I didn’t voice any of my thoughts of gold or jewels.
What if this was some trick? What if there was a price to this that I hadn’t seen yet?
In my entire life I’d never come across anything that I could have for nothing without stealing it.
People, or gods, didn’t just offer up gifts or blessings or whatever the hell she wanted to call it for no reason.
Power like that surely had some cost. And I wasn’t going to be tricked into paying it.
I needed time to think. I wasn’t going to be dumb and get myself caught in a trap, tricked by some long-forgotten deity. And I sure as fuck wouldn’t make this choice without thinking it through.
“So you’re saying that anyone who holds your coin can wield your power?
” Cassius demanded, his eyes flashing with a greed I knew all too well.
For a man who claimed morals, he was certainly willing to bend them a whole hell of a lot, and a few simple days in my company seemed to have already gained him a taste for thievery.
The girl or god or whatever nodded enthusiastically and Cassius lunged forward, aiming a punch at her face while roaring a battle cry.
“For the emperor!” he bellowed.
But instead of colliding with her, he stumbled through her as if she were made of smoke instead of flesh, and my heart nearly leapt up into my mouth as I cursed at the sight of it.
I took a step backwards, contemplating the idea of running while Cassius had her distracted, but as her golden eyes snapped to me, I fell still again, unsure what she might do to her ‘Master’ if I tried to abandon her here.
Kyra tilted her head, assessing him like she wasn’t entirely certain what he was doing as he came at her again, aiming to wrap his hands around her throat this time and I took another step back to stay out of the way.
But as my gaze fell to the coin which still sat on the ground, I sidestepped them to claim it again.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to believe about her or this bond she seemed to have formed with me, but she’d made it clear that she thought I had some power over her while I held that coin.
So I had to assume that the best thing I could do would be to keep a tight hold of it while I figured out the rest.
The second time Cassius failed to grab her, his hands slipping through her skin like it was less substantial than air, Kyra laughed.
The tone of that laugh stole my breath. It reminded me of the way the windchimes sounded as a storm was picking up, and yet was nothing like them at the same time.
The sound was rough and throaty, pure and honest and yet only served to make the power she held all the clearer.
“What’s he doing?” she asked with another laugh as he tried to attack her once more, his lips pulling back in a ferocious snarl while sweat began to bead on his temple. “I think I like it,” she added.
“Give it up, mate,” I said as I retrieved the coin and felt the unnatural warmth of it in my hand once more. “You’re embarrassing yourself. Besides, that’s my…Blessing you’re attacking.”
“Oh, say that again,” Kyra said breathily as her gaze fell on me and her golden eyes widened with something fiery and sinful. “The bit where you call me yours.”
By the Fallen, she practically panted that word, and I raised an eyebrow at the strange creature as Cassius backed off with a scowl.
“Whatever this power is, I can’t destroy it,” he cursed as he moved to stand beside me once more, his chest heaving from the effort he’d used to attack her so many times without success.
“No shit,” I commented, cocking my head as I regarded Kyra who was looking at me with something which appeared strangely like rabid devotion.
I held no love in my heart for any of the gods.
They’d never done a single thing to help me after all.
I’d even prayed to them once, when I was locked up and held at the mercy of another who claimed to be working in their names.
They hadn’t cared, they hadn’t stopped him.
And now I bore the mark of every one of them as a result of their inaction.
So I had no desire to worship any god or goddess, but I couldn’t say I minded the way it felt as she looked at me like that. Like I was the one with the power here.
I waited for her to say anything, but the expectation in her golden eyes made it clear that she was still waiting for me to give her a command, to take advantage of this offer she was making.
“Do I have to make a demand right this second?” I asked.
“No. As long as you wield the coin you can call me from it at any time or keep me locked within it as you wish,” she said, offering up a bright smile as she realised she’d hooked me with this offer.
I couldn’t say for sure if she had or not, but I’d have to be a fucking fool to outright refuse it.
“Or you could just let me stay out here while you think about it. I haven’t seen anything apart from the inside of that coin in such a long, long time and-”
“Yeah, yeah. Go back inside the coin then while I have a think,” I said, wondering if she really would do it or not as I took the thing from my pocket and noticed the image of the girl that had been etched into it before was now just a blank space, like her being free of it had changed the metal itself somehow.
Kyra gazed at me like I’d just slapped her as the purple smoke shifted around her again, and the last thing I saw of her unreal features was tears glimmering in her eyes before she shot into the coin in my hand with a jolt that almost knocked me off of my feet.
A strange and unfamiliar burn tugged at my chest as that look in her eyes stayed with me for several seconds before I forced the memory aside and focused on the coin once more.
I arched a brow as the image of the girl reappeared on the metal like honest to shit magic, and I tucked it into my pocket, looking to Cassius who appeared to be having some kind of internal breakdown over all he’d just witnessed.
“Shit,” I said, honestly not having many other words in that moment because who in the hell would have expected that to happen when I claimed this treasure for my own?
The look of mixed shock and horror on Cassius’s face told me clearly enough that he hadn’t known of what power the coin held either, which I guessed was a good thing.
If I was going to be in the dark about it then I was glad he was in the same position.
“This is not good,” he muttered, his eyes filling with thoughts of dread and anger while mine were consumed with those of riches and power.
I guessed that was the difference between him and me though; some of us were just born winners.