Chapter 24 Nyssa
Nyssa
Finally.
After gods and kings and even death had stood between us, we finally came crashing together in a way that set my heart aflame — a way that set my soul on fire.
This was what I fought for. This feeling. This love. This man.
And this was what I’d die for too.
The bond between us had reformed — somehow melted — so that there was no discernible separation between us. It was truly as if we shared one soul. His desire twined with my own, my ecstasy spurred his, until we were both writhing, on the precipice of freefall.
I couldn’t stop it and nor could he.
His movements quickened in time with my own — both of us catapulted into simultaneous oblivion; rocketed into an abyss of endless bliss that neither had any desire to ever come down from.
And then we did it again.
With euphoria hazing my vision, I rolled us both over until Caelus was on his back and I was straddling his hips. Desperate to fill that aching void inside me again — and again and again, forever — I sank down onto his already-hard-again length with a stuttering inhale.
The way he looked up at me was almost too intense to bear — like I was something precious, something cherished.
Something I didn’t feel worthy of.
Needing a reprieve, I threw my head back, looking instead at the star-strewn ceiling, and ground my hips forward, lapping up the noises that slipped past his lips. I’d never heard anything more erotic than a man undone by his woman.
Caelus undone by me.
Rolling my hips back, I gasped as his rigid length brushed against something he hadn’t yet hit by any other angle — and we had tested many of them, moving in ways that dragged our desire higher.
Prolonging the feeling, I slowed, moving maddeningly minutely, until Caelus took matters into his own hands and pulled my head back down to devour my lips.
He used the change in position to thrust up into me from beneath, spearing me over and over with his length. And I thanked him for it. Begged for it. Pleaded with him to end it.
And he did — violently, raucously… lovingly.
“Caelus!” I cried out as I came so hard the stars imprinted themselves on the backs of my eyelids, giving no heed to anyone that might be within earshot.
And as if my call had been a summons, his cock pulsed within me as he emptied himself again, panting until the force of our climaxes eased.
But he stayed there, nestled between my legs like he was loath to untwine us, long after our breathing slowed and our minds dragged us into the sweet darkness of oblivion.
Inevitably, reality came crashing back in.
I startled awake to a high, keening whine, one that sounded familiar, and yet not. Like a memory I’d lost somewhere in the haze of time.
My alarm triggered Caelus’ and he sat bolt upright, clutching me to his chest. His eyes alighted before he even really woke, prepared to incinerate any foe that would dare harm us in the relative safety of our own bed.
I stared out the open balcony, certain that the origin of the noise was somewhere out there, close enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
“What is it?” he murmured.
Before I could answer, however, the whine sounded again.
It was definitely closer this time, perhaps just outside the door.
Without thinking, I vaulted out of bed—
“Nyssa!”
—and crept outside, peering slowly over the edge of the stone balustrade.
Cerberus stared back at me, all six of his eyes mournfully blinking at different intervals, but remaining fixed on me. He sat statue-still, his enormous tail uncharacteristically tucked between his muscular hind legs.
“What is it, boys?” I trilled softly, wondering why he’d wandered so far from the portal he guarded so fiercely.
Caelus stepped up beside me, wrapping a bedsheet around my shoulders but left his arms there too. I could feel his protectiveness like a lump in my throat, fueled by what we had just shared — and I felt it too.
What I thought had been love and the primal drive to shield him from all who sought him harm before, felt like a drop in the ocean of what I harboured now.
It was as though our bond had grown. Warped.
Reforged itself into something new. Something hardier.
Something even Atropos would struggle to cleave.
Even if it wasn’t true, I let the feeling swathe me in the hope that we might both make it out of this war alive.
Sir Bruce whined again, his two outer heads swivelling to peer north. The central one kept his eyes trained on me, though, imploring me to understand their unspoken message.
I spun on my heel, ignoring Caelus’ protests and rushed to don my leathers. Distractedly, I noted him doing the same. When both boots were laced, I stood, only to be blocked by a seven foot brick wall of a god clasping my upper arms.
His head dipped and his storm-filled eyes pierced mine. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” I frowned. “But he wants me to go with him.”
Caelus’ white brows lowered in a frown but he stepped back and allowed me to pass. “Alright, let’s go then.”
I wasn’t going to argue. Truthfully, I was relieved he wanted to come.
I never wanted him out of my sight again.
The thought rankled at me, twisting my face into something resembling a grimace.
I grit my teeth, fighting the urge to clench my fists and start swinging at the inevitability of our future parting.
Sir Bruce met us by the front steps. His gigantic frame took up the bulk of the gardens. In fact, his enormous ass was currently pulverising the beds of belladonna and black dahlias, releasing a sickly sweet scent into the night air.
I reached up to scratch the hound’s moping left head right between the ears, smiling when he leaned into it.
“What’s wrong, Brucey? Why are you here?”
In answer, his right head dropped a slobbery-something at my feet that I hadn’t noticed in his mouth before. With any luck, it wasn’t another pretentious summons.
As the object rolled to a stop against my boot, I was relieved to see that it was no parchment scroll — but instead found myself morose to look upon a splintering skull.
Melancholy ached beneath my sternum, coiled like a sleeping serpent.
“Charon isn’t here, boys,” I murmured, kicking the ancient skull along the path. “He isn’t coming to play fetch with you.”
Sir Bruce loped after it slowly, like he, too, was depressed about it, but couldn’t resist the impulse to chase.
Caelus grasped my hand wordlessly, squeezing it three times.
I love you, he sent across our link.
And I, you, I sent back. For as long as my heart still beats — and beyond that.
Cerberus looked back at us forlornly, one of his heads nudging the skull further down the track. A low keen rumbled at the back of his throats as he rolled it further still. He trotted back over, his large body circumnavigating us, then sniffed at our backs.
With no warning at all, Sir Bruce shoved hard and even with decades of training, it still almost sent me sprawling to the ground. He shoved again and I stumbled, using the momentum to shift into a jog. One of his heads let out a happy bark as he chased us along the winding trail.
Oh. He’s fetching us.
With that revelation uncovered, Sir Bruce sped ahead.
His long legs set the arduous pace, and before I knew it, we’d crossed both bridges over the Styx, following some indiscernible cacophony that grew louder and more piercing the closer we got.
Seconds later, where the sharp crescendo was loudest, we slid to a stop on the bank of the northernmost island.
Across the river where no living soul could accidentally wander, lay the Isle of Judgement — at least it should have been lying there, as bright as any beacon in this realm of eternal midnight, calling forth all the shades of the departed.
Instead, a thick, grey cloud ensconced the island, rendering it indistinguishable from its midnight backdrop. The cloud swirled and thundered, its clamour ebbing and flowing in waves. The longer I stared, the more my horror grew — for that was no thundercloud, but a tempest of displaced souls.
“Arch,” I whispered. “Hephaestus.” I met Caelus’ eyes, my fear mirrored in his own. “Wait, you can see them?”
He nodded slowly, turning back to the Isle. “Charon showed me how.”
“Ever the master of perfect timing,” I muttered. “Pity he’s absent now.”
“Maybe he’s not,” Caelus considered, staring pointedly at the Isle.
Dread crept its way along my limbs as frost creeps across a window.
“Do you think Arch and Heph can feel them yet?” he asked, fingers splaying by his sides. Lightning flickered in the spaces between them, belying the agitation he was so thoroughly trying to conceal.
With little more than a flick of my wrist, a shadowgate opened to our left. The wailing traversed the nothingness between places, amplified by the magic of the portal.
“Only one way to find out,” I murmured, extending my hand.
Caelus looped his warm fingers through my own, brushing his thumb tenderly across my skin and joined me at the threshold of the gate.
I looked over at the triple-headed guardian, laying with all three heads resting on two crossed forelegs, morosely keeping eyes on the Isle.
“Good boys,” I told them. “Thank you for bringing us here.”
His tail thumped happily on the ground at the praise.
I squeezed Caelus’ hand thrice — and then we stepped through.