Chapter 13 Children of the Acheron
Children of the Acheron
Daphne & Phonos
It was strange to be alive.
When I’d followed Phonos’s call, I’d expected my new form to hurt more, to feel uncomfortable. In a way, it did. But mostly, what struck me was the simple reality of how much we took for granted as humans.
We spent our lives fearing death, but our truest, deepest enemies were always our own fears.
“Show me your city, Phonos,” I told my mate, “the way a Keres would.” And I meant it.
Phonos gaped at me and hesitated. Keres weren’t immune to fear, especially not after such a loss. “Are you sure?”
I took a breath, and with it came a quiet, solid certainty. “I want to know our home,” I said, and the truth of it settled in my chest. “The way I should have, from the very beginning.”
Deep down, I’d always realized I didn’t belong here. Perhaps my instinctive rejection of flight had been about that, too. But now, I needed to see this through to the end. I needed to be brave, like the lake had told me to.
Phonos took my hand and led me out of the inner chamber, back onto the private dock. The mist of the Acheron swirled around our feet. He pulled me flush against the solid warmth of his chest.
“Then hold on,” he murmured against my ear.
A single, powerful downstroke of his wings lifted us from the stone, and the world fell away. My stomach lurched. My hands flew to his shoulders, my entire body bracing for the familiar, agonizing hook of the threads.
But there was nothing.
No hook. No pull. Only the smooth beat of his wings and the rush of cool air against my face.
Asphodelia spread out below us, a breathtaking kaleidoscope of dark buildings and glowing crystals. It was not a terrifying map of tangled fates. It was just… a city. Beautiful. Unusual. But real.
We banked, a graceful turn that aimed us toward the distant shadow of the Keres Spire. I leaned my head back against his shoulder, letting the wind whip through my hair. “Is flying always like this for you? I understand why you like it so much.”
To my surprise, Phonos shook his head. “I think it’s different now,” he answered, his voice so low it was almost inaudible. “Everything I did before, everything I was… I’m not sure how I feel about it now.”
The problem wasn’t flying. It was the fact that my death had challenged his entire worldview. I opened my mouth to reassure him, but the words died in my throat.
As we passed over the city’s center, my eyes fell upon a familiar sight. It was the massive, gaping archway carved into the earth, the main gate to the subterranean Agora of Echoes.
I went rigid, and Phonos instantly sensed it. “Daphne? What’s wrong?”
The simple act of speaking suddenly felt like a monumental effort. “The auction. It requires a death-touched bride. That is the binding condition.”
Phonos pressed his lips together so tightly they went white. “That doesn’t matter anymore, Daphne.”
I wanted that to be true, for us to be free of everything, like I’d said. But a worm of apprehension still wriggled at the back of my mind.
“Phonos, by their laws… we aren’t mated. We never were. Your claim on me is void.”
Phonos slowed, hovering in the sky, his gaze following mine to the maw of the entrance below. His grip on me tightened, and his expression hardened into something cold and possessive. “Then we will forge a bond that needs neither their laws nor their threads.”
He veered down sharply, and we dove straight toward the gates of the Agora. The wind shrieked past, tugging at our skin and clothes like a rabid beast. I snapped my eyes shut, overwhelmed by Phonos’s sheer speed.
Before long, the crisp feel of the open sky gave way to the damp chill of the Asphodelian underground. Phonos’s wings, powerful and sure, unerringly guided us through the corridors. But it was only when he slowed down that I finally dared to open my eyes.
Silent tiers spiraled past us, the dim light from death crystals casting ominous shadows over the walls. Every motion of Phonos’s wings seemed to twist the darkness into the ghostly shapes of the monsters who’d once screamed for me. But I hadn’t been afraid of them then, and I wasn’t now.
We landed with a dull thud, Phonos’s feet meeting the hard stone of the arena floor. Directly before us stood the bone rostrum. The auction block.
Phonos set me down, but he didn’t let me go. His hands stayed locked on my waist, his wings half-unfurled to block out the rest of the empty arena. “The Moirae told me something, Daphne. They said that every monster here craved you because they could scent death on you.”
The revelation settled like a cold stone in my gut. So that was why. The reason for their insatiable hunger. It made a sickening amount of sense.
“I failed you then. I couldn’t even see what they did.” His voice dropped to a low, dangerous growl. “But so did their laws and their ways. Those rituals… They are for those bound by threads. We are not.”
He cupped my face, his taloned thumbs stroking my cheekbones. The heat from his stare was a brand against my skin, a desperate, possessive fire. “You are mine,” he murmured, the final word a ghost of a touch against my lips. “That is the only law. The only claim that matters.”
The restlessness in my gut finally quieted. His words burned away the last of my misgivings. I had faced fate and let my fear of flying go. There was nothing left to be afraid of.
He seemed to sense the shift in me, the final, quiet surrender. With a soft rustle, a cascade of black feathers fell from his wings, settling into a thick pallet at the foot of the rostrum. “No cold stone for you,” he murmured against my neck. “Only me.”
As he gently laid me down, the feathers molded to my back, their living warmth seeming to hum against my skin. Phonos hovered above me. His eyes took in every inch of me with a look of raw, painful awe.
I knew exactly how he felt. After all, a part of me still struggled with the knowledge that we could have this. But if we were here, now, it was precisely because nothing could hold us back ever again. “Only you,” I told him. “And we’ll never lose each other again.”
My words broke something in him. A choked sound escaped his throat, and he lowered his head, resting his forehead against mine. For a long moment, he just breathed, and the warmth of it made me feel more alive than I’d ever been.
When he finally kissed me, the touch was so gentle it was almost painful. It was a soft, searching pressure, a desperate confirmation that I was real, that I was here, safe in his arms.
The gentleness of his kiss was a promise, but it left an ache for something more. It was proof that my new body was not just alive, but hungry. He’d been treating me like a priceless, fragile thing. But I was not made of glass. Not anymore.
I pulled back, just enough to meet his gaze. “Please, Phonos. I didn’t come back to you to be worshiped. I came back to be yours.”
For a heartbeat, his eyes widened, a flash of surprise. Then the shock was gone, replaced by something dark and primal. In complete silence, he reached for the fastenings at my shoulders and peeled the fabric away.
Time seemed to slow. Until then, it had been almost too easy to pretend things hadn’t changed at all, that my flesh was just as human as it had always been.
But the moment the material fell aside, something changed. It was as if his gaze awoke a secret hidden inside my new form. A thousand tiny needles prickled over my skin, but it didn’t hurt.
Any other day, it would have been confusing. But the next thing I knew, Phonos began a deliberate, open-mouthed trail down my body. And I couldn’t think about anything anymore except how good it all felt.
My back arched off the feathers as his tongue traced a wet path over my collarbone.
A sharp, choked gasp escaped my lips. When his mouth closed over the peak of my breast, the gentle scrape of his teeth sent a bright shock straight to my core.
It felt like he was pulling on the very strings of my soul.
The bed of feathers beneath me started to move, to shift. The soft barbs began to stroke against my back and legs, moving in perfect time with his worship. They were alive, an extension of his will. A low whisper seemed to rise from them, a thought that was not my own brushing against my skin.
This body. This soul. They have always been mine.
The hum of his satisfaction traveled up from the feathers, a deep thrum that met the heat of his mouth as he moved lower. He settled between my legs, parting the folds of my flesh with his thumbs.
Then his tongue swept over my folds, a single, deliberate stroke. My world dissolved into pure, humming sensation. He didn’t stop, lapping at me with a relentless rhythm. “Phonos...” I cried out, the name a breathless anchor in a sea of overwhelming pleasure. “I...”
The feathers themselves seemed to answer me, their rustle a triumphant confirmation against my back.
Yes. You feel it now. The song of my claim.
The whispers from the pallet enveloped me, possessive and all-encompassing.
It sings inside you. A melody only I can play. A rhythm only you can feel.
The ecstasy sharpened, building from a steady pulse into an unbearable, exquisite pressure. My muscles drew tight, coiling into knots as the air vanished from my lungs.
Let go. Give yourself to the sound. To me.
The frantic tension in my body only spurred Phonos on. He zeroed in on the small bundle of nerves that drove me crazy, his mouth more demanding, more seductive. I tried to hold on, to prolong the moment, but it was a losing battle.
All too soon, he pushed me past the point of no return. A mind-melting climax ripped through me, and it shattered every lock that had remained between me and Phonos.
I was wide awake, alive in a way I’d never deemed possible. I was his. And for the first time, I could feel exactly what that meant.