Chapter 13 Children of the Acheron #2
Daphne was beautiful in her pleasure. I’d known that before, but seeing it now, after the silence and the cold, was a different kind of miracle.
Her skin was flushed, her breath coming in ragged gasps against the black bed of my feathers.
The sight of her, so vibrant and alive, was a heavy, grounding weight in my chest.
But beneath the joy, a dark, cold outrage simmered. We should have had this from the beginning. Weeks ago. Before the lake, before the rot, before fate and its cruel, immutable laws had stolen her from me. The Weave had no right to take her, or to turn our bond into a vicious trap.
But the threads had lost the battle, as had Asphodelia’s own laws. This moment was for us, and through us. Nothing and no one else had a say in our lives now.
A fierce defiance rose in my chest, and the words came to my lips before I could stop them. “Thanatos has blessed Asphodelia today. The most beautiful bride since the Shift treads the market.”
It was an echo of a ritual that no longer applied, something Phix might have said an eternity ago. But the sphinx would never speak the words now, not about Daphne. Because the only bride market Daphne needed was the one we were in today, and the price I’d bought her with was that of my own grief.
My hand swept down her side, claiming the shape of her against the dark backdrop of my wings. “Daphne of Dodona,” I murmured, a name from a different life, poorly suited for the one we’d start anew. “Not death-touched, but free of death. Free of fate.”
I settled between her legs. A furnace of energy radiated from her body, burning hot and bright beneath her skin. Now more than ever, I needed to claim Daphne again, brand her as mine for a second time. To make her Daphne, Phonos’s mate, and nothing else.
Charon had rebuilt her body. The Moirae had rewoven her flesh. But the brand on her hand, the one that had marked our connection, was gone. I’d mark her again, in every way that mattered.
Daphne didn’t flinch. Her gaze sharpened and she lifted her hips, a deliberate invitation that wasn’t a surrender, but a demand. “What will you trade for me, then, Phonos of House Keres?”
I pressed the head of my cock against her entrance and shot her a quick, dangerous smile. “Everything,” I promised, and unleashed a powerful screech.
In the Weavers’ Hall, my death screech had lit up the Great Loom, binding us together.
Now, the air remained empty. No golden threads spun from the shadows.
If it could hear me, the Loom didn’t respond.
And I thrust inside her, triumphant in the knowledge that I didn’t need an artifact of fate to claim my mate. My soul song was enough on its own.
Daphne’s new body welcomed me like it had been made to match mine. She was tight and hot inside, almost viciously so. Death energy coursed through her flesh and into mine, crackling in a maddening dance of destruction and creation.
The feathers beneath us sizzled, every individual spark brought to life by the power she emanated. I desperately wanted to maintain control, to shower her with the reverence she deserved. But my restraint was fraying more and more by the second.
Daphne’s hands tightened on my shoulders, her nails digging into my flesh as I moved inside her. “The threads are gone. I am free. And so are you.”
I understood exactly what she wanted, what she was telling me. The whole time, I’d been holding back. But at the core, underneath our aristocratic trappings, even the Keres were monsters. Perhaps the most dangerous monsters of all.
Something inside me snapped. I shifted my weight, pinning her deeper into the bed of feathers. I pressed my chest to hers until I felt the heavy beat of her heart hammering against my own ribs. I needed to be closer. I needed to own her.
“A thread is just silk. It can be cut,” I growled against her mouth. “I am going to give you something they cannot touch.”
It was the only warning I gave her before I completely let go. Snarling, I set a brutal, almost punishing pace. I stopped seeking pleasure and sought her core, instead. Grabbing her hips, I buried my talons in her flesh. For the first time, I broke skin, and she didn’t mind it.
Instead, she went wild. She moved against me, trying to impale herself on my shaft, demanding everything I had. “Yes, Phonos, yes!”
It was everything I’d always wanted and more. But it wasn’t enough. There was still a frustrating barrier between us, one I couldn’t breach.
Then the world fractured. An ancient presence rose between us, both familiar and alien. “You seek to forge a bond in our waters,” it said. “Is this really what you want?”
It was the lake. The Acheron, the power that had claimed Daphne’s life, but given her back.
“You already know the answer,” I replied, irritated that it would even question my devotion.
I’d have said more, perhaps thanked it for helping Daphne, for keeping her safe, in its own way. But I didn’t get the chance.
“Then you will see the forge,” was the last thing the Acheron said.
And then, its voice splintered into a primordial screech, and suddenly, I was in the eye of the apocalypse.
The people of Asphodelia didn’t remember the Shift. The Moirae and Charon were the sole exceptions and they didn’t speak of it. I’d never blamed them for their discretion. But in that moment, I caught a glimpse of the day Asphodelia had come to be. Or rather, I heard it.
The agonized cries of countless dying souls echoed in my mind, and if I hadn’t been a Keres, my mind would have fractured.
This was it, then, the power that had created the Acheron.
I felt it come, the death energy clustering in stubborn waves, the souls refusing to dissipate even after the Shift had ended.
And within it all, I felt her. Our minds slammed together. My grief, her fear, the history of the world… It all fused into a single, blinding point of connection. We were no longer two souls in one place. We were one consciousness witnessing the end and birth of our world.
“This is our blessing to you, seer and Keres,” the Acheron said. “You, Daphne, who are no longer mortal. Not death-touched, but not woven. You, Phonos, who turned your back on Asphodelia for your mate. Both of you are children of our waters now.”
“Thank you,” Daphne answered, and it was her voice, her mind, her heart. It was Daphne, in every sense of the word.
I’d never heard her quite so deeply, not even when we’d been bound by the Great Loom. The sheer strength of her presence overwhelmed me. “Daphne… This…”
I couldn’t finish the phrase, or the thought, but she did so in my stead. “…Is what we always wanted.”
The mental vision shattered, and our bodies came together in a final outburst of ecstasy. With one last thrust, I came, filling my mate with my seed. I felt her own climax hit, a resonating chord in our shared mind.
A pulse of light danced around our bodies before finally settling on her hand, right where her brand had once been. The true claiming mark, the one she’d always deserved.
The bond was forged. I felt it now, a new, quiet, continuous hum between us, a connection that had nothing to do with fate. “Now we truly belong to one another,” I rasped, and it was a truth as real and powerful as the devastation that had brought the Acheron into being.
She didn’t answer with words. She simply reached up and pulled me down for a deep kiss that was all the confirmation I needed. It was a kiss of shared memory, of a journey taken and a destination reached.
The ghosts of the Agora were gone, burned away by the gift we’d been granted. There was only us, a unified song on an unwritten path.
I pulled back and rested my forehead against hers. The frantic, desperate need to claim her had finally settled, replaced by a quiet peace I’d never known.
The storms could have the peak. The sky could have the clouds. Right here, in the dust and the dark, with the sound of our future humming between us, I’d finally found my home.