Chapter 5 The Warrior #4
That stole any ready answer I might have had, but Seth wouldn’t look at me when I sought his meaning. “My lord…?”
“Tell me.”
Even if his tail hadn’t moved to wrap around my cock that was pinned between us, I would have been ready to pop at a moment’s notice.
But he wouldn’t let me. The spiraling strokes from his tail were tempered by the occasional sting from its forked tip.
Not even his tickling prongs in contrast to his shaft’s ridges, like two tongues deep inside me lapping at the bundle of elation at my core, was enough to free me from this limbo until he willed it.
I grabbed Seth’s face, forcing him to look at me. He looked human again, without any flickers, leaving only his tail and unique cock that were maybe always this way, regardless of whether he had horns.
“You are worthy of love, but—”
“Tell me.” He stopped, firm cock lodged within me but unmoving, leaving me desperate for friction or even the ability to squirm. “Tell me that you’ll stay.”
“My lord—”
“If you stop here, you need never know pain as pain again. But if you continue and fail, what then? If you continue and succeed, can you be certain you will never know worse pain someday than what you felt when you lost him? Stop here, Nakht, remain with me, and pain will only ever be bliss.”
Seth started to move again, and in our coupling, I felt how true his promise was. Because there was pain, but so mixed with pleasure that I could barely tell the difference and wanted both.
But that was the problem. They were becoming one feeling. One constant. If I never knew pain, how would I know the salvation of when it fades? All eventually would become commonplace and numb, meaningless.
Just as Seth had become numb.
Was that better? When I thought back to the agony of witnessing Meryt's demise and how it had only grown worse in the hours that followed, a part of me... had wished for numbness, for nothingness, and it was that wish that had made me raise my dagger.
Seth continued to fuck me, tail wrapped around my cock but further up its length, so his forked tip could return to my rim, all points of pain and pleasure he could give to me happening at once.
Claws raking but hands caressing. Teeth tearing but tongue soothing.
Hips slamming harder into me but fluids mixing to ease the ache.
Then, when I dropped my head back, overcome by it all, unsure if I could wade out of this depth, upside down though my view was, I saw down the long corridor out of Seth’s home.
To where Meryt watched us.
He was farther away again, all the way down at the corridor’s end, at the dock, like a single misstep from me would cause him to stumble right over the edge of the cliff into the cavern of chaos where Apophis slept.
I was losing him again, because again, I was tempted. But I couldn’t be. I couldn’t allow myself to be. I didn’t want numbness, even if it never meant pain. Even if I failed along this journey, whatever brief time I’d had with Meryt would be worth any pain anyone or anything could ever cause me.
“Seth—”
He lifted me, lifted me while I was still folded, heels at my ears, and fucked me upright like I had with Ra, only facing one another so my eyes could no longer see Meryt.
And though that was the greatest pain of all, I came right then with a broken cry, while Seth growled and nuzzled me like a scenting animal until he came too.
The little snuffles that followed anchored me back to reality. Seth wasn’t letting me unfold, and the ache quickly started to overcome the receding waves of pleasure.
“Stay,” he said, with a tremble and crack in his voice now. “Stay with me, and even losing him will no longer pain you.”
His words were so clearly intended for his own reflection that I was filled with an awful sorrow again. I knew this pain, the pain he thought he could outrun but still clearly felt.
Seth’s hold on me loosened enough for me to unwind my legs from our contorted position, and it hurt this time without the echo of ecstasy.
He was still seated within me, but his tail had fallen away.
He was human looking and broken, so I let it hurt.
I had to. Pain had to be felt for relief to mean anything, or we wouldn’t be alive. We wouldn’t be ourselves.
We would simply be numb.
“I’m sorry, my lord, but no,” I told him as gently as I could and touched his cheek so he would know I understood his pain.
“Nakht,” Meryt’s voice spoke beside my ear, and I whipped my head around to look at the exit.
He was gone.
But he had been right there.
“No,” Seth echoed me, echoed my thoughts, as he forced my head forward to look at him. “You will stay. You must stay. I cannot be here alone any longer!”
A new shock of terror coursed through me, as Seth tightened his hold on my body, unyielding. With my legs down, I was seated in his lap, still impaled by his lingering hardness.
He seemed wilder now, emanating the chaos he was known for.
“I am sorry, my lord, truly, but my answer—”
“No!” Seth seized me tighter, and I thought he meant to take me again, only without the balance, an act of only anger.
But he didn’t. He just as instantly deflated, mournful, and started to weep.
“Y-you will stay. You are mine now. Please…”
I touched his cheek again, brushed my fingers through his tears, and gave the only answer I could. “Lettuce.”
Seth’s face broke open with more sobbing, but also with cracks from his human form into the beast. The skull face seemed even sadder somehow with tears streaming from its hollows, but he listened to me, he obeyed our promise, and pulled from me to set me aside, then leaned away from me against the bed.
The underworld cracked and broke open above us with an eruption of light. Seth froze, face turning human again and ruddy eyes staring, while I scrambled farther away toward the cavern corridor.
A figure was descending, so beautifully bathed in that light. I only realized who it must be when the brilliance of his splendor bathed me in it too, and I was cleansed, painted face and hair masterful again, and clothing and accessories straightened like when first prepared for a night of dancing.
It was Horus, a winged god, wearing a headdress of blue-black feathers.
Only it truly was a headdress for him, not a falcon-like head the way Ra could look, I was almost certain of it.
His wings, however, were very real, with the same blue-black beauty, while the rest of his feathers were decoration.
He wore full leather armor with a blue and white loincloth, and a gold collar.
His skin was the same medium-dark as Seth’s, and like many of the others, he wore a gold wrist cuff bearing his symbol: the Eye of Horus.
It was the reverse of the Eye of Ra, stylized as if painted with kohl.
His real left eye was painted in kind with thick kohl all around it and an added tail going down from one side and returning upright at the end in a curl.
That iris glowed a rare silvery blue like the moon it represented.
His unpainted right eye’s iris was amber in reference to the Eye of Ra and the risen sun.
The left was the one Seth would have taken during their battling, but the god Thoth had healed it, and it had become a symbol of restoration ever since.
It was remarkable to see them both within one handsome face, so different from Ra’s gold and silver combined, like the waxing and waning of the sky’s celestial bodies.
Seth was as entranced as I was, with tears still streaming down his face. He had otherwise equally been cleansed with clothing straightened, but because of that, he looked so small, lying on the ground, a human man in a simple red tunic, with even his tail once again hidden beneath it.
Horus tilted as he descended closer, so his head was pointed toward the ground. He did so, I realized, to make it easier to stay aloft, wings gently flapping, while drawing Seth’s chin up to claim a kiss.
Seth leaned into it with such fervor, such joy, like nothing his mastery of pain and pleasure could have fabricated. Which made it all the worse when, within that kiss, cords unleashed from Horus’s belt to wrap around Seth like bindings.
“Wait!” I leapt to my feet. “That isn’t necessary!”
Seth didn’t seem to mind, merely glad to have felt Horus’s lips, for he was smiling when they parted, longing though he remained.
Horus looked sorrowful too, for I knew this was not a true reunion. I had yet to learn what had actually transpired between them, but that love was there seemed palpable.
As Horus righted himself and landed on his feet, and Seth remained bound, the falcon-like god, known for healing and restoration, looked to me.
“Punishment is only eternal if one does not grow from it and choose to change.”
“But Seth—”
“He tried to deny your choice before he saw reason, did he not? He is not yet ready.”
Seth continued to smile, tears drying, resigned to his fate after getting a taste of freedom from Horus’s lips.
“Come,” Horus said, and held a hand out to me.
Now that I was standing, I was close enough to take it.
“Wait,” Seth croaked, and when I looked at him, he asked, “How did you resist?”
I knew he asked for his own sake, wondering how he might resist and change as Horus needed him to for this punishment to end.
“When you love someone, your own desires are less important than providing for theirs. I would suffer every pain imaginable if it meant Meryt would never know pain again, but I also know he loves me just as fiercely because he would never ask that of me.”
Seth nodded, eyes closing for a moment as he muttered to himself, "I can... I can..." Then he turned his head to look at Horus once more, sorrowful and pleading without saying another word.
The bindings unraveled from Seth and returned around Horus’s waist.
The joy that returned to Seth's expression was as prominent as his love. Horus was choosing to trust him, even if he still had a ways to go to achieve absolution.
Seth nodded to Horus in thanks and reached a hand up toward me, so I bent slightly to meet his touch. It was my hair he brushed his fingers through, adding new baubles to my braids made from snake scales.
“Thank you,” I said, and in his answering nod, I took that for his thanks too.
As Seth retracted his hand, Horus outstretched an arm almost as if in reflex, and their fingers passed each other just shy of touching.
Before Seth might have thought of reaching again to correct that miss, Horus dropped his hand to my shoulder instead.
He pulled me in close against him, and with a whoosh of air, his wings carried us aloft, up through the opening in the cavern above.
Once we escaped it, in the empty sky that was bright with Ra’s light, just before the rocky surface below closed up again beneath us, I thought I saw a small white creature appear beside Seth, curling up in his lap to comfort him.
Good girl, Pasht, I thought, for Seth did not deserve to be alone.
I had thought this would be easy. I had thought I could never possibly be tempted. But twice now, I truly had been, maybe even more so by Seth than I had been with Ra, and I had nearly lost my Meryt because of it.
No matter what Horus offered me or any of the others after him, I had to stay strong.
I had to succeed.
I had to.
For Meryt.