Chapter Six
Cliff
I’d loved camping and climbing my whole life. The earth had been more at home with me than anything else. Rayne liked the spark of electricity, and I loved the earth. Eve? Who knew what she liked besides taking up everyone’s time. I snorted.
The godlike…god…that had taken me from my captive situation had my untamed libido begging for him, submitting like…I dunno, a slut? I couldn’t ever imagine begging to be fucked before. But since then? I thirsted for dick. I didn’t even know if I was a bottom or not, but biology said I was. But dammit, I wanted to fuck, too!
Sure, the natural lubricant pooling at my backside demanded I allow one cock in at that moment in time, but I wanted something . I needed raw, passionate, and fierce release. In my mind, if I could get one good nut in, I’d be peachy keen.
“You’ve got Rayne’s number. I’ll be home soon with him once he’s settled and claimed.” The new god hefted me in his arms.
“We going home?” The words felt thick coming out of my mouth as my mind swam with so many twisted urges.
“We’re going someplace safe until you feel well, my aspect.” The way his slim features loomed over me held birdlike grace and stony elegance. A sharp nose framed prominent brow bones hiding dark mossy eyes like dark aventurine. “Then I’ll return you to your family.”
“Will you stay with me?” I clutched Jacque tighter as he nosed up to give me an affectionate little bunny kiss.
“As long as you need. Longer still. Until our mother comes to claim us.” He leaned down and brushed soft lips over my cheek, inhaling deeply as those dark pools of green closed. “Thank you, mother.”
His whisper made warm, calm energy lull me into relaxing just enough that sleep snagged me.
***
For the second time in too few days, I woke in a strange bed surrounded by the scent of disuse. This time, though, I had no fear. Jacque milled around nearby, head buried in a trough of salad, chewing fresh, wild greens I’d never thought to get the poor guy. He seemed happy.
As if noticing I’d awoken, he turned his head, still chewing, and barked his happy little greeting before thumping over and onto the bed, wallowing around my covers excitedly as if he were celebrating the return of his parent.
“Cliff?” The warm tones of the male I’d met earlier answered me back as I took in my surroundings.
I lay in a hand-hewn bed, log framed, on a well-worn mattress. It creaked as I sat up. Log rafters framed straw insulation thatched tight above, amid a modest single-room cabin. Few amenities met my gaze, just natural subsistence, much like my own small apartment.
“Bathroom,” I groaned, and he pulled a curtain back by the kitchenette to show me a, thankfully, well-equipped room. I stood and shuffled on bare feet across unevenly hand-carved floorboards and into the brick-floored bath for all my necessities.
“Shower in there if you like.”
“Only if you join me,” I said, not thinking. “Scratch that. Lemme wash my ass in peace.”
A grunt of acknowledgement met my words, and I shed my clothes to slide into a rather practical shower stall with water pressure just shy of a fire hydrant. “Ughhh… Yesssss.” I moaned at the warm water until the curtain twitched, alerting me to movement beyond a textured glass wall.
“Merely bringing towels.”
“Well, you can stay for a moment. Answer some questions.” I pawed around for a bar of soap and relished a cedary rich fragrance as I drew it up an arm.
“Whatever you wish.” A light clink and rattle told me he’d lowered the toilet seat lid and seated himself. Despite his stillness and distance, my body craved his touch, and his scent had my cock pulsing to full mast. If he noticed, he said nothing though.
“So. Name? Bucking-something?” I vigorously scrubbed at my hair, trying to get that vile, sweet scent of my own sweat off me, and the musk of boar and light scent of Grim where he’d touched me platonically. It all seemed to stink.
“The Buckling Stone. Buck.” Confidence marked the latter of those words. So, Buck it was, I guessed.
“Cliff. I think you know that already. And I’m like, your match or something? Grim said I was someone’s, and I’d know it and I sure as hell know there’s something about you, dude.” I peeked out and scrutinized him, trying not to get lost in those bottomless eyes. A fresh wave of arousal pulsed through me.
He tilted his head from side to side. “My aspect, at least. It should come with a level of—attraction.” As his brows settled and lids hooded, I followed his gaze down. And with the week I’d been through, I couldn’t muster an ounce of shame. “Though, I won’t push anything. You’re too new, too innocent to take.”
“And how would that work?” I ducked back into the shower and found an excuse to drown my face in the hot flow.
He rustled beyond my scope of vision in what I assumed was a shrug. “Can’t rightly say. I know how your brother was claimed. Rayne was very confident in himself, but you’re different. You’re not Rayne. They copulated, I suppose, talked some, learned one another.”
I hummed and tried to wipe that image out of my mind. No. Thank. You. I had zero desire to think about Rayne getting his twinkly little butt pounded by deliciously buff, rugged men. Though, my thoughts did drift to me getting my butt pounded by a buff, rugged man.
“But I’d like to see you out of your estrus before we do anything physical. You are an omega and that comes with risks. I’m not putting a baby in you by accident if that’s not what you explicitly want.” He cleared his throat. “And I’m not exactly the best god to attach oneself to.”
That halted me. “Why’s that?” I mentally chastised my wandering hand as it inched its way toward my cock traitorously.
“Well, you understand at its essence, an omega is designed that way to—” he said, but I cut him off with a scoff.
“Bro, already had the talk from Grim. I don’t need it again. I get it. Much appreciate the whole no knocking up thing quite yet, but like… Why are you not the best?”
“Dark history. I cannot quite ignore the fact that I’m a god who has been sacrificed to. I bear blood. It used to make a god stronger before we learned other ways. Before we earned worship, before we heard our mother.” Genuine shame crept into his voice, the low, neutral accent of him going hoarse.
“Aztec, right?” Grim had told me some. He’d told me much.
“Maya, Olmecs, Inca, Aztec, half a dozen first nations .” He moved a little with his hands thrown up, indicating air quotes. “And second nations. Maybe third. I lost count.” His shadow’s posture slouched, a sad puppet show on the cloth curtain.
“When’s the last time you got a sacrifice?” I scrubbed at my legs and backside a little fastidiously. Every graze of my fingers over my crack made me shiver and tingle with need.
“The last time I demanded one, or the last time someone gave one to me? Two different things.” He huffed and leaned back, the tank of his toilet rattling.
“Probably five centuries since I requested one. Eighty or so years since one was given,” he said the latter with such detest.
“That’s like a dozen generations, man. More, even.” I rinsed the rest of my body off and pushed open the curtain. “You regret it?”
He glanced up at me, truth in his eyes as he nodded, gaze never straying from my own.
“Would you do it again?”
He shook his head, the hurt in his general vibe palpable. Aura? I sensed it in the air between us and I yearned to heal him.
“And this whole aspect thing I can’t change?” I put my hands on my hips, enjoying the sensation of the water ebbing off my skin, cock twitching in the air.
With a halfhearted shrug, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “We are meant for one another, I think, but we don’t have to stay.”
My body had ideas my mind didn’t, so when I stepped out boldly into his reach, he ignored my hardness and opened toned, sinewy arms to latch around my waist. The gentle prod of my prominent erection brushed his neck.
Unlike what little contact I’d had with women, this brought peace to me more than satisfaction. Like two magnets clicking together, we connected, and he buried his face into my belly, nose brushing above my navel. “Death gods do not deserve mates.”
“I’m a cliff, right? It’s my name?” I reached down to trail damp fingers through his thick, ebony locks. Holy fuck, I wanted to grab a handful of them and pull him into a kiss.
He nodded, glancing up at me with adoration.
“I’m sure many have fallen to their doom, right? People have been shoved off cliffs for sacrifice? Not sure how that works, but do I not deserve love, either? Seems to me you have an awful lot of love to give with a past that fucked up, man,” I said, making him tighten his arms. Even sad, he made my cock strain.
Half the reason I’d avoided losing my virginity or acting upon the hormonal storm I was in was the mere fact that I’d no clue what I wanted to do. Everything ended in me spread-eagle or bent over being fucked. Buck didn’t seem to be after that though.
“Don’t let me lose you. Do not let me lose myself, please?” The gravel in his voice creaked as he spoke and nuzzled higher, resting his cheek against my toned, damp belly. I flexed a little instinctively, and he rubbed his cheek a little firmer in response.
Oooh…
“What does Rayne think of you?” Instead of going straight into something sexual, I traced my fingers down the side of his scalp, tips brushing his ear. He shuddered at the touch.
“I don’t know. He lets me stay in their territory. I watch over Vida for them.”
“Vida?”
“His daughter. She’s a few weeks old now and I spend the night sometimes, keeping her quiet so he can rest and recover. He likes that.”
Rayne had a baby. He was an omega, an aspect, had gotten pregnant and birthed an actual child in that horrifying way Grim had explained to me using a bruised kiwi and an unnecessarily firm grip. “Oh. Must mean he likes you.”
Hell of a way to figure out I was an uncle.
I stroked his head again, thinking of something to say, but the urges burned within me to be pounded, to come, to writhe.
“I really hope so.” He sighed, and I threaded my fingers into the fringe at the nape of his neck, tightening my grip to pull him up. After I had him in my sights, the sadness melted away to confusion, heat, arousal, something strange. He was taller than me, just over my six three, but I had no trouble reaching his lips to kiss.
He tensed and relaxed against my mouth. I’d kissed girls before, sure, putting them under me, dominating them until we were breathless and I lost interest. Unlike them, though, he made my cock strain. He made my heart rush in my chest as his grip went higher up my back.
“I can’t fuck you like this, Cliff. Don’t tempt me, please.”
“Who said you’d be fucking me?” What little confidence I could muster poured free of my lips with a heated groan. I pushed him out of the bathroom, feet still wet, as he backed away. Opposite the wall lay the bed I’d awoken in and we bumped the edge of it as we arrived.
His chest tensed, throat tightened and bobbed with a hard swallow. Onto my toes, I pushed up and brushed my lips over the shell of his ear. “I’m gonna fuck you .”
Bold. Bold of me to assume, but the catch and groan in Buck’s throat made my dick pulse with precum.
“As y-you wish.” His dry throat clicked when he swallowed.