Chapter 2 Daesra #2
At least I hope I never would now. I would have—and did—as a daemon, and yet I’m not entirely sure what I’m capable of as a god.
I can change myself at will, unlike other gods with stricter parameters, and perhaps I can change mortals as well, in a manner beyond their appearances—and perhaps beyond my control.
I felt out of control as they descended into madness.
I don’t insist, as I have in the past, that I’m different now. I am different, but I’m not sure it entirely weighs in my favor if what I’m beginning to suspect is true.
I’m a god of chaos.
I only realize I’ve spoken aloud when Sadaré says, “No. You’re more like a force of nature.”
She says it to be reassuring rather than disparaging. A force of nature. A calm or crashing sea. A blue or boiling sky. A still or shattering earth. An abundant harvest or a plague upon mortals.
“A force that inspires others,” she continues hurriedly, after sensing my reaction. “I felt it, too, back there. I’ve felt it before, with you. I feel it now.”
“What do you feel?” I ask, curious despite myself.
“A desire to do what I might not indulge otherwise. It’s a push toward… something.”
“So I inspire a state akin to drunkenness in mortals? Lovely.” I scoff. “That’s no better than chaos.”
“It is, because the desire is still mine, unclouded. I just feel a… nudge… in the right direction.”
“Or the wrong direction.”
“A forward direction, at least.”
Forward and always down, I think, just like our path through the maze, which was a reflection of my daemonically bound and twisted soul. But I don’t say it. Especially since Sadaré saved my soul. Supposedly.
I’m beginning to wonder, my newly bestowed gift of godhood aside, what exactly was left of it to save.
Sadaré is still considering what I seemingly have to offer.
“You remove a barrier that would otherwise block my path. You make me realize the potential in a given situation. Not unlike the potential I get from pain—potential I could use to hurt or heal.” Her voice takes on a passionate edge. Always my defender.
Well, not always, back when we were enemies. But we’re well beyond that now.
“You make it sound empowering—” I start.
“It is,” she insists.
“I mean in a good way. But you say you might not act otherwise? So what if all I encourage is ill?” I turn on her in frustration—and pause.
She’s biting her lip, a flush alighting her high cheekbones.
I eye her, particularly where a strand of her hair follows the line of her throat to trace the curve of her breast. My mouth abruptly goes dry, and I ask slowly, “What do you desire now that you might not otherwise indulge?”
“Let’s see,” she says, though she doesn’t look up. “We’re barely out of town. Anyone could cross paths with us. So it might be embarrassing if we get caught.” When she looks at me now, her gaze sears me to my bones. “Or maybe I don’t care if we get caught.”
“So I’m a god of debauch—”
Her lips interrupt me, crushing against my mouth as she surges onto her toes.
She shoves me backward despite my much greater size, until I stumble up against the trunk of a nearby tree, her one hand tearing at my robes.
The midday sun is like a giant eye in the sky, even if other eyes aren’t on us. Yet.
“Sadaré,” I manage to say around her kisses, mostly only when she moves on to my neck. Which she bites. “Are you sure you want to—”
“Yes, I’m sure, you thick-skulled fool,” she hisses, and silences me once more with her lips.
I don’t stop her, but for a moment I don’t move.
I can’t help the flash of unease I get that this isn’t her doing, like when we were both in the cistern back in the maze, bewitched by its intoxicating waters to do together what we never would have done with the walls of resentment we’d built against each other.
Except this time it’s me having some strange effect on her.
But she said the desire was hers, and there are no walls between us anymore. And besides, we act on such urges with great regularity.
Just not usually on the side of the road.
When she senses my hesitation, she taunts me, playful mischief dancing in her eyes. “Did you lose your nerve when you became a god?”
I answer her with a growl, flipping her around to press her back against the tree and slamming her hand above her head in the same motion, pinned in my grip.
And then I remember that I am a god, and the bark grows over her wrist, trapping it in place so I don’t have to hold it or even tie it.
Wooden sinew loops around the crook of her other arm as well, so she can’t try to snag me closer or shove me away with her shortened limb.
“What, you still don’t trust what I might do, facing you with a free hand?” she breathes with a wicked grin.
It’s good that she can make light of the time she stabbed me in the chest to bind my daemonic power to her—while we were fucking, no less. I hope that means she has forgiven herself.
I’ve long forgiven her, and I trust her entirely now. Because we won’t be fucking, no matter what it might look like to a random passerby. It’s love that our bodies spell out between us… however occasionally violent and bloody it might be.
There’s no time for any bleeding here. Not because someone might come upon us, but because I would have to be focused, careful, and precise to give her that sort of treatment, so as not to truly harm her fragile mortal flesh. There’s only frantic need consuming me now.
The horns on my head rise from my hair again, the claws from my fingertips. But I don’t lunge for her and devour her immediately.
Instead, I control myself like I couldn’t seem to manage in the market. I pace before her, considering. Her chest rises and falls in breathless anticipation, her eyes wide and wild. I let her wait for a delicious moment.
“You’re concerned about being seen, hm?” I say, my tone languid. And then I hook the front of her tunic with one of my claws and draw my finger slowly downward, parting the material and even the ropes of her chest harness with little more than a whisper. Leaving her bare for all the world to see.
She whimpers, begging me with those eyes of hers—which keep flickering over my shoulder in nervous flashes. But I’m only looking at one thing, which isn’t, for the moment, her naked body.
Usually hidden, the ring around her neck dangles between her breasts, winking in the sunlight. At the sight of it, frustration flares within me. It should be on her finger.
I can’t help seizing it in my fist and snarling, “Sadaré, you deserve it. Your refusal isn’t some sort of penance, still, for binding me? If anyone should be paying penance, it’s me, for becoming a monster and binding my own soul. Which you saved, by the way.”
Keep saving me. I need you. I don’t say the words aloud.
Instead, I give the leather cord a jerk for emphasis.
“After I stole your power,” she breathes right back at me.
“And you had more of a hand in saving yourself than I did.” I’m about to argue when she continues, “I always wanted power over love. Let me enjoy love as a mortal.” She nudges my shoulder with her forehead.
“Let me try to give myself over to it without any… added complications.”
I frown down at her, despite the nearly unbearable urge to give her what she wants then and there. “Do you think your feelings for me will change, if you become immortal?”
“No,” she says into my chest—too quickly. “But power changes people. It changed me before in my pursuit of it, and through what little I gained. I never wanted to feel weak, and I did some terrible things to avoid that.” She glances up at me tentatively. “It changed you, as a daemon.”
“Has it changed me as a god?” I can’t help asking.
“Do you feel like you’ve changed?”
Such a gentle-sounding, double-edged question. If it has changed me, then it’s perhaps been for the worse. And if it hasn’t, then perhaps I’m the same as I always was.
A monster wearing a different skin.
“Well, I no longer have hooves or a tail. Unless you want them back, like you did these.” I flick one of my horns with a claw.
My smile fades. “Is it me you’re afraid of?
The thought of eternity with me? Is that as frightening as a daemonic binding on your own soul, the thought of being tied to me? ”
The words might have been amusing under other circumstances, as I’ve bound her to a tree.
“No, that’s not it,” she says adamantly, but I don’t know if I believe her.
Part of me wants to torture the real answer out of her—in a way that’s pleasant for both of us—but a different part of me speaks, leaning forward to press my temple against hers.
“You don’t have to with me, Sadaré,” I murmur into her ear.
“I would never force you to stay. You can be whatever you wish. Be with whomever you wish.” As soon as I say it, I’m not sure if I believe myself, either.
“Besides, power such as this won’t change you.
It will only brighten you. Heighten you. ”
She won’t meet my eyes when I withdraw, her gaze sliding away almost guiltily. “Perhaps that’s what I’m worried about. Maybe a few of my qualities shouldn’t be heightened.”
The words twist like a knife in my chest. Troubling, indeed—but not with regard to her. Perhaps my more monstrous qualities shouldn’t have been heightened, either.
“You’re good, Sadaré,” I insist with a desperation I don’t wish to examine too closely, because it’s too easily followed by the words And I’m not.
She gives a single shake of her head—and then shivers. It’s not cold, but the autumn air isn’t warm, either, and I’m blocking her sunlight. Not to mention the front of her tunic is split open from neck to hem.
Instead of digging us deeper and deeper into our bottomless argument once more, I refocus on the moment, on her, exposed before me, and let the ring drop back against her chest. I channel my frustration into the part of me that loves punishing her.
The part that she loves as well.