Vivian
Where are our things?
I woke up inside the familiar circle of jars. It must have been a dream. A soul altering dream of pleasure and floating in an ethereal turquoise void.
With the blue glow gone, it’d be so easy to dismiss it all as a fantasy. That is, it would be, if not for the strange ache between my thighs that definitely didn’t come from all the walking yesterday.
How had I gotten to that point? Pinned, spread, and limp against a tree with Theo disappeared under my dress.
I’d woken up alone and—in my drowsy panic—left to find him, discovering his body stretched out face down in the grass. I thought he was hurt—or maybe sleeping—but then I saw his hips pulsing. Heard the familiar bass of his voice… moaning.
I’d wanted to slip myself underneath him and replace his hands, but no part of me was comfortable inviting myself into the mix.
So, I simply stood there. And watched. I’d never seen a man acting so animalistic in my life.
His thrusts were mindless and desperate in the still of the forest grove.
The soft grunts and growls he made were inhuman, but it wasn’t long before they were replaced with something I could decipher. My name.
I didn’t know how to feel. Unbelievably horny, for starters. But also… wrong. Like I’d violated him by witnessing the act. Not to mention being confused that he was thinking of me, when—in my mind—he was still so unattainable.
When he turned his head in my direction, he didn’t look like himself.
His eyes were black coals; tattoos darkened to match.
His teeth were sharp. And there were deep, spiderweb-like veins on his face.
I’d seen a glimpse of those features before, but it was so different under this context.
In the woods at night already feeling high strung and disoriented, I was overwhelmed.
So, I ran.
Fear and desire intermingled until he consumed both and left me the husk of a woman I was now. Sitting up straight required more energy than I had to spend. I felt swollen, heavy, and sore. And yet, there wasn’t an ounce of tension remaining in my body.
“Good morning, darling.” Theo’s voice came from behind me. I would’ve jumped if my muscles could muster the strength.
The deep rumble of his voice sent tingles through me, my body feeling the memory of last night. “Where are all of our things?” I shifted to stand, then decided against it. Soooo tired.
“I carried it up to your field. Nurghle says hi.” Theo stepped in front of me, reaching into the sole bag still on his person. “I brought berries, fresh water, and bread. I also made you some logomé.”
I took the bowl he held out and watched him continue to dig through the satchel. “What’s logomé?”
“It’s a beverage made from mushrooms. A lot of people drink it in the morning for energy.”
“You made me coffee?” I blinked at the glass jar filled with brown liquid. It might as well have been a damn mason jar with cold brew.
“If that’s what it’s called on Earth.” He shrugged. “I thought you may like some.”
I unscrewed the lid and took a sip. Not quite coffee, but close. It was bitter, earthy, and a touch sweet.
“I could kiss you, Theo. This is so good.”
He hummed. “You should really be careful about offering your body in exchange for beverages after last night, Little Goddess. I may start taking you up on it.”
My cheeks burned as I looked away from his deep brown gaze.
I wanted to flirt back, but it was so foreign to me.
I’d spent most of my life worried about surviving, not sex.
The few times I did explore it I was more of a passive recipient than an actively enthusiastic partner.
Now, with Theo, I didn’t know how to express how much it meant to me.
That he put the time in. That I hoped it would continue.
I wasn’t usually so timid, but I was in brand new territory.
“I’ll eat quickly. Then I’ll be good to start moving.” I popped a juicy berry into my mouth and smiled. Fresh from the bush; he must’ve just picked these.
“Take your time. Can I get you anything else?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You really don’t have to do anything for me, Theo. This is all very thoughtful, but the chivalry is unneeded.”
“That’s not how it works, darling. Aftercare is part of Quadmos culture.”
“Well, then… thank you for sharing your culture with me.” I grinned and took another sip of the coffee substitute.
“Speaking of the whole Quadmos thing, I kind of thought you were already in your feral form… because of the marks and all. But then you looked different last night.” My eyes went to the streaks of gray ink on Theo’s body.
“Oh.” He absent-mindedly looked at his arms. “I tattooed over my natural marks. They just get darker when the real ones appear underneath the ink.”
“Why’d you tattoo over them?”
He scratched the scar above his ear. “I told you I’ve hurt people?”
“Yeah.”
“I got them back when that was my life. I figured, if I was going be so deadly, I might as well always appear a little feral. I felt like a killer and wanted to look the part.” His gaze grew distant for a moment before he blinked and offered a half-smile.
“I think it hurt business at the pub when we opened. Took a lot of wooing to convince people I wasn’t constantly feeling slightly unhinged.
I hadn’t exactly seen ‘business owner’ in my future when I got these. ”
Smile aside, he looked sad. My eyes scanned his body.
His scars told a history of violence, and his tattoos revealed how he once saw himself.
A killer. I’d met plenty of bad people through my father, including murderers.
Picking evil out of a lineup came naturally to me.
Theo was the last person I’d mark as anything less than good.
“You know, if you ever want to talk about it, I’m a safe person to confide in. It might feel good to get it off your chest.”
“Some things you shouldn’t have to know about, Viv.”
The memory of gunshots echoed in the back of my head, followed by my father screaming, “When I pay for twenty kilos of coke, I fucking expect twenty kilos of coke! Am I fucking clear?!”
I blinked the memory away and snorted, “My father was a drug lord-murderer-sex trafficker. I lived with him for twelve years. I can handle it.”
His brow creased angrily between his horns. “Why the hell did you grow up around that shit?”
“Mommy dearest. She said I couldn’t be in heaven, so living with my father was the only option.”
He tilted his head and huffed out a pissed off laugh. “I guess it’s never too late in life to quit your religion, huh? Fuck that bitch.”
I mirrored his head tilt, a little surprised by the statement. “Did you actually worship my mother?”
“Sure, as much as the other gods. I went to temple. I prayed. I kept the faith.” He kicked a rock, staring at the ground.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Theo. I didn’t mean to ruin that for you. Maybe the other gods are better? Who’s to say they’re all like her?”
He looked up, a placating smile on his lips. “I have something else in mind for worship these days. Now eat your breakfast. We gotta get you back to Nurghle.”
Standing was harder than expected. My knees trembled, and I was practically numb between the thighs. What the fuck had this man done to me? I held his offered hand as I got to my feet, wondering how I would walk however many miles uphill now. If I thought my strength was giving out yesterday…
“Up you go,” Theo said, his four arms snatching me from my wobbly legs and holding me against his chest.
I yelped in surprise. “No, no! I can totally walk!”
“I can’t tell you how offensive that would be to me,” Theo replied, beginning his incline up the slope.
“That I can walk?”
“There’s an expectation that after being intimate with a Quadmos, you’re ruined the next morning. Hence, the culture of aftercare. If you were capable of hiking after last night, I’d have to hang up my horns, darling.”
“We didn’t even have sex, though.”
Theo tucked his chin down to lock his walnut gaze with mine. “You’re right. When we do, it’ll be much more intense.”
He blinked, as if surprised by his own words, and immediately broke our eye contact.
The word “when” hung between us. Was this a thing now? Sure, he’d made some banter about my drink bargaining over breakfast, but this felt more like an inevitability. A promise.
I summoned all my courage and confidence. “Well—when, we do, I’ll be sure to report back on how it compares.”
A toothy grin spread on his face, although he avoided looking down at me. No response.
I reflected on his normal, rounded-looking teeth compared to last night. “So, that was what a feral Quadmos looks like, huh?”
“Some of my feral features. But not all.”
“When do I get to see you in all your glory, then? I’m dying of curiosity over here.”
“That version is a bit more beastly than most of us like to be seen.”
I traced a finger along a white line of scar tissue running down the forearm that cradled my shoulder. “One of these days, I want you to tell me the stories behind your scars. And change into a full monster. And then you’ll see that I stand my ground for what I love.”
Love. Was that what I was feeling? No. No way.
What would I even have to compare it to?
My cat? My flat in New York? Ida? There weren’t many things I’d loved over the course of my life.
Call it mommy or daddy issues; I didn’t form bonds.
That said, I could melt into the vibrations of Theo’s chest when he spoke.
Live within his ribcage along with his heart of gold.
I knew what I thought about him as a person would survive anything he could possibly tell or show me.
He may be protecting me from the monsters lurking in the woods, but I could protect him from his own sense of self.
If his internal monologue told him he was a monstrous killing machine, then he was a good one.
He hummed. “You’ll soon realize, I shield what I love from shit like that.”
There it was again. Love.
“You think I’m too fragile?”
“No, not fragile. Worth sheltering.”
I heard the pattering of rain on the branches above before it dripped down my cheeks. Theo hunched his shoulders over me as best he could and cupped a hand over my eyes.
“Speaking of sheltering you, I’m getting started on your cabin the moment we get to your field. Do you want it by the alcove?”
I hadn’t considered where I wanted my house to be. It was hard to imagine. Only one possible preference came to mind.
“Can you build it on the border of my field? On the far side maybe, so it’s closer to the alcove and garden beds?”
“Within the border?”
“No, on the border. Like half the bedroom on each side.”
“Then half of your bedroom wouldn’t be safe,” he argued flatly.
“We can put up charms around it, like Ida has. I just want the option to choose if I want to be in my field or not while inside.”
“Why does it matter?”
He was staring at me, waiting for a response.
Water ran around each horn and dripped from his strong brow onto my breasts.
His deep brown eyes searched for an answer I wasn’t sure I should give.
My tongue found itself tied in a knot, like every other time I tried to find the confidence to flirt with Theo.
Quiet mouths don’t get fed.
I summoned all my boldness. “I can only get pregnant inside of my field. So, unless you have demigoddess birth control, this is how I can choose what happens with my body.”
His eyes darkened. “How do you know that?”
“It was in ‘Hitchiker’s Guide to being a Demigoddess’.” Theo cocked his head curiously, unblinking. “The book I was given covered baby making.”
His head shot up, staring ahead to avoid locking gazes for a moment longer during this conversation. “I’ll see what I can do. It has to be safe.” His deep voice vibrated against my ribs.
I was kind of hoping he’d take the opportunity to flirt, banter, volley… anything. His focus had returned to the hike up the mountain. It might have felt like a swing and a miss, had I not seen the torrent concealed under the surface of his rapidly blackening eyes.
The man who was holding me was feeling feral.