by David Burke
He could see the world around him in so many different ways, but he had to struggle to make it real for himself. Extra senses didn’t just mean enhanced vision or an extended hearing range. Those things were true, but they were also only a fraction of what he could be. He could see things in other ways, both physically and spiritually, but lacked understanding.
It would take time to master himself and he just didn’t know what the best way to spend his time was. There was no point in repeating the list of things he could do, but he realized that in thinking about his projects, he had to remember that his own power was in need of refinement. Hav could have killed him and he didn’t like that. Nor did he care for her insistence that she was his senior. He was the war god. None were better at fighting than he. Even when he had been forced to admit that Lige had more raw power, that didn’t mean that Krig would have lost in a one-on-one confrontation.
Kyle realized he wasn’t Krig, but he still had that need to be the best. That was what had drawn Krig to him. It was the reason that he was here in a different universe, fighting to preserve it, so he could make the most of a second chance at life.
Krig’s problem had been to focus too much on himself. Kyle needed to strike a balance. With that in mind, he decided to go to his room and cultivate for a while. Perhaps he could learn better how to integrate his captured divine splinters.
Something told him, though, that it wasn’t going to be that simple. He could tell that there was a group waiting for him inside his bedroom. Given who they were, that wasn’t entirely unwelcome, but he certainly didn’t expect all of them at once.
Outside his room, Kyle found Meeka waiting for him. For once, she didn’t say anything. “We need to talk,” he acknowledged, “but I have company waiting for me inside, to whom I have made prior commitments.”
“You made a promise to me as well.”
“That promise can only be redeemed if I can trust you. If I can’t, if it was based upon your deceit, then they are just words. And yes, I know that you tried to bind me to you with my blood.” He smirked. “How did that work out for you?”
“It didn’t,” she replied. Then, as he stared intently at her, she continued. “I should have known that it wouldn’t. That blood was only a part of your construct. It wasn’t even necessary that your construct had blood. You likely only did because your memories of being mortal in that other place.”
“Don’t feel bad, it took me time to piece it all together. I’ve had a part of my mind working on it for a while,” he admitted. “I may not have as much experience with this as you, but I do have at least some of my predecessor’s memories.”
“So where does that leave us?” she asked.
“I’m not really sure. I’m still trying to decide. Your knowledge is useful to me. You are powerful and resourceful. But I also can’t afford to leave a threat at my back.”
He shook his head. “I appreciate you bought us some time before I have to deal with the Governor, but I also know that I have to deal with you within the three days. So, I leave it up to you.”
He shrugged. “Make me an offer that I can’t refuse.” Noting the impish smile that curled her lips, he held up a hand. “Fight your impulses. I understand that you have a background which may make this difficult, but fight your impulses and make me a different kind of offer than what you automatically seem to jump to that I can’t turn down.”
She stared at him until he added, “Or flee, and don’t show your face to me ever again. Because in three days' time, you will either be my faithful ally or you will be gone—one way or the other.”
She bowed low before him. “Yes, Lord Kyle. I will have to think on this.”
Kyle didn’t say another word before he walked into his room. He found Kierra, Nyda and Lash all waiting for him. He made a show of looking in the room and then out into the hallway and then back into the room again. “I must be confused, I thought this was my bedroom.”
Kierra was crouched down on her haunches. The pose was both powerful and enticing at the same time. As she stood up smoothly, she said, “Hilde and I had been meaning to talk to you about that, but now that she is gone, Nyda and Lash volunteered to come along, too. Turns out that they feel the same way.”
Kyle knew he could get into trouble really quickly if they were all agreeing on something. “So… what is it you are agreeing on?”
Kierra walked over to him and ran her hand down his arm. “It just doesn’t seem fair that you’re stuck in this big room all by yourself and we each have these tiny rooms. Wouldn’t it be better if we shared one room?”
“Wouldn’t that be kinda awkward?”
Nyda answered him. “We already share you, and elves and lycans don’t have the same hang ups that some humans have.”
Lash snorted. “It isn’t all humans. He has more hang ups than anyone I’ve ever seen. And technically, he isn’t a human, he just looks like one.”
“You too, Marie?”
“This isn’t exactly how I expected to have the conversation, but it all sort of came to a head now,” she replied, adjusting the short chainmail skirt she wore.
“No, head is what Nyda does… and that's all,” Kierra joked.
“Hey, that's not fair,” the elven priestess protested. “I said I was ready.”
Kyle sighed. “Look, we can talk about us all moving in together. I probably wouldn’t have been okay with any of this before, but I’m the war god, and as we say back home, it’s good to be king.”
He tilted his head to the side and looked down at the pretty blonde human. “But I need to talk to Marie first.”
Kierra growled and Nyda pouted.
“But you promised me on the beach the first opportunity,” she whined.
“Nyda, I’m sorry, but sometimes promises have to be delayed. The same for you, Kierra. We will rescue your people. I just need to figure out a plan, first, but for now I need to talk to Marie.”
“Hilde asked this of me.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it all out before opening them again. “In fact, all of you have,” Kyle explained.
Kierra said, “That is fine. We will just stay and watch, Alpha. We need to ensure she does a good job.”
“Not this time, Kierra.” He chuckled. “I look forward to when any of you who are willing want to join me and one of your sisters, but the bonding process was private for each of you—and Marie deserves the same respect. Just like she deserves to be called by her real name, and not treated as just a weapon.”
The two girls grumbled, but they ended up leaving the room.
Kyle watched them leave and closed the heavy wooden door behind them. When he turned, he saw Marie was in the process of undressing. She had already managed to strip off her breast plate and chainmail armor, leaving her in a sort of white leotard. Well, that and her hair covering. The decorative veil always struck Kyle a bit like a mix between nun’s habit and a dominatrix’s.
“Whoa,” he held his hands up. “I want you, Marie—truly. I’ve wanted you since I first saw you, but we need to talk first,” Kyle said.
“Why? I’ve wanted you for a hundred years and you finally admitted that you want me, too,” Lash asked while continuing to undress. Her one piece was now pulled down far enough to reveal her magnificent breasts.
Kyle had to force himself to focus. “Because I haven’t even been alive for one hundred years. There is no way that you could have wanted me for that long.”
She paused and then said, “It's still you, just an improved you.”
Kyle started to protest, but she continued.
“I’m not stupid. I know Krig is gone, but you still have his presence about you. You are filled with what it is that attracted me to the war god in the first place.” She looked down and spoke so softly, Kyle had to focus to hear her.
“Some girls look for the witty guy, some for broad shoulders or cut abs, others are just looking for someone rich, who will provide for th
em and their children. Me? I was drawn to the war god’s drive. His strength, yes, but even more to his commitment to do what had to be done. He had such a clear vision and worked tirelessly to protect this world, even though no one—not even his siblings—understood the depth of his commitment.”
Kyle could only nod. It was clear there were similarities between him and Krig. He had enough of the man’s memories to know that they probably would have gotten along—in a way.
Something, likely the loss of Brann, the goddess of fire, had killed a part of Krig long ago, leaving him only with the all-consuming drive to be the best. Kyle had that same passion, but he’d held onto it since he was a young man. Still fresh to the world, he’d been committed not only to making himself better, but also the people around him. That commitment had stayed with him through the years. He certainly hadn’t jumped into this, wanting to save Verden. But this was now his world, and he would fight for it vigorously.
Marie’s words affected him. He knew he did care. He had always cared, but had buried the emotions beneath his drive to succeed. It was why he’d had so many failed relationships on Earth, and why he’d been so estranged from his parents, despite their being nothing but supportive.
He always feared distractions. But he had made a commitment to change. He would still have his drive, but now—in this life—he was going to embrace caring about the people around him.
After all, what good was it to be on top of the world if you had no one to share it with? Kyle knew the answer to that. He had felt what that was worth: a lonely death on the concrete floor of a parking garage at the hands of a woman he hadn’t shown enough respect and attention to, to even remember her name.
In that moment, Kyle realized that there was more change needed in him. He could still have his same drive. He could focus on his relationships. In fact, it was a good thing to put those he was closest to first.
But that didn’t mean he couldn't, no shouldn’t, care about the world as a whole.
He remembered Marie’s passion in the meeting as she’d spoken up about the refugees. Kyle thought about all the times that he had been offended by things in Verden. Slavery was easy to get angry about, and not just because the system had tried to victimize him. It was easy to be angry with the wealthy nobles. Yet that was too narrow a focus. He was sure there were good and bad people at each level of society, but it wasn’t his job to change people.
What he could do, though, was fashion a world where one’s effort determined their success, not their birth. Of course, to do that, he’d need to defeat the things threatened his world. The void was knocking again. It wanted to destroy another place, to take something and make nothing out of it. First, though, he had to defeat the pawns of the void, the Aekor and this necromancer.
In order for that to happen, he needed to grow stronger and he needed to gather more powerful allies around him. He wasn’t so sure how much bigger he wanted to grow his harem. Yeah, he could admit it now—he had a harem. But he wanted to empower the women in his harem and he wanted to grow stronger the other allies around him.
And why not? Gilthan, Skrug, and Saber were all proving their worth.
As he gave himself permission to relax, a weight came off his shoulders he hadn’t even realized was there. This had been a process. Hilde had helped him move it, but her perspective was still so different from Kyle’s. Nyda had done an even better job of helping him to relax, let his hair down, so to speak. Kierra convinced him it was okay for him to take things for himself.
Marie, though, was different. She was someone who had experienced loss because of his—well, Krig’s—focus on outcomes rather than relationships. Yet through it all, she was still willing to come back to him. Her heart was still open. There was no way he could respond with anything less than open heart, himself.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure I could trust you,” he said out loud as the racing in his mind finally came to a conclusion.
“That is partially my fault,” Marie admitted. “I was so hurt by Krig's loss that I didn’t know I had gotten something better in return. I pushed you away and Hilde probably didn’t help, either. She was always jealous of the fact that the war god had mortal wives.”
“Wives?” Kyle asked, suddenly confused.
Marie giggled. “Oh, you didn’t know, did you. That memory must have not come back to you, yet. My fellow shield maidens and I were more than just warriors or emissaries for the war god, we were his wives. We each took a vow, and it was consecrated by a priestess of Begaer. She always fixated on how Krig could make vows to seven mortal women.”
“But I thought…” Kyle began.
Marie stood up and pressed herself against him. Her breasts rubbed against his armor, yet somehow, he could still feel them. Her nipples, like firm buds, pressed against his chest.
She lifted a finger up to his mouth. “Yes, it was an unconsummated marriage. He swore to love and care for each of us as wives, and then empowered us with his divine splinters. Each of us thought it would mean something more, wanted it to mean something more, but there was never anything more physical between us than a gentle caress.”
She smiled at him. “Even that was more than Hilde or Skylar ever got, and they wanted it just as much as we did.”
“Skylar?” Kyle asked. His mind was racing. Did this mean that he had another wife he hadn’t known about?
Marie was the wife of the war god, not the wife of Krig, and he was the war god now.
“Skylar is the war god’s dragon. She carried him into battle, but often joked about wanting him to ride her in a different way. But please, this is the happy ending of my hundred-year long wedding day. I don’t want to talk about other women now.”
Kyle leaned in and kissed her. With a flick of his will, he removed his armor and stood naked before her. If he’d thought feeling her pressed against him before had felt good, this was positively divine. He started to reach up to pull off her head piece, the spiked metal band around her forehead that held her head piece in place. But she pushed his hand away.
“No. Not until you make me yours. That is the mark of my place as a chaste virgin, committed to the war god. All the battle maidens wore them after marrying you. We each hoped to be the first that you would take, but now I am the last. This marks me as your unconsummated wife. But I don’t want to wear it any longer. Just take me.”
He needed no further prompting. Instead of pushing her head piece up, Kyle slid his hands down her side and simply pushed her unitard the rest of the way down. His eyes were on her face, but he could feel her wetness where it pressed against his leg. There was one more thing that he wanted to do first, though. He wanted to make sure she knew she had everything he could give her.
Kyle reached inside her as they stood together naked, not with his fingers, but with his power. He felt the remnants of the change that had occurred inside of her when she’d been given a divine splinter once before. But he also felt the great gaping emptiness inside her.
No amount of sex would fill this. She needed what only a god, what only he could give her.
He had more experience and a far greater understanding of how this worked, now. He wasn’t worried about hurting her, like he had been initially with Kierra and the others. He pushed his divine splinter into her and felt her body shudder in an almost orgasmic way. A deep sigh escaped her lips as she was made to feel whole once again.
But Kyle wasn’t content with simply giving back to her what Krig’s death had taken from her. Krig had made her stronger, faster, and blessed with war essence. But Kyle was more than just the war god and his battle maiden—no, he corrected himself, his wife. His wife deserved more than this. He felt for and found her essence wheel and began to pour power into her.
As with the others, it was about knowing who she was. He activated Soul Shepherding and focused on her. Marie was laid bare before him and not just in a physical sense. Her very soul, the immortal part of her, became his to understan
d. And seeing that, it was impossible not to love her.
On the outside, his shift of emotions might have seemed rushed, but when their two souls melded, he couldn’t help but feel a deep love for her. It was as passionate as his love for Kierra, as tender as his love for Nyda, and as full of admiration as his love for Hilde.
Marie was a gem of a person. He vowed to make sure her abilities matched her soul. He could feel her deep connection with Verden, with its people and with their lives. Because of that connection, it was easy to feed Earth Essence into her. He watched as a second spoke materialized on her essence wheel and he kept feeding it. She had been faithful and enduring. That was the nature of earth. It was always there.
Then, he thought about how she fought. Marie was epitomized by her arena name, Lash. She was fast and elusive. Sky Essence was a perfect fit for that. Rather than granting her lightning bolts, like when he’d awakened the bloodline in Gilthan, Sky Essence enhanced her speed and gave her an uncanny ability to dodge.