by Loki Renard
“You’re mine,” he declares, and I know it to my core. I know it more than I have ever known anything. We are mated. Bonded. We are together. Inseparable. There is something of the eternal in orgasm, I believe, and it is orgasm he is driving me toward with those commanding thrusts which stretch me wide and turn my body into a vessel of his will.
I need this.
I have claimed my power, but I have also taken on a great burden. I can help people, and that means I have responsibility. I have never had that before. Nothing I have done has ever mattered. Tanuk’s lust, his particular brand of dominance lets me know I am not alone. With his fingers fisted in my hair, my body arched for him, my inner walls gripping him, I am once more his princess. His captive, stranded on this distant, dark planet.
Tanuk
I let her run toward the danger, knowing she might be hurt. I did not lift a finger to stop her, because she must be free to make decisions worthy of a goddess. The human side of her has been predominant for a long time because she was kept in a stunted state, nothing more than a toy locked away in a palace-shaped box.
Now she is my toy, and I intend to take her out and play with her thoroughly and often. I will fill her with my seed. I will make her scream her orgasms to the Earth sky.
I will punish her for rash acts, but only after the fact. It is not my role to prevent her becoming that which destiny and birth decided she should be. It is not my place to hold her back as she has always been held back. The greatest gift I will ever give her, is her freedom.
She has taken her punishment and now she gives me the fruits of my punitive labor. Her glowing cheeks rise and fall, two apple hued delicious rounds swallowing my cock time and time again. It is a great pleasure, to be mating on Earth again, to be back among the world of the truly mortally real, to feel the flash of fire and the pain of sacrifice and to have her be mine, all mine.
Her juices are slicking my cock, dripping down her pussy, beading at the apex of her lips, right above her clit. Raine’s arousal is epic, her body is perfect. She is tight and she is young and she gives me her near virginal flesh with great enthusiasm.
I want nothing more than to do this time and time again, to be mated with her, bonded with her in the most animal sense. I want her juices and my seed to mix. I want her to know that no matter what may happen in this dangerous, deviant world of men, she is mine.
Raine
He pulls me from his cock with both hands and turns me over, my back landing on the soft fallen leaves. He is silhouetted against the dark sky, and for a moment I can almost imagine that we are both human. This must be how it is for them, mating in the woods, finding small moments of transcendent pleasure between episodes of mortal danger.
“You are beautiful,” he says in that way he has of speaking which makes his words go straight to my heart. “You are the love of my life. Know that, Raine. No matter where you go, or what foe you face, you are mine.”
With that, he plunges back inside me, his body pressed against mine. We are entwined like two snakes, moving sinuously and passionately among the rich loam and filth of the planet we have chosen to make our home.
He kisses my neck, his teeth sinking into my flesh with animal possession, triggering the response which has been lying in wait from the moment he sheathed himself inside me. My orgasm consumes me, makes me lock around him, draws out the essence of his eternal seed and he fills me the way women have been filled by men since the beginning of time. We are hot. Sweaty. Sticky. Filthy. We are home.
10
Several handfuls of fated days later…
Tanuk
Fate delights in irony. We fled heaven to take refuge in hell, and my sweet little Raine has never been happier. Every time the beast in the buildings sends its winged demons to do harm, she is there. Most of the time she manages to repel Entity, but I see that it takes a toll on her. She cannot be everywhere at once. Entity’s drones have learned to flank, to separate, to take evasive action. It is as I tried to warn her that first day. She is powerful, but even a goddess can be worn down by the ceaseless grind of mechanistic evil.
We are still stuck between a proverbial rock and a hard place. There is Entity on one side, and Raine’s need to protect people from it. On the other hand, there are those who still dwell on Okeanus. One day, there will be a reckoning there. Ragnar and Helios will find us eventually, and when they do, they will do something about this little situation.
For now, Raine and I lie together beneath the stars. It is quiet and cool, and there is peace.
“This place is changing you,” she says softly.
“Do you think?”
“I do,” she says. “You're less cynical. You’re more caring. You watch over my people…”
“I watch over you,” I say, not bothering to disagree with her when she calls the feral humans her people. They are her people. Every now and then, a wide-eyed new escapee from Entity makes his or her way to the group and the numbers grow a little more. But there are culls too, times when Entity catches a group unawares and incinerates them on sight.
The human world was always cruel. Now, with a creature of pure collective mind separated from any sense of consequence, it has reached something like peak cruelty. I cannot care for humans who can be and are snuffed out in seconds. I do care endlessly for Raine. I keep her safe without stopping her from carrying out her work. It is a delicate balance, and we have both been burned from time to time in the process.
“I don't think I have changed,” I say. “I think I have found a purpose. A trickster has his place in a world of brutal authority. He wastes his time in happy places, where he can only make matters worse.”
“You’re talking about yourself like you’re not yourself,” she points out.
“I’m saying the pair of us belong here, though I would not have chosen it were my hand not forced.”
She nods and falls silent. I know that silence. It is the silence which falls over her every time she is reminded of Okeanus, the familial paradise we fled.
“I miss them,” she says. “I miss my family.”
“You want to go back? I can send you back.”
“No.” She sets her jaw determinedly. “I’m helping people down here. The other gods abandoned this planet, but I’m not going to. I like these people. They need me.”
“You cannot stay here forever, Raine. You have to return to Okeanus eventually. See your family. Explain to them what has happened.”
“And listen to my fathers try to ‘ground’ me again? They don’t take me seriously.”
“I think they would take you seriously now.”
“They never did, and they never will.”
That is set in her mind as fact. I cannot change her mind, and I do not care to. It suits me to remain down here. I like Earth. I like having a half-human lover here. In time, I may have believers of my own.
I close my eyes. It is not in my nature to sleep, but I have sated myself in the tight flesh of this woman and when in Rome, one may as well fall asleep after intense orgasm as the Romans do.
“Don’t worry about your fathers,” I murmur as we drift off. “They can’t touch us here.”
Sleep comes heavy and dark, utterly overwhelming. It takes me a shamefully long time to remember one important fact: I do not sleep.
I fight against the blanket of dark, but it is too late. Something has me and it is drawing me toward it. There is a light, a pin prick somewhere in the void. It grows larger with every passing second.
“No!” I cry out, fighting it with all my might. This is bad. This is worse than bad. I am going toward the light though I wish nothing more than to go back to the dark of the Earth night.
But that is not to be. The light expands to wrap around me. I see a bright sky. I see leaves above, and grass below. I see… Okeanus. And I hear the last voice I ever wanted to hear again.
“What was that? We can’t touch you?”
“Ah, fuck!” I curse as I look into the faces of the t
wo very angry gods before me. I am bound to the trunk of Yggdrasil, my arms and legs held by ancient chains. I know in an instant what has happened. They found me while I was sleeping and they drew me from Earth. I let my guard down and they took advantage of my moment of surprisingly human weakness.
“We have you, Tanuk.”
They have the power to snatch me from the surface of a distant planet, but not enough brain to say anything other than the most obvious statement of facts. Yes. It would seem that they have me. I don't matter though. What matters, who matters, is Raine.
“Where’s Raine?”
“That’s what we want to know. Where have you hidden her?”
Oh by all the foolish, stupid gods. Raine was literally lying in my arms. To have managed to take me and not her is an act of cosmic incompetence.
I let out a snarl of anger. “You fools!” I lecture from my helpless position. They must have used all their power looking for me and not been able to tell Raine from the crowd of nearby humans. They’re looking so smug, but they have no idea that they have probably killed her with their rash stupidity. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Captured the god who took our daughter?”
“Removed Raine’s only protection on planet Earth. She is still down there, you fools.”
They exchange looks. “She can’t be.”
“Why can’t she be?”
“We didn’t sense her.”
I have never seen two such powerful gods look so completely gormless.
“We will kill you when we find her,” Ragnar growls.
“Don’t say that,” Helios hisses. “He won’t help us find her.”
“She is on Earth,” I say. “She was right next to me. In my arms.”
The phrase in my arms makes them both flare with anger. They want to hurt me, but even with me chained to a tree, they would have difficulty taking revenge on me in a way I cared about. I care about one thing, and she is down on Earth.
“She’s not. We looked.”
“That just means you don’t recognize your daughter anymore,” I say. “Let me go.”
“Raine is not on Earth.” Helios says the words with that arrogant finality which made me hate him in the first place. For centuries, Helios has approached the world as if he can just declare facts and impose them on reality. He never admits he’s wrong, even when being wrong is hurting him and everyone else around him.
“Yes. She is. She’s protecting the humans who have escaped from Entity. She is guarding them with her life, and giving her all to do so. You do not know your daughter. That is why you could not pull her from that planet. You know me better than you know her.”
“She is a guardian?” Ragnar growls the question.
“She is a guardian unlike any other,” I tell him, feeling real pride. “She is everything you should be, and would be, if you weren’t pretending that Yggdrasil needed your hovering. I do not know how you managed it, but you managed to create and raise a true goddess.”
Helios and Ragnar stare at me in disbelief.
“I don’t believe him,” Helios says to Ragnar.
“Neither do I. Raine is but a child.” Ragnar had faith for a moment, but he has lost it in an instant.
“She is not. If you were not so incompetent, you would know that. Go to Earth. See for yourselves. Save your daughter.”
“My daughter… is on EARTH!?”
I hear the unmistakeable sound of human outrage. This is the mother. The human who escaped Earth. Having been on Earth, I now understand what a feat that was, and how much respect she is due and does not receive. Rael pushes through her lovers and confronts me with blazing eyes of pure fury.
“She is,” I tell her.
Her eyes flare with mortal rage and she turns to Ragnar and Helios, jabbing them in the chests with her finger.
“Go and get her. This instant.”
“I don't think it is going to be that easy,” I warn.
Everybody on Okeanus believes things can be done in an instant because here, everything is possible. But Earth is a place of the unlikely, and the impossible. It is a place where you are very fortunate if something happens the way you want it to.
“Why not?” Helios asks me the question with what I can’t help but think is hope. He doesn’t want to go to Earth. He fled it a very long time ago in a shameful sort of way, the kind of way he doesn’t want to relive. At his core, Helios is a coward. He has been since he lost his battle with the new gods. If not for Ragnar, he would be nothing at all. I despise Helios because Helios looks down on me, while simultaneously being nothing but a facsimile of a god. The palace is everything Helios is, a big grand shell, hollow on the inside.
“Raine has found her purpose. And her powers. She's not leaving her people.”
Helios and Ragnar look at one another. “Our Raine has… believers?”
“More than that. She has followers. Devoted worshippers. Every free mind on Earth belongs to the cult of Raine.”
“It does?” Ragnar is trying not to burst with pride.
“It does,” I confirm. “I’m nothing down there.”
“You are nothing here,” Ragnar growls. “Why did you take her in the first place?”
“Helios knows.”
Everybody looks at Helios.
“This bastard decided that having allowed Asclepius to assist with the birth, he was entitled to one of the girls.”
“That’s not it,” I say.
He has the gall to look stupid and surprised. “What do you mean? That is literally it.”
“No. It’s not. Your debt to me was incurred a long time ago, Helios.”
“It was?”
“Do you remember the day you lost the war? The day you came to this very isle?”
“Yes,” Helios growls.
“Do you remember the day before it?”
“Yes.”
“I was on Earth with you, Helios. In your final battle, I was an ally. I had no skin in the fight. It was not mine. But you begged for all old gods to come to your aid to help repel Zeus. And we did. Hundreds of us. And then what did you do?”
He shrugs, and that shrug sparks my rage.
“You fled. Here. You left the dead and dying and you ran away. There were gods from across the world in your battle. A thousand small deities who lent you their strength. Do you remember one named Alia?”
“I don’t.”
“Of course not. Why should you remember the names of the fallen?”
Rael, the human woman, comes to me and puts her hand on my chained arm.
“You loved her,” she says, displaying more insight and understanding than either of these loutish god kings.
“I did. And she died. She died for you, Helios. She was torn to pieces in the wake of your retreat. You never knew. You never saw the broken pieces you left behind. You came here and you set yourself up as a king.”
Helios is silent. I hope he is ashamed, but even if he is, his shame comes far too late for Alia and the others who gave themselves in his war.
“You owed me a lover,” I tell him. “And I took what I was owed.”
“If you hurt her…” he snarls.
“I never hurt her. Raine loves me. She loves being with me, and she loves the humans of Earth too. She is incredible. You have no idea what she is capable of.”
“I don't believe you," Helios says, returning to his old tune.
“You should. She has found something on Earth you could never give her.”
“And what is that?”
“Purpose.”
“She’s barely eighteen years old. Nobody that age can have a purpose. But she is in danger. Deep danger. Someone needs to go and get her,” Helios jabbers.
“I’ll return to her,” I say. “But I cannot force her back here.”
“I can,” Ragnar growls.
“You cannot leave Yggdrasil unprotected. There are a great many new beliefs emerging on that little planet. You know we’ve all felt the disturba
nces. Something is agitating the humans,” Helios says. “I will go down and get her.”
“And do what? Fly your chariot back and forth across the sky pretending to be the sun? You are king of Okeanus, but the Earth has moved on. Entity does not need your version of a solar star.”
“And she won’t listen to you,” Rael sighs. “We made a mistake. We treated the girls like children long past the age they were ready to become responsible, and when they reached for independence, they were punished. We are losing them, and I think we might deserve it.”
She is an intelligent woman. She must find it very tiresome being mated to a brute like Ragnar and a bore like Helios. Once upon a time, I would have made a move on her myself. One could even say that I did, briefly, but of course it was too late. By the time I met Rael, she was about to give birth and was not in the mood to be charmed.
“Of course we don't deserve to lose them. However, they are spoiled,” Ragnar growls.
“Raine isn’t spoiled. She’s braver than you can imagine, and right now she is down on Earth, completely alone, fighting a battle which every god on Okeanus has failed to take on. Let me go, so I can return to her and keep her safe. I can move among the humans. I can make myself at home in any world, no matter the turmoil.”
“Let you go, so you can continue to do the unspeakable to our daughter?” Ragnar growls. “No. Absolutely not.”
“What choice do we have?” Helios replies.
“None," Rael cuts in. “Either one of you goes down and gets her, or I go back.”
“You are not going anywhere,” Helios and Ragnar speak with almost the same voice.
“Then he goes.” Rael looks at me. “Please, Tanuk. I know you enjoy this chaos. But Raine is special. She has always been the first. She was the first to be born, the first to walk, the first to speak…”
“And the first to run away with a completely unsuitable mate,” Helios interrupts. “You ran from us, Tanuk. Instead of facing us like a man…”