by Reed James
“She won't stop thrashing,” Nathalie groaned. “Greta! I don't think she's going to last much longer.”
“M-Mistress...” I groaned. I tried to throw my blanket off of me. But it was so heavy. “N-no. No. She can't... She can't.”
I sat up and—
The dizziness seized me. Darkness crashed over me. I fell backward as weakness drew me down, Nathalie's crying growing softer and softer. I wanted to help.
To save...
Mistress...
Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Goddess's Price
Princess Ava
The land flashed by us as I ran beside Radiant Gertrude's horse. The redheaded priestess maintained a gallop the entire way. She used her divine magic to keep the beast alive, to sustain it as we raced toward my family. We had to keep running. The day waxed on. The sun climbed higher and higher. It shone down on us. I hardly cared about the warmth.
I just knew that time passed. That my family died. How much longer could they last?
The sun passed its zenith and fell towards the horizon. Heartbeat by heartbeat, it drifted closer and closer to setting. I just kept racing. The body moved with ease. It flowed across the ground. The terrain blurred past, the Forest of Lhes hurtling to my left, fields to my right.
I had no idea how much farther we had to go. I ran this road in the dark. Everything looked so different in day. Were we an hour away? Two? Had everyone died? Did they still live? All I could do was run beside Radiant Gertrude and pray that those I loved hadn't perished.
That there was still hope to save them.
Distant shrieks reached my proxy's sensitive ears. A woman cried out. Greta. Nathalie.
“She's dying!” Nathalie cried.
“No, no, no,” Greta cried out. “Where are you, Princess?”
I pressed my proxy harder. I ran even faster than I thought. Its legs stretched out down the road. I pulled ahead of the horse, running down the road. A hill lay before us, the road bending around it. A familiar hill. We were almost there.
And someone was dying.
The tension wracked my body. I didn't want to lose anyone. I couldn't lose anyone. I wanted to love them all. We were going to overthrow my step-father together. I needed them to save me from the curse of lust my father placed on me.
If Sven died... I would go to my father. I would... I would be his whore for the rest of my life. I would bear his heirs. I would beg for him to fuck me over and over. I would suck on his cock. I would let him use my asshole. I would do everything for him to satiate my pussy.
And I would be dead inside.
I rounded the corner, Radiant Gertrude galloping right behind me. I saw my family and... I slid to a stop, my legs locking. Fear seized me as I witnessed. Nathalie and Greta leaning over the convulsing Kora. Everyone else lay in their blankets, looking still. Were they dead? Was Kora the last one to die, or the first one succumbing?
The radiant surged past me. She flew off her horse and hit the ground running, her pink robes flowing around her body. I laid down on my belly, trembling as I watched Gertrude shove her hand into her robe, gathering her pussy juices. She chanted the words and smeared her fingers along Kora's forehead.
The convulsions slowed. Stopped.
Nathalie burst into tears. “You saved her.”
“I didn't,” Radiant Gertrude said. “I can feel it in her... This poison. It's... It's insidious. I've never felt anything like this in my life.”
I rose and padded forward as Radiant Gertrude smeared her pussy-coated fingers across Sven's forehead. He let out a soft sigh, some of the color returning to his face. I reached the radiant as she moved over to Ealaín.
The priestess's face tightened. “Heal your daughter, Rithi.”
She smeared the healing fluid across Ealaín's face. The black-skinned demigoddess let out a soft sigh. But she didn't wake up. She just lay there, breathing slowly, her face beaded with sweat. The radiant shook her head.
“Not even your daughter?” the priestess whispered, so softly only my enhanced hearing could pick it up.
I shuddered and retreated from my proxy back to my body. My eyes opened by Sven. I sat up; my strawberry-blonde hair fell around my face. I drew in a deep breath, my heart thudding. It felt so strange to feel that again. Shivers wracked my body.
“Can you... save them?”
“No.” Radiant Gertrude moved to Zanyia, healing the swollen knot on the lamia's face. “We have to get them to the temple. We'll need to perform a miracle. Rithi herself will have to intercede. She will have to pour her power into the world directly.”
“So she'll save them?” I asked, my body trembling.
“Surly she'll save Ealaín,” the priestess said. “As for the others... I don't know. Gods do not exert such direct influence often. It creates... disruptions in the world. It can cause problems. They prefer to act through intermediaries.”
“Priests?”
Radiant Gertrude nodded. “I can keep them alive until the wagon arrives from the temple. Magic will sustain them perhaps a week, but this poison is terrible.”
~ * ~
Sven Falk – The Adamant Palace, The Astral Realm
I opened my eyes and frowned. A sheet of cool crystal draped over my body, molding to my naked flesh. It was clear and thin and flexible. I lifted it off my skin, frowning at the strange substance. My eyes flicked around the room at... walls made of crystal. It reminded me of Queen Sidhe's palace, but where hers was grown from silver and gold crystal, this one was clear like diamonds. Everything had a strength about it, a fragile majesty. It should be so delicate that a single touch could shatter the walls, and yet I felt not even an ogre with a smith's hammer could batter through them.
“Welcome, Sven Falk,” a woman said, her voice tinkling like metallic chimes, melodious, almost a song.
“Who are you?” I asked then swallowed, feeling a presence rippling out of her slender form. She had skin as black as Ealaín, her hair an even purer shade of white. She was both the absence and embodiment of hues. Her purple eyes gripped me. “Your... uh... Goddess... ship?”
“You may address me as Divinity, Divine One, Rithi, or Goddess,” she said. “I am not given to such ostentatious displays as my father, nor am I as needy as my mother.”
I swallowed at the mention of her father, Pater, Father of All. “Okay, Goddess.”
“My followers ask a miracle of me,” she purred as she advanced on the bed. I couldn't help but notice her naked form, the quivering of her firm breasts. She had the narrow grace of a dancer, her body tall and lithe. Her every movement flowed like water and yet felt so deliberate, like she controlled every aspect of her figure.
Inspiration hardened my cock. I groaned as she mounted the bed, the Goddess crawling toward me, her small breasts swaying before her, her violet eyes staring at me, so immense, so vast, full of such thoughts I couldn't even comprehend. My mind quivered and repelled from their ancient depths. I clicked my gaze down to her youthful beauty.
Her hand rubbed my cock through the crystal sheet, forming a bulging tent. She let out an almost cat-like, throaty purr. Her hands drew down the sheet. It caressed my body, my dick, with its sleekness, sending pleasure through my body.
“Mmm, Sven Falk...” she moaned as she unveiled me. “I see why my Radiant loves you. Why she would commit taboo passion with you. What a wondrous sight to behold.” She straddled me, pressing her hairless, divine pussy on my shaft.
Her hot juices bathed my dick.
I groaned as the heat seared through my body. My cock throbbed against her flesh. Her labia slid up and down my cock, coating me with more and more of her juices. Her back arched, her breasts swaying.
“Oh, yes, I see the carnal art you inspire in your step-sister, Sven Falk,” she moaned.
“T-thank you, Goddess,” I groaned, my dick twitching and throbbing, the ache to explode swelling up to the tip.
“My radiants want me to heal you, your sister, and your women,” she continued, her voice
sounding deeper, the tinkling tinged with an erotic resonance. “They want me to remove the foul substance choking through your veins. They've expended quite a lot of their own passions to call upon my intercession.”
My eyes widened realizing what she meant. Somehow, my harem and I were in a temple to Rithi. The one in Az? The last thing I remembered was fighting Keythivak and killing the assassin then... Collapsing. I must be close to death, the poison strangling the life from my flesh.
“So you'll save us?” I asked. “Your daughter is dying, too.”
“Of course I'll heal my dear Ealaín,” Rithi purred, grinding her cunt faster on my dick, melodic whimpers rising from her voice. “But the rest of you... Why should I so intercede?”
“My sister is your priestess,” I groaned through the heat surging through my body, aching to just bury into the Goddess's divine flesh. “She's your radiant.”
“And? Mortals die. It is your fate.”
“But you must think her important. You sent Ealaín to her to inspire her as a muse and to protect her,” I groaned. I clenched at the crystal sheets, balling my fists around them. The pleasure... Pater's cock, the pleasure gripped me. I ached to be in her. “Why do that and then not be willing to save her now?”
“I did send Ealaín to protect her,” she moaned, her breasts jiggling before her. “Kora Falk has such potential to create inspiration. To bring such beauty to your world. To improve it. But she can't do that if she is dead.”
“Exactly!” I groaned. “So you'll save her?”
“But she can't keep doing that if you keep leading her into danger.”
I frowned. “What?”
“You keep taking her away from her art,” the Goddess purred, leaning over me, a curtain of her white hair falling off her shoulders and half-hiding her small breasts. “Don't you see, Sven Falk? Your sister is inspired by this cock.”
“Many women are,” I groaned.
Rithi grinned, wicked and wanton. “Yes, yes, my grandmother Slata created something magnificent in you. Almost the pinnacle of masculinity for your race. Slata would love to enjoy you.” Her pussy reached the tip of my cock, her labia bathing it, making me ache to be in her. “Your sister has abandoned her art to be with you.”
“To avenge our parents!” I barked.
Rithi shook her head. “That is her excuse. In reality, she does it because she loves you. Yes, she wants Prince Meinard to pay, but she would gladly follow you anywhere. She wants to be with you.”
“She loves me!” My body tensed. Something dark swirled through me, a nervousness gripping my guts. Dread... Dread squeezed my heart. “That's why she wants to be with me.”
“And that takes her away from her art,” the Goddess said. “You will lead her into these situations and, one day, they will get her killed. She will have squandered all of her potential. The world will never see her art if she's devoted to you.”
“What are you saying?” I demanded.
“That you will never be able to settle down like your women want. Ava has a fantasy you'll be her prince-consort, ruling at her side.” The Goddess stroked my chest with delicate fingers. “But we both know you'll never be satisfied staying in one place. You'll need to adventure. To see the world.”
“I can be!” I barked. “With my women. With Ava, Kora, Zanyia, Aingeal, and Nathalie. I can settle down, give them a place of happiness.”
Rithi shook her head. “Don't lie. That's not who you are. You're a wanderer. A rogue. You'll grow bored eventually, and Kora will follow you into danger. You will get her killed.
“So why should I save her now only for her life to be wasted anyway?”
The dread squeezed my heart until it almost stopped. Pressure hammered at my skull. My guts roiled. “What are you saying, Goddess?”
“Once the amulet is destroyed, you must let your sister go,” she purred, her pussy nuzzling at the tip of my cock, on the verge of engulfing me. “You must ensure that she never travels again. Break her heart if you must, just set her free to create and shower the world in beauty.”
“I'm not going to break my sister's heart!” Anger slammed into the dread, beating it back. “I love her. She loves me. She'll still create her art. She'll have the time. I'll make sure of it.”
“Lies told to yourself are the worst kind of deception, Sven Falk. You will go gallivanting off on another adventure and drag her with you. You will deny her one of the true passions of her life: creation. Painting and dancing are denied her. She can't sculpt. Can't compose new music. She has so many aspects of art to study and master remaining. Oration. Prose. Poetry. Drama. How can she learn any of that as a vagabond?
“These are my conditions, Sven Falk. If you want me to save the lives of your women and yourself, then you will promise me to set her free. Do not drag her with you on your foolishness.”
My anger snuffed out. The world dropped out from beneath me. Kora dead. Aingeal, Zanyia, and Nathalie dead. Only Ava would live on. She would have to return to her step-father. She wouldn't have the strength to overthrow him on her own. She'd have to endure him.
But... Kora... I loved my step-sister so much. I had loved her for so long. I grew up with her. She was the first to crawl into my heart, even if I tried to deny that for so many years. I tried to forget it by loving Ava. But...
Zanyia showed my sister and I that we didn't have to be ashamed of our taboo passions, that we could love and have each other without being judged by at least one person. And then Ava and Aingeal and Nathalie joined our family. I even wondered if Ealaín would.
Now I had to give up Kora. Not just to save her life, but to save all our lives. “You're a heartless bitch.”
She shook her head. “I just want Kora to blossom to her full potential. To me, your lives are but a few heartbeats. Whether Kora comes to dwell in the Adamant Palace creating beauty for the rest of eternity on this beat or the next matters little to me. But what she could create in your world... That would enrich so many lives. She could inspire thousands with her paintings, with her sculptures, with the skill of her prose. She has to be allowed to bloom, and she can't do that if you keep ripping her from fertile soil and transplanting her somewhere else. She needs deep roots to flourish.
“Don't you want what's best for your sister?”
I closed my eyes. I had to agree. I didn't want to break Kora's heart, but... But wasn't it better that she got to live? And she did love her art. I missed seeing her paint. Could I truly be happy living in Ava's palace, ruling Kivoneth with her? Or would I get bored and sneak out to find adventure?
Could I ever plant the deep roots that Kora's art needed to flourish?
“Fine,” I groaned, pain beating in my heart. I opened my eyes, staring at the Goddess. “After we destroy the amulet, I'll make sure she doesn't follow me.”
“Good,” she purred. “And if break your word... She dies. Zanyia, Nathalie, and Aingeal will all die.”
“And I'll die.”
“No.” Her fingernails scratched at my chest. “You will live a long, long life full of empty ash knowing all those you loved perished because of your selfishness. Sven Falk, I will sear their deaths into your memory, paint it with their dying screams. I will create such a masterpiece in you that shall inspire generations.”
And then she engulfed my cock with her pussy.
I gasped as lights and sounds buffeted my body. The Goddess fucked my cock hard, her cunt gripping me in ecstasy as I cried out. The sensations overwhelmed me. Strobing flashes of reds, blues, purples, greens, yellows, and pinks cascaded around me. Hues I didn't know the names of birthed around me. An aural symphony of passionate moans, ringing chimes, crashing cymbals, and humming zithers rolled around me.
Her ecstasy shook the very foundation of her palace. My entire body thrashed beneath her. I cried out over and over as my cock erupted into her liquid depths. Her awareness washed over me, drowning me in rapture.
It consumed me in sensations I couldn't even describe. Her pussy madd
ened my mind with lusts. I gibbered and grunted as I kept erupting. I kept pumping her cunt with my cum as she reveled in my cock's girth.
Her orgasm exploded through me. It smashed into my senses. It smothered my consciousness in bliss.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Princess's New Distraction
Princess Ava – Az, Princedom of Kivoneth, The Strifelands of Zeutch
I hated waiting.
“How long will this take?” I demanded of Greta for the dozenth time as I paced in the small room the priests of Rithi provided me, my hands clenched behind my back.
“They said it would take hours, Princess,” Greta said, as she sat with a dainty poise on the bed, her legs crossed. She looked regal, like a princess should. Not pacing back and forth wanting to claw out my hair.
“Hours...” I almost screeched. “Hours to find out if Rithi will even save their lives.”
“Of course she will,” Greta said. “Why wouldn't she?”
“Because...” I hugged myself. “I'm terrified of losing Sven. Of losing them all. I wanted to share you with them so much. To have them love you like I love you, Greta.”
“Princess,” she said with a blush, squirming on the bed.
“I just... I'm tired of waiting. I'm wrung out.” It took two days to get my family to the temple. Two after Radiant Gertrude and I arrived. The wagon took longer to leave the temple and find us than to take my family back to Az. “I just need to know that they'll live or that...”
I didn't say it. If they died, at least I could grieve. At least I could fall apart into melancholy. But so long as they lived, so long as she didn't know their fate, I was torn between the two states. I couldn't be happy or sorrowful. I oscillated between hope and despair, trapped in a cycle of tension that stretched and compressed her body over and over again.
I couldn't take much more of it.
Hours!
“I hope they finish soon,” Greta agreed. “Everyone in the temple knows who we are. They know who Sven and Kora are. What if...? What if your father finds out where we are? That we fled to Sven.”