by Porter, Jack
There was a moment of silence.
“We always sort of knew it had been a long time,” Velma said. She smiled sadly, hugging her arms about herself in a way that made her hair hang off her body like a mini dress. This made me realize they were still cold and naked, although in truth, only a couple of them seemed concerned about the latter.
Even so, Megan took the opportunity to address the issue. “We have spare clothes at the campsite,” she said. “Although, not enough for everyone.”
I sensed enough disappointment in her words that I knew I had to do something about it. With significant regret at the thought of hiding all this beauty, I said, “You can cut up my cloak, if you like. To make whatever you need.”
That seemed to satisfy everyone, and we continued on to the camp.
* * *
“You found them,” said a familiar voice approaching us. “You’ve been gone most of the day. I was starting to worry that you weren’t coming back.”
Megan’s eyes bugged out. “Most of the day? We were gone a couple of hours, tops!”
“Damn island,” I muttered under my breath. “I think it secretly enjoys playing these games with us.”
Yua moved forward to kiss me, but Cyanne was suddenly by my side, blocking Yua’s path.
“Dexter, will you do me the honor of sitting next to me by the fire? We have much to discuss.”
I blinked in bewilderment, glancing between the scowling, smoking Yua and the suddenly fierce and possessive Cyanne. The Atlantian Queen pulled me along, more escorting me than I, her.
I turned back to Yua and mouthed a small apology.
Yua nodded and shrugged, letting the obvious slight pass, and took a position on my other side without comment. We all gathered around the fire, forming a complete circle, the girls already working on my cloak.
I couldn’t help but wonder at how things had turned out. However, if I expected a calm, civilized and relaxing meal, then I was in for a shock.
As Megan started to hand the first piece of meat to Yua, Cyanne darted forward, yanked it from Megan’s surprised hand, and shoved it in her mouth, hardly chewing.
I was on my feet in an instant. So was Yua. I wrapped my hands around the dragon goddess’s shoulders, speaking soothing words to her while eyeing the ever-growing orange glow in her throat.
I wanted nothing more than to calm her down, to prevent this from getting out of hand, and even though she was right to take offense, she was also dangerous.
But my words fell on deaf ears. She was the dragon now. Black wings flapped twice, nearly putting out the campfire as she launched herself into the air, glaring down at Cyanne.
“Bitch,” Yua growled. Then she opened her mouth wide enough that everyone could see the fire burning in her throat.
She was ready to burn everyone in its path, myself and the other goddesses included.
Thirty-Three
“Yua,” I said, putting myself directly in the path of the flames, trusting that she wouldn’t willingly incinerate me. “This isn’t you. This is your dragon instincts. I understand what Cyanne did was wrong, and I will talk with her about that. But right now, you need to calm your dragon down before anyone gets seriously hurt. We need everyone to work together in order to defeat Zavier. Please, Yua. I’m asking as a friend, and as your partner. Don’t do this.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure she heard a word I said. The flames remained in her throat like a poisonous viper ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
Then her wings quit flapping so quickly, and the tense bunching of her muscles relaxed. Her eyes grew less angry, and she lowered inch by inch until her feet touched the ground.
The last thing to fade was the flames in her throat. It was like they had a will of their own and were not fond of the idea of being all stirred up and then snuffed out again.
When she finally spoke, it was a pained whisper.
“Get her out of here. I’m packing my things and returning home. It won’t take longer than a day if I fly. She and I can’t be close to one another right now.”
I nodded, knowing there was wisdom in her words.
“Thanks for being the bigger goddess, Yua. You did great.”
“It wasn’t me,” Yua admitted, giving me a watery smile. “You didn’t see because you were in front of her, but Cyanne’s crystal pulsed twice while I was airborne. She somehow managed to subdue the dragon in me without lifting a finger.”
“I see,” I responded neutrally, smothering my surprise. I shot a quick look at Cyanne, but really, my focus had to be Yua.
For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. But I had to accept what my dragon goddess had decided. “Travel safe then, my love,” I said to her. I stepped in close to the dragon goddess, pressing my lips to hers in an openly passionate kiss. Her cheeks flamed red from our shared heat and the desire I knew this kiss would kindle in her.
I retreated before either of us could take the kiss further, and was pleased to see her swirling ruby-cobalt eyes glazed over with lust. Then I spun on my heel to face Cyanne, dropping the desire in my expression as I did.
“Let’s go,” I growled, my voice authoritative in a way she couldn’t refuse. “We need to have a talk about what just happened, and the rules you are to follow if you ever want to be allowed into my harem.”
Cyanne’s body was as boneless as a jellyfish, allowing me to move her where I would, but there was a defiant gleam in her eyes. Like she’d just won a battle of wills with Yua.
My pulse rose with my frustration and I clenched my jaw to keep from cursing at her for her stupidity.
What was she thinking? And after I warned her about Yua’s dragon, too.
For a few minutes, we walked in silence, our feet noiseless against the gentle hush of waves rushing forward to kiss our toes and retreating again. The mild night did not match my mood at all.
Once we were well out of earshot of even a goddess’s enhanced hearing, my anger boiled over.
“You deliberately provoked Yua,” I accused, pulling Cyanne to a stop so I could look at her face. “You gave her reason to protect herself,” I said, my voice growing louder. “Her territory. Being me, her food, which I’d intentionally warned you about earlier, and even her place at my side.”
I ticked off the fingers on one hand as I listed what the woman had done. “That is a direct betrayal of my trust, and a blatant disregard for the feelings of the other goddesses. And I’m telling you now, you don’t get to do that, regardless of whatever strange powers you possess. Not only was it both foolish and dangerous, but I’m honestly surprised that someone who was once a queen would be inclined to do something so petty.”
Cyanne winced as if I’d slapped her. Her head tilted forward, midnight ruby hair spilling over her face to shield her expression from me.
“Sorry, Dexter,” she said, head still bowed. Frowning, I tilted her face up to meet mine. Her expression was cool, but there was sincere regret in her sapphire eyes.
On another woman, I would have guessed she was about to cry, but Cyanne’s voice was steady as she continued, “You implied that Yua acts according to her dragon’s instincts. Well, I am bent to the will of something similar. The need to take my place as your supreme goddess. Yua was in direct competition to that. My crystal could tell that her dragon was claiming the number one spot for herself. It is a spot my crystal desperately feels I should have, and I’m not even a goddess yet.”
Cyanne cleared her throat. “Clearly, I need to practice some of Yua’s self-discipline myself, but I can’t guarantee these instincts won’t get worse once I am a full goddess.”
Well, that is unexpected.
I blew out a breath. Part of me regretted that I’d spoken so harshly before hearing her side of the story.
I needed to approach this with a cool head. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge,” I allowed. “And maybe self-discipline should be a staple of our group from now on. Yua tells me meditation is great for that. We can practice that togethe
r, if you’d like. I don’t expect you to be perfect, but I should know how compelling the will of the crystal can be.”
I thought about it some more. “To be honest, up to now, I didn’t know there was a goddess pecking order. And I have no intention of maintaining it. Every one of you will be treated equally.”
Now that I thought about it, though, the squabbles between Hannah and Layla made a lot more sense. They were competing with each other without ever realizing it.
“I would love to meditate with you. And Yua,” she added, biting her lip in shame. “If she can ever bear to look at me again.”
I smiled, the last of my tension melting away. “If there’s one thing Yua has plenty of, it’s forgiveness. But there’s still one thing I don’t understand. Yua said you were able to subdue her dragon. And I couldn’t help but notice the other girls bowing to you earlier in the water.”
She nodded. “I can work to fight that,” she said.
My studied her. “You don’t deny that you have power over the others? Even though you’re not a full goddess yet?”
“I do not deny it,” Cyanne admitted, eyes sliding away from mine.
“How?”
“It’s complicated,” she hedged. “And not something I am proud of.”
Obviously, she didn’t want to talk about it. But big crystal secrets weren’t something I needed right now.
“Try me,” I said, not leaving room for argument.
“You won’t understand. You’ll hate me.”
“I promise I won’t,” I said, gently placing my thumb to her chin and bringing her eyes to meet mine. “Is your crystal special somehow?”
“No, it…” she sighed in frustration, breaking my hold on her and walking a few paces to hug her arms around her bare chest. “My crystal and the other crystals just recognize me as a supreme goddess already.”
Something in the pit of my stomach told me I would not like where this was going. “Why is that?” I asked.
She glanced back at me, her entire expression full of fear. Something I hadn’t thought she was capable of before then. So far, she had been so in control of her emotions, her expression locked down tighter than Fort Knox.
“A long time ago, before my city was destroyed—” Cyanne’s breath hitched the last few words, whispering so quietly that I almost missed them. “I became Zavier’s wife.”
My heart skipped a beat. For long moments, I stood there, wishing I’d never asked the question.
“But it’s not what you think,” Cyanne rushed to say. “It was done without my permission. I never loved him, and we never consummated. We never had sex.”
She was suddenly in front of me again, liquid eyes pouring smoldering fire into mine. I wanted to turn and go.
A growl rumbled deep in my chest. I didn’t want to hear the words sex and Zavier come out of her mouth in the same sentence ever again, even if she said that they hadn’t done anything.
My crystal was thrumming the way it did with Yua. Take her. Take her, now. She’s yours, not his.
Instead, I turned and tried to put some distance between me and Cyanne, tried to head back toward camp.
But there was a heaviness to my limbs. I found my movements slowed, as if I was no longer in control.
I turned back to the goddess queen. “Are you—Kain take it, are you trying to use your crystal control on me right now?” I asked, shocked by the audacity of this woman. At the same time, I called a flair of power from my crystal and broke her crystal’s feeble hold over me.
I folded my arms across my chest.
“Yes,” her tone was shameless.
“That isn’t going to go well for you,” I said, trying to hold on to my temper.
The warrior woman put her a hand on her cocked hip in a way that was ridiculously feminine, and, I had to admit—extremely alluring. “You pried that information from me, Dexter. You told me you wouldn’t get angry. So now you have to hear the rest of the story.”
She was right.
My shoulders sagging, I lowered myself to a sitting position on the beach, my toes just out of reach of the waves lapping at them.
“Okay, fair enough. I did say that, and I do my best to uphold my promises. So, tell me your story.”
“Thank you, Dexter, I promise you won’t regret this. Soon you’ll understand why I am not his in any sense of the word,” she whispered. She stepped in front of me, and slowly lowered herself down, nestling her whole body between my knees and leaning her back into my chest.
Unlike some of the other girls, she had chosen not to cover herself up.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” I asked.
“Is it working?” she countered, then laughed. “I’m joking. No. I just want to have you close as I tell you what happened.”
Her voice died away and when it picked up again, all the mirth was gone. “It started three thousand years ago, when Zavier found my village in the Amazon. The god Kain had given us the blessing of good crops and prosperity. So, naturally, Zavier burned it to the ground, turning everything and everyone to ash inside it. Everyone except for me.”
Chapter Thirty- Four
It was a long tale, one full of heartache, and only fueled my rage at the dark god. I hugged the Amazonian woman tight to my chest, feeling her breasts rise and fall evenly against me. But this was a time for us to get to know each other in nature and mind, more than in body.
Once she finished speaking, neither of us said anything for a while. Just let the words swirl about, like eddies in a stream, adding to the whole.
Finally, I broke the silence.
“So, to sum up what you just told me,” I said. “Zavier took you as a slave and gave you the title of wife and supreme goddess. Years of being connected to that name has leached some of his power into your human form. But,” I hesitated, not sure there was a way to say this delicately. “You never completed that pact?”
“Goddess, no. He would have taken me by force, as he takes all things. But Kain saved me. He used his magic, giving me the power to give myself freely or not at all, if I so wished.”
“I imagine that didn’t make our friend too happy.”
Cyanne made a noise of agreement in the back of her throat. “Zavier was most displeased. The bond between gods and goddesses is strong. Even if it’s only in name. That bond can only be broken by the god who created it himself.”
She gave a quiet chuckle. “Of course, Zavier was too proud to do that, though he tried to kill me a few times while I was married to him.”
“Did Kain’s protection magic help with that, too?”
“Yes,” I could hear the humorless smile in her voice as she added, “I think that’s what tipped him over the edge. His hatred for Kain overflowed when he robbed Zavier of what he’d deemed his property.”
“Disgusting,” I grimaced, feeling sorry for her and the world she grew up in. “So he went crazy about that time?”
She nodded, and her dark hair bobbed and tickled my chest.
“That’s when the plotting against the other gods began, I think. It was only a few years later, after I’d been banished to my floating city to ‘see reason,’” she scoffed. “Zavier’s words, not mine, that Zavier killed Kain. Of course, he found me right after, and gloated about it. But by then Kain had already created his crystals, so that if anything happened to him, all would not be lost.”
She offered a ghost of a smile. “Not only did it give rise to the possibility of a new god taking Kain’s place, but the crystals also have a protection magic in them.”
A number of different things clicked into place. All too often, Zavier had seemed to threaten rather than attack directly. Did that mean the crystals still offered their wearers a certain protection?
Was I protected from Zavier’s direct attacks?
Or did Zavier just think I was?
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“Well, when Zavier understood I was out of his reach, he abandoned me on earth for many years. Th
e island brought the other goddesses in, Amandeep and the others. They bonded with crystals, too. And I knew what was happening, and what was at risk if Kain’s heir never came into his full power. So, I took preventative measures.”
“It was you who created the prophecy tapestry and hid the crystals in different locations?” I guessed.
“Yes. I was sure we had Zavier beat. All we needed was five more girls, and you. But Zavier wasn’t done. He brought Kara in tow. She didn’t speak our language, being an otherworldly creature from a planet much like this one.”
I knew it! I thought. Pink-skinned alien.
“Zavier had wanted to end our marriage contract in exchange for Kara becoming his new supreme goddess. But while she was here, she bonded with a crystal too, and Zavier found out.”
I frowned into her hair, seeing where this was headed. “Is that when he found out what the crystals meant? Aside from the protection they offered—that Kain had set in motion events that would lead to Kain’s heir?”
“Yes. He was furious that I wouldn’t tell him where the crystals were hidden. So, he sunk my city, and put a spell on me and the others. One that wouldn’t harm us directly. There we stayed for four hundred years, with only each other for company, connected through the spell.”
She yawned and snuggled deeper into my warmth.
“And Yua came after, found her crystal, and the shrine,” I finished, finally put the last piece of the Zavier/crystal puzzle into place.
“Think she’ll forgive me?” she murmured, “Yua, I mean.”
“I’m sure she will,” I replied.
She sighed in contentment and yawned once more. Night had already fallen by then, and it had been an eventful day. I figured that the Atlantian woman must have been exhausted.
My assumption quickly proved correct, when she seemed to drop off to sleep in my arms.
Gently, doing my best not to wake her, I carried the young queen back to the campfire, where I saw that everyone else was already asleep as well, except for Megan.
“Being human has its drawbacks. I don’t miss not being able to stay up with you, Layla, and Hannah,” the redhead whispered.
