Temple of Cocidius - Book 2

by Maxx Whittaker

  I’m fucked if I don’t escape.

  I try, one last time, to lurch for the shore. But their weight is too much, and I fall to my knees, instead, my momentum arrested.

  I’ve failed. Everything I’ve done, all that I’ve been through, undone by some gods damned fish.

  The eels leap from the water, and I bat them away, my blade in my hand, but it’s not enough. I’m being dragged under.

  And then, she saves me.

  Kumiko arrives like a cannonball, plowing a furrow through the water that sends it cascading upward on each side of her. She angles herself as she enters the water, wrapping her arms around me. Her impact rips me from the lake, drags us up the shore. I feel ribs crack, snap where her arm wraps my torso.

  But I’m free.

  I lurch to my feet, pulling Kumiko with me. The most tenacious of the eels still cling to my leathers, and I shake them off, wincing as each movement sends waves of agony to my brain.

  Kumiko stands as I do, still clinging to me. She’s panting, holds a hand up to my face.

  A brown marble, glowing like a dark star, rests in her palm. I grab it up. “How much time?” she pants.

  I don’t have to look at the astratempus. “Less than ten minutes.”

  She closes her eyes. “Dammit. I hoped...Oh, how I hoped.”

  I shake her gently. “Not over yet. Not over.”

  She leans up, kisses me on the lips. A quick press of her flesh that lights me on fire, inside. I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t believe me, thinks we’ve lost.

  He’s coming.

  She pushes me away.

  Fenrir bears down on her. Kumiko doesn’t move, doesn’t flee. Time slows to honey as her eyes lock on mine.

  Kumiko knew she would be caught, would die again if she saved me from the lake. And she did it anyway.

  Ten minutes, and I will not fucking fail her.

  I think of the astratempus, how much time has passed since I last looked at it. “Last cycle,” I call, even as Fenrir’s jaws close around her and pierce her soul.

  Her scream guts me. She evaporates.

  I don’t wait, don’t watch the wolf vanish. Before I’ve mounted the horse, Freya’s healing knits my ribs, the wounds to my legs, and Finna eradicates the poison. The horse obeys my will without a single command. We fly back to the camp, because that’s where all of this started, and I know that’s where it will end.

  Only one riddle on the wall has yet to change from pale red to golden.

  Thread of the Delivered.

  “Thread. Thread…” From her clothes? I haven’t delivered Kumiko from anything so far. From myself? The tent? Think.

  I stare, at nothing, at everything out ahead of me, feeling time tick away. At the gorgon face with its hollow black eye sockets. They hold a strange terror, for being nothing more than empty spaces. Maybe because they remind me so much of the draugr, of Helreginn.

  Those last moments, Helreginn’s hand around my neck, choking the life from me. Memory that invades my mind as I stare at the gorgon.

  Thank Heijl for the spider.

  Spider. Thread of the delivered.

  “Please. Fuck, please…” I gently pat my leathers like I haven’t fought, fallen, rolled, and nearly drowned. A hundred things that would have crushed an even bigger creature.

  I tap my finger at the bend of my elbow. She trundles out from the fur band of my chest piece. I can’t understand how she survived it all, can’t believe my luck. The spider waits, legs trilling slowly, brimming with industriousness. I hold out the chalky black marble. The little spider hurries over to it, back legs looping and weaving. Her web lines its rounded face and the marble glows a bright onyx.

  I have to choke back a sob of gratitude. “You might be the most magical creature of all,” I tell her as she zips up my chest. She stops at the chain of the astratempus and raises her front legs a few times. To communicate something, to get my attention. Then she disappears over my shoulder and into my pack.

  What is it? I have mere minutes left to figure out what to do with these orbs. There’s no time to solve another riddle. I pluck the timekeeper free. It comes loose faster than I expected. I fumble and nearly drop it, grab with both hands.

  Its outer ring, the sleeve disk that holds the device together, slides around the face like it was made to do this. For a second my particles feel separate, insubstantial and the world isn’t a place or a time. It’s a bright white vacuum that is only as big as I am, and goes on forever, all at once.

  Then my feet are on the stones. The camp surrounds me and the air is once again pregnant with terrible anticipation. But the arrow hand of the astratempus sits ten minutes higher on the face than it did a second ago.

  I have added a boon to the astratempus.

  Fuck yes.

  Ten minutes to solve the puzzle and the realm, but not ten minutes until Kumiko and Fenrir appear.

  Six marbles. I roll them together. Nothing. Touch them to the riddles- all of which glow golden- to no result. No altars or containers reveal themselves.

  The spider. The eyes. I run for the columns.

  Each face has an open mouth and two eyes. Six openings. This has to be it. Which orbs go where?

  I should have paid more attention to my lessons.

  Gorgon. Kiss of a Goddess seems easy. Does it matter which opening? Mouth seems logical, so in goes the green marble. A residual green glow radiates out, but nothing happens to reassure me.

  Breath of a fish? I set the blue stone in the gorgon’s eye. It dulls and winks out.

  “No! No, fuck.” I poke my finger into the tiny opening and rake the marble free. It lights again.

  Shadows tip and draw like the change of a high-noon sun.

  Fuck me. Think harder. Roots of a mountain.

  He’s coming. The air stills and thickens.

  Mountain. Stone. This time it glows.

  The gorgon’s bitterness and spite. Spit of hell.

  Sparkles blow across me on a sudden breeze.

  A mechanism clicks, and the gorgon’s tongue raises.

  Now the mortal. I run for the other pillar. Sound of a storm for the mouth. The face lets out a hiss before I’ve added marbles to the eyes.

  Kumiko appears. Her eyes lock with mine.

  “Run.” I drop the last two marbles into the eye sockets.

  She looks exhausted, confused. Maybe disbelieving.

  “Run! Run!”

  Fenrir rears up behind her.

  “Just jump! Jump the columns!”

  She makes a single bound no mortal could hope to manage, and Fenrir still has her heel in his mouth.

  I hold my breath, wondering if I failed. I crank the astratempus. Nothing. There won’t be time to try again.

  Kumiko clears the columns at the peak of her arc.

  One face hisses. A cloud of gossamer mist billows between the columns and only between them. No wind or motion disturbs it.

  Fenrir lunges. The mist solidifies, thickens. He strikes it. The columns strain, crack. The mist becomes bulging strands, a net. It envelops him, and he falls to the path with an impact that topples the stone posts, leaving them in chunks. I dodge back as a hail of ivory chunks rains down around me. When the marble dust clears, at first, I think he’s gone.

  I look to Kumiko. She’s gone, too, nearly out of sight at a far bend in the path before she realizes he isn’t behind her.

  Daring closer, I hear the whimpers before I see him.

  Fenrir is a wolf. A plain wolf, the wiry sort who haunt the timberline.

  Kumiko skids to a stop, creeping close, trembling with a fear that can’t be diminished by safety or size.

  Then she turns to me, throws her arms around my neck.

  “Oh! Oh.” I put my arm around her waist. “Whew, in those last few seconds-”

  She rips free and my blades go with her. Kumiko whirls and plunges them both into Fenrir.

  A yelp splits the air, and he’s silent. She stands like that a moment, blades
deep in Fenrir’s body, before she shrieks. In it, I hear all her fear, her torment, and her rage. She stabs the blades downward, again and again with feral noises

  Then she’s silent, but the wet grit of steel over bone and blood goes on for a long minute, until I grab her back, her arm, and finally tear her away.

  Kumiko falls to her knees, panting, blades abandoned in the grass.

  I don’t know what to say. The others lived mostly in their own realm, mostly undisturbed, even when an aspirant appeared. Kumiko’s whole world is a nightmare for the entirety of a solstice.

  Her long soft ears cradle her face like hands beneath her cottony tumble of hair. Her shoulders heave; with panting, or tears? I’m not sure. I move closer, wanting to comfort her.

  Kumiko springs to her feet. Her pale pink irises deepen to magenta. When she looks at me, it’s not fear or sadness in her eyes.

  It’s hunger.

  -The Tyral Ruin-

  She stomps past, and as she passes grabs a fistful of my leathers and drags. She’s tiny, and she fucking drags me back to the camp. She shoves me through the tent flap and flips it up over the roof pole.

  Time has stopped just after sundown. I take a last look at the astratempus. The arrow has stopped.

  Fire light casts everything into deep shadow and I can barely see her face with her back to the fire, but I know what she’s doing. Kumiko tears at her clothes, her linen top and the wrap that hugs her thighs.

  “Off,” she demands, and we tear at our clothes together. I’m almost afraid of what will happen if I’m not naked when she finishes undressing.

  Her body is so tiny, and strange, and beautiful. She has long graceful rabbit’s feet, covered in silken silver hair that hugs her legs almost to the knees, like boots. It appears again between her thighs, a small gossamer patch over petite lips. Her skin is silver white, small athletic breasts blushed with pink around tiny jutting nipples. They barely bounce with the heaving of her chest.

  The second my hands finish the last buckle she bowls me over onto the cot. It collapses. She climbs over me in nimble little hops. The soft hair at her inner knees tickles my hips. Her ears flop beneath her ocean of white hair with each bounce. Kumiko rests on her long feet with just enough leg to reach the ground.

  She has to stretch because she’s not sitting on me. She squats above my throbbing cock, our bodies silhouetted by the firelight, and lowers until my head rests in the cleft of her silky lips. My cock is wider than her whole pussy. I can feel her wet seam. It parts as she lowers.

  I slide hands around her waist to stop her. My fingers bury in a soft mound. Her tail. I go from hard to aching at the idea and Kumiko overwhelms my grip.

  Her hole is so tight. This is never going to work. I’ll split her in half before I’m all the way in.

  She dips the tip of my cock, wets it before raising up again. When I try to raise my hips and help her, she shoves me down. “I can do this.”

  She may be tiny, but she is fully in control. Will she let me raise up?

  I bend just enough to get a nipple in my mouth. Her skin smells like rain water, fresh and earthy. The smell fills my nose; when I roll her beaded nipple along my upper lip she moans, and the scent magnifies. Kumiko flinches and her body opens a little. I can feel the muscles of her pussy surrender in small ripples that barely let me press inside.

  I play with her tail; she doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes squeeze shut, face flushed and glistening with a sheen of perspiration. She’s fully concentrated on getting my cock into her. Can I break it?

  I suck my finger, flick her tail with it. I slide down the cleft of her backside and press the tight star of her asshole.

  Kumiko yelps. Her eyes fly open and wetness paints my cock.

  She rocks her hips back and I slide into her pussy by achingly slow increments. Stretching her. The head of my cock presses a bulge through the flesh above her mound.

  “We should sto-”

  Kumiko smacks a slender hand over my mouth and rides me to the bottom. I can see the root of my cock, the tiny curve of her lips and her small pink clit straining between them like a ripe berry. I want to suck it, devour it. Run my tongue over her-

  I’m so lost in all the ways I’ll pleasure her that I’m not ready for what happens. Kumiko hunches, grabs my shoulders, and fucks me. Her hips move like a piston. She fucks me, so fast I can feel the friction heat my cock. Our flesh smacks and my balls vibrate. Before I can beg her to slow down, control myself, I’m at the edge, and then I’m all the way over it. Orgasm tears through me, powerful, almost painful, except that it’s fucking intense and feels so good.

  It’s the fastest I’ve ever cum.

  She doesn’t stop. Her hair waves around us in a white curtain and her ears gently slap me, and she doesn’t slow down. Small as it is, her pussy tightens, and the muscles in her ass shake. Cum spills hot down her thighs, lubricating us both and she takes me faster.

  “Unf unf unf unf!” Her little noises heat my ear with each breath, driving me crazy. Nails like tiny claws nip my skin where she clutches me.

  Despite how wet she is, the speed and friction almost burn. I open my mouth to say something, anything, and my cock spasms, engorges, and I cum again, buried in her quivering pussy.

  And again. My balls ache and the feel of her pussy gloving, kneading, has me rock hard against my will. This time I grab her hips. She struggles. I slide her down my cock and hold her there while she bucks and writhes. I’m already fighting to not cum again. How the hell is she doing this? It might kill me.

  Kumiko struggles against my hands, making feral noises.

  “Stop. Stop!” I’m laughing and fighting her.

  “Why?”

  “Did you cum a single time?”

  She looks astounded by the question. “No! Now let me-”

  “Whoa!” I grip harder when she grinds her pussy down on me. “Kumiko, slow down.”

  “Why?” She’s breathless, frustrated.

  Because I’m a mortal, and you’ll kill or maim me before I ever leave this realm. I don’t say this because I’m too fucking proud. “Because there’s pleasure in taking your time.”

  “I’m a kaltes. Our mating habits aren’t a preference. We couple how we couple.”

  “Which is?”

  She reaches down, massages low on her belly. I’m so deep inside of her that I can feel her hand through the wall of her stomach. I hiss in a breath. “When a female is crazed, she mounts a male until she achieves satisfaction.”

  She sure does.

  I wait for the rest.

  This is all that matters to Kumiko, so she isn’t going to tell me the rest. Her pussy twitches around me, impatient.

  “And when a male feels the urge?” I draw down my hips and wedge a hand between her leg and mine, so she can’t take me fully inside.

  “He stalks her, lunges her from behind. He mounts her and pins her to the ground with his weight and his teeth.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  She frowns. “His release only takes seconds.”

  “That sounds worse!”

  Kumiko writhes again. “A kaltes female doesn’t allow anything she doesn’t want.”

  Is that so?

  Without warning I fist the hair at the back of her neck and pull her from me.

  Kumiko lands face down on the forgotten quilt. I turn my body over hers in one fluid motion, trapping her between me and the blanket-covered ground. She whimpers, warm and sweat-slicked beneath me.

  My fingers keep ahold of her hair, pressing her cheek gently into the quilt. I work a hand under her belly, wrap her, and drag her hips into the air. Her tail rubs my belly and I can smell her pussy on the night air.

  Hunched over her, I prod her with my cock until she raises her ass and I slide inside her heat. With her small body lashed to mine at the waist, I press my teeth into the meat of her shoulder and thrust.

  Kumiko shudders and releases a muffled cry into the blanket. I stay buried inside he
r, dragging in breath after breath to keep my sanity. Her ass jiggles, her hips begin to vibrate.

  “Hm mm.” I dig my teeth a little deeper and slide out of her pussy to the tip.

  She whimpers, shaking. “It’s pointless!” she pants. “What is the-”

  Her protest ends in a gasp as I push into her slowly, stroke deep and slow just once. Keeping my grip around her waist, I work my fingers down to the wet cleft of her lips. Her clit licks my finger like a tongue, swollen and eager. I slide my middle finger over it, bury in her narrow slit, spreading it until I feel where my cock disappears inside her.

  “Oh! Ohhh...” Kumiko’s shoulders relax, tits crushing against the blanket, and her ass raises higher, begging. She still hums with need and an urge to go crazy; I can feel it where our bodies touch.

  Releasing her hair, I toy with one of her velveteen ears. She makes a sound I’ve never heard a woman make, not even in the throes of wild orgasm. On a whim, I lick it. Her climax is one long, throaty moan, and the walls of her pussy spasming against my length almost take me with her.

  But not yet.

  I slide into her slowly, relentlessly, rolling her clit and stroking her ear. She tries to bounce, desperate. Squeezing her waist, I bite harder. Stroke her ear faster. Push my cock until her pussy lips spread over the hair at my root.

  Kumiko’s little shrieks grow into one short scream. She shudders, strangles my cock and goes limp under me.

  “No. We’re not finished.” Banding her tighter, I drag her back against my hips and pound her, slow and hard, slicking two fingers against her pussy. She’s barely stopped shaking when she comes again on a ragged moan. “Stop...no more.” Her hips raise even as the words tumble out. My balls are wet from her, and my belly where she slides up each time I press inside.

  I want to make her wait, keep on fucking her like this, but I can’t. I need to take her as hard as she took me.

  I lay all my weight on her, bite her, and rail her until the slap of our flesh is nearly one continuous, dirty sound. Kumiko cums over and over, her body shaking, weakening with each round of desperate cries, and tensing when I fill her again.