Designed by Death

by Melody Rose

  It was Ansel’s turn to moan, and a smile appeared on my lips as a result. Suddenly, his hands left my breasts, leaving them cold and sore. Before I could protest, however, he spun me around so that we were face to face, his hands rising up my back to unhook my bra while his mouth found my nipple.

  My head flew back, and I arched under the delightful feeling of his tongue on me, his teeth biting at me, and his lips sucking me. My bra fell to the floor, and instantly I felt freer. I went to work on his pants, giving him a couple of quick, gentle squeezes before I yanked them down. Ansel had to stop his assault of my breasts at my touch.

  “You’re distracting me, Shy,” Ansel groaned. “I’m enjoying pleasuring you right now.”

  A stubbornness took over me as my fingers flew around his button and pulled his zipper down. Ansel reached down and grabbed my wrist in a firm grip. His intense, glowing green eyes caught mine, and my fire brightened at the want I found blazing within him.

  “I said, it was your turn,” he growled, and my breath hitched at the gruffness of his voice.

  Before I knew what was happening, Ansel lifted me up on the workbench with his strong hands, as though I were nothing more than a rag doll. He worked so fast I would have thought his father blessed him with the gift of speed as he undressed me, boots, pants, and underwear until I sat completely naked in the soft glow of the forge fire and the torches.

  “Well, this isn’t fair,” I teased, crossing my arms over my breasts. “How come I’m naked, and you’re not?”

  “I think I can make up for it,” Ansel snickered as he grabbed both of my ankles and spread them apart.

  His tongue reached out and licked my folds, making me shiver in anticipation. I leaned my head against the rock wall and enjoyed the fiery sensations rocketing up and down my limbs with each lick. He focused on my clit, slapping it with his tongue while his fingers teased my opening.

  “Gods Ansel!” I moaned, my voice echoing back at me in the smithy.

  Warmth spread through me, from the fires of the forge and the fire within. Waves of sensation crashed over me as the soldier continued to taste me. I reached up and grabbed one of my breasts, adding to the pleasure as I played with myself.

  When Ansel slammed his fingers into me, I bucked against him. He moved his hand to match my hips as I bordered on an explosion. It took a single flick from his tongue, and I came. I convulsed around his fingers and yanked at my nipple in order to prolong the orgasm that consumed me.

  “Ansel!” I cried, and a thousand Cheyenne’s responded in tandem with the name of the love of my life as I came, singing his praises.

  My body didn’t even have a moment to fall slack and enjoy the aftermath before there was a thunderous boom from somewhere above us that shook the entire cavern.

  23

  “I didn’t do that,” Ansel said as he leaped back from me, still shirtless and looking gorgeous.

  Through my post-orgasm fog, I managed to piece a sentence together. “It sounded like an explosion.”

  As if it were confirming my hypothesis, another cacophony of sounds blasted through the air, accompanied by another rattle of the ground beneath our feet. Ansel spread his legs wide and crouched low to try to keep steady while everything shook around us. Flecks of rock fell from the ceiling, and red dust burst out from the walls.

  I scrambled off the workbench and gathered up my clothes. As I was bent over my pants, I heard a panicked voice from behind me.

  “Cheyenne!” Erich called as he floated into the cavern. “You’ve got to get up there. The villa is under attack and-- Whoa!” The ghost held up a hand to shield his eyes as he walked in on my bare behind sticking up in the air. “When Arges said you were down here, I didn’t think you were down here doing that.”

  “Shut up, Erich,” I snapped as I yanked on my clothes. “You said the villa was under attack?”

  “That’s what I said, yeah,” Erich said as he still held his hand over his eyes.

  “I’m dressed,” I declared as I slammed my shirt over my head and danced as quickly as I could to put my boots back on.

  Erich let out a relieved sigh and removed his hand from his eyes. Like me, Ansel had redressed and was at the nearby sink washing his hands. I tried not to think about where those hands had been mere seconds ago. My brain had to transition from sexy mode to crisis mode, and admittedly, it was not an easy shift to make.

  “I liked you better with your shirt off,” Erich said as he eyed Ansel up and down.

  “Erich!” I shouted, snapping my finger in my brother’s direction. “Focus!”

  “Yes, right, sorry,” Erich replied as he turned his head back to me, but he still stole a final glance over at Ansel, eye level with his ass.

  “Who’s attacking the villa?” I asked. I felt the adrenaline rush through my body in anticipation of the battle ahead as I equipped myself with whatever tools I could grab within reach. I tucked a hammer in one of my belt loops while I stuck a short bowie knife in my boot. I took a sickle off the wall as well. It was the closest thing to a scythe which I had gotten rather adept at wielding after making so many of them. The son of Apollo had the same idea and snatched a great sword from the wall along with a shield that fit snugly on his left forearm.

  “I don’t know,” Erich admitted with a shrug. “It’s a bunch of monsters, but they don’t look right.”

  My heart sank at Erich’s description. “Don’t look right how?”

  As I asked the question, a third explosion rattled the air. While Erich didn’t need to, he still crouched down against the falling rocks while Ansel and I covered our faces respectively.

  As if of one mind, Ansel and I decided wordlessly that we didn’t have any more time to waste. We dashed past Erich, one on each side of him, and exited out of the cave. But before I left completely, I had a thought. I rushed back, Erich watching me the whole time, and snagged the helm of invisibility. I put it on my head and joined Ansel back near the front.

  “Erich, are you coming?” I called back to my half-brother.

  He didn’t respond right away but instead looked at me with a raised blue eyebrow. “Isn’t that thing supposed to make you invisible?”

  “We haven’t had time to enchant it, okay?” I clapped back at him. “And is now really the time?”

  “You’re right, you’re right,” Erich relented as he floated forward to join Ansel and me.

  The three of us dashed up the stairs on the side of the cliff, me leading the way. Unfortunately, I had to stop when I reached the top because the sight before me was too surreal to believe.

  The beautiful villa house was on fire. It was an ordinary fire, with none of the multicolored features of the Eternal Flame, but deadly all the same. It flew out the windows from the second story and crackled loudly. Smoke whirled into the air, the clouds expanding like balloons. Specks of wood popped off the sides of the house and flew into the pool, sizzling as it landed. Another explosion resounded, blasting out through the glass sliding doors like a dragon breathing a stream of fire. The three of us all flinched at the sound and the violence of the scene.

  After the blast, there was a sickening moan. I looked in the direction of the noise and saw Arges on his knees, shouting towards the wreckage that was his house. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was held by two massive minotaurs. But these minotaurs weren’t regular beasts. Instead, they were monochromatic, all different shades of brown, looking like a moving sculpture rather than the real beast.

  They were made of clay.

  “Esme,” I said, the word leaving my lips like a curse.

  When Arges screamed, one of the minotaurs pulled out a whip and slapped the cyclops across his bare back with it. This time, a startled grunt pushed out through Arges’s gritted teeth, as though he were resisting the urge to show them his physical pain.

  Anger burned as hot as the villa fire in my chest. I wanted to dash over to those minotaurs and slice them to pieces. But my half-brother’s words stopped me befo
re I made a rash decision.

  “Where is Phae?” Erich asked, his eyes darting around the property.

  A different kind of panic seized my chest. I joined Erich in searching for the goddess when another explosion came from the burning house. We saw the flames lick up the sides of the house, eating up the veins like rivers of lava. In the midst of the explosion, I heard a fierce and painful scream over the top of it, like a failed attempt to harmonize.

  “Oh gods,” Ansel said from over my shoulder. “She’s in the house.”

  “Erich and Ansel, you two need to free Arges and get him to the chariot,” I commanded, an unfamiliar confidence and strength taking over my voice. “I’ll go in and get Phae.”

  “But she’s a daughter of Helios,” Erich reasoned. “Shouldn’t she be fine?”

  “Her powers have to do with radiance,” I countered, my eyes fixed on the smoldering fire as it grew and grew. “Fire will still kill her.”

  “She’s a goddess, Shy,” Ansel said back to me. “She’s immortal. She’ll survive.”

  “That doesn’t mean that she can’t feel pain,” I snapped back. “Go get Arges. Use Erich’s fire form if you need to.”

  I didn’t give the pair of them a chance to argue. I bolted across the gardens, my legs pumping as I raced directly for the house. Without thinking, I threw myself into the fire.

  The smell hit me first. The scent of burning wood mixed with burnt plastic, and it stung so hard that my eyes watered. While I might not have felt the heat, I could still taste the smoke on my tongue and see the damage that spread across the whole house.

  “Phae!” I shouted as loud as I could. But I wasn’t sure she could hear me over the roar of the crackling flames. I darted from room to room, but my path was soon blocked by the broken staircase. They were completely destroyed, and there was no way I could make it up them safely. I may have been immune to the flames that danced around my ankles, but I could still fall through the unstable wood.

  Suddenly, there was a loud snap, and one of the ceiling beams tumbled towards the ground. I crouched low and rolled out of the way. When I twisted the helmet back into place so I could see, I made it a little big thinking that Hades most definitely had a bigger head than me, the beam that nearly squashed me ended up being a serendipitous accident. The wide, long piece of wood was the perfect ramp up to the second floor.

  I took it one step at a time as I scaled the beam like a tightrope walker. As I tip-toed forward, there was a corner of the beam that crumpled beneath my foot, and I had to leap towards the top edge of the second floor. My momentum caused the beam to break beneath me, and it crashed with a loud bang into the tile floor.

  I took a second to gather my breath, avoiding that close call. It was another scream from Phae that brought me back to my senses. I hollered out her name once more, to let her know that I was coming.

  “Phae!” I shouted. “It’s Cheyenne. Where are you?”

  “Bedroom!” came the reply. Although it was faint, I made out the words and got to my feet so I could head her way.

  I navigated through the blazing maze and twisted the sickle around in my wrist, prepared for a clay monster to jump out and get me. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew that the monsters would avoid the fire as much as possible since it was their one weakness. Ansel and I found out my first year that you had to attack them with a heated weapon in order to injure them properly.

  Following that train of thought, I stuck my right arm out and placed the sickle in the center of a nearby bonfire. The steel of the curved blade instantly heated up, pulsing a sinister yellow color. I yanked it back out and continued my quest to find Phae.

  The goddess was indeed in the bedroom, but she was tied to the footboard of the bed. Her hands were behind her back, handcuffed to the iron rods. The rest of the room was a disaster, with the armor ablaze and the carpet charred and stiff.

  Phae’s normally golden skin was reddish and covered in soot. Her bare legs peeled in places where the fire had gotten her. Her eyes were watery and puffy because of the smoke, her hair tangled around her head like a ruined bird’s nest.

  Without wasting a second, I approached her and set my weapons down. I put my hands on both cheeks and adjusted her limp neck so she could look up at me.

  “Phae, Phae, look at me,” I slapped her face slightly so that she would stay awake. “Phae, it’s Shy. You gotta get up, okay? I’m going to get you out of here.”

  “It hurts,” she moaned. “It hurts so bad.”

  “I know, I know,” I said, even though I never knew what a burn felt like. From the looks of it, though, it appeared as though her skin had been rubbed raw. “We’re going to get you out of here, okay?”

  I wrapped my hands around the handcuffs and concentrated on the simple metal. The environment made it hard to concentrate, but the urgency of the situation helped me focus on the sensations the metal sent me. I asked it to open, and the handcuffs answered with two simultaneous clicks.

  Phae was free, and I immediately wrapped her arm around my neck so I could help her get to her feet. I managed to carry the weight of the goddess, even though she was several inches taller than me, and picked up my sickle again. As we slowly moved forward, a wall came down nearby and blocked the door to the bedroom. I shielded Phae with my body so that she wouldn’t sustain any additional burns. Shards of wood attacked my back, and I grunted as they pelted me like hail.

  There was no way that I could carry the goddess over the new pile of debris, so I whipped my head about the room, searching for another way out. There was a huge hole in the wall where a pair of French doors used to reside, which led out to a balcony that overlooked the pool.

  “I’m sorry, Phae, but we’re going to have to jump,” I said as the idea came to my mind.

  “What?” she wheezed. The goddess broke into a fit of coughs, and that made my mind up for me. I didn’t hesitate to drag Phae forward and haul her out on the balcony despite the broken glass that scraped along the floor.

  The stone balcony still held true, though I knew that it would come down with the rest of the house which could be any minute by the looks of it. I rested Phae’s limp body against the railing and bent down to grab her feet.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Phae,” I said more to myself than to her. Then I flipped the goddess over the side of the balcony and let her fall two stories into the pool below.

  As I watched her splash safely into the water, another explosion came. But this time, it was directly behind me. A rush of heat, air, and fire blasted right at me. I wasn’t ready for the force of this explosion and completely lost my balance. Then, I found myself tumbling down right after the goddess.

  For a solid four seconds, I was in freefall. One of my worst nightmares came true as the ground, even if it was a pool filled with water, rushed up at me with the speed of a bullet. A scream escaped my lips, but it was soon swallowed by the chlorine infused water and a splash that echoed in my ears.

  A rush of cold surrounded me, and goosebumps sprouted across my skin. My body dove into the water, the sound of the burning fire rushed away, as though someone had stuffed cotton in my ears. The impact rattled my bones and sent the helm prototype flying off my head. It took me a minute to regain control over my limbs and eye my surroundings amidst the bubbles and the strands of my long red hair.

  My eyes stung against the water as I opened them, but I needed to see where Phae was. My lung craved air, having been so unceremoniously dunked into the water. That took precedence over finding my friend, so I bolted up to the surface. My face broke through the water, and I heaved, gulping in a lungful of hot air. I swam in place but turned my head this way and that, trying to see if Phae had come up for air yet. Unfortunately, the goddess was nowhere in sight.

  I inhaled deeply and dove back down into the pool. Under the water, the blaze from the fire above looked like a light show at a nightclub. It made it hard to focus beneath the surface. However, I managed to clear my vision just enough t
o see Phae’s body at the bottom of the pool.

  She wasn’t moving.

  I hauled myself forward, swimming as fast as I could to her limp form. When I reached her, I could tell immediately that she was unconscious. Wishing I had been a lifeguard during high school, I did what I could to swim both the goddess and me back up to the surface.

  The muscles in my legs burned with the effort as I kicked. My lungs strained against my ribs, begging for an ounce of air to keep going. I was completely out of my element, with my wet clothes dragging me down along with the heavy weapons at my hip and in my shoes. Still, I pushed on, desperate to get the goddess, immortal or not, to safety.

  When the pair of us came to through the surface, we both gasped. The air slapped me against the face, and a surge of clarity brought me back to my senses. I felt Phae move on her own, also rejuvenated by the oxygen. The two of us swam over to the side of the pool so we could have something to hold on to while we regained our breath.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Phae asked through gasps.

  “What do you mean?” I balked at the goddess. “I just saved your ass.”

  “I’m immortal,” Phae snapped. “I would have been fine.”

  “You didn’t look fine,” I snapped right back, refusing to be scolded for helping her. “You still don’t.”

  Phae looked herself over, examining the marks on her arms and hands. She sighed but kept the angry expression on her face. “You should have helped Arges.”

  “Ansel and Erich are on it,” I assured her. “I trust them both with my life, and neither of them had fire resistance, so your rescuing was left to me.”

  “I guess I should say thank you,” Phae muttered quietly.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, my voice still sharper than I wanted it to be. We both looked up at the burning house which crumpled before our very eyes.

  “What happened?” I asked Phae, trying to get as many details as I could, so I knew what we were up against.