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The goddess of Rahvekya and her protector, the Kraken, are swiftly turning into legends. Their shared power grows as stories about them proliferate, and I worry. Yes, they are gods, but they are also people.

What will happen if Rahvekya forgets that the way we forgot the storms?

from the unpublished papers of Rahvekyan High Priestess Omira

Aleksi’s world was awash in color again, but this time nothing hurt. And the shades were glorious , every possible iteration of blue sliding over and around him like a lover’s body.

Like his lovers’ bodies.

Naia rocked over him, clasping his cock in a hot, wet embrace. He’d known she would be magnificent like this, bold and ravenous, and so, so responsive.

But she was more.

He grabbed her hips as Einar twisted a hand in her hair and lifted it, clearing the way for his tongue to slick over her throat. His other hand teased over her breasts, cupping their full weight and pinching her nipples.

She turned her head and dragged his mouth to hers. Their tongues flashed as they kissed, and every glimpse sent a pulse of desire racing down Aleksi’s spine. Naia echoed each one by clenching around him, tighter and tighter.

Her rocking slowed when she broke the kiss and urged Einar’s mouth lower, to her swollen nipples. As he sucked one into his mouth, her head dropped back on a low, throaty moan.

Aleksi figured he could probably die now—right here, in this little cabin—and regret nothing.

Except then he’d never get to do this again.

As if Naia could hear the thought, she went still. She tangled her fingers in Einar’s hair—which was long now, flowing past his shoulders and no longer shaved on the sides—and pushed his head even lower.

Einar needed no more encouragement. His tongue blazed a hot path down between her hips, and she bit her lip and shuddered when he licked her clit.

But she did not relinquish Aleksi’s gaze.

“You’re not a good girl at all,” he praised. “You’re delicious and so, so bad.”

“I know what I want,” she breathed, her voice darkened with pleasure.

“You—” Aleksi choked on the words, because now Einar was licking them both, his agile tongue flicking over Aleksi’s shaft and Naia’s wet flesh in the spot where they were joined.

Then he forgot what he was going to say anyway, because Naia came again, her body convulsing around him. She began to move, fitful jerks of her hips, rocking against Aleksi’s cock and Einar’s mouth in a frantic bid to prolong her pleasure.

She was flushed and trembling by the time Einar stretched out next to Aleksi and kissed him. Aleksi could taste Naia on his tongue, could feel her permeating every pore of Einar’s being.

“She looks perfect when she’s coming on your cock,” Einar growled.

“She looks perfect anyway.” Absolute truth.

Then Aleksi immediately had to revise his definition of perfection, because Naia leaned over, braced her hands on his chest, and started riding him in earnest. Every moan that fell from her lips sounded like a prayer, and Einar’s dick twitched against Aleksi’s hip.

Aleksi reached for him. His cock was twice the size in this form, the same silvered purple color as the rest of him. Curved and thick, with concentric ridges that circled the shaft.

“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Naia panted.

“Always.”

Einar sucked in a breath, his hips arching into Aleksi’s touch. “I don’t let most people see me like this. People understand the man and the monster. They don’t understand that, in my heart, I’m always both.”

But Aleksi understood. To him, this was the most Einar that Einar had ever looked.

“You never have to be anything else,” he whispered.

“Not for us,” Naia added. Then she leaned forward and nuzzled Aleksi’s cheek. “You’re thinking something delectable.”

How did she know? Aleksi exhaled and stroked his hand over Einar. “I was thinking about watching him work his cock into you.”

She closed the distance between them a little more, her hard nipples grazing his chest, and turned her head to watch Aleksi’s caressing hand. “Tell me.”

“Slowly, of course. And you’d have to be ready. So ready.” Aleksi stopped moving his hand, instead rhythmically squeezing and releasing Einar’s cock.

Einar growled, a sound of pure frustrated pleasure. So impatient, yet still enjoying himself.

“You’d be able to feel every single ridge, every curve. Bumping every sweet, hungry spot inside you.” Aleksi lowered his voice so that his next words rumbled right into Naia’s ear. “No matter how wet you were, the friction would drive you mad. How would you want it, little nymph? Slow and easy?”

She nipped at Aleksi’s lower lip, quick and hard, like a viper’s strike.

And wrapped her hand around Einar’s cock, too.

“No, you don’t want easy, do you?” Aleksi gripped her hip with his free hand and shifted her slightly, changing the angle of every lazy rock into something that sparked fire in Naia’s eyes. “You want him to drive into you, fast and hard, until you come all over him.”

The glow of Einar’s eyes was nearly incandescent. “She was so tight around two of my fingers. I wouldn’t last long with her squeezing my cock.”

He wouldn’t last long now , with the image so clearly forming in his mind.

“You wouldn’t have to,” Aleksi whispered, spinning out the fantasy for them. “I’d use my mouth. Fuck her with my tongue until you were ready to take her again.”

Naia whimpered.

“How many times,” Einar growled. “How many times could she take me?”

“Do you truly think there’s anything your goddess would not do for you?”

Einar’s curse vanished in a moan as he thrust up and came on their joined hands.

Naia shuddered, then echoed his sharp growl as she lifted her hand to Aleksi’s mouth. She traced his lips, then thrust her fingers past them and into his mouth.

Before Aleksi could lick them clean, Naia pulled them away and kissed him, an echo of what he’d done to Einar at the festival, when they’d shared a kiss along with the taste of Naia.

Aleksi spread a hand between her shoulder blades, holding her in place for that endless kiss, and began pumping up into her. His entire world was soft skin, wet heat, and the maddening rasp of Einar’s voice as he whispered to them both.

“Tell me,” Einar demanded against Aleksi’s ear. “Tell me how it feels to be in her.”

Like everything that had ever been wrong in the world had been put right. Like love was a thing that existed outside of him, a brand-new manifestation more dazzling than anything else he’d ever seen.

“Like coming home,” he breathed.

Naia sighed, a sound that turned into a cry as Einar’s hand twisted tight in her hair and pulled her head back. His teeth raked her throat, and she whispered something Aleksi could not hear.

But he understood. He dragged his fingernails over her damp, fevered skin, licked the arched column of her neck, and gave in.

Pleasure crashed through him with the intensity of a storm at sea, cresting and falling until his lungs burned and his muscles ached. It went on and on, ecstasy so sharp that it hurt. Naia screamed, and Einar buried his face in her hair, a groan of impossible release tearing free of his chest.

His hot seed jetted between their bodies, splashing Aleksi’s chest and Naia’s breasts. Naia shook in their arms, wracking tremors that went on forever.

Finally, she stilled.

This was nothing like Aleksi’s usual dalliances. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, or that he didn’t let himself get emotionally involved. He always cared, and he didn’t know what distance truly was.

But this was something vital. Air. Water. Naia and Einar.

Naia murmured his name, holding on to him when he rolled over, depositing her between him and Einar. “Shh.”

Einar’s hand trembled as he smoothed it up her arm and gently gathered her hair from her face. “ Fuck. ”

Aleksi would take the compliment.

He finally took a good look around. “Aside from the obvious, where are we?”

Einar laughed, his arm falling heavily over both of their waists. “Some ancient fishing shack in the North Sea. I didn’t recognize the island, but there are dozens up here. Hundreds.”

Naia and Einar had saved his life. And, in turn, perhaps he had saved theirs.

Their abductors should have known better than to underestimate any of them. “Your ship will come for us, I suppose?”

“It will,” Naia answered in Einar’s stead. Her face was still flushed, her hair damp with sweat, but her smile was soft and sated. “How do you feel?”

“I—” Aleksi paused, because he did not know. He felt stronger, with little lingering weakness from the poison or his dip in the ocean. He checked, and even the wound on his arm had healed.

But the colors around him were still a bit muted. They had saved his life, but he did not know how long this renewed health would last. If it would last.

Only time would tell.

“I feel ... better,” he said finally. “Much better. But that’s all I can truthfully say. I don’t know what it means, not yet.”

Naia clutched at him. “ How did this happen? Was it the battle? What Sorin’s witch did to you?”

“Yes.” He soothed her instinctively, slowly drawing his fingers through her hair, even though the danger seemed as if it had passed. “I had never been separated from the Dream before. A part of me died that day. I think ... the rest of me is simply taking longer to follow.”

“But you feel stronger, right?” Einar pressed, and even though he’d joined in stroking Naia’s hair, he sounded in need of soothing himself.

“Stronger,” he reassured them both. “In time, perhaps, even whole again.”

“Good.” Naia hid her face against Aleksi’s chest. “Because you’re not allowed to die. Not when we just found you.”

It was sweet, both in word and gesture. Affection, pride, and longing mingled in his chest until it ached. They had not given up on him, and they would not, so Aleksi would return the favor.

He would not give up on himself.

“Get some rest,” he told them. “It’s been a long day.”

Left unspoken was the reality that their ordeal was far from over.

And, when it was ... they still had to return to Akeisa.