Page 49 of Minas (Dying Gods #4)

Lykos

I feel as if Britomartis has torn out my world with one hand and reforged it into something new. Like a metalworker taking blood-spattered stone and shaping it into a blade that shimmers in the sun.

There is nothing shameful in my desires.

The thought is like an anchor stone slipping free from a rope, like a trade wind filling canvas after days becalmed at sea. Excitement flutters through me as I bend to taste Sira, as the feel of her writhing beneath my kisses tangles with the memory of her face when she speared me on her fingers.

Gods, how I had loved it—but it had been tinged with shame too. Guilt. As if I was debasing myself before her, lessening myself in her eyes somehow by exposing how much I wanted this thing . A thing I have wanted since I knew I could want. A thing I have been told was shameful even before I knew I wanted it.

To be filled. To be overpowered. To feel that white-hot rush of pleasure deep within me, overpowering, overwhelming…

“Fingers, Achean,” Britomartis urges, pulling me back from thoughts of my own pleasure to the woman trembling beneath me.

My Sira. This woman whose desires dance like starlight along the darkness of my own.

Carefully, so carefully, I press my index finger into her, curving it like Britomartis showed me, pulling it out halfway before driving it in again, and again and again. She tightens around it, her mewling pants becoming more desperate, ragged almost, as she arches against my tongue, bucks against my hand. I look to Britomartis in alarm. Am I supposed to make Sira come so soon?

“It’s fine,” she murmurs, her hand settling on Sira’s fluttering belly. “Keep going.”

I sigh in relief, letting a second finger join my first, closing my lips around that sacred bud in an open-mouthed kiss, working it with my tongue. Sira cries out, thrashing beneath me, with a chant of please, please, please . I don’t know what else to give her, what else I can do, except to slip my fingers out and thrust a third finger in.

Sira screams, coming apart on my fingers, coating my hand with the essence of her, with the proof of her pleasure. I lap at her gently, coaxing her through it, until she is trembling on the bed, her hands pressed over her face, her breasts heaving as she draws in ragged breaths.

I pull back, slipping my fingers free to stare at my handiwork. At those puffy lips spread wide. At her entrance dripping with arousal and gaping open, the pink flesh inside still fluttering with the aftershocks.

Untouched by man .

That is how my brother had described her, when he was salivating over her, lusting after the power she would give him.

Well, now I have touched her there.

The thought has a satisfied smirk coming to my lips. I know I shouldn’t think it, I know it doesn’t matter among her people, but knowing that I’m going to deflower her, that my cock will be the first—it sends a possessive thrill rushing through me that I have no right to feel.

“Please, Lykos.”

She reaches for me, soft hands tugging at my shoulders, pulling me towards her, her thighs widening to accommodate my hips.

“Please.”

She is trembling, a sheen of sweat coating her skin, her eyes impossibly large in the lamplight. Her tongue darts out, tracing the red marks left from Britomartis’ painted lips.

“Please what?” I tease, even though I know what it is she wants. Even though my cock is aching, my balls drawing up in anticipation as the head teases her entrance, slips against those swollen lips.

“Barb me,” she rasps. Her fingers trail down my spine, pressing against my lower back, then my buttocks, her fingers firm and nails sharp as she urges me forward. “Please,” she adds, this time reluctantly, as if the thought of begging me offends her.

I grin down at her, savoring this moment, the feel of her entrance teasing the head of my cock, practically sucking it in as I hold myself back from her.

I like the sound of her begging, I decide.

“Lykos,” Britomartis chides, and I can’t help but shiver at the authority in her voice. “You’re her olisbos, remember? Your lady has asked you to barb her.”

I groan at her words, at the way she makes me feel small and used and completely at her mercy. As if I really am just an object to be used for Sira’s pleasure. An untrained youth who requires a firm hand.

I thrust forward. I mean to go slow, I’d planned to go slow, I really had, but Britomartis has been teasing me all evening, making me watch as she undressed Sira, as she used her, as she spread her out before me like I feast I couldn’t taste.

Sira cries out, a guttural cry that is half pleasure half pain. Britomartis hisses, but I can’t stop myself. I am like an animal in rut, a beast, the barbarian she says I am. I pull back, and thrust into Sira again.

Something gives, a barrier against my cock that is there one moment and then gone the next. Sira makes a keening sound and I draw back, but she pulls me to her, drawing me in until I’m buried to the hilt.

“Stay,” she whimpers, “Just a moment. Oh gods.”

I pant against her lips, holding myself up on my elbows so I don’t crush her. She is so small beneath me like this, with her legs wrapped around my waist, and her warm heat enveloping me. It takes everything I have to do as she says, to stay buried deep in her when everything is screaming to thrust into her, to take, to chase my pleasure.

To breed her.

The thought sends me spiraling, nearly making me spend right there. I bite the inside of my lip and try to calm my thoughts. But gods, now that I have thought of it, I can’t stop. I imagine filling her with my seed until it’s dripping from her. I would do it over and over again, until her belly grew round and her breasts were full of milk.

“Sira,” I beg, because I think I might die if I don’t come soon. “I need, I need…”

She nods, a look of fierce determination and hunger sharpening her features. “Yes,” she agrees, the word a sweet breath against my lips. “Yes.”

I pull back, and drive into her—this time with a little more care, a little more gentleness. I don’t want to hurt her. Her legs tighten around me, heels pressing into my backside, urging me forward.

“Harder,” she rasps, those all-seeing eyes boring into mine. “Harder.”

I obey, trembling against her, vision nearly whiting out when I feel her tightening around me, grasping me like a fist. “I… I can’t…” I babble, squeezing my eyes shut. “I can’t… I’m going… I’m going to…”

She cries out, head thrown back, her body squeezing me, pulling me in as she shakes beneath me. I explode, my pleasure punching through me like a hammer. I’m lost in the feel of her, my thrusts wild and erratic as I pump into her. Breed her , the crazed beast within me growls. Fill her up .

“Lykos!”

Her voice is raw as she cries my name, as she presses it against my neck with a kiss. I close my eyes, legs trembling as the last burst of pleasure wracks through my body, my cock still deep inside her, warm and wet now with both our essence.

“I love you,” I admit, the words tumbling out of me before I can stop them. But I am weak now, soft and pliant above her, so perhaps it is not a surprise. She could draw anything from me in this moment. I would promise her anything, pledge her anything.

She huffs against my throat, her lips teasing my thundering pulse point. I must taste of sweat, but she laps at my skin as if it is ambrosia.

“I love you too,” she breathes, the admission a gentle sigh, easily given. “I love both of you.”

She turns in my arms, and I move to the side, conscious of my weight bearing down on her.

Britomartis is there, a strange expression on her face. Worry and awe. Yearning?

Sira stretches one hand out to her, drawing Britomartis down to her other side. Britomartis huffs in protest, then obeys, narrowing her eyes at me from across Sira’s body. We are like two cats sharing a meal, I realize with a grin. Allies in the hunt who would gut each other if the other strays too close.

Well, Britomartis would gut me. I seem strangely content to throw myself at her mercy. I purse my lips, then shrug. It doesn’t bear examining too closely. Not when this is the end result.

Speaking of dangerous priestesses…

“Are you going to take the role of high priestess at Potina’s temple?” I murmur, the words half muffled by Sira’s hair as I recall my earlier conversation with Britomartis.

Sira stills beside me, barely breathing. Britomartis’ glare sharpens, like claws retracting from a resting paw.

“This is not the time to talk of such things, Achean,” Britomartis retorts haughtily.

I huff in disagreement, my breath causing some of Sira’s strands to lift and land across my face. I brush them away. “This is the only time we have,” I argue. “The gods do not promise us tomorrows.”

My chest tightens as the words leave my lips, as I remember Sira’s lifeless body, the blood strewn tiles, those unseeing eyes. She is here, I remind myself, pulling her tight against me. She is here.

But still, we are all mortals with threads waiting to be cut. I am not going to waste what the gods have given me.

The three of us are silent for a long moment, the only sound the flickering of the lamplight and our breaths—and even those are so tentative, as if none of us wish to excite the notice of the gods who watch us, as if we are all conscious of the impermanence of the fragile threads woven between us.

But they are woven between us, all three of us. Britomartis must be made to see it. She must be made to stay.

“I would like that.” Sira’s voice is tremulous, the cooing of a dove at dawn. “If you would choose that role.” She worries her lip with her teeth, staring up at the ceiling, as if she doesn’t dare to look at Britomartis and see rejection there. “But you are welcome here even if you don’t, Britomartis of Thera.”

She turns to her then, giving her my back as she fixes Britomartis with the full intensity of her demand.

“Will you stay?” she asks. “As priestess or not, will you stay with me? Here at Knossos.” Sira pauses, drawing in a steadying breath, her shoulders tensing. “Would you pledge yourself to me, Britomartis of Thera, with your words if not your blood? So that I may keep you by my side for as long as our threads may run?”

I cannot see Sira’s face, but I can see Britomartis’. I watch in awe as her expression crumbles, as the sleek walls she has built around herself since Sira came back to us come falling down. Britomartis presses her face into the mattress, as if that would shield her from us, as if that can stop the onslaught of emotions sluicing through her. But it doesn’t and in the end she turns to Sira with her tear-tracked face, kohl smeared and eyes still wet.

“Yes,” she rasps, her lips twisting into a smile, as if even joy is painful in this moment. “You have it, sweet Sira. My pledge. My heart. Even when our threads are cut. Even in the depths of Potina’s underworld. I am yours. Until the stars no longer burn.”