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I raced down ancient steps, looking into empty room after empty room until I heard her.

Not in the shrine. Outside it , my Tirian said.

I nodded and then wove my way through the corridors and steps until I came to a ground floor room, then slung my leg over the windowsill and dropped outside. Soil gave under my feet, thick and dark, the smell of crushed plants in my nose as I searched the gardens for him.

There , my beast prompted, and sure enough, I saw a figure walking through another archway, this time leading to an outer courtyard.

I picked my way through the garden, avoiding stepping on plants, jumping over flower beds, and weaving through carvings until I found the same path.

Then I slowed down. I hung by the archway wall, peeking around the corner to see Ethan striding back and forth, hands in his hair, his face a mask of pain.

I slipped out from behind the archway, walking on my beast’s feet, feeling her inside me, her calm, cool, predator stalk bringing me closer and closer until his head jerked up, but it was too late now.

I was on him, my hand going around his wrist and latching on, tugging backwards when he went to pull away.

“Let me go!” he shouted, which was almost enough to get him what he wanted.

Now Bec, me, she didn’t grab men when they didn’t want to be and hold on for dear life, but I wasn’t entirely myself right now and neither was he.

Every muscle trembled, jumping and fighting against my grip but unable to pull free, until finally, he stopped trying.

Ethan just looked at me, obviously hurting, and I knew it was me that was wielding the knife.

“Let me go, Bec. You don’t want this.”

“I don’t have a choice and neither do you. I have literally no idea what’s happening. Do you?”

He blinked, his face tense, and then let out a long shuddering breath, shaking his head.

“Not really, but it’s bad, I know that much. I’m just a mechanic, for fuck’s sake. I fix up the community’s cars, hang out with my mates, drink a few beers on the weekend, and relax. That’s it.”

I let him go because I could see he was settling somewhat. He used his freedom to pace back and forth.

“When I saw you, I thought maybe I had a chance of seeing you through your heat, or getting sucked off by Axel if that wasn’t on the table.

It was all supposed to be good, clean fun.

The first time you touched me, my fucking head spun.

It felt good, amazing, but that wasn’t all of it.

It felt familiar, not because I saw Shauny getting you off in front of the window, but because we’d done this before. ”

He surged forward, standing over me now, so tall and muscular, I started to question my previous pushiness, but he stopped just short of me. He didn’t want to. I saw it, as he searched my face, as he looked for something, but what?

“Over and over, you and me.” He moved closer and held out a hand, making it clear he wanted to touch my face, so I stepped into it, his eyes and mine closing.

For a moment, in a strange world, in a space multiple millennia old, everything now and everything then blended together.

When I opened my eyes, I saw him overlaid with Ethan’s much blunter, more honest features.

“Fearn?”

Branwen’s counterpart, the conduit for the Great Black Wolf before Lonan took his place, the one who was supposed to step down, but there was more, so much more. I could feel it abstractly, something that simmered under the surface, Ethan’s eyes blazing green as he stared down at me.

“It doesn’t have to be about them,” he said, almost to himself. “We can move beyond that shit, build something new.”

I thought of Flora’s words, of her admonition that we should try not to make the same mistakes again.

“Tell me you want that, Bec.” His voice was a low rasp now, desperate and needy, and it took everything I had to not just give in. I covered his hand with mine, moving to place a kiss on his palm, and reached up to bring his lips down on mine.

“Yes…” he hissed. “Yes.”

But he wasn’t going to just give me his kiss and his body.

He wanted to tell himself that it could be that simple, but I thought we both knew that wasn’t the case.

When we touched, when we kissed, when I felt his tongue snaking out and his hands wrapping around my waist, dragging me closer, I felt and tasted Ethan.

But we were more than just us, players that were forced on stage over and over, given another go to try and get it right.

Oh yes… Branwen hissed. Your Fearn is a much lustier soul than mine ever was. Well, for me. He managed to find a passion for others though.

And like some subterranean beast, she rose up and swallowed us both, dragging us down, down, into the shitty machinations of her past.

I heard the muffled sounds of Fearn’s cries the minute my hands went to the door.

Lonan had promised to leave the door open a crack, and it appeared he was true to his word.

That went someway to alleviating my concerns.

The conduit to be was an outlander, dark, beautiful, too good for the likes of Hara and her little whelp, Jaya, but he was not schooled in the way of things in Oemis.

Like fucking the Black Wolf’s conduit, that was strictly verboten.

The two of them could invite others to their bed on feast days, but this?

It’d all been planned out, Lonan and I plotting late into the night, wrapped around each other like vines, before he got hard again and had to reach for me.

Even as Lonan had driven his cock deep into me, he’d whispered the steps we’d take to secure our rule beyond time, beyond death.

He’d fucked me until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began, which seemed somehow appropriate at the time.

It was somewhat distressing to see Fearn experiencing the same degrees of ecstasy.

When I walked in, quiet as a mouse, the high arched sandals I was normally forced to wear discarded at the door, I caught them just as I’d been told I would, but strangely, my surprise was not feigned.

Fearn was an apathetic lover, only really able to rouse himself on feast days, the eyes of the crowd doing more for him than my beauty ever did.

He was largely immune to it, I realised.

Right now, he was bent over on his hands and knees, taking Lonan’s cock in punishing strokes I knew intimately.

My cervix ached a little in sympathy, having endured a delightful battery of its own this morning, but the sight of Fearn…

His mouth was open, his pants and groans guttural, his dick completely and utterly rigid as Lonan rode him.

So swollen was his cock that cum dripped constantly from the purple head, all over the bed.

I had never been able to wring a response even halfway as intense from my mate.

“Fearn?”

My insecurity coloured my voice, making me sound all the more credible, my tone wavering. I was a beautiful woman and was always welcomed with open arms whenever I walked amongst the people. Men and women fell over themselves to serve me, to pleasure me, all except Fearn.

“Oh!” he gasped, his mouth forming a perfect O, but he didn’t pull away nor scramble to cover himself, instead pushing back harder and faster on Lonan’s cock, seeking to wring every last drop of pleasure he could.

“This is what you were doing when you were too tired to attend to me,” I said. This was scripted, but real anger bled into my voice. Fearn’s abandonment to pleasure was a slap to my face, my lover’s cock giving him ten times more than I could. “This is why you have pushed me away, time after time.”

Lonan grinned over Fearn’s shoulder at me, slowing his strokes now to the sound of the other man’s whimpers.

“This is why you shrink from my touch, why you push me away?” I put my foot up on the bed, the slit in my voluminous dress revealing everything Fearn had rejected. “Lonan is Jaya’s mate, to replace you as conduit to the Black Wolf.”

“Yes…” Fearn agreed, though I wasn’t sure to what.

“You have defiled your vows, chosen me over your lady, the conduit of the goddess,” Lonan said, making me frown. This wasn’t part of the script. “You must make amends, as you would to the goddess herself.”

I wasn’t sure what devilry he was indulging in, but he thrust himself hard into Fearn, forcing the other man’s face into me, and much to my surprise, my lacklustre mate attacked my skin with a fervour he’d never shown before.

He devoured me as best he could, wrapping his arms around my hips, forcing me to move in time with their strokes.

Lonan just grinned, something that should’ve been fair warning of what was to come, but right now, that was all I was focussed on.

Fearn’s muffled groans against my clit, his tongue lashing me inexpertly but with an enthusiasm that made up for lack of technique.

It was Lonan, his eyes flashing red as he leant over the other man, the grin falling away until there was just him, my love, my true mate.

He offered his mouth to me, and I took it, the two of us just using Fearn as an outlet for the unearthly lust that came whenever we touched.

After we’d come, after we destroyed each other with pleasure, we both pulled free of Fearn, leaving him panting on the bed, still twitching, cum coating his stomach.

It was me that Lonan wrapped his arms around, not Fearn.

We stared down at him, and then I said, “If you want this to continue, if you want to experience these pleasures again, you’ll need to do exactly as we say. ”

“Yes…” Fearn was lazy with pleasure, nodding dimly, but I leaned down, gripping his chin, forcing him to stare into my eyes.

“You’ll not feel the touch of Lonan’s hand again. Do you hear me? Not once.”

“But you’ll see it.”

I felt Lonan’s rumble through my body before his hand parted my dress, sliding over my stomach before diving between my legs.

The sounds of his fingers in my cunt were lewd and pronounced, Fearn stiffening as a result, in more ways than one.

His hand dropped to his cock, stroking the steadily hardening length.

Apparently, it took another man touching my cunt for him to be interested in it.

“I’ll slip in here every night to plough your pretty mate’s cunt and arse, taking her over and over, and you’ll be forced to watch, not allowed to touch your cock. I’ll have you tied to the bedhead, rigid and aching, without a single brush of anyone’s hand, and whipped bloody if you come.”

Lonan’s dark words had me writhing, shifting against him, my arousal real now.

“Or you can be sandwiched in between us, her clutching you like a velvet glove.” That cooled my ardour somewhat. “Me driving myself so deep inside you, you’ll not be able to sit down for days.”

“Anything,” Fearn groaned. “Whatever you want, just tell me.”

“The ascension, it needs to be changed. Jaya is too much of a milksop for me, and why would I bother with a whey faced little bitch like her when I can have this.”

This was, of course, how he trapped me. The moment I had ascended as conduit, ripping the goddess’ power away from the former conduit, it had been the best day of my life, one that just seemed to go on and on until the murmuring began again, of handing the role over to another.

My family had not managed their change in standing well, hadn’t kept favour, just assuming all would stay as it was, despite all evidence to the contrary, and now Hara and her faction had managed to unseat me, a new ascension ceremony planned.

Lonan, with those scarlet glowing eyes, seemed to personify the dark god in a way I had always hungered for but never found in Fearn.

He had slunk up behind me, whispered in my ear, and then slid his hand between my legs as he told me his plans.

When he’d announced how he’d get rid of Jaya, I’d come around his fingers. When he told me how I could hold onto my position as conduit, I’d started the climb again. Over and over, he’d driven me mad with pleasure and plans for controlling and maintaining power.

Of course, I’d never spared a moment’s thought on why. Why me and not Jaya? Why try to keep me in power? What did he hope to gain?

“Do you get it now?”

Ethan’s words hung in the air, undigested by me, the world reasserting itself so abruptly, all I could do is stare, mouth open like a twit.

“We broke Oemis together,” Ethan said. “Gave Lonan all that power. Helped him to hurt all those people.”

I saw angry tears fill Ethan’s eyes, but when I went to reach out to touch him, he flinched back, bringing Fearn to mind. I jerked my hand down, wondering now about the way he and Axel connected.

“Fuck, no, not like that. What happens with Axel, that’s just hot fun.

I might have that fuck’s memories, but I’m not Fearn.

” He surged forward, then stopped himself from getting any closer, quivering there.

“I’d die for just one time, to touch you like…

To kiss…” He shook his head and then frowned.

“But it’s us, over and over. We’ve done this before, so many times.

Ascension, then stepping down, making way for someone else, then ascending again. Until…”

“Until we didn’t,” I said.

“Until we didn’t. We broke the ritual, the divine marriage, the compact with the gods, and while the world went to hell, Lonan took as much power as he could, binding the Great Black Wolf to him with everything he got from all that destruction.

He punched a hole into the next realm, went through, and… ”

“Created the Volken,” I said at a whisper, seeing the row upon row of dark garbed men, swarming over this world, raping and pillaging, wreaking terror and feeding off it.

“Jules said he died, Sylvan, that he dove into the mouth of the Great Black Wolf and was gone like he’d never even existed, but he came back through the portal, to us. Why, Bec?”

“Because I am as much a part of this story as you are.”

We turned to see a very pale Sylvan standing there, his eyes blazing bright blue as he stared.

“Because all of the players are back on the board, ready for end game, either to set the balance back, or to destroy us all forever, freeing the Tirian and the Great Wolves for eternity.”

Well, fuck.