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Chapter Nineteen

Madness

Tate

The night stinks of sex, earth, and the metallic bite of blood. The ferris wheel begins to ascend as Calvin Harris ft. John Newman “Blame” blares through the island.

Cordelia actually did it.

I didn’t want to believe it at first. I told myself it couldn't be real.

But seeing her walk through the crowd… watching them part for her like the water parted for Moses was nothing short of divine.

She is divine.

I close my eyes, feeling the gentle night breeze skim through my hair as her body melts into my side, her head falling on my shoulder as her fingers curl around my hand. From the corner of my eyes–I see him.

Honey pools are blown wide–high off us.

I smile, inhale deep, and try to hold onto the stars before the night devours them.

I wasn’t proud of the things I did to keep my addiction under control.

To keep her from consuming me.

If only she knew the extent that I would go for her… for Chase… for us...

But she ripped that away. Strolling through her greenhouse, making sure not to walk near her cameras pointing directly at her ant farm, I spent hours in the lab–after breaking in of course–just sitting, and visiting her mind like a shrine.

It didn’t take me long to see what she was doing–so focused on evolution, my little bloom.

If only she could understand that the truth lies in connection.

That’s what helps… I take a deep breath in...

She thinks I didn’t notice her stealing the dirt from my garden, but little did she know that she inspired my thesis, the garden and everything in between. Looking at the ants, I notice the one she keeps hidden from view and I smile.

She’s actually attempting it… and by the looks of this particular ant, she’s succeeding. I shake my head and offer her a piece of me. A little help.

Just enough to see if my butterfly could break from her cocoon.

Carefully, I sprinkle soil composed of mycelial cells and spores from various stages. If she was hell bent on making herself the experiment, might as well make sure she blooms.

But that was then…

She didn’t fail.

She didn’t break.

She didn’t submit.

She became.

Cordelia squeezes my mind, snapping me back.

“Stop being in the past,” she whispers, her eyes glowing in the darkness. We ride the ferris wheel, high above the foam-drenched madness with her between us. Fingers laced in ours. Heart full.

The music swells. The world tilts.

Below us, I watch the world descend into slow madness. The foam crowd writhes–not just dancing anymore–but fucking, blooming, birthing something unnatural.

There’s no escape.

There’s no resistance.

There’s only giving.

The immune?

Front row.

Devoured alive. Incubators for the hive.

Everyone becomes part of her. One way or another.

To spread her wishes…

Her legacy.

To protect our queen.

Bodies lit with bioluminescent veins twist into one another, skin slick with foam and blood ecstasy. Some have evolved quicker–turning into beautiful human art, sprouts falling from their open crevices like waterfalls, skin fully glowing with a beautiful soft pink hue.

Beautiful. Unholy. Divine.

Limbs continue to tangle, mouths open in moans or screams – it doesn't matter. It all turned out the same.

No one’s human anymore.

And the center of it all–her.

Our Queen B.

Cordelia lifts her head, eyes still glowing like moonlit wounds.

“They’re ready,” she whispers as she stands, pulling us with her.

Chase arches a brow. “For what?”

“To connect,” she hums, her green dress clinging to her like it was made of seaweed and light. Even her sun-kissed skin pulses to the bass line. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

She goes to turn–her body tense before she comes to a sudden stop. Then the music stops, and tiny red dots dance upon her skin. My nose flares, and Chase immediately shields her with his body, stepping in front of her.

I can feel the darkness of the hive begin to cloud my mind.

The music shifts–bass thick and sludgy, vibrating like it’s alive–the crowd goes silent.

“Kill them,” the voice hisses in my head. “They don’t belong but they can,” it continues.

Sensing the danger before it had the chance to surprise us, my body moved on instinct , moving closer to what’s mine.

Before the first bullet flies, I’m already moving.

The ground shakes beneath us.

“GET DOWN!” someone shouts as gunshots go off in the distance. Soil trembles beneath my feet.

“Ten four, your location—”

All static.

All too late.

“Protect the Queen,” the voice snarls. “The queen. ”

The hive howls over the music.

I lunge, slamming into the first guard.

“May Day.”

Static.

“May Day.”

More screams.

“RUN!” I shout over the music, but I feel the immediate resistance that comes from her.

A ‘No.’

Firm and unyielding.

Picking up a discarded rifle, I move towards the woman who closes in from behind her. I raise it above her head before crashing it back down, causing her to collapse, but not before hitting the trigger, and taking two others with her.

“The Queen,” the voice hisses. “Protect the Queen.”

Click. Click. Click.

The sounds multiply by the hundreds.

Gunshots and chaos erupt from everywhere.

The sounds of flesh tearing.

More screams.

Wet tearing noises from their insides.

Groans mixed with laughter.

Click. Click. Click.

More gunshots.

I see the same guards that checked us on the first day corner Cordelia and Chase.

Then suddenly, the same group of friends from the festival jump on the guards, like koalas climbing onto their backs.

The women continue to click as they begin to part the guards’ flesh, blood spraying everywhere.

Through the chaos, the music continues to play, the hive still continuing their madness, still keeping true to her wishes.

We all feel them…

We are all her…

Ecstasy blends with adrenaline… heart pumping as the beat from “Latch” by Disclosure and Sam Smith wraps around us like rope. We spread like a song–quick and vibing. From inside I feel a tug–a calling.

Cordelia.

“Tate,” she breathes–then she’s in my arms, all heat and urgency, and legs locking around my waist like she was always meant to be there. Chase flanks us, body taut, eyes scanning the shadows, protective even now.

But Cordelia–only sees me.

“Mine,” she growls, crashing her mouth into mine. Her tongue sweeps deep, claiming and devouring. She rolls her hips against me, desperate and unashamed, and chasing friction like it’s all air. I guide her lower, palms gripping her thighs, angling her towards the only thing she’s ever craved—

The stage.

A Queen, ready to ascend.

To watch her kingdom burn and bloom.

The music shifts–erratic, frenzied. “Kerosene” by Crystal Castle howls through the speakers. The beat is broken glass and heartbeat thunder.

And she rides it like a god.

Cordelia's grip tightens, legs clenching as I carry her up the stage stairs. Behind us, Chase follows–silent, burning, ready. The speakers moan and twist out noises. “Kerosene,” shreds through the night like static-fed lust.

We reach the top.

The pink, green, and gold lights spiral just as the foam cannons go up. The hive howls beneath us. Cordelia turns in my arms, pulling Chase forward with a look that could melt steel. Her mouth crashes into his, their tongues moving against each other–all teeth and tongue and fury.

While her hips grind against me, every roll of her body stokes the fire beneath my skin.

My cock aches, swollen with need, and trapped between us as she devours his mouth and teases me with friction.

Chase moans into her, then leans in, his hand cradling the back of my neck before he pulls me into him.

We kiss–sloppy, hungry, brutal.

I feel him shudder against us, caught in the current of her desire. A mess of spit, heat, and breath as we devour each other over her body. Cordelia doesn’t spit, but commands.

With a glance, a breath, a pulse from her body–she guides us.

I lower her gently to the stage. Our Queen sinks onto her knees with no shame–only hunger. Her hands greedily release our hard cocks.

Her fingers curl around us both, greedy and reverent. She strokes us in sync, slow and deliberate, before bringing our cocks to her lips. Then–her lips part.

We both gasp as she takes us together–her mouth wide, her throat swallowing, and filaments blooming around us. Chase and I both cup a side of her face, feeling her cheeks hollow just as she takes us deeper. Hooking our thumbs on the side of her lips, we help her with the tasks.

Saliva and translucent filaments spill from her lips.

Small filaments wrap around our lengths as she sucks us deeper, the tendrils hike up her throat and wrap around our shafts. The pleasure of the stimulation is unbearable.

It’s unreal.

Like being fucked by something ancient. Chase moans my name as I fist her braids, my nails digging into her scalp. The pleasure scorches up my spine like molten lava, and she pulls us deeper.

Her bloom begins here.

With our cocks in her throat and the world falling apart around her, Cordelia continues to suck us, choking slightly. Her moans vibrate against our skin, causing Chase to whimper and me to moan. She pulls away with a wet gasp, strings of spit and spores stretching from her lips.

Her tongue flashes–the muscle split as she laps up the saliva, pre-cum, and fungal slime with a smile that feels like blasphemy. “Now.” she breathes, voice shredded from desire.

Slowly, she rises to her feet, skin glowing. Not just from sweat and arousal–but power. She turns her back to us, slipping off her thong and tossing it to the waiting crowd, before bending over the mic stand, hands braced and dress hiked up.

Exposing her glistening brown core.

Welcoming. Offering. Daring.

Ours to devour.

Ours to worship.

To ruin.

Chase steps forward first, wasting no time as he buries himself inside her with a broken moan. She arches against him as if lightning just struck her back. I move behind him, my hand moves under the spot they connect and gathers the juices that leak down her cunt.

Bringing my soaked hand back up, I spit on it–mixing us like some kind of twisted lube and massaging it around him before pressing my finger into his tight hole, making sure to prep him just a bit.

He groans into her skin as I swirl my thumb inside him.

I lean into his ass and softly bite into his flesh before rising to my feet and using the remainder of lube to spread down my length, and then I slowly press into him.

“Good boy,” Cordelia moans. “Taking him so well.” She continues to praise our good boy as I fill him with me.

Chase's body trembles between us. “So tight,” I breathe, my eyes crossing as his virgin ass grips my cock tighter than any vice.

“You’re doing so well, baby.” Cordelia and I moan in sync. “So well.”

We are a chain. A circuit. A ritual.

Cordelia moans so loud it shatters over the music.

The mic catches it. Amplifies it. And spreads it.

“Welcome,” she gasps into the mic. Her voice splits and doubles as Chase fucks her violently into the stand. “....the queen.”

Slowly, I thrust into Chase, and he slows down to match my pace. Her body is an altar. His a vessel. Mine a hammer.

We shake from the pleasure, the music, and the sheer adrenaline that courses through us.

“Thrive in the madness…” she growls, each word jagged with pleasure. The speaker screams with feedback and breath.

Below, her children erupt into moans, laughter, and sobs.

Click. Click. Click.

Hands grasp. Her mouth opened. Back arched.

“Continue to spread,” she moans into the mic, her voice soaked in sex.

In truth.

The music bends–it wails, becomes unrecognizable. A heartbeat swallowed by thunder. A scream turned into rhythm. Bodies fall to their knees in the foam.

They fuck. They bleed. They bloom.

Petals split open their backs.

Spores burst from their mouths.

People cum and die, only to rise again in the same motion.

I’m so fucking close, my balls draw tight, nails digging into Chase’s hips before I lean into him. “Fill her up while I breed you.” With that, I release my grip on his waist, and instead, fist his soft, chestnut waves, arching into him.

“Bloom, baby,” Cordelia sobs into the mic. “Bloom—”

Her climax tears through us like the island itself is coming.

She shakes. He spasms emptying himself inside her. While I roar, feeling my cock twitch inside him, then filling him to the brim with loads of thick, warm ropes of cum.

The world holds its breath.

Music stops.

And then.

Silence.

Then–denotation.

Spores surge outwards in a golden wave, pulsing like a living bomb, out of her pores. Everyone touches it. Everyone becomes.

The hive collapses and rises.

Foam turns into rot. Laughter into moans. Bodies continue to melt into each other. And still, on stage we move. Fucking in sync with the death of the old world. Celebrating evolution.