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Wonder

Stars have mercy. What is happening to her?

Wonder slams the door behind her, whips around, and drops her forehead onto the facade. With her limbs quivering like jelly, she flattens her palms on the partition and sucks in uneven breaths, the aftereffects lingering like the dregs of an elixir.

His torchlit eyes on her. His voice drizzling into her ear.

His powerful body flush with her own. His cock, hard and high against her ass.

His heart, hammering into her back. His hands tracing her pussy, his fingers teasing her clit, his fingernails dabbing sensitive areas that had Wonder shrieking.

His sharp talons plying in and out until she was pouring, the exquisite pain unlike anything she has experienced prior.

His tongue licking her arousal and blood. His pupils catching fire.

The climax had smashed Wonder to pieces. Malice made her come until her vision went dark, the orgasm lasting for minutes, pleasure spiraling, inhibitions extinguished. She’d been wild, untamed, ferocious. Just like him.

And it had felt extraordinary. In all her years, how has she been missing out on such rapture? True, she’s had lovers including Anger. But Malice brought out the almighty savage in Wonder, empowering in a way that had nothing to do with immortality.

No one. No one has ever made her unleash like that before.

Not even Malice’s former human self took Wonder to those immeasurable lengths whenever she’d groped herself to memories of him. She had cried out while coming. But she never hollered to the sky.

In fact, Wonder hadn’t even remembered that mortal man existed. Not in that moment when Malice pumped a toy inside her, nor when his fingers filled her cunt, soaking her to the brim. As she wept and contracted around his fingers, she’d only felt and thought of Malice.

Even now, her clit aches. Even now, her cleft slickens. Even now, her body craves more.

What they did accomplished nothing to quell this hateful desire. To the contrary, Wonder’s entire being radiates with need like stoked flames. Temperature should be a mystery, yet she’d had a glimpse of what heat must feel like.

Guilt clenches her ribs. What would the crew say?

Yes, deities aren’t always the most decorous beings.

Epicurean, sensuous, excessive, petty, sometimes belligerent, and oftentimes spoiled.

But not all of them. Others are regal, dignified, and patient.

So just because Malice behaves impulsively, that doesn’t give Wonder leave to act the same.

She has learned better from her friends, her history, and her expulsion.

Wonder should console herself with the knowledge that she’d left Malice aghast. Somehow, she mustered the fortitude to comport herself. To shut him up by releasing the curtain, thus claiming the upper hand, and waltzing away in her robe. That should atone for her actions.

It does not. The triumph had been fleeting, diffused like a wick by the time she reached this dorm.

I’m going to make you squeal so hard and come so tightly, my fingers will be imprinted in this soft cunt. No other deity will fill you the same way because the shape of me will always be there.

Damnation. She must move past this. For the crew and this mission, she must overcome her attraction to a devil and the irrational yearning for a ghost. Indeed, she must enact that legend and spare herself.

Wonder straightens. She has trained with the most elite crew in The Dark Fates.

She has wielded a weapon for thousands of years and steered the destinies of countless humans.

She has weathered loss, grief, and torture.

She has unearthed sacred legends and mastered this timeless library.

By The Stars, Wonder can survive an inconsequential bout of misplaced sexual chemistry.

And well. Thinking back on it with a judicious mind, it was rather wonderful to render the demon speechless. Confidence finally restored, a corner of her mouth tips upward.

She can do this. She will do this.

Conjuring an ewer and bowl, Wonder bathes between her thighs, the cloth seeped in her climax. In her enthusiasm, Malice’s talons had cut her intimately, which would have been an issue if deities weren’t made of sterner material. Instead, her pussy stings in a rather erotic manner.

Next, Wonder armors herself in a leaf-green gown. The bodice drapes into a V along the spine, a sash wraps around the waist, and the skirt cascades down her limbs. With determined motions, she threads her hair into loose twists at her nape, decorative freesia buds springing from the entwined locks.

Good. She’s ready to be civil, wave a white flag, cease conducting herself like a goddess with a competition complex, and demand he do the same.

Last but not least, she and Malice need, need, need to get past their baser instincts. They must extinguish this unwilling lust like a torch. Otherwise it will ignite into a bonfire, sure to burn this whole place down.

Her unshod feet make a quiet approach into The Hollow Chamber. It takes a while to locate him, but her ears discern the shuffling of books coming from three levels below. The grand stairway winds along the funnel, tapering to the bottom floor while bridges intersect beneath the hovering sphere.

In the Astral Crimes and Punishment quarter, honeycomb shelves cause texts—customs, laws, and community—to slant rather than stand upright. Other volumes levitate overhead, their bindings spread like wings, soaring so high that one requires a rolling ladder to pluck them from the air.

Just as Wonder rounds the appropriate corner, a distinct “Fuck” resounds from the end of the stacks. It’s punctuated by Malice slapping a title shut, hard enough to give the book a concussion.

A pile of tomes rises from the floor. They must be the ones he’s gone through so far.

As if sensing her arrival, Malice swings in Wonder’s direction. His gaze tracks up and down the dress before settling with the weight of an anvil on her features. For a second, those irises flare like matches, likely over her parting stunt. Or maybe it’s something corporeal.

Wonder ignores the insubordinate flutter in her stomach. And she most definitely ignores the remnant wetness coating her inner walls.

Despite nudity being commonplace, she had done a fine job catching Malice off guard earlier. The demon looks as if he might either punish Wonder for flaunting her attributes or shove her against a wall and continue where they left off.

Fates. That look reaches deep into the slit of her legs.

Marshaling herself before this staring contest gets out of hand, Wonder feigns impartiality. “What’s this?” she observes. “A star whose points cut to the bone?”

Raising an eyebrow, Malice murmurs, “A star that drifts.”

“A deceptive star.”

“A meddling star.”

His lips quirk. “Round one hundred fifty-seven.”

In spite of herself, the edges of Wonder’s mouth twitch with mirth.

It’s something of a cease-fire. Nor is he smarting from her victorious exit.

If anything, the demon god seems to have recovered.

Because he enjoys games, Malice appears diverted that she’d put him in check, based on his gleaming irises and the fact that he doesn’t address what happened.

Wonder isn’t about to bring it up either. What’s done is done.

In the past, Malice uncovered his own legends here. One of them played a pivotal role in Anger and Merry’s story. By chance or divine intervention, that legend had clashed with the one Wonder found, which also affected her friends’ impassioned romance.

“Before Anger and Merry became mates,” she prompts. “Where did you find the legend? The one you presented to Anger.”

Flattered, Malice places a hand against his heart. “Well, well, well. You’re interested in my underhanded tactics?”

“You know, it’s amazing those unruly blond waves fit around a head as big as yours.”

“Are we comparing notes?”

“Show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

“Research porn,” he coos in approval. “I might have a hard-on. Can you check?”

“You’re shameless, unsavory, and obnoxious. And the answer is a resounding no.”

“I was being rhetorical, though a scholarly match is pretty kinky.”

To keep from laughing, Wonder presses her lips together. “I’ll keep score.”

“No need to. You won the first orgasmic lap, but I’m winning the next.

Only problem is, the evidence has been decimated.

I stole it before I was banished, and in case you missed the plot twist, it was destroyed back when Anger took a joy flight to the sun.

Too bad he didn’t warn any of us in advance before launching skyward and bulldozing the fucking ceiling.

I could have protected the legend from being trampled, kept it as a souvenir of my illicit affair with him. ”

“Oh.” Wonder hadn’t known the legend’s text had been stored among Malice’s stash in the human library vault. For some reason, the subject simply never came up.

As her face falls, Malice appraises the reaction, then crooks a finger. “Follow me.”

Sauntering in her direction, he snatches her hand.

As he guides them forward, his palm encases hers as if it’s a natural reflex, the gesture startling Wonder too much to pull away.

Blood rushes to the tips of her fingers.

Although being masturbated by this demon had been nothing short of earth-shattering, this newfound contact is a different kind of intimacy, his grip gentle but firm.

If she were to delude herself, Wonder would call it possessive. Even safe.

It’s the sort of touch she yearned for eons ago. The touch of a forbidden, beloved human.

A million days and nights of wanting this connection—with his former self, not with his present self—seizes her by the jugular. Wonder’s eyelids pinch shut. Only for a moment, she allows herself this poignant reaction when his back is turned, while he’s unable to see the damage it does.

Still. Is she imagining it? Or does his hand twitch as if she’s not the only one affected?