Page 27

Chapter 27

Lillian

I ’m pretty sure Erik and I both pass out after we share what feels like a marathon of orgasms. My God, if the Guinness World Record people had been around to record that, we’d both be in the book for “most intense and all-consuming sexual experience.”

Then again, I’m pretty sure you have to be human to get a Guinness World Record. And I’m not wholly convinced that either of us are human anymore.

When I wake, Erik’s arms are wrapped around me. His legs (human legs—the tentacles disappeared some time after the multitude of orgasms) weave in between mine, pressing his semi-hard cock into the small of my back. His hands paw at my breasts from behind, feeling me up even in his sleep as if he can’t get enough of me.

Truth be told, I’m already aching for him again, despite still being able to feel the massive amount of cum he filled me with dripping from my thighs and soaking the fur beneath us.

Seriously. We’re lying in a fucking puddle of the stuff, and it’s looking like I’m going to need to clean our bedsheets all over again, despite the fact that I literally just did laundry in the lake yesterday. Sigh. I guess that’s just the price we pay for pleasure.

In the back of my mind, there’s a nugget of anxiety, though. Towards the end of our lovemaking, I could’ve sworn I heard a voice. Not Erik’s, and not Phorkys’s, but the one I’ve been trying to ignore. The one that I know I’ve heard before, but can’t place.

A woman’s voice. Dark and seductive.

More awaits you, Lillian. If you seek it…

The same one that called to me at the lake. But the more I reach for it, to try to figure out who or where it’s coming from, it slips like water from my fingers.

It has to be Her. Keto. The monster that even Phorkys fears. The mother of his brood.

Erik’s hands continue to knead and stroke, sinking from my breasts down to my stomach, where his large palm and strong fingers span the width of my abdomen. It’s hot and possessive, but gentle, and I can’t help but imagine if we’d met in another life, if circumstances were different… if I wasn’t infertile, and he wasn’t some thousand-year-old Viking, that maybe…

Ah, so you do desire children of your own.

Cold terror grips my heart. I stay perfectly still, as Erik’s hands continue their sweet exploration of my body. There’s no indication that he hears the voice like I do. His breathing remains steady, whereas mine has frozen solid in my lungs like ice.

Do not be afraid, sweet Lillian. I can help you.

There is a smile in Her voice that somehow makes it all the more terrifying. This invisible goddess, with the power to sink ships. What could She possibly want with me?

I am more interested in what you want, Lillian. The depths of your desires. Did you enjoy your tryst with my lover?

Your lover? My hand brushes against Erik’s arm—the warmth of his skin grounding me in the chill of the morning air-–before pulling my fingers away. But Erik…

Not Erik, sweet one. Phorkys. His form is exquisite, is it not?

No. No, no no no no , that wasn’t the deal. That’s not what the monster said last night, when Erik transformed and swept me up in his many, many arms, that was–

The two of them together are quite magnificent. You are a lucky woman.

A deep, sensual laugh sounds in my head, before seeming to wrap around me on a breeze and echo out beyond the shelter and over the calm lake waters.

I shiver.

But then I remember the exact words. What Phorkys was really giving us, when He said He was granting us privacy.

Just as I use your body for my purposes, Erik, I will remind you: you, too, can use mine.

I try to swallow, but my mouth is bone-dry. The water skin is on the other side of the shelter, and the last thing I want to do is wake Erik. Not when he seemed so relieved last night, so open. Seeing him finally accept me, that I accept him…

I freeze, unsure what to even think. I barely know this man. We’ve lived together for a little over a week, just seven—eight? Nine?—days? I’ve lost track.

But at the same time, he knows more about me and my trauma than any other human on Earth. More than my coworkers. More than my family. The only person who even comes close is long gone. She abandoned me for Dean, and ran back to Chicago without me.

Are you sure about that?

What?

What–what do you mean?

Your friend is not in Chicago, sweet one. She is looking for you.

Looking for me?

Erik stirs behind me, and I feel the voice slipping away. Her presence lifts so suddenly, it’s as if I emerge from being smothered by it; a sudden intake of breath shudders through my lungs and fills my diaphragm, and my head spins.

How long was I not breathing?

“Mmmm…y trehzhrr…” His endearment is slurred with sleep, but he wakes at the sudden jerk of my torso. As if he can feel me tensing, he rouses himself. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing!” I chirp. I don’t trust myself to say anything else.

Does he know? Does he realize that last night, the monsters were just as much with us as we were with each other?

I turn in his hold, and he’s staring at me with those beautiful icy gray eyes, so full of warmth and affection that the ice inside my chest melts instantly. He brings the heat back into the shelter, the morning chill erased completely as I snuggle into his wide, muscular chest.

“Mmmm…”

Mmmm, I think back, and nuzzle him. I reach my hand to his waist, ghosting over the head of his dick, which springs forward a little at the contact. He chuckles.

“Already, my treasure?”

I smile at him and nod, still not trusting my voice. I use my arm to push him onto his back, and he humors me, a grin tickling the corner of his mouth as I shift myself over him and straddle his strong waist.

“I quite like this angle,” he says, and his breath catches as I notch his head at my entrance. I slide back and forth, rubbing his shaft between my wet folds and over my clit. Maybe if I can orgasm again with only his human form, if I can bring us back to that height without any supernatural assistance, maybe then I’ll prove that we don’t need Them. Maybe then They’ll go away.

“Perhaps you’d like it even more if I…?”

A blunt, squishy something pushes between my ass cheeks, and I jump–pushing my hips forward until my body is ramrod straight above the knee. “No! No, I just–I just want you, Erik. Just you, today.”

The tentacle withdraws, and I know for sure he’s back to normal when I feel his leg hair tickling the inside of my thighs. I don’t look down to verify.

I’m afraid to.

“You face is so red,” he murmurs, reaching a hand to stroke my face. I lean down into it, wrapping myself around him once more. He reaches his other hand to my breast and squeezes, and I spear myself onto his hard cock in one smooth go.

“Ah!”

“Yes, Lillian! Yes, you feel so good.”

“You too, Erik,” I pant, rubbing back and forth, sliding his cock in and out and rubbing the swollen head into my g-spot. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

“Bend down, my treasure. Let me suck your perfect tits.”

I do, posting my arms on either side of his head and letting my titties sway down over his face. He grabs one with his mouth, fastening around my nipple with his lips like he’s bobbing for apples. It sends a shockwave rocketing through me—a zing of pleasure straight from tit to clit.

“Ah! Yes!”

He moans, grabbing the other breast and pinching at my nipple with his fingers while I increase my pace, grinding his cock into my core until I can feel the waves building.

It’s good. It’s very good.

It’s just not as good as it was last night.

“Fuck, Lillian,” he gasps, pulling off my breast with a soft pop and panting for air. “I need more of you, more–”

“I know.” I bare down on his pelvis, pushing my clit into his skin as I speed up even more. “Grab me, grab my hips!”

Instantly, I feel his calloused hands wrap around me, fingers digging into my flesh as he puts those giant muscles to work. He stretches and contracts his arms, pushing and pulling me off and on his cock like a machine. I lean my torso back, changing the angle until he’s pressing right into that spot, reaching down with my own hand and swiping furiously at my clit until I’m panting.

I feel the wetness soaking my pussy. I know I’m so aroused, so turned on, fucking the hottest man I’ve ever known-–

But it isn’t building anymore. Isn’t cresting. It’s just… torturously fine. Minutes turn to hours that we thrust and rock and ride, until my pussy is raw from the friction, but we can’t seem to make it reach the tipping point.

We change positions: him on top in missionary, bent over me in doggy, holding one leg in the air while he kneels below me. I straddle his face. He fucks mine.

But he doesn’t come. And I’m sore before I can get there.

Fuck.

He sees me wince beneath him and slows down, finally pulling out of my raw, red channel, his eyes filled with concern.

“Are you okay, my treasure?”

Tears threaten to spill over, but I blink them away. My throat burns, but I force a nod. “Fine. I guess… we just overdid it last night, maybe?”

He nods slowly, considering my words, his light eyes cloudy and distant.

“Perhaps.”

His cock bobs between us, looking achingly hard and swollen.

“Do you want–?” I sit up and lean my face towards it.

“No, no.” He quickly pulls his hips away, twisting and kneeling to hide his erection, as if embarrassed that he, too, couldn’t finish.

And just like that, I feel it. The wall, building back up, brick by brick, until he’s shut off completely from me once again.

“I will gather firewood.” He rises, avoiding meeting my eyes. “You rest.”

“Erik, I–”

But he’s gone before I can finish.

I’m so filled with hurt that I don’t even remember what I was going to say.

There’s something else bothering me as I sit alone, stoking the fire to keep off the slight chill that nips the air. It’s well into September now, and what summer heat lingered over Labor Day has given way to fall. Using a tin cup Erik found somewhere, I scoop the excess ashes from the pit and dump them out over the damp rocks in the high tide zone. I see yellow sprinkled through the leaves of the birch trees when I go to fill the water skin, and it reminds me that there’s an expiration date on mine and Erik’s tryst.

But whenever I think of leaving, an ache burns in my chest—so acute, it stops the air in my lungs. In the pain, I feel it. The thing I thought I’d gotten over.

Grief.

It’s been three years. I assumed that time had been the thing to numb the pain, but as I work through the tears that overwhelm me, alone in the shelter, waiting for Erik to return, I realize it wasn’t distance that healed me.

I know it as surely as I know my own name.

It was Keto.

Keto stole my grief.

I don’t know how. But I do remember when: that night three years ago when I sat on the beach waiting for Tiffany to get back from her hike, when suddenly it was like the cloud over me lifted, and I found the resolve to move forward.

Somehow, Keto answered my cries that day. When, with streams of salty water pouring down my face, I screamed and wished and prayed that something would end the pain.

And that was the last day I shed a tear for my lost pregnancy.

Well, until today.

I know it was Her, because as I sit alone in front of the fire I feel Her presence, like a weight on the back of my neck, looming over me. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t whisper those agonizing lies into my ear like She did this morning.

She waits for me to break the silence.

So I wallow. Every minute that passes, more and more of my own fucked-up backstory fills in.

From the first year that Tiffany and I stayed at the cabin, we felt called to return. It became tradition, a ritual. Whenever I had a particularly stressful week at work or the two of us needed a break, we’d talk about the cabin. We could hardly wait to get back.

It’s like it called to us to return.

No, not it. Her. The Monster of Lake Superior.

The real monster. Phorkys is terrifying, sure, but He’s had Erik to keep him in check. Who’s been reigning in Keto?

What was it that Phorkys said that first night, in the underwater cave? When he first tried to convince me that I was Erik’s mate, that He needed us in order for them to unleash Their brood onto the world?

Her influence is subtle, yet mighty. And her physical form is a magnificent force. We have both grown weaker with time, but she is still fearsome in her abilities.

I think about me and Erik together last night, and then this morning. How neither of us were able to come once he’d given in to his monster form.

Is this some kind of curse? She offered me an escape from my grief, a hint of unbelievable pleasure, only to steal it back? Forever?

When I prayed for the grief to just go away, for something to just take it away from me, She answered that prayer. But in return, She took a piece of me. When Tiffany and I said that this was the last time we were coming back here, our last girls’ trip, Keto heard. She made it so I couldn’t escape. She made it so I wouldn’t want to.

But now She’s exacting her price.

Your friend is not in Chicago, sweet one. She is looking for you.

I jolt as Keto’s words from before come back in a rush. Tiffany.

It’s not just me that can’t leave. Tiffany can’t, either. She didn’t go back to Chicago with Dean. How could she? We’re cursed; our souls are bound to the lake until Keto gets what She wants.

Her brood.

My breath grows shorter and shorter, until I can hardly fill or empty my lungs without gasping. My airways constrict until I’m clawing at my throat, as the irrefutable truth of my conclusions suffocates me.

Her presence is clear. This is what She wants. This is what She’ll take.

And She won’t let me or Tiffany escape until She has it.

I have to warn her!

Erik finally returns, arms filled with a stack of firewood that obscures his face. Not that he would look at me even if he could. I fight to quiet my breath, but I know it’s obvious I’ve been crying. I don’t know where Erik’s mental state is at right now, but in this moment, I can’t let myself care.

My best friend is in trouble. I need to find her, need to get her out of here, before Keto takes what She wants from me by force.

Erik stacks the wood onto the pile in the corner, and when at last he faces me, I break.

“I need to go back, Erik. Back to the mainland. Tonight.”