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“There is a strange old god who rose in Lake Granby, Colorado. A god that seems to be made for the ocean and yet got stuck in the center of the United States. Maybe from the time when the Western Interior Seaway still existed. He has two large fins in the front and a powerful tail to cleave water. He can walk on land, but with difficulty, which ensured that he stayed stuck in the center of Colorado for a long time. In the first year after the Rise, when the army reached the lake and identified the old god, they named him Altamaha-ha. Altamaha-ha was a legendary monster inhabiting a lake in Georgia. I remember seeing it on TV. They compared him to drawings and even a statue. But I assure you, the old god is much worse than his mythical counterpart, and I’m glad he’s confined to the lake. We have enough monsters in the oceans.”

Video transcription of a video file shared among survivors, creator unknown, 2057.

We float downstream for an hour until Jude starts shaking. We need to find a place to get dry and rest. I point to some kind of shore with trees, hidden at the bottom of the canyon. We swim to the sand and extract ourselves painfully from the river’s embrace.

There appears to be a trail going up through the canyon, only accessible on foot. There’s also a hut made of all kinds of recycled material under the trees. I gesture to Jude to stay there, and I walk to it to check for inhabitants. But the place is empty. And things seem to have been left untouched for months. The blankets are covered by a layer of dust. Someone must have called it a home for a while. Thanks to the Hoover Dam, it survived the floods.

“Let’s stay here for the night,” I announce.

Jude nods. He looks a little pale and is in dire need of a rest. He takes his clothes off and puts them over some rocks to let them dry under the sun. Then he lies on the sand, shivering. I try not to let my eyes linger on his body for too long. Now is not the ideal moment to have a boner.

I grab the abandoned blankets in the ramshackle hut and wash them in the river before hanging them on a tree. It’s still early morning; they’ll have time to dry before nightfall.

The people who lived here for a time were smart. They built a fire pit under the trees to hide the flames and disperse the smoke. I spend half an hour building a decent fire while keeping an eye on Jude and the river. We’re at a safe distance from the dam, but it never hurts to be cautious.

Jude fell asleep on the sand. The sun isn’t high enough yet to become dangerous, so I let him be. In the wastelands, exposure can kill as easily as an old god.

I take my clothes off—they’re almost dry already—and walk back into the river. I stand knee-deep in the water, motionless, until the fish get used to my presence. I stun the first one that ventures close with an electric charge, then throw it on the beach. I do that for the best part of an hour, until I have five fat fish to cook over the fire pit.

Jude is awake. He’s been watching me.

“Do you always fish naked?” he asks. “Not that I mind.”

“Do you always sunbathe naked?” I retort.

He nods. “Yes. I like to keep my tan homogeneous,” he jokes.

I smile. “Put your clothes back on before you get a heatstroke.”

“Am I distracting you?”

“Yes,” I say truthfully.

He seems surprised by my honesty. I don’t know if the red undertone on his skin is from blushing or a slight sunburn. I marvel at the fact that I went from a bloody mess tied to the Firefly to joking with him naked in less than two weeks. What happened to us?

“I’ll help you gut the fish,” Jude says, putting his dry clothes on.

There is sand stuck on his right cheek. When he gets closer, I reach for his face with my hand. Jude backs away, wary, before leaning into my touch. His newborn trust does something to my heart.

“You have sand on your cheek,” I explain, rubbing it off.

“Thanks.”

We both know I could kill him with one touch. But killing is far from my mind right now.

I put my clothes on, and we gut the fish with the knives I found in the hut. There are many useful things inside. From extra clothes, pots, glass bottles… I wonder briefly what happened to the people who lived here for a while. My bet is on a trip to the wastelands that went awry. I find an old kettle and use it to boil water for later. Drinking from the river won’t kill us, but it can make us a little sick. We don’t need to risk it.

We cook the fish over the fire pit and eat them in silence.

Until, at last, Jude breaks it.

“So, we got our asses handed to us.”

I sigh. “Yes. Pretty much.”

“We’re going back,” he says. It’s not a question.

I nod. “We’re going back.”

Anger is simmering under his calm demeanor. His emotions mirror my own. I’ve been remembering the events that happened on the dam over and over again. The heart-wrenching fear that I felt as Jude was thrown into the lake.

“She wants to kill the Devil of the Wastes. And Helios…” he says.

Helios will die with his lover if Maeve gets her hands on them. He might have broken my heart, but the urge to protect him is still overpowering.

“We won’t let her,” I say calmly. Too calmly. “And we’ll get the Firefly back.”

Jude smiles. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Tonight, we rest. You drowned. Your body needs to recharge and heal. Tomorrow, we’ll come up with a plan.”

The image of his lifeless body on the rocks still haunts me. He was dead for a moment. It bothers me more than it should. So much more.

Jude nods.

He makes himself a nest in the hut with the dry blankets and falls asleep in the afternoon. I have nothing better to do but watch him and stay in the shade. Luckily, the river lowers the temperatures in the canyons.

Before nightfall, I go into the water again to catch more fish. We’ll need all the energy we can get. Our plunge in the lake earlier, followed by our swim in the river, has taken the edge off my fear of water.

As I stand in the current, a memory resurfaces. Helios tried to teach me how to swim when I was sixteen and he was just fourteen. “This might come in handy,” he said. Of course, he was right. In our world, your survival often hangs by a thread. Learn everything that can give you the upper hand. His mom had taught him how to swim when he was four.

It didn’t go well. I panicked, even though I couldn’t drown. I stunned all the fish in a sixty-foot radius around me. They all floated to the surface, bellies up. My fear turned into anger. My memory sharpens enough to cut. I scared Helios that day. And he just stood there, shaking. That night, as I cried in the dark, I told him about the jellyfish tank and my terror of water. He said that he was sorry. So sorry to have made me endure it.

But I never apologized for scaring him.

It’s no wonder his affection turned to hate over the years. I would hate me too.

I dive into the river, hoping I could drown. But, of course, I don’t.

By the time darkness falls and I cook my catch over the fire pit, Jude rises. He comes out of the hut looking disheveled and still half asleep. I’m not used to seeing him with his guard down. So… vulnerable. And always achingly beautiful. The orange glow from the fire makes his short ginger hair shine.

He comes to stand in front of me.

“I almost expected to find you gone when I woke up,” he says. “That would have been your perfect opportunity to be free. You could even have gotten the Firefly back for yourself. Be rid of me at last.”

I nod. “The idea crossed my mind once or twice.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I realized that I didn’t want to be rid of you.”

Jude’s lips part, but he says nothing.

While I mulled over my new predicament this afternoon, I realized that I was craving his twisted attention. Even though he hated me, he still wanted me. And I don’t want it to stop. I want more. His venom is fucking addictive, and I’ll dive into the tank to get more if I have to.

“Maybe I enjoy having a master,” I say out loud.

Jude’s next breath intake is short of a gasp. He steps forward, closer still. And I have to crane my neck to watch his face. He slides his right hand into my hair at the back of my head and pulls.

“You want to stay at my mercy?” he asks.

“Yes…”

The smell of his arousal in the air is unmistakable.

“And I like having you at my feet,” he says. “What does that make us?”

“Two horny fools.”

He laughs. Then he watches me for a moment and adds, “You jumped in the lake after me.”

It’s not a question.

I shiver as his fingers slide along my scalp. “I did.”

“Why?”

“You don’t want to know why.”

“Oh, but I do,” he says. “I really do.”

I grab his legs and bury my face between his thighs. I don’t want to have this delicate talk right now. I’d rather just ignore it as long as I can and just live in the present. I was supposed to die a few weeks ago at the hands of my ex-lover’s new monster. My underground city burned. I have nothing left but the clothes on my back—an ugly Hawaiian shirt at that—and yet, I haven’t felt so alive in years.

I breathe in, filling my lungs with Jude’s smell. Mercifully, he has dropped the subject. He’s too distracted by the proximity of my face to his groin.

“Oliver…” he says.

I look up. “I love when you say my name.”

He smiles. “Such a simple name for a powerful mutant.”

“They just chose the first name starting with O that came to their minds,” I say.

“Ah, yes, you said that. Lazy fuckers. They could have chosen something like Odin. Octavius, Otto, Oberon…”

I chuckle. “Thank the gods, I’m not an Otto.”

“Alright. Oliver…” he says, pulling at my hair.

I nudge his groin again with my face, and I find him hard. I growl deep in my throat.

“Will you let me touch you, master?” I ask in a teasing tone. I’m trying to hide the fact that I’m terrified he’ll just refuse me now.

“Yes,” he says. “As a matter of fact, I order you to touch me now. Don’t make me get the gun.”

I would laugh if I wasn’t drowning in my desire for him. My hands reach for the elastic band of his pants and pull them down slowly. His erection springs out. I would be lying if I said I haven’t been wanting to get close and personal with his cock since that first night when he jerked off on top of me.

“I’ve wanted to taste you since that night at Gears and Giggles,” I say.

There’s no point in withholding that information. I’ve long given up on my pride as far as it concerns him.

Jude’s voice sounds rough as he says, “Oh, yeah? You should have asked.”

We both know it wasn’t that simple, so I keep quiet.

I lick his cock from base to tip, and he bucks. I get a hold of his ass to keep him in check as I swallow him entirely. He gets a little excited and starts to thrust into my mouth. My eyes water as he hits the back of my throat. I’ve never let anyone do that to me. Blowjobs? Yes. But I’m usually the one staying in control. But somehow, control is so easy to let go of when it’s Jude.

And I realize that Helios, with his kindness and sweet temperament, was the worst thing that could happen to me. With someone like him, I became the worst version of myself. An abuser. A dictator left unchecked. Of course, it wasn’t his fault. I’m just fucked up. And he paid the price.

I deserved everything that happened to me in recent weeks. And yet, I feel blessed as Jude fucks my face. Life is unfair. And I’ll take it, nonetheless.

“Fuck!” Jude shouts, pulling out with a wet noise. “I don’t want to come already…”

I frown, disappointed. “Just come,” I breathe out. “I want to taste you…” As if my life depends on it.

The inside of my underwear is already a mess. The side effect of being a horny mutant sharing DNA with an eel-like old god.

I reach for him with my tongue again, but he grabs my chin with two fingers.

“No,” he says. “I want to taste you, too. Your… liquid. How does it taste?”

“The lubricant?”

“Fuck yes.”

A few of my partners were grossed out by it. They never dared say it out loud, but I could feel it and smell their anxiousness. I stopped letting them give me blowjobs.

I look up. “Are you sure?”

“I want to come with my face and body wet from you. I want you to dirty me thoroughly,” he says.

There is no hesitation or shame on his face. Only lust.

I get to my feet at the speed of light and run to the hut. Jude’s laugh follows me inside. I come back out with the blankets and lay them on the sand near the fire.

“Get naked, now,” I growl, gesturing to the blankets.

Jude’s eyes flash with something close to indignation and a challenge. “Make me,” he says.

Very well.

I sweep him off his feet and drop him on the blanket. He resists half-heartedly as I pull his pants all the way down, then his shirt over his head. I’m starting to understand that Jude likes to be in control to a certain degree, just for it to be taken away from him on the first occasion. He loves for sex to be a fight. A clash of wills.

And apparently, it works for me.

I get to my feet and stand above him. I make sure to keep eye-contact as I take my own clothes off. The tip of my cock shines with lubricant. Jude looks beautiful in his eagerness, naked under me.

I get a hold of my erection and jerk it once. A few drops fall on Jude’s chest, and he gasps. The smell of his arousal wafts around us. There is still no trace of anxiety. He digs his nails into my calf, urging me to come closer.

I kneel over him, just as he did that first night. In a heartbeat, he’s all over me. Faithful to his earlier declaration, he rubs his face on my cock, smearing lubricant all over his cheeks and lips. He licks a few drops and moans. The contrast of my dark tip against his pink lips plays with my sanity.

“Why the hell does it taste sweet?” he asks, eyes glassy.

To balance with the rest of me, bitter to the core, I almost say. But I don’t want to cast a shadow over what we’re doing.

My dark veins snake over my entire body, eager to let my iron-thick blood conduct electricity. Some primal part of me—the monster—knows that he could just stun his prey and have his way with him. Thankfully, the human part has enough power over my being to know that it would be too fucked up, even for me. Never in a million years would I want to inflict that on Jude. Not after he’s finally trusted me with his body. Not after my history with Helios.

But it doesn’t mean I can’t play with it.

“Do you know why my blood is so dark?” I ask him, sliding my thumb between his lips.

Jude bites my finger, and I pull out, smiling.

“Tell me,” he says.

“Because it has more iron than normal blood, making it the perfect conduit for my electricity.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Which allows me to do this.”

I slide a hand over his chest, letting less than one percent of my power pass through him. Jude gasps at the tingling sensation. His pupils are blown out, devouring the blue.

“Did it hurt?” I ask. I just need to be sure.

“No… Do it again while I suck you off.”

And he swallows the tip of my cock without warning. My eyes roll back from the pure bliss shooting through my body.

I need to focus to obey his request and reach for his dick with a hand behind my back as I keep on kneeling above him. I get a hold of his balls first and release another small electric charge. Jude moans around my cock. At this rate, I won’t be able to last. He looks entirely debauched and wet already. My lubricant is leaking down his chin and neck. He starts thrusting into my hand, and the tip of his cock rubs on my rim. It’s an earth-shattering sensation. One that I never dared to explore. Not with just any random partner.

But maybe one day, with Jude… If we both survive the next few days, and he doesn’t decide to put a bullet in my brain.

He has already seen me at my most vulnerable. At my lowest. And yet he’s willing to be touched by me.

I grab his cock and squeeze it between my hand and rim. And the bliss of it, combined with my electricity, makes him come in generous spurts that slide down my skin. His tip catches on the ring of muscles and goes in for barely an inch, but it feels so freaking good. Jude groans around my dick and I’m swept away by my own orgasm. I come all over his face.

The waves of pleasure crash over both of us and leave us winded on the sand. I can’t remember sex even being this dirty and good. And yet, all we did was jerk and blow each other off.

I drop my forehead over Jude’s and close my eyes, with not a care in the world that he’s sticky from my semen and lubricant. He doesn’t push me away. His breath mingles with my own, so warm and enticing.

“You might need a dip in the river,” I say after a while. “You’re filthy.”

“Later, maybe. But I’m not done with you yet.”

I said that only a few days ago at the hot spring.

Jude kisses me deeply. His tongue tastes sweet.