Page 19 of Up from the Earth (Equinox Seasons Duet #1)

Eighteen

A Knock On The Gates Of The Underworld Is Not Meant To Be Answered.

F ull warmth remained pressed inside me when I awoke. The gentle swell of The King’s shafts still tucked thoroughly inside me. I had the inkling that my King remained somewhat hard during my sleep because they’d not slipped from me, and I loved it.

It was a ridiculous notion, perhaps, but keeping them inside me, warming their cock with my body, and stirring them enough to never fully relax filled me with a silly, delicious pride. We were locked together, waking up to a reminder of the bliss we’d shared twinkling through my blood like starlight.

“You’re awake. Good.” I looked up into their face, their features still that soft form of androgynous beauty. “I have delayed time as much as I can. Unfortunately, we must get going.”

Rolling my hips, I relished the way my King nudged against my walls, their shafts quickly twitching to life as the sensations rumbled through us. I was pressed to them, my back against their chest, and I whined as the wondrous feeling of them filling me soared just a hair higher.

“Sweet Queen,” they rolled their hips along with me, dancing along with me, “you stall. Can it be possible that you’re still so hungry?”

I reached around, wrapping my arm around their neck. “I am always hungry for you. Feeling you so deep and warm and having you there as I woke…ugh, it is magnificent.”

A rumbling laugh vibrated against my ribs. “I will admit to quite enjoying the feeling of your tight cunt surrounding my cock while you slept, so warm and full of my seed.”

My pussy clamped down at their words, filthy and incredible. The need in my core built, and I was easily, quickly, and elatedly approaching a release as if the remains of all the others from earlier still clung to me.

“ Please ,” I dragged out, “let me feel it once more before we ride.”

“Oh, little beast,” The King rocked their hips forward, pressing their twin shafts in as deep as they could, “I will feel you quivering around me as often as I can.”

It was this meandering, purposeful stroll of an experience, their hands on my waist as we arched and flexed against each other. Their cock—that twirling shaft that coiled the central one—hardened more and more, filling me, stretching me. I moaned low, holding onto them with everything I had. I dug my fingers into their flesh. I let go and felt only the way that they were seated inside me, so perfectly made to fit into me and bring my body to new heights of pleasure.

“Yeeeesss…” I sang lowly, the pain of the stretch joining with the pleasure of the fullness.

Rumbling thunder rolled through my veins, electrifying each nerve that it passed over. I was at the edge, invisible wind bolstering me up as I hung at the precipice of climaxing. My body responded to every gentle move my King made, his cock driving home like an ocean that ebbed and flowed.

In one arching roll, they sank into me up to the hilt, holding themselves there as they found my deepest nerves and stimulated them with intense pressure. I surged around them, arousal pooling and leaking from me. All I could do was flutter, trembling around them as well as through each limb as the release bloomed like a spring blossom.

“Ugh, that’s right, my Queen. My little beast . Claim your pleasure from my cock.” They thrust forward, an intense thrust that made my mind splinter as I processed the retreat and then the sudden advance of their glorious twin shafts.

More pleasure streamed from me as my moans spilled from my lips ceaselessly. The King thickened inside me, and then that perfect surge and warmth. My Beast King pumped into me, consuming heat filling me until it dripped down my thighs.

Wearing their cum…Gods, yes, Beast King. Fill me…paint me…

Holding them close, I allowed myself to enjoy that peak fullness for just a moment longer, my awareness calling me to my duty. I wanted to stay like that all night again. I wanted to be one with my King for eternity, not face our potential destruction.

But time could only be delayed so long, and we both knew it.

T he sky was an inky stain that flickered with orange as we approached the tear I’d felt since we passed into this darker part of the World of Below. It itched and stunk. I could not put into words what it truly was or the horror that filled my blood as we approached.

“I can sense the being lingering there on the other side of the divide.” The King’s voice was a discordant chord on the wind, their fury palpable. “But I cannot say how long they will remain there. I can sense them…scratching at it.”

Stepping forward, I stood before the massive, wavering wall of ethereal reality that separated where we stood from what lay beyond. It hummed beneath my skin as I hovered my hand over it. There was heat—blistering and raw—on the other side, and when I pulled back, my fingers held the dim echo of redness as the burn healed.

“What does this barrier keep within? Why would it be so terrible for it to come down?”

The King approached, taking up the place on my right side as Cerberus sat on his hind legs to my left. Our son had protected us for the entire time that I slept, and I could see the slight weariness creeping over him.

“Mortals typically call it hell. Those that I’ve interacted with, some at any rate. This place is where fate reprimands the most foul souls once they die and enter the World of Below. Too many are strong enough to harm the lighter souls that can require time in this realm to adjust and shed their lingering faults.”

Staring at the shimmering wall, I tried to make out the shapes behind it, but it was like looking at something through rain-coated glass. Everything was distorted and warped. All I could make out were colors of red and orange with large swaths of gray.

“So, were these tarnished souls to come through, they would harm the others? How exactly?”

An entire universe existed past everything mortals knew, and it strained my mind, pulling at the edge to comprehend the fact that these dark beings could still inflict pain and suffering on those who’d already passed, especially as they’d already passed as well.

“Yes, they can harm much.” The King sighed, stepping back away from the gate and staring at the cracked earth beneath our feet. “Energy, whether positive or negative, cannot be destroyed. Is that not what your scientists are always saying?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, they don’t know how right they are. Darkness has a way of tainting energy, the fabric of these souls, irrevocably. They become like a disease, infecting everything around them and corrupting what good was there. And let me be clear.”

Their eyes met mine again, and the intensity there was enough to send me staggering, swallowing down the potent concoction of rage and gravity they exuded.

“These are not just simple misbehaving individuals, those who broke a few rules or irritated those around them. These are beings who were so corrupt in life and death that they created a malignant aura on the threads of reality. They are foul, the lowest of the low, the closest thing to ‘evil’ that actually exists.”

As I crossed the distance to them, I reached out for their hand, the other going to their achingly beautiful face and sweeping down the lengths of their endless hair.

“We will take care of it.” I nodded, holding their gaze steadily. “Though, I will admit, I am a bit surprised that ‘evil’ is apparently a fantasy considering the situation.”

They chuckled, shaking their head as they took my cheek in their elegant hand. “Evil is a word, little beast. The notion that there is some being or entity somewhere that sits behind all of it, like a puppeteer controlling the strings, simply isn’t true. There is no ‘evil,’ no diabolic overload lofting from some massive throne. Souls. They create all the good and all the bad in the world. They are responsible for the shades of morality that color the skein of fate.”

It’s us. We’re the cause of all of it.

“Here, here. Well put.” The voice that sounded behind us was odd—warbling and garbled through the barrier. “And I, for one, believe that if it is in our hands in life to enact our virtues and vices at our leisure, then why should it not be the same in the afterlife.”

It was a man’s voice, carrying the hint of an accent that I could recognize as one from the area where my coven lived.

The King and I spun around as a furious growl shook the air, Cerberus moving to stand in front of us. I wove my fingers through the fur on his back just above his tailbone, sending my love for him into the bond that threaded between us.

“Who—”

But my words were cut off as an arm pressed against the barrier, stretching it out like probing against too-thin flesh. The indents of his fingers twisted and clawed at the wall from the other side until, all at once, it tore. Two hands gripped either side of the fading separation, splitting it wide enough for the figure to step through.

My stomach coiled in revolt, threatening to eject its contents as I laid eyes on what oozed into this plane of existence from that hellish prison beyond.

Priestly robes were the only thing that remained from what I assumed was his typical form. They were marred with char, the edges holey and seared into a stiff-looking texture. The color at his neck that would have been white was grungy and stained with a splatter of red that disappeared into the black fabric of his frock.

But all of that was nothing compared to the monstrous face the man now wore. His skin had been pulled horrifyingly taut against his skull, and it was deathly white. No eyelids or lashes existed on his face, the milky orbs of his eyeballs sitting plainly in their sockets, ringed by deep maroon fibers of dried-out muscle tissue.

The man’s nose had also all but disappeared, melting into the upper edge of the priest’s non-existent lip. Instead of plump flesh, nothing covered the yellowed, elongated teeth within his mouth, only two strips of sinew stretching between the mandibles to keep them secure. Torn musculature and skin formed threads of matter that blazed a profound red against the colorless face.

“Dear Gods…what are you?”

The priest’s eyes, pupil-less and seemingly blind, shifted toward me, and I recoiled, squeezing Cerberus’s black coat. Hardly a tongue sat behind that too-large section of his jaw, and it flapped as he somehow managed to speak.

“ Gods ? Ha! Another blasphemous witch, isn’t it?” My mind churned; how did he know of witches? “Keep your heathen nonsense to yourself, bitch. If I am anything, I am only what your kind has made of me.”

I shook my head, my skin crawling, and my insides swirled. The sight of him speaking, the sight of him at all, pushed my mind to the brink, pain thudding behind my eyes. What could this foul man—creature—mean? Witches lacked the power to do anything remotely like what I was seeing. The only other time I’d seen something so horrendous was when—

“Summer.” My eyes burned with tears, the memory of that day rushing to the surface of my mind. “Oh, fuck.”

The Priest only chuckled, nodding his gruesome head as the facts settled into shape like pieces of a puzzle. My mother had kept the image of that…woman from my head for many years. I knew what had happened, how the monster she became took our priestess from us, and how Summer—now the Queen of the Shadowed Summer Sun—had been the only thing to defeat her.

If this had to do with her, with my long-ago sister, then this man could only be…

“Father Paine.”

He snapped his head to me, shifting through the air in a blink. He was too close, the stench of him dripping off in solid, disgusting condensation.

“Oh, ho, ho. So the little witch knows her history, eh?” The words were as mangled as the priest’s tongue. “And where is that little whore? Where is this Summer who cursed me to that?”

Father Paine gestured wildly at the barrier, his arm popping at the elbow as he threw his finger back to point. I shook my head. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be what threatened this world. He wasn’t strong enough. He just couldn’t be.

“Not feeling like answering?”

At once, The King’s clawed hand shot out through the air, seizing the priest by the throat. “That’s about all I will take of you harassing my wife.”

Cerberus’s growl roared louder, filling the space around us as The King gripped Father Paine’s neck. But then my King was yanking his hand away, revealing singed flesh where he’d touched the priest.

That shouldn’t be possible .

Father Paine laughed. I nearly retched at the sound—wet and gurgling and choking. Without warning or understanding, he shunted the three of us backward, flinging us at least twenty feet from where the priest stood.

“Your wife!? What is it with your fucking pathetic excuses for gods bedding these barbaric heathens?” Pain throbbed in my side where I’d hit the ground, and blood smeared over one of Cerberus’s hind legs. “But perhaps I should be glad that that stupid bitch saw fit to pull me from my church.”

Floating up off the ground, the man raised his arms, hovering there like some false messiah.

“I didn’t have this kind of power when I was alive.” Red lightning cracked through the darkening sky at his back. “And as the sweet Lord is my witness, I do intend to use it.”

Ripping his hands through the air, Father Paine hurled another shockwave of energy at us. The billowing clouds behind it promised a much more devastating attack, and before I could think to react with a wall of vines or even just to dodge away, Cerberus leaped in front of me, taking the brunt of the damage.

“No!” I cried out, rushing beneath his head before it could hit the ground.

A roar the size of the horizon and more tore from The King, and they swept their long cloak in an arch around us. In an instant, everything went black.