⚔️ Never-Ending Night
L&W4: When innocent, precious things wander into the Temple of War
Previously on 6 LITTLE SEEDS:
For centuries, the Bringer of Blossomtime has been singing with an unknown god through a secret conduit in her spring fed pool. Given his scent and shadowy countenance, she is certain it’s the God of War, and sneaks out to meet him at his temple, unaware that the actual singer is Haides, King of the Dead.
Up close, the God of War was as beautiful as she had ever imagined. Enormous and overwhelming with hair and eyes the color of the richest soil. Blood-soaked soil, as delicious as his scent.
With a stroke up one of her arms, Ares grasped her chin to tilt her face toward his. “Ah, a willing devotee come to sacrifice herself upon the alter of destruction, hmm?”
At her heady sigh, a crown of violets encircled her brow. “Without doubt. I’ve even brought flowers to lay upon it.”
He chuckled, admiring the sight. “Oh, I bet you have. You are a precious one. So tell me...” His grip tightened, then tightened again.
Her brows twitched. When he squeezed with crushing force, she cried out, but he only jerked her closer.
The scarlet ignited within the dark of his eyes as he demanded, “What, by my sweaty, hairy ball-sack, are you doing in my fortress, and who the fuck sent you against me?”
From: The Temple of War
—Start at the beginning
—Mature Content Warnings for this series
ARES, GOD OF WAR
💥⚔️💥
He squeezed that tiny, fragile face until she gasped. Her eyes went huge and intensely green. They should have flooded with the usual terror. Instead, her fingers wrapped around his crushing hand like wispy fronds curling around a boulder. Her eyes twinkled with laughter. Not snide. Not cutting. It was almost affectionate. Definitely amused.
What the shit?
Her brows furrowed in bafflement. “My lord Ares, why would someone send me against you?”
He snorted off a laugh. “I can name two dozen reasons in one breath.”
And yet, in her wide-eyed gaze, he couldn’t find a single one. It’s not that she’d never learned subterfuge. She had, but she wasn’t applying any of it. Looked like no one had ever taught this nubile innocent how foolish it was to allow an unfamiliar god such unguarded access to the depths of her immortal core. He could see straight into her.
What he found there…
Spawn of Styx and Nyx.
Within a forest full of flowers and pretty winged things dwelled a pool of power, most of it untapped. She knew it was there but she had only flitted about on its sunny surface. She didn’t seem to have any idea how deep it went.
His grasp on her chin softened into a coaxing stroke as he bored his gaze in deeper. Her gates completely gave way. She invited him in like so many others had invited him into their bodies. Her lips parted and her eyes flared, now more gold than green. Her every movement gushed desire.
Enter my temple…came the whisper of her sigh. That delicious mouth begged for his kiss the way her eyes called to his gaze, and that body! Deceptively petite, yet overflowing with curves and promises of pleasure. My body is my temple, she thrummed. I’ve been waiting for you for so long. Worship me as I will worship you. Join with me in sacred union, my beautiful god, my warrior.
Behind him, Eris sniggered and sniped off an insult.
Ares ignored her. Not only was he too intrigued by this strange, guileless siren to pull back now, but the red-eyed Goddess of Discord would glut herself upon the rising friction. Although Eris stirred up strife in others and fed on it, she was equally sated by having it roused in her own caustic heart. It would stoke her fire to an insatiable blaze, all the more enjoyable for him the next time they rutted.
But this rosy-cheeked sprite with the Titanic soul...hers was a pool so deep and murky that he would have to dive straight in and let himself be engulfed if he wanted to explore what lurked inside her.
Which he did.
Such perfect bait. Irresistible—and that gave him pause. What if the shadows of that pool hid malicious intent?
Fuck it. I’d do battle any day for the chance to try this treat. Besides, battle sounded just as tasty as as devouring the girl. Maybe I can get both out of this encounter. Hah!
“So,” he murmured, “little maiden.”
She gasped and stared at him as though he had just whisked her clothes away through the aither.
He chuckled. “You are, aren’t you?”
Her eyes lowered as she nodded, blushing.
“Yeah,” he said, letting his appreciation of that fact roll off his tongue. “I can smell it on you.” When she only blushed harder, he tilted her face up until she met his eyes again. “You wanna sacrifice that on my altar, do you?”
“You know I do. It’s long past time I was rid of it. This is the auspicious time of the cycle for scything that which no longer serves. The dark moon."
"So it is. And I'm very good at cutting down things that need to be scythed.”
"So I've seen.” She practically swooned at the thought. “Oh, Ares, I knew that it could only be you since the moment I first heard your song.”
Eris snort-guffawed.
But Ares’ grin only widened as he imagined all those trumpets, the war drums, his bellows, and of course, the screams. It made him hard. “It’s a good song.”
“It’s the most enchanting song in the world.”
“Oh, Ares!” Eris squealed, and then she was fanning her face and running her mouth in that cruel, high-pitched voice. “It could only ever be you! Oh, your song! Your bulging muscles! Your big, meaty—”
Ares made a quick stab-and-fling of his finger. A golden apple zinged off the feast table to cram her poisoned tongue back down her throat. He turned back to his new guest. “Enchanting?” Pulling upright with a laugh, he tried to be heard over the muffled chuckles as Eris pried the fruit from her fangs. He shifted to block the girl’s view with his bulky frame, then put on his suavest smile. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody call my song enchanting before.”
“It is,” the girl murmured, lashes batting like a butterfly’s wings. “As is the god who sings it.”
He gave a double-flex of his pectoral muscles. “I’ll take it.”
“I hope you’ll take a great many things.”
Now munching on the apple, Eris grumbled, “Please. Somebody slay me now.” She punctuated with a belch, to the delight of her minions.
Over his shoulder, Ares growled, “I could arrange that.”
“Psssh. You’re all talk.”
“So are you. Do I need to make it my fist next time?”
“Promises, promises.” The ruby eyes flashed in anticipation. It was, after all, one of her favorite ways to orgasm—with anything big and unyielding plugging up her hole. One of the innumerable reasons why they were so well-matched in the sack.
The girl flashed off a glower, then drew him back around. “Ares. Sing it for me.”Her face tipped back even farther, giving access to whatever he chose—lips, throat, the inviting flesh that wafted her scent up from her sweet little chiton. She smelled like flowers at the height of afternoon, but it was the pulsing ichor in her veins that called to him most.
His hand shifted lower, edging around her throat. “Most sweet things faint dead away or run screeching at the sound of my song.”
“I would only come running to you, to raise my voice with yours.”
Eris made a gagging noise, which sent her ass-kissers into fits of giggles, so Ares stretched out a leg. “Enough!” He caught the bitch’s couch with his foot and upended it, spilling Discord and her toys across the grimy tiles. Over their cackles, snide comments, and the sounds of them pulling themselves back together, Ares drew the girl deeper into the shadows. “Just ignore them.”
“Gladly,” the tasty treat purred. “I only came here for you.”
“Well, that was nice of you.”
Her fingertips glowed pink-and-gold as she caressed his knuckles. “My valiant one, don’t you know who I am?”
Know? Oh, dammit-dammit-dammit.
His thumb popped up to the underside of her chin, spearing it as he scanned her face. He couldn’t place it in the eternally rolling scroll of his nameless trysts. “Have we done this before?”
“Never face-to-face.”
Whew.
He put away the excuses of too much to drink and a long, exhausting battle, exchanging them for a seductive flash of his brows. “Well, face-to-face is always best. Heh. Except when it’s not.” The inside edge of his hand scooped under her chin, sweeping it aside. From there, it was nothing to spin her around and yank her up against him again. His hard-on gouged the soft curve of her ass. He pinned her to his chest by digging his thumb and middle finger into those sensitive places just behind her jaw. She was so tiny he didn’t even have to stretch his hand to reach them both.
Her whimper hummed with a thousand versions of, “Yes,” and, “Please.” She quivered like she might melt down the front of him to worship at his feet. He wouldn’t turn that down. Drinking in the reverence of devotees was always vitalizing. Still, he hoped this wouldn’t be so easy that she’d leave him bored. As gorgeous as she was, that would suck Zeus’s bolt. But then she said, “I was the one who sang with you all those nights.”
His eyes popped open. His jaw skewed off to one side, and he thanked the stars that she couldn’t see it. Oh, shit-blood-piss. Smearing his voice with a hefty coat of recognition, he said, “Ohhhh, right. That was you?”
“Yes, darling.”
“Yyyy-yeah. I thought your voice sounded familiar. Kinda hard to hear over all this racket. Heh-heh.” Over her head, he winked at the nearest leering onlookers, wondering just how drunk he’d been when she sang for him or…whatever it was. Time to distract and redirect before her questions got more detailed.
Keeping ahold of her jaw, he slid his other hand across her belly and gripped her hip to yank her in more snugly. Her fingers clamped hard around his knuckles to stop him from dropping into more intimate territory.
And there it was.
The more familiar reaction from precious things caught in the clutches of the War God. The flighty breath, the tense shoulders, the trembling. The fact that Ares’ two most diabolical sons had suddenly become interested in what he was doing—that said it all.
Deimos and Phobos both had their father’s dark eyes, dark countenance, dark appetites. They were twins, except that Deimos’ gift was terror and Phobos’ gift was panic. About the only thing they’d inherited from their mother was her sneakiness. They were as subtly conniving as the Goddess of Love.
Until they were as overt as their father.
They threaded their way through the crowd, lured in by the girl’s alarm that had been triggered by Ares’ bolder embrace.
“You say I’m enchanting,” he murmured into her ear. “What about enthralling? Could you be enthralled by me?”
A nervous laugh shuddered up her. “I—I have no doubt.”
“And ravishing? Do you think you’d like to find yourself…” He nipped her earlobe. “Ravished?”
She reflexively shied away. “Um…we really should wai—”
He maneuvered her until they were both facing the slab of quartz that stood before his throne. Centuries of sacrificial slaughter had stained it permanently brownish-red. Today’s blood still dripped down its sides, a treat for the daimons and deities who enjoyed licking it. A bit of mess still lay scattered on it, around it. “How about right there on my altar?”
Her spine stiffened. But instead of trying to flee or beg his mercy, she pressed his hands more tightly against the places where he gripped her. Her head cranked around in her attempt to look him in the eye. “Yes,” she stated. Her fear had vanished as abruptly as it had arisen. “Absolutely on your altar.”
A guffaw shot from his mouth. “Oh, really?”
“I can think of no more appropriate place.”
Ares’ jaw hung askew, caught between grinning and swinging there in half-hinged shock. This was the part when she was supposed to realize her folly. The blood. The clinging bits of flesh, bone, fur, hair. The occasional eyeball or a tooth.
Both those souvenirs hung from the necklace he had strung after this morning’s sacrifices. When the girl’s gaze fell upon it, her finger followed. Then she traced the sacred symbols that Eris and Enyo had drawn on his chest in blood before the battle. Other spatters and streams decorated the patterns. It was all dried now and flaked with her touch.
His breath finally exited his lungs in a halting laugh. “Well, shit-damn.”
Deimos and Phobos exchanged baffled looks.
Ares’ grip under the girl’s jaw tightened again. His other hand latched into her hair. He didn’t jerk her head when he pulled her around to face him again, but she could make no mistake by the firmness of his hold—she wasn’t going anywhere. “All right, girlie. Let’s give you a taste and see how you handle it.”
His mouth closed over hers. Her breath sucked in through her nostrils. After a second, she made that tremulous whimper again and yielded her lips to him.
He liked their yielding. He liked their fight. Either route was delicious, and so was she. Just before she started kissing him back, he slid his tongue into her. Her eyes popped open as her breath caught again. He cradled her close and kept advancing. Deeper. Hotter. Her skin glowed with ichor ignited by overwhelmed wonder. It lit up the roses she’d painted all over herself. He chuckled against her. Ah, the joys of ravishing such a virtuous little mouth. Nothing like it. (Well, except a nice deflowering or a new devotee’s virgin kill.)
His arms twined around her torso like pythons as he delved in, sampling each layer like fresh blood-nectar. On the surface, she was sweetness and innocence. He couldn’t wait to slather it, slaughter it like everything they’d obliterated on the altar—the one in this temple, and the one on the bloody field they were celebrating. That’d be another fun place to fuck her. Get her fresh-scrubbed wholesomeness all messy and nasty.
And she was so very wholesome and clean.
The water she’d bathed in must have been as pure as her kiss. It was still sweet on her skin. Under that, she tasted of sunlight and twittering birds. Honeysuckle and orange blossoms and black, fertile earth. And heat! The slow drip of true honey and the wooziness of divine nectar. But not just any nectar. This girl was blood-nectar.
Gaze locked and lusty, she clapped her palms onto his face and held fast as the passion boiled up inside her. Yes, my warrior…enter…come deeper.
With a groan, he dove his tongue down, down. He ran out of tongue and still she opened to him, so he used his essence instead. Probing. Penetrating. Spearing into her hidden reaches like a ransacker in the night. Her irises went the color of a shadowy forest, such a dark green it was nearly black. Her gaze went all feral desire. The gaze of a hunting predator.
He grinned—That’s more like it!—went to inhale for a harder round. Couldn’t. His ribcage fought to expand, but the pull she exerted on him—he couldn’t pull back.
This time, his eyes shot open.
His chest bucked. Seized. She kept drawing him in deeper, deeper. The ocean of her hunger closed over him. He couldn’t inhale. Couldn’t break free. Then he couldn’t even move!
His heart raced like a bolted stallion. He let out a strangled grunt. He’d never felt like prey before. He’d never tasted the effects of his own progeny either. Deimos’ mind-crippling terror. The rising panic of Phobos’ fear. Even being stuffed into a jar by giants as a godling hadn’t struck him so hard. Is this what drowning mortals feel? His arms shuddered as he struggled to pull her off him, to push his way free.
It’s all right, came her whisper. Her essence enveloped his mind and massaged it as her heady tongue caressed his. It’s all right, you can let go. Ah, my valiant warrior, surrender to my embrace as I have surrendered to yours. Die in the depths of me. Let your breath and your heat and your seed overflow into me. Be reborn in my arms and let us conceive a new universe between us.
A groan trembled in his throat—dread or desire? He couldn’t tell. His hard-on was agonizingly stiff. He wanted to bury it inside her—wanted to bolt, screaming in horror more so. He felt his hand grasp her hem and draw it up. His rod strained and surged, but her fingers clamped onto his wrist.
Mirth twinkled in the dark of her gaze. Not yet, silly. Not until we’re wed. Marry me before that altar, and then you can ravish me on it any time you wish.
Her lips melded more firmly between his. Her kiss was quicksand. Her grasp was an adamantine shackle. He’d been caught in a pair of those, when the Goddess of Love had still been the wife of his brother, Hephaistos. The Divine Smith had crafted a snare in his marital bed to catch Aphrodite in her illicit affair with the God of War. When those unbreakable chains had bound him for all the world to jeer at, Ares had only known rage, humiliation, and the thirst for vengeance.
But this...to be bound to this pounding force, forever drowning, forever desiring, writhing...
Am I dying? I can’t fucking die! I’m a god!
But his heart tasted the agony of being torn to shreds, and his mind—clutched in vicious claws and rent to pieces. His body—coming apart in the throes of ecstasy. He grabbed the girl’s rosy hair. Pulling away was the last thing he wanted to do. He yearned for nothing more than to yield, to let himself fall for the first time in his life, but that lightless pit yawned beneath him, all jaws and claws and never-ending night, and so he yanked her head back—had to wrench her mouth off his.
“Gahh!” he cried, stumbling backwards. He almost landed on his ass. She nearly toppled with him.
For a moment, they stood braced against each other, gazes locked, panting, trembling. Her eyes had returned to a golden-green so brilliant it banished the shadows surrounding them. Her hair glowed like roses a-flame. Her tattooed flowers had gone the same color. All around, the party went on. No one had witnessed the God of War battle for his very breath.
No one but Eris and his sons. The moment the twins locked eyes with their father, they exchanged mortified looks with each other and vanished.
You traitorous little ass-squirts!
Seeing Ares so distraught, the Goddess of Discord shoved her fanged little toys away and slunk off the couch to stalk a circle of menace around the cause of his distress: the doe-eyed flower sprite concealing a soul-devouring vortex.
The infiltrator fluttered a hand to her flushed bosom. If she’d suddenly attacked him like a snake-haired gorgon, he would have smote her and hung her beastly head upon a pike to guard his gate. But no. She gazed at him with the luster of infatuation. “Oh, Ares...” she panted. To his horror, the pretty little monster appeared on the verge of swooning. “Again... Kiss me again!”
As she rushed forward, he lunged back. His palms slammed against her shoulders, arresting her embrace. Her internal maelstrom still swirled, still whispered, surging at him with the innocent demanding of a child who had not yet been taught to wait. To her, his kiss was a newborn immortal’s first sip of nectar and she wanted more. More. MORE.
This time he used both hands to grip her face so he could inspect her without falling prey to those lips. “Who in damnation are you, girl?”
“I–I...” Her smile faltered. Her gaze lowered.
This was no demigoddess. She wasn’t even a minor goddess. Her kiss had rammed that fact into his skull. This was a being of old power, deep lineage, and there weren’t many of those around. There was only one immortal in the Olympian line that he had never met. Except for when they were toddling godlings, he’d only ever glimpsed her across the occasional feast hall and she’d always been covered head-to-toe with layer upon layer of cloth, surrounded by layer upon layer of hawk-eyed chaperones.
When she gazed up at him through long lashes, her expression begged him not to let it matter, and in that moment, he knew. She couldn’t be anybody else. Her name was one of those many things that had lain lurking in the shadowed depths of her. Now the air was rife with it, a vibration through the very bedrock beneath his fortress.
“Oh, no-no-no-no-no...” He closed his eyes and begged her with every mote of his being not to be…
Her.
Up Next: Haides unlocks something musty, dusty, and never-used with his SKELETON KEY
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