🌸 The Temple of War
L&W3: The Bringer of Blossomtime twinkles dainty toes into shadowy, unsavory places
Previously on 6 LITTLE SEEDS:
“Bye, Mama! I’m going to play in the waterfall.”
That’s what she had said upon skipping out of the house. Not a complete lie, but not an ichor-deep truth either.
…Today she would at last make herself known to the god of her heart. Yes, oh yes, at long last, she would show the God of War that there was so much more to passion than rage and fire.
And she would show him that there was so much more to honeysuckle than its bright, happy sweetness.
From: Honeysuckle
—Start at the beginning
—Mature Content Warnings for this series
Also. Nobody calls Persephone by her true name. They call her KORE, “the Maiden,” and it’s pronounced like “ko-ray” or “kora” not like “core of the planet.”
KORE, BRINGER OF BLOSSOMTIME
✨🌸✨
Conveniently, Ares had not returned to his temple on bustling Mount Olympos. Instead, he had chosen to celebrate his latest victory in a remote temple fortress in Thrake—so Athene had sneered the other day, with plenty of grumbled descriptions over her brother’s exploits. Those details had allowed Kore to find the God of War’s private sanctuary, transpiring at the base of its hill after only three tries.
At first she thought she had made another mistake. Birds twittered amongst a thick forest of elm trees. Sunlight shone down upon the leaves, breezes, and bugs that danced together in fragrant merriment. But a low pulse tickled her feet through the ground. Upon closing her eyes and feeling into the roots of all the growing things, she realized what it was: the sounds of underground revelry nestled within stone.
The bulk of Ares’ lair was buried deep within the earth, and it was massive.
Like the god himself.
As she traipsed uphill through the forest, the Temple of War began to introduce itself. Just a twinge at the back of her neck at first. Then her shoulders twitched. She shook her hair against the spine-tingling itch that grew with every step closer to the entrance. Gradually, she noticed the vultures. They circled overhead. They loomed in the trees. Their heads swiveled to silently track her in ever-growing number.
Her mother hated them. “Disgusting and homely,” Demeter called them. “Inauspicious lurkers.”
But Kore had always found them entrancing. She loved watching them soar. True, they were not dashing hawks or sweet robins. They lacked the ravens’ sleek lines or the peacocks’ vibrancy. But something about them had always fascinated her.
It’s only natural, considering which god’s thread was woven intertwined with mine.
When the overgrown path changed to broken cobbling, she bounced from stone to stone, leaving tiny patches of moss wherever her feet landed. The weeds and undergrowth grew heartier as she passed. So did the foliage overhead. Upon realizing that most of the bushes sprouted leaves the hue of freshly spilled blood, her lips drew into an endeared quirk.
How very Ares.
At last, she arrived at the entrance. Numerous stalwart guardians blocked the way. Humans first, in smart, armored columns. Then demigods on the steps of black marble. Kore refused to be deterred, for these were Ares’ forces—her beloved’s forces. The warriors didn’t scare her any more than the vultures. With a pounding heart aglow at her mission, she bypassed the humans with no more than her will. The demigods required the lightest touch of her hand. They bowed and let her pass, gazes trailing her as if agog at Aphrodite herself.
Gigantic bull’s horns dominated the stop of the stairs as if daring her to progress any further—warning her that this was her last chance to turn back. Not ever in her immortal lifetime! She stroked the proud, granite curves of them, enjoying the menacing hum of the black stone, admiring the tips a-glint in gold. The finish was rough, not polished. No surprise there either.
It made her wonder if he had chosen weapon-callused hands for his divine visage, or if he had left them godly-smooth.
Time to find out.
The double doors of the fortress towered three times her height and opened directly into the hill. Symbols had been painted on them in what she could smell was blood, and the handles were topped with vulture skulls, their curved beaks made for pulling. With her heart spinning pirouettes inside her chest, she reached for the bony protrusions. The moment her fingers made contact, they gave a jolting shock. She gasped and recoiled, sucking on her fingertips. Such bitterness! Such searing, scything rancor.
She pouted at the handles as if they had bitten her, but confound it, she had come this far. It’s all right. It’s only the Temple of War. It cannot harm me. I am a goddess. I am HIS goddess, and he is my god. Once our gazes join and our songs commingle, once he knows my touch, my kiss…that’s all it will take.
She pushed through the pain that pumped out through the skulls, and yanked the doors open. Upon stepping inside, she found the stones there warmer than they had been outside, as though heated by a subterranean furnace. She pranced across them, delighted at the sensation and—
Stopped in her tracks.
Her mouth dropped open. Once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness within, they began blinking and wouldn’t cease as she battled to comprehend the sights that greeted her. Within the temple fortress, strewn amongst char-black furniture, blood-red drapes, massive marble columns, and frescoes both gruesome and lewd, all manner of debauchery ensued. Smoke, drink, and feasting abounded around a gigantic brazier. Its blaze licked at the smoke-choked ceiling.
The doors boomed shut behind her and she jumped. Slowly, she tiptoed down the main aisle, her head swiveling like that of the vultures. Her breast rose and fell in sporadic rhythm.
She couldn’t see Ares anywhere, but there was no mistaking his temple. Naked warriors wrestled. Others brawled in earnest over a disagreement that had divided the cheering onlookers. The one bleeding on the floor was unconscious and nearly dead. Nobody seemed to care. They just stepped over him—some stepped on him—on their way to fight, feast, or copulate. Decorated officers mated with nymphs upon couches, cushions, railings, the very walls themselves.
Huge-eyed, Kore picked her way through this crowd to comfort that poor soul approaching death, but she jarred to a halt once more.
A bearded man had taken a younger soldier by the hair and bent him over a table filled with bread, fruit, and steaming meat. The younger one moaned and pressed close. Ripping off a few grapes, he popped one between his teeth and mouth-fed it to the man behind him.
Kore’s face screwed up as she scrutinized them. Her head tilted. She couldn’t tell whether they were eating or kissing. Peering harder, she tried to decipher the act. In the grove, she had witnessed all manner of creatures procreating. Her very presence often incited it, but never had she witnessed one male penetrate another. For what purpose could they possibly—
“Do we need to put them on a stage for you?”
The words smacked Kore in the back of the head. Only then, did she realize that they had been spoken to her. She turned to find a stunning goddess staring at her from a nearby couch. Three naked mortals knelt around her, two male, one female. They plied her with blood-nectar, massage that bordered on scratching, and kisses that were more like biting, but her eyes remained riveted onto Kore.
The eyes were ruby-hued, a shocking contrast against her skin and hair, both as black as Night. The thick tresses hung in waist-length braids adorned with polished fangs, claws, and human teeth. Rather than a golden Olympian glow, her aura was more silver. She was chthonic—and beautiful!
From the grime and blood staining her arms and naked torso, she had obviously been involved in the battle. Stuck gory bits dulled the shine of her pleated apron, which was made from human hair woven with mercury and diamond dust. The array of serpent skulls on her belt matched the hissing menace of her voice. “I repeat, do we need to put them on a stage so you can get a closer look? Or are you as blind as you are deaf?”
Kore’s brows furrowed. She had never longed to lash out at a stranger before, but a sudden image struck her: how good it would feel to slap that goddess’ smirk off her face.
The Bringer of Blossomtime inhaled and glanced about. Temple of War, indeed. She would have to take care in this place.
Mustering up her most polite decorum, she answered, “Thank you, no. I do not require a stage.” She couldn’t help glancing at the rutting men again. When the one in the mounting position clapped hands onto the recipient’s well-muscled buttocks and pumped harder, she took a few steps closer, leaned in, and stared. “I...I didn’t know it was possible for a mortal male to impregnate another.”
The dark goddess snorted. “Impregnate?”
“Yes. I wasn’t aware of any male creature besides the seahorse who could gestate life.”
“Whatever are you babbling about, you daft, goggling tyro?” The whole group at the goddess’s feet clumped together, roaring and slapping each other’s thighs in mirth.
Kore stared from one sight to the other, confused at what was so amusing. She wondered if perhaps blood-nectar incited madness along with intoxication.
The dark goddess gave Kore the once-over. “All right, cut the act. Who sent you?”
“No one sent me. I have come of my own will—no small feat, I might add.”
Shoving the morals aside, the goddess bolted forward on the couch, thrusting out one dagger-sharp claw. “Speak truth or suffer my wrath, you useless, perfumed twat. You’re obviously far out of your element, so why the fuck are you here?”
Kore’s eyes flew wide as she drew back from such a caustic verbal assault. She didn’t know precisely what a twat was, but the word raked with malice. “I—I’m here to see Lord Ares, of course. Is this not his fortress?”
The goddess’ bloodstained mouth opened to fire back a retort, but the words caught in her throat. Her gaze shifted to the space behind and above Kore. Then she smirked and nestled back into her couch. The mortals all quivered in terrified adoration.
Kore gulped and found herself trembling as well, for that space at her back was now dominated by an immense presence. Raw masculinity surged like a team of foaming stallions on the verge of bolting up her spine to snort in her hair. She suddenly found herself possessed by the irrational longing to grab that goddess by the throat and claw those ruby eyes out. She closed her eyes. It’s just the temple. It’s just his essence. Don’t let her distract you. This is what you came here for.
His voice murmured in her ear, sensuous and husky, as though he had been bellowing commands for an age. “You’re here to see Ares, are you?”
The hair at the back of Kore’s neck rose. His speaking voice wasn’t as resonant as his song, but she knew with every hum of her being that the God of War stood behind her. Her voice came out throaty and overheated as well, a tone she didn’t recognize as her own. “Yes.”
“Hmm...” He moved closer until his nose nearly touched her earlobe. His breath wafted across her neck. It was hot and thick with the scent of nectar infused with sacrificial blood. And meat. Charred meat. Intoxicating just to smell. She almost turned into him in the hopes of tasting it on his mouth, but his thumbs pressed against her upper arms, followed by his fingers, one by one by one, so he could pull her shoulders firmly against his chest. “And what will you do once you’ve seen him?”
“I...presumably I would speak with him, of course.”
“Oh? What would a sweet little pea blossom like you have to discuss with the God of War?” He took a long, audible sniff of her hair, then sighed onto her neck. “Oh, my-my.” His voice hummed with his appreciation of the scent he had found there. “Invitation...” He sniffed her opposite ear. “Insatiable curiosity.”
She shuddered again.
He laughed and tightened his grasp as he lurked over her to explore her throat and collarbone. “Powerful creation... Humph.” He sneered, “Compassion,” and then chuckled as if to forgive such innocent folly. He drew back and pressed his nose into the nape of her neck, drinking in the fragrance of her skin with the longest inhalation yet. His voice lowered to a whisper. His lips brushed her spine as he said, “Innocence. Now that’s a flavor we don’t smell around here very often. And when we do…it doesn’t last long.”
The growing number of onlookers rumbled with laughter.
Kore’s breast heaved with every rapid breath. Her vision swam. Her legs quivered. Was she inebriated just from breathing in the scent of the blood-nectar? She was certainly dizzy from his scent. Here, away from her mother’s pool, there was no water to dilute it, to alter it. His earthiness blended with the tang of metal and the putrescent syrup of death.
Glorious.
He grabbed her harder and turned her around to face him. She gasped, grateful that his hold was so tight, for her head was swimming and her knees had gone liquid. Up close, Ares 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. His roasted-umber skin glowed with the golden sheen that marked him as an Olympian.
The hard vein of savagery in him was not spiteful, like that of the goddess on the couch and some others around the room, but his gaze held an edge as piercing as his renowned spear, as overt as his eroticism.
His godhead lingered on the verge of bursting into raging tumescence at any moment. She dearly wanted to witness that—at close range this time, for he had been as erect as the crest on his helmet when he rode into battle. Hung like a mammoth, he towered over her, naked except for a broad belt with a leering golden skull, a cloak of stitched human skins, and the ceremonial streaks of blood adorning his face and granite-carved musculature.
Such perfection. Such might! All she wanted to do was grab-hurl-pounce-devour! But she had no idea how to accomplish that with such a colossal being. Easy, don't make a fool of yourself. It's just his aura and his temple bringing out everybody’s bite.
His fierceness was so different from his sister’s. Athene’s was cool and cutting, calculated, like the father she and Ares shared. Whereas the God of War was all blazing passion. Kore yearned for nothing more than to drink deeply of it until he had filled her to overflowing. His essence demanded that, if she wasn't going to attack him, then she needed to yield-submit-fall before him. She swooned for the opportunity to do so, and felt herself slipping toward him, praying he would catch her. Praying he would kiss her.
His grin filled with cocky mischief as he said, “Well, my tightly sealed little pea pod? Now you’ve seen Ares, so speak. Who are you?”
“A great admirer,” she returned, trying to muster up her most alluring smile. She felt more like a knock-kneed fawn about to stumble into him at any second.
His grin broadened anyway. With a stroke up one of her arms, he 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 and loomed in.
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?”
That is one of my absolute favorite Greek God themes by one of my absolute favorite composers, Sebastian Angel.
Up Next: NEVER-ENDING NIGHT - when innocent, precious things wander into the Temple of War
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