Earth Sun and Moon Saga

Hey, ya'll! I hope the summer finds you kicking butt! Thanks for spending some time with me and the folks I make up in my head!

If you're a new reader, welcome! This chapter is essentially toward the end of a novel and will probably be confusing if you jump right in. I recommend you start at chapter one. Don't worry, we'll wait for you.

Returning reader? Glad to have you back! I guess I have to give a trigger warning: This chapter contains a few sensitive topics including nonconsent. It's not super explicit but it is there (tastefully done, I hope). If that's not your cup of tea, I get it.

Thank you for the kind comments and messages. I love hearing from you, even if I can't always respond back. Please like, comment, and fav as it helps others find my quirky story about vampires, witchcraft, and ancient gods.

Lucius Harlow was having a monumentally shitty day.

First, his afternoon flight bailed on him with almost no notice. The client was a regular, using Harlow's service for jaunts to Vancouver or maybe Portland. Short flights, easy money.

Because the client—some tech bro with delusions of being the next Zuckerberg—was a regular, Harlow didn't want to charge him the hefty cancellation fee. That meant he was out the fueling costs for preparing the Cessna for the canceled trip.

To top that off, his other source of income, a twin-engine Sikorsky S-76, had thrown a rod somewhere and it was looking like he was going to have to pay a specialist. He could reliably get at least one flight out of her a day, two if he was booked up—there was no shortage of yuppies that wanted to take their dates on helicopter rides around Puget Sound for sunset.

But now she was grounded indefinitely.

If he hadn't paid off the Cessna last year he'd already be underwater for the month because of this little hiccup.

The door of the rented hanger was up, letting cool air flood the space while he worked on the open engine compartment of the helicopter. His was stripped down to his waist, the top half of the aviation jumpsuit tied around his hips. The stump of his left leg was itching and he was absent-mindedly rubbing it against the inside of the prosthetic harness. His stump always itched when he was stressed about something.

Harlow was a one-man operation, which meant he was usually his own mechanic as well as the secretary, janitor, and CFO. He used to employ a guy to do routine maintenance but after having to fix the third major oversight the guy made in as many weeks, he fired him. It did him no good to employ someone whose hand he'd have to hold.

For not the first time, he wondered why he thought it'd been a good idea to start his own service. He just wanted to fly and all this other shit was getting in the way.

Bach played through the portable speaker on his workbench and it was the only thing keeping Harlow from overturning the whole thing out of frustration. If this was anything more complicated than a faulty igniter plug, he was fucked.

He heard the footsteps before he saw who made them. Hell, maybe that was his noon client, having changed his mind. If that sonofabitch tech bro expected him to jump up, half-covered in engine grease, and fly his entitled ass to Boise or Vancouver or wherever he . . . would. With a smile on his face. That was just part of being a business owner.

"Hello?" he called out.

"Hey, Cap,"

A chill went up his spine and he almost dropped the socket wrench he held.

It couldn't be.

Harlow pushed himself out of the engine compartment.

James Faraday stood in his hanger looking like a man out of time. Honestly, he looked like he'd been run over by a truck. But that wasn't entirely unique for his old friend, the man who'd saved his life.

Three women were with him and, together, it was such a surreal sight that Harlow scoffed.

"Wha—well, shit. I wish you would've called."

"Tried that. Your number changed. Found you through the airport directory."

"Yeah, I guess I just use my business line these days."

Harlow looked from one woman to the next. They were all beautiful, if a little intimidating. Harlow had never been particularly intimidated by beautiful women but there was something off about this group. The blonde looked harmless enough—she was already ooo-ing and ahh-ing the helicopter—but the one with black hair and pink clothes looked downright psychotic. The third woman looked like a goth teenager—not Harlow's type—but he had to admit she was cute too.

He had questions.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I have a favor to call in."

"Do you, now?" Harlow cocked an eyebrow at him. "Okay, I'll bite. What's the favor?"

"We need to catch a ride to London."

Harlow laughed. He couldn't help it. The gall of this man. "I haven't seen you in almost four years and you show up to my hanger, out of the blue, with—what—groupies? No offense, ladies—"

"None taken," the goth girl said with a scowl.

"—and expect me to drop what I'm doing and fly you to another country?"

"I mean, when you put it like that, I sound like an asshole." James shrugged.

"I'd rather you'd have just asked for four grand. Cause that's the cost of that little jaunt and it'd be a lot easier."

"Will this help?" The blonde said, suddenly next to him. She grabbed his hand and put several heavy coins in his palm. They were old, misshapen, and shiny. Each one had a boxy cross stamped on it and, of the three, no two were identical.

"Is this gold?" Harlow asked, confused.

"Is that mermaid treasure?" the goth girl asked.

"No, silly, they're doubloons," the blonde said.

"Okay," Harlow said with a sigh. "You have my complete and undivided attention."

***

Gwendolyn's first sexual experience was with the son of one of her father's best bannermen. What Cynfelyn lacked in experience he made up for in enthusiasm. They snuck away from the feast of Lughnasadh and he chased her through the apple orchards, with her weaving between trees until he caught her, spinning her around and pushing her against a trunk as she laughed. She remembered her breasts were still sore from recent and rapid growth, and they heaved against his strong chest, his face bathed in moonlight.

He kissed her then, long and deep, and it was the kiss by which she would judge all others.

He didn't take her then, although she would have let him. Goddess, she still remembered his hands squeezing her sore breasts through her clothes, the bolt of unfamiliar pleasure shooting down her torso to her loins.

Cynfelyn was only a season older than her and he was strong and athletic, already showing prowess with spear and sword but he was also a talented poet, singing songs and stories of heroes and gods.

He sank to his knees in the black earth and lifted her skirt. When she asked what he was doing, he said he wanted to taste her. Silly girl, she hadn't known what he meant until she felt his face between her legs. His tongue, broad and flat, explored the place between her legs that she had painfully little experience with.

She remembered crying out in a whimper and hooking a leg over his shoulder, her fingers running through his fiery hair.

Had she orgasmed then? She didn't quite know, or couldn't remember. But she remembered it feeling good, being consumed by that young man. She felt worshiped like she was the goddess Agrona, she who gave birth to a nation of warriors and Gwendolyn imagined that she could be her shieldmaiden. That Cynfelyn would put warriors in her belly and she'd be the mother of a whole people.

When Cynfelyn withdrew, he kissed her and she tasted herself on his lips and it only made her more ravenous. She wanted to taste him too and she pushed him down until he was on his back and she worked the cord of his britches searching for his length.

His cock felt massive in her hands. It was so hot that she initially pulled her hand away as if she touched a burning stove. But she grabbed it again, now with both hands. Hindsight being what it was, he was likely only moderately above average but to Gwendolyn then he was positively massive.

She took him into her mouth and tasted him as fully as she could. As he had with her. She licked him from root to head, swirling her tongue around the head before taking as much of him into her mouth as she could. Cynfelyn groaned, whispering pleas and promises, and it wasn't long before he was thrusting up into her mouth with each bob of her head.

She remembered he let out a pained moan, through clenched teeth, and she'd thought she had hurt him but then his seed filled her mouth. She swallowed some, thinking it was a promise, and spit the rest into the soil.

Then it was her turn to kiss him, which he did, and they rolled in the black earth, hugging and kissing until sleep took them both.

Gwen's second sexual experience, occurring a short two moons later, was when she was held down and raped, alongside her sister, by Roman soldiers while her mother was forced to watch. And, as her mother watched her daughter's violation, she was flogged personally by the Roman procurator Decianus Catus.

It was the defining event of her young life—one that changed its entire trajectory.

But that wasn't due to her.

Gwendolyn's mother was the queen of her people. She was a proud and fierce woman and that insult to her and her daughters was unforgivable.

Though Gwendolyn called her

moir

, history would call her mother by another name, one the Romans would learn to fear.

They would call her Boudicca.

Together they would kill thousands.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

The question pulled Gwendolyn out of her head. She turned, realizing she'd been staring out the window for the last ten minutes.

Edward sat next to her and she thought he looked somber, thoughtful.

"Flying makes me nervous."

"I can only imagine. But we're perfectly safe, this is one of the finest planes made. Or so I'm told."

The private jet had just taken off. Anubis sat back in one of the recliner seats, already asleep. Qebhet had a tablet on her lap and seemed to be playing some sort of game. A stewardess, professionally attractive, came by with a pair of champagne flutes and gave them to Edward, who passed one to her.

He clinked her glass with his and took a sip. "To us. Only a hundred years in the making."

"Us?"

"Well, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself." Edward placed his hand over hers. "It's my hope that this is the start of our journey together. A start to the life we could have had, had we not been . . . interrupted." He glanced over to the snoozing god for emphasis.

Gwen took a sip of her champagne. "That's a new euphemism for dying."

"Yes. But I don't recommend it. I think you have the right idea about avoiding the whole thing."

She chuckled despite herself.

"But I'm curious, what have you been up to for the last hundred and thirty years?"

"I'm afraid it's not too interesting."

"I very much doubt that."

He was turned almost completely toward her in his seat. His interest was genuine.

"After London . . . after you, we left Europe altogether. It was getting too crowded anyway. The Americas offered a new beginning and plenty of places for ladies like us to lay low. First, in Pennsylvania, then in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, then Wyoming, and finally across the Rockies to settle outside of a small port city on the west coast."

"Was Asari with you that whole time? I imagined she would have been pretty

uncomfortable on dry land that long."

"Trains were common then. Made travel easier. And we tended to settle near large bodies of water. Ever hear of a mud mermaid?"

Edward shook his head.

"Well, Asari got spotted a few times while we lived near the Ohio River. We had to move on soon after. This was in the 1910s, mind you. She was incredibly annoyed, not least because Lenore kept showing her rag articles describing how hideous the mud mermaid of the Ohio River was. Then she called Asari a mud mermaid during one of their bickering matches and Asari moved her coffin out to the middle of a lake, with her inside it. Lenore spent most of the day floating around before she woke up, tipped over the coffin, and spent the better part of the night trying to drag a water-logged casket out of the water."

Edward laughed. "I would have liked to see that. I'm sure she was pissed."

"She was but didn't show it. Took her anger out on a cow. Then she was all, 'whoopsie, I guess we have to move again' just as the locals were forming a posse."

"I wish I could've seen that."

Good sense struck him then and he changed the subject from about the vampire he currently had imprisoned in a rune-protected jar.

"What if you didn't have to hide anymore?" he asked, low and conspiratorial.

"What do you mean?"

"What if you could live in the open, free from threat from persecution? You're certainly powerful enough. But together? Well, together we could change the world."

"They burned my kind for almost a thousand years. Today maybe they'd just want to study me in a tiny little box. The one thing I've learned about humans is how they react to threats. If they knew about this . . ." She motioned to the airplane. "They'd stop at nothing to hunt us down."

"The world today is so confused and unmoored that we could announce our existence with a live demonstration and a majority of the planet would think we were some government psyop. It was just last year that the American government admitted to the existence of aliens and everyone just shrugged. Years of con artists posing as psychics and mediums made people skeptical. Hell, did you know that there's a whole subcommunity of Americans that believe the world is flat?"

"You're playing."

"Afraid not. They have podcasts."

"Are they like the people that think the moon landings were fake?"

"Sort of. There's overlap. I don't pretend to be an expert on the lunatic fringes of American culture. Suffice it to say, that the world has changed more in the last two decades than in the previous five. My point is we don't have to hide. Not if you don't want to."

Edward's eyes blazed at her, studying her for her reaction.

"I admit it's intriguing," Gwen said before her face could betray her. "You must understand, I've lived hidden for most of my life. The few times I've revealed myself . . . It's gone poorly. So forgive me if I'm hesitant."

"No way am I more worldly than the great and powerful Gwendolyn?" he teased. "The Witch of Wales? The Crone of Castinberry? Summoner of Spirits and Enchantress of the Midlands?"

These were her rumored names when he'd first snuck into her small cottage to steal food. She remembered him as he was then, emaciated and frail, cloaked in a desperate energy. He was brave despite her rumored infamy. Though the man in front of her looked little like that boy, or the man he became. But that energy, that frantic energy was the same.

"Perhaps in this time, you're more worldly. The last seventy or so years have been rather secluded for me. Believe it or not, it keeps me sane. It seems that everyone who lived through the 20th century went at least a little bit mad."

"Fair point. And, of course, we can take it slow. Well, you can take it slow. Unless you'd like to share your secret to immortality."

There it is, she thought. But had she expected anything different?

"I wouldn't wish that on anyone," she said, meaning it. "It doesn't . . . It's not what you think it is. Immortality, I mean."

"Of course," Edward said with a grave nod. "I've studied the rituals and promises of a hundred religions, searching for evidence that it was even possible. I know the cost of what I ask."

She saw a glimpse of Cynfelyn in him there. His confidence seemed to channel that fiery-haired warrior poet for just an instant.

She leaned into him and kissed him softly, trying to catch her teenage lover before he disappeared. If Edward was surprised, he didn't show it, and he kissed her back with steady intensity.

"I must say," she said when they parted. "Never, in all my years, has any man professed his love for me by coming back from the dead. You sure know how to make a lady feel special."

She watched Edward's shoulders relax as, what could only be relief, washed over him.

"I'd go through it all again just to hear those words."

She kissed him again.

And it felt so familiar. Not the kiss but the intention behind it.

The manipulation of it.

Gwendolyn had spent time, longer than the existence of almost every nation currently on Earth, utilizing a set of skills that allowed for her continued survival.

Fairy tales had been told about her. Books written. About witches and temptresses. About jeezibels and seductresses.

There's a story of men led into dark forests by an enchanting woman, only to be found dead shortly after, their skin dry and sunken in.

There's another of the evil courtesan, manipulating the king from behind the throne, whispering his own ruin into his ear.

Another about evil stepmothers stealing the inheritance of their new husbands' children.

Of the whore who bends the will of the great warrior, only to kill him while he sleeps.

And at the root of all of those sordid tales, the kernel of truth that connects them was Gwendolyn.

She'd been a thousand women over a thousand lifetimes. And, despite what so-called feminists tried to claim, she was very much a part of history.

She started wars.

She ended dynasties.

She once killed her lover, a man she allied with and supported in his quest to tear the Romans apart. The man that history called Attila dared to make peace with the Romans and withdrew his army from Italy at the very moment he held their destruction in his hand. And so, for a betrayal she could not abide, she poisoned him while he was in a drunken stupor, causing the great and powerful warlord to die in front of his men from a nosebleed.

But he was a bad lay, so fuck him.

She eventually brought the Roman Empire, that nation of rapists and slavers, to ruin.

She did all this and, worse, she enjoyed it.

Her weapon, honed sharper than any spear, was the sensuality she could bring to bear. Was she really going to bring that crashing down on this man? This man who loved and dared to escape death itself?

Her desire, born out of this tangled mix of memory and emotion, flooded her nervous system in a wave of heat. She felt her face flush and her breath quicken.

Edward kissed her again and it was not only welcome, it was needed.

When they parted, Edward spared a glance to the plane's other occupants, then said, "There's a lounge area in the back of the plane. No bed but a little more private."

She touched his face, running her thumb across his lower lip.

"Lead the way."

***

Lucius was a changed man, James realized.

Gone was the hotshot Airforce pilot, who could hover a dual-rotor Chinook two feet off the ground and hold that big bitch as steady as a surgeon's hand while James and his team performed extrication exercises. He was a business owner now, buttoned up and with a host of adult stress. It was clear that James and his friends were upending his life.

Even still, brotherhood amongst the service runs deep, and less than an hour later, they were in the air.

"I still don't know what I'm going to do with a few old-ass French doubloons," he grumbled once they were airborne.

"Like, the gold value alone probably puts them at a couple thousand each," Angelica said, hunched in the cockpit door. "And they're at least three hundred years old."

"They belong in a museum!" Ash said, doing her best gravelly-voiced Indiana Jones impression.

"Get back in your seats," Lucius ordered, causing the two women to scamper back across the cabin. "The only person that can be up here is Faraday and that's only because he knows not to touch anything."