A Maiden's Sacrifice

Marked by God (Her)

------------------------------

I didn't think I'd make it to your door. There was the desert, then the woods before the cliffs of your mountain. I had run out of food as well as water. Semi-delirious as I knocked on the black steel doors of your keep, unsure if you were there. If you were awake from your century slumber. I thought I imagined the kind desert merchant when you opened the entry. But now with the light shining through your window I see your solid human form, and you look so painfully human.

I'm sorry for crying and ruining your very nice silk sheets. I don't know if all I've read and all I've heard till now is real, but I need your power: Doom Mage, Slayer of Men, Emperor or Rverfluchtat, Father of Deathgate, Protector of Valenk, Butcher of Ravenswood, Hand of Slaughter, Executioner of Kings, Destroyer of All Things, The Invincible Warrior.

Your overlong title was infamous, and it was because of that I've come.

To defeat the cult choking the country I volunteered during their selection, knowing your names and your origin. The times when you opposed creation and leveled nations. I had let them brand me as the offering with a scalding magic runes around the letter I, in exchange for the nation's most prized secret: of how to find you. Then traveled hundreds of miles to seek your help.

I'm willing to do anything if you could rescue my people from the cult's wretched claws, knowing it might come down to yielding my life. If my end is to be payment for my family and town's freedom, then so be it. However, as I reached for my blade and I offered you the very thing I think you wanted, you glared at me like I was a crazy person.

Not the reaction I was expecting.

Also not expected was your kind eyes, and the care you've been giving me. The way you've healed me reminded me of the man you used to be, Dominic Rayland. That was your mortal name before you were cursed. I know this because it's in

'Journey of a Thousand Suns'

.

The book I loved since youth was penned almost millennia ago, but treasured so widely that it'd been re-printed, and reimagined innumerable times. It's the reason I kept faith that I could seek your help, even after you've abandoned humanity for centuries. It's because of this book I fell in love with you, long before we even met.

Through its many iterations, two characters remained in all the tales: you and the one I'm named after, Eveleen. I'm not ashamed to admit that I pictured myself in the pages as your partner through the daring trials, and even as your lover tangled in exquisite rapture. There were certain sections that ignited my virgin imagination and sent warm glows to the sacred space between my legs. But it was not as good as being with the real you now. The you who just promised that you'll save my people, and gave me hope for the future.

You're more than I'd ever wished, as your kisses sent my nerves on fire in delicious ecstasy. I scream your name, wanting to be enraptured in this forever, and you hug me close. It was the most glorious feeling, being in your arms as we calm, our bodies glistening with sweat, returning from paradise. It took a beat before I was embarrassed about being on your kitchen counter, and you conjured clothes around my body. In this warm glow of the morning light, I prayed we could stay like this forever.

Then the stones along the walls of the room started shaking in malignant vibrations and you keeled over onto the floor. I'm panicking, jumping down, and you push me away, across the room.

"What did you do?" The growl of your voice is low.

"I don't know. What's happening?" I'm frantic, as the walls crumble to dust and I can feel your magic waning as pain sears my back.

Before us, a dark crack emerges as if reaching out from the shadows and I grab for the nearest weapon. Tendrils of sickly brown ichor snakes its way out of the fractured air, and a voice jams itself into my head.

Hello Doom Mage, Executioner of Kings.

The voice is not mine, and I hurt hearing it. The branding on my back stings as if pierced by a thousand shards of glass, releasing from that single point to flood the rest of my veins.

Remember me?

"Inock," You seethe, and I can feel you trying to wrap your magic around me as protection, but it falters.

Good. I'm honored to be remembered.

It turns soothing now as a branch of the tendrils reaches out towards me.

Gripping the knife, I stab the tentacles before it latched.

AAAAAAAAHHHHH.

Sharp pain makes me double over, and I heave, feeling like a limb is being severed. Except it wasn't my limb as I stare at the piece of the brown tentacle wiggling on the floor.

It seemed that you two didn't connect as much as I'd hoped.

The voice continues, shakily, affected by the pain. Across the room you grimace but do not seem to be in as much hurt as I, and I piece the events together. Feeling for the branding on my back.

You're across the room from me, uncertainty flashed across your face. "Dom.. I..." Then the affect dawned on me and my eyes snapped to Inock instead, "It feels what I feel." The monster has taken up more and more of the kitchen. Despite its larger size, Inock's full body still hides in the dark crack beyond where I could see.

Power was gathering around you with deadly force, but I get the feeling you're holding back because of me.

Oh, she's a smart one.

Inock calls.

I am a harbinger of the old Gods, and as my bonded you've just siphoned part of the Doom Mage's powers. Come with me now, and I'll give you all the pleasure you seek, as you suction more of his power.

Knife in hand, I brace myself, "Sorry, I'm not into tentacles," and with a decisive stroke, I plunge the knife in my back, on my brand hoping to break it.

Inock screams curses, but I can barely hear as the pain overwhelms me and I collapse to the floor. "Please keep your promise," and I don't know if I said or thought that last phrase as my vision went dark.

Echos of Memory (Him)

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You're quivering in ecstasy in my arms, and I recall Eveleen from another time. I knew her long before I knew you, centuries before your ancestry. Yet visions of her stir in me when I kiss you. You taste like a memory on my tongue and you feel like a dream long forgotten.

I hold you close to my body after our passions are sated, and in the periphery of my mind, your sweet voice still resonates, shouting my name. Just like how she would scream when we made love, letting my name echo through the walls and halls of the palace we built by the sea.

###

"Dom," Eveleen's voice was light but demanding while I pored over plans for the Tidegale Keep, our Palace.

"Dom!" You, my Eveleen, my first, nudged me playfully, rousing me out of my work, turning me away from my desk to face you. "What do you think?" You curtsied in a sparkling red lace dress that hugged your curves just so, then turned. Your wavy black hair flicked like raven wings as you moved.

I think you meant to twirl, though the dress wasn't one for twirling due to the tightness of the hip, and how it extenuates your taut waist yielding to the round orbs of your well-toned ass. It made me raise a brow at who conjured the gown for you and what they were thinking. That was before my eyes were drawn to the bustled way your breasts were presented up, like lush olive-toned pillows.

"Do you like it?" You smiled sheepishly, flakes of gold shone mischievously in your topaz eyes, clearly trying to seduce me. Then you delivered the finishing blow and bit your lip.

And I'm done. So was the dress as far as I'm concerned.

I grabbed your hand and swung it over my shoulders, sweeping you off your feet.

"That good huh?" You're grinning, nuzzling into the side of my neck and I'm congratulating myself on the well-designed bed chamber, where my study was only a few steps away from our large shared bed. I had great foresight.

"My Queen, you can not dress like that," I threw you into our silk sheets, "And expect me to do nothing about it." I pounced, and your laughter filled the room.

"But Your Majesty," You gasped, faking an outraged hand spread across your sternum. I grabbed the dress and yanked. "How barbaric." You beamed.

"You forget I was Doom Mage first," I reminded you before tearing into the red dress and tossing the fabric to the side while I towered over you. "Before I was your husband."

My eyes fixated on the fact that you didn't have any underwear. The soft fluffed cushion of your mound was fully exposed for me to tease and play with. I lowered myself to do just that, when you pushed me back and shimmied out of the rest of the torn lace gown.

"Uh, uh, uh," You teased, pressing the balls of your feet on my shoulders so I'm standing again.

I frowned as you repositioned yourself, kneeling on the mattress in front of me, making the tempting place between your legs farther than my thirst could reach. I considered pushing you back down to get to it, when you add, "It's your unveiling of the Palace tonight. You built all this, so I should reward you first."

Pulling me down by my neck, your lips grabbed my mouth and I let you lead. My hand traced the soft flesh of your back, wondering how I got so lucky.

You bit my lip, and I groaned as you freed my strained cock from its fabric prison. Lowering yourself to meet my tip, I grabbed a handful of your silky hair while you wet my stiffness with the glistening moisture on your tongue. Your grip shifted too, reaching and holding me vulnerable. My cock pulsed, and it doesn't cease to amaze me that, after all these years, your hands were still soft as you worked me. Benefits of the wand and potion magic you employ.

My hands were long calloused from gripping swords, but I still can't compare to you on the battlefield. With only a whisper, I had witnessed your elemental summons laying waste to countless enemies.

You were the most powerful enchantress in all the lands leading our vanguard, and as with most of our interactions, you often leave me in awe, breathless. Just like how I'm hypnotized by you now, your lips now around my shaft, as you kissed and drew out pleasure instead of death. I moaned as you massaged my most susceptible nerves with your eager pink tongue, making my heart race so loud I swear you could hear it.

"Eve," I shuttered as your sultry eyes stared up at me, my thickness deep in your throat. "Fuck," the gaze ripped a climax from my depth, but you held me there, drinking me in. When you eased off of me, there's a translucent thread of lust between you and my still-stiff erection, so you bop back, tilt your chin and lick up the slick, salty deposit around my cock. And I didn't think I'll be going soft any time soon. There were no words to express how much I loved you and how I'd worship you forever if it meant that we could be together.

"My turn," I push you down, and this time you don't fight me. My hand rubbed the folds of your slit, "You're soaked." I grinned as I kissed the aroused tips of your breasts. "Did taking my cock turn you on that much?"

"Just doing my part to take on the royal load." I could hear you smirking even without seeing it and I bite down, teasing your nipple, making you squirm.

I loved making you wiggle. Every little noise you made added to a collection of sparks that jolted my heart, shocking and thrilling me. The best ones were your moans, the ones you were making now as I felt the size of your swollen clit. I flicked it gently, and you gasped. Another stroke and you're trembling. I kept to a steady rhythm just the way you like, and you buck up to my face, grabbing my hair. You're yelling my name like it would keep you from shattering into a million brilliant pieces with your impending orgasm, but I didn't stop as you crested, and continued even after as you protested.

"Wait," you shouted "I can't- you'll make me--" you groaned again as I slid a finger into your pulsing channel. I found and pressed the spot you like the most, the one we spent time finding after our wedding. The days where we didn't leave our marriage bed like we were teenagers with too much energy. I pressed on it now, while I continued to lick up and down, waiting till your clit was no longer over-sensitive, so I could nibble on it once more.

You were louder now as you come again, but I kept you murmuring in bliss till my hardness was fully recovered and pulsing I pulled back, while you whimpered the smallest of protests. There was a broad smile across your face and your head was a little loopy watching me with hooded eyes. "Fuck me," you instructed, wanting to be filled by something more than a finger.

"Is that an order, my Queen?" I teased your tightness with the head. I can't ever deny you, and you knew that. You understand me more than anyone else--all my pain and all my joys, having been responsible for most of the latter.

"I need you in me." Your voice further fueled my already scorching desire. "Please?"

My dick responded before I could, twitching as if it had a mind of its own. "Since you asked so nicely." I filled you up inch by exquisite inch, and you grabbed me, pressing your glistening skin against mine.

We were sweaty as we joined. I pumped and throbbed into you till our voices grasped onto the pinnacle of bliss and I filled you up. You seized, squeezing me, till we were holding another in the stillness after, our breaths heaving in euphoria.

My eyes were closed, savoring the moment when you asked me, "It'll work, right?"

You're not talking about the party tonight. Your beleaguered mind had gone back to the original reason we got together, how we found each other, our common goal--unfinished. Your hand is nervously tugging on the red jewel on your ear.

"Everything we've planned has worked so far." I pulled you closer, feeling more protective of you lying in my arms.

"That's because the Gods didn't care about those we've put down." And there's fear there, deep inside. The loathing and terror you gained when you were tied to the Chapels of the Old God stirred. God of Flesh, God of Material, and God of Souls, they'd ruled for hundreds of years.

We weren't the only two crazy enough to challenge their authority, but we're the ones who made the biggest dent against their stranglehold on the nations. We'd achieved this by avoiding direct conflict and becoming sovereign. Until now, we have not acted against them, but tonight we will declare, no Chapel shall be erected within our borders. We will change the lives of our citizens and the social order.

"We won't be going head on, just providing people with an alternative to relying on their power." I said, "Using water engines and magic instead of human sacrifice. It's just another option." I felt a long exhale leave your body, knowing full well my explanation didn't help your worries.

"Is that enough? I feel like we're cowering."

"We're working towards a better future, incrementally. We're freeing people. Taking their resources. Every citizen that crosses our border is one more freed from dependency on corrupt priests who carry out the Chapel's bidding."

"Promise me it'll work? That we'll build a world? Where no one will have to be taken again?" You cling to me like a child and I squeeze you close, wishing I could erase the pain in your history.

"It'll work."

"Promise me it'll work or we'll die trying?" You mutter.

"It won't come to that," I sighed, but I promise you anyway. I didn't know then, the dark mechanisms of the Old Gods were already in motion, headed towards us. In the following months, I was in blissful ignorance, focused on you and the fact that you'd become with child after that night. A babe we never even got the chance to meet because eight months later, our friend betrayed us. But you hadn't been that naïve. You sensed the dangers we were wading into, and you started to prepare your sacrifice.

That night, when the minions of the Old Ones descended, you were ready. You shouted my name then too, but with urgent trepidation. "Dom!"

I wasn't listening. I was too focused on how I was going to get you out of this attack by a legion of burning monsters, "You have to take--"

"Dom," you repeated.

"--the passage and get to the boat, I don't know if--" I tug at you to run.

"Dom. Listen to me." You shook and planted your foot on the ground. "I don't want children to be raised under the Old Gods and Kings."

"I know, so you need to--"

"Not just ours. I don't want any child to be raised how I was forced to grow up." You insisted, squaring your shoulders, and I knew that look in your eyes, a dangerous, reckless one. I immediately tried to stop you, but your magic was stronger than my feeble conjures.

"It's going to hurt." You pierced a blade through me. "I'm going to give you my magic and the ability to siphon power and lives. Finish what we started, what you promised. Don't let the Gods take what we freed our people from." As soon as her words finished, pieces of her started drifting away like smoke. I tried to grab at the gossamer strands, but I could not collect them along the wind as my Eveleen cursed me to immortality, going where I could not follow.

###

I am with you now, in a different time, a different place. Your name is similar to hers, Evelyn, but that's about it. You don't have magic. Your hair is brown instead of black and your eyes are amber, reminiscent of honey or burnt sugar, and you smell like it too.

No, you're not the same woman who saved me from the Old Gods, yet as I made love to you, I couldn't help but be reminded of her.

Then, barely a moment after I got you dressed, the walls shake and I'm gasping with pain on the floor of the kitchen as this all too familiar scene replayed again.

Betrayal? I briefly think the worst of you, that the Gods sent you as a last ditch assassin, centuries after I'd eliminated all their footholds, rooting them out life by corrupted life.

I brace for that actuality as the fabric of space tore open a blackened gash and Inock's tentacles poured forth. An old foe, one I thought died when I killed all the Kings of the kingdom that allied with the Gods. This time, however, I can sense Inock is not as strong a demon as it once was, while I'd grown stronger, even as I am affected by the mark that our enemies placed on you.

I gather magic dense in my hand, magic given to me by my wife almost a thousand years before. Just as I found my Eve again, my enemy has revived as well, and this time they have their grasps on you, but you cut decisively and Inock's limb falls. Not Betrayal.

"It feels what I feel." You conclude, glancing at the tentacle monster. Its writhing limbs ate up more space in the kitchen, but its full body was still hidden in the crack of space like a turtle.

Void magic merges with lighting in my palm, but I hesitate to use it. Inock is tied to you and I don't want to see you hurt.

The monster taunts. "Come with me now, and I'll give you all the pleasure you seek, as you suction more of his power."

And you have that look, the very same as the one from nearly a millennium ago before Eveleen stabbed herself--just as I couldn't stop it then--I was helpless, watching you repeat history.

"Eve!" I scream with both the agony of that night as well as this, witnessing your sacrifice.

"Please keep your promise." You whimper as you fall and all I see is red as I run to your side. Magic pours from me to you, erecting a brilliant green glow around us, healing you till I'm confident you're no longer in danger, before I set my sights on Inock. It left the safety of its void, and is trying to break into the green protection aura.

Deadly anger distills into my cold hard fist as I conjure power into my knuckles. I stride forward. Before Inock can react, I punch open its protective shell, reach into its void, and strangle the monster with my bare hands. I tear out its entire lodged grotesque form and drag it into this reality. It screams, thrashing wildly, but it won't die, not yet, not till I get all I need from Inock to destroy the ones who hurt you, both of you, once and for all.