Aen. Was it him behind the door? I studied it, as if it would give me answers, would help me face down what was probably a person I cared about hurt by my actions. Actions I didn’t even really understand. Why had I—?
Then there were The Changelings. Billy, Jake, Johnno, Liam, Lucas, they all beat at my mind, demanding more and more attention. I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the ache rise there. I thought I had it bad when I learned of their betrayal. Why was bringing them back into my life making things worse?
Because they’re arseholes, I replied to myself. Yup, I’d degenerated to that place, talking to myself, but even as I thought the words, I knew there was more to it. I wasn’t the same girl I’d been in Gisbourne. I could kick all of them to the curb if I wanted to, but that was the real problem.
I didn’t want to. Instead, I was host to a bunch of confusing, conflicting emotions that I just couldn’t seem to reconcile.
Rubbish, Lilith said. You know exactly what you want, you just don’t like wanting it.
Never one to fuck around, she showed me what she meant. Jake was strung up on a frame, his cock throbbing as I stalked around him, slapping a crop in my hand. Billy and I were naked, entwined so tightly, it was hard to tell where one started and the other ended, breathing feathery black smoke into each other’s lungs as we fucked. Lucas, I rode that fucking fat dick in a thunderstorm, out on the grass, the rain caressing my skin as he did, sending sharp little crackles of electricity skating across it. Johnno was quieter, softer. I was curled up in his arms, my head on his chest, one of his hands stroking my back as he read to me from a book. My lips tipped up at regular intervals to interrupt him for a kiss, until the interruptions became everything and he pushed me down onto the bed, dropping kisses over every inch of me. And then there was Liam.
My mind couldn’t settle on what I wanted from him. Sometimes, I was this dark queen making him lick my boot, other times, it was like it had been before when he was my dream lover. In the end, it was the two of us in Aen’s training room, but it was him I was fighting this time, and while he had some moves, I was on him like a hurricane, kicking his arse, knocking his feet out from under him, stalking over when he lay on the mats, struggling to get his breath back as I unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them off before settling my thighs either side of his head. I smiled as I cupped my hand beneath his head, drawing him up until his hands fastened around hips and his tongue dove in.
Another knock broke me out of my reverie. I shook my head, getting that weird disconcerting feeling you get after having a really vivid dream and your mind has to fight to shift back to reality, before going and opening the door.
“Makeover time!”
I looked blankly at Jen and Vervain, expecting to see anyone but them, but my friends stood there, waving makeup bags and hair dryers at me.
“What?”
“You’ve got a date with Lucas tonight, right?” Jen said. “And you figured going in the same jeans and T-shirt and Converse you always wear would be fine, right?”
“It is fine,” I ground out.
“C’mon, girlfriend,” Vervain said, pushing past and dropping her haul on the bed. “It’s a female rite of passage to work with your girlfriends to get as tizzied up as possible before a date. Jen mentioned you’d never really done that before. Well, Mama Vervain is here to cure what ails ya. Have you had a shower? We all heard about you guys rolling in the ashes today.”
“Um…not yet.”
“In, in! You smell like a campfire,” she replied, opening a door to a bathroom I didn’t know was there. Aragide apparently contained a multi-person shower and bath as an en suite to this room.
I washed myself thoroughly, slowly, my mind still struggling to process what had happened today. It was stuffed full, but I had to get out sometime, so when I padded outside in a towel, the two of them leapt off the bed where I thought they’d been getting in a little couple time.
“All right, can you conjure me a chair or something, or do I need to go and grab—Oh!”
We all looked as a gilt chair appeared in front of her.
“Did you do that or…” Vervain asked.
“I think…I think the palace did it.” We all looked around at the murals on the walls and the domed ceiling. “It seems to do things in response to what people need.”
“Really?” Jen said, cocking an eyebrow. “So, if I said I really needed everything on Vervain’s special Amazon wish list…?”
We turned when we heard the dull thumps of a bunch of brown boxes with the familiar logo on them appear on the bed.
“No way…” Jen said, then reached over and grabbed the closest one, peeling the sticky tape off. “Babe?” She turned around, holding a purple double ended dildo by the centre.
“Well, you said you love it when we both get off at the same time, and this dildo is supposed to be really good. There’s a spot near the head when you can add a bullet—”
Vervain’s explanation was cut off as Jen flung herself at her lover. I wasn’t sure where to look as they kissed, which got slower and deeper by the second.
Is that what Aen and I look like? I thought. Did I hold her with that kind of reverence? Kiss her like she was the last drop of water in a desert? Stroke her hair and then rest my forehead against hers, just grinning because I loved kissing her so much? I needed to if I hadn’t. I felt like I was being intrusive, watching something I shouldn’t, but when they turned to look at me, they just looked happy, radiantly happy.
I’d spent my life being tempted to envy Jen with her beauty and wealth, but never really succumbed until now. They touched each other like they had a right to, like they shared something so, so precious. Marlow’s face when I told him I loved him rushed to mind, but why did I still feel hollow?
It is within the nature of the avatar to love her consorts, Lilith replied. Connecting to Aragide, undergoing the trials. This is the pathway to love, so be careful who you take on that journey.
But why? Aren’t you a goddess? Why the hell am I doing this with them?
What I am is stranger still. She charged on as yet more questions came to mind. You will know in the end, but it’s not time.
People say that to me with annoying frequency. I could look you up and find out that way.
Read what you like about me. My myths are legion, but usually a view of my actions and my people through a lens distorted by the sky father. I am she who would not lie beneath. That part is accurate. She paused for a second, letting that sink in. Focus on me if you will, but it doesn’t change the fact you’re on a trajectory towards a very complex relationship, with all of your many lovers. The disquiet that hums at the edges of your being, driving you out of this bed and them with it. Know what’s coming, move towards what you want.
“Are you OK?” Jen said, her smile fading. “I’m sorry, we just assumed you were cool with—”
“You love her,” I blurted out.
Her eyes shifted from me to Vervain rapidly, then her smile returned, though it was shyer now.
“Well, yeah. I couldn’t really go there because of Daddy…” She shook her head at that. “Because of my father’s bullshit, I couldn’t let myself…” Her gaze changed so much as she looked on Vervain, I felt an instinctive need to look away.