Chapter 8

Avar

" T his is your bedroom?" Maddy gasped, twisting in my arms.

I'd claimed the west side at the bottom of the mountain for my bedroom, so I could watch the sunset every night. Few souls had visited my mountain. Even fewer had been here, in the space that was entirely mine.

A shiver of unease ran down my spine as I crossed the threshold with Maddy in my arms. The sensation was similar to the mountain's trembling when its space was invaded. Invasion of my personal space always was insufferable. But Maddy had to be made comfortable. She needed a bed. And since I had to stay with her, I needed space too.

There was only one bed that would accommodate both of us comfortably. It was my bed in the middle of my room under the natural skylights on the side of the mountain with four granite columns for bed posts .

The flowers of the glowing vines that stretched between the columns absorbed the sunlight through the day, and now glowed with soft purple light, emitting a fragrant golden shimmer. The golden sparks reflected in Maddy's dark-brown eyes.

"You sleep here?" she marveled. "This place looks like it's from a fairy tale. But then again, the entire Purgatory started as a fairy tale, didn't it?"

I ran the tip of one of my tentacles down her arm, and she smiled. With the purple glow reflecting off her warm, honey-brown skin and the golden sparkles dancing in her eyes, she looked like a fairy princess herself.

Travan's collar pulsed pink around her neck. Maddy's pupils dilated, and her eyes widened with a puff of breath rushing from between her parted lips.

"Avar..." She gripped my shoulder. "It's getting stronger."

"I know, sweetheart. But there is no need to worry. I'll stay with you until it passes. You've been doing great."

The spell of the collar was made to last through an entire night. Maddy had been managing it amazingly well. I'd feared she'd be in distress, in so much anguish that her mind might give in and break. Instead, she smiled and stretched like a kitten, ready for petting when I placed her in my bed.

"It feels weird," she pondered. "I don't feel in control, which should be unnerving, but it's actually exciting. Maybe because I'm with you?"

Warmth pulsed deep in my chest at her words. But it meant nothing. Tonight, her words carried no lasting meaning. I had to remember that.

"It's the collar speaking for you," I reminded us both.

I needed this reminder, lest this warm, unfamiliar feeling would lead me astray. It wasn't me who made her lean into my touch and open her legs in invitation. It was the cursed Travan's collar. I just happened to have a little more decency than the man who had put this collar on a woman the last time. I would not have forced her to wear it, but I still proved rotten enough to enjoy seeing her whimpering and dripping with need.

"I want you, Avar," she moaned.

Heat throbbed through my entire being, burning like a lightning bolt in my crotch. Yet I forced it down, keeping my cock concealed. I couldn't fuck her. Not even when she begged me. Not even if the need burned me alive.

All I could do was touch her. There was no other way to help her without that. I slipped the tip of my right tentacle between her legs, my corollas kissing her skin on the way.

She opened wide for me.

"Please, Avar. I need you." She grabbed my hand and placed it on her breast. I squeezed it lightly, stroking the hard bud of her nipple with my thumb.

Impatient in her desperation, she slipped her hand between her legs, rubbing herself. Frustrated groans fell from her lips.

"You can't help yourself," I reminded her. "Let me do it for you."

Taking her hand in mine, I licked her fingers. Her flavor quickly proved addicting, and I couldn't get enough of it. I placed a corolla over her most sensitive spot and wrapped it around it, like a rose petal around a pearl.

She gasped, bucking her hips. With my tentacle sucking at her on the outside, I slipped a finger inside her.

"It's so...so good." She rolled her head on the pillow, her eyes glazed over with lust. The pink glow of the collar made her skin look almost translucent. "More... I need more."

She turned to her side, then climbed to all fours .

"Fuck me, Avar. Please, fuck me." She thrust her plump, round bottom against my pelvis.

My cock sprung out against my will. With her eyes closed, her mind floating in the fog of lust, she didn't notice even as she thrust backwards against it.

My mind reeled as if under a spell too. It'd be so easy to slip inside her. I could force it to shrink to fit her sweet, dripping hole perfectly. I could...

But Maddy wasn't herself. My cock, my finger, my tentacle—it was all the same to her right now. She wouldn't know how she really felt about any of it until the sun came up and the spell wore off. Until then, she was entirely at my mercy. She had no choice but to trust me. And I'd be worth less than slime under a rock if I broke her trust. She'd hate me if I did, and I'd hate myself even more.

I cupped her ass with my hand, carefully moving away the temptation. Reining in my straining cock, I slipped a tentacle around her thighs and gently stroked the slick heat between them.

She moaned in pleasure. Her elbows bucked, sending her into my sheets, with her delectable bottom sticking up in the air.

Oh, sweet temptation, who could escape you, be he a human or not?

Not me, clearly.

I plopped on my back, my feelers trembling in anticipation. I lifted Maddy over my head, careful not to hurt her with my horns.

"Avar? What are you doing?" she murmured, breathless from lust.

"I need another taste." I positioned her core over my mouth.

My feelers curled around her thighs, keeping her in place as I plunged my tongue inside her .

She squeaked, halting her breath at the invasion.

"Oh God, Avar, so good..." She rode my tongue, gripping my tentacles for support.

I sucked the hot little bud of her clit between my lips. My feelers strayed all over her body, and I had to hold them back from exploring places she might not want me to explore if she wasn't wearing the cursed collar.

She tensed, rubbing herself faster against my mouth, then screamed, coming hard. Trembling, she fell forward, letting go of my tentacles and gripping my horns instead.

With her hot, little palms wrapped around my sensitive horns, desire shot through me like a lance of heat. I jerked with a violent shudder. Losing her balance, Maddy fell off my face and onto the covers. She stared at me, catching her breath.

Her gaze slid downwards, where my cock bobbed out in the open—thick, hard, and pulsing with desire to ravish her for the rest of the night and beyond.

"You do have a dick," she stated, her throat bobbing with a swallow. "And it's simply fantastic, just like the rest of you."

I didn't know where I found the strength to pull my cock back in to hide it from view, but I did.

"Aww." Maddy pouted. "That's not fair. You've touched and licked me everywhere tonight. I want my turn to do it to you too."

"It's not about me." I slid my hand up her side, skimming her hip before cupping her breast.

It shouldn't be about me, but the pleasure I derived from touching her couldn't be helped. Her orgasms resonated through me with need I could barely control. I only hoped my self-control would last longer than the collar's spell.

"How are you feeling?" I palmed her breast, kneading it gently. With her mind lost to the spell, her attention turned back to her need once again .

"Better but..." She let her knees fall apart, opening for me. "It's not over yet."

"Are you ready for more? Or do you need a break?"

I plucked the hard bud of her nipple. Her hips jerked in response, and she whimpered.

"More, please. I'll rest after."

Lowering my head to her chest, I stroked and tweaked her nipples with my feelers while my hand slipped between her legs to play with her again.

It'd been a while since I had a soul in this bed. Maddy's sweet body was a special treat, of course. But nobody had ever enticed me this much before.

I'd been with a woman who was still in possession of her mortal body only once before. She was a nun in the monastery where I'd come to retrieve the recipe for the transcendence potion I had to replenish in order to travel between worlds. The moment after I'd made her come, the fun-loving but pious nun called me a demon and tried to stab me with her crucifix, forgetting all about how she'd begged me to fuck her just a minute before.

Humans were bizarre creatures. Their relationships tended to be messy. I loved pleasure, just like all my brothers did, but I wouldn't sacrifice my sanity for it. An occasional night with a soul stuck in Purgatory was good enough for me. Here in Purgatory, a soul knew what it wanted. There was no need to pretend. A soul wouldn't beg me for sex, then try to send me to hell tormented by guilt right after.

I hoped Maddy wouldn't be wracked by guilt come morning, either. Whatever she felt tonight, I hoped she'd remember it fondly. Because I knew I would.

She climaxed again, with my name fluttering off her parted lips, her fingers fisting the bedding.

"I don't know how much more I can take," she said softly, hiding her face in the sheets.

Sweat beaded between her shoulder blades. I pulled a blanket over her flushed, naked body.

"You should rest while you can. Close your eyes. I won't touch you unless you need me again."

She sighed, scooting closer.

"Who knew a mortal sin could be so considerate?" She smiled, her eyelids drooping already.

Lust must've taken a toll on her body. I didn't have a body, but I felt tired too. I promised not to touch her, but I stretched alongside her and let her snuggle into my chest.

"For the record," she murmured, her warm breath tangling with the feelers of my beard, "I don't find your tentacles repulsive. In some monstrous, terrifying way, I actually find you very attractive. You are a handsome, considerate monster, Avar, and I like you very much."

That must be the effect of the collar's curse. She had far more reasons to hate than to like me. I snatched her from her world against her will and with no way for her to ever come back. That was a big enough reason for her to hate me if not for the rest of eternity, then at least until the end of her current lifetime.

Still, her words made me warm inside even without her touch. Somewhere, deep inside my chest where humans had their hearts, I wished there was a way for her to truly like me, without any collars or spells.

Exhausted, Maddy fell asleep within moments, snoring softly into my beard. She'd be awake soon, writhing and moaning with a new surge of need. The collar wouldn't let her rest for long, not until morning. And when it was over, she'd be back in her own room again.

A sudden regret gripped me. For the first time in my never-ending life, I wouldn't mind sharing my bed for longer than just a night or two.

I lifted a tentacle and ran it along Maddy's shape from her head down to her toes, hovering it just above her without touching. Every curve and every dip of her body belonged to me. I owned it. And tonight, I learned exactly how to use it to bring her pleasure. But it wasn't enough.

The problem with greed was that no matter how much I had, it was never enough.

Her body was mine. But I wanted more. Now, I needed to possess her soul too. Without a soul, the body was nothing but an empty shell, and I craved to own the light that breathed life into it, that made her sigh and laugh, walk and talk, glare at me or beg for my touch.

I wanted Maddy, both body and soul.

SHE SPENT THE REST of the night alternating between drifting to sleep from exhaustion and begging for sex. Sometime after midnight, we ate the dinner that E had brought, then went back to bed. By morning, the spell had finally worn off, allowing us both to get some sleep.

I woke up to a slight tapping against one of my feelers. The sun flooded my cave with bright light through the skylights in the side of the mountain. Lying on her side, Maddy held the feeler in her fingers, examining it closely.

She noticed I was awake and quickly let go of the feeler.

"Morning." She smiled awkwardly. "Did I wake you up?"

"No," I lied, hiding a yawn in my beard. "I was almost awake anyway. "

"I didn't know that sins could sleep. Come to think of it, there are so many things I still don't know about you."

"Is that why you were scrutinizing my feeler?"

She smiled again. "I was just trying to figure out how I could touch you when you're not supposed to have a body."

"I don't have a body in the way you do. There are no bones, tissue, or blood. But I am a being. I exist. I have a presence that may be more noticeable in some worlds than in others. In the human world, I'm more of an idea, considerably less defined or tangible than I am in Purgatory. Here, my presence is more solid, and so is my shape."

She ran a hand up my arm, then squeezed my shoulder.

"If it's not flesh and blood, then what is it?"

"Light and shadows. Color and scent. Not everything that lives is made of flesh and blood, my presumptuous little human." I slipped a finger under her chin and tilted her face to me for a kiss before I caught myself with a start.

I wasn't supposed to do this, no matter how natural it felt.

Clearing my throat, I moved my finger to her necklace instead.

"How are you feeling this morning, Maddy?"

Her smile dimmed, and I longed to hope it wasn't because of the collar but because of the good-morning kiss I was going to give her but never did. Did she regret not getting it?

"I'm good. I think..." She touched her neck.

The collar now looked like a choker once again. The stones separated into pink flowers inside the golden filigree setting.

"Do you want me to take it off?"

"Yes. Please." She shifted closer and tossed the tangled mane of her dark hair over her shoulder to expose the closure on the back of her neck. "Can you do it now?"

The closure proved too small for my fingers, but it opened under the tip of one of my feelers.

"There you go." I released her.

"Ooof." She rubbed her neck with relief, as if I'd taken the heavy boards of a medieval pillory from around it. "Thank you. What is this thing, anyway?" Maddy glowered at the collar in my hand. "Where did you get it?"

"It's a long story."

Using a tentacle, I placed the collar on the stone ledge that ran around the bed. I should return it to its box rather sooner than later, then lock the box in a safe place. But Maddy was still in my bed, and that was exactly where I wished to be too.

"We have some time, don't we? Tell me the story, even if it's a long one," she insisted.

"You should have breakfast. It's close to noon already. We slept in."

"We ate dinner so late, I'm not hungry yet, not even after all that... activity through the night." She propped her head on her elbow, pulling the covers higher over her chest. "Tell me about the choker, please. Why do you have it?"

"This piece wasn't created with good intentions, Maddy."

"I gathered that much." A somber shadow crossed her lovely face. "Please tell me you weren't the one who created it."

"No. Absolutely not." I propped my head on an elbow, too, towering over her. To keep eye contact, she had to roll to her back, looking up. "The collar was made by a mage of Emperor Travan who gifted it to his concubine, Princess Pialeni."

"He gifted it to her? Did she ask for it? And how did he have a princess for a concubine in the first place?"

"Princess Pialeni was the only daughter of Travan's sworn enemy. Travan and her father had fought a long and bloody war for over a decade when Travan's people captured Princess Pialeni on his orders. He intended to use her against her father but took a liking to her and quickly got obsessed. Unfortunately for him, the princess hated her captor with a passion that no lavish gifts could extinguish. Travan even offered to make her his wife, but the princess only laughed in his face. Infuriated, he forced her to become his lover."

"He forced her? Do you mean he raped her?" Maddy paled, but such was the bitter truth of those times.

"Repeatedly." I nodded. "The power was on his side, there was nothing she could do. He brought her to his chambers almost nightly and had his way with her. Yet her spirit remained intact, and her hatred for him grew. With time, owning unwilling Pialeni's body was no longer enough for Travan. He wished for her to want him, too, to need him, and to beg him. So, he ordered his mage to make the collar using my brother's spell of lust. The wearer of the collar becomes overcome with passion but can't find release on their own, needing the help from another."

"How appalling." She grimaced, peering through my chest at the collar on the ledge behind me. "Why did you even want that thing?"

I shrugged, wondering how to explain my all-consuming need to possess and the excruciating fear of loss that came with it. Unique things were often fragile or small. And if a one-of-a-kind item broke, got misplaced, or disappeared in any other way, it'd be lost to me forever.

"The collar was the only one made, and no other can ever be created again," I said. "When my brother Lux learned about the collar, he changed the spell of lust and has been keeping it a secret ever since."

"The Sin of Lust didn't condone the creation of that collar?"

"Of course not. Lust is the source of one of the world's biggest pleasures, but only as long as everyone is a willing participant. For the unwilling ones, the lust of others is torture, which is not what my brothers and I are about. We bring pleasure to those who sin with us. Anguish, despair, and sorrow are best left for the virtues. My sisters thrive on sacrifice."

Maddy bit her lip, a wrinkle of concentration forming between her dark eyebrows.

"Did you steal the collar from Princess Pialeni?" she asked.

Of course, she'd assume I stole everything, just like I'd stolen her.

"No. I traded with the princess. In exchange for the necklace, I gave her a dagger laced with poison. She killed Travan with it the very next night, then escaped his palace, and returned to her father's kingdom."

Maddy breathed a sigh of relief for the princess.

"Please tell me Travan is rotting in hell now."

I shook my head. "The Higher Judgement ruled otherwise for them. Both Travan and Pialeni have been sent back to your world several times now. In every lifetime, he finds her and begs her to be his. And every time, she refuses him."

Maddy's eyebrows shot up to her hairline.

"Is that fair? To use her as the tool for his punishment?"

"The Higher Judgment is infallible. The princess must have her own atonement to complete."

She scrambled into a sitting position. The cover fell to her lap, exposing her breasts. She quickly grabbed the blanket and covered them up, proving that the spell of the collar was gone.

Now, I knew exactly how she felt about me—she didn't want me to see her naked. A pang of regret squeezed my chest.

"But they don't remember their previous lives, do they?" she asked. "Pialeni and Travan can't recognize each other in every lifetime."

"That's right, they can't. They meet as strangers. Yet his obsession with her and her hatred for him proved to be too large for one lifetime, spreading into all of them. Power has never been on his side again, however. He hasn't come close enough to even touch her. She has refused him over a dozen times now. So, in a way, he is in hell—only in one of his own making."

She sat in silence for a few moments, probably pondering the wisdom and logic of the Higher Judgement.

"Do you agree with that?" she asked.

"What does it matter if I do or not? No one can change the verdict of the Higher Judgement. Not even a Deadly Sin."