Chapter Eleven

In Which … Perhaps…

"Perhaps I need to be more transparent." He shifted his hands to the outside of my hips, resuming his kneading and pressing into my curves. "I think you made me to want you. For years, I knew nothing but pleasing you, of fulfilling our wishes. Perhaps the method given to me was unconventional, but I lived for stolen glimpses of your face after a battle well won. The sneer you'd make to my face when you'd thwarted my plans would sustain me for months. It might not seem logical, but it was everything I needed."

Those early days bubbled up in my memory. Things had been... flatter then, lacking depth. The stories that had so inspired me colored many of our battles, and I'd required him to be a great many people then. I was Agenezka to his Baba Yaga, Perseus to his Medusa, or Isis to his Seth, and never once had I wondered at his motivations.

Of course, he did what I asked; he was my subject, my creation, he had to do what I wanted. As time went on though, I could see, in hindsight, how instead of his machinations growing more complex as he tried harder to win, perhaps instead they could have been to find new ways to challenge me.

Did he understand then? That my greatest enemy, the bane of my existence, wasn't him—it was boredom.

When a mere thought could create whatever I wanted, it never took long for almost anything to lose its novelty. It was why I spent so much of my time pouring over our 'games' as I'd called them. Our contests were the only challenge I'd ever experienced. And as much as they infuriated me, they gave me reason.

As my creations grew their own thoughts and opinions, they stretched my mind and my abilities, but never anything, anyone, as much as Orcus.

He was a puzzle to me, and for centuries I'd cursed myself for creating him so perfectly.

But maybe...

Just perhaps...

I'd made exactly what I needed.

I finally opened my eyes and gasped at the vulnerability I saw in his eyes. He wasn't only asking for me to open myself; he was laying himself bare, too. I opened my mouth, attempting to speak, but it was too much, too soon, and I knew not what to say.

Instead, I nodded the slightest shift of my head, but I watched him see it. His eyebrows raised, his eyes opened just a bit wider, and his cheeks rose, softening the fierce lines of his face in awe.

I'd seen awe before, been looked at with it plenty of times, both real and feigned from my many subjects, but this was something entirely different. This wasn't reverence of a god. It was the pure, astounding shock of joy at the realization that something you'd thought lost to you might be within our reach. No, this wasn't the distant, impersonal worship I was so used to. It was intimate. It was hope.

Perhaps letting him be my safe place and being his in return wasn't an admission of defeat. Perhaps it was a gift.

I tilted my head and looked at him, and like the spark of creation that came so easily to me, I could see the beginnings of something. I could see the edges of me, where they ended and where he could fit. I could see the holes within myself he'd fill, and even how I could do the same for him.

I'd given him my magic, but when I touched it now, it didn't feel any different. It still felt like me. Creating him had been one of my first ever challenges. It had taken several tries. Time and time again, his predecessors had been flat and eventually, I'd needed to carve off a large portion of myself to give him enough life to truly be a worthy foe.

Perhaps then, it wasn't weak if I needed him... perhaps we were each other's soft place because with each other, we could be truly whole.