And Eat It Too

AND EAT IT TOO

L ily sleeps with her cheek pressed against my chest, her hand curled in mine. She's a perfect little creature. I doubt I deserve her.

Drawing circles over her back—the skin so smooth under my furry fingers—I ignore the ever-multiplying clocks overhead.

She can't see them. If she could, she would have asked about them already.

Inquisitive and brave…

Ester may have underestimated my Lily in this bargain they've made.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Those clocks are a reminder for me, not for my soon-to-be-bride.

Ester may be the less cruel of my mothers, but the god of spring is impatient.

She wants a new heir to the Valley, and she wants them now.

But time isn't real and I won't rush my sweet little mortal.

Why would I give her up before I have to?

Murmuring to herself, she snuggles into my fur and I consider closing my domain up tight. Wrapping us in a shell to keep both the Old Gods' realm and the mortal one out as well.

But if Ester chooses to punish me, it will be Lily who bears it.

She stirs, hand going immediately to the black mask she wears. Its ears mark her as mine. Her small fingers explore the material and then she looks up at me with a smile—almost too eager—on her beautiful lips.

"Did you know you talk in your sleep?" I ask, tracing the same line her fingers just had.

"No." There's a flicker of panic—just a slight widening of her eyes—when she says it.

I don't like the way fear looks on her. I don't want to see it, ever again. "They're not real words. Just fractal thoughts and confused noises."

The clocks far above us tick louder until my ears twitch from the abuse.

Lily doesn't notice.

But I detangle myself from her and stand, pulling her out of the messy nest of cushions and pillows.

I'd rather keep her there.

I'd rather fall into this place we've made with each other and never come back out again. But even gods have their duties and debts.

With a wave of my hand, a veil of a dress falls over her. Fabric made of the night sky, dark and shimmering, pierced with the light of a million infinitesimal stars. It grates at me to hide even an inch of her beauty, but for the moment, it's necessary.

"We are going for a walk," I say, even though it's not an accurate summation of what I'm about to drag her into.

"A walk?" She looks up at me with suspicion and I wonder if she knows how readable her face is.

I should tell her what's about to happen, but if Ester hears…

"You'll win your prize soon enough, Lily. But there are rules here." Rules that only apply to her as the future Lady of the Valley—the future mother of my child. Rules that seem to change for every Lady who watches over the Valley without a godparent.

"Rules I'm allowed to know?" she asks, pressing her lips together, dark eyes searching mine.

"Just know you'll never be at risk. But you will need to do as I say. And—" I brush my fingers along the underside of her chin and tell her what I can. "Remember that Ester's bargains always require more of you than you thought you agreed to."

I hold out my hand, and brave little mortal that she is, she doesn't hesitate to take it.

"I've gotten everything I want so far…" she says, straightening her shoulders and taking a deep breath. "Do your worst."

I love her.

How strange to be so certain, so quickly.

I love her and I refuse to lose her simply because I would rather delay discomfort.

The door to Babel appears the moment I will it into existence and when we step into the space shared by all the gods, I pause for the briefest moment.

Before now, this place had been a void of ugly people and vacuous gods vying for attention and favor. Now, the floor is thick with a layer of smoke. Dark, plush leather couches and deep purple neon fill the space.

I am not the only thing changed because of her coming.

Babel is meant to mold itself to a mixture of a mortal's expectations and their god's domain. I gave her nothing. This Babel is entirely of her making.

Knowing that eases me.

Lily's gaze flits over the room, landing on two of Lako's kittens. They've been here longer than any devotee not bound to a god, and they cannot be trusted.

"They will be your friend up until it's no longer convenient for them," I say softly to her.

She doesn't look away from them as she says, "Isn't that everyone?"

I don't want her to think that of me. But I don't have any way to prove it, not without prolonged exposure. And the ticking clocks have followed us here.

I sit on one of the dark couches she conjured up in this place without knowing it, and drag her over my lap, moving her dress until my erection—ever present around her—knocks against her stomach.

The dress covers everything and nothing all at once, and the vultures have already started to circle.

"Here?" she asks, leaning close, only the barest hint of concern in her question.

"They need to know you're mine."

Ester demands a sacrifice: the both of us on display.

"Don't the ears give it away?" she asks, reaching up to touch them.

"No. They need to understand you are only mine." I grip her jaw tightly and make her meet my eyes. "And they need to see it to believe it."

Her gaze hardens and her spine stiffens, but her smile is sweet.

"You don't own me," she says it low enough no one else will hear—not even the gods who have appeared to watch us.

"Don't I?" I can't help but tease her.

"No."

Maybe not, but I smile at her, loving the fight in her. "Not yet, Lily… but soon."

"It was a bargain, not a bill of sale." Her lips purse and I have a feeling she already knows that's exactly what it was to my mother.

Out here, we can't let any of them know her resolve has started to waver.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I grab hold of her hair, twisting it in the tight grasp of my fist and she gasps, eyes wide as I make her lean against me, so that I can whisper the next words in her ear.

"I thought you wanted this." I need to know that it's true. "I thought you wanted to be the one to carry the next of us into the mortal world and take the Power that comes with that."

She doesn't hesitate. Her words are sure. "I do."

"And this is a part of the cost, Lily."

I use my grip to force her up higher onto her knees.

"I'm going to let you go now, Lily. And you are going to fuck me in front of everyone here—the ones that are pretending they aren't watching and the ones that don't care how eager they look, trying to get a peek at your pretty pussy."

"And then?" she asks, licking her lips, eyes dark with desire once more.

"And then I'm going to fill you up with my cum again and again. Until it takes."

"Always in front of them?" Her lips purse. She doesn't want that.

I don't either.

"No." I growl before I can help it. "This is a sacrifice we both have to make. But only once."

I can see the ones she cannot. I know how they would like to sneak between us and steal her away from me.

They think she's my toy and they want to play with her too.

But I don't plan to share.

"If," she says, leaning into me, "they require a show… we'll have to give one to them."

She repositions her hips and a wicked smile parts her lips.

"Don't you want to show them I'm yours, Jack?" She whispers the words against my cheek, dragging herself over me.

The idea that I have to prove it makes me growl. The low sound makes her smile. "Don't you want to convince me ?"

Giving her what she wants isn't going to be enough. I have to make sure that she comes back to me when she has it.

I drag her against me, uncaring of how the angle exposes us.

"Lily? Do you want them to know how pretty you sound when you come?" It is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.

"Maybe." She bites her lip, teasing me.

I shift her until I can spread her open, displaying her to anyone who cares to see. Her eyes don't leave mine. There's a challenge in them.

I caress her and wish I could see the way she glistens beneath my fingers.

"The question," she asks, her breath hitching and pussy clenching on my finger when I press inside of her. "Is whether you want the assembled crowd to know how quickly you can get me to come… or how high you can keep me without tipping me over that edge?"

My cock jumps with the need to fill her again.

"I have a feeling Ester gave you to me to punish me." There is no reward that doesn't cut.

She chuckles and presses a kiss to my chin. "Just what everyone wants to hear when they're about to get fucked in front of strangers."

As a punishment of her own, I take hold of her hips and slam her down on my cock. Her cry of ecstasy is the sweetest sound. I want to make her scream.

"Make sure you can take what you ask for, little mortal."

She squirms in my hold and I won't let her rise, but she rocks her hips and I clench my teeth.

"You're not going to break me," she says.

She's right. I won't. And this will all be clearer to our spectators if it's obvious that she wants me, perhaps as much as I want her.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

I loosen my grip on her and she moans as she finally has the space to move.

If the other gods need proof that she is mine, they'll get it.

I let her work and play and chase her first orgasm, helping where she needs it, but letting her be the one to find it.

Fingers sliding up her ribs, I toy with her nipples and she closes her eyes, arches her back… her moans echo through Babel and even though my focus is on her, I still see the god of pleasure hold back one of their devotees.

Everyone in this place wants her—or they want to be her.

She is a creature made of need and lust. A creature made for me.

"Open your eyes, Lily." My fingers tweak her nipple. "I want you to know who's fucking you."

Eyes fluttering open, a wicked smile slips across her lips again.

"I know who I'm fucking, Jack."

Good.

That wicked smile, the movement of her hips… How could any of them think she belongs to anyone else?

I plan to remove any doubt.

"Now that you're used to me…" Hands tight on her hips, I take the control I'd relinquished to her.

Her body is mine to claim, mine to fill, mine to love. The need I feel for her eclipses all reason.

I fuck her mercilessly and her head drops back as she moans sweet and sultry encouragements intermixed with attempts at my name.

I don't want her to speak. I want her to feel and understand.

Her hands trace up her stomach to cup and grasp at her breasts and I grind one knuckle against her clit until she comes apart with a broken cry and the entirety of Babel pulses with purple lightning in time with the waves of her orgasm.

That lightning ricochets around Babel until it coalesces around her and though she can't see it, a tiny flickering crown floats between her mask's ears. Purple lightning that only gods can see.

Holding her tightly to me, still hard inside her as her pussy strokes me through the end of her orgasm, I wait, ignoring everyone else here.

And when she's ready… "Look at me, Lily."

Her head flops forward, crown bobbling, and she meets my eyes with hers half-lidded. Breasts heaving with each breath, her smile is soft and a little sloppy.

I slip my hand into her hair to hold her in place when she starts to weave.

"You are mine. No matter how much you pretend to fight it. You'll learn that, eventually."

"If you say so." She kisses my chin and squeezes tighter on my cock.

There's something in those words that makes me think they're a different way of saying, "do your worst" again, but I'm not going to break her.

No one will harm a single hair on her head ever again. Anyone who tries will rue the attempt.

But I haul her off me and the dress evaporates when I take hold of it.

Dropping her onto the couch on her hands and knees, I enter her from behind and shiver at the new gasp that leaves her lips. Sharp and desirous, it strikes straight through my chest like a pulse of that purple lightning.

I fuck her deep, deeper than she was able to get on her own and her nails claw into the couch. But I am the only one who can provide her with any stability now. I'm the one who keeps her from flying forward or falling down.

We still have an audience.

They can see every part of her. They've seen every part of me.

Their attention is fixed on her pleasure, coveting it.

She's a wet and wanton mess as I work at her clit. I could go for days if that was what she needed. But her mortal body can't. Even here.

Her arms give out and she drops to her shoulders on the couch, her neck at an odd angle.

She's fighting. Not me… not the pleasure…

Something else entirely.

Her fingers brush against my balls and I jerk against her. My fingers dig into her hips, I work her clit, silently demanding that she come first again.

She tries to squirm away, even as she pants and pleads. Finally, she comes with my name on her lips.

And I come right after, filling her with my marshmallow fluff as her body shivers and twitches through the end of her orgasm.

Someone behind us claps and I ignore them. There's a different sound that no longer accosts my ears.

The clocks are gone.

Nothing but smoke hangs in the air.

Lily doesn't move when I step back. There's a beatific smile on her face as my cum still oozes out of her.

Her pussy, fully on display and stretched wide by my cock, is a prize anyone still here would love to have their turn with.

But they'd quickly beg me to call Death for them if they tried.

She murmurs soft sounds as I rearrange her and turn her back the right way round.

I bundle her close, holding her to me as the others look on. As they observe and accept that she is mine… even if she hasn't yet accepted it herself.

She is mine.

I am hers.