Page 64 of Invoking Ruin

But the harsh glide of his thrusts stutters, his rhythm breaking as he nears his release.

He’s going to leave me like this, bound and frustrated. The certainty of it rolls over me like Deimos’ dread. I hate him.

I am desperate for him.

The vines loosen around my wrists, and I slip free. For a second, I don’t know what to do with myself, the sensation so shocking. But he doesn’t give me the chance to adjust, his hand splaying over my mound.

“Come for me.”

And then it all breaks apart. Not rolling wave so much as crashing tsunami. My whole body clenches, and all I can do is hold onto him, my nails scoring his back as I scream.

The only thing that registers through it all is the sound of his voice, gasping in my ear. “That’s it. Milk my cock. Take it all.”

And I do, shuddering and clamping as he spills himself inside me with a shudder.

The orgasm takes a long time to settle. I float, seemingly outside myself as my body rides the aftershocks, every twitch sending me higher.

Finally, I can breathe again, and I draw warm air into my lungs.

Just as I start to return to myself, Dionysus rolls away, leaving me wet and shaky all over again. Which is alright. I never expected him to linger, to do all the sweet little touches and whispers a lover would do, but it’s still harsh.

For a goddess who enjoys using others, I’m not as comfortable being the one who gets used.

He gets up on shaking legs. The knowledge that I did that comforts me a little, no matter what he’ll say next. Any cruel jab he might throw at me won’t change the reality: I undid him as surely as he did me.

Slowly, I push myself up. I’m a mess, my hair mussed, fluids leaking. The bed is no better. The magic of this place will clean the sheets, but I’ll need another bath.

Dionysus paces, restless and agitated. How much of what happened between us was planned? Somehow, I think it was more spontaneous than he’d have me believe.

His eyes, the rare moments they flicker over to me, are haunted.

Perhaps it wasn’t planned at all.

“When did you find out?” I ask him, unable to bear the silence anymore.

He stops in his tracks. “Athens. Nemesis and your sister found me.”

I breathe out a curse. Of course they did. My worst nightmare.

His gaze hardens. “Even now, you won’t even try to apologize? Beg my forgiveness for what you’d done?”

“And what have I done, exactly?” I rise to my knees on the bed. My thighs are sticky and slick with a mixture of our release, and I wince. Definitely another bath.

“Kidnapped me, for a start. Lied to me. Kept my identity and my powers from me.” He lists them off like a judge reading charges at a trial.

But I’ve spent a long time considering my own guilt. It hurts less than it should.

Hopefully, you haven’t done anything to him to make him hate you.

It’s far too late for that, isn’t it, Lethe. It was a doomed proposition from the start.

Slowly, I sink back down, dragging my knees against my chest to make a shield of sorts. “When I found you a century ago, I’d already been looking for you for… honestly, I’m not sure how long. You were wandering, lost. You didn’t know who you were.

“I tried to remind you at first, tell you who you are, but my sister’s Oblivion was very powerful. Nothing could penetrate it, and when I tried you reacted… poorly.” The screams from that night have haunted me for years. The night I found him. He’d attacked me like a wild animal until, abruptly, he went slack. When he awoke a minute later, he asked me in a sweet, empty voice who I was.

“So I took you,” I go on, “From one city to the next. I set you up in little bars, and your mind filled in the rest of the story each time. I don’t even know how it worked. It was like, you’d walk in and suddenly be someone else. Nikolas, David, Francesco, Alessandro.”

He’s watching me now, taking in every detail. I try to imagine what he must be thinking, or if he even believes me, but I can’t read him well right now. Does he remember all the names he had in between? Or is all of that time lost?

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