Page 13 of The Night Belongs To Lovers

Sex? He understood that quite well, but carnal vices were for selfish pleasure; he knew it was not the same thing as love. He felt nothing for the exquisite male concubines whoserviced him or the handsome sons of neighbouring tribes who sought to curry favour with conversation and cock when their daughters proved to be undesirable currency. Satisfaction was not connecting; the erotic was never tenderness shared.

A knife kissing an enemy’s throat was the only brand of love Olympius ever knew growing up, all his father taught him. Still, it made him strong—until a mysterious affliction with no name or cure gradually caused his body to weaken.

But all was revealed after Olympius’ Becoming when he discovered the cause of his mortal sickness. That hated weakness was his Maker’s doing; Coeus had betrayed him under the guise ofDivine Saviour.

Vindictiveness, love, hate, desire—in Coeus, those dark passions were all one, distorted and barbed, and they swirled chaotically inside him, a maelstrom of perversity. The self-serving Titan had loved Olympius darkly, like the duplicitous beauty of the alluring rose bush whose brambles embrace its admirer tightly within biting thorns.

Oh, how Olympius hated his dark father, even in memory; he despised those kisses that tasted of death and deceit. The vitriol Olympius harboured took root on that night of revelation, and whatever emotion felt as a mortal, positive or negative, was increased a hundredfold as a god, magnifying the depth of his feelings.

The expansive and interminable contempt Olympius felt toward Coeus stemmed from discovering that the Titan had been draining his mortal essence at night while he slept, ignorant of the dark god’smachinations. Coeus was to blame for producing the young king’s physical weakness and mental confusion, creating an ineffectual leader so the Romans could easily invade and take back what they long considered theirs by the right of first conquest.

Olympius never discovered why Coeus had aided the Romans; the Titan displayed little interest in their inevitable victory.

That Coeus wanted Olympius for wicked, prurient reasons was vastly more apparent. The repetitive, nightly blood drainage made the boy-king the perfect vessel for the dark gift of his ichor: a slow bonding over time. Olympius was meant to be no more than a physical manifestation of his Maker’s lust and desire, made into an immortal plaything. He was Coeus’ creation—his property.

The self-loathing Olympius felt during his wretched malady, watching helplessly as his people mocked and ridiculed him, was crippling. And then, to take in their hatred when he could not assist them in the battle to save the city and his people was worse.

The guilt that ate away at him as he crawled along that desert floor, scorched daily by the heat of an unforgiving sun, caused Olympius to think of nothing but death. He wished for it. Only after giving up all hope for rescue and ceased moving, having become a dried-up husk, did Coeus come to save him, restoring and immeasurably enhancing his vitality and unparalleled beauty. Making him a god also preserved his youth eternally.

But youth, beauty, and strength without agency meant nothing, as the newborn god quickly discovered.

But fortune soon favoured Olympius in its most glorious form: the goddess Fortuna.

On a night black as pitch, she came to him when Coeus was absent from his side, an occasion that rarely occurred. Fortuna abhorred the enslavement of one god to another and offered her aid. Though she was not nearly powerful enough to defy Coeus outright, Fortuna sensed that Olympius was not just strong, as any offspring of a Titan would naturally be, but madeexceptionallystrong by his Maker; this enriched strength was a necessary ingredient to her scheme.

The goddess claimed that Olympius’ great strength and cunning, in league with her forbidden knowledge, would secure his freedom from seemingly endless bondage and servitude.

In a whispered voice that came not from her mouth but her mind, Fortuna revealed to Olympius a secret known to few: a terrible deed. This abominable act would mean destruction to any god found to have performed it. The Olympians’ wrath would be brutal, without mercy.

But Olympius cared not, for he bore no fear of anything anymore, numb to threats and persecution. They had done their worst, and yet he still lived. In defiance of the unending, strangling darkness Coeus wrapped him in, Olympius welcomed the bright light of clear understanding, dazzled by the knowledge of how to defeat his Maker—his adversary.

He told Fortuna he would enact her plan. What other choice was there?

At that auspicious juncture, Olympius recalled a moment from his mortal past: a formative and now inspiring act that would set him on an irreversible course toward achieving his desired freedom.

As disclosed to him, during his mortal birth, he had clawed his way out of the Queen’s dead body, her ravaged orifice gaping yet still a hurdle to overcome. The scribes wrote, and the storytellers recounted how he, a newborn babe, retched in the stagnancy of her fetid blood while performing the scream of life.

Olympius believed this account indulged in hyperbole, but the point remained valid: nothing would deny him his right to exist, to be free of fetters. His rebirth as a free immortal needed a similar ritual: the ravaging of his dark father’s body.

Fortuna blessed Olympius with luck to prevent Coeus from discovering his murderous intent despite their occasional blood communions. The young god knew that, eventually, his luck would run out. Time was not on his side.

And so one night, not long after Fortuna’s visit, as he worshipped Coeus like a lover, a master, and a father, Olympius took his anger, hate, and manufactured love and bit and clawed his way through Coeus’ body toward freedom.

As they laid upon a sizeable patrician lectus amid the finest silks, Olympius made love to his Maker gently, a bite here, a nip there, ingesting his potent blood judiciously so Coeus would not realize the repetition that allowed the godling to take and take, weakening the ancient one. He did his best to deflect the Titan’s desire to drinkfrom him, and his ability to produce ecstasy in his lover made the task all the more manageable.

Olympius performed this chore over many hours, even after the great Titan fell into a stupor, overcome by pleasure, the never-ending love-making session finally taking its toll.

After Coeus went unconscious, Olympius soon heard the voice of Fortuna in his mind telling him the time to strike the final blow had come—so the young immortal bit down on his Maker’s neck hard, savagely.

And he drank deep!

Coeus immediately woke from the pain and pressure. The situation he found himself in was startling; his weaker son-lover had taken him by surprise, asserting a wholly, never-expected dominance. Like a deadly anaconda, Olympius used every bit of his strength, which increased with every swallow of blood, to grip tighter and tighter to his Maker’s convulsing body.

Olympius needed Coeus’ power and strength to add to his own. The godling convinced himself that his Maker understood that. Did Coeus not adore him? Had he not opened himself willingly, allowing fangs to pierce impenetrable Titan flesh? Coeus’ violent screams were of joy, adoration, pure love, a gift of ravishment and rapture.

Olympius, in his twisted reality, believed this completely.

And though the weakened Coeus fought back, like a wild boar, tearing at the flesh of the hunter, Olympius considered it naught but simple instinct, nothing more. A struggle that would proveultimately futile as the Wheel of Destiny turned in his favour. The reason for Olympius’ new life, this second chance, was now before him.

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