Page 18 of Monsters After Dark

Dominating the Demigoddess

Ophelia Bell

The fact that I woke up this morning with the urge to sing should have been my first warning the day would take an unexpected turn. When you’re a demigoddess whose sole purpose in life is to torment her worshippers with cryptic riddles, and who thrives on sodomizing them for the privilege of receiving such riddles, singing ruins the effect. I don’t want them in thrall to me, after all; I want them to experience every deliciously naughty second of the things I do to them.

But this morning, my gem-encrusted pool sparkles more brightly in the sunbeams streaming down from the grotto’s skylight above. The cool water laps at the tips of my many tails where they drape over the edge of the mossy ledge I call a bed. When I slip into the refreshing depths, each tail finds purchase beneath, carrying me into the center, where I await the first soul who might brave the path into my cave. They will strip bare in order to gain an audience with me, because there are no lies within the bounds of my powerful aura.

All who enter must show their true selves, and thus I am never surprised by what I see. And they all submit to me to gain what bits of wisdom I choose to share. They call me an oracle, a legend among the higher races, a being of immense power born of a union between three gods: Gaia, the Mother Dragon, and Dionysus, who shared their essences with one another to prove that Fate does not hold all the cards.

I am the product of that divine triad.

I am the Diviner.

But what I am is hungry, so I wish the first penitent of the day would hurry up and get here so I can have my breakfast. I continue to hum as I bathe. The priestesses visit weekly and leave me sweet soaps and soft cloths, and I take full advantage today, because for some reason, today feels special.

Each tail receives my full attention, and I work my way up from there. I am nothing if not fastidious about my appearance. My scales shine when I’m done, my pale gray-green skin glistens, and the writhing tendrils on my head nip at my fingers with their sharp little teeth when I pour water over them to rinse away the suds.

Next I stretch and flex each tail to warm up. Sometimes the penitents arrive in groups, so I have to be prepared to initiate multiple people at once. If they’re nymphs, they have more orifices to invade while I extract my payment from them. For the satyrs, I need my smaller tails to be limber enough to stroke their throbbing cocks while I violate them with the larger ones.

Some resist, but all eventually surrender. I never cause pain unless they ask for it. Every visitor leaves my lair satisfied on multiple levels. You would think they’d visit more often.

I’m so lost to my song I almost miss the low rumble of the earth around me, but the vibrations make my hair stand on end, every tendril writhing and snapping at the air. I go still, the cloth poised between my breasts. The surface of the water stills with me.

Then it comes again—a single footstep, but one from a being powerful enough to make the bedrock beneath my cave shake.

My heart skips a beat. Nothing that powerful has ever entered my grotto before. Can a creature that potent even fit through the narrow passageway?

In my periphery I catch sight of four Fate hounds, flickering wildly in and out like purple mirages, chasing their own tails or digging in unseen dirt. Their presence sends my pulse skyrocketing. It isn’t possible—Fate has no jurisdiction over me.

Except what if it isn’t Fate? There is another who commands the hounds, and I know her story. She has become a matchmaker for our kind, using her Fate hounds to seek out mates for humans blessed with divine blood. But it isn’t beyond reason to think she’d do the same favor for one of us. And I am well aware of which primordial beings she has allied herself with who might ask for such a favor.

“Ssstop!” I bellow, and the sunlight darkens. The hounds yelp and blink away. The reverberating footsteps halt for a second, then keep coming.

I grit my teeth. “I do not permit godsss to enter without an invitation! You are tresspassssing!”

He has the audacity to laugh, his deep voice reverberating off the stone, working its way up every single one of my tails and settling deep in my belly. It only makes me angrier.

“Do you really want to risssk it?” I challenge. “You may not enter my aura without being ssstripped bare. If you come to me, you come as your true ssself and you sssurrender to my whim. Thisss is my domain.”

I send my aura out in a pulsing wave down the open shaft visitors must climb to reach me. He will get a taste of what it feels like to lose purchase on his control.

“That tickles, my sibilant beauty. But I am more than just a god. Your rules do not apply to me.”

The water around me vibrates, heating more the closer my visitor comes. I fix my gaze on the exit to the corridor. I sense him far down the shaft, but can’t see him yet. His power dwarfs my own, and I push back, forcing with all my might to cool the water and hold his wild darkness at bay.

Only one creature in existence could overpower me to this degree. Despite fighting this unexpected invasion, part of me is curious what he will do when he arrives.

“Come if you mussst! But do not arrive cloaked in liesss. I want to sssee you in your essssence. You are entering my lair, therefore you will honor my rulesss.”

“This is not an invasion, my sweet,” he says. “This is courtship. Did you not see the hounds? We are meant to be, you and I.”

“By whossse authority?” I scoff. “Fate hasss no dominion here.”

“By mine. I require a mate who can match me in power. You, my dear, are quite perfect. I asked Ms. Rainsong to find me a mate, and she has more than delivered.”

My nostrils flare. It’s exactly as I suspected; Deva Rainsong’s little pack of Fate hounds brought him here. It seems even without Fate asserting itself, its magic still led a horny primordial to my doorstep.

His deep chuckle echoes. “I take by your silence that you have grasped the situation. You know who I am.”

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