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Denathrius rarely indulged like this anymore, and never for his own personal pleasure - which was as difficult to define as it was to achieve. It had been eons since he felt anything so mundane as desire, longer still since any of his creations had successfully inspired it. No, this act - like all the Sire of Revendreth’s actions - was for the benefit of others; either lesson or reward, depending on the recipient. In the case of the Maw Walker - the mortal who defied, deposed, and, on one anomalous occasion, defeated him - it was decidedly the former. And if there was any pleasure in it for him, it was seeing the champion of the Shadowlands on her knees.
This was a lesson in humility. Or, that was Denathrius’ intention. The mortal did not look particularly humble, even with her mouth stretched so impossibly wide. It could not be comfortable. He did not intend it to be. One of his hands, large enough to hold the whole back of her head, did so; firmly, ensuring she could not pull away. But she did not try. She merely shifted, adjusting her angle, the better to fit more of him inside.
“Look at me,” Denathrius instructed, and she did, raising her eyes to his as another inch of cock slid past her lips. But whatever pain or shame or impotent rage she ought by rights to be feeling, she gave no indication. She looked bored; her face blank, impassive. As though she were doing the Master of Revendreth a reluctant but not especially taxing favour.
The Maw Walker had a gift for doing exactly what was asked while still managing to defy his intention. Denathrius found this maddening.
On no counts could he accuse her of not paying attention to her task. This was no mechanical bob of the head while her mind wandered elsewhere. He knew what it looked like when a soul abandoned its senses; the eyes went dull and vacant, and the pale ones staring dutifully up at him with their indistinct sclera were not so. She even had a technique, of sorts. She twisted both hands around the length she could not fit into her mouth, her fingernails dancing carefully along the sides of sensitive skin, while her small, warm tongue flicked patterns around the head. All distantly pleasurable, Denathrius supposed, but hardly exceptional. Nothing to explain why his Firstborn was so enamoured of her. Perhaps she was more engaging when her heart was in the act.
Where humility could not be coaxed, pain could usually be substituted. But Denathrius was infuriatingly limited in what he could do to the mortal he still needed for his plans. Tightening his grip on the back of her head, he snapped his hips forward at an angle, forcing the tip of his cock past her tongue into the velvety confines of her throat. She choked, the noise wet and muffled; that was something. He could feel her blunt mortal teeth scrape his sides as her mouth convulsed around him. But despite this deeper intrusion, the Maw Walker’s expression did not change. Her heavy dark skirts pooled around her as she sank closer to the floor, tilting her head where he could slide in more easily, breathing hard through her nose and swallowing as best she could manage around his suffocating cock.
Denathrius sighed dramatically. He could drag out whips and chains - the heavy-handed tools of the unbeguiling - but why put himself to the trouble? He could not risk any permanent damage - he needed her body and mind intact. And there was no guarantee they would affect her, anyway - she was a thoroughly strange creature. So far, she had shown the most open displeasure and defiance when ordered to secure herself into the modest Venthyr serving dress she wore. His order to fall to her knees and crawl to him, to serve him with her mouth, she had simply raised a long eyebrow at before acquiescing. Making the exercise both pointless and pleasureless.
With a quiet, dissatisfied sound, Denathrius stepped back and let himself slide, dripping, from the Maw Walker's mouth.
“That will do for today,” he declared, watching her closely for reaction; any betrayal of fear or disgust. But she only sat back on her heels, wiped her chin on her sleeve and waited patiently to be dismissed.
What did Renathal see in her, wondered Denathrius when he had sent her away. But he indulged only a minute in contemplation of this mystery before dismissing it too. Likely, the answer was something depressingly simple. Lesser creatures often worked in mysterious ways. Their rebellion was a perfect example.
Now it was behind him, Denathrius could look on the whole affair for what it was: a disappointment. He had not taught his creations to think on his level, that was his mistake. They could not appreciate his vision, comprehend his plans. Fortunately, he was magnanimous enough to forgive them that, even the Prince, on whom the whole wretched affair could largely be blamed. Requiring a greater portion of his limitless compassion were his brother and sister eternals: the Primus, the Archon, the Queen, inexcusably small-minded and unprepared to stray from the strictures of eternity as dictated to them by irrelevant and antiquated forces. And Zovaal, of course, who grasped the vision but lacked the requisite patience and power to execute it successfully, leaving the plan in shambles and failure in his wake.
Denathrius sighed. Alone in his own private chamber, it was a wearier, less orchestrated sound. Really, the fault was his own for relying on any besides himself. He had long since come to the realisation there was no one and nothing like him; that could think as he thought, could see as he saw. It was a lonely, thankless burden, being a god.
This rogue thought had haunted him for eons, but lately - since his return to Revendreth and his proper place - Denathrius found he could no longer banish it to the back of his mind. It nagged at him, like one of his own demanding creatures, inspiring increasingly grim thoughts and a moroseness of manner he could neither mask nor shake. All results of his missing - stolen - power, no doubt; the power the mortal would retrieve for him in time. He could wait as long as necessary - he was patience itself - but that did not make its lack any more pleasant to endure, or the despondency it caused any less concerning. Depression of spirit made one reckless, careless, left one open to the potential for mistakes. Regrettably, there was no cure. Even a god could only wait for it to pass. There were, however, safeguards and treatments.
So the Master of Revendreth locked himself away. For two days, he brooded alone in his chamber, refusing to be consulted or disturbed; busy with “more important matters” was his official decree.
On the third day of his seclusion, he rang for anima wine.
He was sitting in the chair by the unlit fireplace, unguligrade legs stretched out in front him as she had seen him often enough before, but the Maw Walker recognised something off in the Sire’s posture even from the other side of the dimly lit room.
His armour was missing; he was clad only in his fur-lined robe, and there was an unfamiliar tension in the broad expanse of his shoulders. His hands plucked restlessly at the arms of his oversized chair, as if anticipating a glass. His long white braid fell limply over the chair’s back, the diadem on his forehead glinting dully in the red candlelight. He was not preening or posturing, or watching her approach from the corner of his eye. The Maw Walker could almost believe she was seeing the Sire in his natural state.
An unusual enough occurrence to knock her momentarily off her axis. She blinked once, slowly, just to be sure what she saw was right.
“Well?”
She jumped, the contents of the silver tray in her hands clinking slightly. The Sire had not turned, but there could be no doubt to whom he was speaking.
“You think I cannot tell you’re there?”
The Maw Walker did not answer. The Sire’s voice held none of its usual arrogant amusement. This voice was raw, and thrummed with the genuine displeasure she had witnessed only a few times but which she knew meant danger if she said or did the wrong thing. Her walk across the chamber to his chair therefore contained a measure more deference than was her usual wont. She had still found no particular reason to respect this being, god as he claimed to be, but even she knew better than to press this point now. Instead, she set the tray carefully on the table at his elbow and took up the decanter of wine.
The Sire did not thank her, nor offer any of his usual condescending compliments. He did not even flick an imperious finger to indicate she was dismissed. He received the glass she held out without looking and drained it in one long, inelegant gulp. No appraising sips, no holding the glass as though he were posing for a portrait. Apparently, this time, he needed anima - or alcohol - as more than affectation.
Wordlessly, he set down the glass, and without waiting to be asked, the Maw Walker picked up the decanter and refilled it. This, the Sire did notice, and, at last, turned in his chair.
“How attentive,” he said without inflection.
She met his eyes - an impertinence he routinely punished but which apparently ingrained habit she was finding hard to break. Today, however, the Sire made no comment, only watched her scrutinise his face. The Maw Walker was searching for signs, anything familiar, but this was not a mood she had encountered and she was unsure of the right course to take. Falling back on the response the other servants had taught her, she held the glass out and asked mechanically, “Is there anything else I can do for the Sire?”
The Sire appeared to mull over this offer and the second proffered glass before accepting the latter and asking, “Are you… an imaginative sort of soul?”, a question so strange and unexpected, the Maw Walker could only blink at him, wondering if her brain had misinterpreted the words. Fortunately, he did not seem to require an answer.
“I assumed you must be.” The Sire spoke between sips. “All the things you did… all the plans you brought to ruin when every angle had been so well… anticipated. But of course,” he glanced at her quickly, “you won’t remember that. Never mind it.”
He drained the glass and held it out. The Maw Walker refilled it without taking her eyes from him.
“I only wondered,” he continued after a fortifying draught of this, his third glass, “if you possess the ability to imagine what it is like… being a god. Being the creator, the sustainer, the life breath of a realm, as it were. No one can understand it, obviously, but perhaps a singular sort of soul might be capable of imagining. They never seen to end up here, though.”
His face contorted as he threw back his head to drain the rest of the glass, then slammed it to the tray with enough force to rattle the decanter. The Maw Walker flinched slightly, but the Sire was too lost in his rambling to notice.
“No, the Purpose very rarely sees fit to send me such gifts,” he said bitterly. “I am the workhorse of the Shadowlands, vouchsafed only the dregs from whom I must squeeze ever more anima for the rest of the realms to enjoy. It is an endless burden… a thankless task.”
The Sire lapsed into stormy silence. His rings clinked together as he once more stroked the arm of the chair, but he demanded nothing further. Another servant, a better one, would have repeated their well-trained line and slipped quietly away as soon as could be tactfully contrived, leaving the Sire to his private thoughts. The Maw Walker raised the decanter and poured a fourth glass of anima wine.
“Aren’t there other realms of the Shadowlands?" she asked in genuine curiosity. "Other rulers like you? Can’t you visit them? Keep each other company?”
A few loose strands of pale hair hit her face as the Sire’s head whipped round. It was obvious he had not anticipated a response, but it did not appear to anger him. If anything, when the Maw Walker blinked the assault from her eyes, she thought she caught the first flicker of amusement in his face she had seen since she arrived. He took the glass from her, but did not immediately drink.
“Yes, there are. My brothers and sisters.” He pronounced the words with a sneer. “But even when I was in a position to commune with them, I did so rarely. They are perfectly content to dwell among their own allotted portions. Their thoughts do not stray. I suppose that means they do not have so many. What an unfathomable pleasure.”
The Sire drowned his mirthless laugh with another drink and continued before the Maw Walker could think of a reply.
“And of course, even before all... this…” He waved in vague indication of something which apparently existed in the surrounding air. Perhaps, the drought. “I could not leave Revendreth to its own devices for long. I am responsible for the realm, and everything that dwells within it. Their existences rely on me. I am their god.” The Sire’s lips curled as if the word was sour on his tongue and washed the taste down with more wine. “It is my lot to spend eternity caring about their struggles, contriving an interest in their achievements however minuscule and meaningless. They lack perspective. They do not think -”
A sudden vehemence gripped the Sire. He seemed to vibrate with uncontainable fury. His robe slipped from one shoulder, his glass rattled against his rings, drops of deep red wine splashing onto his exposed chest.
“- They are... incapable of conceiving an existence in which there is no one on whom to release such burdens. No higher authority to whom one might bring one’s troubles and triumphs, one’s miseries and victories and doubts-”
The Sire broke off, as if he only just remembered the Maw Walker standing still as a statue beside him, drinking in his extraordinary confession with wide, pale eyes. For all his talk - and the Sire greatly enjoyed to talk at his servants - she had never heard him speak with such visceral emotion; every word of his admission like blood dripping from some massive, unseen wound.
It did something to her; made her heart beat faster, pumping out feeling; set her mind racing to plans of rescue and aid. But how did a mortal fix the problems of a god? What advice could she give him when she herself knew nothing? What surcease could she offer the Sire he could not devise for himself?
The Maw Walker did not know. So, she asked.
“Is there ... anything I can do?”
This time, there was nothing proscribed or rehearsed in the words. They rang with a quiet, earnest meaning. She wondered if the Sire could hear it.
He did.
Denathrius swiveled in his chair, leaning his weight on the velvet arm, set his half empty glass on the table and appraised the mortal standing rigidly beside him. True, he was very slightly inebriated, but he did not think it was the alcohol adding the low, fervent timbre to her voice or the vibrance to her face neither had ever revealed in his presence.
“What an unusually… accommodating offer."
He waited, watching her curiously, but the Maw Walker lapsed into her customary silence. Her face, too, had resumed its staid, unshakeable mask. Denathrius allowed another full minute to pass in which each simply stared at the other, but when the mortal failed to do or say anything else of interest, he leaned back in his chair, shoulders slumping as he expelled a weary sigh. It tasted like wine. It was the drink, after all, causing him to imagine intriguing undercurrents where there were none; his own sinfully under-used mind’s desperate attempts to stave off this insidious gloom.
Another time he might have enjoyed toying with the Maw Walker and her foolishly open-ended invitation, but Denathrius did not have the fortitude or patience to devise more lessons today.
"You’re dismissed," he muttered carelessly with a lazy flick of his fingers in the direction of the servant's door. "Leave the wine," he added, then settled himself deeper into his chair and let his thoughts slide back into their morose mire.
Perhaps the fourth glass had been a mistake. The brief surge of invigorated spirit Denathrius had felt when unburdening himself to the mortal had evaporated. He felt tired, weak, a thing he had only recently known he could feel, but the newness of the experience had worn off and, on balance, he much preferred consummate power.
The crown. He needed the crown. Denathrius indulged in a bit of voiceless, pointless bemoaning, only distantly aware of the Maw Walker's footsteps fading as she crossed the room. His ears perked at a series of unexpected clattering, rattling sounds but he could not be roused to any real interest until the noises abruptly stopped and the footsteps resumed, growing louder.
The Maw Walker was walking back.
Denathrius sensed her presence behind him before her hot mortal breath hit the skin of his bare left shoulder. The idea of attempted attack flitted briefly across his mind, but it did not particularly concern him. What could she do to him without her powers? The suspense lasted for two more shaking breaths, then the Maw Walker’s ungloved hands reached tentatively for his braid. Meticulous fingers slipped the tie from the end, unwound it, and combed through the newly loosed strands, and the source of the prior commotion was revealed when his own soft-bristled brush she had purloined from somewhere in the room was pulled carefully through the length of his smooth, untangled hair.
Surprise was another rare state for Denathrius, and, in his recent experience, usually followed by much less charming emotions. Now, however, he revelled in it, and this unanticipated service, letting naked, primal sensation creep across his scalp and down his spine. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, the better to allow the mortal access to the rest of his hair. She neglected nothing. The long, loose portions that fell over his shoulders and chest, she gently collected, gathering them back into the main mass with those warm, careful fingers; petting and smoothing, stroking his scalp after every cautious tug of the brush.
Denathrius had no idea what this was about or for and did not currently care. He enjoyed the not knowing almost as much as he enjoyed the Maw Walker’s ministrations. But whatever her abstruse plan - if, indeed, she had one - it extended past attentions to his hair. After a time that felt far too short, her hands vanished, and a soft thud indicated the brush had been dropped to the carpet. Then the Maw Walker draped his waterfall of hair across his unrobed shoulder and, hot breath audibly hitching, urged the sleeve on the other side down.
And then those same warm fingers - a world more expressive than their owner’s face - were travelling the length of his neck, rubbing patterns into his skin, attempting to unwind the tension in his shoulders and undo the knots in the muscles of his exposed upper back. For such small hands, they were remarkably effective, like the wear of warm water against eternal and unyielding stone, and Denathrius gave his senses wholly to the pleasure. He was barely conscious of his own protracted hum of approval.
The Maw Walker was.
The noise was a deep, mellifluous purr. It did something hot to her body she was not entirely happy about. But that did not stop her hands’ delicate exploration across the available sampling of the Sire’s cool, flawless skin. It was taut as it looked, softer than she expected, and delicious under her fingers. For long minutes, she was lost in the feel. Until her arms hit chair, startling the Maw Walker from her sensual reverie, and she realised she could reach no further from this angle.
Her hands stilled, awaiting further instructions from her brain, which was as sluggish as if she had drunk four back-to-back glasses of wine.
“What has prompted this unusually solicitous display, I wonder.”
The Sire’s low murmur broke the spell. The Maw Walker could feel the words as he spoke them, vibrating under her hands. She drew them hastily away from his skin and, for the first time, glanced over the Sire’s noticeably more relaxed shoulders.
He was sprawled luxuriantly in his chair, legs splayed and robe askew, his entire body on unabashed exhibit in all its well-chiseled glory, and the sight of him half-erect reminded the Maw Walker of his previous lesson: his odd attempt to punish or seduce her, or whatever the goal had been. She was not sure whether the experience was intended to be enjoyable for either of them, but it had still felt like a slight on her abilities that she failed to coax him to release. She wondered if that was what he needed, if it would ease his tempestuous mood. Perhaps it was harder for a god, took longer, took more. Perhaps a mortal could not do it.
Which made him a challenge. The Maw Walker decided to try.
As happened when her brain locked onto a course of action, her body seemed to follow instructions before she had consciously articulated any. Her legs stepped over the hairbrush of their own volition, around the side table and its forgotten wine, and to the front of the Sire’s chair, her hands already attempting to unfasten her overdress along the way. The process was decidedly unseductive. Undoing the myriad tiny buttons and nearly invisible clasps was an unglamorous battle that required her whole attention, so she caught only the last glimpse of what might have been astonishment on the Sire’s face before it was wiped clean, replaced with a narrow-eyed inscrutability.
He made no move to assist her undressing, but he did not stop her, either. The Maw Walker was undeterred. She had set her course and was determined to see it through. Wriggling gracelessly from the tight overdress, she let it fall to the floor, followed swiftly by the frilly pants which her newly freed arms could finally reach. She was still bound into the corset and its connected underskirt, but that was more easily navigated, and she lifted the thin material past her knees as she approached the Sire’s chair, feeling bolder than she really had a right to and irrationally pleased to see him harder than before.
Distracted by the sight, the Maw Walker had one knee beside his on the seat before realising his massively muscled thighs were spread too wide for her to straddle him and maintain any degree of balance. As if sensing her dilemma, the Sire shifted, sliding his legs closer together, allowing her to swing her other leg over his until she was sitting awkwardly astride him. His now burgeoning erection waited ostentatiously between them, and, in another burst of belated and intimidating physics, the Maw Walker understood what a struggle this would be.
She knew what she was doing, in theory, though she had no memories of doing it before. Her brain provided a rudimentary lesson on the mechanics of how this was supposed to work, but it offered no insight into how she was to fit something of the Sire’s size into her significantly smaller form. They were two different sorts of creatures - one’s proportions clearly not intended for the other - and for the first time since the Maw Walker had set herself this quest, she doubted her ability to complete it. She hoped her misgivings weren’t obvious.
Her misgivings were obvious.
Denathrius, watching the mortal’s every miniscule movement, saw the doubt suddenly flicker behind her supremely confident mask. Her gaze flicked from his face to his cock, apparently waiting for him to move next. His lips twitched in the closest thing to a smile they had known in days. Very well, then. He would play her game.
Carefully, so as not to dislodge her, Denathrius shrugged entirely free of his robe and, smirking at her sharp intake of breath, snaked his arms around the Maw Walker’s ridiculously small torso. With movements more precise than any other being's could be after four glasses of strong anima wine, his long nails dug into the laces of her corset; tugging at first, then ripping when the process became tedious, shredding the sides of the stiff material until it fell in ruins from her chest. The skirt was next. That required some effort on her part, which she readily gave. Denathrius' smirk felt delightful on his face. He had never seen her so eager to comply.
The Maw Walker re-settled herself against his naked legs, entirely bare before him and looking, somehow, more relaxed. A strange creature indeed. Denathrius leaned back in the chair, letting his eyes and fingers wander her offered body, making a production of inspecting every reachable inch of warm, mortal flesh. Presumably, her form would be considered beautiful by those of a certain visual persuasion, but what he found most alluring was the cocktail of confidence and nerves she emitted. He could smell her fear, feel the wary tension in her thighs, both at war with her pale eyes determined glitter.
They had stared each other down much like this once before, in a room not far from here. Then, too, the Maw Walker had refused to surrender despite inevitable and obvious defeat. Denathrius had found it inconvenient, galling; eventually, deserving of outright rage. Now, he found it titillating. His arousal only grew as he watched her decide what to do. He wondered what he would enjoy most: breaking her body if she made the attempt, or her spirit if she conceded.
“Second guessing yourself?” Denathrius asked, unable to disguise a tremor of anticipation. “I am quite the undertaking.”
The Maw Walker’s indecision coalesced into conviction. She sat up, balancing on her knees.
“I like a challenge,” she retorted, arranging herself above him, and, without hesitation, settling her hips back down.
He was big. He was too big. He was impossible.
The Maw Walker made no attempt to stifle her gasp. The head of the Sire’s cock was all she could take before she froze, breathing hard and fast around the indelible, searing stretch.
The Sire did nothing - did not move, did not breathe - but his red eyes never left hers, not for any of the long, laboured seconds. They glowed hot with disbelief and amusement and something else, something fiery, that kept her going. She rocked her hips delicately, sinking another inch before stopping, hissing at the pain. The breadth of him was insurmountable, his length indomitable. He was too much for her. The Maw Walker sucked air in through her nose. She could smell the wine on the Sire’s mouth, suddenly closer to hers, a heady, intoxicating odour. His lips twitched. She gritted her teeth and pushed back, gaining another mountainous inch.
Why? her mind demanded as it bravely battled pain. Why was she doing this? Did she want to help the Sire or beat him? The Maw Walker wasn’t sure anymore. But those eyes ignited something violent in her blood. The Sire was a challenge she would win. And already his expression was less strained and despondent. He was here with her, not lost in his head, and she was responsible for that.
Emboldened, the Maw Walker leaned against the Sire, pressing a hand to his hard stomach for leverage as she conquered another inch of his shaft. He tensed this time; she could feel the muscles bunch under her fingers, just as she felt his cock twitch inside her, the sensation eliciting a half-suppressed moan. She chanced a downward glance and choked on another sound of lust and panic. She was stuffed already, and the Sire was barely half sheathed.
This was unthinkable. This was madness. She had to stop. She didn’t want to.
“You will break yourself on me,” rumbled the Sire in a voice deliciously strained.
It was the goading the Maw Walker needed.
“I’m not … so delicate,” she panted.
The sudden slam of her hips against his made both their mouths drop, the Sire’s guttural growl lost in the Maw Walker’s half-agonised, half-elated cry. The pain was unbearable; the pleasure was astounding. She could feel the Sire in places she did not know had feeling, places where nothing was supposed to be. But there he was; an invasion she welcomed. She squirmed against his legs, needing friction to break up the endless, exquisite torment. Clutching at his unyielding chest with both hands, she attempted to lift herself off him, but managed only the barest centimetre before falling back. She was stuck.
The Sire came to her rescue. He shifted beneath her, the slight change in angle brushing nerves the Maw Walker did not know she had, inspiring a galvanized gasp.
“Look at you…” he crowed, his voice slithering delectably across her skin like the fingernail he was dragging down her spine. “He was right. You are a singular creature...”
He sat straighter, bringing the Maw Walker with him, wrapping both hands around her waist - large enough to encircle her fully and strong enough to lift her body off his cock. A brief, blissful noise of protest from them both, then he guided her slowly, savagely slowly, back down.
The Sire of Revendreth was a blurry vision of blazing red eyes as the Maw Walker’s own watered with the transcendent pain. He gripped her securely, sliding her up and down his cock with a cruel and unhurried leisure. Every time he left her, she wanted him back; and when he was there, she thought she would burst from the fullness for which her body was surely never intended. His ornate rings dug mercilessly into the flesh of her arse as he kneaded it between his fingers. They would leave a mark. The thought prompted a delirious, lust-drunk giggle. The Sire was altering her body from the inside out, into something only he could ever use again; a little bruising hardly mattered.
And did that mean she had won or lost? wondered the Maw Walker, then a shift of her hips made the Sire hit something different inside her. Something previously undiscovered, something gorgeous and profound. And she decided she did not care.
"Denathrius..." His name was dragged from her lips before the Maw Walker knew they had parted. "Denathrius," she called for him again, a license he had never extended and the sound of which cracked the last vestiges of their individual self-restraint.
Denathrius - it was the only way she could think of him now - suddenly snapped his hips with more purposeful vigour, looking for something from her body she would willingly, joyously give. One hand left her waist to encircle her throat, one thumb all he needed to tilt her chin up to find his eyes.
“Look at me,” he commanded, and this time, the Maw Walker knew what he wanted to see: her desperation.
She wore it like a sacrifice. Her cheeks burned with the heat of it as she held Denathrius' hypnotic stare. She could not have looked away if she wanted to - as trapped in his gaze as his body - her bleary eyes wandering the sculpted face she had never fully appreciated: the curl of his generous lips as he drove deeper into her, the hair that fluttered past his horns and glinting diadem with each insistent thrust. She had never imagined this expression on him: unpracticed, unpolished, radiant, raw, and alive. The Maw Walker no longer knew if he was terrible or beautiful. She only knew she wanted more.
And wanted him to enjoy her. The thought wormed its way through the Maw Walker’s euphoric haze. That was important somehow. Her hands crawled the length of his taut muscled arms to his shoulders as she struggled to her knees, canting her own hips back where his body joined hers, matching his demanding pace. It was easier now. There was liquid gliding their movement.
“Oh, good girl,” crooned Denathrius, and his praise made the Maw Walker glow.
Why his approval should make her feel so giddy and rapturous was its own mystery. She had never wanted it before. But now it was imperative she prove herself more than servant or penitent, and she met each thrust with a roll of her hips and a jubilant sound that spurred Denathrius to frenetic speed.
“Yes,” he encouraged her. “Louder.” His own voice far from its carefully modulated resonance as he snarled, “Scream for me!”
The nails clutching her hips gouged wounds in her tender flesh. But the pain was a triumph, now, a proof of his pleasure, and the Maw Walker’s obedient cry a thing of anguish and release. Her back arched, her inner walls quaked, and she abandoned herself to a litany of undignified incoherence, each depraved sound earning Denathrius' blessing as her body fell to pieces around him.
There were no memories for the Maw Walker to compare the experience to, no way of knowing if it was always so mind-shattering, so electrifying of body and soul. She did not know if it was normal for her hands to assume free reign, to caress his hair, his horns, his face, desperate to touch him anywhere. But she was sure it was misconduct of the highest order to bring her lips to his, to kiss him so freely, her mouth leaking open greed. But Denathrius did not stop her. He let her moan her comedown against his lips, her words an infusion of mindless pleas and praises. She wondered if he understood them.
He did.
The fractured confessions of abject pleasure between audacious, clumsy kisses inflamed Denathrius' already boiling anima. He bared his fangs, girding himself against impending release, as the Maw Walker's body shook around his throbbing cock, her orgasm long, loud, and frantic.
And did that mean he had won or lost? he wondered, then her walls contracted, squeezing him so viciously his vision swam. Nothing of his own creation had ever been so feverishly warm, so impossibly tight, so inviting. And he decided he did not care.
With a final whimper, the Maw Walker's knees buckled, and she crumpled against his abdomen. Denathrius’ laugh was a short, wild, animal sound as he caught her fast.
“Oh no, no, no, my magnificent mortal,” he growled against the top of her head. “I am not finished with you yet.”
And Denathrius stood, the fire in his anima granting his limbs an echo of their indomitable power. Not that he needed it. Her weight was nothing to him, limp as it was. He adjusted her body more securely against his, finding that place within her that made her convulse and resuming his exacting thrusts.
The Maw Walker clawed her way up his chest to cling to his shoulders, wrapping her shaking legs around his hips as far they could reach. Her cries resumed as he pistoned relentlessly against her, mingling exultation and surrender; Denathrius thought it might be eons before he tired of the sound. Her blunt, mortal nails marked a presumptuous claim on the skin of his arms and back as the cries gave birth to words at which Denathrius could not help marvel. His sheer size, not to speak of his punishing rhythm, was an experience no mortal should be able to survive. How many souls had he broken like this? Yet the Maw Walker begged him for it, pleaded for more, for faster, for - of all things - harder; a wanton stream of desperate, self-destructive demands he was delighted to indulge.
But not for long. Climax coiled delectably at the base of Denathrius' spine. He planted his hooves and fucked the Maw Walker until he could not see. Sparks subsumed his vision, and it was several gushing seconds before he realised the drawn-out snarl of satisfaction he heard was his own. Interesting, was his mind’s last thought as it momentarily stuttered; he could not remember ever uttering such an inelegant sound.
Eventually, the radiant storm of anima settled in Denathrius’ veins. The chair’s velvet was soft against his sweat-slicked back - and when had he sat down again? He did not remember doing so. However it happened, the movement must have upset his connection to the Maw Walker's body. That tight, inviting heat was no longer clenched around his softening cock, and he registered a mild disappointment at its loss. But it did not truly bother him. Nothing did, now. For the moment, Denathrius felt once more a god; intrinsically content and untouchable by anything so quaint and mortal as disappointment or despair or doubt.
Speaking of mortals...
Denathrius looked down, almost surprised to find the Maw Walker still crushed to his chest. He had become accustomed to her slight weight against him in a remarkably short period of time. Relaxing his arms, he released her with a reluctance he found equally intriguing, and waited.
The Maw Walker groaned.
The sound was a precocious blend of weariness and vindication. But, at his low chuckle, the dark head shot up, pale eyes alert and assessing. She pushed off his chest, arranging herself into a more decorous seat, which Denathrius deliberately upended by stretching his legs, toppling her back against his body.
“Well, well," he said, voice brimming with high humour. “You are just stuffed full of hidden talents, aren’t you?"
Propping her chin on his chest and brushing wrecked hair from her face, the better to meet his gaze, the Maw Walker assumed a weak imitation of her signature insouciance.
"You never asked."
Denathrius laughed. It was the first time since their other, fateful encounter in the room near here that the Master of Revendreth had felt disposed to such a cheerful, uninhibited sound.
Had this been a similar demonstration? Denathrius wondered as the Maw Walker clambered off him with a dignity as shaky as her legs. She could not remember their previous battle, but perhaps it was her instinct to assert what little power she had; to prove she could best him, transform even the most torturous lessons into something for her own enjoyment. He watched crimson rivulets run down her thighs as she bent to retrieve her clothes - his own anima essence mingled with her warm mortal blood - and had to concede: he did not know.
Humbling for a god, to come face to face with unprecedented and indecipherable motives. It did not change his plans, of course - he would still ensure she found the crown for him, restored him to full power. But afterwards... Denathrius spent a few minutes in contented contemplation as the Maw Walker awkwardly redressed herself, her struggle with such a mundane task peculiarly endearing... afterwards, perhaps it would make the rest of eternity more interesting to keep an unexpected element around.
Sufficiently clothed, the Maw Walker began gathering up the unsalvageable undergarments.
"I will arrange a replacement," said Denathrius. He wondered if her wince was to do with the act of bending or the thought of strapping herself into another corset, and on a good-natured whim, added, "For the dress as well."
The Maw Walker paused in the laborious act of straightening up, shredded fabric forgotten in her hands as she fixed her blank gaze on him.
"That one hardly suits you," he said languidly, stroking his chin in mock contemplation. "I think... something simpler. More navigable. Perhaps with easier...access."
A heavy pulse of silence. Then the Maw Walker blinked. Then she smiled; a warm, living expression Denathrius had not seen on her face before. Perhaps he was simply inclined to be generous post-orgasm, but he thought he understood now why his Firstborn found it appealing.
The thought was appealing.
Even in the face of her various aches and pains and muddled worries about the ramifications of her actions and implications of those last laden words, the Maw Walker's dominant emotion as she limped from Denathrius - the Sire, she corrected herself strictly, she would have to readjust to that - was relief, at the thought she might soon be free of this stiff, stuffy, hated Venthyr dress.