Vassal by Sterling D'Este (ebook reader computer TXT) 📕

hand reaching to gently grip the front of his tunic. He swallowed hard.

He had taken worse.

Much worse…

But Etienne was starting to doubt the logic of his current decision, especially after the last time he stood up to Enyo. He didn’t want to break any more bones. Still, he couldn’t give in yet. Not this easily.

Behind them, Delyth continued to bustle around the campfire, but Etienne didn’t let the sounds draw his eyes away. Instead, he held his ground beneath the increasing scrutiny of the Goddess.

Enyo chuckled, releasing his tunic with a flick of her wrist.

“I hadn’t realized you had anything worthwhile between your legs, Mandi. What a pleasant surprise to see otherwise.” Her fingertips came to brush up the length of his thigh. “Do you know, it has been such a long time. So very long since I was offered the pleasure of watching…” She smiled, and for once, it didn’t look cruel.

༄

Delyth had all but finished the dinner Alphonse had started when she heard Enyo speak again. It had been silent for a long stretch, and the halfbreed cursed herself for not noticing it sooner. She leaped up and turned to find them.

Etienne was flinching back, his shirt rumpled and his face pale from fear or discomfort. Delyth wasn’t sure. Enyo’s hand—Alphonse’s hand was tracing lines down his unsteady thigh.

“W-watching?” Etienne stammered, and Delyth groaned inwardly. What had he done to get her so riled up?

“Enyo,” she said, stepping closer, “leave Etienne alone. There’s food to eat instead.”

The Goddess turned to look at the food. She sniffed and then turned up her nose. “This body does not require such things.” A downright lie. Alphonse had been talking just minutes earlier about how hungry she was.

“What will you give me, Ba’oto, to consider your request?” Her gaze traced over Delyth’s fine features and then her bust, down her strong legs.

Delyth shifted uneasily, but at least the Goddess’s attention had turned away from Etienne. Even after being around Enyo on and off for weeks, it was still unsettling to see Alphonse’s face leer.

“What do you want, Taouk?” she asked. She supposed she could always make another sacrifice of her blood, but Delyth hadn’t told Etienne about that one. It was too close to the first time Delyth had truly seen Enyo. Too like drinking Alphonse’s blood.

“A gift. Give your Taouk a gift.” She gestured between Etienne and Delyth. “Join.” A simple command.

“No.” Delyth felt more than saw Etienne turn towards her, but her eyes never left Enyo. “Ask for something else.”

Alphonse’s brows, normally pulled together in hidden amusement or arched in delighted surprise, darted straight up her forehead.

“No? Hmmm.” Enyo shrugged, as if she didn’t care one bit. “This is all I require tonight. The moon is smiling, the curving womb of Esha. I wish to witness two bodies becoming one. You two are the only bodies present at the moment… Unless one of you would prefer to enact such ravishing things with me?” She grinned widely.

Delyth’s anger was deep and cold, a frozen lake at the center of her chest. She had drunk blood, she had given blood, she had begged and bartered and sold much of her pride to please the Goddess.

That night, she found a line she would not cross.

She would not couple with Etienne, and she certainly would not touch Alphonse with the Goddess there.

“You are an excellent hunter, Taouk,” she said with false levity. “Go find a rabbit warren and watch.”

❂

Enyo’s eyes drifted to a wincing Etienne, his hand pressed to the center of his chest, just where her mark would have been. “You feel the same, Mandi?” she asked. As if she cared for such things as feelings. Her tone was a warning. If they denied her. If they fought her on this...

Etienne paled at the sudden return of Enyo’s attention. “Surely, there is something else you would like, Enyo?”

Between them, Delyth just crossed her arms, her eyes like stone.

“So you will not join each other, and you will not join me?” she clarified, though it was obviously unnecessary. Then she nodded slowly.

“I will not eat tonight,” she announced, turning away from the two and resuming her studying of the tree. If they would not yield to her what was due, then she would simply make them pay. And the easiest way to do that was to control Alphonse, their sweet little pet, and bide her time until the opportunity struck.

Enyo had been learning.

If Alphonse was hungry and tired, it was easier for Enyo to take and maintain control.

And then she’d make them bleed for this disobedience.

She had learned from the very best how important obedience was, and she knew precisely which pressure points made people break. Yield. Succumb to her will. Her time in the Cursed Realms hadn’t been a complete waste. She knew how to gain control of weaker beings. She would not be bending to their whims. Never again would she yield.

✶

Etienne looked uneasily at Delyth after Enyo’s pronouncement, but she surprised him by appearing unfazed. “Fine,” she said simply. “But, you picked a poor night for it.”

The warrior strolled back over to the fire and lifted the pot from the flames. “I used almost twice the usual amount of meat and added herbs from my mountain village, the last I’d carried with me. When was the last time you tasted the fruits of a Brig’ian valley?”

She sat eagerly and poured herself a bowl of stew, raising it to inhale its fragrant steam.

It looked as if Enyo might toss the contents of Delyth’s bowl, boiling hot as they were, into her face, but then the Goddess shrugged and headed towards her tent. Clearly, she was going to ignore her mortal companions.

The fire crackled, and the sun fully set. All the birds and daytime animals settled down for the night. And it was just Etienne and Delyth at the fire. Their cheerful friend long gone.

For several minutes, Etienne and Delyth ate. Delyth had been right, the stew was unusually good, but