Symbiotic Toy

Rejection notices for me means more reading for you!

August 20, 2010 at 7:20 am (Uncategorized) (fiction, hea, omg read, short stories, update)

I recently submitted to an anthology by Dreamspinner Press, and just found out today that I didn’t get in. I’m a bit discouraged but it’s not like I’m going to stop trying.

Anyways, I’m posting the submission up here – it’s called ‘The Godchild’, is about 4500 words, and has both erotica and an HEA. Enjoy!

The dancers stamped and chanted, raising their arms in reverence; the people in the square threw flowers and coins. The big voice boomed in his head, the god raised his arms…

Brin’s eyes shot open. He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding when he saw the warm wooden walls of the cabin, and the sun streaming through the window.

Yawning and stretching, Brin rolled out of the pile of furs and wool blankets that served as a bed, trying to shake off the dream. He was not at all surprised to find Caer’s warm, heavy body absent beside him; nor was he worried even in the slightest.

If there was one thing Caer could do, it was look after himself.

Instead, Brin focused on what needed to be done for the day. At the very least, he needed to sweep, scrape off the hides strung up in the back yard, and prepare something for dinner, though he really ought to tend to the garden as well. There were carrots out there in need of pulling.

Brin tugged on his breeches but left his boots, propping open the cabin’s door for some airing as he wandered barefoot out into the yard. Though it was early autumn, the day was surprisingly warm. He curled his toes into the pleasantly damp moss carpeting the floor of the forest’s edge, and stretched again before hitching up his breeches with one hand. Maybe Caer was right, he really was too slender.

To begin, the goats would need milking. Sometimes, Brin mused, he got a bit wistful for town life – the hustle and bustle of the marketplace, always a neighbor to trade with, and no damned goats to milk.

An hour or so later, Caer found him in the goats’ yard, trying to hold and milk one of the ridiculous animals at the same time. A deep chuckle announced the man’s reappearance, but Brin chose to ignore him. He didn’t even look up when slim, strong hands effortlessly grabbed and held the goat’s forequarters, keeping it still.

When the bucket was fuller and the kicking animal released, Brin finally chose to meet his lover’s guarded eyes. He knew far better than to ask where Caer had been, so he simply drank the man in – wiry muscle, supple tanned skin, liquid amber eyes. The set of his shoulders was gentle but strong, and he wore nothing but breeches cropped to the knee and a few pieces of simple jewelry. Most of those were teeth or claws or little wood carvings tied on to thin strips of leather. His breeches were filthy, his deep brown hair falling in his face.

“You’ll have to let me cut this for you again soon,” Brin said quietly, tugging at an unwashed lock of that dark hair. As usual, Caer didn’t respond, only reaching into the pouch at his waist and silently giving Brin two pairs of rabbits’ feet, expertly removed from their hosts.

Used to such gifts, Brin smiled and stood to go back to the cabin. Caer caught him around the waist, and hot breath fanned over his cheek as the older man moved in for a kiss. Brin gently extricated himself. “Bathe first, if you please. You reek of sweat and old blood and bird,” he said with a soft laugh. “Bathe and then I’ll have you, I promise.”

Caer furrowed his brow, looking a little frustrated, but still didn’t say anything. Brin couldn’t help but watch as he strode away, his shortened doeskin breeches showing off his toned ass to tremendous advantage. Sighing, Brin returned inside, hanging up the small cluster of rabbit feet by the hearth. He would fix them to keep later. Looking out the window, he saw Mev, the massive bird Caer rode to hunt, ferreting around by the garden. Brin pulled a few strips of jerky off of a bundle hanging from the ceiling, and clucked his tongue, holding the meat out the window. Mev made a curious sound, quickly strutting over when he saw the offering was for him.

Rocs were quite rare, and Mev was a beautiful specimen. Brin hadn’t been able to help being afraid of him at first, with that great cruel beak almost as long as his own forearm, but he’d soon realized that Mev was largely harmless, at least to those Caer approved of. Brin himself had ridden on the big bird exactly twice, both times with Caer and neither even close to enjoyable. To this day, he hadn’t the slightest idea how Caer managed to stay on without assistance, never mind shoot his bow with such accuracy from that feathery back.

Mev snapped up the strips of meat with a practiced care, and Brin stroked the huge brown head. He groomed back a few ruffled feathers, before the bird chittered his thanks and withdrew to bed down for a rest.

Brin occupied his time with sweeping, unable to stop glancing up at the door. The promise of Caer’s gentle hands on his body was too much to resist, a treat he’d been denied for several days now. When the man did appear, it was with a hunter’s silent footsteps, and he was clad only in water droplets.

Loins stirring already, Brin put aside the broom. Caer was a study in rugged perfection, even the scars on the canvas of his golden skin adding to the image of him. His cock was already half-hard, laying against his strong thigh, and his amber eyes were full of a lusty hunger.

Brin felt his hand straying to the ties of his breeches before he even knew what he was doing. He needed to match his lover in nakedness, needed to feel him skin to skin. Caer’s hair, almost to his shoulders now, was over his eyes and dripping wet.

They were on each other with a quick and fevered abandon, Brin’s breeches stripped off and nearly tripped over in a mutual haste to reach the bed. They tumbled onto the furs. Caer was as silent as ever, but a fierce fire burned in his eyes. His calloused hands roamed over Brin’s body, worshiping him, and the younger man bit back a moan of anticipation. Despite the fact that he’d just bathed, Caer smelled not unpleasantly of the earth; a deep, dark scent that was as much a part of him as his various scars.

Caer’s full lips kissed his belly, and he shuddered and arched up into the sensation. When the older man decided to be a giving lover, there was no dissuading him. Brin hadn’t the slightest idea how his lover’s mind worked, and after a while had stopped trying to find out and just loved him. Caer reached the golden curls around the base of Brin’s cock, and inhaled deeply, smelling him like an animal. Then, with an odd look of carnal interest, he drew the flat of his tongue up the younger man’s cock.

Trying to squirm, Brin realized his hips were pinned. Though he was no weakling, he knew Caer was a fair bit stronger than he was. His frustration came out as a soft growl that turned into a moan as Caer’s lips closed over the head of him, and he reached down to fist a hand in thick dark hair, his hips straining but failing to move.

Looking up and smiling, Caer gave another long lick before moving up Brin’s body to claim his mouth. The younger man pressed into him, embarrassingly wanton, needy. No one had affected him like this before Caer, no one had claimed him so thoroughly and enchanted him so completely. He reached down, his hands skimming his lover’s firm sides and coming to rest on his ass. He tried to move to grip Caer’s thick cock, but his hand was gently moved away.

“What’s made you like this today?” Brin asked breathlessly, trying again to touch and once more being corrected.

Caer merely grunted at him, nipping affectionately at his neck. Brin could feel the heat of his lover’s cock against his hip, the implications making him ache. There was no need for much foreplay today, not when they wanted each other so badly. Brin fumbled for the oil with a shaking hand. He did not know what had Caer so worked up but right now he wasn’t particularly bothered to find out. The man was down between his legs again, running his tongue along the connection between thigh and groin.

When Caer’s tongue flicked over his entrance, Brin clenched his hand desperately in the furs. “Damn you, now!” he hissed, pushing the bottle of oil down towards his lover.

Rubbing his cheek against Brin’s inner thigh like a cat, Caer took the bottle and uncorked it with his teeth. The younger man had to close his eyes, overwhelmed when Caer pressed two fingers against him, gently, as if asking permission. Brin pressed back in an undebatable yes, fumbling to get his legs hooked over his lover’s shoulders without opening his eyes.

He gave an undignified grunt when those fingers thrust up into his body, squirming, trying to win more sensation than Caer seemed yet willing to give. He knew that those fingers were just shy of the center of his pleasure, and if they were only to straighten, to beckon inside of him…

When he opened his eyes he saw that Caer was smirking at him, delighting in withholding the best of the pleasure. “You have to wait for me for that, love,” he said, the first words Brin had heard him speak all day. Caer rarely saw reason for speech, so his deep, rough voice was music to Brin’s ears.

“Then hurry up with it,” Brin grumbled. A thin sheen of sweat coated his body, made his hair hang lank and stick to his face. His early salt was beginning to drip onto his stomach.

He drank up the sight of Caer slicking himself, of the herbal oil glistening on his dark, unaltered cock. Brin arched back at the blunt push of it against him. This was what he needed.

The initial burn faded quickly, Brin well used to the familiar invasion. He urged on by pressing his heels into Caer’s shoulders, crossing his ankles behind the man’s neck when he leaned close enough. The slide in was exquisite, the look of rapture on Caer’s face erotic all on its own. A groan wormed its way out from behind Brin’s clenched teeth, and he reveled in the feeling of fullness, of oneness that was now his.

Caer stayed seated deep, his slim chest heaving with his breath. His amber eyes locked Brin’s, and the younger man nodded almost imperceptibly, his own eyes pleading.

The rhythm was quick but not desperate, and Brin met him thrust-for-thrust. Caer’s hands slid under his ass, lifting him, and that sent each thrust straight to his very core.

Brin felt the hot coil start to build in his belly, but Caer beat him to it and growled, one hand clutching the furs and the other finding the younger man’s and nearly crushing it. Brin clenched his body around his lover, milking him, and reached down to stoke his own fire. His hand met Caer’s, and both wrapped around his cock, Brin stroking himself and Caer thumbing his tip, before moving down to gently cup and rub his sac.

Biting his lip, Brin let out a long moan as he spilled. Caer slipped out of him in the midst of his passion, laying down beside him to hold him close a moment as he rode it out.

“Thank you,” Brin muttered as Caer wordlessly stroked his hair. The man was nothing if not attentive, and produced a cloth from who knew where to clean them. Brin nuzzled into Caer’s warm neck, kissing his sweat-damp throat as he fumbled behind himself for a wool blanket to pull over them both.

Caer’s breathing soon slowed. Though it was only mid-morning, it was likely he’d been up half the night. He would wake again in an hour or so. Brin could not resist the temptation to lay with him a while – Caer was so rarely still. He was always hunting, always wandering, always in the midst of something or something else. Brin’s own chores could be done later.

It was these moments that he truly did not miss town life. Never mind town life; it was his life at the temple he’d run away from. Yet, as always in these moments, a nameless dread reared up in him.

They would not let him go so easily. It may have been three years, but that did not mean they had given up. It did not mean they would not find him.

They would.

He lived in a constant fear, existed in a constant litany of when? He did not delude himself into thinking that Caer, whatever charms and skills he might possess, could stop them. His only hope was that he could lead them away from the man when it happened, somehow spare his life.

Caer, bless him, had never asked Brin about his strange coloring; had in a few rare words praised the ruddy gold of his hair but had never wondered where he came from that produced it, had never asked more about his past then he’d willingly tell.

Brin was very thankful for that. It made keeping his origins a secret far easier.

He was sure that if Caer had ever asked him, he wouldn’t have been able to resist. He would have told all, and that would do nothing but put his lover in incredible danger. Even as they’d built this life together, this wonderful simple life with gardens and stupid unruly goats, Brin had never said anything.

He’d never told Caer about –

Sakthebrin, the manform of the sungod, arms raised high to the people in the temple courtyard…

He’d never dared to mention –

Sakthebrin in the guise of a golden-haired child, draped in jewels and silks, a frightened child manipulated by the temple priests, raised for this purpose…

He’d never said –

Not a word about the chanting of the dancers and the smell of the ritual incense, the offerings that were not for him or the stone room or the waiting women or the god’s big voice in his mind or…

and he never would.

…

Brin sighed, tiredly pushing away Mev’s questing beak. “I have no food, you foolish bird, I promise you.”

Mev simply gave him an indignant squawk, talons clawing up earth as the roc followed him. Brin growled. His head had hurt something magnificent since the middle of last night, and if anything it was getting worse, not better. He was not in the mood for Caer’s bird to be ridiculous. “Leave me alone, Mev,” he shooed the roc again, waving his hand at it. Mev being no gull or crow, the action looked a bit silly, but Brin far from cared.

Mev took a step closer, his hooked beak nibbling at the back of Brin’s tunic, pulling him back a little. “Leave me alone!” the young man shouted, his temper finally boiling over. He swatted hard at the offending beak, and Mev finally got the hint and took to the air, beating massive wings.

Sighing again, Brin massaged his temples, hoping for some relief. He did not find it.

What he found instead was that niggling presence in his mind, the presence that could indicate only that the relic was near.

They’d found him.

Brin bounded through the trees, not knowing how this would help him get away but hardly caring. He was beyond reason, consumed by the sickening fear that he’d always felt when the god was in his head.

… and maybe if he ran fast enough ran hard enough long enough…

He would, he had gone anywhere to get away from it. He’d prayed that maybe if he could just run far enough, the god couldn’t touch him any more, the temple’s long arm couldn’t retrieve him, he could live in peace.

…never escape…

For a while he had. He’d run and run until his feet bled, run until his mind was blessedly empty. He’d found Caer and things had been perfect, if only for a while. Now, he wasn’t running to escape; in his heart he knew it. They were too close, he would never get away in time. If he could only keep them away from Caer, that would be enough. If he couldn’t, they’d kill the man or gentle him, and Brin wasn’t sure which would be worse.

If he could just run –

… faster harder the hounds are out never escape…

VESSEL.

Brin skidded to a stop, losing his footing and rolling painfully down a slight incline of the forest floor. He didn’t care. Small pains dimmed, now.

It was over.

He tried almost instinctively to rise, to keep going, but fell immediately to his knees. This was the end.

They had found him.

VESSEL.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stomach the big voice filling his head, trying one last time to push it away. His attempts were as weak as an infants’.

VESSEL. YOU ARE MINE TO COMMAND.

He gave a final small push, and his entire body was gripped with unimaginable pain. Screaming, his world went white, his every nerve aflame.

The pain seeped away. He found himself lying on the ground, dead leaves brushing his skin. He was cowed; he let the god guide him to his feet, and let those feet lead him where they would. The god would not allow him to weep, but inside himself he sobbed, once more the trapped and frightened child. He was not going back to the acolytes, not yet, not until he was anointed. The god led him to a small, cold pool deep within the forest, and stripped off his clothes. Though he was physically alone, Brin was ashamed of his nudity in the god’s scrutinizing presence.

He sat by the edge of the pool, peeling up a chunk of the ice-cold clay at its edge. With precise motions, Brin’s own hand began to draw swirls and curves on his body, ringing them with dots, giving him the exact ceremonial markings that were weekly stained into his skin at the temple.

I HAVE MISSED YOU, VESSEL.

Brin could not respond, could only curl up and cry deep within the chamber of his own mind, a chamber that the god made foreign and forbidden. The symbols were traced over his cheeks, his arms, down his chest. The god’s control made his own touch disgust him, and he had to fight the urge to push at that presence in his mind again.

YOU WILL NOT LEAVE ME AGAIN, VESSEL. I WILL MAKE YOU SORRY FOR YOUR TRANGRESSION. YOU SHALL BE PUNISHED.

Yes, punished. Brin crawled even deeper into his own mind, miserable but beyond caring. Three years had been better than he’d ever hoped for. It had all been worth it. Now, he had to face the temple again, had to pay for the only years of his life he’d ever enjoy.

There was a sudden crashing approach through the bushes, accompanied by a near-animal growling. Brin’s head rose of its own accord, and the tiny piece of his mind that was his cried out in anguish when he watched the acolytes drag Caer into the clearing. Brin quickly took everything in; a gaggle of priests dressed in the crimson robes of Sakthebrin, two temple slaves carrying the relic – an ornate urn on a litter. He shuddered internally even to see the thing.

“We found this searching for your vessel,” the First Priest said, gesturing to the snarling Caer. “What would you like us to do with it, Sakthebrin?”

The god pulled Brin’s lips into a disdainful sneer. “It pleases the vessel,” the god said in his voice, “so it should be killed, seeing as how the vessel has disobeyed me. Yet… perhaps, yes. We will gentle it and keep it for the vessel. If he disobeys me once again, it will be killed before his eyes.”

Brin gazed at Caer, full of sorrow, willing for him to understand this it was not he that gave these orders, that Brin himself would never wish these things on his beloved.

Brin could not think of a fate worse for the wild Caer than that of a castrated temple slave. His heart ached to know what the man would become – nothing more than a tool to make Brin behave, something he could be threatened with when he did not listen.

It would make Caer hate him, and Brin could not stand that.

SEE HOW KIND I AM, VESSEL? I WILL LET YOU KEEP THIS MAN. ALL YOU MUST DO IS WHAT I ASK, AND YOU CAN KEEP HIM.

Anything but this. Anything.

Why did Caer have to come after him? Why couldn’t he just run away?

Where was Mev? Was he dead? Brin hoped that the bird, at least, had escaped.

Brin watched in despair as temple slaves pinned Caer down. They were going to gentle him then and there, while Brin watched, while he was under the god’s sway and could do nothing.

The thought gave rise to an utterly foreign emotion.

Brin was angry.

He’d been melancholy and afraid and grief-stricken and everything in between, but he’d never actually angry. Now, his blood began to boil. In the small corner of the stone room that was his mind, he stood up and look the god’s presence dead in the eye, shoulders squared and head held high.

No, he wasn’t angry.

He was furious.

With one vast heave, he threw the god off of him. Dipping his hand in the crystalline water of the pool, he splashed it over his torso, and the still-wet clay ran off in rivulets. He stood and glared at the acolytes for all he was worth.

“Let. Him. Go,” Brin snarled, managing one step forwards. Already, the pain was overcoming him, the god was gaining ground. He was about to be pushed back under.

Frightened and confused, the acolytes listened. Caer sprang to his feet, but the foolish man did not run. He simply looked at Brin with an unreadable emotion in his eyes.

The pain brought Brin back to his knees, and with the last of his hard-won control he choked, “Caer, the urn!”

Caer did not question him, did not pause. He ripped the staff from the First Priest’s hand and brought it down hard on the beautiful urn in the litter. For one terrifying moment, there was only the dull thunk of contact, but then the heavy ceramic cracked down the middle and split with a sound far too great for such a small object.

The priests, flabbergasted by such a blasphemy, began hysterics. The first priest and another were babbling and trying to push the pieces back together, collecting the spilled ashes.

Brin knew it was a useless task. The moment the urn had split, the vicelike grip the god had on his mind had been released. Now, he stood on shaky limbs. He wanted to dance, to laugh, suddenly feeling more free than he ever could have imagined.

Yet, his happiness was held at bay. Caer stood before him, still unreadable. Worst was that he kept his distance, not embracing Brin or checking him for injury.

However, he hadn’t run yet.

Foolish man.

“It wasn’t me,” Brin said, his voice as shaky as his hands. “Caer, I wasn’t…”

Caer silently strode forwards and put a hand over his mouth. “You would not,” he said, with absolute certainty, and placed a protective hand on Brin’s waist. Then he glanced towards the floundering acolytes, and the temple slaves who looked unsure whether they could run. Glancing back to Brin, his question was only too obvious.

Stepping forwards again, Brin cleared his throat. The acolytes looked up, terrified.

“Saktheb-” the First Priest started to say, cowering.

“No,” Brin said firmly. “Your god, if that’s what he was, is now dead. Leave this place, or you may meet the same fate.”

The cowardly priests whimpered and uttered little shrieks, abandoning the urn in their haste to depart. Brin had no idea if they considered him some sort of new god, nor did he really care. He was finally done with the temple. He turned to the slaves. “Bury this filthy thing, and then you are free to go.”

No longer even remotely concerned about his nakedness or even the smeared symbols on his skin, Brin strode through their midst. He felt the restrained tears of his two decades of life threatening, but he continued blindly in the direction of his and Caer’s cabin.

Home.

Caer caught him up, and it wasn’t until Brin truly couldn’t see that he realized he’d begun crying. The older man held him close, and let loose a piercing whistle. Within moments, great wings palpably beat the air, and there was a heavy thud as the bird landed.

It wasn’t until Caer had helped him on Mev’s back, until they had flown back to their little cabin; until the man had washed the symbols off his pliant body and tucked him up in the furs that the full of it hit him. It was a thought even stranger to him than the emotion of anger had been, a thought so impossible that he could hardly believe it. Yet the more he repeated it, the truer it rang.

He would never have to worry again.

Unable to help himself, Brin started to laugh.