Page 30 of Flamesworn

Kataida smacked the head of Ares’ cock over and over with the thickest part of the blade, finally tossing it aside and leaning down to take it in her mouth. She gave a nod to their desperate entreaty and Ares came in her mouth, smoke and sulfur, and she took what they gave her, every bit, until their cock went soft and she pulled away to sit up.

The bed was a mess, covered in blood and sweat and come, and Ares was sprawled there boneless, smiling at nothing with their arms still above their head and light spilling from their closed eyes, falling over their cheekbones. Despite the blood, Ares had not a single mark on them.

She’d never felt so satisfied in her life, and she knew, with the singular clarity that only came in very specific moments, that she would never have this with a mortal. Even remembering how it had felt, dragging the knife across Ares’ throat–she could come over and over thinking about that. But as the euphoria began to wane, she knew the tiredness would follow soon enough.

Ares opened their eyes. “That was wonderful.” They had blood on their face, and Kataida leaned in to kiss them, licking at it as she pulled away.

“It was,” she agreed, fascinated by how they looked, naked and gorgeous and bloody, flushed and smiling with their eyes of flame locked on her. They were seeing all the things she’d pretended weren’t there, the desires she never gave word to, suffused with shame even as she brought herself off under her sheets in silence while they danced across her closed eyelids. “Thank you. I’ve never been able to do that before.”

That clearly made them happy, and they pulled her close so she was on top of them again. Kataida lay her head on their chest, idly playing with one of their small breasts, listening to–what was that? A strange rhythmicthrum-thrum-thrumthat sounded too in-time to be natural. It took a moment to realize that it was Ares, their heart, and it beat like a war drum.

She lifted her head and stared at them. “How do you feel?”

Ares’ regard, when they were no longer wild and aching and lonely and desperate, felt like a caress, and she felt her cheeks go hot at just how much she wanted to forget everything and ride their cock until she was exhausted and sobbing and they were even bloodier beneath her. “Like I remember who I was, once,” they said, “before I slept as a sword. Who I was when I walked here as a god.”

That made her worry a bit, her mind conjuring ominous images of Ares striding through the desert, screams and fire in their wake, but Ares wasthere, present and as settled as they could be.

“Good,” she said, and kissed them again. “I’m glad.”

War had returned to Arktos twice over, and Kataida was going to conquer both.

Chapter

Eight

Ares didn’t sleepthat night. They’d slept long enough, dutifully mourning the man who never truly loved them, and for once, they didn’t feel the helpless pull of mortals calling for their presence. It was more of a low buzz under their skin than the drag of chains pulling them across Arktos, and Ares was content to lie next to Kataida, watching her as she moved and scowled in her sleep. She was an expressive dreamer, and when Ares touched the corner of her mouth, she rolled over and pushed at their face. Ares chuckled, and Kataida’s eyes opened just a sliver before she closed them again.

They’d watched Atreus in much the same way, once. Atreus was a restless sleeper, but not like Kataida. Her soul was a fire that could withstand the heat of Ares’ own, while Atreus wasn’t so much a fire as he was a forge, something to contain it, shape it. Kataida didn’t seem to want to shape Ares at all. She just wanted Ares to be, whatever that meant.

Ares lifted their hand to their face. What was their true form? They didn’t think they had one. The first time they had taken a mortal shape, they’d been crouching in the woods of what would one day be Katoikos, hunched among the terrified scraps of thefirst militia in Iperios. They’d been too new to know what a human form was supposed to look like, and the first mortal to see them had vomited in the bushes and dragged their nails over their eyes, howling.

“Aren’t you something?” the goddess of death had said, when she’d found Ares sitting in the mud of the first battlefield. She was the first Death, a woman who never gave War her name, and she’d been wearing a simple metal chest piece over her gown as she’d bent to take Ares’ hand. Ares had too many fingers, and their skin had been covered in a thin sheen of dark red glass, which crackled when Death squeezed their hand. “What are you?”

“I don’t know,” Ares had said, smiling up at her. “What do you want me to be?”

In Kataida’s dark bedroom, Ares flexed their hand, watching their skin squeeze and stretch. They’d been so fragile, that first day, but violence always was something raw, wasn’t it, a wound pulled open, emotions cracking, spirits breaking. Death had understood that. As a goddess of death, she’d been colder than Azaiah. She’d never checked in on Ares more than she needed to, just nodded at them from across battlefields and exchanged a word or two in greeting. It wasn’t until she’d found her companion that she bothered to learn anything about Ares, and by that point, it wasn’t long before she and her lover crossed the river themselves.

Azaiah cared, though. He always cared, and perhaps that was why Ares, who’d never considered what mortals got up to when they weren’t waging war with each other, had started following them off the battlefield. Ares didn’t love them like Azaiah did, but they’d been interested.

And now they’d mourned Atreus, and held a murdered boy to their chest as though he meant something to them, and when thehesitance had left Kataida’s eyes and she’d slid that knife blade across their throat, they’d beenhappyfor her.

Was that love?

“Akti.” Ares patted Kataida’s cheek, and she squinted at them again. “You’re mortal.”

“Yes. Stop.” She tried to roll over, and Ares leaned over her to tap her cheek again.

“Is it love to want someone to be happy?” they asked.

Kataida sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve never been.”

“In love, you mean? You don’t just know? I thought all mortals had to know, because your lives are so short.”

“Yeah, well.” Kataida lay on her back, “I used to think so, too, but the older I get, the more I think everyone’s making it up as they go.”

“That’s not very efficient of them.”

“Go back to sleep, Ares.” Before Ares could say that they weren’t sleeping in the first place, Kataida grabbed them by the shoulder and held them with both arms, effectively pinning them in place. Ares found they didn’t really mind it. It made them think of the warmth of the desert, the way Ares sometimes wanted to tunnel into the sand like a fire dragon just to feel the weight of the dunes and the heat of the sun.

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