Page 48 of Flamesworn

Kataida snapped a salute. “Sir. I’ll await your muster orders and ready myself to depart on your command.”

Stavros nodded once. “Thank you, soldier. I’ll send word, but please remember to eat and have something to drink. It’s too hot to travel at the moment, so if you need to rest, you have time.”

Kataida felt it again, the phantom echo of a rumble beneath her feet, all the way down to her soul. “I will, sir, but please consider allowing me to head earlier than the others for Axon. They’ll be behind me, and–”

“No,” Stavros interrupted, and his voice was a little harder, this time. “I appreciate the offer, but you do not make the orders here, soldier. I do, and you follow them. I’ll have a response, please.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, between her teeth.

“Kataida, I understand why you’re angry at me right now,” Stavros said, “and as someone who was once very good friends with Damian Akti, who counts himself a very good friend of yourfather’s, I appreciate your eagerness to tell him this. I, too, am shocked by this revelation, but I have to keep in mind that this is secondary to winning this war and returning stability to Arktos.”

It was meant to be reassuring, and maybe it would have been in any other situation. But she couldn’t quite let herself feel anything but annoyed when she and Ares left, heading toward her tent so she could at least busy herself with getting ready to make for the capital.

“You’re frustrated,” Ares said, sitting on the table cross-legged, watching her pace around the tent.

She gave them a slight nod and went to carefully re-pack her kit. “I’d rather just leave on my own. Well,” she paused, glancing up at them, “with you.”

Ares beamed at her, leaning back on their palms. “I will always go where you do, beautiful.”

She thought about that as she rolled up her bedding and packed away her spare boots. “Even when this is over?”

“Of course.” Ares hopped up off the table and came to her, going down on their haunches beside her. “Do you not want me to?”

“Did I say that?” She stood up and they mimicked her, rising as well to their feet, and once again she noticed with something like surprise how Ares really wasn’t that much taller than her in this form. “Won’t you be called to war? If not here, then somewhere else? Mislia?”

“Mislia just had a war,” Ares pointed out.

“They have one every ten years or so, according to–” She thought of Markos and stopped, swallowing hard. “--people. But there are other places. The Starian navy has fought skirmishes with the pirates in Diabolos. Gerakia might decide to take over the world, I don’t know. Starian nobles are always in-fighting, maybe it’ll be that. Do I lose you, if that happens? Will you be between my thighs and then you flicker and vanish so some other poor soul can be kept in chains for you to possess?”

“That doesn’t work, I told you,” Ares said, taking her hands in theirs and going to their knees. “No one can order me to possess anyone. Well, you could,” they said, lifting one of her hands to their mouth and pressing a kiss to the back of it, a comforting little burn of affection. “I would happily possess your body now, if it helped you. I can tell you’re worried.”

Kataida thought about it. She had no idea the size of this “small force” Stavros was putting together, or when they’d be ready, but if he was truly meaning to stay their departure until after sundown…she was already packed, and they had the time. Without a word, she pulled at her uniform jacket, tossing it on the empty table and leaving her thin undershirt anduniform pants. She unbuttoned those, but didn’t bother taking off her boots, simply left the pants unbuttoned and gave Ares a considering look. “Just fuck me. Do it hard, make it hurt a little. Be rough. Don’t be sweet. Don’t try and make me come. I need out of my head, so your cock, make it…so it’s too much.”

Ares stepped closer, already naked, their chest firm and muscled, their cock thickening to a size a bit bigger than she recalled the last few times they’d had one. Despite the day’s events and the dread that teased at her like a memory, she smiled slightly. “That’s very useful. Can all your siblings change their bodies like you?”

Ares’ chin went up, and as she watched, they shimmered a bit like a heat mirage, and then were just a little taller than they’d been a moment ago. “If I’m a little taller I can fuck you better,” they said. “And, hmm. In some ways. Azaiah can be unseen if he wishes, and when he takes souls, he can be someone else in that moment to ease their passing. Leviathan can walk as a dragon or a man, and Greed can be one of two forms, Avarice or Desire, as he wills, but that’s only because he took a companion. Astra’s man, Cillian, I d?—”

As they spoke, Kataida turned to bend over the table, widening her legs as much as she could, and she liked the way that Ares trailed off, distracted, their cock growing harder as she pushed her pants down. Talk of family and godly attributes faded as Ares stepped behind her, hands too hot on her already warm skin, cock rubbing against the curve of her ass as they settled in. When Ares slid their hand between her legs to stroke her cunt, she gave a fierce shake of her head. “No. Do it like I said,” she ordered, and her dominance felt so good--a blow of a sword, a strike of a dagger. “Hard, fast. Make it rough. Fuck me like the god of war fucks a supplicant who didn’t beg for it good enough.”

Ares laughed, and the sound shivered over her like bells, making her skin prickle with heat. “Supplicants wanted my aid in battle, not in bed. Or over a table.” Ares slapped her flank, not hard, but enough to surprise her. “But I’ll conquer you with my sword as you wish, beautiful.”

Kataida turned her face into the table and huffed a laugh into the uneven, rough wood. “See that you do, soldier.”

There was another one of those moments when the air shifted, a waver she couldn’t focus on properly before it was gone. Ares was still behind her, but she could feel now the rough scratch of a uniform where bare skin had been. She looked and saw Ares had garbed themselves in an Arkoudai uniform, one that looked very similar to her own, their hair braided now over one shoulder. She liked their hair like that–easier to pull in a braid or a ponytail–but this wasn’t about her hurting Ares. It was about Ares fucking her out of her head, so she could settle her riotous emotions and consider if she would really wait for Stavros’ armed escort or not.

“Now,” she breathed, bracing herself. “Do it now.”

It hurt when Ares pressed their cock into her. She wanted this, but the lack of foreplay meant she wasn’t wet, and they’d made their cock large enough that it was uncomfortable to take it. But that was exactly what she wanted, the slow, inexorable press and her body gradually giving way, allowing it, the pain fading as Ares began to fuck her.

“Ah,” they moaned in ecstatic reverence. “Is this what you want, please, tell me how to make it good for you–”

“Harder,” Kataida managed, dominance heavy, more a blow with a cudgel than a sword now. “Fuck me. I won’t break, but fuck me like you want me to.”

Ares’ breath caught, and then, after a tortuous moment where they stayed pressed to the hilt inside of her, they did as she asked. Ares didn’t build up to it, they started fast andhard and fucked the breath out of her immediately, her thighs trembling and her knees threatening to lock together. It hurt again, but as she grew wet and aroused, it was a feeling of slight discomfort until finally, Ares’ cock hit at an angle that sent sparks through her entire body, as if she’d thrown herself on a pyre. And wasn’t that, in some way, exactly what she’d done?

Ares leaned down, covering her, maintaining their balance as they fucked her so hard, the table skittered and moved across the floor of the tent. Ares held her through it, didn’t let her move away, braid tickling at her while their breath spilled hot against her ear.

“I dreamed of you,” Kataida gasped, fingers scrabbling at the table, hardly noticing when some of the old, weathered wood slid into her skin. “My whole life--of you, your fire, I thought you would consume me–”

---