Forged by Fate

Chapter Two: Creation

Be Filled With My Spirit, And Breathe.

She gasped. Blood rushed through her body, pricking and tingling and roaring through her ears. Air filled her lungs, too much, too thick, too full, each breath more suffocating than the last. The comfort of darkness shattered into blinding light and the world pressed down upon her in all its living glory. The void, the blessed void, was gone.

“Eve?”

The light became blurred, round shapes and pink colors, and a pair of hard gray eyes. She touched her face, then stopped and stared at her fingers. Her hand. Her arm. Body and blood and flesh. She was flesh.

Another hand, darker and thicker than her own, pushed her arm away. “Can you hear me?”

She looked back at the eyes. The face. The wide, moving lips, just that much darker than the rest. There was another noise, whimpering and sorrowful. She was making it.

“Don’t be afraid, Eve.”

Arms slipped beneath her, cradling her and lifting her up. The world spun and Eve closed her eyes to stop it. Darkness. She knew darkness, the absence of everything, but even with her eyes shut, light still reached her, faded and flickering and red. She could still feel the movement, but at least it was only a gentle sway.

“There’s a storm coming.” The other spoke, holding her close, warm skin pressed to her own. She tried to concentrate on the voice, but there was so much noise. The roar of her blood, the thumping in her chest, steady and dull, and more voices, indistinct and buzzing. “We’ll be safe in the caves, even without God to protect us.”

Eve was set down on cold earth and she opened her eyes. Cave, she thought, shaping the word in her mind around the stone and the dirt that swallowed her. She curled up on the ground, feeling the grit beneath her cheek, pressing her fingers against the cool, damp rock.

And then there were more of them. Legs and feet and hushed tones of conversation. A flash of light turned everything white and a boom shook the earth. She yelped, her tongue thick in her mouth. Her heart raced and the pink and brown bodies moving past her blurred as moisture filled her eyes.

Something touched her head, soothing as it moved through her hair. “You’re safe, Eve. It’s just the storm. Breathe now.” The same firm hand pulled her arms away from her face for a second time. “And sit up.”

She was forced into a different position, her back supported against the rock. The man sat beside her. He stroked her hair again, then touched her face, her cheek.

“Who?” The word was rough and felt strange on her lips. She swallowed and tried again. “Who are you?”

“I’m Adam. First among men.”

The way he studied her made her tremble. She looked away, flinching from another flash and the crash that followed. The others huddled together, arms around one another. Adam’s arm encircled her, pulling her against his side. He was warm, almost uncomfortably so. A howling began and then a rushing even louder than what she had first heard.

“What’s happening?”

“It’s just thunder.” His hands stroked her body, her breasts, her belly. Not like before, with his hand in her hair. Her chest and cheeks flushed and she tried to shift away but he held her close. “The cave will protect us and the rain will pass.”

She pulled her legs to her chest so that his hands couldn’t reach her there, and wrapped her arms around her knees. The rain beat upon the earth with a constant rumble, thick and heavy. A gust of the storm blew into the cave, spraying everything with fine, cold droplets. Tiny bumps rose up on her skin, beneath the soft brown hairs on her arms and legs, and she smoothed them, until Adam stopped her.

He was still watching her, his lips curved slightly. His eyes were the color of the storm. The same shade of gray but hard as the stone, filled with cold heat.

“It’s confusing at first, I know,” he said, and he stroked her hair again. “Everything is so disconnected. Overwhelming. It takes time for understanding to come. But the important thing is you’re alive. I wasn’t sure you would be.”

Some of the things he didn’t say out loud echoed in her thoughts.

Elohim is dead. The words wriggled into her thoughts, Adam’s voice, though his lips didn’t move. It was almost like the voice in the void, telling her she must breathe, waking her from darkness and bringing her into light. Into the storm. But unlike the voice, there was no warmth, no love, swelling in her chest. The Garden is mine.

She shook her head, covering her ears with her hands. He pulled them away, his fingers hard on her wrists.

“You must listen to me, Eve.” There was a weight to his words, and a heat that made her stomach twist as it crept from his hand into her body, slithering its way inside her, as his voice had a moment before. “You and I, we’re more than these others. We’re meant to rule them, to lead them. I can see it in you, that same spark. His spirit is in you, like me.”

“I don’t understand.”

He made a noise that she hadn’t heard before. The sound was harsh, but she thought, for some reason, that it wasn’t supposed to be. That it could be friendly and joyful too.

“You don’t have to understand me, Eve. You have only to obey.” And sister or not, I will have you as my wife. His hand in her hair pulled, her scalp prickling, but he released her again before she felt the need to cry out. There is no God to stop me. His laws will die with Him.

He looked out into the rain, his gaze unfocused. The fruit. That must be the priority. I’ll find the fruit first. He balled his hand into a fist as she watched, wishing she could move away.

His head jerked up and he stared back into the cave, where the others were half-hidden in the dark, as far from him as the space allowed. Adam stood and moved to the group, grabbing another man by the arm and pulling him away from the others.

“Go, find me the body. Take a second man to help if you need it, but don’t come back without Him.”

The man glanced at her before he nodded. She didn’t hear what he said when he spoke, but a third man stood, glancing outside, his shoulders hunched. They left the shelter of the cave, flinching beneath the rain.

Adam sat down again beside her and she felt his satisfaction crowding against her thoughts.

“We’ll be very happy together, Eve. You and I.” He smiled. “The world will be at our feet. Every man, woman, and beast will be at my command.”

There was an edge to his voice that made her shiver and she wrapped her arms more tightly around her body. He was watching her, and when he touched her, she saw herself for a moment through his eyes. His gaze followed the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hip, flushing her skin.

My lovely Eve. God could not have really meant to give you to any of the others. You are mine. He pulled her closer to his body. You are mine.

The thoughts echoed in her head and she closed her eyes, leaning away from him against the cold stone of the cave. She wished he would let go. These words made her uncomfortable, these words he didn’t say. The feelings behind them crept up her spine and fogged her mind. She wished she were still in the darkness without the air and the noise and the light. Without this man who sat beside her and called her his own, his own, his own.

It all felt wrong, but she didn’t know why.

Chapter Three: 1280 BC

Thor stood beneath the shade of his mother’s tree and wiped the sweat from his brow. It had taken them months, but Odin’s great hall was finished. Valaskjalf was large enough to accommodate the rest of the Aesir