Pouring wine into the chalice, he plunged onto my bed and I knew no discrete way of telling him to disappear.
I could try and learn something from him, I thought and laid down beside him, offering biscuits from the container.
“You spoil me,” he laughed and let me take a sip from his chalice. I had not been in the mood for alcohol but still took a big gulp to calm my nervousness.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Some answers have a price but I’m in a generous mood because of this… .” He squished the spongy cake.
I shifted forward. “Why do you persist so much on sleeping with me?”
“Hm,” he grunted, “imagine it as the highest form of prayer. We exchange energies, I won’t be the only one profiting.”
That’s why it felt like an intimate robbery when I didn’t consent. Though I’d never heard of robbers that burned the house down after they finished.
The memories fueled my endless hunger for revenge.
“What’s in it for me?”
“It can further your senses, enhance your potions. Sometimes you need a little push to make a difficult spell work and such. The more passion flows through us, the more power you receive, that’s why I recommend to stretch it into hours upon hours,” he said, “upon hours.”
I nodded to him since I found no fitting answer to this. It made sense, but the thought of Claire hindered me. I wouldn’t want her to sleep with anybody but me so I did the same and pushed the option away from consideration.
“What do you do, when you’re not here?” I asked.
“Jealous? I uphold my part of any deal I made. Sometimes, I meet the other Gods, not all of them, but some.” He scanned my face while I waited on him to continue.
It relieved me to know that Gods had existed instead of being a man-made tale that provided meaning to life.
“I don’t sleep with any of them, not that there were many options.”
“I’m not jealous,” I assured him. It was only fair, but it wasn’t easy letting him go since we bonded. It was him, who guided me through many steps in self-discovery. He helped me heal the wounds of the past while respecting my wishes.
I decided to give him the grimoire after I copied the relevant pages. It would reach my grandfather anyhow, there was no need to hurry.
“If I wasn’t hiding from her, I would ask Frya to appear to your little girlfriend,” he sighed.
Veymor tried his best to keep me out of trouble. He must have sensed that I would open Claire’s Oracle eye. Even if she found out on her own, I would be the perfect scapegoat.
“Hiding?” I asked but he waved it off.
I removed my robe, pulled off his and cuddled up to him to show my appreciation and get another whiff of the Underworld. His damp skin invited my touch. I inhaled the steam that came off him and focused on the blood inside my veins, pumping. His energy seeped into me.
When I put my head on his chest, I found no heartbeat. As a God, he must have been an immortal. Yet he could fool anyone by projecting healthy flesh.
“You’re pretty calm for a Witch that was about to find Vanna’s grimoire,” he said and my heart fibrillated. “You’re thinking about her, the Oracle, aren’t you?”
“I want to study and make my grandfather proud.” I stumbled over my own words.
“Keep that shit for your teachers,” he laughed and emptied the chalice.
It was obvious that Claire stood between me and my initial goal and I became besotted with pleasing every party, neglecting my own needs. Nonetheless, I was confident that I could manage it.
“I want to stop running away and be free, appreciated, loved. There’s no way I am giving all my efforts up.”
His laugh quaked the bed, and the tower of books collapsed. I picked them up carefully so no pages would knitter. They needed to be in the same condition as I got them from the library.
From Claire. She infested my days.
“Love!” he exclaimed. “You know nothing about love. Look at you, closing your eyes in front of the bigger picture, afraid of losing sight on the Oracle. She consumes you but you enjoy it. Being in danger is your fetish. This has nothing to do with love.”
“And what do you know? Cursed to love, you keep pursuing a barely grown woman into submission. A harem of Witches. Is that supposed to be your fetish?”
His eyes lit up when he tossed the chalice on the altar, breaking it into tiny shards that flew across the room. One had cut my cheek. Veymor’s tight grip around my wrists forced me to show my face to him instead of covering it in pain. He scanned it and his iris blackened again.
“My love for you is the purest you will ever encounter. I have loved the first of you, all in between and now the last. It’s endless, through life and death.” He let go of me and calmed his posture. “You look just like her, you bleed like her, too,” he said, kissed me on the cut and placed himself on the portal. “One day you will slit your wrists for me and realise what love is.”
After he vanished, the energy I collected crawled out of my pores again and left me with a tense wrap around my neck, wrists, and pelvis. My bones rubbed against each other and forced me to lie down.
On my way to the bed, I took Sosden flowers from my altar and burned them, inhaling the smoke. My heart slowed down and my limbs stopped pulsating.
I never imagined I would anger a God or hear him say that he loved me.
How was I supposed to cope with it?
The numbing effect of Sosden let me
