❂
Enyo tossed the blade away after discarding the priestess. She had gotten what she wanted after all. The palm before her lay open and exposed, revealing layers of muscle and fat, and beneath that… bone.
Blood.
Fantastic, glorious, euphoric blood welled up along the wound and dribbled in a stream down her arm and onto the earthen floor before her feet.
The clearing smelled metallic as she lifted that injured hand, seemingly unaware of what pain should be coursing through her body. Instead, she studied it, enraptured and obsessed.
Then, so carefully, so tenderly it might have been a newborn babe, she lifted that pulsing hand to her lips. Her tongue flicked out, and like a cat drinking from a bowl of milk, she lapped at the blood.
At her own blood.
Even the birds had stopped singing, seemingly disturbed and alarmed by this gruesome sight.
༄
Delyth’s usually stoic face was slack with horror. She had seen blood before and plenty of it. She’d seen fallen friends bleed out from open bellies. She’d sliced through the throats of enemies. She’d seen it fountain. She’d seen it pool.
Never had she seen anyone mutilate their own body or raise their torn flesh to their lips to sup.
Her stomach twisted. This was an act of violence from the Goddess to the vassal, wrenching in its simple lack of humanity, and Delyth didn’t give herself time to consider the temple’s position on such an act. She just leaped to stop it.
Desperately, the halfbreed wrapped one hand around the delicate wrist and tried to pull it away from Alphonse’s lips, her fingers quickly becoming drenched in blood. The other hand, she braced on the small girl’s collarbone, ready for the Goddess’s strength this time.
“Enyo,” she pleaded, “you need this body. Hasn’t she gone through enough by hosting you?”
Behind her, Etienne pleaded for Alphonse to come back, to banish the Goddess, but Delyth paid him little attention. Instead, she focused her gaze on the wide-pupiled eyes, searching for a hint of gold.
Darkness ate up Delyth’s reflection in Enyo’s eyes, darkness and a flicker of the flame.
Alphonse had warm eyes, doe-like and open. Enyo’s had embers glittering in their depths. Fire. Infernos. Lava. How the same pair of eyes could be so different?
❂
A small amount of blood had reached Alphonse’s lips before Delyth had wrenched the hand away. Of course, Enyo could have shoved the priestess off, continued as she pleased but…
Her gaze traced the urgent lines of Delyth’s face, down her body, to that hand on Alphonse’s collarbone, ready to ‘stop her.’ Ready for action. A woman after Enyo’s own heart. She smiled, blood in the creases of her teeth, “Beste kran, Ba’oto. Alphonse, et, beste?” and gestured with her bleeding palm, towards herself, and then towards Delyth.
Enyo had worked out speech, if not common. She spoke the ancient language, the tongue she had given the people of this land. It was guttural and harsh, with soft S’s and strange pauses mid-word.
The meaning was clear, though. I drink, or you drink.
“What? No!” the priestess recoiled but didn’t let go. “She’s your vassal. Why do you want to hurt her?” She paused, glancing at the wound. “Why does it have to be me or her?”
Then, Etienne was beside them. “Alphonse, come back!” he pleaded. “You can fight her, I know you can!”
Enyo bared her teeth at the boy, then clenched her fist, making the blood course faster, the drops turning into a stream falling on the ground between them.
“Alphonse us fa Ruyaa. Alphonse ca’at Krin Enyo.” She looked to Delyth again, pushing her bleeding hand towards the priestess’s face. Towards her mouth. “Meste Enyo. Meste beste Taouk. Yuk.”
༄
Delyth gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. The smell of blood was thick around her, metallic and cloying. She could feel streams of the stuff slide down her fingers, where she held Alphonse’s wrist. Drip down her forearm.
That was a direct command from the Goddess she served, had served her entire life. Obedience to the temple and its teachings were all she knew.
Gods, please let Enyo give Alphonse back for this.
“I’m sorry, Alphonse,” she said.
Delyth lifted the smaller woman’s blood-coated fist to her lips and ran her tongue across the delicate fingers.
A low, sensuous moan escaped Enyo, raw and purely carnal. Aside from that, other signs of arousal shuddered through Alphonse’s body. Her nipples hardened, her breathing hitched, her core clenched.
She opened her fist to allow Delyth to suck the blood from the wound directly and practically writhed in pleasure when she did so.
Alphonse’s unsullied hand came to cradle Delyth’s skull, beneath that torrent of black hair, pressing her closer, urging her harder towards the slice.
It all happened very quickly. One moment she was watching Delyth in rapt focus, panting and enjoying herself.
The next moment, her body jerked, and the intimate sounds changed to those of pain. A yelp left Alphonse’s lips, and she yanked away from Delyth, clutching her injured hand to her breast.
Delyth let Alphonse go and staggered away, spitting blood. Her mouth and throat were covered in it. It dripped from her chin. Pooled in the hollow of her neck. She gagged, her stomach heaving. Her eyes watered, blurring her vision, but she could see Etienne rush forward to catch Alphonse.
Gods, what had she done?
Alphonse was back. They could get her healed.
But had it been worth it?
How much of herself would she have to sell to serve Enyo?
Delyth backed away from the pair of them, horrified. How would Alphonse ever trust her now? She was meant to protect the girl. Her wings half spread as though to fly, to run away, but she couldn’t just leave them. Not with Alphonse injured. She stood rooted, unable to go forward or back.
Alphonse was staring down at her hand in horror, her entire body was rigid with pain. Slowly, she looked towards Calamity as if even with Enyo gone, she could hear it calling to her.
“Put it away!” She gasped, tearing her eyes from the blade and back to her hand. “I
