Chapter 309 - The Divided God part 3

She came, of course, and because I feared she would follow me to Uroboros, I gave up my flight and allowed my lover to overtake me. She would follow me all the way to Khronos's throne room if she had to, I knew, and that was something I could not permit. Our rebellion would endure if one of us were lost, but not, I thought, both—and especially not her.

Had I actually believed she would allow me to sneak away, that she would sit idly by while I gave myself to our enemies? It seemed foolish of me now.

So I waited. I sat upon a stone and waited for her to catch up to me.

It took several hours, but I waited as the starry heavens turned like a wheel above my head. Frost formed on my flesh as the cold wind of the steppes swirled across the grassy plain. A wolf padded by, and somewhere a raptor cried out. I tried to think of what I would say to her, the arguments I might make, running them through my mind. I could not be sure of how she would react to any one of them. Though I loved her, though I had Shared with her, Zenzele's heart was a wild animal, and ever unpredictable.

I sensed her before she arrived. I felt her Eye upon me, and then she swooped out of the sky. She fell to the earth like a beautiful black demigoddess, landing in a crouch and then rising and striding angrily toward me, her eyes flashing, her lips curled back from her teeth. The people of the Western Dominions had called her the Goddess of Death, but that was not my Zenzele. Death was never so beautiful, nor so furious.

"What are you thinking?" she demanded. "I cannot believe you would lie to me!"

Still sitting, I peeked up at her shamefully. "I was afraid you would try to stop me."

"And you did not think I would follow you?"

I shrugged, then chuckled. "I guess I did not think it through."

Zenzele put her hands on her hips. "You do not think a lot of things through, Gon! Have you considered how your sacrifice will affect our cause? You are the father of this rebellion. If you fall to Khronos, they will believe our war to be hopeless. Our alliance will crumble, and Khronos will triumph. He will have every single one of us hunted down and destroyed."

"Our alliance will not crumble. They have you still, and that is enough. You are their Mother. The Goddess of Heaven. They will follow you to the underworld and back. You will see this war through. And perhaps, when it is over, you might even be able to restore me."

"Gon--!"

"I cannot just leave him to the God King!" I said desperately, interrupting her. I rose and took her shoulders in my hands. "He is my son, Zenzele. If I do not return to Uroboros, Khronos will destroy him, and then I will die. The part of me you love will perish. Let me go, Zenzele, and do not follow, or it will be you who kills me, not the God King."

"I will not mourn for you," she said angrily.

And because I was going to meet my fate, I kissed her. I pressed my mouth upon hers and squeezed her body to mine.

She resisted for an instant, still angry, and then she melted against me. She opened her mouth to me and I slid my tongue inside so that she could bite it and Share with me one last time.

"Take it," I whispered urgently. "Drink my blood. Take the last of me and keep it safe."

"Gon, no!" she moaned, but she did as I bid her to.

I pulled her down on the frozen grass, pushed her back and tore her clothes away, parted her knees.

"Gon!"

"Let me have this!" I hissed. "I need it! It will give me something to hold in my thoughts when he is tearing me apart!"

She made a sharp sound of pain and turned her face away from me, and then she pushed aside her fear and looked into my eyes. She smiled and nodded. "Then slip inside me, beautiful one," she said, spreading herself for me, "if it will help you to endure the horrors to come."

My hands shook as I ripped open my breeches and tore off my loincloth. I was rigid as stone. I fell upon her and stabbed the full length of it inside her. I sank down upon her with a wavering groan.

"Fuck me, you beautiful fool!" she snarled. She drove her fangs into my neck. Her nails slashed open the flesh of my back.

"I love you, Zenzele!" I groaned, ramming my cock into her again and again. "I love you!"

Such desperate lust! It is a common human reaction in times of mortal peril, a last-ditch effort to carry out the reproductive mandate, to preserve one's DNA, to continue on. I no longer possessed the living seed of a mortal man to give to her, to entrust to the protective vault of her womb, but the instinct remained, and I was driven by it.

I came, my body shuddering from head to toe, but I did not stop until I came again, and the cold black fluid which was my seed overspilled her lips and trickled down her inner thighs.

I collapsed atop her, and she held me—with her arms and with her womb.

"He will have you quartered," she whispered.

"I know."

"He will torment you for ages."

"Yes."

"I will try to collect the pieces when it is over," she said. "If we win this war. I will do my best to restore you."

"I know you will."

"I don't want you to go. I want you to come back home with me."

"I know."

"But you can't."

"No."

She pushed against me, and I rolled off of her. The frozen grass crackled. She sat up and tried to mend her garments. "Then go," she said. She rose and started walking away. "Go surrender to our enemy."