It had grown late by now, the room getting darker as the moments passed, and the lamps throughout the room had sprung to life. Phaedra’s face was filled with lust. Not for me, I knew, but for power.

“Not so fast,” Phaedra said, blinking her eyes as if rousing herself from a dream. “Your end of the deal first. Once the bond is forged, then…” She took a deep breath. “I’ll let you go free, as promised. Not a moment before.”

I suppose it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

Though part of me had been hoping for her to unlock my manacles and remove my collar right away, I wasn’t surprised that she was going to make me prove myself before going further. It seemed that I was going to be bound to this damn bed for a little while longer, yet. “That’s fair, Phaedra. Very shrewd of you. I would expect nothing less…” I reached out for her hand with my own, and rested my fingers on hers. Her hands were as cold as death, her black claws pressed into the silken bedsheets. “But you will need to do one thing…”

With my other hand I pointed towards my collar. The chains weren’t long enough for me to reach it myself, but I doubted I could do much of anything with it still on. And since forging a bond between our Wills was magic, I hoped it would make sense to Phaedra that I would need to have it removed.

She stared at me for a long moment before saying anything. “You’re not able to perform the rite with that on?”

The rite. That was certainly one word for it. I nodded. “I’m afraid this meddlesome collar has made it difficult to channel my Will.”

“And yet…” Her eyes glanced down to my wrists and legs. “If I take that off you, the rest of these restraints will hardly be worth much.” Now that I’d lost my connection to Mona, and after whatever the real Greg-Theryx had done inside my soul, I thought Phaedra might be wrong, actually. I had no idea what kind of strength or magic I would be able to muster now, in my weakened state. But I could hardly admit to any of that. Being honest about my weakness hardly seemed like the type of thing that was going to win her over. Instead, perhaps, a challenge.

“If you’d rather the alternative, you can take the elevator down to the infirmary and wake Shatterbone up, High Priestess. I’m sure he’d have some ideas for your next course of action.” I said the last bit with a grin, and Phaedra’s eyes darkened. “Even if I break these bonds, where am I going to go?” I knew exactly where, and how. I just hoped I’d make it. “Am I going to fight my way down every floor of the tower and out into the city? How many of Shatterbone’s loyal minions have you placed between me and anyone who might actually do what I tell them? Where the fuck am I supposed to go?” I raised an eyebrow, and stared her down.

A long moment passed before she sighed, and I felt the tension begin to flow out of her. Her Will reached towards me, a bit stronger than it had before, and I felt her misgivings crumble away.

“You’re not wrong…” she said, and shook her head. Then she reached down into her robes and produced a small, obsidian key that hung from a golden chain. As she slowly moved to straddle me, her weight pressing against me, I tried to stomach my revulsion for her. As her hands, elegant and gaunt, reached towards my neck, she gave me one last look as if she still didn’t quite believe me.

It took everything I had not to scream. I was so close.

“After,” she said, and gave me a sickening smile. “I promise. We’ll try it once with the collar on. You can convince me of your sincerity, godling.”

I forced a smile. “Of course,” I said.

Through her robes I could feel her taut thighs resting against my own, as she placed the key back into her robes, into a pocket hidden in the folds of the dark cloth.

“So…” I said, my voice trailing off as my eyes wandered over her. I cracked a fake smile at her. My hands couldn’t reach her where she was sitting, unfortunately. But the good news was that now I knew exactly where she was keeping that key.

“So,” Phaedra replied, leaning forward and dragging one of her claws down the muscles of my exposed chest. I felt a shiver pass through me, which I hoped she would interpret as excitement rather than trepidation. But in truth I already wondered how far I could take this—how far I might go to convince her.

But then I had a realization. Mona’s words played in my mind, all of your bodily fluids are imbued with a fraction of your Will.

“Come closer,” I said to her. “Kiss me.”

My stomach did a flip, but this was something, at least, I knew I would have to do. And more importantly, if she leaned down, she’d be closer to me. With a smile, she lowered herself against me until I could feel her breasts, covered only in thin robes, pressing against my chest. I moved my hands towards her, slowly, as if I wished to touch her arms, as far as my chains would allow me. Sadly, her pocket was still out of reach.

Gently she placed her lips against me, and I kissed her awkwardly. We were stiff, out of sync, neither of us knowing which way to move. I pulled away. She tasted of salt and mushrooms. “You have to follow my lead, Phaedra. We need to be in … harmony.”

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For a brief moment, her face hinted at weakness, vulnerability, as if she worried this wouldn’t work, and that it might be her fault. But then she scowled at me. “How is it possible to know where you are leading, godling? Your weakness saddens me.”

I wanted to tell her it was quite hard to lead while in shackles, but instead I merely smiled at her. “Let’s try again.” I bit the inside of my cheek with my fangs, feeling the warm blood flow into my mouth, trying to collect as much of it as I could.

As her lips moved towards mine, I felt her Will reaching out in desire again. She closed her eyes, even, a rare moment of vulnerability.

A moment I took.

I spit blood into her face, closing my own eyes, and I could see my Will still burning within the blood of a god. As I pressed my Will upon it, I commanded my blood to reach into her eyes, her nose, her mouth.

Phaedra screamed, her body suddenly squirming as she tried to get off of me. My hand sprung forward and I placed every bit of Void energy I could muster into my arm, all of my rage and anguish, every ounce of regret and guilt over my failures. The bed frame bent with a groan of metal, and my hand clamped around her throat.

In her eyes there was a furious hatred, and yet also surprise, not yet comprehending why I had betrayed her. Everything I’d told her was correct, of course. Logically, it made far more sense to give her what she wanted.

With my grip around her neck, I lifted her to the side, moving her robes close to my other hand. After some fumbling, I managed to get the obsidian key out of her robes. With one smooth motion I slid it into the collar and turned, unlocking it.

With a satisfying click I felt the collar fall away, and I rolled my head from side to side, stretching my sore neck. Energy flowed through me, a spark that cascaded from my head down through my toes.

“You were right to fear me, Phaedra,” I said, barely able to see her through the dark spots that swam across my vision, the rage bubbling up from my soul as my transformation continued. Her mouth opened as if she was trying to reply, but only a sigh emerged, as my hand squeezed her throat like a vice, my claws digging into her skin. “You don’t need to talk. You only need to listen.”

Her eyes widened for a moment, and she shook her head, as if pleading with me…

“You know what’s funny, Phaedra?” It was a rhetorical question, of course, as she could hardly answer me when she couldn’t breathe. “Mona had almost convinced me to fight and die for you all. But now you’ve cured me of that foolishness. And once I’m gone from here, your reign will be over before it started. If you’d just been nice, I would have fucked you. Together, the three of us—you, Mona, and myself—would have triumphed, and you could have wielded the power you’re so desperate for. But because you betrayed her, because you killed Desdemona Fell, you’re going to lose everything. Good luck running a church without a god … or even a godling.”

But to my surprise, she rolled her eyes. It looked like she wanted to laugh. Something about her reaction made me falter, and my hand loosened ever so slightly.

“You fool,” she hissed. “Your precious succubus isn’t dead.”

“I… What?” For a moment, I found myself not knowing what else to say. I’d been so sure of my need for revenge, and I really had felt Mona’s Will fade from my awareness. If she wasn’t dead, what had happened to her? But I felt no deceit from Phaedra. She wasn’t lying to me.

Relief washed through me. Relief, and shock. It was enough to cause my grip to slacken around Phaedra’s neck further, and in that brief moment, she began to scream—a high-pitched howling that I knew would wake even the most restful of sentries. I clapped my hand over her mouth, swinging us around so that I was on top of her, but it was too late. Behind me I heard the sound of the doors opening, the stomping of metal boots as the guards entered.

“Fuck,” I shouted. I climbed off her and tossed her to the side, then fumbled with the key in the other shackle, only to realize that the shackles were a different lock, requiring a different key. Instead I focused all of my Void energy into the muscles of my wrist, reassembling them elongating the bones but making them thinner instead of thicker. I felt a sharp pain, but the shackles slid off me as Phaedra scrambled out of bed, running towards the guards.

“Stop him, you fucking idiots!” she shouted.

I turned, taking in the sight of four guards hesitantly approaching me, Phaedra running past them, her bare ass retreating from me, her robes disheveled, half on, half off.

I looked down at myself, realizing I was once again naked in front of strangers, far more vulnerable than I wanted—a disturbingly recurring theme. Sadly, I didn’t think there would be an opportunity to get dressed before my escape. If Mona was still alive, it was long past time that I joined her.

Thankfully, the guards still seemed afraid of me. Though their spears were extended, and all four of them wore armor, they had formed a line, shoulder to shoulder, a few feet from the bedroom door, and hadn’t advanced further.

I held out my hands to either side of me, and smiled at them. “Is this really what has become of us?” I asked. “You would treat your god this way?”

“He’s not our god!” Phaedra shouted, from where she lingered near the doorway. “Follow your General’s orders!”

This seemed to snap them out of their reluctance. The guard closest to me advanced toward the platform that held the bed, placing one boot on the lowest step. “Don’t move,” he said, as the other guards moved into position behind him.

Which seemed like a perfect time to do the opposite of what he said, before I lost my nerve. I would never get another chance at this, after all.

I screamed, partly to unnerve the guards, and partly to put myself into the right frame of mind as I began to charge towards them, holding out my hands in front of me, claws bared. “You heathens!” I shouted, because it seemed like the kind of thing a god should have said.

To my surprise, rather than charging back at me, they all took a step backward, choosing instead to guard the door. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to do—after all, their job was to keep me from getting out of here.

So I suppose they must have been very surprised when I suddenly changed direction, away from the door, towards the small metal hatch set into the wall, the one the demons referred to as the chute.

Too late, perhaps, they realized what I intended, but by that point I was only a few steps from my escape route, and when I reached it, I pulled it open in one smooth motion. Within, all I saw was darkness. All I heard was the sound of whistling air.

I gave them one last look over my shoulder, my gaze lingering on Phaedra, at the look of anger and helplessness that was now on her face.

“Bye, assholes,” I said with a grin, because I was so damn tired of being in character. Of trying to be someone I was not and never would be. After one last look at the room where I’d spent entirely too much of my second life, I did the only thing I could, the only escape plan I had ever thought to consider.

I threw myself in the trash.