---

When I begin to push in she screams, limbs twisting, chest bursting with action.

I continue the impaling, without pause but slow, barely a third of me inside. ''Look at me. Kali, look at me. You are incredible. You are doing great.''

She nods. Were they able to, her eyes would probably well with tears.

Her foot slams at my stomach. I push it away. Quickly I push the rest of myself inside.

Her scream is of such magnitude that my mind instinctively dulls the sound. The few afterscreams she releases form a chasm across my chest.

Her entire body is shaking.

I lace my fingers with hers, tell her to focus on my eyes, to look up—her grip terrifying, my hands under boulders.

She laughs a few times—tries to—through heavy, interrupted breaths. ''Do...it,'' she whispers, her throat slightly raw.

With great control and only looking at the blackest black that is her pupil, I move backward and then forward.

Forgotten gods...the crush is incredible.

My scholars are exceptional.

She can take almost all of me.

This is my first time of my own will; to my mind, she is my first.

She spreads her arms and I see a shadow of pain in her eyes. She tries to hide it—and she hides it well—but her own body betrays her. Nothing escapes my eyes. With great reluctance I move back; very, very slowly beginning to remove myself from her. I am ashamed and terrified at the huge amount of willpower it took for me to do this.

''Don't leave me, please,'' she begs.

''You are in great pain,'' I say.

''It is nothing,'' she says with a slight smile. ''Stay with me I'm well.'' She puts herself against me tight, her lips exploring my jaw. ''You...are so warm...you feel like the sun,'' her voice the shadow of a whisper that she knew would not escape my ears.

I remember that even though at this moment she seems fragile, she is steel. My behemoth killer. My Kali.

She leans the side of her head on my chest. After being quiet for a while she says, ''Others think I do not tire—ever.''

My hand slides down her back and then lower. ''I have poured much weight on you, but only because I knew you could take all the responsibilities. You have always made me proud.'' Her body might heal quick from toil but the mind takes more time. ''I am often tired.''

She lifts her head, looks at me as if not believing my words.

''But not today, my Kali.'' Our eyes locked, I gently push her body onto the table and then lunge.

She wanted to scream but stopped herself. Nods instead.

Slowly I slide backward and then with great speed deep inside again, both my hands on sculpted breasts.

She is smooth, soft. I have almost expected her skin to feel like scared metal or chipped stone.

Her breasts are firm-looking yet supple-feeling to my kneading hands, a smooth perfection of pale purple skin.

''Such fascination''—she pants when I push deep, stretching her innermost cranny, pushing her undulating walls immensely—''for those useless things. Although rarely...they can hamper balance. Ugly things.''

I look into her eyes, pushing myself deep. ''Perfect things.'' I pull back slow. ''Beautiful things.'' My voice confident, all words said cold and true.

She moans; sounding like in pain, her arms spread as though she knows not what to do with them, my movement slow and gentle as if she is glass.

She might be a being of incredible strength, but this union favors my body, my plate overflowing with honey, while hers is the bitter part, she endures much of the discomfort. My breathing is slow; hers is not—my circumference sliding, pushing through her, stretching her immensely.

A human male would be too weak to join with Kali. Her steel gate can only be broken open by me.

Suddenly her hands reach to clasp my head and our lips wrestle. I am certain she has very sensitive lips, and I use this to ease much of her discomfort, tasting and biting her gently.

She does indeed.

The pale sunlight shines through Bastion's special glass. And high above us is an emerald sun, an orb bathed in splendorous, green light. The Archcrystal of Vantium levitates unseen. Its city-wide wings of radiant light wait patiently for the night to unfurl.

I kiss her fingers. ''Beautiful,'' I whisper. From her unending dance with blades, her hands should be patches of roughness, but she heals so well that they are smooth and soft and gleaming. A hint of camellia oil she uses to polish her blades on them. A scent faint and floral, barely noticeable.

I think of that day in the arena, the way she moved, the way she looked at me. ''One day you will dance with me,'' I tell her, plunging my length inside, making her toes writhe and white soles wrinkle.

''You know...I don't dance.''

''You will with me.''

I thrust myself deeper inside her until I reach an impasse. The pressure of her across my length is rock-crushing. All words are pathetic, unable to even begin to describe the god-like feeling.

Her breathing is strenuous, her gorgeous eyes are pain and want, she smiles then snarls, revealing teeth whiter than any paper, her fingers gliding across my stomach.

''We have to stop, you are in great discomfort.''

''Behind the knee,'' she pleads.

''What?'' I ask.

''Touch me there while kissing my palm.''

I do it without hesitation and the result is more than encouraging. She moans. Her discomfort seems diminished somewhat and I seek to eradicate it fully; a great vivaciousness possesses my fingers that caress her behind the knee.

''So good,'' she whispers low, the words almost unheard by even my ears.

Her lips, her neck, and her fingertips should all be regions most receptive to touch. And apparently—she releases many pleasure-filled exclamations—behind the knee as well.

''Are you going to kiss it again?'' she whispers.

''I will. But now I want you this way.''

She twirls my hair, a dark-blue shroud falling across my back, some of it mixes with her strands of shimmering white. ''Could it...stop a steel blade.'' Her other hand raking my abdomen, talons of an eagle—the force more than enough to rend through Wraith-hide. I am in great pain, and she knows it—changing the force and direction of her hand so I cannot properly dull it. She smiles, her brows jumping a little—eyes narrowed slightly from the relentless stretching I give her.

I plunge myself inside her slowly, kissing the spot between her breasts. Her unblemished skin is the horizon-purple of summer days long gone, when a new dawn is about to be born. The huge pain of her slender, powerful fingers mixes with pure delight enveloping most of my length. ''Yes,'' I whisper.

She stops the raking and glides her fingers gently across the same spot, looks down. ''You are strong,'' she smiles as though I passed some test, looks back at me, eyes edged with pain and want.

''How did---'' ''Am I---'' we both go at the same time.

''You go first,'' I say.

''Am I hurting you?'' Kali asks.

''What?'' I whisper gently.

''You make many small sounds of pain.''

''They mean the opposite of pain.''

Her brows furrow charmingly, the face she makes innocent-like for a moment. ''What did you want to say?''

''How did you know I would not reject you?'' I ask; my lower half battering her steel gate unceasingly.

''I did not know you would not reject me,'' she tries to mimic the depth and calm of my voice; her smile the biggest one yet, her perfect teeth gleaming. Soon her jiggling face becomes serious again, only a small smirk remaining. ''I just know what I want.''

I relish her neck.

She washed her hair with rose water, her scent sweet, early-spring-like. A scent she will never be able to smell. And yet she has used it. For me. Carved her body. For me.

Jumped into a gaping maw, for me.

I look deep into her faultless eyes.

Long ago—for a moment I groan loudly with sweet exertion, the pressure of her exhilarating—there was a human poet who said If you are unwilling to break the rules for your woman she will not stay yours for long. I do not break rules. I make them.

I kiss her neck. ''Trilex is yours,'' I whisper into her ear.

''I don't want it.'' She dances her hand across my chest.

I thrust myself almost fully into her, grunting. ''Tell me what you want, and it is yours,'' my thoughts echo in her mind.

She smiles, kisses me roughly, clumsily...heavenly, says nothing in reply.

''We should...stop, you are in great pain,'' I kiss her cheek.

Her fingers rake across my back. ''A pain I want,'' she whispers. ''Don't stop, just...slow; for now at least.'' She nods a few times, her leg trembles slightly.

The eagerness of my swaying hips is reined in, my thrusts more steady, slower.

She moans. ''Yes. You're so good to me. You're so good to me.'' She then kisses my palm and thumb, her perfect eyes locked to mine.

Allmother's wrath! I throb once, a few drops of me escaping.

For centuries, my body was dominated by my mind utterly. It threatens treason today.

She bites hard at my shoulder, making me grunt in pain.

She then slides her fingers across my cheek. ''If I had your shoulders I'd rule the world.''

I chuckle. Soon I am quiet for a few moments. ''They are not much wide.''

''You mock me.''

I stop and lock myself inside her, my face above hers, and I whisper: ''And to whom do the mighty legions kneel, whose call do they answer? Who is this fierce queen whose guidance all seek?''

''I am but feared.''

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''No. Respected.''

''I'd prefer love.''

My mouth ravages her neck, and only after she moans do I continue my thrusts.

''Why don't you trust me?'' she whispers.

''You know I do.''

''Where do you disappear to when leaving the city?''

My slow-piercing motion continues. ''I travel to mountains and...valleys.''

''For months?'' her eyes narrow, and she releases a small, sweet exhale. We had this conversation many times, although in far less pleasurable circumstances.

''Sometimes solitude can be good for the mind.''

''Your teeth can pulverize bone,'' she whispers.

''What?'' I ask.

''I've seen you consume the roasted flesh and bones of a boar. Bite my wrist until you draw blood.'' Her breathing is heavy, as though she had been running the whole of twenty or more days.

I look to the side, hesitant.

''I will heal.'' She puts her hand on my cheek, holding my eyes. ''Please.''

Unbreaking eye contact, I bite hard into her wrist until barely I manage to draw some blood.

She screams. I start to move away, to remove myself from her, and she punches the side of my face with enough force to easily kill a human and grabs me, kissing, feeling the dab of her crystallizing blood on my lips. ''Don't leave me, Paterniel. Please,'' she begs between small kisses, her arms around me.

I return the embrace full-heart. ''I will not.''

''Do I taste good?'' she whispers eagerly.

I take her arm and gently kiss the wound, her palm, her fingers. Holding her eyes I whisper, ''Yes. Beautiful.''

''Better than animal flesh?''

My dark blue eyebrows jump slightly at that. I throw a small smile at her. ''Far better.''

A sense of relief seems to wash over her and she smiles.

I gently kiss her breasts.

Her smooth skin is a lovely scent, reminding me of the wildflowers of Everbloom Garden. It is a sweet scent, subtle, barely noticeable one; increasing my want for her.

I slowly move my hand over the back of her thigh and then lower, I do not bother to use my supersensitive sense of smell to try and amplify each note of her intoxicating scent. After all, one must not give in to captiousness when faced with—upon her backside my hand finds a granite-firm purchase, clutching—perfection.

Her thoughts whisper through my mind. ''You want to move faster. I can tell. You want to free yourself, like you did in the arena. Do it! Show me how much you want me. Move inside me faster. Or is this your peak?'' She says that last part teasingly.

Without saying anything, I move inside her fast, battering her with superhuman speed, my violent impacts felt by her whole body, down to the last inch of her.

She plunges her plum nails into my right inner wrist, growling and nodding when I take her even faster.

I do not hold back.

She screams and then grinds her teeth—all the while her eyes locked with mine. Her breathing heavy. She nods, her eyes pleading. ''Faster!''

My bestial tempo is without pause. The sound of skin on skin reaches a tempo, a speed that would make a young buck rabbit mad with envy.

The entire end section of the granite table breaks. Irrelevant.

Our union is unbroken, our bodies on the floor.

''Don't stop! Don't stop!'' her screaming—pleading—thoughts echo through my mind.

I do not stop.

She moans continuously, her body consumed by agony and rapture.

We pulverize chunks of black granite.

After an hour or so her limbs shake and I kiss her, sliding my long tongue along hers.

Our brows join, pushing hard against each other, the pressure immense—my frenzy of lunges never stopping. ''You are mine.''

Her breathing heavy. ''Yes. I am yours. Yes...Yes...Yes...''

''Whose slit is that?'' Our brows still locked.

''It's yours!!'' she screams.

I kiss her neck. ''I have always loved you,'' I whisper. ''In my own, distant way. Always.''

She looks at me for a heartbeat, her perfect eyes a thing unreadable, and kisses suddenly with a fire of a thousand stars—her tongue exploring each nook of my mouth.

She looks at me again, her hand on my cheek, regret in her eyes. ''We've lost so much time.''

''No,'' I tell her true. ''Eternity is ours. This world is ours.'' I kiss her palm, lower my head, and savor her lower lip.

Her violet lips a delicacy. Nectar divine.

My hands lock onto her upper arms. ''Grab your heels and pull them back.''

Her eyes focused on mine she does so, taking almost all of me—the force of my impacts creating tremors running through her powerful body.

She looks at my lips, a puzzled look on her.

''What?'' I ask.

''You could run to Parthios without losing...a breath, and now you seem to lose a few.''

I smile, looking downward. ''The exertion is as great as it is sweet—you feel incredible.''

She smirks. ''Sweet also means good for tongue. Yes?'' Her smile mirrors my own.

''Yes.''

I push her knees toward her chest. The area around her slit is dark purple, raw-looking, tender, enticing—my battering stopping any healing.

A few drops of her blood are smeared across my girth, a tiny tear spreading from the upper end of her slit.

With great reluctance I begin to remove myself from her. Surprisingly, my hardness falters not. Not even a little.

''Don't leave me.'' She hugs me tight. My muscles in a pleasing vice of her limbs. Her pleading voice binds more than even the incredible might of her arms—and this terrifies me utterly. Confirming what I perhaps always knew. That I would burn a world, for her. Centuries of work undone, for her. What have you done to me?

It takes an eternity, but I find my eloquence. ''You are in great discomfort.'' My cheek finds hers.

''Yes...and no. It hurts rapturously. Don't leave me.''

I do not.

Our union remains and I push myself until I am almost fully inside her.

''You keep looking at my throat. Why not take what you can easily have? Why do you hate me? You never loved me.'' She grins, her brows a playful thing, her eyes challenging me.

Her words are untrue and we both know it, yet they give sustenance to my anger nonetheless. I grab her throat and I squeeze. A powerful, bone-crushing thing.

Her unmoving lips hold a tiny smile, increasing my desire for her beyond all reason, her eyes savage hooks impaling my very soul. ''Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.'' Her words in perfect tempo with my fast lunges, her entire body oscillating, shaking with each powerful impact.

I look into her eyes, focusing on her pupil.

In another life you would give me sons and daughters to inherit this world. The failure is mine. It continues to be. The thoughts I dare not share.

She closes her eyes, whimpers low; her long, gossamer eyelashes further enflaming my desire. I caress her cheek, the tip of my thumb skimming the pearl-white threads.

Her high cheekbones are akin to mine, although less angular and more rounded, giving her a most pleasing, refined look—gentle, slightly fragile even, very much at odds with what she is capable of.

Some scholars—she moans when my girth spears through her in a savage thrust—...estimated, with more fear than enthusiasm, that she is four-fifths of my strength and nine-tenths of my speed. Given how she was easily—my big fingers rend into her breasts—able to obtain an archblade, enhanced, she is about the only being capable of ending me. A foolish thought. She would die for me. And were she to ever wish for my demise then I would most certainly deserve it.

I put the side of my hand into her mouth. ''Bite as hard as you would like, it will ease the pain.''

Her jaw carves at my palm, her exhale sweet. She looks at my verve of pure iron, at what I do to her. ''Is this better than drawing lines on a piece of paper in your precious, pretty...library.''

My bone-crushing movement ceases not. ''Yes.''

She looks up at me, mouth still full, still clenching. ''I like the way you hurt.''

I kiss her palm; mind steeping in pleasure. ''My...Kali.''

Despite our exertion immense, there is not a drop of sweat on our joined bodies. It is a human trait, yet I would not mind tasting her in such a way as well.

After a time I remove my hand to hold hers.

''What are you...thinking?'' she asks.

My man-limb greedy for her, the back-and-forth movement without pause. ''About how delicious you are.''

She grins in that way of hers, making me want to take her harder.

And I do. The speed of my plunges is merciless.

Holding onto me, she screams—her upper body arching.

''FASTER!'' her scream a command.

Fire. Pure fire is injected into me and I do what I thought impossible. I move even faster.

The rapid clatter of flesh against flesh, of skin against skin, is a cadence otherworldly—our bodies far beyond the limitations of humans, of beasts...

Inside her is scorching hot and I relish the feeling.

''Strong is the blade that cuts through storm, stronger yet the one that lingers indomitable, so the storm may cut itself. Strong is the blade that...''

She repeats the quotation many times, as if in a trance—all the while my impacts continue, fast and powerful.

My heart stops when her limbs go limp and eyes close.

I stop moving. ''No! Kali...''

She opens her eyes, her fist slamming into the side of my face, an anvil dropped from the sky. ''Again, you stop.''

I nod and slowly pick up the pace, my iron-hardness remained throughout.

I take her hand. ''Tell me to stop,'' my voice pleading, almost.

Her voice strained, my girth pushing, widening her far beyond comfort, ''If I could...take a huge blade of death in me, I can take one of life as well.''

''Tell. Me. T---''

''Shut up and fuck me.''

No one ever speaks to me like this. No one.

Before I can stop myself my palm lands on her cheek, the strong slap heard loud across the room.

She laughs off something that would kill many of her kindred, and I curse the cause, not the joyful sound.

I grab her mouth roughly, putting my thumb inside. It suits her ill to speak as though a mere foul-mouthed human. Rudeness is beneath her.

She looks down for a moment. ''You act anger yet your ardor falters not.''

Her beautiful eyes are pain and pleasure and everything in between. For the whole of the next hour I am lost in them, saying not a word, allowing my blade of life to do all the...talking.

She tries to smirk. ''I can read you easy. Now I know what you truly want: To see me on my knees. And I will but only if you order it so.'' She licks my thumb, and the way she does it...

No!

I lock my body, pause my movement, most of my length lingering inside her—the feel of her fracturing my willpower.

Her fingers dance with mine. ''Is everything well?''

I kiss her shoulder, smiling. ''Yes and no. Do not move.''

I exhale slow.

Shortly after the pause, my eyes hold hers and I nod, she does the same, a smirk on her.

A rampage of lower-body movement is unleashed.

She screams—makes ear-splitting sounds of agony and sweet sounds of pleasure. ''Look what you're doing to me. Look what you're doing to me,'' her voice supplicating, strange.

It is days into our union, they pass unnoticed. Like a bird over one of Vantium's distant gray-black spires spreading the outskirts.

Her hands on the glass wall, mine holding her hips—her sinewy back stretching before me, delicious shadows weaving across the spread of taut muscle.

Her beautiful white hair is uncustomarily untied, messy, falling everywhere.

Beautiful.

The veiled setting sun bathes our bodies with much-needed sustenance.

She looks upon the gorgeous panorama of our city stretching before us, suddenly starts laughing through gritted teeth, ''You can speed up! I won't break your precious glass.''

I grab her hair and pull hard; her wish granted utterly.

My lips on her ear. ''You knew. You saw the way I have always looked at you. I always treated you as an equal. You knew that I want you. Even when I did not, you knew.'' I pull even harder, making her growl in pain; the stretch immense, she feels me now more than ever. ''You knew. Ice is all you have given. No more. You will talk to me, truly talk.''

Without waiting for reply I drop her hair and take her hips. I move my lower body in a slaughter of motion against her backside.

''Allmother take me!'' she screams, then laughs. ''Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.''

Her cries remind me of those early ones when I first joined her—her honey-and-caramel scent increasing my hunger for her.

The feral moans she releases are a sound delicious, and I want my fill. I hold her hips and I feast. And in that one moment I hate her. I hate what she does to me. I hate how much I want her, that I always wanted her. I hate how she made me weak, a slave to desire.

A syrupy golden-yellow liquid drips out of her, the heat of our union causing honey butter to liquify.

A distant screaming breaks my trance. ''...Slow! Slow! It burns! Maker!''

I pause. ''Forgive me...'' my breathing heavy. ''Forgive me.'' My hand glides across her lower back.

''Well...I didn't...say...stop...''

I chuckle; and only after some time do I build up my speed.

Hours pass, days pass. I say nothing, she says nothing. Our bodies' movements are words enough, gasps and thrusts intonations clear.

Her clenching hands destroy much of the granite chair when I take her from behind near the room's middle. And when her screams make me hesitant in motion, she curses me, using words she never does, words that hurt. Anger. I allow it to consume me and I do to her what she did to pure granite.

''You never loved me! Only your buildings! Human puppet! Slave!'' she screams each word.

She is under my impenetrable skin, melting the last frost. My blood seethes.

I grab her strong hair, and even though knowing exactly what she is doing, I pull hard. Thousands of needles stab at her head when it snaps backward, and I do not care. I am merciless.

She laughs, a thing pushed through the pain, and then she screams, begs me to not slow my demonic tempo.

''Damn you.''

''Yes, Maker!'' she shouts the words again and again.

The chair is gone.

After several weeks of our rampaging union have passed, chairs are obliterated, their remains everywhere, precious artifacts in the room are destroyed, ancient human relics decorating the room destroyed, among which a display case housing a very ancient and very priceless circlet of electrum, worn by some forgotten noblewoman during the Age of Fire.

It is as though a behemoth decided to walk straight through this chamber.

With mindspeak, quite some days ago and through the glass wall, I had ordered for us not to be disturbed by anyone. Most of my creations would not be able to comprehend this union and officially: Kali and I are having a friendly wrestling bout and are debating about important—I violently thrust myself deeper into her, her loud moan my pleasure—matters. Technically, not a lie.

Only two of us exist.

There are dark chambers of my mind where my thirst for her is of a far different kind from what a human male might possess. Stronger, greater. I let it engulf me.

For many days I have her mind, her body, and her soul. I have her in every way possible.

Hers seems a need great yet a thing largely unbeknownst to me.

I put my cheek roughly against hers. ''My Kali.''

She laughs, a sound short and gentle, fingers spearing at my skin, the pain blissful. ''You're so strong.''

I lift my head to look at her. ''We are gods of this world.'' It is such a human thing to say, I know, yet it is the truth.

She smiles, her limbs upon me. ''So I have a god inside me then?'' she whispers.

''Do gods not reside in Empyrean?''

Kali laughs, soon clenching her teeth when I push inside her, stretching her internal walls vigorously. ''So warm,'' she whispers.

Despite the amaranth; like all her many kindred she cannot smell or taste, however, Kali's sense of touch is superior to that of any human. Her lips should possess the purest concentration of this gift. I use this again and again to make our union more gratifying. We devour one another as our mouths discover a purpose far beyond eloquence. And even though not being able to taste me, she certainly tried, eagerly returning all the special kisses—the order executed obediently and with great enthusiasm.

Kali moves with more confidence with each passing day.

The floor, the walls, my arms.

Any surface will suffice. And even, as I stood, my man-limb bearing the full weight of her body.

On the fortieth day, after endless positions we are back at our first one—her lying on the floor among the remnants of the shattered table me on top. Her arms embrace me. She holds me strongly, my face above hers and her legs hold me, clamp me, pushing me until I am almost fully inside her. I cannot free myself—at this moment her strength impossibly rivals mine.

Her perfect eyes are my cosmos.

She is everything.

''I love you, Pat,'' she says it in such a way and with such absolute and beautiful certainty that all control is lost.

No...

My body contorts, command over it I have none, mind drowning in such pleasure that I roar. The sound something primitive, below human even.

Like a starving snake coiling around some innocent cony, my body tightens its hold on her so powerfully that even she feels the heavy crushing effect.

My essence begins releasing into her core.

She holds me tightly with her legs and hands; I cannot stop the flow and for the next three hours I pulsate inside her, my lifeblood spilling out of her. I was holding back a river since the days-beyond-recall and only now does its flow washes over me, the tension unleashed.

Only after I am spent does she let go, eyes closing, her depleted limbs falling splayed on four sides.

I collapse next to her, darkness taking me.