19
O
ccia lay facedown on the desktop, grunting lazily as Pontifex's cock rocked in and out of her. They were in his private office and he stood at his desk, his thighs moving between hers, his mind on business. They'd been at it for hours, and her flesh was burning and chafed. But she loved nothing more than the feel of this powerful man mating her. As was usual in these sessions, a four-legged tray had been set over the desktop to bridge her back, so that Pontifex could stand between her thighs and still manage his paperwork atop the makeshift workstation. His wealth and power acted on her like strong aphrodisiacs. And with every scribble of his pen or rasp of paper as he turned a page, he only grew more wealthy and powerful. And her need for him rose.
“I have a task for you, Occia,” he told her suddenly, jarring her from her sensual trance. “I want you to lure the eldest Satyr here to my throne room.”
“Lord Bastian? Why? And by what means?”
“Because I instruct you to. Use any means.” Ceasing his work, he set the tray aside.
“And what will you do,” she glanced pointedly at where he was joined to her, “during my absence?”
“As I please,” he said with quiet menace.
“It's the same every Moonful now,” she accused. “You find an excuse to rid yourself of me on the chance that Silvia will come again. So that you can fuck
her
.”
“My dear, if I wanted to be rid of you, you'd already be in the moat. And I'll fuck who I like.”
To prove his point, he pulled out of her and waved another victim over from a trio of Lares seated on a floor cushion to assume her place. He thrust into his new choice as Occia watched, knowing how it wounded her when he did. Each time he'd stabbed himself in another woman over the centuries, it was like a stab in her heart.
Yet, Occia had been generous. She had let him have them all. But he could not have
her
ânot Silvia. Because she feared what would happen if he ever managed it. It seemed that Silvia must be the one the Oracle had prophesied would bear his child. The one he hoped would lead an army. What place would there be in his life for Occia then? She'd given him so many centuries of love. But he didn't care. His ambitions were all that mattered to him.
Hate filled her as she watched him fuck another, even as tears filled her eyes. Still, as she turned and walked away, she yearned for him to call her back.
Silvia strode over the carpet runner toward the throne of her nemesis. Whispers followed her progress. She hadn't been in Pontifex's lair here in ElseWorld for five months.
“Well, well. Finally she comes,” Pontifex called out, his tone dripping sarcasm. “What have you brought me? Better be something good.”
She remained silent until she reached him. This time, she went close, to the very edge of the moat, and glared at him across it. “I have the firestones.”
Pontifex's greedy eyes searched over her. “How many? Where?”
“All six.” She held her arms out toward him. And in her cupped hands were six stones.
He brushed the woman who currently serviced him away from his lap and made as if to rise. For once, it wasn't Occia, she noted in surprise.
Silvia lowered her hands toward the sizzling water. “If you or your guards come closer, I swear I'll drop them in this moat.”
He searched her eyes, and seeing her determination, he sank back. “How tiresome. What do you want in exchange for them?”
Your destruction.
“Information. To start. Why did you have Michaela killed?”
He flicked a hand, as if irritated by this trifling matter. “It struck me that since she'd gone and made herself mortal, you could take her as host. And that at Moonful, it seemed likely you would fall into Lord Satyr's clutches. It's widely known that the Satyrs' semen enhances the power of another man's seed.”
“You planned to bed Michaela and me that night, when we were bonded together? Hoping for a child?” She shivered, repulsed.
“I even had one of my guards spike that bastard Satyr's drink, so that he would lose his mind and I would be able to steal you. But that plan came to naught when he locked you up with him in his guarded love nest in that salon of his brother's.” He
tsked.
“A shame. But that's neither here nor there now. Michaela's dead. My scouts found only a trace of her ashes. You were thorough.”
Rage filled her, but she tamped it down. She'd come here with a plan and would not ruin it by letting her emotions run riot. “I didn't want her decorating your throne. You'd hurt her enough, you filthy bastard.”
“Careful,” Pontifex warned quietly. “I took nothing she didn't offer.”
“You raped her for centuries.”
“Every Moonful. Like clockwork,” he said, unrepentant. “She was a delicious piece of work, your Michaela. But she's dead now and I've given you your information.” He leaned toward her. “Now, give me the stones.”
Noting the guards creeping nearer, she extended her hands lower toward the moat. “Tell them to keep away, orâ”
When he waved a hand toward the guards, they backed off. “What the hells do you want?”
“Release the other nine Vestals you hold captive. Once they are free of this place, I'll give you the stones.” After a pause, he inclined his head and hope rose in her. “And once I do, you'll let me go as well,” she added.
“No,” he said, and her heart sank. “That I'll never do. You see, I made a vow to your father. After Vesta's temple was destroyed all those years ago, he approached me.” Pontifex reached up, blindly caressing a skull lodged in his throne just above his own head. It was aged, and was one of the more garish decorations, for its eye sockets had a wistful, hungry cant, and it still bore a shank of copper-colored hair.
Silvia's breath stopped as she stared at itâreally stared at it for the first time.
“Yes, I can see you've guessed that it's your father,” Pontifex told her. “Over the centuries, he has watched from my throne as you came here to me each Moonful with your tithes. Just as he watched you all of your life, plotting for your future.”
“Explain yourself.”
“It was pathetic really, the way he would spy on you. Sometimes he crept into the Vestal House to gaze upon you in your virginal bed late at night. And he would lust for you. And hate himself for it.” Pontifex winced and shifted in his chair. Obviously hurting for lack of a woman, he began stroking himself. “After the temples were destroyed and we knew what the Ephemerals could do, he came to me with a proposition. Through you and the other Vestals, we would create children, he said. An army that could produce firewalls at will, and use them to steal and plunder. We would become rich and powerful men.”
“But we didn't cooperate.”
He shook his head ruefully. “Your poor father, ruled by his passions.” His hand stroked her father's skull again. “He wanted so desperately to fuck you himself, but feared reprisal from his Gods and his wife. Instead, he begged me to kill him so that he could finally take what he wanted through me. So I murdered him. And I ate his flesh so he would forever be part of me. And before I did so, I promised him that one day we would fuck youâtogether.” He rose and came to stand across from her at the edge of the moat. “I think today will be that day.”
She shook her head, horrified, and stepped dangerously close to the moat's edge. “I'll jump in before I'll let that happen,” she warned.
“But what will happen to your little friends then?” He waved toward the Wall of Doors; then she heard a rumble as the bridge began to move toward her to link the banks between them. “Come now, be reasonable. We've been waiting so long for you, your father and I. Be a good girl and obey his last wish. Let us lie together. And through you I will create an Ephemeral army.”
Seeing a glowing phenomenon suddenly appear just beyond him and guessing what it likely was, Silvia said, “What of Occia?”
“That slut?” He flicked a hand. “She's nothing to us. Nothing to me. If you want her dead, then so be it. When she returns from her errand, I'll put paid to her.”
“Bastard!” Behind him, Occia appeared in a blaze of fire and flew at him across the room. “I knew it! You sent me on a fool's errand only to be rid of me, so that you could have her.” In a move that took him off guard, she rushed him and hit the back of his knees. He toppled, splashing without fanfare into his own moat. Within seconds, bubbles were all that was left of him. Occia stood there, cursing him and brushing furious tears from her eyes. “Die, you thankless prick.”
“I couldn't agree more,” said Silvia. Cupping the stones to her chest, she began to run toward the Wall.
Occia sent her a hateful gaze and motioned to the guards to apprehend her. When they hesitated, she tossed out a firewall, incinerating one of them. The remaining guards quickly did her bidding, grabbing Silvia's arms and taking the stones from her. When they were given to Occia, she only laughed and tossed them into the moat. “You brought worthless rocks? You always were a clever girl.”
Flouncing away, she flung herself onto Pontifex's throne, drawing gasps and whispers from others in the background at her audacity in usurping the place of honor.
“Did you really think I would bring him the real opals?” asked Silvia.
“You mean these?” Lifting a pouch from her pocket, Occia held it upside down and let the six firestones tumble to her lap.
Silvia gasped. “How did youâ”
“Pontifex sent me after your lover just in time to witness that touching scene between the two of you in his vault. Afterward, I saw you bury the opals for safekeeping at the edge of his property before you came here, and so I took them.”
“You brought them through the gate when you were in Ephemeral wraith form?”
Occia smirked, nodding. “A talent I acquired by fucking Pontifex. He'd absorbed some interesting abilities through those he cannibalized. And he passed some of them on to me via his seed.”
Silvia gave a hard jerk of her shoulders, trying to wrest away from the guards. “We were friends once, Occia. In the name of that friendship and our goddess, let us open those nine doors at last and free the others.”
“Nine?” Occia made a
tsking
sound. “A clever girl like you should be able to count more precisely than that.”
And it was then Silvia noticed that a new, tenth door had been added! Their eyes met, and Silvia recoiled, guessing what she had planned. “No.”
“I believe Pontifex had meant me to occupy it,” Occia mused. “However, I make the decisions now.” She nodded to the guards. “Put her with the others.”
Silvia struggled, but four guards were more than she could overpower, and without clasping her hands together, she could not create a firegate to escape. “What are you planning?”
“It occurred to me that I can make children myself, without Pontifex. Any one of these guards will accommodate me. I will make the army he longed forâan army of Ephemeral children who can move about the worlds by use of firegates. Only they'll do my bidding, not that of Pontifex or your father.” Her gaze went to the moat where only a few bubbles remained as evidence that her lover had ever existed. Her voice went a little sad and wistful, for she obviously mourned him in spite of herself. “I'll be the one made rich and powerful. The only Vestal who still roams free.”
Then the world went dark as Silvia was knocked unconscious.
When Silvia woke again, all was inky blackness. She reached out, and her hand bumped into an unyielding wall. Blindly, she reached in another direction. And encountered another wall. And another and another. There were walls above and below and on all sides of her. Walls so close that she could not quite stand completely straight or lie flat. Hysteria bubbled and she squelched it, forcing herself to calm. Her knee bumped something. An oil lamp. Her hand felt around and found water and bread.
Her heart thumped in terror. Occia had buried her alive, like the others! None of these three items she'd been allotted were meant to be used. They were merely symbols to remind her that she was well and truly snared. Ancient Roman magistrates had decreed that oil, water, and bread would be supplied to any Vestal who had violated her vows and been sentenced to entombment in the Evil Fields. The Wall of Doors was encased in a form of magic, which would keep her alive without sustenance or fresh air. Forever.
She pounded the walls on all sides of her, then paused periodically to listen. She'd hoped to hear a reciprocal sound from one of the other Vestals entrapped nearby in the Wall as she was, but all was silence. As the hours passed, she considered every possible manner of escape, no matter how unlikely. Were she to create a firewall in this small space, she would only incinerate herself and possibly some of the others.
Suffocated by the dark and her own fear, she succumbed to panic. “No!” she shrieked, thrashing inside her prison. But in this she only succeeded in bruising herself.