Cursed By The Gods Book 1 and 2

Chapter 30

Ashterah opened the door to her pool and stopped short at the sight of her servants. They had been there for hours indulging themselves in drunken debauchery and had even invited Elonis, servants of Eloni; god of beauty and desire, to join the party with them. The Elonis, according to the name of their master, were exquisitely beautiful in both face and form and possessed the best abilities in s*x pleasures. They were considered useless until when either needed for an assignment or when a god needed to scratch an itch.

The noise they made in the water and on the slab had drawn her out of her temple to investigate. There were jars of wine, some broken, laying all over the place, wine was spilled everywhere. It was a wonder none of them had died slipping on the slippery floor.

Some of her servants laid in a drunken, lazy heap with Elonis too tired to fulfil the desires of their bodies anymore. Ashterah curled her lips at them and stormed into the room. Leave the servants alone for just a second and they become useless and worthless.

“Out!” she screamed at them.

The sober ones in the pool who had not noticed her entrance scrambled quickly out of the water and without bothering to pull their clothes about their bodies they ran out of the room. In anger Ashterah blasted the drunken ones on the floor out of the room without care for where they will end up.

She wrinkled her nose at the smell from their activities. They had used aromatic plants to intoxicate each other, to make each other mindless to anything except satisfying their bodies. Even the usually crystal water in the pool was a mess, there were leaves in it and other things she dared not identify. Using her powers she cleared the mess and opened the windows for some fresh sea breeze to come in.

Once she had returned sanity to her pool she opened the door headed for her room. Just opening the door and seeing the rumpled sheets she had refused to put in order since Octavius’s last visit and it brought to mind the mind numbing pleasure she had felt in his arms, even Seumas with all his energy and s****l prowess was no equal to him. She went to bed and laid on it, sniffing it like she had done in the last few days for his scent still lingered on them.

She could not understand what she felt for him, he was just human. She shouldn’t be attracted to him Nukis had been attracted to Jillien, and that one hadn’t even ended well. She knew she loved Octavius but he thought differently, he thought she didn’t know the meaning of love, thought she was insane like everyone else but it wasn’t her fault that she found it hard to let go when she loved. Like how she had loved Seumas, he had betrayed her with every silly maid and any Eloni he could find, both female and male. But she still loved him and welcomed him when he finally decided he wanted her but that love died when she met Octavius in her temple that day when he had come to seek her favor. She couldn’t understand how a mortal could be so beautiful, his skin was beautiful, his wavy unruly hair had caught her attention in a way Seumas’ didn’t. When he had opened his eyes to reveal their beautiful, mesmerizing blue color she had felt a wave of desire run through her.

Still hurting from Seumas’ latest betrayal she had been quite surprised when he refused her offer of s*x and he still continue to surprise her every time he proved defiant against her wish and she had found that it fanned her want for him even more. So she had tricked him into becoming hers, as she poured some powers into him at the battle camp against Amire she had taken his will and in the process his fertility until he agreed to be branded by her. Making him part daemon, even though she still refused to tell him that he wasn’t fully daemon so she would retain her hold on him, made him rely on her as his main source nourishment. He could feed from humans as long as he could but he would never be satisfied until he came to her to feed which was why she had given him his key for when his hunger got the best of him. For all his pride she had noticed the defeat in his eyes when he told her he was never going to have any reason to visit her and every time he came to feed she would demand he make love to her.

She loved what she felt for him, she loved him a lot but knew she would never publicly claim him not just because he was married and loved his wife but she feared what her father would do to him. Octavius would never be accused of being disloyal, even after he was marked as her slave he still loved his wife so much, but after Seumas treatment of her Robos had kept every male at arm’s length from her oblivious to the fact that she still welcomed them into her temple. She loved Octavius but she could not risk her life or Octavius’s for it.

As she inhaled his scents she suddenly had the urge to talk to someone about her feelings but there was no one she could talk to. Nukis would call her cruel and crazy even though he too was guilty of once falling in love with a mortal. She thought in her mind about who to talk to; Willa was a poor choice, she couldn’t be trusted with an information like love and Termla, goddess of justice would rebuke her for having any feelings at all.

Suddenly she thought of her mother, Helena, and stood up in a rush. Helena was the right choice, she would understand. Ashterah opened the door to her temple and willed herself into her mother’s. As was her mother’s preference the halls were done in yellow and red; yellow because she loved the color and red because she loved her daughter very much. Ashterah stared at the strangely empty hall, her mother’s hall was never empty, and there were always musicians and dancers in her hall, ballads from another time singing song of romance to her mother who would sit on her throne of sapphire with her eyes closed with a goblet of wine in her hand.

As she stared at the empty hall she heard footsteps running softly in the opposite direction to where she was standing. Her interest piqued she ran to see, turned the corner of the long hall and saw the purple end of her mother’s favorite gown disappearing around another corner. It was behavior Ashterah found strange, very uncharacteristic of her mother so she followed, keeping a safe distance behind her. When she got to the corner she stayed back and peeped around the bend. Her mother stood by the door of her room with her hand on the golden door knob, she looked left and right before opening the door. Ashterah who pulled her head back when Helena looked in her direction, almost catching her in the act of sneaking, came out of the corner.

What was her mother sneaking about for?

As the thought ran through her mind she realized she wasn’t the only one with secrets, her mother had hers too. She thought about going after her mother to discover what it was but decided against it, she too had something she wanted to keep secret.