Little God

3

“What?”

He shook his head, wondering why the wind could not cool him down.

Antero raised his eyebrows, as if he had no idea what he’d done to Melis by moving a fraction closer and asking such a question in an intimate way.

“My desires,”

he explained, his voice a tug on Melis’ mostly forgotten cock.

“Did they please you? If that is all I am to have as a companion in my life, then let my longing bring you pleasure, Melis of No-Form.”

A great, wracking shudder sent feathers floating to the ground, visible to Antero if he cared to look.

Melis bent his head and watched two rose petals from his crown fall to join the feathers.

He turned his face up to Antero, bewildered.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m warm, and then hot, though I shiver. My limbs are shaky. What have you done to me? Tell me.”

Moonlight revealed a sharp gaze, eyes dark with some emotion Melis didn’t recognize as they swept over him—over the place where he stood, though Antero could not see him.

Antero swallowed, his throat moving under Melis’ fascinated attention.

“I am offering you my dreams, Melis.”

Each word was precise.

Each word sent another sliver of lightning down Melis’ back that carried through his wings, the sound like the rustle of trees in the wind. “Freely,”

Antero added, watching another petal glide to the floor before looking up again.

“If I am your favored, my desires are yours already, but it pleases me to say it to you.

May I take that small pleasure?”

Heat suffused Melis’ skin and his body trembled.

Gods did not get ill, did not die as humans did.

But Melis was sick or dying or melting away.

A clever, beautiful, naked human offered himself, and Melis, feeble god that he was, humiliated himself by going mindless and tongue-tied.

“Melis?”

Antero prompted him gently and yet his blood raced, his thoughts sparkling like treasure in sunlight to hear the quaver in Melis’ voice.

He was too clever, too perfect.

It was no wonder his lovers had fled.

He knew people too well. That he had offered to bare himself to them in turn hadn’t mattered, because they were human and could never see into his spirit as Melis could.

Antero was proud of himself and blazing bright with hope.

The beat of his heart was so strong, Melis nearly put a hand to his chest to muffle it…or simply to feel the warmth of him.

“You enjoy showing yourself to me?”

He felt the answer before his question was even finished.

“Enjoy?”

Antero echoed, amused, possibly because the emotions running through him were far stronger than simple enjoyment.

“I have no friend or lover who has seen me as I am and stayed with me.

You have listened to my prayers for years, letting me speak to you as though we were friends.

My desires brought you here, and you stare at me so that I can feel it though I can’t see you in return. Yes, I take pleasure in that. What made others leave makes you stay. I… I have been desired, but never for what’s within me. It feels good… more than good. Are you pleased to hear that?”

He was terrifying as not even War could be.

Melis stared at him, his cock stiffening for the words that matched the aroused joy of Antero’s thoughts: Wanted.

I am wanted.

Have me. Don’t make me wait anymore.

Melis’ brains seemed to have left his head.

Lust made humans and gods alike stupid, but physical desire should not have taken hold of him.

Melis ruled Desire, not the other way around, as gods ruled humans and did not have humans seducing them into being worshiped.

Antero wanted a companion and a lover, if not a soulmate.

He shouldn’t settle for bringing a small god a small pleasure.

He’d prayed for an equal, and that was not what the gods offered their worshippers… or their lovers.

They’d have to raise them to godhood for that, which many were reluctant to do.

Melis could never offer such a thing, insignificant and young as he was.

What was Desire to a cyclone, or an earthquake, or childbirth, or a seed in the earth? What was he to this? No god, little or large, would ever have offered themselves the way this human had, the way some humans did every day all over the world while Melis passed them by and never gave their courage a single thought.

Melis was not strong enough to match him, that was certain.

“But I am Melis, Brave Antero.”

“Faithful, you said before,”

Antero answered, as if he preferred that epithet to Brave.

“Is it that you’d rather have me as your priest, devoted to you since I can’t seem to have any other?”

He knelt gracefully without warning, putting himself at Melis’ feet before looking up.

“You already know I worship you.”

Melis reached out to touch his face and barely checked himself in time.

He knew what he was meant to do, what any other god, or human, might have done without hesitation with this before them.

He put his hands at his sides and kept them there, biting his lip to contain a beast-like growl when Antero let his mouth fall open.

“This is not all you desire.”

Melis would not change that by touching him, no matter how great the temptation.

“So?”

Antero didn’t deny it.

“No one gets everything they want, and I want this much.

You know I do.”

“You do not mind this much,”

Melis corrected as if he could not feel Antero straining forward or the thirst in his mind to have Melis’ cock in his mouth.

“I will not use you.

I am not Storm-Bringer or Mischief, who take.

…Though I want to as I have never wanted anything. But I am only Melis.”

The moon’s silver glow was nothing to the shine within Antero at the words, as if Melis’ warnings merely pleased him more.

“You listened even when I thought I was alone, which means I wasn’t.

I was never alone.”

Antero’s eyes were no less deep with hunger in them.

“‘Only Melis’ you say, as if you are insignificant.

But I tell you now, it was only Melis who kept company with me and came to answer to me.

Why shouldn’t I desire you?”

“Nearly everyone desires me in some way,”

Melis admitted with a sigh.

“The idea of me.”

“Not who you really are?”

Antero asked as if familiar with the answer, because of course, he was.

Melis clenched his hands tighter and kept his wings back though he shook with the effort.

“You’re as clever as they say.

More than deserving of a… of a companion.”

His struggle was audible in his voice.

“That’s why I came.

I mean—that I have determined to find you one, if one exists.

Stand. Please. I cannot have you there, Antero, please.”

Though gods should not beg, except perhaps Indulgence who might enjoy it, Antero listened to Melis’ pleading and rose to his feet.

Melis had to tip his head up to continue to see his face.

If Melis took on one of his other forms, he wouldn’t have had to.

But he had come here as himself and to change now felt wrong.

Antero’s thoughts were a heated tangle: some fear, now, that Melis might leave or that Antero had offended him, then lust, heated and constant, and also a worry Melis didn’t understand.

Then abruptly, the tangle was gone and Antero’s gaze was clear.

“You had to come to my chambers to find me a companion?”

His tone made implications, but Melis still couldn’t think with him so close.

He stumbled back a step before answering.

“Many rumors reach me, and I desired to….”

He heard himself being a donkey but could not be silent.

“I wanted to see you for myself.”

Antero let out a breath, almost a laugh. “And?”

His thoughts were as clear as his gaze and yet Melis still could not focus on anything long enough to examine them.

“You are as they say,”

he admitted, though surely Antero knew that.

“You are more than they say.

I don’t understand the ones who left your side.

That is—I do understand because I know their yearnings, but if I were human, and you looked to me for the other part of your soul, I would do whatever I could to make the edges of mine fit. I would… no, that’s not how humans work, and that’s probably why they are so wounded when they leave you. Some edges might bump together well enough, but no amount of wishing could ever make them your match. You’re too great.”

Antero had not stepped back.

Melis looked up until their eyes met again even though Antero should see nothing but the painted walls of the room.

“You sent away the ones you realized were only interested in riches, or power, or purely your physical form.”

Melis’ gaze dipped for a second despite himself, his palms tingling to feel the half-hard length of Antero’s cock and hear Antero pant in his ear as he had done in his dream.

His tongue was eager to do something, so he spoke.

“I could feel their lust for you across continents.

I heard the others, the ones who left you, bemoan their affection for you, their yearning to be your equal. They found themselves lacking, not you. You bare your heart to them but they know…”

He shut his foolish mouth too late.

“What?”

It was careful and quiet.

“Tell me. Please.”

“They know you must have someone willing to do the same—bare their heart—and humans are hesitant to do that.”

Gods as well.

“Do not be pained, my beautiful Antero.

I don’t want you to be unhappy.

I would do anything to…”

Melis stopped, having enough sense left to remember that even accidental vows had power.

“I would search even the realms of the gods to find your equal.”

Antero closed his eyes, then inclined his head.

“I am honored to be favored.”

“My favored.”

Melis’ tongue had grown greedy again.

It made him say that, then rejoiced in the taste of the words.

There was a pulse of interest from Antero, and then such a wave of pleasure that he was surprised Antero could stay on his feet.

But Antero was experienced as well as stronger than Melis. If Melis showed age as humans did, he likely would not have appeared much more than twenty. Antero had years on him and had taken countless lovers within those years to have helped him learn control.

He might even keep that control if Melis touched him, giving Melis freedom to explore.

Oh.

Melis had never understood the lure of Indulgence before.

He could take all his favored had to give him and drown in Antero’s desire to be desired by him, be as selfish as any other god and take all of him, then leave him as so many were left in the epic tales.

Humans blamed Melis when that happened.

But those humans, at least, he had never resented.

Discarded, heartbroken, forgotten, who else was there for them to blame without risking the wrath of their divine former lovers?

Melis sucked in a breath.

He didn’t want that any more than Antero did.

He had not wanted at all until he’d arrived here.

Well, he’d wanted small things like respect and for War to shut his mouth. Nothing like this. That Melis would feel this desire only once and only now meant something, as it meant something that a human tempted him.

Melis would have said it was a challenge, but who would dare, and why? Some interference from the gods who felt he’d wronged them, perhaps.

A test so they could see if he would use the human who called out for him as they would have done.

“I cannot.”

Melis’ feet could not leave the floor, so he stumbled back and then around Antero until the air no longer smelled of Antero’s bathwater and the oils softening his skin.

“I can’t do that to you.”

To hurt Antero would haunt him for eternity.

Whoever had crafted Antero had made him for ardent affection and adoration, not a god’s demands.

“Not even that?”

Antero asked without turning, perhaps unaware that Melis had moved from him.

“Am I also denied the right to call myself your favorite?

“No.”

Even hearing those words made Melis shiver.

“For that is what you are.”

A god’s favorite was not always blessed, not if another god grew jealous, but he didn’t think that warning would matter to Antero, who was all heart.

“You have looked to me, a god no one thinks of for anything serious, a god no one thinks of fondly even when I make their wishes tangible, for part of your soul.

Or so it felt.”

No hero among the stars had dared that, no matter how many monsters they fought.

Even Melis wanted to flee in the face of Antero’s courage, and slowly recognized the heat in his cheeks as a blush.

He carried on as firmly as he could.

“But even someone like me could destroy you.”

Antero twisted to follow the sound of his voice.

His lips were soft with a smile.

“So concerned for me, Gentle Melis.”

No one called Melis gentle.

Melis’ cheeks burned hotter, the blush spreading down his neck and up to heat his ears.

“I want you safe,”

Melis insisted, his hands over his face though his blush was as invisible as he was.