Embrace of the Goddess: Epilogue

"Indeed."

"I much prefer this method of initiation."

Maloth smiled. "You will find that all do."

Closer to Azora's temple, where Maloth's surprise awaited her, the city was becoming more of one single orgy. People were done fucking their partners and friends and loved ones. They needed more. People ran through the street in leather or with paddles. People were chained and collared. Some had food stains on them, and some were begging vampires to drink them dry while touching themselves the whole time. Homes were abandoned. Decency was forgotten. There was only desire, deep and pure. There was no "should" or "ought." Propriety was an unfortunate pastime. All that mattered as the beat of craving built to a crescendo was what one wanted and what they would do to get it. Everything else was a shadow from some long past life.

Prim and Iriel's forces had surrounded the temple, though they weren't protecting it anymore. The people were lost in their lust, and Maloth's acolytes were eager to feast on the spoils of victory. Maloth stopped when she recognized one vampire, Lei, the dark-skinned girl that Prim had first turned. Maloth smiled at the memory. Though she was weaker then, she enjoyed when her circle was small, and each corruption took all of her focus. Even now, one hundred and thirteen elves were being made into monstrosities within Tiriniel. It was too impersonal. Besides, Prim had been loyal, and Lei was her first real betrayal and kill. You never forget your first.

Lei was still tall and lithe, but her skin had gained an inhuman glow after she became a creature of darkness. She didn't hide her flesh behind heavy armor or tradition and allowed small shorts and a tight top that showed off her muscular stomach and toned shoulders. Her kinky hair was still in a bun, but streaks of bright red matched the faint red glow to her eyes.

At the moment, however, she was busy with her prey. Lei had a muscular elven woman stripped and pinned against a wall. "General Vishka," Iriel whispered to Maloth as the two women watched the show. "She led them bravely until we released our trap. It seems Lei wanted a challenge."

Maloth smiled. If the general was to be a challenge, she wasn't putting up a fight. The general spread her arms wide, looking to grip the white stone building to brace herself. The smooth lines of muscle over her body swelled, but not to fight Lei off. She simply wanted to hold herself still while Lei licked her pussy. No. Not licked. Drank. Maloth smiled. Just like Prim had done to her, Lei had bitten the top of the general's cunt and drank while she licked, teasing the warrior elf while pushing her closer to orgasm.

Lei pulled away and licked her lips. Blood dribbled down her chin. "You like that?" she teased the general.

"Y-Y-Yes," the general whined.

"Mmm." Lei stood up. She was almost a head taller than the general though thinner. She grabbed the general's chin and forced the stronger woman to look at her. "You're going to like when I fucking turn you," Lei said.

The general whimpered and nodded.

"But you have to tell me who you're going to turn first?"

The general's eyes widened. "W-W-What?"

"Someone close. It's got to be personal."

"What?"

Lei smiled. "You going to cry?" She licked the general's cheek, dragging her tongue to the corner of the general's eye. "Mmm, not yet. I like my meal with a little salt."

"You want me to... to...?"

"You got a best friend or sister? You want someone you'll fuck for eternity."

"What?" The general's chin wobbled. Lei laughed at her.

"Mmm, you're not ready." Lei placed her hand on the general's pussy and eased her fingers inside. "But you will be. You're weak. You're afraid. Right now, only lust keeps you going, but soon," Lei spread her smile wider, revealing her long fangs, "soon you'll find nothing is more erotic than a little cruelty." Lei bent down and bit the general quickly on the neck and pulled away just as fast. The general cried out, but Lei moved her free hand and clamped down on the general's mouth, silencing her. "Or maybe a little pain," Lei said. She twisted her fingers in the general's pussy. The warrior elf bucked her hips and tried to cry out but neither made a difference. "Or a little darkness." Smoke billowed out of Lei and wrapped around both of them. There was shouting but it quickly turned to moaning and back to cries of pain.

Maloth smiled and directed Iriel away from the scene.

The dark goddess stopped only once more before entering Azora's temple. An older woman was pressed up against a wall with her legs spread as wide as possible. Three women were stretched out between her legs, each striving to be the one that licked her pussy. They would lick around the pussy or nibble her thighs if they couldn't earn the chosen spot of honor, but they were desperate for a taste of her. Maloth paused and watched the scene. The older woman was past middle-aged, with rich grey hair up in a bun. The jewelry she wore suggested some form of aristocracy, but she spoke like a whore as her pets served her. She called them filthy cunts and slapped their asses as they eagerly tried to get their tongues deeper inside her.

"Which would you rather be?" Maloth asked softly. "The older woman, or the chattel she humiliates?"

"I don't know," Iriel said. "If it was you, the chattel."

Maloth smiled. "But to others?"

"Her," Iriel said quickly, her voice breathless. "Definitely her."

Maloth turned and looked at her priestess. "Ah, yes. It was power that first brought you to me."

Iriel nodded. She couldn't take her eyes off the older woman.

Maloth felt a strange stab of something she didn't quite know the name of, something she had only felt towards her sister before. Now she felt it towards the older woman. She let go of Iriel's hand and approached the scene. Without warning, she spread her legs and brought the older woman's mouth to her pussy.

"Drink," she commanded. Black smoke spread from her hands and through the older elf's hair. The woman acted immediately, stopping her string of insults to her worshippers and serving the goddess. Maloth didn't moan or writhe as the woman served her. She stared at Iriel, watching her priestess. Iriel was clearly aroused, shifting her weight from foot to foot, rubbing her thighs together, resisting the urge to touch herself.

"Go ahead," Maloth commanded.

Iriel obeyed and split her sheer robe, touching her own pussy as Maloth brought the older woman deeper inside her. She let her magic slip and closed her eyes as it washed over the elder elf. Iriel watched in amazement as the wrinkles in the elf's body smoothed and faded away. Her skin tanned and tightened. Her breasts lifted and swelled. Her hair darkened to a rich auburn. But the process didn't stop when Maloth's new servant was simply younger. Dark tattoos swirled over her body in a pattern of hooked spirals that made her skin almost look marbled.

When the transformation was done, Maloth stepped back. The three other women had stopped worshipping. Instead, they fingered themselves wildly as they beheld a true goddess. Iriel mirrored them. The newly transformed elf looked up at Maloth with milky pale eyes.

"You are nothing but another whore to serve," the goddess said. She bent down and casually removed the rings from the blinded woman's fingers. She held them tight in her hands until they glowed white. "Hold her," she commanded. The other three women obeyed immediately, taking their slick fingers away from their pussies.

"You will offer to lick every pussy in this city," Maloth said. She had intended to leave it there, but something moved her to speak further. "Then you may come and receive sight again." To seal the curse, Maloth pressed the molten rings to the woman's nipples, piercing her. The woman cried and out and tried to writhe, but the other women were strengthened by their devotion to Maloth. When it was done, the woman's nipples were puffy and swelling, and tears were rolling down her empty eyes. But she did not protest or complain. Instead, as Maloth rejoined Iriel and took her High Priestess's hands away from her pussy, the cursed woman got right to work on the first three pussies in front of her.

***

Tiriniel's Temple of Dawn's First light was the chief gem in the crown of Azora's temples. It was dome shaped with spires shooting out of every radial point like the sun rising above the horizon. Acolyte's from all over creation made pilgrimages to this holy sight. It is said that Azora first touched down here when she came to dwell with mortals, though Maloth knew that to be a convenient lie. They both fell, kicking and pulling on each other's hair, as they crashed to this stinking realm of decay and frailty. They landed in a swamp now called Acheron's Gap. It's mostly inhabited by gator farmers. No. That didn't fit the grand narrative of Azora, the grand lie. That would be Maloth's first order of business. She would set the record straight, including how she was consumed by her sister, slumbering in the consciousness of the goddess these people worshipped. For the whole time, some part of them worshipped Maloth, and that secret would make the transition of power easy.

"I was thinking," Maloth said as they walked past two older women with silver hair pinning a younger woman to the ground and eating her out as she begged them to stop and pumped her pelvis against their faces simultaneously.

"Yes, my goddess?" Iriel slipped her clawed hand into the flawless pale hand of Maloth.

"Those spires could be redesigned."

"I imagine we'll be doing a lot of redesigning."

"Tentacles?" Maloth turned to Iriel and arched a flawlessly smooth and thin eyebrow.

Iriel laughed. "Hmmm, is that the symbol you'd like the world to know you by?"

"They know me by darkness, love. And darkness can have any shape it pleases. Only the light is constrained by the limits of the eyes and sensibility of aesthetics."

"Then we shall make it whatever shape pleases my goddess."

Maloth smirked. "I'll continue to think it over." Maloth paused and took in the sights around her. As they moved deeper into the heart of the city, the thirst and desperation of the citizens rose to a mania. Women, half passed out and quivering from repeated orgasms, were being dragged through the streets by their heels by other women with more energy. They brought them as close as they dared to Maloth and then squatted over their exhausted lovers. The sleepy girls stuck out their tongues, and women writhed and moaned as they let their pussies glide over their lovers' mouths. But they kept their eyes on Maloth and Iriel, showing off their hunger and stamina, their depravity and thirst.

"The city is eager," Iriel said. "They love you."

"The pious always want someone to serve." The goddess smirked. "Even if it goes against everything they've committed themselves to."

"Is that why you chose me? The most pious of all?"

Maloth laughed. "No, pet. No." Maloth stopped and spun Iriel to the side. They were face to face, and the pale goddess cupped Iriel's cheek in her hand and held her for a moment. They must have been a strange juxtaposition: Iriel twisted, dark, and glorious compared to Maloth's silvery cruelty. A year ago, Iriel was vain enough to think the reflection would have been reversed, her holding back the darkness in her shining coppery skin and glorious hair like rusted dawn. Now she was the beast that hid in the shadows, and Maloth was the sun that exposed her delightful corruption to the world.

"You were never pious," Maloth said. "You haven't served a single soul but yourself until you met me. In many ways, if you held to the old moral codes of Azora, you were worse than me. I've only behaved as the cosmos crafted me, but you were something small that thought itself grand. You made others small to reinforce that delusion. That is the twisted deviancy Azora fostered in her worshippers."

Iriel blushed and tried to turn away from the bright and piercing eyes of Maloth, but the goddess's grip was strong. She stepped closer and brought her lips next to Iriel's ear.

"Azora would teach you that being awful demanded shame, but that won't fix you, will it? Shame burrows your sins deep underground where they fester and grow."

"Then what?" Iriel whispered.

"We bring them out and raise them to be proper abominations." Maloth leaned back and put her hands on Iriel's shoulders. "You thought you were better than everyone else, so I made you that. I flipped the scales. The worst bitch is now the most revered priestess. Azora would loathe it." Iriel smirked. "I think it has taught you a beautiful lesson."

"And that is?"

Maloth cocked her head to the side, as though confused. In Orilana's transformed body, she looked young and naive. Every scar Orilana had earned, every wrinkle she'd forged in worry, had been smoothed out when Maloth completed the ritual. She looked almost twenty years younger, and her servants were still getting used to serving what looked like a teenager.

"That there is no room for morality in the courts of desire." She upturned her voice, making it almost a question. "Have you not learned yet?"

"I am..." Iriel bowed her head. "I'm working on it."

"Did you want Orilana to serve me so that you could be with her?"

"Yes," Iriel said quickly.

"Was that wrong?"

"I... I..."

Maloth shook her head. "And I wanted her body to be my vessel, thus robbing my High Priestess of her desire. Is that wrong?"

Iriel's eyes widened. "No, goddess. Not at --"

Maloth held up a hand to silence her. "There is only desire and power. When desires compete, the weak demand morality to sort things out. When two desires compete, they default to shoulds and decorum. But in reality, when two desires compete, the strong win. Thus, I have won, and I inhabit Orilana. There is no right or wrong to it. I am stronger than you."

Maloth spun Iriel and brought her attention to the masses that were creeping closer. Iriel hadn't noticed how close the moans were, but the streets were littered with the bodies of naked women, writhing and sweating as they fucked as close to their goddess as they could manage. It looked like a massacre by some cruel tyrant had happened outside the temple to make a point. But there was no pain here. There was a chorus of pleasure and desperation, of eager fucking and the infinite desire for the energy to keep fucking.

"See this?" Maloth asked. "This is not wrong or right. It is the powerful taking what they want." She turned back to her High Priestess. "You thought you were morally superior to everyone. I fixed that by making you powerful. Did you see how quickly your morality melted away when you could take what you wanted? Then I taught you the second lesson, that I am more powerful than even you. Now you are ready for the third."

"The third?"

Maloth swept her arm, gesturing to the masses. "Now we take what we want together. No shame. No doubts. You tasted that when you kept a sliver of Orilana inside of me." Maloth smirked. "That was clever."

Iriel smiled. "Thank you, goddess."

Maloth stepped behind Iriel and wrapped her arms over the bare skin of her demon priestess. She let her fingertips trail over Iriel's tight tummy and up to the swell of her breasts. They teased the sensitive skin under Iriel's breasts, and the demon gasped as pleasure surged through her.

"Remember," Maloth whispered in her ears. "There is no morality to protect you now. If I do not want you anymore, nothing obligates me to keep you. Only if you can stay the locus of my desire will you have my blessing."

Iriel bit her lip. "I think my lover latched onto your willpower shall keep your attention, goddess."

Maloth nipped at Iriel's ear. The High Priestess shrieked but let it ease into a pleasant moan. "We shall see," Maloth said. "But for now, yes." Maloth squeezed Iriel's tits as she pressed against Iriel's back, thrusting her pelvis against Iriel's ass.

"You could take me right here," Iriel whispered. "Show them how to fuck."

Maloth laughed. "I want my present more. Maybe later if I like what you've given me."

"Yes, Mistress."

The two untangled, and Maloth waved her hand. A small gust of black magic shot from her hand and parted the masses, leaving a path right up to the temple. The palace had been made from angelstone like the walls around the city. It is cleaner and purer than marble, said to look like sunlight striking water on a clear day. It was an impossible white, as impossible as the purity of Azora is impossible to attain. They walked through the huge central dome deep into the Holiest of Holies. Iriel was one of three women in all of creation that were allowed in the inner shrine. Once a year she would fast for six weeks and meditate. Well, that's what she was supposed to do. In reality, she brought books and read them while her favorite and most trusted servants brought her snacks.

The room held two other women -- women who were not permitted to worship in Azora's precious sanctum. They were twins, the two Elven princesses of Tiriniel, Cara and Shina. Both twins had the rare blonde of their royal bloodline. They were both young, barely out of their teens, and had the arrogance and beauty that went with royal youth. Their matching faces were angular, and their lips were thin and dark, made up with a blood-red paint. They were both dressed in thin and tight tops that covered their arms and chest but exposed their tight stomachs. They had thin skirts that pooled along the floor and their arms and ears were adorned with bangles and golden chains. Cara wore a bright berry pink, and Shina wore a cobalt blue. Other than the colors, they were dressed like some chamber bed slave a lordling would have to amuse himself.

But they hadn't picked their dress for this meeting.

The room was adorned with pillows, wine, fruit, chocolate, and incense. These had been brought in by Iriel's demand in anticipation of Maloth's arrival and as a condition of the city's surrender. Had they needed to, Melior could have led her legions into the city and slashed each unwilling life to pieces. The city could have run with blood instead of sweat and lust, but that was avoided all thanks to Iriel's clever maneuvering and one twin's weakness. All they had to do was betray their mother to Prim, throw open the gates, and meet Maloth in the Holiest of Holies and the city would be spared.

Not every city they conquered had been as wise as these princesses.

The twins rose when they saw Maloth. Their eyes widened with fear, but Iriel savored the dilation of their pupils. They had never seen anyone as beautiful as Maloth. No one had. She truly looked like a painting of Azora come to life and walking among mortals once again. Iriel smirked to herself. Cara -- the one in pink -- lowered herself to her knees, but Shina stood with her mouth agape. After a moment, Cara grabbed her sister's hand and brought her to her knees as well. Cara kept her head bowed, but Shina watched with reverences as Maloth eased her way into the Holiest of Holies.

"This is your present," Iriel said. "May I introduce the twin princesses of Tiriniel?"

Maloth licked her lips at the scene before her. Iriel warmed with pride. Clearly her goddess liked the gift, but this was only the wrapping for what she had in mind. Maloth stepped closer to the women, circling around the slender elves, inspecting their curves, appreciating the way their clothing hid and highlighted the most sensual parts of their bodies.

Then, a scent. A perfect and favored scent of Maloth. It was, perhaps, the greatest difference between her and her dead sister. For the scent wasn't the obvious lust of one woman. Azora could appreciate the lust of a blushing bride and her eagerness to please her partner. Nor was it the painful fear of the other sister, for Azora could savor the awe and fear of one on their knees in worship before the light. No. It was the spicy scent of betrayal, like a bright orange pepper powder the elves harvest in the desert. Azora could never truly appreciate the breaking of a bond, the abuse of a trust, the slow turning as "I" becomes more important than "Us." But it was rich in this room, like a perfume made to soften Maloth's mind, like the heavy vapor of dryad pheromones making men hard and women melt. For what could be better than the arrogance of betrayal? For one to stare into the universe and claim that their comfort, their desire, their pleasure, was more important than the bonds of love or community or trust or...