Horus tilted as he descended closer, so his head was pointed toward the ground. He did so, I realized, to make it easier to stay aloft, wings gently flapping, while drawing Seth’s chin up to claim a kiss.
Seth leaned into it with such fervor, such joy, like nothing his mastery of pain and pleasure could have fabricated. Which made it all the worse when, within that kiss, cords unleashed from Horus’s belt to wrap around Seth like bindings.
“Wait!” I leapt to my feet. “That isn’t necessary!”
Seth didn’t seem to mind, merely glad to have felt Horus’s lips, for he was smiling when they parted, longing though he remained.
Horus looked sorrowful too, for I knew this was not a true reunion. I had yet to learn what had actually transpired between them, but thatlovewas there seemed palpable.
As Horus righted himself and landed on his feet, and Seth remained bound, the falcon-like god, known for healing and restoration, looked to me.
“Punishment is only eternal if one does not grow from it and choose to change.”
“But Seth—”
“He tried to deny your choice before he saw reason, did he not? He is not yet ready.”
Seth continued to smile, tears drying, resigned to his fate after getting a taste of freedom from Horus’s lips.
“Come,” Horus said, and held a hand out to me.
Now that I was standing, I was close enough to take it.
“Wait,” Seth croaked, and when I looked at him, he asked, “How did you resist?”
I knew he asked for his own sake, wondering how he might resist and change as Horus needed him to for this punishment to end. “When you love someone, your own desires are less important than providing for theirs. I would suffer every pain imaginable if it meant Meryt would never know pain again, but I also know he loves me just as fiercely because he would never ask that of me.”
Seth nodded, eyes closing for a moment as he muttered to himself, "I can... Ican..." Then he turned his head to look at Horus once more, sorrowful and pleading without saying another word.
The bindings unraveled from Seth and returned around Horus’s waist.
The joy that returned to Seth's expression was as prominent as his love. Horus was choosing to trust him, even if he still had a ways to go to achieve absolution.
Seth nodded to Horus in thanks and reached a hand up toward me, so I bent slightly to meet his touch. It was my hair he brushed his fingers through, adding new baubles to my braids made from snake scales.
“Thank you,” I said, and in his answering nod, I took that for his thanks too.
As Seth retracted his hand, Horus outstretched an arm almost as if in reflex, and their fingers passed each other just shy of touching. Before Seth might have thought of reaching again to correct that miss, Horus dropped his hand to my shoulder instead. He pulled me in close against him, and with a whoosh of air, his wings carried us aloft, up through the opening in the cavern above. Once we escaped it, in the empty sky that was bright with Ra’s light, just before the rocky surface below closed up again beneath us, I thought I saw a small white creature appear beside Seth, curling up in his lap to comfort him.
Good girl, Pasht, I thought, for Seth did not deserve to be alone.
I had thought this would be easy. I had thought I could never possibly be tempted. But twice now, I truly had been, maybe even more so by Seth than I had been with Ra, and I had nearly lost my Meryt because of it.
No matter what Horus offered me or any of the others after him, I had to stay strong.
I had to succeed.
I had to.
For Meryt.
The following chapter contains:
Airborne Sex, Power Bottom, and Primal Play.
Chapter six
The Hunter
