Page 13 of We Were Eternal Once

“Yes,” you sigh. “Sometimes it’s pleasant when they enjoy it, but…not like this.” You take his wrist from me and drink, your eyes locked on mine. The blood settles in my stomach, warm and light.

“Try to compel him again,” you whisper.

I do and fail.

“Another,” you say, handing his wrist back to me. The man collapses on his knees, his skin pale, sweat breaking across his forehead. I drink deep and try again.

And again.

When his fear abates it’s not because of me. It’s resignation, the knowledge that he will die today. That two women overpowered him and forced him to his knees and drank him dry.

“You will forget you met us. You got too drunk at the tavern and stumbled home. You’re sick from bad cheese,” you tell him. His gaze is blank, his body crumpled on the floor. His shallow breathing is the only sign that he lives.

“You let him live?” I ask.

“This town is too small, and while he may not remember us, the others at the tavern will. This is why we journey to a large city, somewhere we cannot be found or remembered.”

I doubt very much that anyone would forget your beautiful face, but I say nothing.

You kiss me, your mouth tasting of his blood. I want to lick it from you, to replace it with mine. I want everything about him gone from you. If I could burn our clothes I would to be free of him.

I crawl into your lap, our bodies flush. You grip my thighs, your fingernails digging into my skin. I moan into you, biting my lip, flooding our mouths with my taste. My scent.

Mine mine mine.

Then I take you on the floor in front of our half-dead victim. I worship every inch of you, from your breasts to your sex. It’s the only way I can thank you for forgiving me for my failure. I know you expected more from me, to be a hunter just like you.

(“Now who is the liar?”)

So I pleasure your body and deny you mine, swallowing your screams as you orgasm. I want to show you I am a fast study, that I can learn this just as I learned your body. I failed, so I made you into my temple, because all I knew was worship.

When we finally return to the inn, the night is almost through. I am too exhausted to do more than curl on the flea-filled pallet. You move something in front of the door. You check the corners again. Then I’m in your arms, my nose pressed to your collarbone, and we sleep.

Across the Unknown World

We sleep by the sun and move by the moon.

We slip into temples by night, digging through the offerings left for the gods and goddesses. I once thought it was blasphemy, but I learn quickly that the gods don’t exist. How did I devote so many years of my life to someone so silent? Something I couldn’t touch, breathe, see?

They don’t deserve the spoils of man, but you do. We do.

A boy at an altar tries to stop us once. He slips from the shadows, a knife held before him. His hand shakes even as his eyes gleam with righteousness.

“Halt!” he says. He is young—perhaps ten, all sharp edges and hollow cheeks. His pulse throbs under his dirt-streaked skin. Is this how I looked when you first saw me? A wretch, hiding in the eaves, thinking I was clever and quiet?

“You steal from our god no longer! Filthy desecraters!”

“What god?” I ask, looking about the temple. It’s guarded only by the crime of hierosylia, the fear that our presence would lead to blindness, death, or disease.

Or worse—the ire of the patron. My people have a rich history of stories of those who dared cross the gods and goddesses, each with punishments that made them wish for their death.

But I cannot die.

The boy’s hand wavers, his gaze tracking from you to me. Will he die tonight for simply doing his duty? I take a step toward him but you stay me, your voice quiet. “He is a child.”

“He will tell and they will search for us,” I say. The weight of the word of the temple is heavy. All it will take is one word, a description of the two women who stole from them, to start a hunt. They are not bound by the sun, they could outpace us easily.

“Then make him forget,” you say.