Pherenike - Chapter 32

“It’s just like when we were children. One day, I suddenly had to go to the sanctuary, and you to Paetusa.”

“…”

“You will be somewhere in the world, and so will I.”

You won’t die.

You’ll never fully understand what that means to me. She gently stroked his clean neck, where Pelagon’s wolf, known for pursuing sinners to the ends of the earth, used to be.

There used to be a brand here. Like marks on horses, dogs, cows, sheep. On the neck of a sinner, a wolf’s brand was marked. So they could never hide anywhere in the world.

“So, I’m already okay. Even without you.”

Nothing more will be engraved here. Nothing will harm him anymore.

“I won’t just be some woman reluctantly captured to the side of Actor Nikandros.”

She whispered quietly as she placed her forehead against Deucalion’s forehead. Like when they were very young, secretly plotting something trivial and childish behind Axiothea’s back.

“Just like a woman who wanted to be queen, who abandoned you forever after your fall, I’ll be there like that. That’s how I’ll be your spy.”

“…”

“Even if your mother, our friends, and your subordinates all condemn me as a dirty woman, keep your mouth shut. Even if they say I sold myself to your enemy, just listen. Instead, think of what I have to endure in the bed of your enemy. No matter how revolting it is.”

“…”

“I don’t just want you to survive, Deucalion.”

He still didn’t agree. Her Althea gently wrapped around his Orthea, hidden inside his body.

“I will make sure you can defeat him.”

As a child, Pherenike sometimes planted her Althea inside Deucalion’s body, like marking her territory. She would call out his Orthea and watch the two powers mingle like dye in water.

Sometimes she hoped it would protect Deucalion, and sometimes she hoped it would etch her name into his soul.

Her Althea wasn’t his, so it would soon evaporate like water. It neither protected him nor marked her name, but gradually it stayed longer in his body.

Yet, it was always someone else’s Althea that ultimately saved him from the jaws of death. Pherenike had always resented this until she fully awakened.

She wanted to heal and protect Deucalion entirely with her own power. To enter his body and renew him entirely, all with the power of her Althea.

She wanted to become his blood. She wanted to be the only thing keeping him alive. Like something disgusting, lowly, a possessiveness, as Actor had said.

Now, she could do all these things. She now had the power to bring him back from the brink of death countless times, to treat his blood like an infinite spring, and to mend what was cut and severed.

She even pulled him from Hades. Pherenike now possessed all the powers she once desired for Deucalion.

Her Althea had already touched everything in Deucalion—literally every piece of flesh, every drop of his blood. Thinking of this brought a strange sense of fulfillment.

But that’s all.

Unless Actor Nikandros dies.

“Cal, don’t be foolishly jealous over something you already have. I am now your wife.”

“…”

“My soul is yours until the moment I take my last breath.”

And your life is mine. Even in the waters of River Styx, your life will still be mine, Deucalion. A dangerous possession, disguised as devotion, whispered in his ear. A voice as sweet as a nymph took hold on him. He still wasn’t swayed by her Althea.

He just keeps recalling that one-line vow she made in front of the goddess, binding her life.

He twisted his arms and hands not to intimidate her, nor to forcibly take her somewhere he wanted.

Not to kill his wife nor to possess her, even if it means killing her.

He became deliberately powerless for her.

“Alright.”

My life is yours, Pherenike. I swear. Deucalion reached out his hand as if searching for a witness, briefly stroking the lion’s head. He then stood up, holding Pherenike in his arms.

His blood-stained hand pushed aside the bed’s curtain and dropped her onto the bed.

The curtain fell back, hiding them. The lion pushed open the window with its round nose and left the room without looking back.

Inside the curtain, Pherenike spread her legs. Deucalion buried his head between them, without even fully lifting the chiton. He buried his lips on the fabric, tracing the split shape of the hill with his tongue.

“Ah…”

Wherever his lips touched, the fabric became soaked. Soon, a long finger wrapped in cloth entered her.

Another hand roughly pulled down the garment that barely clung to her shoulder to below her chest. He grabbed her b****t, making her n****e protrude between his fingers, and suckled thirstily.

Pherenike’s slender fingers dug into his silver hair. That fragile strength bound him. She grasped his hair, pulling his head closer, burying it like a fool in her chest.

The way she was spread open, clothed below and utterly bare above, was obscene.

Yet he sucked on her b****t as if sucking on the goddess he served. He looked up at her in awe. His lover’s rosy cheeks, fleeting like a dream, were enchanting.

She was wholly his. From the most sacred to the least, everything of Pherenike Vassilios was his.