The main room is lit by candles only as Astor and Marianne Alisandre, Eldritch and Gwyn Asmodeus, and Altair and Cora Hellborne take turns slicing their palms, letting their blood drip into the bowl in the golden bowl in front of them. Reciting one of the many chants that draw the goddess and her presence. When the room grows warmer, as if it's become a sauna, they all open their eyes, pupils blown and they begin.
Each of them dipping their finger into the bowl, drawing blood over the lips of their husband or wife. Sharing a kiss, then sharing a kiss with the person on the other side of them. The heat grows even higher as the lust and rush of giving the goddess the sacrifice of their bodies, all at once, consumes them.
Clothes are shed, bloody lips cleaned by the tongue of another as they give themselves over to the goddess. The room, the entire castle, fills with the energy generated by their desire. They would be a tangle of bodies, all of their bodies given to one another freely for the goddess. They would go on, until each of them had experienced one another tonight, until their lust was spent. All of them fucking with the purpose of their pleasure, but above all the pleasure of their goddess.
---------------
Adrienne Alisandre
Not too far into the woods, I watched as Arden Helleborne swiped his boot over a stone, then another, and I almost jump out of my skin as I feel a shift beneath my feet, a scraping noise and the other laugh as I run a few feet. Azrael, Vaughn's brother catching me around the waist.
"Easy, it's just the latch" Azrael laughs into my hair as I whimper , my fear still not dislodged from my brain.
"Freaked me out too" Silver says in solidarity, so I dont feel like an idiot.
Arden Hellborne was the oldest of us at twenty three, he was six foot three, brown eyes, short brown hair and a stocky build, if it werent for their age difference, him and his brother Gabriel look like exact replicas of one another, other than the fact Gabriel has longer hair, almost to his shoulders.
I watch Arden reach down, pulling open one small door in the ground, then another. I freeze at the black pit in the fucking ground, with stairs leading down into absolute pitch black.
"Only the first few flights don't have light." Vail says nearby me when she sees my eyes go wide in the dark. Only her and few of the others have their flashlights already on. She looks at me, and I swallow and then look up at her. She turns, leans down and nudges my nose with hers.
"It's fine little bear" she whispers. I nod, nudging my nose back against hers as she calls me the nickname she gave me years back. Vail had been my first kiss when I was sixteen. She kisses me on my nose as everyone watches.
"Let's go" Vail says after turning and nods to her brother Arden. Arden goes first.
"The steps are steep, be careful, I'm right behind you bear" Vail says behind me and I nod, grabbing the slim metal railing as the side as I start descending into the dark with Arden, Gabriel and Silver in front of me, and Vail, Vaughn, Azrael and my brother Varin behind me.
I follow the bobbing of the circle of light ahead of us as Arden aims his flashlight ahead, letting us know a turn in the stairs is coming. We go down four different sets of stairs and Arden announces he's stopping, as to not make us all slam into one another on the steps. There the creak of a door around the small corner and then I see a bit of light pour into the darkness and let out a breath.
"Going forward" Arden says and then I'm turning the corner as Silver moves ahead of me, and then there's more stairs, down two more flights , and then, another door, this one of wood, and Arden turns as we all gather at the bottom of the steps in the small clearing.
"Welcome to the Catacombs Adrienne" Arden says with a smile, the rest of the group smiling as well and he turns and pulls open the two wooden doors that about three people wide.
My breath hitches at the sight in front of me beyond Arden. A high ceiling room, enough to fit us all comfortably, even with the massive statue of the goddess in the middle of the room , made of stone, red gems, rubies maybe? for her eyes, her arms held up as if her palms are giving an offering, but in them is nothing, her fingers long and slender. The look carved on her face, like a wicked mona lisa, and I trace my eyes down over the curves of her body, she was always beautiful in the drawings and art she'd seen of the Goddess. But to see her brought in form to stone, as if she was waiting within it.
I drop to my knees in front of the statue, breathless, and bow my head.
"Goddess" I whisper. I feel the others kneel around me as well.
"Goddess." each of their voices echoes mine.
I look up at her, the shape of her calves, and her thighs, her body given every detail you'd find on a woman. My eyes roaming all over the stone statue, wishing it were somehow real. I swallow the overwhelming urge to touch her, to reach out and skim my hand along the curves of her shape.
"I know." Vail says. "The statue is....like she's actually here." she whispers.
"she is here." I whisper. Blinking up at the statue.
Vail nods beside me.
--
After they let me take in the statue for several more minutes, all of them silent as I just stare in awe.
I feel Vaughn behind me before he even touches me, his hands on my waist, his mouth dipping down to my ear.
"You're as perfect as the goddess herself" he whispers. I swallow.
-----
We go through the next set of doors and in front of be sits a throne, made of bones. Skulls decorate the fan of bones at the back of the throne, like a peacock spreading it's wings the bones are fanned out, the heads of enemies, decorating it.
"The ancestors are this way." Arden points. "The rest.." he nods to the throne and then down the other way. "Are that way" he says.
"Which way are we going?" I ask.
"whichever, with the maps we can always get through to whichever side we dont go to first and come back through that way." Arden says.
"Everyone has a map, so we can split up if we want." Gabriel says with a waggle of his brown. Him and my brother Varin both smirking at Silver. She gives a laugh.
"only you two get horny in the catacombs" she says.
"not true." Azrael , Vaughn, and Arden both say at the same time, making all of them let out easy laughs, mine coming out nervous. Because I thought I was crazy at first, seeing the statue, seeing this throne, feeling like I need all of them at once, in a secret frenzy that I didnt want to admit out loud and still wouldnt. Couldnt.
"Right, well, we're going this wayyyyyy" Gabriel pushes Silver who giggles and Arden and my brother Varin follow.
"come on Vail, you're stuck with me" Azrael says, and then looks t his brother Vaughn by my side.
"Dont get lost." he winks to the both of us, and Vail shoves him.
"Move it jackass" she teases and he laughs.
I stand in place beside Vaughn and he turns and moves in front of me.
"You good?" he asks raising one brow and I nod as the voices of everyone else become more distant as they travel through the walls and paths leading them through the catacombs.
I nod and look to the throne of bones.
"You can sit on it you know." he says. My brows pinch.
"What?" I ask. He nods.
"We all have." he says, walking towards it and then stepping up on the stone platform and turning and sitting in the throne made of molded bones and stone.
"Come here." he says with a soft smile and pats his lap and I shake my head.
He laughs a little. "Seriously, it's bones from sacrifices not of our ancestors, it's fine." he says.
"You're supposed to sit on it." he says.
I just look at him and he nods, crooking a finger , beckoning me toward him. I know it's not the fact that I want to sit on it drawing me to him, it's the urge and the need to just go to him.
"Sit on my lap" he says as I step up on the stone platform in front of him.
I step forward, and he smiles, reaching up, turn me and pulling me to sit on his lap.