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The temple on the sea side of the mountains had been one of her favorites once, before a war and then a livestock disease had driven the inhabitants away and left it to be reclaimed by the earth.
Periphys didn’t mind so much about the physical state of the temple. Gods were not fixed to time in the same tiresome way that mortals were, and it would always stand in all of its glory for her. But though she could bring back the fluttering wall hangings and the gleaming prayer bells, she could not reconstruct the former liveliness of the village and she felt a wistful pang sometimes when she realized there would be no more girls with ribbons and boys with feathers and children laying sticky flower petals on the shining marble altar.
It was a surprise then, one afternoon, to get an offering. First came the splash of wine, sweet and fresh, then something that was light and rippling and then, most surprisingly, the warm press of lips against the stone.
Curiosity roused, she whistled through the columns, swirling around the altar to peer at the figure there and then sighing. When she exhaled, even gently, the whole temple stirred.
“Oh, Gen, it’s you.”
He was sitting with his legs crossed on her altar, which she should have been cross with him about.
“Goddess.” He greeted her, barely inclining his head.
If he was teasing her about the ruined state of her temple, it was unkind of him. She frowned, but he only grinned back at her irreverently. Of course Eugenides only had a single altar in Eddis and an even smaller one in Attolia, but his Thieves had brought him a king’s ransom ten times over.
“Your gifts.” He held out the chalice of wine and she drew closer to take it, still feeling suspicious. Gallantly, he jumped down, landing lightly on his feet and offering her his seat on her altar. She took her place primly, skirts floating to settle around her.
“I stole these from a young lordling in the valley trying to woo an heiress,” he told her confidentially, leaning on the marble beside her, irrepressible amusement shining in his face. The wine was sweet and Periphys took a second sip, having long accustomed herself to receiving stolen trinkets.
“So?” she said, tossing her mantled hair over her shoulder.
With a bow so low it was almost mocking, he settled the second gift around her shoulders. It was a shawl made of a silvery white wool so soft and fine that it was as if Periphys had been wrapped in a cloud.
“What are you up to, Gen?” she said suspiciously, running a hand along the fabric.
“I was nearby,” he whispered into her ear, undeterred as he adjusted the shawl over her gown. “I wanted to worship.”
She weighed her annoyance at his irreverent behavior against the fondness that bloomed in her chest. “I believe there was one more gift,” she said haughtily, tilting her chin down to meet his gaze.
“If the goddess permits it,” he said lowly, gaze dipping in a false pretense of humility, “I will kiss her.”
Periphys inclined her head in permission and he stepped between her legs. As good of a liar as he was, he could not conceal the mischief that lit his eyes. He leaned close and she felt the ghost of his breath on her lips and then suddenly it was gone. Grinning, Gen was kneeling in front of her altar and pushing her dress up her thighs.
Shamelessly, Eugenides pressed his wretched, lying mouth to her cunt.
“ Gen .” A hand fell to his head, but her fingers, once tangled in his hair, pulled him closer instead of pushing him away. She could feel his grin — horrible impertinent whelp — and he shifted cleverly so that her legs were suddenly over his shoulders and he could bury his tongue deep inside of her.
A gust of power went through her as the pleasure of worship curled in her belly. He was so very good at this. If he was not as pretty as Inala or as eager-to-please as Herabol, there was a reason he was still her favorite. Periphys took another sip of wine, luxuriating in the spiraling sense of weightlessness as he explored her with his lips, his teeth, his clever tongue. Every lick, every press of his tongue stoked the fire building inside of her until she forgot to be aloof and pulled hard on his hair.
Eugenides moaned and his arm slid around her thigh, increasing the pressure. She could feel nearly his entire face pressed into her as the blunt edge of his teeth sent her over the brink and she peaked with a cry, shuddering around his tongue.
Ripples of pleasure were still rolling through her as he stood and shed his suit, looking very pleased with himself. “Goddess.” His grin threatened to split his face as he addressed her again, bowing low.
Periphys wanted to tell him that his nose was too long or that his hair was out of place, something to erase that infuriating look of smugness. But his nose, though long, was shiny with his efforts and she was too fond of it to malign it, and his hair was only a mess because she had pulled on it. Instead, Periphys reached forward and took his chin in her hand so that she could kiss him. “I accept your offering,” she said magnanimously.
He grinned against her mouth. Casting aside any pretense of reverence, his hands roamed her body freely as his lips trailed down her throat, scraping his teeth over the hollow above her collarbone that made her gasp. She could feel him between her legs, hard and rubbing against her through her dress as they ground into each other in a frenzy. She didn't realize his hand had touched her shoulder until his mouth was suddenly on her breast and she saw that the golden fibula pin was gone. The pin on the other side vanished in the next moment and the pieces of her dress fell around her waist, leaving her bare. Not unusually bold, for him, but they were not in her bed this time.
“Eugenides.” Her voice was layered with power and stopped him in his tracks.
He looked up from her breast, blinking as if all the stars had suddenly come out at once. His surprise reminded her unexpectedly of the day they had met. Periphys had come across the newest of the gods laughing like a fiend on the side of a mountain, shirt stuffed full of the cooing doves that pulled the chariot of the goddess of love. She still wasn't sure which one of them had been more startled to see the other, but later, she had kept what she knew to herself when Meridite had raged across the sky and Eugenides had wandered into her path more and more frequently with stolen pears and sea pearls and gold-fleeced lambs.
Periphys swept the unpinned pieces of her dress away from the altar, but she kept the silvery shawl he had given her draped around her shoulders. Aware of his heavy cock against her thigh and the way he was staring, she trailed a hand lazily down the center of her body, between her breasts and over her navel until she reached the place where her thighs were damp and just parted. “Do you want to have me here on my altar?" she asked, still bearing down on him with her will.
Usually, Eugenides did as he wished, but here in her own temple, flush with power from the worship of a god, Periphys had the advantage. She stared at him until he dropped his gaze.
“Beautiful goddess, will you permit it?” He laid a kiss on her palm.
Satisfied, Periphys released the aura of divinity. Taking him in her fist, she guided his cock to her entrance. The blunt head slipped in as he was still shifting closer, making her gasp, and then he found his footing and rocked his hips with purpose, sliding into her in one slick movement.
Her altar was cool and hard against her spine as she eased back, preferring to let him exert himself. She watched him through her eyelashes as he gripped her waist with one hand and used the other to tease her, rolling her nipples between his fingers, squeezing her breasts, pressing his palm against the low curve of her belly where he was inside of her. Gen was so expressive like this, not lying or playing a game, just open pleasure as he bent over her body and moved against her.
“Someday,” he whispered into her ear, his voice like the crackle of a forest fire, “I am going to steal you away from your bower and take you to my altar.”
“Oh.” She gasped, nails digging into his shoulders. Periphys knew his mind. She saw herself laid out among the trophies of his devotees, ornamented by generations of the riches of his Thieves, rings on all over her fingers and draped all over with strings of pearls and precious gems. Gen did like his treasures.
She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, thrilling a little when he moaned against her throat. “Harder, Gen.”
He obliged, thrusting hard, reaching some place deep inside of her that made her spine arch against her altar. Pleasure swept over her in overwhelming gusts and she tightened around him with a cry. Gen pressed his face in the crook of her neck, cramming himself as deep as he could go as he spilled inside of her.
In the stillness that followed, every panting breath she took felt like it was drawn straight from the highest echelons of the sky. She felt divided, one part of her here in the temple, and another outside of it. Her body still felt the cool marble of her altar and Eugenides's arms wrapped tight around her, his cock still twitching in her center, but with every tender aftershock, she also felt stalks of wheat rippling gold in the fields far beneath the mountain and the swell of waves of the open sea and the bursting of dandelions in the warm air. Slowly, she came back to herself and found Eugenides watching her.
She sent a tendril of a breeze to fetch her gown from the floor and startled as the ensuing whirlwind swept over the stone columns, displacing old birds nests and knocking over broken statues. The whole temple rocked and howled as though a storm was shaking it, nothing like her usual winds. Eugenides's game had magnified her power, intensifying her usual breezes into storm winds.
Periphys clicked her tongue in dismay at the chaos. If the temple had been in ruins before, now it looked like a giant had come through and rattled it to pieces.
“Oh dear. There will be gales for weeks.” She thought of her usual idle days and sighed.
“Or…”
She looked at Eugenides. “What is it?” she said, with a rising suspicion that she had neatly walked into one of his many schemes.
“There is a fleet down near Cimorene that’s been becalmed for a week,” he said innocently.
Periphys frowned. “I’m not a sea wind, Gen. Borhas and the Etesians will be cross if I interfere.”
“They’ve all been off on a harebrained hunt for weeks,” he said, cajoling. He fetched the pieces of her dress and deftly helped pin it back in place and fix the shawl. “Some golden hind that belongs to the Sun. They won’t know and if they do, they will blame me.”
“Well, alright,” she said, since that was probably true. “But Gen—"
He tilted his head at her, waiting for her condition, mouth halfway turned up already in anticipation of all of his plans falling into place.
Periphys fixed him in her gaze. “When you steal me away to your altar, I am going to pin you to the stone and ride you like the steed of Adrastus."
His teeth flashed white as he smiled. “Goddess, I'd expect nothing less."
It was settled then. A nap would be quite nice now, she thought as she brushed the wrinkles from her skirt, but Gen forestalled her with a hand on her forearm. "The fleet,” he reminded her.
“Yes, yes,” sniffed Periphys, who had quite forgotten about the mortals, and taking him in her arms, she bore them both towards the sea.