I’d never known the touch of any human but her—andneverhad the intricately woven frond of our story unfurled like this.
Our lips fused, tongues drinking honey, hands on fire. Her back flattened against the cold cave wall, bare before me as I was before her. She went on to her toes, wrapping one leg around mine as she pulled me closer. She breathed out as I breathed in, absorbing one another as we faded from two beings into one.
“Rauana—”
She paused, hand against my chest. “No.”
I froze. “I’m sorry. I?—”
“I see you,” she said. “I see past the chipped moonlight in your eyes. I see beyond the starlight of your skin. I don’t see the animals who visited me. I see a woman on the ice and a beast twice her size. I see a palace, a bed of unimaginable colors, a love beyond words. I see a woman who nearly bled to death along the sea, and the Star who rescued her.”
I flickered, awareness struggling as I fought to make sense of it. Everything came crashing to a halt. The heat between us chilled as she stared into me.
“I am your Love. And you are mine.”
No mortal word sufficed.
The warmth of the sun. The permeating soak of treasure at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench. The frenzied grip that rivaled fingers clinging to a storm-drenched cliff. The down-soft press of naked skin. The explosive pleasure beyond anything a god of debauchery might pour.
There was sex.
There was fucking.
Then…there were the universes born when I entered my Love.
When I came, the shimmering gloss of my seed coated her belly, her ass, her throat, her mouth, or sometimes the arc of my own stomach. My oath agreed I’d find her, I’d love her, I’d bed her. No one would invade the sanctity of our lovemaking to see the way I refused my role in the prophecy.
In this life, Love was no whore—a word born of sanctimony and otherness that I rebuked with every fiber of my being—but even if we weren’t evading the prophecy, she’d made one thing clear: she was never to marry, nor to bear children, in this lifetime. I’d honor her culture, her people, her wishes.
I found purpose in her ecstasy.
When she came, I was the one who saw god.
Flesh and need consumed me.
She was the mortal, but I was the one consumed with our cycle of loss. She remained in the present, while I craved her every atom, knowing the fleetingness of each perfect moment.
There was a rabidness to our carnal connection that was best left to the cave. I struggled to let her leave and begged for her return. Gratitude over her existence dried my tongue into something unquenchable. She stole away to the cave as often as she could. No matter how many times a week, then how frequently per a day, it was never enough.
No discretion could excuse her absence as she ran to me, her ache growing for a need only I could feel.
Rauana told me—not asked,told—that she planned to inform the village first of my presence, and second, that she’d been born under a lonely star so that she could fall into the arms of a living star.
Given her unmarriageable status, the announcement was met with interest rather than rejection. Whoever, andwhatever, I was, threatened no one.
She spent weeks preparing them for my appearance, and when the time came for me to walk upon their sands at her side, I was met with little resistance.
Rauana, now one who walked with spirits, was granted the privacy of her own hut within the community.
She would bear no children. She would take no husband. She would continue her roles as they moved between aiding the fishermen with their catch, gathering fruits and vegetables, weaving, storytelling, and all things expected of her prior to her brush with starlight. They accepted my presence as I helpedher with her tasks, and I avoided using any powers that would perturb them. I caught her fruit. I helped her dig trenches. I gathered fresh rainwater. They were gendered roles in her village, but my presence was not questioned, because whatever I was…I was hers.
She would allow the spirits to take her on the journey meant for her. She would live her life as normally as she could, save for one difference.
This time, for the first time, we lived as two mortals might.
We were us.
We had a home.
