Текст книги "Berries and Greed"

Автор книги: Lily Mayne

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Berries and Greed

Deep Earth Dating

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Lily Mayne

Book One

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Copyright 2023 by Lily Mayne

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Beta-reading and editing by Kate Wood Proofreading

Formatting by Nikole Knight

Cover design by Virginie Méchant

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Contents

Content Warning

1. Chapter One

2. Chapter Two

3. Chapter Three

4. Chapter Four

5. Chapter Five

6. Chapter Six

7. Chapter Seven

8. Chapter Eight

9. Chapter Nine

10. Chapter Ten

11. Chapter Eleven

12. Chapter Twelve

13. Chapter Thirteen

14. Chapter Fourteen

15. Chapter Fifteen

16. Chapter Sixteen

17. Chapter Seventeen

18. Chapter Eighteen

19. Chapter Nineteen

20. Chapter Twenty

21. Chapter Twenty-One

22. Chapter Twenty-Two

23. Chapter Twenty-Three

24. Chapter Twenty-Four

25. Chapter Twenty-Five

26. Chapter Twenty-Six

27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

30. Chapter Thirty

31. Chapter Thirty-One

32. Chapter Thirty-Two

33. Chapter Thirty-Three

34. Chapter Thirty-Four

35. Chapter Thirty-Five

36. Chapter Thirty-Six

37. Chapter Thirty-Seven

38. Chapter Thirty-Eight

39. Chapter Thirty-Nine

40. Chapter Forty

41. Chapter Forty-One

42. Chapter Forty-Two

43. Chapter Forty-Three

44. Chapter Forty-Four

45. Chapter Forty-Five

46. Chapter Forty-Six

47. Chapter Forty-Seven

48. Chapter Forty-Eight

49. Chapter Forty-Nine

Author’s Note

Books by Lily Mayne

About the Author

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Content Warning

This MF love story contains:

– Explicit Content

– Domme/sub dynamic – soft femdom top and sub bottom

– FMC with vaginismus and aversion to penetration

– FMC who is initially involved in a cult

– MMC with social anxiety

– Mentions of childhood neglect and abandonment

– Recreational use of a fictional drug

– Side character with addiction issues

– Alcohol consumption

– Non-human genitalia

– Restraint

– Edging

– Pegging

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Chapter One

Beryl

I was already smiling as I tugged up the blinds over my window, revealing cerulean skies and the orange-and-brown foliage of the sprawling park far below.

Another beautiful autumn day in The Order of the Greater Beings.

I had already dressed in my favourite flowy trousers and shirt—pale pink and white respectively today—but now that daylight streamed into the room, I sat down at my dressing table to do my hair and skincare.

After smoothing moisturiser over my face, I leaned in for a closer inspection in the mirror. The expensive face cream my aunt got for both of us mostly fended off the signs of ageing, but time stopped for no one. Now, as I smiled at myself in the mirror, laugh lines fanned out from the corners of my eyes.

I sighed, leaning back and reaching for my sunscreen. I was happy here—happier than I would be anywhere else. Probably. Maybe. So it was silly to look at my face, now twenty-five years older than it had been when I arrived, and feel like I was possibly… wasting my life.

I wasn’t wasting it, I thought stubbornly. I was ensuring I had the best life possible. My methods may have been a touch unconventional, but they’d worked for this long and they weren’t going to fail me now. Why would they? I’d worked the system—well, my aunt and I had—to ensure I lived in conditions that would otherwise be well beyond my means.

If it meant I had to live with a bunch of people who had willingly dedicated their lives to worshipping the demiurgus, the monstrous beings who lived among humans? Sure, I didn’t mind that. They could do what they wanted. Did I find it a little weird that they all stayed here desperately hoping to one day become a demiurgus’s mate? That they spent all their time reading about the species’ mysterious history, learning their ways and pampering themselves to look beautiful in the hopes of getting dicked down by one of them?

I mean, yeah, I found it a little strange.

The demiurgus weren’t human, but they were just… people. A different kind of people, but people. They weren’t gods. They’d emerged from wherever they’d lived, deep underground, centuries ago to start co-existing with humans on the surface. They’d brought with them medicine, interesting food, beautiful artwork and a new culture, which was how, I guessed, cults like this had sprung up.

Yeah, I was in a cult. But I wasn’t really in it. I just lived in The Order of the Greater Beings’ compound because… well. Because it was great. The building was huge and sprawling, on the top of a big hill that overlooked the city and surrounding countryside. It was clean and luxurious, and I had a huge room to myself. The food was good. The healthcare was top-notch. And my aunt was here.

My mother hadn’t been around when I was little, and my dad was… not great. Just a total dick who’d clearly never wanted a kid. After a decade of neglect, he’d finally foisted me off on his sister, my aunt, who worked at the compound as the general manager for its winemaking business.

She wasn’t a true follower of the cult either. She’d come here years earlier when she’d had no other options after a short stint in prison for theft. During that time, her boyfriend had shacked up with someone new and changed the locks, so when she got out, she’d been homeless—my dickhead dad hadn’t been willing to take her in—and hadn’t been able to get a job. She’d come to the cult one night, desperate, hoping for a bed and a hot meal. And then she’d stayed, because she got both of those things. She played the game just like I did, pretending to worship the demiurgus, and eventually she’d become general manager here, overseeing the day-to-day running of the cult’s winemaking business.

It wasn’t that humans who lived outside of the compound were destitute. Most of them weren’t at all. Many of them had completely normal jobs, normal lives, and treated the demiurgus as what they were—just other folk.

But by the time I turned eighteen and could legitimately go out into the world and make my own way, I’d gotten scared. I may not have been a true member of the cult, my aunt had made sure when I was a kid that I didn’t get sucked into their fervent worship of the demiurgus, but it was basically all I’d known. And I hadn’t gotten a proper education here. I knew I’d struggle to find a job, especially one that paid well enough for me to get my own place.

So I’d stayed. I liked living with my only family—I had no idea where my dad was now—and I liked my simple way of life. I wasn’t lazy. I worked just as hard as all the others on the vineyards we ran. We had two of them here—a standard one for human wine, and a subterranean one within the hill to grow the nightberries that the demiurgus made their own wine from. It was a pretty lucrative business. The demiurgus loved having easy access to their favourite wine without having to make the long journey back underground to the mysterious place they came from, to procure the nightberries. At some point in the cult’s past, a demiurgus had gifted the members with some of the berries, and from there the subterranean vineyard had grown.

Most of the other members suspected I wasn’t as gung-ho about becoming a demiurgus’s fucktoy as they were, but I displayed just enough deference when the “Greater Beings” were brought up, and I made sure to keep my mouth mostly shut when the high priest was around. If he realised I wasn’t all in, that I wasn’t here in the hopes of one day becoming a demiurgus’s mate, I’d be out the door in an instant.

Besides, it wasn’t like there was any danger of that actually happening. In the entire time I’d lived here, not a single demiurgus had stepped through those doors declaring that they were here to choose a human mate. And even if that did happen… well, I would not be their first choice. Or even their last. We had regular health check-ups here, and our medical backgrounds were recorded in painstaking detail so that if a demiurgus did ever come here, they’d be able to make sure they were choosing a healthy mate who suited their needs.

And I would not suit their needs. I made very fucking sure I didn’t.

I still had a somewhat active sex life. Despite all the cult members here pining for demiurgus lovers, they were still human, and lots of humans liked sex. Sure, some of them were “saving themselves”—have fun with that—but others enjoyed sex with one another as they waited to be swept off their feet by a big, looming demiurgus.

I was pretty sure they’d all be waiting a long, long time. As far as I knew, demiurgus very, very rarely took humans as partners. Maybe not ever. But that hadn’t stopped legends being spawned about their sexual prowess, their virility, their unquenchable lust. About how having sex with one of them was akin to lying with a god.

When I heard the others talking about it in hushed, breathy voices, I always wanted to snort. I was pretty sure the demiurgus had started those rumours themselves. Why not make the gullible humans believe you were dynamite in bed? Why not feed your ego by allowing them to form cults and build statues and dedicate their lives to worshipping you? It wasn’t like some humans in history hadn’t done the same thing.

At least, with the demiurgus, it appeared to be all for show. They weren’t showing up here to peruse us like cattle and take one of us home as their new living sex toy. They didn’t seem to be taking advantage of this weird little subsect of humanity by demanding anything from us or overpowering us for their own gain. We were just the strange bunch living up the hill in a big compound built in their name. They probably thought we were freaks.

But seeing as my aunt and I had worked the system flawlessly, I had no motivation to leave.

Sure, sometimes I got lonely and thought it might be nice to get an interesting job and be around other regular people. To find someone, to settle down and live in a proper house and have a normal, quiet existence in the real world. But it wasn’t the driving force in my life.

So yeah, maybe by staying here I was coasting, playing it safe by remaining in my weird little bubble. At least I was doing it in style.

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Chapter Two

Greid

What the fuck are you doing, dude?

With every step up the wide stone staircase to The Order’s compound, my brain tried to convince me to turn back around.

This is weird.

This is a bad idea.

You’ll never live this down if anyone finds out.

You have literally no experience with humans. You barely have experience with other demiurgus. Go back and hide alone in your house like the socially anxious goblin that you are.

My skin prickled with sweat as I kept going, despite my own brain trying to sabotage the plan I’d spent weeks agonising over. Well, not really a plan. More like a loose, half-formed idea that had come to me when I was super stoned.

But I was used to my brain betraying me. It liked to make me feel like a total loser every time I was out in public—which was very, very rarely—second-guessing everything I said, convincing me that everyone around me thought I was a creep or a weirdo.

Well, you’re really cementing your weirdo status now, Greid. Awesome job.

I was used to being made to feel like a weirdo—not just by myself, either. It seemed like most of my life, I’d been made to feel strange or endured some form of humiliation. My shitty dad calling me the runt of the litter. My douchey brother picking on me mercilessly when we were kids. My former girlfriend telling me she couldn’t think of anything worse than spending the rest of her life with someone so miserable and closed off. Our mutual acquaintances avoiding me after Agma had spread vicious rumours among our circles that I was weak and defective somehow. That there was something wrong with me.

Well, fuck all of them. Fuck everyone. It wasn’t even like they’d been my friends. As a rule, I disliked and avoided all people, which was something else Agma had hated about me. Apparently I was “antisocial” and “practically a hermit”, and wanting to stay in and get high and watch shitty TV was “immature”. How was that immature? I was old enough to buy legal drugs, so technically getting high was the most mature thing I could do.

Whatever Agma had told her social circle after our break-up, it had been enough to make me a pariah. Any loose acquaintances I’d made through her suddenly started avoiding me like the plague. I had my suspicions about what she’d shared with her friends. My kind, demiurgus, craved battle and constant power plays in relationships, especially during sex. That I craved something else apparently made me defective.

So yeah, fuck all of them. I didn’t need them. Assholes.

My lip curled as I reached the top of the steps, eyeing the large, pale-stoned building that sprawled across the hill overlooking the city. It looked drab and lifeless. Beige. Too many windows. Too much light seeping in. But even as I eyed it warily, half expecting to hear duelling banjos somewhere close by, a stab of worry tightened my gut. I smoothed down my stifling suit and hesitantly approached the front door.

Would a human hate my home?

My house was dark and cluttered. To me it was soothing. Lots of nooks and crannies to hide in when I wanted to be alone. Only candlelight illuminated the rooms usually, but there was power. The kitchen was always bright, lit with electric lights and constantly filled with the hum of appliances, so I avoided it as much as possible until I got really hungry. And I got hungry a lot.

Before I could bring myself to knock on the tall, pale wooden doors, doubting not just my decision to come here but all of my life choices that had led me up to this moment, one of them opened. Snapping my hand back down, I went still and eyed the human in front of me, starting to sweat even more.

She was tall and slender, with blonde hair cascading over her shoulder and a soft smile on her face. Flowing beige trousers swept over the tops of her bare feet, and her beige shirt was loose, showing only a hint of her figure. Her skin was pale but tanned, like some humans who spent time in the sun. It was almost the exact same shade as her clothing.

I stared at her in silence, wanting to turn and stride right back down the stairs. The only splash of colour on her entire person was her blue eyes, but they were as pale and dull as the rest of her. I’d seen a lot of humans in my life—not that I left my house much—but I obviously hadn’t paid much attention to any of them, because this one looked like any hint of colour, of life, had been drained out of her.

Did all the humans here look like this?

In the seconds I had been staring at her in silence, her smile had grown, her eyes becoming livelier. Excited.

“Oh my word.” She dropped to her knees, making my shoulders want to hunch. “This is… Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. We are blessed. What an honour!”

What in the flying fuck? I could feel myself recoiling in horror, but I forced my face to smooth out into a blank mask.

“Why’s that?” I rarely spoke in this stifling humanoid form, so my voice was gravelly. At least it probably made me sound more intimidating than I actually was.

I thought I saw her shiver. Whaaaaat?

“We never get such esteemed visitors. I can’t… I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it’s happening.” She stood shakily and bowed, then shuffled back to hold the door open wider. “Please, come in. The high priest will be overjoyed.”

Heaving a silent breath, I stepped into the compound and looked around. I’d heard rumours of this place. Everyone had. The cult that worshipped my kind. The humans who had dedicated their lives to studying us—although I’m not sure what they thought they gave us, or we gave them—likening us to gods.

I hadn’t actually believed it. Not until this strange human woman had begun bowing and gushing over me being here, as if I wasn’t a miserable loner who spent my time getting high in front of the TV.

It made me twitchy. What exactly did they think made us so much better than them, to the point of wanting to worship us? Yes, we were stronger and faster. But so were fucking… bears and dogs. Did humans worship those? Okay, we could shape our forms into something more closely resembling them. I supposed that was probably pretty strange to humans. And I supposed the sharp teeth and claws and tails could make us seem threatening to them, but those things all remained when I took this form.

No humans had seen my true form, but I knew other demiurgus liked to show off. To go on TV or prowl through the city in their real skin, grinning widely at all the humans to make them shriek and laugh with delight and fear.

Fucking show offs, I thought viciously, before realising that the human woman was still gazing at me with open adoration.

After glancing at her warily, I took in the large entrance hall we now stood in. The walls were painted the same beige as the stone outside and the smooth tiled floor. All the wood was blond as well. The human in front of me looked liable to melt into it all and become one with the building.

The only hints of darkness were the huge stone reliefs mounted on the walls. Obsidian gleamed under the bright spotlights, and my gaze trailed over painstakingly carved depictions of my kind in various poses: standing tall, head back and arms outstretched, like some kind of messiah. Crouched over in a threatening stance with sharp teeth displayed in a snarl. One even showed a human clutched to a demiurgus’s chest, their clawed fingers tangled in the person’s long hair like they were cinched in some loving embrace.

My eyeballs strained as I fought the urge to roll them, but a kernel of unease flared again. Was it actually, like, wrong of me to come here? Were these people… brainwashed somehow? Would I be taking advantage? Would they fall over themselves for the chance to become my roommate?

Fucking creepy.

But if I didn’t do this, I was pretty sure that would be it. Alone forever. Not that I was here for any kind of romantic arrangement—with a human? No way—but… I’d been a little taken aback by how lonely I’d gotten since Agma left.

I never thought I’d care. When Agma had begun packing up her clothes to leave, I’d lashed out, wounded by her sharp words, snarling that I couldn’t wait to once again be left in peace and solitude. That I didn’t need her or anyone else. That I was happy alone.

She’d looked over at me, eyes narrowed, and said, “That’s fortunate, Greid. Because you will be.”

And then she had proceeded to make sure it remained that way.

The more time passed, the less I enjoyed my own company. I’d had a taste of companionship with Agma, and now I… craved it. Much to my fucking annoyance. My feelings toward her had become snarled and tangled in the time since she’d left, so now I couldn’t rightly say whether I had truly loved her or not.

It had felt like it at the time. It was why I’d allowed myself to be open with her. To tell her the things I wanted. And then she’d left.

Not that I was here to go after those specific things. Humiliation flared again, making me shift before I forced myself to go still, because the woman was still gazing at me with reverence. I wasn’t here for intimacy. Just a companion. Just to have another person breathing the same air as me in my home. For some reason, that felt infinitely more pathetic than if I’d been here to fuck someone.

I’d figured it’d be easy to find a companion here. Just someone to live in my house with me, and who better than a human who was eager to learn everything they could about my kind? I wouldn’t have to deal with another overbearing demiurgus taking over my living room or rearranging my shit or constantly trying to debate with me about literally everything. Agma had been the most argumentative person in the world, purely because she enjoyed it.

I did not enjoy it. At all.

My hair was tied back in a knot, but strands had slipped loose on my long walk up those fucking stairs. I raised my chin and brushed one back, then stared at the woman in silence. Waiting.

She jolted and gave me another deep bow. I suppressed my wince. “Please, let me show you to the formal reception room. We have a suite of rooms here kept especially for if… for when our Greaters visit.”

My eye twitched as I followed her to a large set of double doors on our left, these ones unlike the others. They were made of black stone, and the slender human woman struggled to push one open. In silence, I stepped as close as I dared and placed a hand above hers, opening it with ease.

She shivered again, breath catching from my proximity. I immediately stepped back and clenched my hands into fists behind my back. Yes, it had been a monumental fucking mistake coming here. If they were all this eager—this unnervingly doting—I didn’t want one. I couldn’t think of anything worse.

The room we entered was made entirely of black stone. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. Candlelight flickered from wrought iron wall sconces and a huge candelabra above our heads. The obsidian furniture gleamed—two long, stout couches either side of a smooth coffee table, the seats topped with black velvet cushions.

In here, I was the one who could melt into the walls and vanish. The light was too low to bring out the deep green hue in my hair and claws, and my black suit blended into my skin perfectly. I eyed the woman again. She was a single washed-out spot of beige in the room, looking small and vulnerable in the pressing blackness that surrounded us, but she didn’t seem frightened or ill at ease whatsoever. Her sleepy look from before, when she’d opened the door, was gone. She appeared almost frantic with excitement, bouncing on her toes.

“Please, make yourself comfortable. I’ll fetch the high priest at once.”

She hadn’t even asked why I was here—probably too busy gazing at me with unsettling adoration. I didn’t move after she slipped back into the front hall, her bare feet slapping against the stone floor as she ran. At least I was slightly more relaxed in here, with the room’s décor far closer to my own home. The darkness soothed me and made my shoulders unclench, but I stiffened right back up when I noticed more reliefs carved into the walls.

My eyes could pick them out perfectly. These were far less reserved than the images in the main hall. These showed demiurgus intertwined with nude humans in all manner of positions. Mounting them from behind, crouched over their splayed bodies, beastly heads buried between thighs or thrown back in pleasured snarls.

I gaped in alarm. Wait… What? Stepping closer, I eyed one in particular. The demiurgus depicted was standing up tall, proudly, with three humans crouching at their feet and reaching worshipfully for their cock, as if it was a font of everlasting youth. The cock was hard. And smooth. And small.

Not that it looked small, stretching to the dip of the demiurgus’s navel, enormous compared to the human hands reaching for it. But…

I glanced around in bewilderment, tension seeping through me again. Oh my good god… Was this a sex cult?

I looked at some of the other reliefs, my hearts pounding harder and harder with each one. They all showed humans and demiurgus fucking. All of them. I winced in sympathy when I saw one of a tiny human woman impaled on a demiurgus cock.

Had none of them ever actually seen a demiurgus cock? Clearly fucking not, because they looked nothing like that.

Fucking hell. This was a sex cult. I had come to a sex cult. A human sex cult with very, very incorrect ideas on demiurgus anatomy. If they’d known the truth, they wouldn’t all be clamouring to become a demiurgus’s mate. Not unless they had a death wish, or a serious pain fetish.

Sweet baby Jesus, was I the first demiurgus to ever actually come here?

Sweat beaded on my hairline as I jerked back from the wall. How could I have been so fucking stupid? I had to get out of here. This had been a mistake, even if I hadn’t come here looking for someone to be my lover. I’d just thought… you know. Hey, those weird guys up in that compound are super interested in our kind. Maybe one of them would want the chance to live platonically with a demiurgus, to get to know one for real.

But no, it had to be a fucking sex cult. Apparently, these people worshipped us as virile, sensual gods. They chose to live in this lifeless beige place—why was everything fucking beige?—in the hopes of… what, one day becoming a demiurgus’s mate?

Nope. Too fucking creepy.

I strode for the door, intent on escaping, but stopped dead when a small old man slipped into the room followed by several other humans. They all wore beige, most in the loose trousers and shirts like the first woman, but the man in front had on long, flowing robes with wide, sweeping sleeves.

My eyes darted over all of them nervously as they dipped into deep bows before gazing at me in reverent silence. I wished I really could melt into the walls and vanish.

“My Greater.” The old human man at the front lowered himself to his knees, making me want to squirm. “I cannot tell you what an honour this is.”

Why? I wanted to shout. I’m just a loner who spends his time getting high and watching TV and hunching over a jewellery bench! I’m not a mystical god-like being with a magic dick! I don’t even want to fuck any of you!

Realising they were all waiting for a response, I took a step back and grunted. There. That would do.

One of the other humans helped the old man—I assumed this was the high priest—back to his feet. He immediately dipped his head, voice breathy as he spoke. “Please, tell us how we can assist you. How we can please you.”

Raising his head, his milky blue eyes shone. Fuck me, was he about to cry?

“It has been so many years since we were gifted with a visit from one of the Greaters. This… I cannot tell you what this means to our humble commune.”

Despite how unsettling his deference was, I relaxed a fraction at hearing that they had, at least, had other demiurgus come here before. At least I wasn’t the first loner creep to skulk up to the compound, sniffing for humans.

“Are you here to bestow one of our flock with the gift of matehood?” the high priest asked in a trembling voice, pale eyes glimmering with hopeful tears, like he couldn’t think of anything better.

Fuuuuck.

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