Chapter 175: Look at Me (18+)
Levi left Lucy resting on the warm volcanic glass and walked back toward the ridge where the others waited.
The pit-wyrm hybrid lifted its great head as he approached. Vespera, Serakel, and the Reverend Mother Superior watched him in silence. Isha was perched on a broken spur of rock, kicking her heels lightly, slime shifting along her calves in idle patterns.
He stopped in front of her.
"With me."
Isha’s eyes brightened. She slid off the rock without a word and followed him down a different cut in the glass, one that opened onto a narrow vertical wall of smooth black stone still warm from the deep heat below. The ledge was tight, private, and solid.
Isha leaned her back against the wall and tilted her head, waiting. The usual playful spark was present, but quieter.
Levi stood in front of her.
"Tell me how you gained the slime," he said. "And why you hated men so thoroughly before I broke you."
Isha’s smile faded into something more honest. She looked past his shoulder for a moment, gathering the old pieces.
"I was not born a goddess," she began. "I was born a lower slime-kin in one of the drowned trenches far beneath the middle dark. We were considered tools, not people. Useful for cleaning blood, dissolving bodies, sealing leaks in the deep tunnels. Nothing more."
She lifted one hand and let a thin ribbon of slime coil between her fingers.
"My first power was small. I could only dissolve dead flesh and soft stone. Then a higher demon court decided they needed a living weapon that could slip through walls and melt anything that resisted. They took a hundred of us. They poured old, forbidden water through our bodies until most of us ruptured and died. I did not. The water stayed. It changed me. My slime became conscious. It could heal me, reshape me, and dissolve almost anything I touched if I wanted it badly enough."
Isha’s voice stayed steady, but her eyes had gone distant.
"They named me after that. Not as a person. As a successful experiment. I killed my way out of that court the same night the power finished settling. I kept killing until no one in the middle dark was willing to claim ownership of me. Somewhere in all that blood I stopped being a tool and started being a problem. The other witches eventually offered me a place rather than another fight. I took it. I became the Slime Goddess because the alternative was remaining everyone’s useful monster."
She finally looked straight at Levi.
"As for men... every male I met in those early cycles wanted one of two things. To use the slime, or to cage the woman who controlled it. They spoke of partnership while measuring my body for chains. They offered protection while calculating how much power they could drain from me. I decided it was simpler to be rude first. Cruel first. To make them hate me before they could decide they loved the idea of owning me. It kept me alive. It kept me free. Until you."
Her mouth twisted in a small, self-aware smile.
"You did not try to drain me or cage me. You simply took. And for the first time the taking did not feel like loss. That is why I stopped fighting. You broke the pattern, not just the body."
Levi stepped in close. The golden light of the Sovereign Domain wrapped around them both, soft and private against the warm black stone.
"You are not a tool," he said. "And you are not free of me. But you are mine in a way that does not make you less."
Isha’s breath caught. The playful spark returned, tempered now with something deeper.
"Then prove it," she whispered.
Levi kissed her. It was slower than the claiming kisses of the past, but no less certain. Isha melted into it, slime already beginning to loosen the fastenings of her clothing.
He helped her, peeling the fabric away until she stood bare against the warm stone wall, full breasts rising with each breath, the gold mark at her throat glowing steadily.
He lifted her left leg, hooking it high over his arm, opening her completely. The head of his cock rubbed through her slick folds once, twice, then pushed inside in a single long thrust. Isha’s head fell back against the stone. A soft, broken sound left her throat as he filled her to the hilt.
Levi fucked her against the wall with deep, measured strokes, her left leg held firmly in place. Each thrust pressed her back into the warm glass. The wet heat of her slime-slick walls gripped him tightly. Isha’s hands clutched at his shoulders, her free leg wrapping around his hip to pull him deeper.
"Look at me," he said.
She did. Her eyes stayed open and locked on his while he moved inside her. The usual mischief was gone, replaced by raw, focused pleasure. Gold light pulsed between them with every stroke.
After a long stretch of that steady rhythm Levi shifted. He released her left leg, gripped both of her thighs, and lifted her fully off the ground. Isha’s back stayed pressed to the wall as he folded her legs upward and inward, holding them together against her chest as if she were a compact, precious weight. The new angle let him drive even deeper, the head of his cock kissing the entrance to her womb with every thrust.
Isha cried out, soft and continuous, arms wrapping around his neck for balance. Levi held her like that and fucked her with long, powerful strokes, burying himself completely each time. The wet sounds of their joining filled the narrow ledge. Her slime reacted to the intensity, coating his cock and dripping down his thighs in warm, glowing rivulets.
He kept the pace deliberate and deep, watching every flicker of expression that crossed her face. When her walls began to flutter and tighten he did not ease off. He drove through her climax, forcing it higher until she was shaking in his arms and her voice had broken into helpless, beautiful sounds.
Only then did he let himself follow. He buried himself to the root and spilled deep into her womb, holding her locked against the wall while the pulses faded. Gold light flared bright between them and then settled.
For a long moment neither moved. Isha’s forehead rested against his. Her breath came in soft, uneven pulls. Levi kept her held there, still joined, until her legs stopped trembling.
When he finally lowered her back to the ground her slime-slick thighs pressed together, keeping everything he had given her inside. She looked up at him with a quiet, satisfied smile that had nothing of the old cruelty left in it.
"That," she said softly, "was better than any contract."
Levi brushed a thumb across her cheek.
"You will have more."
Isha’s eyes gleamed. "I am counting on it."
He helped her dress again, though the slime made the process slower and more intimate than necessary. When they returned to the ridge the others were waiting. No one asked questions. The deeper gold pulse in Isha’s mark was answer enough.
Levi looked toward the distant red glow of the Black Maw, then smiled.