Worshiped as a God - Relished as a Devil

    Amaranth (though not the name she was born with, given that her birth nomme is no longer recalled) grew up in an Egypt crawling with the European invaders that had descended from the north like a plague of locusts upon the dune-ridden lands. Even during her earliest years, her heart refused to flow with the residing presumption of her people, one that would have involved their assimilation into the culture of the pale men from the north. Her own skin had been bleached of her mother's darkness by the blood of her father, a man she grew to loathe in the years that followed, as she watched her maternal figure of guidance turn aside so many beliefs, so many teachings. Sacrilege. Amaranth was appalled, and it was not soonafter that she ran away with Taman, a young boy and childhood friend whose head she had likewise filled with visions of the past. Ones of Gods and Goddesses of light and dark and all things in between that had once been worshipped by their forefathers.

    It was not until the age of sixteen that Amaranth and Taman came across what it was they searched for. Far south of the Nile delta, where the great river momentarily crossed a cavernous route through sandless cliffs, they found a band of people who still followed the old ways. Taman went on to follow the warrior's path, while the young girl of mixed blood - pale, honeyed skin and violet eyes of the north, with the slanted, angular features and straight raven hair of her native home - took her place as a virgin priestess in the cult worshipping Kaleb.

    "Kaleb," meaning bold or faithful, also meant destructive. He was seen as a God of both kindness and passion, force and salvation. It had Hebrew origins, and some would say he was a god presumably damned to obscurity until the Jews were allowed to depart the sandy wastelands of their fate, left to wander. Others even jest that it was Kaleb who misled them so often, a creature more closely akin to devil than angel that led them in circles for those forty years of isolation. He was a God to be adored and respected in equal kind, one whose every whim or will was to be obeyed in order to receive his blessing, and avoid the harsh edge of his wrath. Whispers in the nearest city spoke of him as a demon, one of the ilkati from the other side of the Styx that had journeyed the reverse way across its deadly waters to return to earth once more. But they were only rumors, and Amaranth never paid them heed.

    But there came a time when the river began to run dry, and the people in the city talked of the dams being built upstream (thus to the south) by the Europeans. But her clan believed it not, instead holding to the assumption that someone had, in fact, done something to earn the anger of the dark god, Kaleb. The only way to right such a horrid wrong to so divine and blessed a being, was sacrifice. And no sacrifice was greater or more likely to guarantee their salvation once more, than Human.

    Amaranth was twenty-four when she was summoned by the young pharaoh and told of her task, and what her sacrifice would mean for the survival of her people. With pale skin and strange coloring, she was exotic even by the sand people's standards, and her purity of mind, heart and body would make her the perfect offering to Kaleb. She was to be sealed within his temple at sundown - the very temple within which she had performed so many rites of worship and devotion, love and loyalty - and left there at the whim of the God.

Tears glistened upon her cheeks as she moved up the familiar pathway, up into the cliffs into which the temple had been carved. Snarling sphynx stood as guardians to either side, and there was a time when she would have paused - as she had a thousand times before - to pet one on the head, speak calming words as though to soothe the rage of the beast. But not now.

The doors were opened before her, the outward gust lightly billowing through silks of white that swathed her slight form, marred only by a small shirt beneath that peeked out at the arms, dyed the deep, sapphire blue of penetance. Her hair shone as polished onyx with its weight of scented oils, headdress of gold and lapis chiming gently as she moved within. The doors slammed shut in her wake, and the femme made it perhaps three paces before collapsing to the floor, glistening tears staining the dusty marble floor with small pools of moisture. Even if the God did not come, she would die without sustenance.

But something shifted in the room with her, and before she could summon the courage to glance up, a touch trailed over her cheek, drawing dampened sights upward. The gasp that caught in her throat was somewhat harsh, tension flooding her form as she gazed upward into sights of deep, drowning blue, a color more vibrant and expressive than the finest lapis lazuli, or the Nile at its most deep. For a moment, that was all she could see.. a calm pull of centuries weighing down upon her from those soulful depths like a physical force.

He was beautiful, there was no other word for it. It was not the rugged handsomeness of the desert people, or even her father's simpering northlanders. He crouched before her as something spun of fairytales and dreams - how could any ever have claimed him to be a demon? He was too beautiful for words, his touch light as a feather as his hands traced down her arms, slowly aiding support as he drew her to her feet. Instantly, she attempted to duck back to the ground again, this time apparently set upon curling into a little ball of fealty at his feet. But his words echoed over her like a brush of satin, soothing and gentle even though his lips moved not.

There is no need to bow to me, child. I shall not harm you while you are with me. His hand moved gently back through her hair, after removing the heavy, cluttered weight of the headdress and discarding it to one side. He drew a few silken strands to his lips, drawing in her scent as though it were a newly discovered drug. She stood perfectly still, save the minute tremors traipsing through her form, tongue flicking in a single, quick motion over her lips as she tried to settle.

   Attempting to rescue her voice from whatever pits to which it had sunk, she managed to weakly clear her throat; but a finger graced the bow of her upper lip, wishing her to silence, before tracing over its lower twin like the brush of a butterfly's wing. Tremulously gentle. She leaned into that touch, sights of brilliant violet drifting shut as his power moved over her skin like a gentle wind that breathed through her as much as it did around her. When he drew away, it was as though that warmth was leaving her, and sights opened anew with the sudden pang of loss. But his hand extended for hers, and not a heart-beat earned its passage before she slipped slender digits trustingly within his own, allowing him to lead her with him toward the throne that lay at the opposite end of the raised dais. Carved out of the very stone and inlaid with white-gold, it gleamed about him like a soft halo as she sank to her knees before him, hand still claimed in his. I have watched you while you came and went within my temple these long years past. Have, ever since you appeared out of the desert like a wayward wraith finally finding her way home. His hand tightened gently on her own when she moved, once more, to speak, his smile gentle and somewhat patronizing. I want you to join me, little one. To remain at my side. Never have I been so fascinated by one of your kind, so infatuated by every nuance of posture, feature, motion... it has taken more willpower than can be considered pretty to not show myself to you sooner.

    "But you...You're a.. How can I ever stay with you?" She shook her head faintly, words an incredulous murmur as her regard drifted over him once more. So striking, breathtaking, perfect. She had lived here worshiping him as a god, and rightfully so. He could be nothing else.

    Do you trust me, my priestess? If I were to ask something of you, would you do it without question? She might have laughed in response, but there was a seriousness in his gaze that seemed to lend an otherwise idle question some great import to which she was not privy. She was careful as she formulated her response, although no less truthful for it.

    "If you asked me to throw myself off of the cliffs for you, I would do it. I am yours in every way, ever since I spoke my oath of servitude." He smiled, then, in response to her soft-spoken reply, the rise of his hand drawing her to her feet once more. She did not resist the idle motions of his hand, leaving her with her back facing him as she felt him rise behind her. He would have been tall among the desert people, but her father's blood left him only inches higher than she, herself, was, and his breath as he drew up to her back fell along her neck and earned the faintest of shivers.

Why do you tremble? His words moved through her mind like the smooth of a hand over bristling hackles, leaving nothing but lulling serenity in its wake. She let him lean her back against him, molding her to his form like a second skin. When his chin fell to rest on her shoulder, sights moved to one side in an attempt to meet his gaze. Instead, violet pools hovered over the perfect fullness of his lips, and the brief glint of ivory glimpsed behind them. Were those fangs? Surely not..

   His lips moved over her neck, one arm slipping about her waist to hold her prone against him while the other shifted her hair away from the pale moonstone of her skin. Do you trust me? The words rippled within her mind, earning a quiet sigh and nod as she leaned her head back against his shoulder, tilting her chin to one side as the feather-light kisses continued to trail against sensitive skin. She felt tension slowly seep within his form, felt him pause over the big pulse in her throat as it thundered in her ears. The quick wash of his tongue was a warm moisture that drew a small sound from deep within her throat, before it escalated into a startled cry at the sudden, sharp pain radiating from the area. Her knees buckled almost immediately beneath the sudden pressure in her mind.. and she was rolled under the billowing tide of pleasure as it chased the pain away, wrapping her in the supple, seductive embrace of warmth and comfort that ebbed and flowed at the will of the God.

    She felt him move her only vaguely.. shifting her in his arms as though she weighed nothing, a simple doll to be possessed and touched. A strong, heady scent filled her nose, and she struggled to lift her gaze as she felt his finger - painted crimson - trace over her lips. He was speaking very softly to her, in a language she knew to be long dead, but she understood him all the same. Lips parted as she took his finger into her mouth, suckling like a babe as she drank the strangely sweet, potent nectar from his hand. She wanted more.. and when he drew her against him, guiding her arms up and around his neck, she said nothing. His gaze dropped as she rose on tiptoe to place her lips to the wound at his neck, drinking the blood of the one she called her God (did gods bleed?) like some sweet ambrosial wine.

    When he drew her away, she let him.. settling her cheek against the swell of his shoulder. Senses were filled with the heady clash of his presence, his saccharine sanguine fluid; she curled against him in his arms and knew bliss.

All that glitters is not gold. The devil shall
come with the face of an a n g e l. . .