Damaged Gods

And of course, this is the wrong thing to say.

Her eyebrows knit together. “Over. Reacting?” It comes out as two words, letting me know that I’m not reacting nearly enough. “I’m like…” She looks down. “I’m like a fucking pagan goddess or something!” And then she looks back up at me with super-wide eyes.

“Are you holding a grudge against the pagans?”

She breathes deeply for a few moments and when she actually considers my question, I find myself saying Cute in my head again. “I guess not,” she finally admits.

“OK. So…?”

“Sorry. It’s just shocking.” Now she’s staring at her feet. Rather, her hooves. They are a light caramel color, like the fur on her legs, which is just a shade or two darker than the fur on my legs. “I look like you!”

I keep my tone playful. “Should I assume that’s a bad thing?”

Now she’s irritated with me. But that’s better than her being outraged about her new look. “Don’t tell me that the first time you walked into a room with human legs and feet, sans horns”—she points to her own set—“that you weren’t shocked! Because you’d be a liar!”

I rub my chin, trying not to smile. “That’s probably true, but it’s been so long, I could say it never happened and have a fifty-fifty chance of telling the truth.”

“You think this is funny.”

“I think this is… fun.” I shoot her a crooked smile. “I mean come on. It’s cool, right? Try walking. It’s so different when you have hind legs and hooves.”

She takes a few steps, makes one of those frowny expressions one does when they have to reluctantly admit something, then lets out a long breath. “It is kinda weird.”

“A good weird,” I say, looking her up and down. Because she’s so fucking stunning. Wood nymphs are known for their beauty. The face of a wood nymph is like the song of a siren. Meant to lure men into questionable places, prod them into doing dubious things.

So they always have pretty faces. They are always sexy and alluring. But Pie is more than that. She is the pinnacle of wood nymph magnificence. Very, very beautiful. But not in a I-might-lure-you-to-hell kind of way. She also has an innocence to her and I like that a lot.

“Why are you looking at me?” She’s arranging her hair self-consciously, making sure I can’t see her nipples.

I only sigh. “I’m not looking at your tits, Pie. Come on.”

“Then why are you staring at me that way?”

“Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s pretty hard not to look at you. You’re quite… stunning.”

“Hmm.” She looks down at her legs again and runs her fingertips through the shaggy fur on her upper thigh. “I like the color.”

I nod. Because I like it too. I would like to open up her legs and press my face against the velvety hide that covers her inner thighs.

“And my hooves,” she continues, oblivious to my daydream happening between her legs. “They’re not striped, like yours.” She looks up at me with those wood-nymph blue eyes. “But they are multicolored.”

“That’s banding,” I tell her, trying to take my mind off what it would be like to take her in this body. To do everything we just did, and more, with this version of her. “It’s kind of a special thing. At least in the world of satyr chimera. But you’re not a satyr, because they’re only male.”

“Hmm. That’s interesting.”

I raise my eyebrows at her. “So… you like it?”

She takes one more look at her body while both hands go up to touch her horns in a way that reminds me of a human woman checking her hair. “I mean… I would not want to be like this forever. But when in Rome…”

I grin at her. “Do as the Romans tell you.”

“That’s not how it goes.”

“No? How does it go?”

“Do as the Romans do. Not as they tell you.”

“Funny.” I point at her. And then we stare at each other for a moment. And it’s only now, in this moment, that I realize what a gift this is. Because I have not been with a woman like this—in this form—in two thousand years. “You know what’s weird?”

“What?”

“All this time I’ve been coming up here to these rooms and never once has the hallway showed me a forest like this.”

“Like this… what do you mean?”

“A wood with a girl like you. With a nymph.”

She looks around. “You’ve never met a nymph up here?”

“Nope.”

“What about the virgins?”

“I was fucking with you.”

I earn a side-eye for that remark. Like she’s not sure if I’m for real or not. “So.” She looks confused. “Who have you been… you know.”

“Who have I been fucking?”

She blushes a little. “Yeah. You haven’t had any women?”

“Of course I have.” I think that disappoints her, but whatever. It’s the truth and I’m just not much of a liar. “In the old days, I just went out as myself with my slave caretaker. People were different back then.”