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Welcome back to Divinity Binds, my m/m romantasy.
Previously: CH. 1
NOW: Ivan thinks he’s the one trapped. Then he turns the tether on a silver-haired god and the power shifts fast.
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CHAPTER TWO
Birdsong threaded through the swamp canopy, fragile notes slipping between branches. My skin was sticky with moss and earth where I lay. My body still ached with exhaustion, but beneath the heaviness a thrum of magic pulsed along my veins as though it had been awake all night, refusing to rest even if I did.
The bond.
The fire had smoldered down to a scatter of coals, their faint glow flickering in the dawn. Beside them sprawled Korin. A god in disarray. His long legs tangled in mud and moss, his chest bare to the morning. His hair spilled across the dirt like a crown discarded from heaven, strands catching the half-light as if spun from silver. Two plump, pale lips parted in an almost-word from a dream. Utterly unbothered.
Was he a creature of ruin, or something divine? Probably both. And yet, he looked at peace.
Last night was… too much. More intimate than I’d expected, more consuming than anything I’d let myself feel in so long. But intimacy wasn’t trust. I still knew almost nothing about this bond. Nothing about Korin.
What even was a god? I’d never cared for religion, never believed in the whispered myths. I would’ve laughed in anyone’s face if they’d told me I’d be tangled up in half of what had happened yesterday.
It was time I tried to get ahold of myself. Tried not to notice how unfairly perfect he looked in sleep. The slow rise and fall of his chest, the curve of his lips.
My gaze lingered too long.
The tether at my wrist pulsed alive, glowing faintly green in the dawn. It tugged. Not just a tug, but a summons—eastward.
Korin stirred, yawning as he stretched, every inch of him on display, unashamed of the dirt clinging to his skin. His eyes stayed closed as he grumbled, “You’re staring.”
Heat flushed my face. But the tether’s glow sharpened, dragging at my bones. “It’s pulling us. It wants us to go east?” My voice was hoarse, uncertain if I’d lost my mind.
One luminous green eye cracked open. He frowned at the tether’s light. “Ugh. It’s too early for this.”
“Do you know what this is?”
“I know we should follow where it leads. You wouldn’t want it getting impatient.”
“That’s not an answer,” I snapped.
“It’s a bond,” he said flatly, standing and stretching like he’d just woken from a nap instead of centuries sealed away.
I caught his arm, desperate. “I’m going to need a little more than that.”
He sighed, dramatic as a theater actor. “Minor gods like me are meant to bond with witches. Magic shit, bada bing bada boom, divine ascension. Become a real God, capital G.” He started walking east as if that settled the matter.
My pulse spiked. “Wait—so are there just… little gods lying around in tombs waiting for witches to stumble in and bleed on them?”
“It’s minor gods,” he corrected, smirking over his shoulder. “And no. It doesn’t always happen that way. You’re just lucky.”
“Lucky?” I nearly tripped on a root.
“The bond wants us to take a walk,” Korin sang, spreading his arms to the rising sun. “So, let’s take a walk!”
He was going to drive me insane.
We walked.
The swamp shifted around us, mud giving way to firmer ground, waterlogged air thinning into something sharper. The trees grew denser, taller towers of green swallowing us whole. Their crowns arched high above like cathedral vaults, drowning us in shadow striped by blades of the growing sunlight. Some trunks were thicker than homes I’d once slept in.
Gods, what I wouldn’t give for a home. For a bed that wasn’t dirt and moss and damp clothing clinging to my skin. For a door I could close and know nothing monstrous would crawl through. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had one of those.
Strange life stirred all around. Insects with dusty wings the size of my head flitted between branches, scattering motes of gold powder in their wake. A small four-legged creature darted across our path. I thought it was covered in black fur, but when I looked closer, its body was made of shadow. Thin enough that I could see the grass through its form. Its pointed ears flicked toward me, then it melted away like dissipating smoke.
This wasn’t like any corner of Presmithia I’d ever crossed. More enchanted. More dangerous. Every sight looked like a wonder, every sound like the beginning of a spell.
And then I saw it.
Stone rising from the forest floor, half-born, as if the earth itself was forcing it up from its womb. Thick green vines choked the rock, crawling over glyphs carved deep into the surface. The markings glowed faintly gold, pulsing faster with every step we took closer.
It was too much like the place I had found Korin. Round, windowless, humming with old power. A stone mouth waiting to swallow us. The entrance wasn’t a door so much as a circular wound in the wall, shadow pooled in its throat.
The bond yanked harder. My wrist throbbed with light.
Above the threshold, words bled into view, glowing like firebrands:
To those who are bound,
Enter if you dare.
A shiver worked down my spine. I forced my voice steady. “So… do we dare?”
Korin’s grin flashed, feral in the half-light. “We don’t really have a choice, love.”
“What does that mean?”
“Don’t kill the mood.” He stepped forward.
But the bond snapped taut. I yanked it back. Stopped him.
For the first time, shock flickered across his perfect features.
Somehow, impossibly, I had pulled him back. Controlled him. Controlled it.
My pulse roared in my ears. “I’m not going in there unless you explain what in the hells is going on—and give me a good reason why I should.”
Korin’s lips curved. “Uh oh.”
My stomach knotted. “What?”
“That means the forest is going to give you a reason to.”
The howling rose at once. Long, sharp, hungry. Not one voice, but many. Not wolves. Not anything I knew.
Knives in my brain.
That’s all I felt. The bond screamed its reckoning.
Shadows in the trees beyond darkened and shifted into the shape of creatures with ears as sharp as their fangs. Each with two reflective eyes I could see my fear in. Floating mirrors in darkness.
Korin grabbed my arm. “Run.”
Could he not destroy them like he did the witch hunters? What could scare a god?
Against my better judgment, I submitted to the bond’s will. We crossed the threshold as snarls closed in behind us. The door sealed with a snap the instant we passed. I slammed my hands against its stone and was met with ungiving force. And I could sense it: magic sealed us in.
I turned to see where the path ahead would lead. But there was none. Just the other sealed, stony end to a cursed dome. No way out.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I stepped toward Korin. “You brought us here, didn’t you? You control this bond. You made up a bunch of horseshit to trap me in some sex tomb.”
Korin just laughed. “Though that does sound like fun, I think you can tell it isn’t that simple.” His voice got darker. “You’re the one who brought up the pull, remember?”
“A pull you could have caused.”
“If anyone can control the tug of our bind, it’s you. You stopped me earlier.”
The silence inside the temple pressed close. I wanted to fight back, tell him he could’ve manufactured that too. But something deeper knew better.
My lungs stuttered, each breath damp with the scent of stone and earth. I took in the surroundings, searching for any hint of a way out. The walls were carved in looping sigils that glowed gold, just like the outside. Lines too perfect for mortal hands.
Each throb echoed against my ribs with some power. Not new—it felt more like a being seemingly left dormant within me that was just now peeking up its head.
The tether between us was vibrating now. The green shone with a light that started to envelop the whole room. It tugged me nearer to him.
He was still glancing at the sigils overhead. “You feel it, don’t you?” he asked.
My voice came out quieter than I meant it. “This place was… made for us?”
His smile was the slow unsheathing of a blade. “And for them. All of us. Bonded pairs of gods and witches.”
“What? That’s, like, a thing?”
He shrugged, eyes looking to the side, performative carelessness. It broke something in me. A snap like glass underfoot. The tether blazed green, and power surged through my veins, violent and unrelenting.
Korin’s eyes widened a fraction. “Careful, witch.”
But I was done being careful.
The surge of power tore through me before I could think. New green threads flared from my hands, alive and hungry, and lashed around his wrists.
Korin staggered back, surprise flashing across his perfect face, until the bindings slammed him against the cold stone wall.
He did not resist. Just smiled. His chest rose and fell hard, the muscles beneath his pale skin twitching where the light seared against him. The sigils on the wall answered, glowing brighter in gold, the temple itself approved.
I stepped in close, every nerve burning. My palm braced flat against his chest, feeling the thrum of his heart beneath divine skin. With a few gestures of my other hand, I twisted the bindings tighter and wrapped them around him further, until it made him squirm.
They felt like an extension of my will. His wrists strained above his head, caught high, the green lines curling down his arms like living fire.
“You do not get to smile through this,” I said, voice low and sharp. “Not this time.”
His breath hitched. The smirk faltered. For the first time since I met him, Korin looked uncertain.
“Ivan—”
“No.” I cut him off. “You do not get to say my name. Not until I let you.”
The shift was instant. The tether pulsed hard, echoing in my blood, and a tremor of arousal broke across us both.
Korin’s cock hardened, brushing hot against my stomach as he strained. “You are serious,” he breathed.
I leaned closer. “Very. So answer me. How does the bond work? What does this tether really do to me?”
His mouth curved, though his voice shook. “It makes you mine.”
“Wrong answer.” I tightened the binds, demonstrating. “Clearly, that isn’t the case.”
I closed my hand around the base of his cock. Just holding. His breath tore from him. His hips tried to buck forward, but binds pulled him back.
“Try again,” I said.
His eyes burned green fire, but silence met me. I squeezed. Not enough to hurt, just enough to make him curse under his breath. Then I let my lips trail along his jaw, soft as a lover, cruel as a captor. “Where does this bind come from?”
He growled, a low, desperate sound. “The Major Gods. They love coming up with complicated rules and rituals. They are just a bunch of multi-millennia-old queens who love drama.”
Better. I brushed my thumb over his leaking tip, slow, deliberate, and his head fell back against the stone.
“What bound you to that temple? And why?” I demanded.
His silence was another lie. I pulled away, hand abandoning him completely. His gasp of frustration was almost a plea. “You want my touch? Then speak.”
His voice cracked. “The witch I was bonded to before you.” The words were jagged, torn from him. His teeth clenched, hips straining forward as if the absence of my hand was worse than any torture.
The confession rippled through the chamber. The sigils flared gold. The tether between us thrummed like a struck chord.
“And why did they bind you to a tomb instead of keeping you bound to them?” I twisted the binds tighter, and his groan broke loose, guttural and raw. But he still didn’t answer.
The bindings trailed his form, brushed his nipples, curled along the ridges of his spine. Wrapped his thighs and coiled around his balls.
His voice came rough, torn open. “They betrayed me. The witch I was bonded to. She wanted power, not me. She gave me up to the Old Gods, traded my freedom for her ascension instead of mine. They love making deals that end with locking minor gods in temples, built to drain their power and increase their own. I was left sealed in that tomb, chained and starving for centuries.”
My eyes went wide. The vines’ grip on Korin loosened.
“I begged, Ivan. I begged her not to—” His voice broke, teeth sinking into his lip as the words shuddered out. “She made me love her. But I was nothing but a tool. A weapon to be used, then discarded…. So forgive me if I’m not so quick to trust you, witch. Telling you this increases the possibility of you doing the same.”
The truth hit me harder than any blast. For a heartbeat, I saw him not as the arrogant god smirking at my weakness, but as a person fractured. A creature who had once given everything, only to be caged in the dark and left to rot. My throat tightened, pity warring with the heat in my veins.
“You deserved better,” I whispered. My hand returned, cupping his jaw, forcing his eyes to meet mine.
I just held him there for a moment. Letting the weight of his confession hang between us. The betrayal, the centuries of hunger, the breaking of a god. It throbbed in my chest, raw and unbearable.
And then, because I couldn’t stand the silence, because pity wasn’t my style…I closed the distance.
His lips parted with a new kind of shock, soft for once, green fire dimmed by something dangerously close to hope.
I kissed him.
A kiss of magic and mercy. Our desperate mouths collided. His lips parted with a groan, and for the first time it felt less like a battle and more like surrender. His pulse thundered under my lips. The tether pulsed too, searing green heat racing down my veins and his spine until it felt as though it had caught fire.
I let my mouth trail down his body. Silver hair brushed my fingers as I slid to my knees. The living binds adjusted with me, curling tighter, holding him.
My lips grazed along the ridges of his stomach, lower still, until I dragged my tongue along the underside of his cock, slow and deliberate, tasting salt and centuries of hunger.
His moan echoed through the chamber, helpless, ruined.
I swallowed him whole. The taste of him filled me, thick and electric, like I was drinking power straight from the source. He smelled not just of man, but of nature incarnate. His body bucked against the wall, straining at the binds, but they only held him tighter, forcing him deeper into my throat.
Korin’s cries filled the chamber, ragged and wild, no trace of control left. “Ivan—please—gods, please, I cannot hold it—I’m going to—”
I pulled back just enough to murmur against him, my lips wet with his need. “You can. You will. Down my throat.”
Then I devoured him again.
I could feel his pulse hammering through his cock in my mouth, his need flooding into me. The bindings tightened their grip, one coil curling low, pressing firmly behind his balls in a way that made his entire body shudder.
And then he shattered.
His back arched, muscles drawn tight as bowstrings. His cock pulsed in my mouth, spilling hot and endless down my throat.
I swallowed every drop like sacrament, greedy for more. The taste was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Nothing like the stable boys and workmen I tangled with from time to time in the villages. This was divine liquid power, perfectly balanced sweet and savory, spilling straight into my soul. It felt like magical fuel. I felt my own power grow.
His cries turned into half-broken prayers, my name torn raw from his throat again and again.
The temple responded. The walls vibrated with sound, a low thunder rolling through the stone.
When it was over, his lips parted, eyes glazed, every trace of arrogance stripped from him.
I rose slowly, licking the last of him from my lips. I cupped his face once more. He leaned into my touch, undone, trembling.
The binds slackened at my will. Their coils loosened, easing their grip until they faded into nothing but lingering sparks. Korin sagged back against the wall, head bowed, chest heaving. Sweat traced gleaming lines down his body, silver hair plastered damp against his shoulders.
I brushed the strands from his face. His eyes dimmed to something soft, his lips parted as if he might speak but did not have the strength.
“Breathe,” I murmured, thumb stroking his cheek.
He obeyed, dragging air into his lungs, shaky, uneven.
The tether between us was dim now, not violent, just steady and warm, as if it had been fed—satiated.
“You are mine, as much as I am yours now, because of this bond. Isn’t that right?” I whispered, the words trembling on my tongue, both victory and prayer.
His gaze locked on mine, glassy and desperate. “If that is the case, do not let me go.”
The plea lingered in the charged silence.
The floor beneath us trembled with a low vibration. Moss lit up along the cracks in the stone, each step forward marked with a faint green glow. The opposite side of the dome from where we entered opened up like an eyelid.
Korin pulled himself upright, still unsteady, yet his smirk was beginning to creep back into place. “Looks like we have been noticed,” he rasped, voice thick with both ruin and delight.
I swallowed hard, the taste of him still heavy on my tongue, and glanced down the corridor that had begun to shimmer with light. Something waited ahead.
“Do we follow?” I asked.
“As I said before, we have no choice,” Korin replied, the smirk deepening, though his voice betrayed the echo of his earlier plea.
And follow we did.
The passage opened into a vast chamber. It ended in a colossal gate of black opal, carved with glyphs older than the world.
Two statues guarded it: one mortal witch, veiled and bleeding from the wrists; one god, chained at the wrists and screaming silently into the void.
Across the gate’s arch burned words in gold:
Only the bound may pass.
Only the joined may wake the world below.
I realized then that what had passed between us was not merely hunger, not merely pleasure.
It was a key.
And the gate ahead had been waiting centuries for us to turn it.
Next:
Be honest: who gives the best blowjob, Ivan or Korin??
When they finally fuck, who tops first, and why? 😂👀
Tell me in the comments below!
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I hope that it is mutual, reciprocal. Mutually sustaining and empowering. No betrayal. No destruction of one for the benefit of the other. A bond of devotion, for throughout pagan mythology Love, passion, sex and orgasm is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Even the Higher, Ancient, most powerful Deities are not immune to the power of Love! Love has the power to bind even the most powerful, ancient Deity to a Mortal.
The most minor, lessor deities are 1000 times more powerful than the most powerful human. No mortal can absorb the power of even a minor Deity and survive.