🚨 Mature Readers 18+ ONLY 🚨
Welcome back to Divinity Binds, my mythic, filthy, unapologetically gay romantasy.
Ivan’s bond with Korin only deepens, and the gate to the World Below finally cracks open. Step through the gate with them … if you dare.
CHAPER THREE
My skin still stings where I bound Korin, the phantom ache of vines still curling at my palms even though they were gone.
His words linger, too. Do not let me go.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t think that far ahead. There was too much to learn about…whatever the hells is happening to us.
The air hums. Heavy with what we’ve done, what we’ve unleashed.
Now, the gate looms before us.
Twin hollows sit near the base at waist level, hand-shaped, obviously waiting.
Korin’s smirk has mostly returned, but his eyes betray the wreckage beneath. Something cracked open in him he didn’t mean to show.
“Together?” I ask, my voice rough.
He nods once, too quickly.
Our palms touch the stone, and the gate roars awake.
Light floods me with memory.
A thousand visions strike in jagged flashes: mortals and gods bound hand to hand, mouth to mouth, soul to soul. Some triumphant. Some screaming. Blood. Fire. Pleasure sharp enough to blur into death.
I stagger; the tether drags me upright.
Stone splits with a crack like thunder swallowed underwater. The seam parts, slow and merciless, until the gate yawns wide.
Beyond: a world that should not exist.
Light doesn’t come from sun or flame but from clouds suspended high like leviathans adrift on unseen currents. Violet and silver wash the land. Rivers take the light and run it white-blue through forests of silver leaves and black bark. Floating isles drift, chained by luminous vines. Beyond them, mountains: jagged black teeth scored with golden sigils too old for language.
In the distance stood a spire: silver at its base, black at its peak, rising from a lake so dark it swallows the sky.
This isn’t a forest; it’s a temple that learned to breathe. The bond thrums like it recognizes home.
“Well,” Korin says lightly. “Looks like the real story starts down there.”
I step forward, dizzy. The air tastes alive. The ground hums like a heartbeat beneath my boots. This isn’t magic as I know it. It’s older. The land itself breathes.
The first step feels like trespass. Grass bends, mist curls thick and sweet with blossoms I have no name for.
Korin closes his eyes as if to drink it in. Of course he belongs here, a god born of ruin finding a world that remembers him.
But do I?
My skin prickles, unseen eyes measuring me. The beauty is unbearable. Too much like holiness, like standing naked under a sky that sees every flaw.
Birds wheel above with glass-feathered wings. Each detail cuts sharper than the last until my chest tightens and I whisper, “Gods.”
Korin laughs under his breath. Not quite mockery. “Can you feel it? This place was made for pairs like us.”
I nod; words fail. My whole body is strung like a chord.
“It’s a place where our offspring can live in peace.”
“Our offspring?” I choke.
“Well, not ours…yet. But children of other bonded exist. Demigod-witch hybrids live in tribes below the earth. Very quaint.”
Every sentence he speaks spins a dozen questions I can’t pin down.
We follow a path cutting into the valley side, a red-stone ribbon winding through swaying grass. The blades rise to my shoulders, tipped with dew that glows faint gold. When I brush one, it recoils and shivers away.
The hum grows stronger as we descend, rattling my ribs as if the valley is tuning me.
Korin moves ahead without hesitation. He doesn’t look back, but I feel his awareness grazing me, smug and steady, as if he knows I’m unraveling. His silver hair catches the violet light, the valley claiming him.
We pass beneath the first trees. Rough black bark. Pale silver leaves that tremble with light when stirred.
Then I see it’s mouths.
Dozens, lipless, wet with green-gleam sap, whispering just below hearing. One yawns wider, and an eye looks out: round, human-like but wrong. My hand finds my dagger.
Korin’s voice brushes the air, calm, warning. “Do not touch it.”
“What is it?” My voice rasps.
“The forest.”
The mouths snap shut, the eye vanishing as bark knits smooth. Silence.
I keep walking, every hair on my arms prickling, certain the tree still watches.
We push deeper. The air grows thicker with moss and metallic dew until stone walls rise around us.
The valley narrows to a canyon veined with glowing fungi.
Nestled against the rock, a village breathes. Full of structures grown rather than built: hollowed trees with carved doorways, fungi towers glowing pink and blue, bridges of woven vine strung high like webs.
Every surface hums faintly with light, alive in ways I can’t name.
Figures emerge from shadow and behind stone walls.
Humanoids, yes, but not human.
My eyes try to take them all in and fail: some smaller, broader, shoulders inked with tattoos that crawl like fire down their spines. Horns glint. Extra arms flex. Every one of them bears a mark glowing faintly at the center of the chest—a brand above the heart.
A tall one steps forward. Pale gray skin, hair in braided black ropes, eyes molten silver. They look at Korin, then me, then the green tether glowing between our wrists.
“You crossed the gate,” they say, voice deep and melodic, heavier than the canyon walls.
I expect Korin to answer. He doesn’t.
I swallow. “Yes.”
They tilt their head, unflinching. “Your bond is fresh.”
“Yes—”
“—Unstable.”
Korin shifts beside me, too casual. “We’re figuring it out.”
Silver eyes narrow. Silence stretches. Then the figure smiles, slow and toothless. “Then you should speak with the Elders.”
A smaller villager darts forward, sharp-eyed, light refracting under their pale skin. They whisper something urgent.
The tall one’s expression changes. Their gaze fixes on me like a blade.
“What?” I ask.
They don’t answer, only turn. “Come.”
We follow. Bridges creak above. Glowing fungi spill light across our path. Villagers trail us in shadow, the glow at their chests flickering as if measuring the tether between me and Korin.
One stops short, molten-pink eyes tracking down Korin: slow, reverent…offended.
Another joins them. Then another.
Finally, our guide clears their throat. “You cannot present yourself to the Elders like that.”
“Like what?” Korin feigns innocence.
“Uncovered.” Their gaze lands on his cock, swinging casually like he’s about to bless the canyon with it. “The Elders will not speak to a god who treats sacred ground as his personal bathhouse.”
I bite down a laugh.
Korin looks down, then back up with a slow curl of smirk. “You’re saying I can’t swing it around in front of your Elders?”
“Correct.”
“Pity. I thought it might make them agreeable.”
“We’ve had enough of gods using this place as a stage,” they snap.
“Shut up,” I mutter, heat climbing my neck from trying not to laugh.
Another villager approaches. “We will take you to a private bath.”
Korin winks at me. “I was hoping for a bath.”
The hot spring lies in a cleft of stone high above the city, private and steaming, the water shimmering faint with minerals and magic. Steam curls up to the cavern ceiling like incense.
Korin slides into the water like it’s the softest bed in the world. The green tether pulses warm between us, nudging me to follow.
“Join me,” he says, eyes half-lidded.
I strip quickly, trying not to let him watch; it’s pointless. His gaze drags over me like knives wrapped in silk.
“Gods,” he says. “You’re beautiful when you’re bashful.”
I sink into the opposite side of the pool, arms over my knees, the heat working into bone.
Steam rises between us. The tether stretches taut, humming.
“You think I’m tricking you,” Korin says, quieter now. “Using the bond to get under your skin.”
“Things got out of hand earlier. We should cool off. Keep this professional for a while. We can’t be in anything real. We barely know each other…”
“What, my beautifully delivered sob story wasn’t enough?” He snaps with fake dramatics.
“I heard it. I feel for you. But you haven’t been clear about the bond you dragged me into. You have reasons not to trust me, and I have reasons not to trust you.”
“You’re not wrong—I could be keeping secrets for nefarious reasons,” he admits. “Or maybe I keep you guessing because I like the way your brows furrow when you’re confused.”
I dunk under. Hopeless.
He’s incapable of a real conversation. Unless, maybe, he’s tied up.
After the bath, two ceremonial escorts lead us to a small cabin of black wood, walls curving high, a hearth warm inside. There’s a lush bed.
Just one.
I drop onto it, back turned, robe damp against my skin. The bond still pulses, heavy with memory.
Korin glows from the mineral water, the robe they gave him hanging loose and untied.
My cock stirs traitorously at the thought of him sleeping next to me. I press my thighs together. Sleep. Forget.
He drops onto the mattress without ceremony. It sinks; I feel his warmth at my back and he hasn’t even touched me.
“I can sleep on the floor,” he says lightly. “If you ask nicely.”
Silence. I don’t want us to go too far…but I don’t want him farther away either.
“Or I could stay here, very still, and only touch you a little…unless you beg for more.”
“Gods, you’re exhausting. Go to sleep.”
“You’re adorable when you’re called out.”
He doesn’t push. Just lies there.
Eventually, his arm slips around me.
He spoons in behind. Heat and muscle, breath at my neck. His hand settles low on my stomach. Not crude. Just enough to make my body thrum.
“Don’t push it,” I warn.
“Just cuddling.”
“Gods.”
We stay like that, quiet, the bond humming steady between us.
Then his hand drifts lower. The hem of my robe. His palm slides under, rubbing my skin with electricity.
He cups my balls gently, warm and casual, like he’s always slept this way.
I open my mouth to protest…then close it.
Because I don’t hate it.
It’s grounding. Real. Like he’s reminding me I still have a body. That I can be held.
I don’t know if I want this—want him. But gods help me, I don’t want him to stop.
My muscles soften. The edge of shame dulls. Against every defense, I drift into sleep…
Morning creeps in with lazy heat, the first light barely touching tangled sheets. My mind is half-lost in sleep, but my body is wide awake, dragged to the surface by a sensation too raw to be a dream.
A slick, hungry warmth envelops me…lower than I expect.
