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And then she had proceeded to make sure it remained that way.

The more time passed, the less I enjoyed my own company. I’d had a taste of companionship with Agma, and now I… craved it. Much to my fucking annoyance. My feelings toward her had become snarled and tangled in the time since she’d left, so now I couldn’t rightly say whether I had truly loved her or not.

It had felt like it at the time. It was why I’d allowed myself to be open with her. To tell her the things I wanted. And then she’d left.

Not that I was here to go after those specific things. Humiliation flared again, making me shift before I forced myself to go still, because the woman was still gazing at me with reverence. I wasn’t here for intimacy. Just a companion. Just to have another person breathing the same air as me in my home. For some reason, that felt infinitely more pathetic than if I’d been here to fuck someone.

I’d figured it’d be easy to find a companion here. Just someone to live in my house with me, and who better than a human who was eager to learn everything they could about my kind? I wouldn’t have to deal with another overbearing demiurgus taking over my living room or rearranging my shit or constantly trying to debate with me about literally everything. Agma had been the most argumentative person in the world, purely because she enjoyed it.

I did not enjoy it. At all.

My hair was tied back in a knot, but strands had slipped loose on my long walk up those fucking stairs. I raised my chin and brushed one back, then stared at the woman in silence. Waiting.

She jolted and gave me another deep bow. I suppressed my wince. “Please, let me show you to the formal reception room. We have a suite of rooms here kept especially for if… for when our Greaters visit.”

My eye twitched as I followed her to a large set of double doors on our left, these ones unlike the others. They were made of black stone, and the slender human woman struggled to push one open. In silence, I stepped as close as I dared and placed a hand above hers, opening it with ease.

She shivered again, breath catching from my proximity. I immediately stepped back and clenched my hands into fists behind my back. Yes, it had been a monumental fucking mistake coming here. If they were all this eager—this unnervingly doting—I didn’t want one. I couldn’t think of anything worse.

The room we entered was made entirely of black stone. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. Candlelight flickered from wrought iron wall sconces and a huge candelabra above our heads. The obsidian furniture gleamed—two long, stout couches either side of a smooth coffee table, the seats topped with black velvet cushions.

In here, I was the one who could melt into the walls and vanish. The light was too low to bring out the deep green hue in my hair and claws, and my black suit blended into my skin perfectly. I eyed the woman again. She was a single washed-out spot of beige in the room, looking small and vulnerable in the pressing blackness that surrounded us, but she didn’t seem frightened or ill at ease whatsoever. Her sleepy look from before, when she’d opened the door, was gone. She appeared almost frantic with excitement, bouncing on her toes.

“Please, make yourself comfortable. I’ll fetch the high priest at once.”

She hadn’t even asked why I was here—probably too busy gazing at me with unsettling adoration. I didn’t move after she slipped back into the front hall, her bare feet slapping against the stone floor as she ran. At least I was slightly more relaxed in here, with the room’s décor far closer to my own home. The darkness soothed me and made my shoulders unclench, but I stiffened right back up when I noticed more reliefs carved into the walls.

My eyes could pick them out perfectly. These were far less reserved than the images in the main hall. These showed demiurgus intertwined with nude humans in all manner of positions. Mounting them from behind, crouched over their splayed bodies, beastly heads buried between thighs or thrown back in pleasured snarls.

I gaped in alarm. Wait… What? Stepping closer, I eyed one in particular. The demiurgus depicted was standing up tall, proudly, with three humans crouching at their feet and reaching worshipfully for their cock, as if it was a font of everlasting youth. The cock was hard. And smooth. And small.

Not that it looked small, stretching to the dip of the demiurgus’s navel, enormous compared to the human hands reaching for it. But…

I glanced around in bewilderment, tension seeping through me again. Oh my good god… Was this a sex cult?

I looked at some of the other reliefs, my hearts pounding harder and harder with each one. They all showed humans and demiurgus fucking. All of them. I winced in sympathy when I saw one of a tiny human woman impaled on a demiurgus cock.

Had none of them ever actually seen a demiurgus cock? Clearly fucking not, because they looked nothing like that.

Fucking hell. This was a sex cult. I had come to a sex cult. A human sex cult with very, very incorrect ideas on demiurgus anatomy. If they’d known the truth, they wouldn’t all be clamouring to become a demiurgus’s mate. Not unless they had a death wish, or a serious pain fetish.

Sweet baby Jesus, was I the first demiurgus to ever actually come here?

Sweat beaded on my hairline as I jerked back from the wall. How could I have been so fucking stupid? I had to get out of here. This had been a mistake, even if I hadn’t come here looking for someone to be my lover. I’d just thought… you know. Hey, those weird guys up in that compound are super interested in our kind. Maybe one of them would want the chance to live platonically with a demiurgus, to get to know one for real.

But no, it had to be a fucking sex cult. Apparently, these people worshipped us as virile, sensual gods. They chose to live in this lifeless beige place—why was everything fucking beige?—in the hopes of… what, one day becoming a demiurgus’s mate?

Nope. Too fucking creepy.

I strode for the door, intent on escaping, but stopped dead when a small old man slipped into the room followed by several other humans. They all wore beige, most in the loose trousers and shirts like the first woman, but the man in front had on long, flowing robes with wide, sweeping sleeves.

My eyes darted over all of them nervously as they dipped into deep bows before gazing at me in reverent silence. I wished I really could melt into the walls and vanish.

“My Greater.” The old human man at the front lowered himself to his knees, making me want to squirm. “I cannot tell you what an honour this is.”

Why? I wanted to shout. I’m just a loner who spends his time getting high and watching TV and hunching over a jewellery bench! I’m not a mystical god-like being with a magic dick! I don’t even want to fuck any of you!

Realising they were all waiting for a response, I took a step back and grunted. There. That would do.

One of the other humans helped the old man—I assumed this was the high priest—back to his feet. He immediately dipped his head, voice breathy as he spoke. “Please, tell us how we can assist you. How we can please you.”

Raising his head, his milky blue eyes shone. Fuck me, was he about to cry?

“It has been so many years since we were gifted with a visit from one of the Greaters. This… I cannot tell you what this means to our humble commune.”

Despite how unsettling his deference was, I relaxed a fraction at hearing that they had, at least, had other demiurgus come here before. At least I wasn’t the first loner creep to skulk up to the compound, sniffing for humans.