The Old Gods

Chapter 1

I tugged on my restraints as hard as I could, but it didn't matter at all - no one ever came back from the ritual. I knew that this was the highest honor I could possibly attain, but my faith escaped me for the moment. I hadn't made my peace yet, I didn't want to die. Still, the procession crept forward, seeking out the trees I knew they had spent the last thirty days carving. My fingers ran along the grooves of the intricate, swirling runes etched into the wooden poles binding me, doing nothing to take the edge off my impending doom. My long, ceremonial robes trailed after me across the forest floor, sweeping a path of disturbed underbrush across our wake. Our torch's blue flame didn't illuminate much of the dense, deciduous woods engulfing our small party, instead, casting ominous shadows to flicker at the corners of my vision. My breath hitched as ornate, runic carvings came into view, my final resting place awaiting me patiently, with the kind of disturbing stillness only death itself could muster. Still, however, my restraints held fast as we approached my sacrificial tree. As tradition dictated, the poles I was bound to were joined behind the trunk of the tree, creating a ring around the trunk that was fastened out of reach of my irritated, raw wrists, leaving my feet to dangle in the cool night. Ridges of runes carved into the bark dug into my soft, oiled skin, unblemished from my quiet life in service to the gods.

All was still. Even the blue flame of the torch left to witness my demise refused to dance, afraid to move amongst the deadly still. I, too, didn't dare move, not even to attempt to struggle against my fate, crippled with my own fear. My mind, however, was not still. Thoughts of the most unimaginable horrors flooded my mind, sending fear cascading down my spine. Still, however, I did not even twitch - or maybe death at the teeth of some predator would be more merciful than a slow death at the hands of dehydration?

Perhaps my thoughts were so consuming that I did not notice, but more likely, it was the stealth with which the monster's bulk moved that caused his approach to evade my measly omega senses. Once he stepped out from the treeline, however, all my thoughts ceased - there was no longer any doubt about the mechanism for my death, it was apparent that my time in this world was coming to an end at the hands of this beast, in the immediate future. Somehow, I was past the point of fear - embarrassingly, my thoughts turned to the black beast in front of me. Somehow, the immense power his muscular canine form oozed was so overwhelming it almost felt comforting. My thoughts drifted to the idea of being eaten - maybe contributing to such a magnificent apex predator, keeping him nourished, wouldn't be so bad? I felt like it was almost an honorable way to go - his humongous form was surely sent by the gods to collect their sacrifice, nothing about this wolf could possibly be remotely human.

Until it was. I almost thought it was a trick of the mind, at first, to see his inky fur dissolve in front of my eyes, solidifying instead in the form of an equal beast of a man. His muscles weren't graceful and svelte, like an athlete's, they were massive and bulky, rippling with the slightest of movements, let alone the large strides he was taking toward me. His hulking frame didn't just radiate power, it radiated authority in a way that confirmed to me that I must be meeting one of the forest gods themselves - what an honor for my death. Somehow, his human body seemed just as predatory as his wolf form had, his powerful build was clearly not for show - perhaps I was in the presence of Raun, the forest god of the hunt? Puzzlingly, all the fear that had been completely overwhelming seemed to drain away at the sight of the man who, by all rights, should have been downright terrifying. I hadn't seen an alpha in years, but the monster of a man before me couldn't be mistaken for a mere alpha - his intimidating stature and mountainous musculature was so assertive that his presence sent strange shivers down my spine.

My omega convent was a holy place where alphas, betas, deltas, and commons were not allowed, and as a consequence I hadn't seen an alpha in upward of a decade, yet I could instantaneously discern that he would put an alpha to shame. Everything about him screamed dominance and a warrior's nobility. Somehow, though, his overbearing aura almost felt safe at the same time, as though he was my guardian, oozing his threat toward all the other beasts of the forest, keeping me safe. I knew that at the moment of my death my thoughts would go haywire, but I hadn't realized my hopes would become semi-hallucinatory. I was in the presence of a forest god, here to collect his sacrifice. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe deeply, but a small whine escaped against my best efforts. I wanted to honor this god who has shown up to collect my soul personally, but I couldn't just let go of my desire to live. Behind my eyelids, visions of his powerful mass danced, further destroying my purity, but his heavy footfalls continued, blissfully unaware of my sin. I opened my eyes to try to redeem my thoughts, and was greeted with the giant of a man rapidly closing the last few feet separating me from death, his face contorted with rage.

He must have known what I had done, he had shown up for me personally and I had dishonored him with my unwillingness to accept death and not having kept the purity of my thoughts sacred. A look of rage clouded his features, weighing heavily on his shoulders as though his anger was so great it was weighing upon him physically. Shamefully, a trickle of yellow liquid ran pathetically across my thigh, as though it was just as out of fight as I was. I was unable to stop myself from urinating in the presence of a god - even for my lackluster servitude, that was a new low, but something about his raw alpha fury made me respond in ways I didn't know were ingrained within me. The world began to spin away as he reached out, and I could feel my eyes roll back into the blackness as everything went still.