Divine Interventions: Nemesis of the Garden Read online

  NEMESIS OF THE GARDEN

  An Ellora’s Cave Publication, February 2005

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

  1337 Commerce Drive, #13

  Stow, OH 44224

  ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-4199-0029-3

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML

  NEMESIS OF THE GARDEN © 2005 CRICKET STARR

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Edited by Ann Leveille.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. Nemesis of the Garden has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  Divine Interventions:

  Nemesis of the Garden

  Cricket Starr

  Prologue

  The Titan Hyperion stared down from his celestial perch, his gaze fixed on the worlds displayed below. From his throne he could see both Earth and Olympus, the realm of man as well as that of the gods. He muttered under his breath as he watched the actions of those below, their lives playing before him in a million tiny plays.

  Their lives, not his. With the other Titans, he’d been given dominion over Titanous, neither part of the Earth, nor Olympus but in another dimension, carved from the celestial heavens. All things considered, he had to admit it was better than being held in the dark underground, as he and his people had been confined so long ago.

  After the Titans’ last battle with the Olympians, the gods had been “kind” to exile him and his offspring to this place, where there was light instead of eternal darkness. For those who personified the moon, sun, and dawn, it was particularly necessary to their health.

  Still, while the view was magnificent, the real estate was meager. Hyperion tried to stretch, only to bang his head on the low ceiling. His home had no room to move about in and he wasn’t able to transfer between dimensions the way those of Olympus could. None of the Titans could change their location and even his children, Helios of the sun, Selene of the moon, and Eos, the dawn, had to stay in their celestial realm.

  Greedily he watched the gods and goddesses move from Olympus to Earth and back again, playing in the world of humans. Even the lowliest nymph among them had more freedom than his sweet Eos did.

  Speaking of which…there she was, that one. Into his view came the nymph, Nemesis, sometimes called Nina. Hyperion watched the small dark-haired beauty with undisguised fury. Nina popped in and out of the world of men with ridiculous ease, while he and his had to spend their lives trapped in this miniscule dimension.

  It just wasn’t fair. There had to be something Hyperion could do to improve their lot. He could see everything. Maybe he could find some advantage from that.

  Hyperion stroked his long white beard. Recently he’d noticed that Nina was spending less time on Earth and more with that hairy-legged excuse for a god, Pan. A lot of time, mostly engaged in carnal delights. He could sometimes hear the sounds of their couplings up here, they were so randy.

  He knew Aphrodite had had something to do with this couple getting together. There had been a bow in her hand and then Pan had carried Nina to his bower. Thoughtfully the Titan rubbed his massive jaw. He’d watched the goddess for some time and Aphrodite was forever getting involved with setting up one couple or another. But now she’d messed with Pan, a true god. If the gods found out they were being manipulated there would be war in Olympus and maybe he could turn their unrest to his advantage.

  Excited, the Titan leaned forward, watching the pair. A long time ago Pan and Nemesis had spent time as a couple until something had broken them apart, something bad enough to keep them separate for nearly three hundred years in spite of their attraction to each other. That the attraction still existed was obvious given how happy they were now. Aphrodite’s arrow had apparently mended the rift between them.

  With a grunt of disgust, Hyperion leaned back again. How could he use Aphrodite’s interference when she had actually done them a favor? She’d just claim her intervention was justified and that their love excused everything.

  Love excused everything… That was a joke. He’d had enough of new ideas like that. He even had his chief of the guards lusting after his daughter and acting as if being in love justified seeking a princess’ hand. Fortunately up to now his girl had shown better sense than to encourage the man. Hyperion grimaced. With so few others to choose from, the longer they were confined here the more likely it was she’d succumb to the man’s charm. Eventually he’d lose control of the pair of them.

  Frustrated, he pounded his fist on the arm of his throne. They simply had to get free, and it wasn’t going by asking as his son Helios seemed to think was possible. If only his people had the power to transfer off this plane. All gods and goddesses, and even minor divinities like Nemesis, had a certain amount of divine power that they used to perform their magic. Titans could use such power but they couldn’t manufacture it.

  Again Hyperion stroked his beard. Titans couldn’t create power, but they could steal it if they got close enough to someone with enough of it. Nemesis was merely a nymph, she wouldn’t have enough, and even Pan wouldn’t do, but someone like Aphrodite, who had a tendency to poke her perfect nose into other people’s affairs…she’d do nicely. But it would take getting a Titan or two on the Olympian plane in some kind of physical form.

  Hyperion smiled. Watching the gods for thousands of years had taught him many of their tricks and he knew of one in particular that would be perfect for this job. He even knew which Titans would volunteer for it, he thought wryly.

  He had the way and he had the means. Now all he needed was to watch for the opportunity.

  Chapter One

  Once again Nina dreamed. She stood in Pan’s garden and faced Aphrodite, who held the bow and arrow that she, Nina, had stolen. The angry goddess raised the bow and fitted the feathered shaft to it, drawing back and taking careful aim. Cringing, Nina waited for the sharp bite of the arrowhead.

  It wouldn’t kill her. She’d stolen both arrow and bow from Eros and the worst would be that she’d fall in love with the nearest unattached male. Moments ago that might have been Alex, her sister’s man, but he’d just finished declaring his love for Chloe. Fortunately he was now unavailable.

  That didn’t leave her off the hook, though. She was very much afraid that the person she would end up infatuated with was Pan, the only other man in the garden.

&n
bsp; Pan, god of the forests and fields, and seducer of many, many women, including, almost, the attempted ravishment of her own sister. Pan, who swore he’d never fall in love. Pan with his goat-like horns, fleece-covered legs and cock the size of a donkey’s.

  Nina sighed at the thought of her impending fixation. It was a moot point, anyway. In the deep, dark recesses of her heart she knew she was already desperately in love with the god. What could be worse than being infatuated with someone you were already infatuated with…but who would never return your love?

  Too bad it wasn’t a real arrow, capable of killing her. Given the alternatives dying sounded pretty good right now.

  Nina closed her eyes, hoping for some sort of miracle. Maybe Aphrodite would miss, or change her mind. She cringed when she heard the twang of the bowstring as the goddess let the arrow fly.

  “No!” Pan’s voice startled her and she opened her eyes just in time to see the god jump in front of her. The arrow entered his back, piercing him through, and ended up in her chest, a sharp pain between her breasts. Shocked, she gazed up into the god’s face as it registered first agony from the arrow’s passage, then surprise as the shaft melted away, taking the pain with it.

  She felt the arrowhead slip from her chest and fall to the ground.

  Astonished, she stared at Pan. “You tried to save me.” Why would Pan do that, try to prevent injury to her? Was it possible he really cared?

  From the other side of the garden came Chloe’s voice, talking to her lover. “She wasn’t trying to kill you, Alex. It was one of Eros’ bows and arrows.”

  The surprise in Pan’s face twisted into fury. “That was one of EROS’ ARROWS? How could you be that stupid?” he fumed. “Interfering with the goddess, stealing from Eros. Do you know what you’ve done? I’ve been hit with Eros’ arrow when I was staring right at you. Now I’m going to be infatuated with you for gods know how long.”

  Somehow Nina summoned her self-control and met his glare. “No one told you to jump in the way, you big oaf. And for your information, that arrow hit me, too. You think I want you wanting me, or me wanting you? This is as bad for me as it is for you.”

  He stared down at her, his eyes narrowed into brown slits. “You’re a mouthy little wench, aren’t you? I probably ought to put that mouth of yours to work doing something useful for a change.”

  “Oh, yeah?” she challenged. “Like what?”

  The next thing she remembered was his mouth on hers, hot and demanding, and the tickle of his beard against her throat. Pan’s musk filled her nostrils and lungs, bringing her to instant arousal. She lost the strength in her knees and leaned heavily against him. After that she was across one of his shoulders as he hauled her into his garden bower. Her last memory of the garden was the amused expressions on the faces of her sister and her lover.

  Then Pan had tossed her onto his wide bed, not all that gently.

  And after that…

  * * * * *

  …After that he’d fucked her, over and over again, until her throat had been raw with screaming her pleasure. With a moan, Nina jerked out of her dream of that long-ago day, and into the present of Pan’s bedroom. It was a rustic space, formed from living trees inside the garden home he kept in Olympus, a place that had been her home for the past five months.

  Careful not to disturb her bed partner, Nina settled back on her pillow and tugged the thick wool blanket further up around her neck. The blanket was one of the few manufactured items Pan allowed in his garden, which otherwise held only natural furnishings or items he could coax from living plants through his divine magic.

  Her body was still aroused from her dream, but she didn’t want to wake Pan just yet. The dim light filtering through the thickly entwined tree branches above told her that it was still a little while until dawn.

  It had been five months but she still remembered the most intense sexual experience in her three thousand years of life.

  Pan had seemed angry, but his hands had been gentle on her. They’d started with him fulfilling his promise to find something better for her mouth to do. Once inside his bower he’d pulled the loincloth covering his privates from his hips and forced her to her knees before him. He’d held her face between his hands as she’d taken his cock deep into her mouth.

  Nina smiled remembering Pan’s flavor on her tongue. He’d tasted of man and earth and the forces of nature he embodied.

  Once she’d found her rhythm, his hands had sought her nipples, tweaking them through her bra with expertise, sending shockwaves into her clit and pussy. Her nether parts had flooded with arousal and by the time her silk panties had come off they’d been soaked.

  Pan had barely seemed to notice how sexy her undergarments were. Instead he’d grumbled about modernized women and their penchant for putting clothing in his way. His only sign of interest in her hundred dollar silk panties had been when he’d ripped them off her and drawn his tongue along the dampened crotch, tasting her essence on the fabric and smacking his lips with relish. Then he’d pushed her back on the bed and opened her legs so he could gather the rest of her womanly dew straight from the source.

  It had been several hundred years since the last time she’d had Pan’s face between her legs, but Nina hadn’t forgotten how what a brilliant pussy eater he was. Sometimes it felt like his tongue was a yard long. After lathing her woman’s folds it reached far inside her, nearly to her womb. He tickled her clit with his teeth as well, and used his lips and tongue until she was near distraction.

  Nina had been brought to orgasm at least twice before he’d decided to move up her body, trailing the head of his cock along her thigh. Staring down into her eyes, he’d fit that thick head of his to her pussy, letting her sense just how big he was before driving home within.

  Both of them had groaned then, because he was so big and she was so tight. He’d climaxed immediately, filling her with his hot cum, but hadn’t softened at all. Instead the extra fluid had been a welcome lubricant when after a brief rest he’d taken up pounding her furiously. Time after time he’d taken her to paradise, lying on her back with his thick, hot cock deep within her.

  When he pulled out of her, he was as hard as when he’d started. Pulling her onto her knees, he’d entered her from behind, rocking her back and forth with his hands on her hips. Leaning over her shoulder, he growled into her ear. He’d spoken soft words about how angry he was at being forced to make love to her, how he’d hated being compelled by Eros’ arrow. He told how seriously in trouble she was.

  Nina’s mind came back to the present, and the still sleeping god beside her. Oh, yeah, she was in seriously big trouble. If only this trouble wouldn’t end. She knew it was only a matter of time before the effect of Eros’ arrow wore off and Pan returned to his normal, any-nymph-in-a-glade unattached self. She didn’t know how long one of Eros’ spells was supposed to last, but surely the one on theirs was about to reach some kind of end-date. Oddly enough, so far Pan hadn’t shown interest in any other woman, and after five months that was amazing. After all, she thought bitterly, it had only been a week the time before.

  She hadn’t found any other men of interest either but that was hardly surprising, at least to her. After all, she knew a little secret that no one else did.

  Pan was in love with her because Aphrodite had shot him with Eros’ arrow of love. She was in love with Pan—just because she was, and had been for a very long time.

  Nina had loved Pan for centuries, ever since her first time with him after Psyche’s birthday party. She’d become infatuated with the horn-headed, goat-legged god almost at once. In fact it had happened so suddenly, she’d almost suspected there had been something in the ambrosia she’d drunk. She and Pan had spent the better part of a week together before he’d taken off after another female. He’d left her brokenhearted and with a secret penchant for sleeping with a sheepskin pillow that reminded her of Pan’s legs.

  Turning on her side away from him she ran her foot down his fleece-covered calf,
luxuriating in the feel of him. Who said she didn’t have good taste in men? Well, many people would argue she didn’t, although they wouldn’t be talking about her crush on a god. That, at least, she’d managed to keep a secret from the world at large.

  She’d had her share of partners over the centuries, even though the other men she’d been to bed with hadn’t sparked more than a passing interest in her. Some of it had been business…after all, one couldn’t be a star on the number one all-porn-all-the-time adult cable channel without fucking a man occasionally—or frequently. A man or two, or three, occasionally four.

  Or fucking the occasional woman, although that was all show as far as she was concerned. Her agent had tried to interest her in doing an all-women film or two, telling her they were very popular with college guys weirded-out by the sight of penises in their porn. She just didn’t see the point of sex without penises in one form or another.

  But not one of her recent sex partners, male or female, had been able to hold her interest longer than it took to finish having sex with them. In some cases she hadn’t even been interested once her own climax had been reached, although she’d learned the hard way that it was better to stay in place until her partner had an orgasm. Some guys really hated it when you left the bed before they got off. Sometimes they got angry, and once she’d even had to use her limited magic to put a man to sleep when he’d gotten violent.

  Nina sighed quietly. Human males…fuck them once and they thought they owned you. Next thing you knew they were planning a wedding, kids, and a whole monogamous life with you, all while declaring undying love.

  It was enough to seriously annoy a nymph. It wouldn’t be so bad if the person who got fixated on you happened to be someone you wanted in return.