The Broken Soldier (malexmale)

Prologue

Prologue

Hunger.

It started as a burning ember in the pit of his belly. Easily ignored. Easily sated with nothing, but whoreblood.

Yet as time dragged on, as he learned to cope with the crippling humiliation wrought by a ghost in the night, the ember in his belly turned into a flame. As days dragged into years, the flames spread through his veins, through his gut, through his very soul. He drank his way through brothels and whorehouses, through priests and priestesses, had even sunk so low as to feed from filthy mortals.

Yet nothing sated the hunger that ran rampant through his vessel.

His soul screamed out for true sustenance.

Weak pathetic blood no longer satisfied his appetite.

He needed to feed from real power.

And he needed to do it soon.

He could feel weakness settling into his vessel. His once rock hard muscles capable of cracking open skulls were starting to feel soft, and unreliable. His bones no longer stood like sturdy trunks rooted to his body, but flexible branches bowing under pressure. His skin was no longer tawny and smooth with youth. Crow's feet sprouted from the corners of his bright beautiful gold eyes, stretching like claws toward his lips. His nails grew thin and flimsy, snapping off whenever he touched the flesh of another.

And as the weakness in his vessel grew, as the panic began to set in, so, too, did his rage.

He bared his fangs in the mirror, at the disgusting poor reflection of himself. He smashed it to pieces with nothing more than a thought, and even that spiked a headache, which fueled his fury.

He was a god.

One of the greatest and most powerful beings to walk the realms. In the past, creatures trembled before his might. Why, even his own kind shied away from his presence, a few pathetic lessers throwing themselves at his feet to have a taste of his unrivaled beauty and power. He was unmatched in his strength, his intelligence, his beauty— his power.

Frankly, if you asked him, he was the gem of their pantheon.

That is, until that fucking ghost appeared on his doorstep and threatened everything about his existence. His once reliable source of sustenance had been brutally taken away. He was left with nothing, but scraps and garbage, while his food, his true sustenance, began to come into his own powers, enough to produce spawn of equal bearing.

Damn you to hell.

Even now, as he turned away from the shattered remains of his mirror and went to a pot of burning oil in a bowl, he looked into the flames and watched in rage as images began to take form and move, producing a live-action performance of his former source of nutrition. The miserable creature dared to embrace another, dared to share his majesty and beauty, and not only with another, but another creature so powerful that he didn't dare approach.

He felt his fangs descend as his hunger surged. Just the image of his former pet was enough to drive his hunger further. The flames trembled and scattered before coming together once more, revealing the spawn his pet had created.

The wild and fierce god Anubis, who flaunted his power and beauty with the same arrogance that he himself had once bore like a trophy. Worse still, the monstrosity was chasing the tail of another foreigner, who continued to flee him, which always made him sick. How dare that pathetic foreign born slut taunt his kind; he should feel fucking blessed to have such a god of power covet him.

Of course, he felt his rage rising higher and higher, like the midnight tides, which had the flames scattering once more, swirling and twirling. A moment later, the flames settled and pooled into the bowl, giving way to an image of the next spawn of his pet.

And his skin crawled, because this bastard looked most like his pet. The same sad eyes, the same soft shy smile, the same fear when he laid eyes upon his father. It was enough to make him sick, quite frankly, because how could such a pathetic meager mouse be the product of his pet? His pet, so strong and beautiful and raw, while his younger spawn was nothing more than a mindless automaton that bent over backwards for a father who couldn't care less about him.

He paused as he stared into the flames, realization slowly creeping to his lips as a smirk. He drew his hands together toward the flames, gathering them into a ball in his hands. He cupped the sad face of a broken soldier, drew the flaming image from its cradle. He stroked the flames with his thumbs, across the image of those perfectly formed cheekbones, those sad eyes lifting as if he was looking for some hope in the ether.

A delighted chuckle echoed in the empty room around him as he turned with the ball of flames that held his new hope.

"I will not disappear from this universe," he whispered, brushing his fingers over those sad eyes, "I will not be subjugated. I am no one's bitch." He tightened his palms around the flames, around the image of his broken soldier, who closed his eyes. The flames burst between his fingers, smoke sailing toward the ceiling.

"But you will be mine. Sooner or later, Sept of Duat, son of Set and Nephthys, you will be mine."