Chapter 88: Confusion
Byron dreamed of terror and pain. Of tusked-wolves and moving trees. Of darkness and pain again. Of pain and pain again, only to wake up and find he was still in a nightmare.
Or, was he?
How could he have a dream within a dream within a dream?
Where was Keza? Why was he dreaming of shape-shifting trees? Who was this woman who looked like Otrera, only that she wasn't?
Byron had so many questions he wanted answers for. He also had so many answers he wished were not true.
One of these answers he loathed was the fact that they were attacked. Someone... Or something, had shot Keza. They had fallen into the Wolves' Den. Into the forest covering a ring of the hills which circled a large lake. A very large lake with an island in the middle.
He was the one who had told Keza to fly close to it and he didn't know if he would ever forgive himself for that.
'I didn't know someone... Something would attack us,' he thought, trying to console himself.
'It was not my fault.'
'But it was my fault. If I hadn't told her to...'
The pain shot through him again, plunged into the nightmare once more. Perhaps not once more. After all, it was not ending. There were just moments when dreams were less horrific. Times when he thought he was awake, only to see trees twisting and their branches crawling at him.
He would try to move but the branches would squeeze. One time he could swear he heard a beautiful voice shouting to a tree to not squeeze him harder and strangely the grip on him lessened.
Could he have hit his head and was in a coma? He wondered. If yes, then that would explain why he was dreaming of trees and tusked-wolves and...
What about the woman? The one who looked exactly like Queen Otrera, only that she wasn't?
Sometimes he would dream of that woman hovering over his face, her silver hair falling beside her beautiful face that was paler than Queen Otrera's. There would be something resembling concern in her blue eyes, but that was where the good part always ended.
The bad, scary part, would start with her chewing an apple, or an orange, or some strange fruits. To Byron's horror, she would smile, lean toward his lips and force the mixture down his throat, then grin at him wickedly.
It was torture.
Yes. You could argue that that wasn't as bad as having moving trees crawling at him and squeezing around his body as their branches twisted around his body, but it was still nightmarish.
Why in the name of Jesus Christ was he having such dreams?
He was never a believer when he was in the modern era, not even when he first reached this realm and busied himself fucking any girl who walked passed him, but now, terrified and in pain, he knew only a higher being like Jesus Christ could help him.
After all, he was in this predicament because of other higher beings like goddess Hera and Calliope, was he not?
It was Hera who banished the Amazons into this forsaken realm. And Calliope who must have got jealous of his affair with Strawberry and decided to have a go at him.
'There's no doubt that it's Calliope. That bitch haunted Strawberry with visions, forcing Keza to fly me out the city only to attack us on the way.'
'Yeah! It has to be her. Who else, uh? Who else? It was she who said that if Keza flew me to New Themiscyra without stopping we would be safe, did she not? Look what happened to us. The bitch must have known we would be attacked and left us to blindly walk into the trap.'
Byron was willing to blame everything on goddess Calliope. That way, he would not regret his decision to insist on leaving Themiscyra even though Queen Otrera had suggested sending a raven to New Themiscyra and ask Penthesilea and her girls that he was safe, that they could come and see him.
That way, he would not feel guilty that he was the one who told Keza to fly toward the Wolves' Den.
But then again, why did goddess Calliope even bother trying to warn Strawberry with the visions?
If she wanted Byron and Keza to be attacked, she should have just done nothing and let Keza and Byron leave Themiscyra like they scheduled and get attacked anyway.
So, why did the goddess bother trying to warn them?
Could they have misinterpreted the visions? Perhaps Strawberry was scared and might have wanted to conceal his affair with Byron, hence altering the contents of her visions.
Perhaps not.
Keza had told him the visions were vague.
The problem might not have been Strawberry's.
It might have been Keza and Hippolyta who feared what Calliope could do to Byron and hence convinced themselves that he was better off in another city where the goddess could not harm him.
After all, they knew how goddesses were jealous and always angry when their followers didn't give them the attention they craved. Since Byron's arrival, the girls had only been swooning over him. They would even have happily skipped Three Suns and Moons With Mother Calliope.
'That's right. Keza and Hippolyta panicked when they found out that the goddess knew about me and that might have influenced the way they analyzed Strawberry's visions.'
'And Strawberry was afraid that my affair with her might be exposed and hence gave them half the content of her visions.'
Byron had had these thoughts so many times, but he couldn't bring himself to stop having them.
They were the only thing preventing him from falling into total insanity. They helped him cope with the excruciating pain. They helped him defeat the horrors in his nightmares. In fact, he was glad he could think. Glad he could have them.
Strangely, the pain seemed to decrease day after day... If he could call the changing of time in this new nightmarish life of his days and nights.
The twisting trees didn't vanish, the woman who looked like Queen Otrera didn't stop her habit of forcing what she had chewed down his throat, but everything seemed to get better and gentler day after day. Again, if they were days at all.
If there were not days, he had decided to call them so.
Pain didn't trouble him as much as it did before. He got used to the woman spitting what she chewed down his throat and the nightmares about the twisting trees became less and less frequent.
One day, he even thought he saw the woman holding a wooden spoon to his lips and a warm delicious soup flowed down his throat.
Was it possible that perhaps she had rescued him from where he had fallen and she was trying to take care of him?
He tried to look around so he could see his surroundings. Trees. Colorful. Like the ones in his dreams. Like the ones on the island in the middle of the lake nestled between the hills on which the Wolves' Den lay.
No one else. Just the woman, the trees, the river, the lake, the hills and the forest.
Where was Keza?
"Love, go back to sleep!" Byron heard the woman say and before he could protest, blue smoke streamed out of the center of the woman's hand and he fell asleep as soon as he inhaled them.
This time he had sweet dreams. One with Keza, fucking. Another with Hippolyta, fucking. Another with Penthesilea, fucking. Fucking and fucking. It seemed his mind knew nothing else good except fucking.
For the last dream, he was in for a surprise though. This one was in the kitchen in Themiscyra, except he was Alcippe. He helped her crack some eggs, watched as she began cooking an omelette for him.
"I have another surprise for you," she said to him with a smile as the eggs cooked.
"And what might that be?"
"I want to give you my virginity. I've waited long enough. I can't wait any longer. I can't."
He smiled. He had always wanted to fuck her. She was the only one with a chastity oath. The only one who had refused his advances. The only one who wasn't under his spell.
He smiled at her. "Then don't wait."
She smiled back, went on her knees and unbuckled his trousers. "I know it's shameful," she said as she fished his dick out. "But I want to know how it feels like."
"No. It's not shameful. Not at all."
She smiled and licked the head of his dick. "Oh Great Nymph, it tastes so good."
Byron didn't know why she said Great Nymph, or who that was. He just grunted in pleasure, making sure to reach out so he could grab her head to assist her.
His hands reached her head but grabbed nothing! They went right through her as if she was made of smoke!
She smiled at him wickedly, squeezing his dick. Her mouth split wide, her teeth elongating. She looked like a monster out of a horror movie.
"What if I bite it off?" she asked, only it wasn't her voice.
It was the voice he had heard countless times. It belonged to the woman who looked like Queen Otrera. Byron's eyes fell wide open.
The woman who looked like Queen Otrera was staring down at him, frozen in fear.
Byron could feel her hands on his dick. "Am I dreaming?" he asked.
She shook her head, let go of his dick and said she was sorry.
"Sorry for what?" he asked.
Her pale face flushed red.
"I should have waited until you had fully recovered and asked you for permission," she replied.
He had a feeling of what she meant, but he couldn't help but ask, "Permission for what?"
Her cheeks flushed even redder, her gaze drifting to his dick as if that explained everything.
***
End of volume 1
I thank you guys for accompanying me on this journey.
Shout out to [Chris_Reyes_3054] for showering this story with gifts since day one.