He could also feel the man’s barely repressed passion.
Poseidon felt himself tighten, wishing he was that man. He would not hold himself from this woman. He would unleash the full extent of his hunger upon her. And she, Poseidon suspected, would take it eagerly.
For the woman’s body was both beautiful and passionate. She was writhing, naked in the sun, and so lovely that Poseidon wished his hands might reach out and stroke her. Instead he slipped forward on a wave, and washed over them.
The sudden sharpness in his chest startled him.
It was beyond his understanding.
But this was more than lust. This was not mindless desire, but a joining of two people beyond their physical being. There was a giving of self here, of the heart.
He was a God. The affections of mortals could not affect him. And yet, did they? His heart shuddered, pulled painfully tight.
Lust he knew well, it was his constant companion. He took what he wanted, with no remorse. But this was different. He washed over them again, feeling the woman tighten and rise beneath her lover’s touch.
And he wanted this.
The man froze. He grew taut, expectant, and turned to search out the source of his unease. Poseidon smiled to himself. The man, handsome in the prime of his youth, had sharp senses.
But his smile faded as the man drew the woman from the water.
Poseidon reached for her, the tightening of his chest suffocating. His watery countenance pooled about her ankle, attempting to pull her back into the water, to him.
He wanted this woman. He wanted to feel the release of this couple’s passion. He wanted to be this man.
The man led his lover from the water, shielding her face from Poseidon’s sight. The man draped the wet cloth over his woman, covering her beauty. It was a shame. He might have searched her out when next she visited the shore. But she entered the cabin with the man, lost to the shadows within.
Poseidon hurt, aching sharply – which he did not take kindly to.
Frustration stole his breath, forcing him back, forcing the water from the warmth of the sunbaked sand.
How dare they inspire such feelings within him. He was Poseidon. He had no reason to envy mortals.
And he was deprived again. Once knowingly, for Zeus knew the toll this time was taking upon his brother, and again by these…selfish mortals playing at love upon his beach.
The waves reflected his irritation, rising high and growing cold.
He turned loathing eyes upon the sun. It was barely midday. Another day stretched out before him, before he could claim his wife, his Medusa. He would have to bide his time.
With his anger rising, he considered drowning these lovers. He cared not that his temper was petty, that their death might be sorrowful to t
hose who loved them. They had taunted him with their bodies, so lost in one another – in the shallows of his ocean.
A wave could crush their small cabin about them…
It was a pity he’d not pulled them into the ocean. Watching as their lungs filled, as their faces turned blue and they thrashed about in a useless effort to rise from the depths of his ocean. He could see to it that they’d never rise… Imagining it made him smile.
Mayhap it would appease the burning Medusa had infected him with.
“Patience, brother,” Zeus had cautioned.
Poseidon turned his gaze towards the cabin. The lovers were inside, no doubt wrapped about one another.
No. To die in a lover’s arms was no punishment at all. They were not worth his time or his thoughts.
Poseidon moved deeper into the sea. It would do to find some way to lessen the fire that consumed him, but only fleeting. For while he might lessen this painful hunger briefly, his appetite for Medusa would not be dampened for long.
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