EXCERPT

The Elementals: God of Earth
by Marteeka Karland
cover art by Bryan Keller
ISBN: 978-1-59596-374-1
Genre(s): Paranormal, Angels, Demons & Deities, Sci-Fi
Length: Novella

Goddess of All Things, Eurynome, be merciful.

Earth grieves, and the land refuses to heal itself from the destruction two decades earlier caused by Fire's outburst.

Air has cleared out the ash from the upper troposphere, but to no avail. Devastation will be total unless the land can flourish once more.

But Earth is resilient. There is nothing that cannot be accomplished with two things.

Time and pressure.

Chapter 1

The cave troll was huge! In every sense of the word. There was no way Tiana could possibly get his cock inside her.

Pity.

Still, the pleasure she got from him was wonderful.

Tiana sat facing the troll, her legs draped on either side of his, his cock trapped between their bodies. With the differences in their sizes, and the fact that cave trolls were famous for their oversized anatomy, his cock reached almost to her breasts and was as thick as her leg. She arched her back and he took her entire breast into his mouth. His hand at her back spanned her waist. She'd never felt so tiny.

Except once.

Every time she thought she was over him, something would happen to remind her.

Talon. God of Earth.

And the biggest asshole ever to walk it!

Immediately, she squashed the painful memory. Instead, she concentrated on her pleasure.

The cave troll released one breast, only to latch on to the other with almost painful intensity. All the while, he thrust his hips at her, his cock rubbing her belly with every stroke. Tiana tried to wrap her legs around his hips, but they were so wide all she managed to do was squeeze him. To a passerby, she probably looked like a doll humping a giant.

She angled her lower body so that her clit rubbed against his cock with every surge of his hips. Faster and faster he moved, his groans growing louder. Her clit was on fire! The friction was wonderfully erotic, and her lower body tingled with the need for release.

She wrapped her hands around his cock, hugging it to her, trying to bring it into fuller contact with her aching clit. The troll slid the hand at her back down the crack of her ass until he reached her dripping cunt. Rimming one finger around her opening, he dipped his finger inside her. Being as large as he was, his finger filled her very nicely and was the trigger she needed to push her over the edge.

With a shrill scream, Tiana exploded with her orgasm. She rode out wave after wave of spasms radiating from the troll's finger wedged inside her pussy. It wasn't long before the troll followed her. Warm, dark green sperm shot from the tip of his cock and bathed Tiana from the neck down in the sticky fluid.

She sighed.

Damn.

Same as always.

Her orgasm never satisfied her. She felt… empty. Sex with no emotional entanglement left her cold. The harder she tried to find fulfillment, the more restless she became.

Such was the life of a wood nymph.

Nature called to her. The trees sang to her. For the first time in her life, she felt part of something.

And all of it was dying.

Even here, the place they called Eden, she wept for the loss whenever she was alone. It was one of the reasons she sought out her own pleasure. If she dwelt on the sadness, she would surly perish as well. Why was this happening?

Trolls being more interested in sex than a lasting relationship, he merely patted her on the head and sent her away from him. Which was fine with her.

She was sticky.

Looking back at the troll, she found him already curled into a ball, snoring loudly. She giggled. Trolls were excellent lovers, but they could never stay awake after sex.

Scampering off into the wood, she ran until she came to her favorite hot springs. A bath would be relaxing and would wash away the scent of someone she never should have been with in the first place.

There was only one person she should ever give her body to. Only one she would ever want -- had wanted since the second she'd laid eyes on him. In that moment, her only hope had been to wrap her body around his and share many moments of ecstasy, but he had dashed her hopes quickly enough. She would never seek him out. And she would never give her heart to him without a fight. He'd hurt her too badly.

Sinking beneath the surface of the warm water in the Pool of Eden, Tiana tried very hard to block the memory of her last one-on-one conversation with Talon. Despite her best efforts, the memory came crashing down on her.

"Some scientist you turned out to be." Talon's anger and annoyance was obvious by his gestures and tone of voice. "Even the dumb animals in the region of Yellowstone had sense enough to get away. Allison told you to leave, but still you stayed. If it hadn't been for Angelina hearing your cries of fear, you would have been caught in the pyroclastic flow of that volcano along with everyone else!"

"I was trying to help some campers stranded in the park." Tiana hated how defensive she sounded. Talon always seemed to put her in that position. "What was I supposed to do? Let them die?"

"They died anyway." He hissed, angrier than anyone she'd ever seen anyone. "And in the process, you put the Goddess of Air in danger because you refused to do what you were told to do!"

"Talon! She's a goddess! She can't die."

Talon advanced on her. His sheer size made Tiana step back, again on the defensive. "You know nothing about what it means to be an Elemental! We do not age, we heal from wounds fatal to humans, and we do not get diseases, but we are not immortal. Make no mistake, had you and Angelina been caught in that hell, you both would have died. It would simply have taken Angelina a lot longer."

Tiana's gut had clenched at the thought of the beautiful, fragile looking air goddess suffering such a horrible death. She still felt ashamed every time she the memory grabbed her, which was often. She had watched from the air as that family was buried in six hundred degree ash and gas. Four lives gone in the space of a heartbeat and her own changed forever.

Why had Angelina chosen to rescue her? Why not one of the two teenagers, or either of the adults? Angelina had merely smiled sadly and said nothing. She still doubted that Angelina had been in any real danger, as Talon alluded to, but she might have prevented the goddess from rescuing someone else. That thought, more than any other, haunted her every day.

She stayed beneath the water until she thought her lungs would explode. Always she pushed herself farther. Always she thought she might decide not to come up for air and accept the fate that should have been hers at Yellowstone. In this place of new beginnings, Tiana simply could not bring her existence to an end. Always self-preservation won, and she rose sputtering and gasping above the surface of the water.

For a moment, she stood there, breathing deeply. Then she ducked under again and tilted her head back as she came up, the horror passing. She smoothed her hair back from her face and rubbed the water from her eyes. Swimming to the edge of the pool, she turned and rested her head against the side and let her lower body float, relaxing.

That was her existence since she had been given a choice between life and death. A brief moment of emotion, then… nothing. Memories would flood her mind from the past every day, and she would grieve as if they had just happened. But they always passed quickly. Probably why they returned. Unable to feel strong emotion for any length of time, she could not heal from past hurts. She seemed incapable of feeling remorse or joy or sadness or happiness for more than a few brief moments. She existed for the moment. It was almost a living hell. The only thing that seemed to stay with her was Talon.

Strange she should find solace in the one person she would never turn to for comfort. It had been twenty years since she'd last seen him, and she had no desire to seek him out.

She lived life on her own terms now.