The old temple stood on a hilltop where the forest had been cleared a thousand years ago and never regrown. The stones were grey with lichen, the pillars carved with serpents whose eyes had been worn smooth by centuries of rain. At the center of the temple, beneath the waning moon, stood an altar of pale granite, its surface stained with the offerings of ages past. Torches burned at the four corners, their flames flickering in the night breeze, casting shadows that danced like living things.

Anaya walked barefoot up the stone path, Lord Vikram at her side. She wore a simple white sari, unstitched and unadorned, the cloth wrapped around her body in the ancient way. Beneath it, she was naked. Her cunt still ached from the seedings of the previous nights, and her ass still remembered the stretch of his cock, and her womb, her sacred womb, was beginning to feel different. Fuller. Heavier. Whether it was the child quickening or merely the weight of his accumulated seed, she did not know. But something was changing within her, and she felt it with every step.