by David Burke
They were both out of the water on different sections of rock. One was filled with sea essence. Kyle expected this might be the messenger he’d been told to wait for from Hav. The levels of power that he senses in him… no, in her, didn’t worry him though. He certainly wasn’t going to be at the beck and call of even a goddess.
Hav would either end up his ally… or not. He would just have to deal with it, if that were the case, when it happened. There was too much else on his mind to focus on future Kyle’s problems at the moment.
The other being he detected worried him a bit more at first. She was much more powerful. For some reason, he was instantly certain that it this being was female. There was something almost familiar about her presence. Not as strong as Barak, but he sensed a great deal of raw essence within this one. She was too far away or perhaps his senses simply weren’t developed enough to discern more than the basics, but she seemed to have both raw essence and some War Essence within her.
The more he felt her presence, though, the more comfortable he became with her. For some reason, he knew that he didn’t need to worry about her. She was no threat to him or his.
His curiosity was spiked, but then he abruptly remembered where he was and that he had come out here specifically to be with Nyda. And she had asked him a question.
“We were attacked by the same dragon demi-god from the arena,” he answered.
With a gasp, Nyda started running her hands all over him. He could feel both sea and earth essence pouring out of her as she checked him for any injuries. Only once she was satisfied that he didn’t have any injuries did she ask, “Why didn’t you call for help?”
Then her eyes got bigger. “Wait, you were able to handle him easily, weren’t you?”
Kyle nodded.
“Then why do you still look worried?” She asked.
“He was working with—or at least had some sort of alliance with—two Aekor.”
“You mean the creatures that attacked the arena the night of your match with Lash?”
“Yes. Well,” he frowned, “the big round ones with the three tentacle legs, that is. The small ones are just mutated glytharen. The larger ones are called Aekor and are a type of construct that feeds on essence.”
“Are they dangerous?” Nyda asked. “From what Lash and Hilde told me, they were able to deal with the first one pretty easily.”
“That one was starved, and weak. These two were at full power. But no, they weren’t that much of a challenge. Any demi-god should be able to defeat them, and even a strong Spirit Tier being could handle them, as long as there wasn’t more than one.”
“Then what?”
“They never come one at a time. They are always in a swarm. I worry that I could wipe out thousands of them, but they would still overrun and destroy the things—or rather, the people—that I have come to care about.”
He rubbed his temples. “Worse than that, though, they are the forerunners for more serious threats known as Void Wraiths. I am only starting to remember more of Krig’s knowledge about these things, so pardon me as I puzzle this all out.” He sighed. “I don’t trust all of his perceptions to have been accurate.”
“And you are bothered that they were working with a demi-god?”
“Yes. None of the gods should be willing to suffer such a being to exist—even Begaer would go out of her way to destroy one, if she knew it existed.”
Nyda slipped her small hand in his and they started walking down the beach. He shuffled along beside her and then, with a sigh, decided to let the stress go. He altered his armor with a burst of essence so that it shrunk down to nothing more than a swimming suit and sandals. This was more like it.
Even worried about an invasion from outside their universe by the very antithesis of life, Kyle was able to relax with Nyda. There had been something about her from the beginning that just put him at ease. He had started to figure out that his relationship with each of the girls was different. With Hilde, there was this trust that had built up from having her stuck in his head. With Kierra, it was respect and a strangely primal urge. With Nyda, though, he felt he could truly be himself. It was relaxing.
“Oh, I like the muscles,” she purred as he altered his armor by simply flexing his will. “The armor is sexy in a ‘that’s my man and watch out cause he will stomp your ass’, sort of way... But this is more like I just want you to pick me up and carry me away.”
She grinned impishly up at him. “I could run my hands over your shoulders and arms all day long. Oh! and those abs, too.”
“Hmm… maybe I could try something else. Would you mind if I tried to alter your clothes, too?”
She looked down at the toga she was wearing that came to just below her knees. It was certainly appropriate for a priestess, though it showed off plenty of cleavage. He figured that was because she knew he liked to admire her amazing assets.
“You don’t like this?” She pouted and asked, “Does it make me look fat?”
Kyle almost burst out laughing. Apparently, women in any universe were the same. Here, he’d been thinking she was the loveliest thing he had ever laid eyes on, and she was worried that her outfit made her look fat.
“You could never look fat. You are absolutely gorgeous.” He winked at her. “Hell, you still take my breath away, every time I look at you. And then I remember that you are mine, and I wonder what I did in a previous life to earn this.”
“You are a god. I’m the one who is lucky to be with you.” She shrugged. “We all feel that way: Hilde, Kierra, and even Lash, if you will have her.”
“I’m glad you all feel that way, but know that I feel lucky to have you, too. We can talk about Lash later. Right now, I want to see if I can put you in one of the outfits women wore back home at the beach. Would that be okay?”
“I’m not gonna argue about having you all to myself for a while.” She smiled up at him. “Sure, why not.”
Her smile was infectious, and he paused for a moment, unable to gather his thoughts enough to initiate the change. But then, he formed the idea in his head and willed the material of her toga to change. He narrowed his eyes and concentrated, focusing a moment longer and managing to work some essence into it—Earth essence to make it more durable. Sky Essence to make her faster while she wore it. He even worked a combination of death and war essence into it.
It might not be ideal armor, but it would provide more protection than was obvious. Any attack that came against her would receive a devastating backlash. He didn’t take the time or effort to make the enhancements permanent. He had found that drained him too much.
And he didn’t have ready access to as much essence as he’d used to upgrade Skrug’s axe. But for the next few hours, or maybe even a couple of days, this would be the most potent bikini around. Not that it required essence for that—Nyda made it so all on her own.
Nyda gasped and then giggled as she found herself in a string bikini with a tiny, thong back. It definitely pushed the limits of what would have been allowed on most public beaches, but she worked it to the max. Her body was lithe and graceful, swaying and bouncing slightly with every step. Her perfection had only been enhanced when he’d placed a divine splinter in her.
“You wanted to see me in bedroom clothes?” She asked and then quickly added, “Not that I mind.”
“No,” Kyle laughed. “I promise you that women wear such things this on beaches back where I came from.” He eyed her appreciatively. “Though none of them made it look half as good as you do.”
They walked down the beach for over an hour, hand in hand. They shared their thoughts, feelings, and hopes for what the future might hold. Kyle didn’t say anything about the threats he felt were coming, instead focusing on what he hoped to see come out of this.
He talked about how he wanted to bring balance between the races. He admitted he’d promised to free Kierra’s people. He even spoke about his hopes for their child that Hilde carried.
&nb
sp; Through it all, Nyda was attentive and listened. She made him feel as though he was the only being in her world. But she wasn’t silent either. She shared her own hopes and dreams—how she wanted to bring healing, vitality, and security to the people of Verden under his banner.
The time passed quickly and before he realized it, the sun was low in the sky. He gathered some driftwood to make a fire. He could have done it the easy way, but there was a certain joy in building a fire with his bare hands for his woman.
After gathering the wood, he tried for a minute to gather and control fire essence. It just wasn’t happening. He could sense it. He could even cultivate it with Hilde, but he couldn’t seem to control it himself.
Rather than look silly, simply standing there and staring at the wood, he eventually channeled a few electrical sparks with sky essence. He was able to get the fire going that way. In nothing flat, they had a roaring fire.
Nyda hadn’t been sitting still while Kyle made the fire. He found she’d already caught two massive fish. He started to ask her how she had managed to do so without a fishing pole or even a spear, but then realized she had a significant amount of Sea Essence at her command. It had likely been easy enough.
He prepared a couple of skewers to roast the fish over the open fire, but Nyda refused to hand them over to him even after he had cleaned them.
“No, I wanna cook for you.”
“You don’t have to be my servant. Remember, you are free.” He smiled at her. “Even if I am a god, you aren’t my slave.”
“I’m not cooking for you as your priestess,” she huffed. “In fact, I remember you saying that you didn’t have to eat much anymore; that you could just live on pure essence.”
She arched a delicate magenta eyebrow at him. “You also said that you like good cooking, whether or not you need the food for sustenance. And so, I wanna cook for my man,” Nyda said. Her voice contained a strange blend of defiance and nervousness.
Kyle knew in an instant that this was one of those relationship defining moments. He could have insisted on cooking for her, but it wasn’t much of a relationship if it wasn’t a two-way street. Instead, he sat down in the sand near the fire and admired her as she worked. A sense of contentment passed through him as he let her take care of him—not because she felt obligated to, but because she wanted to.
As they ate the fish, Kyle couldn’t stop staring at her. Nyda really was beautiful, and he wanted to make her as happy as possible. She spent a great deal of time staring at her feet. They were cute feet, but he began to wonder if something was wrong.
He hoped it was just that she liked the sandals he had created for her. Eventually, he got worried enough to ask, “Is something wrong, Nyda?” When she didn’t respond, he nervously cleared his throat and tried to clarify, “You.. uh… you just got really quiet.”
Not wanting to push too hard, he just waited. He could see a number of emotions flicker across her features. Her essence was definitely churning around within her.
When she finally did speak, the words all tumbled out in a rush: “I think I’m ready.”
Chapter 17 - Clam Blocked
He began to ask, “Ready for…” but then it occurred to him what she was talking about and he changed course quickly. Kyle reached out and laid a hand on her arm. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to think there is any rush. I love everything we do.”
Kyle wanted to mock himself even as he felt the words slip out. He hadn’t talked to a woman like that since his brief stint at college prior to the big leagues. The thing was, he hadn’t felt about any of those women the way he felt about Nyda. She had grown on him in ways he couldn’t begin to explain. So, lame or not, he wanted to make sure she knew he was willing to wait for her.
She bit her bottom lip cutely before responding, “Yes. I’ve thought about making love to you almost non-stop. I want it. I won’t lie and say it doesn’t scare me, but… but I want it.”
Kyle pulled her close to kiss her and began fumbling with her bikini top. He cursed his huge hands. The tiny strings were almost too small for him to get a grip on them. But then it occurred to him, he was no pubescent boy fumbling with a bra for the first time. He had other means of dealing with this. With a thought, her top disappeared.
Just when things were starting to get interesting, he heard a deep croaking sound. It sounded as though a giant frog were coughing up a great glob of phlegm. He was immediately standing at attention, in more ways than one, and moving to put himself between Nyda and the source of the noise.
There, in an outcropping of rocks and scrub grass thirty feet away, was the same being he had sensed earlier that day—the one who was filled with sea essence and who he’d taken to be an agent of Hav. Looking at her in the flickering firelight, he was even more convinced that’s what she was.
She was a frog. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She was humanoid but resembled a frog. Leather armor covered her torse, and in her hands was what he would call a harpoon. Her skin was a glistening, smooth, bright green. Each hand had three fingers and a thumb. Her feet were bare and seemed to follow the same pattern.
As for her head, it was wider than he would have expected from a human, but not so wide as to be a frog’s. Her eyes protruded somewhat, and her nose was rather flat, with two tiny slits for nostrils. The smile on her face was also wider than would be possible for a human, though she appeared to have been gagging a moment before. The tongue hanging out of her mouth went down nearly to her knees before she pulled it back into her mouth.
She suddenly realized they were staring at her. The skin of her face darkened as she croaked and then said in intelligible if accented speech, “Oh, I’m sorry. I choked on a fish bone. Don’t mind me—please continue.”
She gave Nyda a meaningful look before glancing down at Kyle’s still erect member and then back at Nyda again. Chuckling softly to herself, she said, “Although dearie, you may find yourself choking on the bone soon”
In an instant, Kyle tugged at his raw essence and conjured his armor back onto himself. A second later, he covered Nyda in armor similar to Lash’s. It still didn’t cover enough, but it would provide more protection than even her toga or enhanced bikini. He realized he would need to design more practical armor, but this was the first thing that came to mind.
“Oh, aren’t you going to mate anymore?” The frog girl asked, pouting with those wide lips of hers. At least that was the expression that Kyle took it for. “I’ve never seen elves do it before.” Looking at Kyle, she blinked slowly before adding, “Not that you are an elf.”
“No, we won’t be putting on a show for your entertainment, and your interruption is not appreciated. The only reason I don’t kill you where you stand, is that I assume you are an emissary of Hav,” Kyle said.
She nodded her head. “That’s right. I’m Amfibier and I was sent here to join your team.”
Now Nyda was the one who spoke up, “Lord Kyle chooses who is on his team and he certainly isn’t going to take in someone who worships another god.”
“Another god?” Amfibier asked, appearing genuinely confused, although Kyle had to admit he might have misread her expressions. It might have been something closer to sarcasm, with a mock expression of shock.
Her next words confirmed as much, “Oh, you mean him... Trust me dearie, he isn’t a god.” She smirked at them. “You’d know the difference, if you’d ever stood in the presence of an actual god.”
With a dangerous glint in her eye, Nyda started gathering earth essence around herself.
Kyle wanted to let her continue, just to see what she had in mind, but prudence soon won out. “I will tell you the same thing, Froggy, that I told the big fish before. Hav can make requests, but she can’t make demands of me. I’m not going to take anyone onto my team that I can’t trust.”
“You and I both know that isn’t entirely true,” Amfibier said, staring intently at Kyle.
“Close your mouth Froggy, or I won�
�t stay my hand,” Kyle growled as he felt confusion rise within Nyda.
“Whatever,” Hav’s emissary said with a shrug. “What’s with calling me Froggy?”
“Amfibier is too much of a mouthful. I tend to name people whatever nickname I feel fits. You look like a frog, so I’m going to call you Froggy.”
She set the butt of the harpoon on the ground. Her other hand went to her hip, which she’d cocked out to the side as she gave him that, ‘Oh no, you didn’t,’ look.
“I don’t care what you call me,” she finally said. “I have my orders. And my orders from a real god were to join your team. I can wait over in the rocks, if you want to finish what you were doing, but then we really should head back to Nargossa. Things are going to start getting hectic there soon enough.”
“I have not consented to you joining my team. Although I’ll admit to being curious as to why you think things are going to get ‘hectic’,” Kyle replied.
