Curse of Magic

by Michael Brightburn

  Sure, the tailor was a divine, but what made them so indebted to—or afraid of—her that they’d treat someone who looked like I currently looked as, if not royalty, then at least nobility?

  And why was Elanos helping us at all?

  I was grateful, but also suspicious.

  If she’d been anyone but a divine, I wouldn’t even be here.

  But I’d never heard tale of divines being deceptive, especially not angels, the daughters of Erisi.

  No, this was like the tales I’d read as a boy of a divine helping a mortal for the divine’s own mysterious reasons.

  I only wished I knew what those reasons were.

  The man unloaded food and drink from the cart, casting glances at Vi and Sienna as he did.

  Both seemed to enjoy the attention.

  Another man looking at my woman as he was would normally anger me, but it was hard to feel anger toward someone like him.

  Because now that I could see more than the top of his head, I saw he was hardly a man at all, but merely a boy. Old enough to be a soldier perhaps, but not to hold any position of importance.

  By the looks of it, not even old enough to grow much of a beard—if any at all.

  No, I couldn’t fault the boy for his glances at my companions. They were both beautiful women, and it was only natural.

  And though he worked in a place like this, a boy was a boy, and his desires and curiosity were insatiable.

  His work finished, he bowed to me again and hurried out, and I shut and locked the door behind him.

  Vi turned the water off, some sloshing out of the tub as she did, and sniffed the air. “Oh, that smells wonderful. Bring me some of that meat, dryad.”

  Sienna did so, seeming perfectly content to be ordered around.

  “What about me?” a small voice piped up.

  Right. Alva. What was I going to do about her?

  I went to the bed and knelt beside her cage. “If I let you out, you promise not to bite anyone?”

  She huffed. “I can’t promise that.”

  I shrugged. “Then you stay in the cage.” I started to get up.

  “Wait!”

  I raised an eyebrow at her.

  She looked down at her tiny feet. “I can’t promise I won’t bite anyone. But I can promise I won’t bite you.”

  “Or Sienna.”

  She looked up at me, confused. “Of course not. Why would I bite a dryad?”

  “Or Vi.”

  She bared her teeth. “You can’t ask that of me!”

  “I just did. And I’m not asking. You accept, or you can stay in that cage.”

  She glared at me. With her cute little face and small body, it was hard to be intimidated.

  Finally she relented. “Fine. I won’t bite Vi. But she can’t bite me either.”

  I nodded. “Hear that Vi? No biting the vampire.”

  “Whatever. There’s better food here anyway.” She was eating the walroag leg Sienna had brought her. Bone and all.

  I opened the cage. “If you renege on your promise, I’ll feed you to Vi myself.”

  She huffed. “Fine.”

  I stood back so she could exit.

  She took a careful step out, looked up at me, then around the room.

  Then she took another step, and looked at me again.

  Then a third, and again looked to me.

  Why did I get the feeling she was—

  Suddenly she blew past me, moving faster than seemed possible.

  “Gods be!” I cried, and stumbled backward.

  The traitorous vampire was running around the room in a blur.

  “Grab her!” I shouted.

  The two women didn’t seem concerned. Vi was chewing on her walroag leg—which was nearly gone—and Sienna was sipping on some wine.

  “It’s okay,” Sienna said.

  “What? No it’s not. She’s—”

  “It’s what vampires do,” Vi said disinterestedly. “She’s burning off energy. She’ll calm down in a bit. Better have some food ready. I smell some blood. They must have brought that for her.”

  “Here,” Sienna said, holding up a waterskin heavy with liquid.

  Alva skidded to a halt, eyes fixed on the pouch. Her nose was up, sniffing the air—though she didn’t look at all like Vi, this action reminded me of the lycanthrope.

  Except the vampire’s eyes were wild, and her long fangs bared. Had they grown?

  I took back my earlier thought about a lone vampire not being intimidating.

  In addition to her eyes glowing a bright red, dark circles had developed around them, and her fingernails had grown into claws. There was the face I had initially seen in the cursed woods as she’d blindsided me, the one that had seemed so monstrous.

  She hissed as she approached Sienna, who held out the pouch in front of her. “Here. Go on, take it.”

  The vampire leaped and tackled the pouch, knocking it from Sienna’s hand and going tumbling to the floor with it.

  Blood sprayed on the white tile as she sunk her claws and fangs into it and drank deeply.

  I watched in a mix of shock, horror, and interest as she drained the entire pouch, her stomach, breasts, hips, and butt expanding as she did.

  The pouch sunk in on itself as she sucked it dry.

  When she was finished, she rolled over and collapsed to the floor, limbs splayed. Her proportionally large breasts were even larger now, and jiggled as she settled.

  She moaned contentedly, her eyes drifting shut.

  “Bloody gods…”

  18

  Sienna gave Vi a second walroag leg then pushed the cart over to the bed, avoiding running over the little vampire splayed on the floor.

  I reached for a hunk of bread, but Sienna slapped my hand. “I’ll serve you.”

  And she did. Turned out there were plates, and she filled one with bread, ripe vine fruit, and a hunk of steak.

  We shared the bottle of wine.

  The food was good, though I barely noticed as I wolfed it down.

  Sienna watched, sipping from the bottle and handing it over every time I got the urge to drink without me having to say a word, like she could read my mind. Which I supposed in a way she could.

  After I was done eating, Sienna pushed me down onto the bed and crawled on top of me. “How about now?”

  I glanced at Vi and Alva. Alva was still passed out, and Vi had done so sometime while I was eating.

  One arm hung over the edge of the tub, still holding the half-eaten walroag leg as she slept.

  I smiled up at Sienna, my arousal growing. Her full breasts hung heavily, and I reached up and grabbed one of them, squeezed.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  I nodded. “It is.”

  Her sex was hot and already slick as she slid it over my engorged manhood. She slid up and down my shaft, her moans growing louder.

  I was content to let her do all the work. Like Alva and Vi, I too was full and tired.

  And also maybe a little bit drunk from the wine.

  But not too tired or drunk for this.

  I couldn’t tell if Sienna was affected by the wine. She’d drank more than I had, but seemed sober.

  She held my hardness against her sex, grinding against its length, but not putting it inside of her.

  She brought me to the brink, then slid down my body, trailing her tongue down my stomach and chest, her hard nipples lightly gliding against my skin and sending a pleasurable shiver through me until her lips were at my manhood.

  She kissed the head, then licked her juices off of me.

  She pressed my erection to my stomach and licked up and down the underside of my shaft, then twirled her tongue around the head, sending another more intense thrill of pleasure through me.

  Then she took me in her warm mouth, her tongue moving along the bottom of my shaft as she sucked, taking my full length all the way down into her throat.

  I didn’t last long.

  After, she curled up beside me
on the bed and nuzzled her head into my neck, and we drifted off to sleep.

  19

  I woke up to her stroking me with her hand.

  She was doing something different with it, but I couldn’t tell what it was, as I was still half asleep.

  I let out a grunt of pleasure, and in response she began moving faster. Then she trailed something—her fingernail?—which was strangely soft and wet, against my head.

  My curiosity piqued, I finally opened one eye and looked down.

  Only to find not Sienna’s hand wrapped around my manhood, but Alva’s entire body.

  I stared at her as she rubbed her breasts and crotch against me.

  Her legs and arms were wrapped around me, and though she could come nowhere near fitting my head into her mouth, as it wasn’t much smaller than her own, she was licking all around it.

  I was somewhere between aroused and worried.

  I could see her fangs, and that was not somewhere I had any desire to get bit.

  Beyond her, I saw Vi was still passed out in the tub, walroag leg amazingly still clutched in her clawed hand.

  I turned my head to the side and found Sienna was awake. Her eyes flicked up to mine and she smiled. She was watching.

  She kissed my neck and then whispered in my ear, “Don’t worry, she likes you.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Alva seemed oblivious to the fact that I’d woken up, that she was being watched.

  She was grinding her small sex against me, working herself—and me—up to an orgasm.

  It was strange, but also a turn-on, so I let her continue.

  She continued lathering my head with her tongue, the pleasure so intense it bordered on painful.

  Her arms and legs were tight around me, and she moved her crotch and thighs up and down along my shaft with incredible speed.

  I grunted as I felt it coming, and Alva must’ve somehow sensed that I was close because she did a flip over my manhood, pulling it against my stomach as she landed on my chest and placing it between her legs.

  Then she jerked hard one last time, jamming my head against her hot sex.

  I exploded against her, shooting my seed and soaking her in it.

  Her body twitched and convulsed, and she let out one short moan before lying flaccid like she had after she drank the blood, covered in my sticky seed.

  She ran her small hands up and down her bare flesh, massaging herself with my seed as lubrication, then trailing it up and licking her fingers.

  Sienna moaned beside me and kissed my neck again, then my cheek, then my lips.

  Then she sat up, picking up the soaked vampire, and mounting me.

  Despite having finished, I was still hard, and Sienna sat on me again, pressing her slick sex against mine like she’d done the night before.

  She placed Alva between us, and the little seed-covered vampire came to life again, placing her face against the dryad’s bare sex and licking as Sienna slid my manhood into her.

  She rode me in slow grinding motions while the vampire licked her nub.

  Alva was on her knees, facing away from me as she pleasured the dryad, and so her ass was toward me, her legs spread, giving me a good look at her smooth sex.

  I reached down and ran my thumb over it.

  It was too big to slide in, but I thought my pinky might fit.

  I placed it against her. If it fit at all, it would be a tight one.

  I massaged her, then started working my way in.

  She gasped as I penetrated her, and I slid my finger in and out gently as she licked Sienna.

  I caught movement in the room beyond, and saw Vi stir, her ears twitching toward us.

  She went from asleep to awake with no interceding drowsiness. She dropped the walroag leg to the floor and got out of the tub. After a moment, she cautiously approached us, tail pointing straight up into the air.

  She came to the side of the bed and stood there, dripping water onto the floor, watching us.

  Her yellow eyes glowed brightly, and the fur just above her sex stood straight up.

  She made low growls in her throat that were almost moans, but made no move to join us.

  Sienna pressed harder with each back and forth movement, and Alva reached between her legs, rubbing her own nub.

  I pressed my finger deeper inside of her, picked up speed.

  “Yes,” she gasped, and had to stop licking Sienna, as she began uttering high-pitched moans, pressing back into me. “Faster.”

  I obliged, and a moment later the sticky little vampire shuttered and orgasmed, collapsing to my lower abdomen, where she lay twitching as she stared up at my manhood as it penetrated Sienna, who now used her own fingers to replace the vampire’s tongue on her nub.

  “Get ready,” the dryad moaned.

  If she didn’t hurry, I was going to finish anyway.

  “I know you’re close. Give me—” her words cut off as her fingers moved harder and faster, then she too orgasmed, pressing herself down hard onto me, her pussy clenching around my cock.

  I exploded inside her with a grunt as pleasure shot through my entire body, making me dizzy with it.

  Sienna fell forward onto me, her large, soft breasts heavy against my chest, and Alva let out a little squeak, having to squirm out from between our bodies.

  We were all breathing hard now, and I looked at Vi again, who was still standing there.

  “It’s morning,” she said, her voice still high but even huskier than usual. “Our clothes are ready.”

  20

  We drew a fresh bath and got cleaned up.

  Alva protested that she couldn’t get wet, but when asked why, she only said she couldn’t.

  Vi explained that vampires didn’t like water, but it didn’t actually hurt them.

  I wasn’t going to take her word for it.

  “How are you going to clean up then?”

  “Unlike you brutes we don’t need to.”

  “Umm…” I said, looking at her body, which was not currently clean.

  She looked down at herself. “Oh.”

  “You were in the water before, when we fell off the cliff.”

  “Yes. And it was unpleasant.”

  “How so?”

  “It just… was.”

  “You’ve got to clean off, Alva.”

  “I don’t need water to do it.”

  “Then how—”

  But she showed me how.

  At first I thought it was my dried seed that was sliding off of her, but then saw it wasn’t that, but her skin.

  It split out from her hair, then peeled down over her face, neck, and chest, and on down, like she was slipping out of a dress.

  When she was done, her skin was fresh and new and bright pink.

  I moved to touch her. She was incredibly soft.

  “How often do you do that?”

  “As often as I need to. Hopefully more so now that I’ve met you.”

  My eyes scanned her little naked body, and I felt my lust grow.

  But we had work to do.

  At least Sienna for once didn’t try to draw me in to another liaison as we bathed together, though she did have me wash her body, and this nearly drew me anyway.

  But I controlled myself, and ignored my throbbing crotch.

  Once Sienna was clean, she got out and I could focus on bathing myself without distraction.

  There were towels next to the tub, and I stared at Alva’s cage as I dried.

  I glanced over at the vampire, who was now sitting on Sienna’s shoulder. The dryad had made vines lift up from that part of her shoulder to form a little throne for Alva to sit in.

  “Think you can behave yourself?” I asked Alva.

  “You mean… I don’t have to get back in the cage?”

  I nodded. “Come to think of it, we’re far enough away. I gave you my word, so… You’re free to leave, if you’d like.

  She shook her head vehemently. “I’m staying with you.”

  I s
miled at her. “What changed your mind?”

  She grinned back. “Oh, that you’re a king.”

  “Really? Is that all.”

  She shrugged her little shoulders. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “All right then.” I looked at Vi. “No trying to bite or eat each other, got it?”

  Vi growled.

  “Vi,” I warned.

  “Yes. I won’t eat her. Unless she bites me.”

  “And I won’t bite her unless she eats me.” Alva frowned. “Unless she tries to eat me. Doing it after she already has wouldn’t be very productive.”

  “Good enough.”

  I gave the room one last look, then we headed out.

  On the stairway, the same boy who had brought us our cart of food and drink last night was now dragging up another one.

  When he saw us he flinched and stumbled, the cart slipping out of his grasp and starting to clunk down the stairs.

  “Sorry!” He darted after it, managing to catch up before it could topple over. He was breathing heavy even though he’d only taken a few steps. “My lord. I’m sorry. We brought breakfast as quick as we could.”

  ”It’s fine lad. We’re heading out anyway. I left the key on the cart you brought up last night.”

  “But we… we made you breakfast.”

  I slapped his shoulder as we walked by. “I’m sure you can find someone who will be appreciative of it.”

  As much as I enjoyed the food and our experience, it wouldn’t do to grow too lax.

  I had a kingdom to reclaim, and revenge to take.

  21

  The tailor was true to her word and had fine sets of clothing ready for all of us.

  “This is too much,” I told her.

  “Nonsense. It’s exactly the right amount.”

  “I mean, it’s too expensive. It’s too fine a quality. I don’t know how we’ll pay for it.”

  The divine smiled at me. “Don’t worry. I do. You can repay me by delivering a suit of armor I’ve made.”

  “Delivering it where?” I asked. I wanted to be going as soon as possible. I’d already waited I-didn’t-know-how-long in that dungeon—my dungeon—and was eager to take down Orathar and back my kingdom.

  But it couldn’t hurt to help out a divine.

  Besides, I did need to pay her for the clothes. And the room.