Another pause. Longer, this time.
“How are we going to make sure he doesn’t get away?” Suri asked flatly.
“Good question. I think all we can really do is make sure he’s got the usual kinds of field trip security. Visible clothing, leg chains, a good escort,” I replied. “Maybe a leash.”
"What about a bracelet or something with the Mother's Coin inside it?" Karalti asked.
I blinked a couple of times. I'd forgotten all about the Mother's Coin. It was a minor artifact we'd looted from Davri the Laundress, the crime boss we'd killed in Dalim, and it worked like a tagging device.
“Karalti just suggested a tracking device,” I said. “In case you didn’t hear that.”
“I did. And I think that’s a bloody good idea,” Suri’s voice was stiff, but calm. “I also know it's about the only option we've got, short of bricking him up inside a wall and feeding him through a tube. Go ahead and figure out some kind of program for him. See how he responds when he's dealing with people he has to actually relate to.”
“Alright. And I’ll make a tracking anklet and weld it on to him myself. I don’t want him near any of my citizens without us knowing exactly where he is.” I leaned back against Karalti, resisting the urge to rub against her like a randy cat. "I love you, okay? We'll see you soon, and then we'll go kick some huge wormy butt."
Suri laughed, briefly. "Yeah, alright. Assuming I’m not leading a train of little hooklings around the castle.”
We closed the call, and I sighed with relief. I rubbed my forehead and made to stand up, and my message center chirped. I pulled it over to see Suri had sent a follow up message. 'Love you too'.
I couldn't help but smile. It was pretty sure it was the first time we'd said it to each other in as many words.
Chapter 56
We dropped Vash back at the castle, and while he coordinated a security detail and the medicine wagons, I went to the smithy. Half an hour of improvised crafting later, I had gained some basic levels in Metalworking and had successfully creating Archemi's first [Prison Tag Anklet], a welded manacle we soldered around Jacob's ankle. It was a pound of solid iron, and unless he was willing to cut his own leg off, he wasn't getting rid of it.
Once they were on their way, Karalti and I left for an overnight retreat to her favorite place in Myszno, just the two of us.
We appeared over a mountain hot spring fed by a cascade of steaming, water-filled limestone terraces. The water was a brilliant blue, steaming into the air. There was a grotto cavern filled with soft pads of brilliant green moss. At the shallow side of the lake was beach of sorts, a bare area of mineralized rock turned white by limestone. Beyond that was nothing but miles of wild alpine forest. Pines rustled, birds trilled and whooped from the trees, insects hummed, squirrels flicked their tails as they scampered over the branches. I breathed deeply of the crisp, fresh air as Karalti touched down, and felt the muscles of my back and shoulders relax.
“I’m glad you suggested this. We really need it after that cheery little adventure.” I slid to her elbow and hopped down, landing lightly on the feathery grass. “God… the talk I had with Vash after we left the boneyard was fucking intense.”
“I overheard your thoughts while you were talking. I think I’m starting to understand it all.” Karalti stretched and yawned, flicking her wings and shaking herself out. “There’s like a big stew pot full of people, right? And the pot mixes the people’s souls up, so every person who’s born is like a cup of soup from the pot.”
“Pretty much. Though I think the soup pot is slowly getting bigger as more people here become self-aware.”
Karalti stretched, rising high on her feet, and shifted smoothly to her humanoid shape. My heart caught in my throat as the light cleared, revealing her standing on small bare feet, lovely and nude.
“Am I made from these people?” she asked. “Am I made from the Athena-thing?”
“Yeah. You are.” I drifted toward her. She didn’t move as I reached for her, stroking her collarbone, her breasts, the sides of her ribcage. “But you’re absolutely, one-hundred percent my favorite cup of soup.”
Karalti let out a delighted, barking laugh, then turned and skipped toward the water. I lunged forward a step, nose working, then remembered I was still wearing twenty pounds of armor. I unequipped everything, watching her hungrily as she waded into the lake until she was up to her thighs.
“You were super mad at Vash. I’ve never seen you look at another man like that before.” Karalti glanced over her shoulder at me, her eyes dark with heated amusement. “Not even Soma.”
“I’m not jealous of Vash. I just didn’t want to have to fight him because we both got tweaked on dragon musk and started chasing your ass across the plateau.” Nude, I splashed in after her. “That perfect, bitable, smooth, pear-shaped ass.”
“You like this, huh?” Karalti’s lips quirked. She reached back and lifted her butt with her hands.
“Tidbit… you do not know what monster you are about to unleash.” I was doing everything short of actually drooling as I slid into the water, angling for her like a crocodile.
“You want it? You better catch it.” Her eyes turned to sly slits in her face as she jiggled it a couple of times.
I got my footing on the bottom of the shallows, then launched straight out of the water. Karalti let out a shrill peal of laughter, diving to the side. But she still didn’t have any magically-enhanced leaping abilities, and could only get so far before I caught her.
“Death from above! “Victory at sea!” I picked her up by the waist, spun around with her, and bombed us both into the water as she squealed and flailed. “Yarrr, the booty be mine!”
“EEEK!” Karalti twisted in my arms, laughing wildly. “HEY! No fair!”
I was laughing too hard to keep my grip on her. She pushed away, fleeing for the shore, and I leaped for her again... only to be sent flying as she caught me by the arm and flipped me over her back, sending me crashing into the shallows
“The pirates of the Fish Empire have clearly never battled a dragon who knows martial arts!” She laughed, splashing me in the face as I surfaced. “Pew pew! Take that!”
“Arrrgh, water! My only weakness! Hrrbllbhg!” I enthusiastically enacted a dramatic likeness of my death by drowning as my dragon giggled with delight. But once I was under the water, I swam right at her, tackling her at the waist and dragging her against my body. Her skin was slick against mine, her thighs shaking as she felt me press up against her belly. The brief contact passed between us like an electric charge, and the blood began to pound in my temples and cock.
“I know you need me to chase you.” Before Karalti could wriggle away, I caught her wrist in mine and stared deeply into her eyes. “I know you want me to catch you, claim you, the way a bull dragon claims his mate. But your first time is going to hurt at first, Karalti. If we get rough, I need you to tell me that’s okay.”
Karalti’s eyes grew very wide and very bright. They were bleeding to pure silver as the heat took her, her pupils dilating. Her mouth and cheeks were flushed, body tense with the need to start the mating chase. “It will hurt?”
“You’re a virgin,” I said. “Every girl I’ve ever heard talk about their first time says it hurt.”
She licked water off her lips, and stopped straining to flee. “It’s okay, Hector. My soul might be that of a human, but I am not a human girl. I am a woman of the Solonkratsu, and this is our way. This is what I want.”
This is what I want. I repeated her words in my mind, then finally let go of my own reins. I squeezed her wrist and pulled her tightly against my chest, leaning down to bite the side of her neck.
“Ohh...” Karalti melted, the lean curves of her body molding against mine. Her breasts pressed against my chest, nipples stiffening, as I let go of her skin and hungrily claimed her mouth with mine. Her double-pulse beat under my fingers, quickening as I half-pushed, half carried her toward the shore. When we were barely ankle-deep, she
pushed me away and danced back, breathing hard. Her pearly skin flushed with warmth. As soon as the air touched her skin, she came up in goosebumps.
“Think you can keep up?” Her teeth were chattering with anticipation as she backed up from me along the shoreline.
“I KNOW I can keep up.” I wove in a crouch and lunged, but she was faster. She sprinted for the treeline, trailing a cloud of intoxicating scent.
“Are you suuuuure?” Karalti laughed joyously as she bolted through the trees, leaping gracefully over rocks and ferns. I ran after her, following the teasing flick of her hair. I gained ground by vaulting a boulder and tumbling into a roll on the other side, nearly close enough to grab a fistful of braids and swing her around. She dodged out of the way of my grasping fingers, veering left toward a cascade of shallow spring-fed terraces. She leaped into the first of them, throwing up a spray of steaming water as she ran to the end and vaulted down to the next one.
“You’ll run out of stamina before I do!” I sprung forward like a cricket, landing right in front of her before she could drop to the next terrace. Karalti let out a high, manic peal of laughter as I snatched her around the waist—then teleported out of my arms, back up to the edge of the cliff.
“Pbffft!” She blew her tongue and thumbed her nose at me, sprinting back into the trees.
“Hey! No fair!” I changed track, bounding up the hill, but when I reached the top she was gone—I could hear her stifled giggles from somewhere, but the sound bounced and echoed out of sight.
I drew deep sniffs of air as I felt along the Bond, and between the two of them, I picked a direction and ran. There was no sign of her, no sound other than the wind through the trees. The scent trail ended at the edge of the mineral lake. For a moment, I thought I’d simply backtracked, until I saw a shadow move between a pair of cedars.
My eyes narrowed. I dropped into a stalking crouch, sticking to the underbrush. Karalti tensed beside one of the concealing trees, searching for me, her nostrils flexing... and let out a startled ‘eek!’ when I bounced out of concealment and took her to ground. She squealed as I covered her body with mine, arching, straining and struggling against me.
“Hector!” Her skin was feverish, spiking with heat as we wrestled. Her lust thrummed through the Bond in growing waves, a feedback loop of primal need that made me snarl and pin her down. She panted, drawing breath open-mouthed as I kicked her legs apart and wedged myself between them. She struggled and thumped her head back, her breasts lifting up against my chest, muscles taut. She fought me with every ounce of energy she had, right until the moment where I roughly thrust inside her.
Her telepathic scream rang through my head and nerves like a lightning strike: a little pleasure, but a lot more pain as she stretched around me for the first time. I froze for a second, barely catching her fist as she swung at me, but I couldn’t stop myself from moving. She was hot and tight and sweet, and even as the sharp tearing pain played along the Bond like a shrill violin, she bucked her hips and pulled me closer.
“I want it!” She buried her face against my neck, crying out on every thrust as the pain of her first time peaked and faded under the potent combination of ecstasy and adrenaline. “I want it, I want it!”
I felt about ten feet tall and five feet long as I grabbed her by the hips and pulled her bodily onto my cock. It was not gentle, it was not sweet – I fucked her like a beast, conscious only of her voice, her breath, her smell, the grip of her cunt. She had never told me, but I knew just by the sensation that she wasn’t built like a human woman down there: her clit was internal, in a hooded pouch about half an inch deep in her body, and every time I backed out and thrust into her, she gasped with growing pleasure. As her orgasm built, so did mine: I knelt up in the ferns, clutching her by the thighs, and closed my eyes as I lost myself in it.
Karalti let out a piercing screech, writhing as she climaxed. I learned something else about her, then: she had exceptional muscular control. Her pelvis contracted like a hand, trapping me inside of her body and squeezing back from tip to base. I shuddered over her, gasping, hips jerking in a sympathetic climax with no actual release. My eyes flickered open and met hers, and the world around us vanished.
The violet color had returned, but her pupils were so huge that her eyes were almost black. They sucked me down, as irresistible as gravity, and she kissed me, biting my lips. We were still fucking, her ankles hooked around my back, her body gripping mine. This time, I led the climax, coming inside of her with a sharp, stifled sound of pleasure. Karalti’s back arched, and she gasped as she experienced the sensation of male pleasure directly for the first time.
“Oh… oh wow…” She breathed. “It’s like… it’s like a push! I felt it push all the way through your body into mine.”
“Just like you pull me into yours.” Panting for breath, I leaned down and licked the sweat from her chest, tracing her collarbone with my tongue. “Did I hurt you?”
“Only briefly.” She mouthed my neck, biting gently as she held me inside her. “I felt something tear.”
I paused for a moment, leaning up to look down at her. “Do you need me to stop?”
“Take me to the water.” She gazed back up at me, languid with pleasure. “Take me into the cave, and do it until we can’t anymore.”
Shivering with exertion, I found an inner reserve of stamina and gathered her up into my arms, picking her up. Karalti looped her arms around my neck, hanging on as I walked back with her to the hot spring. The cave was warm from the steaming waterfalls that trickled over the entry, full of soft moss. I lay her down there on her back, where she caught my face in her hands and tipped it down so I met her eyes, and this time as I looked into them, I saw her – her intelligence, her insight, her passion for food, the instinctive love she felt for children, the warmth she felt for her friends, the pleasure she found in martial arts, her growing spirituality, her desire to learn how to make jewelry… The Bond, as intense and pure as I’d ever felt it.
It was dark by the time we finally pulled apart, bathed in sweat, exhausted, disheveled, and completely and utterly satisfied with our labors. We lay facing each other, our hands and knees touching.
“Wow,” she breathed, after a few minutes had passed. “Human sex is pretty great.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” I swallowed, still trying to catch my breath. “I’m wondering how I’m going to go back to Suri after this.”
“You’ll go back to her because you love her too, and because I only do this once a month.” She smiled at me.
I wheezed a laugh. It was about all I had left in me after five straight hours of fucking. I had several minor debuffs: Hungry, Thirsty, and ‘Miscellaneous Exertion’, which was a pretty classy way of saying ‘Fuxhausted’. “You, uhh… you take care of your own business more than once a month, though. Right?”
“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean I want a partner for it.” Karalti yawned and stretched, flopping over onto her back. “When I’m doing that, I don’t really think about you or anyone else. It’s more like an itch I gotta scratch sometimes. When you’re mating with Suri, I get the urge… but I don’t want to be involved.”
“Huh.” I smiled at her. “Makes sense to me.”
She wiggled over to me and cuddled up. “Can I ask you a favor?”
“Mm?”
“You brought food with you, right?”
“Yep. Sure did.”
“Can you… can you feed me?” Her lips parted, and her eyes darkened again. “I REALLY want you to feed me after this.”
I arched my eyebrows. “You mean feed you like the way you wanted Suri to feed Cutthroat?”
Karalti pouted, and shoved at my chest as I chortled.
“Fingers are fine,” she grumbled. “I just… mmm… let’s do that, and go to sleep in here. It’s so nice.”
“We’ll get all wrinkly if we sleep on the moss here,” I replied. “Come on: let’s go pitch a fire, and I’ll feed the Tidbit tidbits.”
“Yeah!” K
aralti pushed herself up to her hands and awkwardly swayed up to her feet. I wasn’t doing much better. It took a couple of goes to roll up to sit, and when she offered me a hand, I accepted it. We hobbled out into the open like a couple of old people, clutching our backs and groaning.
“Are we going to be okay after this?” I asked her, as we slowly headed for the soft grass beyond the mineralized bank. “You and me, I mean? I loved this, but… you know. I don’t want to change what we have, either.”
Karalti’s eyes danced as she plopped down onto the meadow, huffing a soft breath through her teeth. “It’s changed, and it’ll keep changing. Just like we will. I think we’ll grow and change for as long as we’re both alive.”
I bent down to kiss her on the top of her head. “Then here’s to us both living for a long, long time.”
***
I woke to the sound of a Message Alert. It was the early morning, the sun just starting to rise through the morning fog that hung over the lake. Grumbling, I rolled over onto my back and picked up the call. “’Llo?”
“Hey there, lover boy.” Suri’s voice purred into my ear as if she were speaking right beside it. “I’m back with Gar, safe and sound in Kalla Sahasi. How’d things go?”
“Things?” I repeated, laying my forearm over my eyes. Karalti burrowed her head into my armpit with a soft chirp, still sound asleep. “Yeah. Things are, umm, thingy.”
“Vash told me it was Karalti’s time of the month, and you two went and took a night out to preen each other.”
“Preening, yeah. Guess you could call it that.” Thanks to the magic of videogame physics, I didn’t feel any of the aching or fatigue now that I’d slept… ten hours? Damn. “How’re you? How’s Cutthroat?”
“She’s decided that she is the new captain of the Strelitzia,” Suri replied. “We aren’t getting’ her out until those eggs hatch. Gar’s just given up. We’re in the parlor now, and he’s drinking all your brandy.”
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