I thought she was going to say something to supposedly explain why I was confused about everything, why it wasn't all a dream, but neither one of us talked. Except for the three episodes of her screaming out what she thought was my name. "Den! Oh, Den! Yes, Den!"
By the end of the hour—maybe it was two—I seriously considered permanently changing my name to Den.
It was without a doubt the best experience of my life. Awake or asleep. Granted, the closest I'd gotten to sex with a beautiful woman before was watching Game of Thrones alone. Well, except for falling asleep next to Sydney and Monica, it dawned on me.
At least when I wake up, I'll have a good idea of what I'm doing. I hope they didn't bail on me after I passed out.
Then something really weird happened. I felt extremely tired. My eyes got heavy. Then they blinked repeatedly, taking way too long to open each time.
What the hell? Am I falling asleep? I AM asleep. Aren't I?
And then I was.
Chapter 3
"What happened to him?" I heard her voice before I opened my eyes. It was Nithia. She'd returned.
What did she mean?
I began to move my fingers, then my hands and arms—just small movements. I was waking up my body.
My body? I felt different somehow.
"He is in our world now," Alara said.
I opened my eyes to find both women leaning over me. I was still on the bed mat. The covers had been returned to it from the floor in front of the fireplace. Alara was dressed again—well, as much as she was before.
"I didn't know this would happen to him!" Nithia's eyes were open wide. The expression on her face was perky. Everything about her was perky, though.
The door to the cottage was open and the morning sun shone into the room. I felt a cool breeze come in and heard what must've been a few leaves drifting across the stone floor just inside the doorway.
I knew there was a conversation to be had, especially with Alara, but I said nothing for a few moments while I looked up at the two beautiful women. Alara's eyes connected with mine and I saw the corners of her mouth curl upward.
I gave her a wink and nodded to Nithia. "Good morning, ladies."
"Good morning, Den," Alara said, raising a leather flask and offering it to me. "Are you thirsty?"
"Why, yes," I said, taking it from her. "I am. Thank you."
She nodded and smiled more fully, as I drank my fill.
Wow. I was thirsty.
Then the realization hit me. I recognized her voice as the one in my head from class. And then I realized what she had meant by lifting the veil of confusion. I choked on the last sip of water in my mouth. Nithia looked alarmed and reached for me, but I held up my arm to block her as I coughed and spit out a bit of the water.
"This can't be," I said.
"What?" Nithia asked.
Alara took the flask from my hand. "It is as I said. The veil has been lifted. Your journey here is complete now."
My heart started pounding because I knew what she meant. I knew she was right. I knew this wasn't a dream!
I grabbed the side of the bed mat with each hand to brace myself. "This is impossible. How? Why?"
Nithia turned to Alara. "So, you were able to complete the task alone?"
Alara tilted her head slightly. "As best I could. His body has already begun to respond, as you can see. But the return of his skills will happen more slowly. His other skills, I mean."
Nithia looked ashamed. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you, Alara. You've done so much for me since you took me and my sister in. I just couldn't-"
"It's okay, Nithia. This was never what you asked for. It was wrong of me to ask you to take over your sister's role. She chose her path. You have every right to do the same."
I hopped out of bed and stood up. "Okay! I need some answers."
Nithia gasped and drew her hand to her mouth. She turned her face away from me, but then slowly nudged back a little to sneak another glimpse despite herself.
Alara glanced below my waist and giggled.
"What?" I looked down. Morning woody. "Right." I gestured a mea culpa toward Nithia. "Sorry." After looking around for a second to locate my boxers, I gave up on them and instead pulled one of the blankets from the bed and held it in front of my offending member.
Nithia stopped pretending to avert her eyes, and instead stared at me—the rest of me, I mean. "You're so much bigger now."
Alara giggled again.
"It's a morning thing," I said.
I stretched slightly, as much as I could while holding the blanket in place.
Huh?
For the first time since I woke up, I actually noticed myself—my muscles. I was bigger. A lot bigger. "What the hell?"
I never really worked out, not in the gym with weights, anyway. I was never exactly skinny, but I'd never been jock-level buff. And this—I looked myself over again, flexing my pecs and curling my arm which wasn't holding the blanket over my manhood—this was HGH and steroids shit.
My heart felt like it was going to explode. Where was I? Why? What happened to me?
I fell back into a seated position on the bed.
"Somebody tell me what's going on, please." But somehow I already knew, sort of. I just had to hear someone say it to me.
Alara turned to Nithia. "Gather some roots and berries for breakfast. I'll talk with Den."
Nithia nodded, then glanced at me—her eyes widening again—before leaving the hut.
For the next ten minutes, I sat in stunned silence as Alara explained to me how I came to be in her world, which she called Galderia. She told me how she, as Priestess of Carnera, had the responsibility of serving the Carneran Guardian. Then she told me I was the new guardian. She said she had for many moons been praying for me to come, ever since she felt the death of the previous guardian, Balfin. She had spent day and night pouring her desire up to the heavens. When she heard the heavens answer her plea, she told me, she was given the power to reach out across worlds and summon a champion, a would-be conquerer, someone of great strength and unyielding courage.
"And now you are here," she said.
Her crazy-ass story looped through my head. I tried to make sense of it. To understand how it could be possible. But I knew it was not only possible, deep inside I knew it to be true.
"Fuck me."
"So, soon?" she asked.
"What?" I lifted my eyes from whatever had been in front of my blank stare. "Oh, no. It's a figure of speech."
"Oh, I see," she said, but I could see she didn't really know what I meant.
I held my hands in front of me and turned up my palms. Then I made them into fists, squeezing and appreciating my thick forearms. "So, I'm stuck here?"
"If you're asking whether you can return to your home, then no. I know it must've been a great sacrifice for you. I saw the many great deeds you did for your people—the terrible monsters you slew, the women you protected, and the man who fought by your side. What was his name? Conan?"
"What?"
"I know it was selfish of me to take you from your world, but our champion had fallen. When the gods bestowed upon me the right and the power to choose another for our people, I reached out with the guidance of the gods and found you. I knew someone who had done so much, who had defeated so many terrifying enemies, was the man we needed."
"You're fucking kidding me."
"No. I saw into your mind. Well, not saw exactly, more like felt. But the thoughts, the images, the experiences you carried in your mind made it clear you were the one."
This is just balls. I got zapped to another world by who knows what kind of power because this woman thought I was a Conan-level badass? I've fudged a resume to get a job once or twice, but this is over the top.
"Why didn't you just pull Conan here instead?" Seemed just as plausible. This whole scenario was bullshit. I'd have sworn I WAS still dreaming, but whatever kind of crazy fuck magic she worked on me made me all too certain this wasn't a dre
am. I wanted to think I was crazy, but I knew that wasn't true either. She may have given me the best two hours of my life last night, but she gave me absolute clarity too—in my mind, unshakeable and undeniable. Clarity that this world is all too real, and clarity that I just got screwed in more ways than one.
She looked off to one side out of the corners of her eyes. "I did try to pull Conan here first, actually, but I couldn't. I'm sorry you lost your friend. When I couldn't draw him here, or even feel him directly with my power, I knew he must've died in one of the many battles the two of you fought in together."
I couldn't believe what she was telling me. I wanted to explain her mistake, but the thought of doing so sounded too exhausting. I decided to leave the conversation for another time. At least now I knew how I got here, sort of. And I knew why she chose me. Yeah, that's not going to play out well.
I looked at her face. She was a total knockout, not only below the neck. The whole package. So what if she had a good bit of crazy to go along with. Probably needed it in this place. I didn't have the heart to crash her misplaced hopes.
"Thank you for telling me," I said.
"You're welcome, Den. You're the first time I've used the power. My mother brought the last Guardian to our world. I was only a child then. I knew I would do the same someday. It is one of the roles of the Priestess of Carnera, a mantel she handed down to me before she passed."
I looked at my muscular arms and chest. "And this?"
"I had to do it alone," she said. "To summon a Guardian properly requires all seven sisters of the order. I wasn't even sure I would succeed at all. I'm sorry I brought you here in the undeveloped form you were. If I had my sisters with me, you would have arrived fully formed, and our love making wouldn't have been necessary." She averted her eyes for a split second. "But I'm glad it was."
So, I was underdeveloped? Gee, thanks for the compliment. I only nodded, deciding to ride out the rest of her explanation and ignore the unintentional slap in the face.
"But don't worry," she said. "Our union last night helped bring you fully to who you are. With more time," she looked down and to the side slightly, "and more such unions, your body will return to what you were before. You will regain the skill you had as a warrior too."
Oh, shit. That could be a problem—not the sex part, but the what I was before part.
The next thing she told me was a huge relief, given her expectations of me, and frankly the fact that I was digging my new more muscular body.
"The remainder of your strength still resides in me. The power the gods channeled into me for this purpose will restore you, using all of what I have felt and seen as I reached out and found you. The images and thoughts and feelings you carried in you were so vivid I drew them into me, knowing I would need them to pour back into you when you arrived. So," her emerald eyes gazed intensely into mine, "when you lie with me I return to you what I saw you to be on your world."
So, I'm basically turning into Conan, because she confused some artwork and my daydreams with my real life? Oh, shit. And, she's up for sexing me over and over to make sure it takes?
I just stared at her for a moment, soaking in every inch of her body. She knelt on the floor in front of me and swayed her hips ever so slightly forward, giving a little more prominence to her chest as she let her arms dangle to her sides with her palms upturned enough to suggest she was offering herself to me.
It was time to man up, I decided. "You and your people need me." What can I say, I'm a standup guy. "I'll do what I need to do."
She exhaled strongly as she clearly was overcome with joy at my words. She leaned in and hugged me tightly, causing us both to tip back onto the bed. "Thank you, Den. Thank you."
I wrapped my arms around her and glided one hand down to once again enjoy the feel of her ass cheek.
"As Priestess," she said, "I am here to serve you."
"I appreciate that," I said. "I'll be taking you up on that offer."
I was about to suggest we make another go at it right then, but Nithia came through the door.
"Oh, sorry," she said. "I didn't know you were…"
Alara turned her head to see Nithia, tickling my chest with her hair as she did.
"I have explained everything to Den," she said to Nithia gleefully. "And he has accepted his role."
Accepted hitting the jackpot with on-demand gorgeous babe sex, and a new muscled-up physique? Yeah, I'm no idiot.
Nithia stood a few feet from us. She was holding a flat wicker basket filled with berries and roots. "And he will face off against the Dark One when he comes? Even though our last champion was slain?"
"He is our Guardian," Alara said. "Of course, he will."
Fuck. I'm an idiot.
Chapter 4
After Nithia had come in and made a point of bringing up the Dark One, my mood soured on the whole I've-been-transported-to-a-crazy-fantasy-world thing. Given the circumstances—and the fact that I couldn't get back home, at least as far as I knew—I decided to keep my disappointment to myself. It wasn't the not being able to go home again. After all, with my parents gone—dad shot protecting an elderly woman during a convenience store robbery two years ago and mom being swept under by Houston floodwaters as she helped a child into the rescue boat a year before that—I was only giving up a few friends, most of which I hadn't seen in quite a while anyway, and the basic simple pleasures of college life.
Of course, I also didn't mention to Nithia or Alara that the idea of fighting someone called the Dark One scared the shit out of me. The most fighting I'd ever done was playing Overwatch and Killer Instinct at a friend's house before I left my hometown for college.
Sure, I'd watched tons of fighting—the Conan movies, Red Sonja, Bone and Blood, Enter the Dragon, and a ton of others. Maybe, with my new muscled-up body, that'll be enough, I thought.
Who was I kidding? I'm gonna die. Maybe not today. Maybe not next week. But whenever this Dark One character comes back to town, I'm toast. I don't even have a weapon. Not that I'd know how to use it. But, maybe I should look into that.
"Are you ready?" Alara said, as she walked up behind me.
I'd been leaning against the wall of the stone hut, just outside the door. She had just come from a nearby pool which was fed by a stream about ten minutes walk through the forest. I'd been there an hour ago to wash up. I thought she was going to stay with me and do the same when she showed me where it was, but she said she needed to get back to check on some traps she had in the woods. When I returned from washing, she and Nithia took their turn in the pool. I had played the gentleman and fought my urge to stay with them when I saw Nithia looking uncomfortable with me lingering.
"Yeah," I said, turning to see Alara. She was still wet from bathing. Evidently she forgot to bring a towel. The light tan cloth of her two-piece had been putting in a good effort at soaking up the water from her skin, and now her outfit clung to her like a couple of semi-transparent patches of soggy cheesecloth.
"Is Nithia coming?"
We were heading to town.
"She is," Alara said, glancing behind her.
I saw Nithia come out of the woods and head toward us. She glanced down at her chest a couple of times as she walked across the clearing to join us. When she stepped up to us, she looked a little embarrassed.
"You okay?" I said, forcing myself not to look at her top, which was just as wet and just as transparent as Alara's. Okay, I looked anyway.
"Uh, yeah," she said. She gestured toward the other side of the clearing. "Let's go. It's a long walk."
"Ladies first," I said, bowing slightly. I might've grinned a little.
Alara grabbed my wrist and pulled me along as she started for the other side of the clearing. "Come on."
I saw her knowing glance at me as she dragged me in front of Nithia.
We walked through thick woods for a couple of hours, some of it narrow well-trod dirt paths, some of it through seemingly unspoiled territory. Alara seemed to know where we wer
e going, and so I followed. Nithia chose to walk in the rear of our little group. She didn't talk much, but Alara and I did. She told me about the lands around us, about her mother and where her family had come from, and about the three closest towns—one of which we were walking to now.
The woods looked like what you'd expect from any untamed land in one of the temperate woodland areas on Earth. I saw a few small lizards, several birds—though they were high in the trees, so I couldn't make them out too clearly—and, sticking out from patches of wild forest undergrowth, bushy tails, which I assumed belonged to squirrels or some similar creatures. The birdsong was unusual, but I never fancied myself a birdwatcher. So, it wasn't necessarily alien-sounding. In addition to the birds, our footfalls on the dirt, and the sporadic breeze rustling the leaves and making some of the high longer branches creak, I heard a smattering of croaks, tiny high-pitched barks, and clicks coming from indeterminate places around us.
It must rain often here. I could smell the dampness in the forest floor, and the farther we walked the more humidity I could feel. It wasn't unbearable, but it was less pleasant than the air back where the stone cottage was. After the first half hour or so, we had been walking mostly downhill. Evidently the stone cottage sat atop a fairly large hill, if not a small mountain. I didn't realize it before because the wall of trees surrounding the clearing where I'd first met Alara and Nithia limited the view.
Austin, Texas has its fair share of nature trails—my favorite being alongside the river just south of downtown—and I walked them occasionally on weekends when I wasn't working or studying. This would have been just as relaxing if it weren't for the fact that I didn't have any shoes and at least once every five minutes some pointy rock or well-hidden barb pricked the bottom of one of my feet, causing me to wince before I buried my reaction to avoid embarrassment. Neither Alara nor Nithia wore shoes, and they didn't seem to have any problem. It wasn't as if their soles were hobbit-feet looking—certainly not Alara's. I'd seen and felt hers all over. Maybe they just had tougher skin, I thought. Maybe I'm just a college city boy way out of his element. I certainly looked like it, walking through the forest with only my boxers on—light blue, with vertical white stripes. Too bad she didn't portal me here when I had the rest of my clothes on, and my tennis shoes.
Dennis the Conqueror: A Harem Fantasy (Sword and Sorority Book 1) Page 3
