by Noah Layton
Murmurs of agreement were in abundance. I couldn’t have been happier.
‘All right, let’s get to work,’ I said, picking up a shovel.
‘What are you doing, Jack?’ One of the satyrs asked.
‘Digging. You didn’t really think that I was just going to set you off on this and then walk away, did you?’
In a world where betrayals were easy and there was no police to call when things went to shit, I knew one of the only ways to win over new tribal members was to get my hands dirty too.
That wasn’t the only reason, though. Sitting around on my ass and treating my tribe members like minions wasn’t my deal. It didn’t sit right with me, no matter how much power I had.
For the next few hours we heaved away at the dirt from below, crafting the beginnings of the trench. The excess dirt piled up quickly, but it was working as an embankment. The Frisian horses could be placed atop it, allowing for an even bigger drop onto the brutal trap waiting below.
It would work perfectly. After several hours of labour we had emptied out a thirty-yard long trench that arced perfectly around the spikes that barred the fence.
I called it for the day and we returned to the land.
I crossed to Talia’s hut and knocked on the door, ready to craft the cider with the ingredients she had farmed over the past few days from her small patch of land. The crops had been taken and the fruit harvested from the tree.
‘Talia? You there?’
I drummed my fingers on the door again then headed inside. Her bed was empty, and so was the hut.
Where the hell is she?
I headed to the treehouse, picking up a bucket of water on the way there and mopping the sweat from my brow.
‘Have you any of your girls seen…?’
I opened the door to sounds of giggling, and looked up to see my wives sitting around, joined by Talia.
‘Oh, hello Jack,’ she said, leaping up to her feet sharply – so sharply that she caught me off guard. ‘I thought you were out at the perimeter.’
‘I was. I’ve been out there for hours.’
‘Hours? Is that really how long it has been?’
‘Pretty much,’ I smiled. ‘Have you harvested the ingredients?’
‘They’re all ready.’
‘Head to the Potions Totem and I’ll bring a barrel over.’
Talia sauntered across the room gracefully. She looked me ambiguously in the eyes with her own large, deep green eyes, then slinked past me and headed out the door.
‘So you got over her sneaking onto our land and watching us have sex the other day?’ I asked, setting the bucket down by the bathtub.
‘It was more the sneaking-up part than the watching us have sex part that bothered me,’ Lara opined, pulling up her smooth purple hair into a ponytail. ‘Speaking as a hunter the first part really pissed me off, but speaking as a girl who really likes to fuck, and fuck hard, I actually found it kind of… Hot.’
‘I must agree,’ Santana said. ‘And she is very knowledgeable, if a little manic. She told me all about the volumes that used to be kept at her tribe’s library.’
‘So we like her now?’ I smiled. ‘Just like that?’
‘Definitely,’ Ariadne said. ‘Especially considering she’s about to get us all drunk.’
‘I think that points got everybody sold,’ I laughed.
I postponed my bath and headed outside to the Potions Totem. Talia perched on the edge, watching me descend the steps and cross to her.
‘You need to bathe,’ she laughed.
‘Do I seriously smell that bad?’
‘No, but my sense of smell is excellent compared to yours.’
‘Sorry about that.’
‘No, I… Actually like it.’
She smirked at me and glanced sharply down at my chiselled chest and soaked abs. It was a look that lasted a fraction of a second, but we both knew that I had seen it.
I just wasn’t going to bring it up.
‘So what do I need?’
‘Umm, let’s see… Okra, hops, the sour apples, and yeast. Here.’
She offered a hand and I took it, feeling the softness of her skin against mine.
She traded me the goods, and I turned my attention to the potions table as Talia watched from my side.
Craft: Barrel of Wolfapple Cider
Requires: Wolfapple x20, Yeast x5
After transferring the necessary ingredients, I pressed accept, and the table began to vibrate as a loading bar appeared above it.
Talia and I took a few steps back and watched as the bar filled up to the hilt. The moment it finished, the barrel clunked into place before the table.
‘No tap,’ I said. ‘Guess I won’t be doing a handstand and downing this thing in one, huh?’
‘Pardon?’ Talia asked confusedly.
‘Nothing. Do me a favour; pay a visit to everybody and let them know there’s ale here if they want to fill up their canteens. A lot of people around here don’t know you, but I’m sure they’ll love you after this.’
‘You think?’ Talia said, her eyes lighting up above a perfect smile.
‘Definitely, why wouldn’t they?’
Without another word she took off towards Tormus and Eri’s house, speeding through the grass and the crops.
Weird. Half the time she’s holier-than-thou, the other half she’s hyperactive and friendly. I hope these mood swings don’t keep up.
I returned to the well and filled the bathtub up, relaxing for a little while. My wives headed outside with their canteens to try the ale, and as I dozed I could hear their pleasant voices practically singing me to sleep.
When I came back to reality, though, the voices had been joined by a cluster of others.
‘Are you coming, Tall-Man?’ Elera asked, heading into the treehouse. ‘You have been a long time.’
‘How long have I been up here for?’
‘Enough time for a quarter of the barrel to be gone.’
‘A quarter?’ I exclaimed. ‘How much have you girls had?’
‘Only a canteen’s worth each, but many others have joined us.’
I towelled off and pulled on some clothes, then headed out with Elera to see the clearing surrounding my home filled with my tribe members. Everyone was enjoying themselves and drinking deeply from the barrel of ale.
Nightfall had come and the small clearing was scattered with torches, but the place couldn’t have been more alive; things were even more lively than they had been a few nights ago when we had feasted and listened to the bard play her music.
‘All right, all right,’ the bard said, lute in one hand and mug of ale swinging from the other. ‘Who would like to hear a tale of forbidden love and fearsome monsters, with plenty of blood and fucking?’
There was a raucous cheer from the members of my tribe. I couldn’t blame them; these were the stories that everybody wanted to hear, even if they wouldn’t admit to it.
Hell, I even wanted to hear them myself, if it hadn’t been for the absence of one of our members.
Talia was nowhere to be seen. Considering she had been so excited about everybody trying the ale she had been responsible for making it seemed a little weird. She was the toast of the freaking tribe.
I took up a few spare canteens to bring to the few members still on lookout duty, starting with Alorion.
‘I am more than happy with my Corinthian’s, Jack,’ he said after I arrived and offered it to him. ‘In fact, I think you will all struggle to keep up with me.’
‘Just be sure nobody decides to break in like Talia did. Have you seen her, by the way? She’s not at the party, and I’ve checked her house, not there either.’
‘I haven’t seen her for hours.’
I delivered canteens of ale to the fox-people at the eastern and southern lookout towers; the fox-man on the southern post finally informed me that Talia had offered to trade shifts with his kin to the west.
Small fires had lit the other three posts up, b
ut the one to the west was bathed in darkness, and that was exactly where I found Talia.
‘How come you aren’t at the party?’ I asked, making my way up the steps. ‘Everybody’s adoring your ale.’
Talia looked over her shoulder at me and smiled in the moonlight, then sat back in her chair.
‘Oh, I couldn’t be happier,’ she said genuinely. ‘I just wanted some time to myself.’
She stretched herself out in her chair, and it was only then that I realized she was wearing something other than the outfit that I had got her.
She was wearing a sumptuous red dress that hugged her slender figure, gripping her round breasts and wrapping up her firm behind. She looked incredible.
‘What’s with the dress? I never knew you had that in your inventory.’
Talia paused, then looked over at me with her wide green eyes.
‘Okay, there’s something else I didn’t tell you.’
‘Oh, god,’ I laughed. ‘Another secret? What is it now? No, don’t tell me – you’re part of an infiltration mission to steal all of my crops for the cold snap. If that’s it then just be real with me.’
‘You are such a bastard,’ she grinned involuntarily. ‘No, it’s just… I’m not used to people paying any attention to me.’
‘How can that be? You had a whole squad of mercenaries chasing after you and you think people don’t pay attention to you?’
‘That’s not exactly the attention that I was talking about. I meant… My old tribe.’
‘Your old tribe? I thought you were a princess there. Surely you had people at your beck and call all day.’
‘I was a princess, technically, but… I was the last of 23 kin in my family.’
‘You had 22 siblings?’ I asked incredulously. ‘How?’
‘My father took many wives as all tribe masters do, and I was the last of his offspring. I may as well have been a regular tribe member. But then even regular citizens are loved by their families. I was beyond that… I may as well have not existed at all. And there was nothing that I could do to impress any of them or gain their affections, no matter what I did.
‘But the funny thing is, even if I did loathe them… I only realized how much I loved my tribe when they were gone. I was so unnoticed that I slipped away without anybody realising, either my own people or the attackers that broke up my tribe and took everything from us.’
‘You still loved them, even when they didn’t care that you were dying?’
‘Love is a strange thing, especially when it comes to one’s people. I suppose I just miss them… My experiences have helped me with keeping myself hidden, though. I know how to slip away with moment’s notice… Until you found me.’
‘Which time, on the ship or above my bedroom?’
‘Both, I guess,’ she laughed.
‘Why did you come back in the first place, though?’ I asked.
‘Because…’ Talia paused, flicking her luscious hair out of her face. ‘You were the first person to show me some care, and when you offered me a place in your tribe, I just… Became scared. Until I realized that I had made the wrong decision. You’re one of the first people in years to actually notice me and not care about my ears, or my tail, for the wrong reasons, I mean.’
‘I just don’t like to see people being bullied, especially by assholes like that.’
‘It is more than that. There is a goodness in you that is rare out here, Jack. I have never met a man like you…’
‘Well, I don’t know what to say,’ I replied, handing a canteen of ale to her. We both took a drink. ‘I’m sure there are plenty of people like me out there, just nobody with a past like mine. Everybody’s loving your ale, by the way.’
‘My… I am not used to being so adored by people,’ Talia looked me up and down again as she had done a few hours ago. ‘And what do you think?’
I stared back at her in the darkness of the secluded platform, hearing the far-off laughs and conversations of my people.
‘I think it’s pretty fucking delicious.’
‘If you think that then you must not have drank much in your life.’
‘Believe me, that’s definitely not true.’
‘Your wives told me as much. They are all very beautiful… You seem to have a type, do you not?’
‘Beautiful women? What man doesn’t?’
‘And what do you think of me?’
‘I don’t know enough about you.’
‘About my figure? My ears, or my tail…?’
‘One of my wives is a nymph, and the other has a pair of fox-ears and furred feet. Why would they bother me?’
‘What about the rest of me…?’
Talia stood gracefully, her figure appearing in the moonlight that slipped in between the gap between the barrier and the roof. Her chest rose and fell with quivering breaths as she halted just before me in the moonlight.
She slowly ran her fingers into the thin straps of her dress at her shoulders and pulled them down over her arms. With nothing to hold itself up, the dress dropped to the ground around her ankles, exposing her naked body completely.
With the amount of daily satisfaction the girls gave me my needs were more than met. I should have been more than prepared to shirk off the attempts of seduction by a woman that I had just met.
But Talia’s naked body looked almost godly in the moonlight.
Her shoulders were propped back and her back arched, accentuating her perky round breasts and her hard, perfect nipples. The curve of her back led down to her round behind that perched out almost unnaturally.
Her green eyes were illuminated in the moonlight below the silhouette of her large furred ears, and suspended over her behind was the occasional sweep of her tail as it moved from side to side in the darkness.
‘I was going to ask again what you think of me now,’ she whispered delicately. ‘But a man’s body also has ways of speaking for itself…’
I had become hard as a rock beneath my pants. Talia dropped to her knees and crawled sexily on all fours towards me.
Still seated, I watched as she undid my belt buckle and pulled my pants down over my thighs to reveal my throbbing cock. Talia took me in her hand and massaged my shaft teasingly, her mouth falling open in amazement as she admired my size.
She pressed her tongue to my shaft, turning her head and running herself up and down me as she held me in her hand. I revelled at the sensation, my head falling back against the chair.
‘Oh, fuck…’
I wanted to watch her, to indulge in the sight of this Talia pleasuring my cock, but as she licked and lapped at me with her sensuous tongue all I could do was close my eyes and feel the perfect sensation of it.
My eyes flickered open to see her head bent low and her round, tight ass perked into the air, shaking back and forth. I sat up, pulling Talia closer to me as she took me into her mouth.
A jolt of pleasure coursed through my cock, my veins pulsing with feverish desire as I returned the favour, sliding a hand over her ass and running my fingers between her legs.
Just at the touch my fingers were soaked by her desirous wetness. Talia moaned in approval as I ran the tips of my fingers gently between her legs. She felt incredible and I couldn’t wait to take her, but she was way ahead of me.
Pressing her lips down around my cock, she slowly withdrew herself from me, inch by inch, lapping at me with her wet tongue as she did.
She stood effortlessly, presenting her stunning body to me before turning and accentuating her round behind right before me.
I ran my hands up her slender legs, admiring and caressing her ass as she lowered herself expertly to my throbbing dick. She didn’t even need to use her hands; she knew exactly where to find me, and the moment the head of my cock touched between her legs both of our bodies shook with anticipation.
Talia’s tail lifted up and wrapped over her shoulder as I held her firm, soft hips in my hands and felt her sink onto me. The head of my cock pushed into her hot pussy, rele
asing a groan of impossible pleasure from both of us.
Inch by inch she sank down onto me, her incredible tightness gripping the shaft of my cock, pulsating around me as she rested her hands on my legs.
‘Oh, gods…’ She whimpered. ‘Yes…’
She pulled from me and pushed her ass back down on my cock, filling herself up with my hard length as she fucked me.
I couldn’t believe how tight she felt around me. In the moonlight her tight, perfect body riding me not only felt amazing but looked it too. The furred ears perched atop her head outstretched fully in excitement.
She pushed herself down onto me, grinding her hips hard against me as she took all of my dick and held myself within her. I pressed my hands down on her hips, moving her harder and faster.
‘More… More…!’
Talia wrapped a hand over her mouth to compress her high moans. Her body suddenly shook uncontrollably as she came around my shaft, falling back onto me and pressing her back against my toned torso.
I wrapped my hands around her body, feeling her round breasts in my hands and positioning my feet against the ground before fucking her hard.
Another repressed moan exploded from the edges of her mouth as she came again, her walls clamping down around my shaft and sending me completely over the edge as I came uncontrollably into her.
I indulged in her perfect body, holding her to me as I filled her up with my seed until my orgasm subsided and we were left as a shaking, quivering mess.
‘Oh, fuck…’ Talia moaned, raising a shaking hand to her face and biting the tip of her nail as she turned to look over her shoulder at me with her large green eyes. ‘That was incredible…’
‘You’re telling me…’
Talia pulled from me and snuggled into the seat by my side. Her body felt right next to me, like it was supposed to be there.
***
I stirred and awoke, not because of the white daylight coming in through the trees but because of the cold.
