by Naomi Lucas
“Females of my kind do not have full, rounded tits,” he said, his dark gazed focused upon them. “There’s nothing soft about them like these.”
“There’s nothing soft about you,” she whimpered when he pinched her.
“You’ll be my soft.”
He tugged at her nipples and rubbed them in quick circles, his head bowed, watching them. She grasped his wrists to keep her seated on his bulge. Aldora squirmed as the pressure became uncomfortable, and the pawing became obsessive, demanding, and raw. She pulled back, but was stilled by his growl. Not even the young men she had slept with in Thetras acted so consumed with her body, so intent on possessing it. A sliver of fear coursed through her.
Vedikus isn’t human.
His eyes met hers with a demonic smile. His horns glinted green from the low light. “I will not want to share your mother’s milk with our offspring.”
She pursed her lips but was attacked again by his. They beat her back and sucked on her own and she winced from the pain. Vedikus drew back to soften the blow, licking the hurt away. Aldora squeezed his wrists.
His mouth drew away from hers, trailing down her neck to flick his tongue over the tips of her nipples. His tongue was larger, rougher, with a slight sandpaper effect to accompany its wetness, and the abraded feel of it left her hungering for more, for it to continue its trail past her breasts. He tongued her nipples, easing the soreness from his fingers. Aldora arched into his mouth. He sucked and pulled, sending her body dancing upward seeking relief.
She grabbed his horns and tensed for the onslaught. His hand grasped the front of her pants and pulled, drawing her into him until she heard the snap of the seams rip and the release of the cloth. She gasped and pushed back. “My only clothes,” she murmured, finding it hard to exhale.
“You’ll wear me, female,” he grunted, tearing off what was left of her clothing and bringing it to his face. He buried his nose in it. Aldora let go of him and covered her breasts, unsure of her nudity.
She watched as his gaze met hers over her ruined coverings. “We can’t stay here forever.”
Vedikus didn’t answer as he breathed in the scent of her clothes, making her nervous. His muscles strained, hardening before her eyes. His bulge shifted where she sat on it, swelling as his body grew. The change wasn’t subtle, it was the same as when he fought, and each second that it continued, it built. Her chest tightened and her brow furrowed. She shifted away slightly, feeling the need to distance herself from him, but the moment she moved, he dropped her clothes and pressed her back into the stone floor.
Her world spun as she was rolled over, pawed at, and she was shocked by how much smaller she was to him. His hands raised her hips off the ground, and Aldora flattened her palms out in front of her, bracing herself.
She felt the sting of his cock press heavily at her opening where it slipped across her exposed sex. It was wet, wetter than just her own essence leaking out of her, and she stiffened wondering what it was.
“Wait!” she cried, but it came out too late. She released a shriek that ended on a long, pained moan. He slammed into her, sending her body forward. Everything went black as she was stretched forcibly, brutally, harder than any time before.
He grabbed her hair and raised her cheek from the floor. “If you do not mount me, I will mount you, female. Do not presume that I will beg,” he snarled, pounding her hips into the ground.
She didn’t get a chance to adjust to him, didn’t have a moment to ease into his possession as dirt coated her lips. She had never had a chance. From their first meeting to being thrown over the wall, there had never been any ease of transition.
She came out stronger for it in the end.
Aldora relaxed as much as she could and accepted his ferocity, giving herself over to it and letting it fill her up. Her nails raked across the stone floor, catching a small trail of dust beneath their beds. Her lips kissed the ground as his legs hit the back of hers. They were velvet and slightly rough, the hair that thickened across them at once soft and coarse. Like fur.
She lifted her front off the stone that abraded her skin and onto her forearms, shuddering as she was rammed forward and then yanked back, each happening in rapid succession but with changing momentum. His large, torn hands grasped her waist and kept her in place.
“Please,” she gasped, finding strands of her tangled hair plastered to her face, distorting the room. Vedikus squeezed her middle and she dipped her head. His bull’s cock stretched her sex and filled her to the brink, forcing her to take more. She cried out.
Her core tightened, and her back was blasted with a gust of hot air. Aldora pressed her forehead into the floor and it scrapped for several thrusts before she picked herself up again and reached between her thighs.
The grunts coming from behind built, arching her lower half up and down quickly off the floor. There were jolts of pain but they lessened with each pump of his hips. Aldora found the strength to press back and meet his next thrust, finding his cock growing increasingly slippery. That slick spread to dribble down her legs and between their rocking hips, speeding up their movements.
Her knees knocked the floor.
Aldora strummed her clit and dared to look over her shoulder, through the strands of her hair.
Vedikus reared up, his head bowed, his gleaming green-lit horns aimed at her head. He leered at where their bodies met, staring at where his cock stabbed her. Heat pooled her sex. I’m finally filled with him. She dug her nails into the ground and tried to hold herself up. Vedikus’s mouth lowered into a sneer just as she was shunted forward.
A roar echoed off the walls.
Aldora dropped to the ground and she felt the heavy weight of his body shell her own, ramming in quick, short thrusts. More grunts were strangled out, and a moan left her lips as Vedikus filled her with seed. It gushed from his cock, out of her sex, and pooled down her thighs.
She thought she could smell it, was almost able to convince herself that she had. It was salty and raw.
Time passed and his shallow ramming continued, his breaths fanned the back of her head. She squirmed, uncomfortable beneath him as she was forced to take even more of his spurts. Aldora shivered and tapped at her clit, moving weakly in the small space she had and found her own bliss. She found it again as his bull’s head rubbed endlessly against a pleasurable spot inside her, milking more contractions from her sex. What had started out as a frenzy turned into an obsessive need to take pleasure from each other without giving any back.
She danced under him, her body writhing, seeking more.
“Vedikus...” It was a long-winded, charged moan between spasms. “W-what’s happening?”
A thick arm snaked between her and the floor, picking her up and moving her until she straddled his lap. She slid down his length, his prick spreading her wider. Aldora winced. Her palms moved up his arms, over his thick neck to cup his face. The soles of her feet touched the hard plates of his hooves and she wiggled her toes against the strangeness of him.
“You’re mating a minotaur.” His voice was gruff. He jostled her and her insides quivered. Another spurt shot from his cock and she braced for the pressure. It covered their privates, their legs, even the stone floor where her knees now glided across. “I could not wait any longer for my prize.”
“No,” she gasped as his hands gripped her and moved her on him. Aldora buried her face into the crook of his neck and relinquished all control. She chased her bliss as he used her.
Vedikus quickened his fucking, pistoning up while slamming her back down.
“Vedikus,” she wailed, every fiber of her body shaking. It was too raw, too wet. Aldora wrapped her fingers around his bull horns and held on.
When it became too much, he rose up, taking her lower half with him. Her upper back hit the cold stone with force. Her legs fell to the sides, spread eagle as he hammered brutally into her, his meaty legs trapping her in position.
Vedikus roared again over her face, coming like a beast i
n heat, spearing her body in half.
Aldora sank to the floor, spent, used, and warmed to her darkening soul. Steam filled the air between them, rising from his nose and mouth as he held her bruisingly, and with each second that passed, with each twitch of his cock, his lust diminished into spent relief. She licked the tears from her lips. He removed his hands from her waist, making her shudder when his bulge pulled out.
He peered down at her sharply, nostrils flaring, eyes alight with arrogance. Conquest. Dark intent. She could do nothing but catch her breath and gaze up at him.
“You look best when being bred, Aldora.”
She didn’t think she had it in her to blush again, but felt one on her cheeks all the same. Many things had changed in the past span of days, but this was one change she was at peace with. The one thing that gave her power. Vedikus had proven his intent with her safety and his need for her, and she knew she had proven her loyalty.
“Have I been?” she asked softly.
“When a bull ruts for pleasure, his seed does not need to be released to find it, but when we rut for real, it is a messy affair.” He cupped her aching sex making her hips jerk, and his hand came away with clear, thick cum. “I was determined to have you.”
“You do not know yet then?” If she had been bred. They looked at his hand. He dipped it into the water and cleaned it with the displaced towel, then he wiped them both down. The water was cool against her skin.
“My body has been priming since I first heard your voice. Days of torment plagued me to lay my claim.”
She remembered his persistent erection. It comforted her knowing she had not been sacrificed to the maze as a virgin. She would not have known what was entailed otherwise.
“Was it because I was a human?”.
“It was your voice.”
“My voice?” she inquired further.
“It was... I needed more of it.”
Aldora licked her lips. “I found yours pleasing as well,” she admitted weakly. “I still do.” It was the first thing of his that had filled her, had made her feel something more than fear in this place.
Vedikus dropped the cloth and moved to the fire pit. He picked up the blackened logs within and breathed upon them. She curled her arm under her head and watched as golden light cast out the eerie green of the room. The walls lit up in shades of silver-hued yellow and licks of copper, and she sighed, at once comforted by the light but disquieted, seeing Alepos’s body again in her head.
Aldora turned away and faced the archway that led deeper into the temple. Something flitted deep inside and she lifted up, squinting into the darkness.
She’s watching. Her mouth parted to call out right when a heavy arm draped over her side, and a broad chest pressed into her back. Vedikus pulled her against him with a weary sigh. “You have pleased me this night, human. I will remember.”
Her eyes closed briefly as she let his words envelop her. Pleased. She tested out her muscles and found them languid where they had been tense and that a contented, wary exhaustion had replaced her need to fight. Aldora pressed the back of her hand to her lips and settled in. Vedikus’s chest warmed her back.
“You’ve pleased me too,” she whispered as they rested.
Chapter Seventeen
***
She could not sleep, her gaze never leaving the shadows. Vedikus had long since fallen into slumber beside her. She waited for the hag to approach; Aldora knew she was there, and it was only a matter of time.
When the girl finally revealed herself, Aldora was ready, taking a moment to slip out from under her minotaur’s weight. She hesitated, waiting to see if she had awoken him, but his arm relaxed to the floor, and his dreams remained undisturbed.
The hag—with the face of a young girl—handed her an old, frayed, white shift which Aldora donned silently, listening to the popping snap of the dying fire.
Aldora followed the young woman from the room and deeper into the stone passageways. The tunnels were similar to those she encountered within the barrier lands, but less overgrown, less wild, and were clearly part of an overall design. Despite outward appearances, it was a lived in structure that was taken care of. She trailed her fingers along the wall when the vines near it suddenly burst out toward her with thorns. She snatched her hand back, remembering their pain.
“They protect themselves.” The girl looked back. “Like everything else here, they’re a product of living in a cruel world.”
Aldora tangled her fingers into the shift the girl had given her. “What’s your name?”
“Hypathia. No? Nithers, then,” the girl said with a sly grin. “Maybe my name is Alepos, Aldora, or Vedikus. What does it matter?”
What? Aldora’s eyes widened. “How do you know?”
“I sensed your presence, and I knew your minotaur’s intention to come here the moment you entered the wetlands. I don’t just let anyone find this place. You can call me Calavia.” The girl turned away and continued down the hall, only to duck into the shadows of another room. Aldora sped up to catch her. “Those who seek to raid or to hurt me or mine will never find this place.”
The vines stopped at the entrance to accumulate into large masses around the doorway where the hag entered. Beyond was an altar. It was cluttered with candles of every length and size, and more than half were lit. The wax fell in thick streams down their stems to drip off the sides where it collected in a puddle on the floor. Calavia sat next to where it ended, like a slow-building wave of molasses.
Aldora wanted to rush to her side and pull her away despite the wax not moving. The sudden urge made Aldora pause, and she remained where she was, taking the girl in. Calavia’s hair was as long as her own, but darker, with strands that seemed to absorb the light instead of reflecting it. It was unwashed and matted with visible mud caked it, making it appear heavy, and it fell in hardened clumps over her rags.
She’s untrustworthy. And yet, Aldora’s hands ticked at her sides to touch her.
“Are you human?” she asked, ducking under the archway, making sure not to touch the vines.
“Not like you. I can’t repel the curse, but I was human, and still am in some small ways. I’ve never felt the sunlight. I believe to be human is to miss it but how can I miss something I’ve never felt?”
“I don’t understand?” Aldora stopped a short distance away. “The sun has nothing to do with humanity.”
“It does if that’s where our people come from.” Calavia idly caressed the stiff wax. “I can never cross the barrier even if I made it to the wall.”
“Have you tried?” Could she help me get back? Aldora glanced at the shadowy exit behind her. Vedikus was asleep somewhere beyond, healing from the hurts he sustained on her behalf, drunk on her blood. Filled with my blood as I’m filled with his seed. She shifted on her feet, feeling the thick cum inside her, still leaking out from her core where he had filled it so entirely. Even though she had cleaned herself, more replaced what was taken away, reminding her she would never be free from him... or the life he had planned for her.
I could be with child...
She placed her hands on her belly. I could be...
“I have not.” The hag looked at her sharply, scattering her excited thoughts. “I would not try even if I could. There is nothing on the other side that appeals to me.”
“Not even safety?” Aldora shook her head. “Never mind. Anyone with magic in Savadon is considered deviant and evil...” she trailed off, considering. “There’s nothing for you there.”
Calavia smiled up at her. “Apparently not.”
“But I’m...at a loss. You look human, you have magic, and Vedikus knows about you. How have you survived in such a horrid place alone? I’ve seen more...things die trying to capture me than I can name, even chasing me across the terrain.” She thought about the centaurs, of Alepos’s burning horseflesh.
The hag broke off a piece of wax and began to move it between her hands. It changed shape, taking on the malleability of putty b
ut did not drip between the girl’s fingers. Eventually, it took on the shape of a doll that resembled the hag, down to the details of the wrinkles of Calavia’s rags.
“Creatures such as me have nothing to offer but their ability to manipulate. I was born here in this very bog, long ago, back when the labyrinth was smaller, and the walls bordered the mountains. Prayer was a bordertown that protected the lands of humans from what was within. The day I was conceived was the day this place succumbed. Everyone who survived, including my mother, became a thrall except for me. It happens that way sometimes.” Calavia placed the doll back onto the mountain of wax where it lay within its shape, undisturbed. “Bad things always have a bad start. My mother is still alive, wandering through what is left if you’d like to see her.”
Aldora shook her head and wiped her palms against the folds of her shift, remembering why she was there to begin with. “The curse made them that way,” she stated more than questioned.
“Yes.”
“Vedikus brought me here because you could cure it.”
“I can.”
“Will you cure me?”
Calavia reached into her shirt and plucked out a small vial-shaped cylinder made from the same wax she sat next to. Like the rest, it was a pale, pasty white with a tinge of yellow, but smoothed to a gleam even beyond that of the detailed doll. “Everything comes at a price.”
Aldora would pay it. “What is yours?” She could already feel other changes happening within her body beside her abrupt loss of smell and taste. Her hands had yet to leave her belly, and she clenched them together.
“A life.”
She immediately thought of the possibility of the child that could be in her womb, and the fear she hadn’t felt earlier crashed into her. “I don’t have a life to give,” she breathed, dropping her hands.
“I think you do.” Calavia pointedly looked at Aldora’s stomach.
Aldora stiffened but didn’t take a step back. “I don’t. I can’t give you that, please ask for something else,” she said, leaving the words unspoken between them. Did she want to know if she carried? Part of her screamed to know while the other part flooded her with panic.
