by Sam Ryder
Beat smiled and nodded at me. No, behind me, I realized. I twisted my neck and my gaze fell on her sleeping form. She was on her side, one hip thrust in the air. She was facing toward me, her sharp eyebrows and long lashes beautiful against her rich skin. Gosh, the last time I’d seen her sleep was back when I was a newb, having just survived the Circle. It seemed like ten lifetimes ago, a dream memory.
For her to be here was just short of miraculous.
I turned back to Beat. “Millania?”
“She’s a tough chick,” Beat said. “Tougher than you, Ryder. Already up and about, acting like a mother to her hens.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “And Stomp?”
A shadow fell over Beat’s eyes. “Our big ol’ boy is hanging in there, but he’s in bad shape. There simply wasn’t enough ooze to dress all his wounds. The Three promised to provide more as soon as they regain their strength.”
Honestly, the fact that the marmot was alive was more than I could hope for, but I still felt awful. He was here because of me. I tried to sit up, to unwrap my bandages, which I would gladly donate to him.
The room spun and Beat crawled over to help me back down. “Don’t even think about it. Your tiny bandages won’t make a difference. He needs buckets of the stuff. It will take time, but he has a good shot. He’s strong as hell.”
I slumped back down, closing my eyes until the wave of dizziness passed. Beat was right, as usual. It made me feel helpless that I couldn’t do anything for Stomp, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t do anything at all. We’d won a major battle, held off the Morgoss’s latest plot to destroy us. Hell, we’d killed an army of nasty critters whose only goal in life was to eat us and drink our blood.
It was time to make plans for the future, even if that only meant the next few days. But first I needed more information, so I knew what we were working with. “What’s the status of the dragon?”
“You mean Mrizandr?” Oh yeah, I’d forgotten he had a name. “He’s still sleeping, thankfully. I would hate for him to wake up before Vrill. I have a feeling he’ll spout fire first, ask questions never.”
There was something about the dragon’s actions that was gnawing at me. Once it—he—was free of the Morgoss’s influence, he had clearly attacked the Narzani while sparing the rest of us. Maybe it was because Vrill had been there, or maybe it was something else. Something not even the goddesses understood.
Something Vrill understood. I glanced at her again. Had her finger just twitched? She was still and silent, having rolled onto her back, her chest rising and falling. She was also wrapped in some ooze bandages, her scars hidden beneath them. “You wrapped us both, didn’t you?” I said, not turning to look at Beat.
“Don’t get all sappy on me, Ryder.”
“Just…thank you.”
“You would’ve done the same for me. Both of you.” That much was true, but still. What she’d done for us meant something.
Now I was certain Vrill’s finger had moved. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at me. Her tongue moved along her bottom lip. “I—I’m so hungry,” she said.
Of course she was. Her kind—the Lri Ay—required rejuvenation. In other words, sex. It was like food to them. Beat said, “I’ll leave you two to it. Be sure to rewrap the bandages when you’re done.” Then she was gone.
Vrill said, “Please.”
Of course I would help her. Of course I would. I just hated that to her our closeness was something to be consumed, like leafrat. I was leafrat. I gritted my teeth, angry at my own selfishness. I would hang the moon from the sky if this woman asked me to. I loved her. I wasn’t certain as to the extent of that love, how much was romantic versus friendship, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d die to save her.
And now all she was asking was for me to replenish her stores of energy. That I could do.
“Sam,” she said, and I realized I’d been looking through her, lost in my own thoughts, missing the fact that she’d been removing the ooze cloth from her skin, the armor from her chest and torso. Bright white scars remained on much of her dark skin, memories of the torture she’d endured at the hands of the Morgoss. The damage took nothing away from her beauty, which shone as bright as a lit torch. Her fingers curled over her luscious hip, tracing lines on her skin.
“I—yes. You can rejuvenate yourself with me. But you should know—”
“I already know,” she said. “You’re changed here.” She made a motion to my body, to my lips, where I felt one fang protruding. “But not here.” She reached out and touched my heart.
I nodded. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the changes in me didn’t matter to this strong, beautiful woman. “I’ll do this for you. Of course I will.”
A small smile played on her lips, but there was sadness in it too. Sadness that it had been so many days since we’d last been together. In a different world, perhaps, things would’ve transpired differently. “I need this, yes,” she said. “But I need it more with you.”
Those words on her lips meant something to me. She might come from a world, a race of people, where sex was required for sustenance, just like air or water or food. But I wasn’t just a snack to her. I believed her. She’d never lied to me before and I knew she never would.
I went to her, leaning down upon her strong body, my hands pressed into the ground on either side of her chest. Her arms wrapped around the back of my head and pulled me to her. Our kisses were slow and tentative at first, not because we’d forgotten how to experience each other, but because we both wanted to make it last.
She licked my bottom lip and laughed.
I laughed, too, feeling like I was in a dream. Ever since she was dragged through the mirror I’d tried to stay positive, but I’d never truly believed we’d be united like this. If this was a dream, it was the cruelest I’d ever experienced.
It wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t.
I tried to lick her back, but this time she lifted her head to catch my tongue in her mouth, swirling her own around it hungrily. Hungry for sex. Hungry for me. Under my loincloth, I was rock hard, but I delayed doing more than grinding against her.
Gently at first, but then with more vigor, she peeled off my ooze bandages until there were none left.
She rolled me over, nipping at my neck, her tongue moistening my skin before biting it gently. One of her hands cupped my cheek while the other tiptoed down my chest, my abdomen, pressing against the muscle, not as pronounced as when I’d been Protector, or even a Warrior, but more chiseled now. To her, I was a different experience this time. To me, she was the same sexy creature out of a dream who’d saved my life in the Circle.
So much time had passed. It might’ve been a second. A millisecond.
Her body was so familiar, my hands running down her sides and rounding the curves of her hips, the angles just as I remembered, burned into my mind. I cupped her ass and gave a gentle tug and she reared up, her breasts bouncing above me. One of my hands vacated its position to cup one, my thumb teasing her large nipple, which was firming up. I did a stomach crunch into a sitting position, my mouth closing around her breast, my tongue flicking at her nipple. I was careful not to puncture her with my fangs. She groaned and thrust her hips against me, spurring me on. My fingers played with her opposite nipple and then my tongue transitioned, giving equal time to both sides.
“Get inside me,” she demanded, which made me breathe out heavily, a mixture of laughter and effort. I wanted to make her feel everything I was feeling. I managed to release her breast long enough to grab the right part of my loincloth so I could pull it away.
Nothing separated us now, my erection sliding between her moist legs with just the right amount of friction. “By the…” I started. By the what? The goddesses? Hell no. This was by Vrill. Only by Vrill. “Vrill,” I said. “Holy…Vrill.”
Her name on my lips seemed to energize her and she dug her thrusts in deeper, deeper, grinding as much of her skin against me as possible. We were both sweating no
w, our skin wet, sliding easily against each other’s. She touched herself, playing with both nipples at once, an expression of ecstasy on her face as she thrust again and again. I helped her with both hands now, one positioned on the forward part of her hip, where I could feel the bone and skin and curve. My other hand was in the center of her ass, feeling both sides at once, pushing, pushing…
Her lips were parted now, her top teeth occasionally biting her bottom lip, her tongue rolling around. I pressed forward once more to kiss her, our tongues melding together, roiling like a windblown sea, unable to taste enough, always wanting more. Her chest was mashed against mine now and I could feel her hard nipples and the beat of her heart, which was pounding.
“Oh,” she said, a moaned word that spoke of intense feelings. Louder: “Oh!”
I slid in and out of her, my entire body tingling—I’m pretty sure my toes were going numb.
I found another level, one I could’ve never managed as a Protector but which my Seeker body allowed. I acted on reflex alone, wrapping both hands beneath her and lifting her into the air, pushing with my legs at the same time to keep me inside her as I stood. She wrapped her legs around behind me, her grip as taut as a vice. One of her hands reached down to grasp the bare portion of my shaft that wasn’t inside her. Her other hand stroked my jaw, my neck, fingers of fire burning a path on my skin.
She was a solar and lunar eclipse combined, able to blot out the world around me, boiling it down to nothing but a fiery gleam in the dark that was her eyes surrounded by her face.
Step by step, I backed her against the wall. She was thrusting even harder now, as if she wanted to smash a hole through me with her hips. Her tongue and teeth on my neck were more persistent now, too, and I knew I was going to have the hickey of all hickeys when this was over—I would probably need to recycle one of my ooze cloths to heal it or Beat would never let me live it down.
I could sense Vrill reaching her climax as she reared back once more and touched her breasts, her breaths coming in panting waves. I continued to push from behind with one hand but brought the other hand up to play with her nipples again, to bring it home, trying to make her feel every sensation she deserved, trying to wash away the horrific memories of what she’d endured for the last few weeks.
She released a high pitched, breathy groan, then another. Another. Another. Each was slightly softer than the last as she finished her orgasm. I felt good that I was able to help her to feel something good, as well as restore her energy.
I wasn’t finished, however. Which was fine by me. All I wanted in this moment was to satisfy her.
Vrill, however, was thinking the same thing but about me. “How much longer can you go?” she asked, her eyes piercing me with their gaze.
“A while still,” I said, not really sure. My libido was a moving target, increasing with each Level up.
“Good,” she said, releasing her legs’ grip on my waist and sliding down, gently guiding me out of her with one hand. She looked up at me and licked her lips. “Because I want to taste you.”
She brought me into her mouth, running the flat of her tongue along my penis, adding lubrication on top of lubrication. She’d been serious about tasting me. Every inch. Every millimeter. Her lips, her tongue. She began to move me in and out of her mouth. “Holy…” I breathed, bracing myself with one hand against the wall as my knees grew weak. “…Vrill.”
In and out, her tongue sliding, her lips providing the friction. Blood was swarming to my extremities now and I felt like I was in a climax that would never end, teetering on the edge of a precipice, a braided rope peeling away one single thread at a time.
Harder and harder and—
Finally, I toppled over the edge, an eruption that she drank, swallowing every bit as she continued to work me inside her mouth, sucking every last drop from the tip until there was nothing left.
She released me and I almost fell over. We wrapped our arms around each other and sank back to the ground, legs fitting like puzzle pieces, her head resting on my shoulder.
“Round one,” Vrill said.
~~~
Beat returned a while later. “Are you two rejuvenated yet?” she asked in her usual unfiltered way.
I laughed. “You could say that.”
Vrill said, “I feel good. Is Mrizandr still sleeping?”
“Your dragon buddy? Yep, like the dead. I never realized dragons were so much like cats.”
“He has been deprived. The Morgoss let us rest, but just enough for us to serve them again. Not enough to fully recover. It was part of the way they controlled us for so long. It took a toll on both of us, but more so on Mrizandr. Dragons’ bodies expend so much energy while awake that they require substantial rest,” Vrill said.
“And you know this how?” I asked.
Vrill looked upwards, as if searching for answers on the hut roof. “It’s hard to explain. When we were connected, I caught glimpses of the dragon’s mind. And he saw into mine. Not everything, but enough to learn much about each other. Because of it, we are bonded for life now.”
“Meaning he’ll fight for you?” Beat asked. It was the same question I was planning next.
She nodded. “If I ask him to.”
There was a topic I knew we’d all been avoiding. I avoided it a while longer. “Was it the same with the Morgoss? Could you see into their minds the same way you could see into Mrizandr’s?” A haunted look crossed Vrill’s face and I quickly said, “If it’s too painful to talk about, forget it. I have a bad habit of wanting to know everything.”
“No,” Vrill said. “It’s fine. It’s not too painful. It’s just…I haven’t told you all something yet.”
“What?” Vrill and I said at the same time.
Again, Vrill hesitated. She was scaring the crap out of me. Finally, she spoke. “The Morgoss were trying to hide something from me, but I managed to see it anyway. The Narzani were only meant to be a distraction.”
Beat and I looked at each other, and I could see the WTF? on her expression. I was pretty sure my face mirrored back the same thing.
Vrill continued. “The Morgoss are scared for the first time since they overthrew the Three. They lost one of their own, along with one of the hearts. They still hold the advantage, but they know that if Airiel returns to full strength it could turn the tide of the war against them. So they’ve been experimenting with dark magic again.”
This wasn’t news. “We know,” I said. “The monsters they’ve been sending have been bigger, supersized.”
Vrill nodded. “That’s only the beginning. What you’ve seen so far are the same old monsters, only bigger. Meanwhile they’ve been using the same magic to create new monsters. They are made from shadows and earth and fire. They will not release their army until they are certain they’ll be victorious. That’s why they needed to buy time with the Narzani. Before my link with the demon overlords was severed, I saw how close they were. The time is nigh.”
“How long?” I asked, a bolt of fear zigzagging through my gut. Every time we scored a major victory and I felt like we might be able to push back on the Morgoss, they came up with another way to hurt us.
Vrill shrugged. “It’s impossible to know for certain. I don’t think the Morgoss know yet, which is why they were able to shield this information from me. Could be weeks. Could be days.”
“Could be tonight?” Beat asked.
“I doubt it,” Vrill said. “The Morgoss will continue to send their larger monsters to keep us occupied, but they’ll want to gather more information before they attack.”
“Information about what?” Beat asked, though I’d already guessed.
“Vrill and her dragon,” I said. “They’ve thrown a wrench in the Morgoss’s plans. Speaking of which, I’ve been wondering something. How did you know the ooze would combat the Morgoss’s magic collars?”
Vrill’s eyes focused on mine, our gazes locking. “I didn’t,” she said. “It was just a theory.”
Jesus.
She’d risked all our lives on a theory. I couldn’t hold it against her. This was a time for risks. We’d taken one and it had paid off. So far at least. But it also led to my next question. “The monsters are sort of slaves too…” I said.
Beat snorted. “Hardly. They enjoy the killing. Even if they didn’t serve the Morgoss, they would try to kill us.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But even still, if they can be enslaved by one master, why not another?”
Beat frowned. “Wait…what the hell are you getting at, Ryder? That we should capture a few and make them our bitches? I know we did that with the slithers for training purposes, but those snakes are the weakest of our foes. Capturing anything bigger would be almost impossible.”
“Not if we use the ooze,” I said, finally revealing the thought I’d been mulling over in my head.
Vrill said nothing.
Beat said, “You want to use our ooze on the monsters we fight on a nightly basis? Let me count the reasons that’s a bad idea.” She held up her forefinger. “We’re out of the ooze shit. Even if the Three can produce a bunch more, we need to maintain a store to heal our own Warriors.” She wasn’t wrong, so I stayed silent. She added her middle finger to the first, like a peace sign. “What if the ooze heals the monsters the same way it heals us? Then we’ll be creating foes that are even harder to defeat.” Again, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t thought about. She added her thumb to the other two fingers. “Even if the ooze somehow converts the monsters to our team—and we have no guarantees that it will—how do we communicate with them—grunts and snarls and gnashing of teeth?”
They were all fair points. “I know,” I said. “It’s just a theory. Something to consider experimenting with in the future.”
“Okay,” Beat said. “Fair enough. Now let’s quit dancing around the big ol’ fucking marmot in the hut. What are you going to do next, Vrill?”
I closed my eyes, wishing it had been me who’d had the guts to brave the topic first. I wasn’t afraid of monsters or dragons or even the wrath of Persepheus. But losing Vrill again? That haunted me. I opened my eyes. Looked at her. She met my gaze with her usual steel, shifting between Beat and me. “What you have done to transform the way things are done around here…” she said, “…I could never have done it. I was guided by anger. So much anger. So I ran. I tried to fight the Three’s cruel ways from the outside. My objectives were noble, I’ve never doubted that, but now…maybe my approach was wrong. Selfish.”
