by Nhys Glover
“I won’t last. You know I won’t last,” he warned me apologetically.
“Maybe for this first time that would be best. It is more an experiment than anything else, after all.”
“No, not just an experiment. Nor just something to fulfil the Goddess’ Will. This is far more than that to me. You need to know I have wanted you since the first moment I laid eyes on you, and since finding out what this brand meant I have suffered agony unlike anything I have ever known before, trying to control my urges around you. You cannot know...”
“I can,” I said. “Let me in. Let me understand.”
And he dropped his barriers and let me feel what he was feeling, what he had been feeling since he walked down that corridor and saw me in my glorious green dress, my hair falling wildly around my shoulders, and with Zem’s arm possessively around my shoulders. I was any man’s sexual fantasy.
And one he couldn’t allow in. Couldn’t allow himself to enjoy, because his fire was an ever-present threat to everything and everyone around him. He’d forcefully had to pull back from imagining me bent over as he rammed into me from behind. And as fast as that image came, it was gone, pushed down as it always had been. He was good at dismissing such thoughts when they arose. About me or about any other girl he’d fancied over the suns.
But the image stuck in my head. I’d known a man could take a woman from behind like that. I’d seen it in many a man’s head. But I had not experienced it myself yet. It excited me to imagine trying it with Prior. What would Landor think?
‘I think it would be incredible,’ he said into my mind. ‘It might be a good way, for the first time. You could send your lightning down into the bed, without risking it getting out of control when you touch Prior.’
“Aye. As long as I’m using my fire magic around him, I don’t actually have to be using it on him. Or I don’t think so,” I answered aloud, forgetting myself.
“Landor, stay out of this,” Prior growled, glancing his way in annoyance. “You do not get to direct what is happening.”
Landor gave a rueful laugh. “Sorry. It is hard to remain a fly on the wall.”
My tunic was on the bed, and Prior’s eyes turned from Landor back to me, where they began devouring my breasts.
“You better get that lightning going, Flame, because I am losing control already,” he warned.
I drew up the little flicker of current and held it between my two fingers. Prior breathed a sigh of relief and closed his big hands over each of my breasts, kneading them as if they were the best thing he’d ever touched in his life. I giggled, but focused back on the current.
Prior yanked off his tunic and then his breeches, letting me see him fully for the first time. My focus dropped as I took in his impressive masculine beauty. So much heavy muscle, yet all of it defined, as if an artist had sculpted every line. He was an onyx statue of masculine perfection. Yet not cold. His skin when I touched it would be warm. I knew that.
Reaching out, I ran the fingers of the hand not making lightning, across his torso, feeling the heat there. More heat than any human should have. Hotter than Zem or Laric and certainly Landor, whose skin was usually cool. His fire, his constantly tamped down fire must make him hot to the touch.
Prior’s fingers were running over my skin, exploring and playing where they would in childlike delight. When he reached for my face and held it as he kissed me, deep and hungrily, I felt myself begin to flow with the fires he was building in me.
In my mind Landor snapped, ‘Focus!’
I did, though grudgingly. My blood was ready to boil, and I didn’t want to have my focus constrained, even to save my life.
But I did it. Because I was told to, and because I had to.
Prior smoothed his hands down my body until he reached my breeches. Ever so clumsily, he began undoing the string that held them up and then the one beneath that held my draws up. When they both finally slid down my body to pool at my feet, I heard Prior groan and Landor do the same.
“Gods, I want to make this last. But I can’t. I am so far out of my safe zone I can barely stand it,” he gasped out helplessly.
I spun around in his arms and looked back at him over my shoulder. “Then do what you imagined doing. The waiting is killing me, too.”
I placed my hand on my upper thigh and felt the current tickle its way down my leg. What would it feel like...?
A little nervously, I put my fingers against my pleasure nub, ready to pull them away if the shock felt bad. Airsha had said her men didn’t like the current on their genitals. Would I? And the little buzz sent me over the edge in an instant. I fell face-first into the bedding, the shocking pleasure so great.
“Gods balls! Focus!” Landor said aloud, as much for Prior as me, I knew. Otherwise he would have said it only in my head. But it was me who’d lost my current as soon as I came.
I heard Prior breathing in deep gasps of air behind me. I was pushing him too hard. I calmed down and refocused on my lightning, letting it dance down my thigh again.
Prior sighed heavily in relief and hauled me up so I was bent forward over the bed, anxious now, desperate for release. Desperate to bury himself inside me, to know what it felt like to be surrounded by all that wet heat. Watching me come apart had nearly done the same for him. I knew all this from his open mind. Had Landor not called him back...
But there was time for worries about what might have been later. While I sent the current down into the bedding, I felt Prior separating my folds, felt his fingers exploring, discovering the wetness there, being aroused by that even more. Then his fingers were finding their way inside me, stretching me. How had he known to do that?
A memory flashed into his mind. Listening to one of the Abs who was known to have a big cock talk about needing to stretch a woman so she could accommodate his size. Prior didn’t know if he was big or not. But he wanted to make sure I could take all of him. He needed me to take all of him!
“Accept me as one of your consorts, one of your husbands,” Prior demanded as he delved deep with his fingers.
“Aye, of course. I want you... I love you. I accept you,” I managed to get out of my fast scrambling brain. Focus, I told myself over and over. And I did. Just.
And then I felt it. His cock replacing his fingers. It was much larger than his two fingers, and for long moments it seemed he couldn’t make it fit. I relaxed my muscles, wanting him deep. With a soft growl of satisfaction he finally slid home.
We stayed that way for a long, long moment, him pulsing inside me; me trying to stay focused on the current I was pulsing into the bedding. I knew the lightning was growing stronger. I didn’t know how much it would need to grow before it became dangerous.
Prior withdrew and then thrust deep again, grunting with the need to control the pleasure that was threatening to overpower him.
“Gods! Now, Prior!” I cried, needing him. Hard and deep.
He gave me what I wanted. Hard and deep. But then he was climaxing on a roar, his head thrown back as he succumbed to the power that had long been denied. It shot me over the edge. For the briefest moment I lost focus, and then everything happened at once.
Heat stung my hips. In the same instant, or a little before, Landor cried out. He knocked Prior aside, tearing him from inside me. Sending him flying. His white hand held onto me so I didn’t fall after my newest husband stumbled away, still climaxing powerfully.
Feeling the danger still, I focused hard, sending little shock waves, which were now more pain than pleasure, through my thighs. The sudden loss of Prior’s cock left me needy and empty, even though I had already come so violently.
I felt Landor’s hands on my hips, the warm glow of his healing energy. I moaned a little, aroused still, for all the momentary pain and danger. Or because of it.
“Be inside me,” I whispered.
The healing must have been complete because Landor was pulling at his breeches and was burying himself inside me from behind in the next breath. Different, he
felt different from Prior. But just as good. I let my lightning go. Prior wouldn’t need it for a while, his climax complete. And for however long it took, Landor rode us both to orgasm.
The three of us were sprawled over the bed when I came back to myself, Landor the only one dressed. He lay protectively between me and Prior, and I was glad of it. I didn’t want to have to worry about my lightning right then. I just wanted to bathe in the afterglow.
“That was close,” Landor said, gravel apparent in his deep voice.
“Is she all right?” Prior asked, his voice just as deep, but smoother somehow.
“She is right here,” I said. “And aye, I am healed. It wasn’t much. I just lost focus for a fraction of a moment.”
“Considering it was your first attempt, I think it was largely successful,” Landor said, as if analysing all the information and coming up with a conclusion. He sounded so much like Zem in that moment I wanted to laugh. And I wanted Zem. I had never done this without him before. I missed his loving presence.
“It was better that he wasn’t here. He wouldn’t be happy for you to risk that again if he had seen it,” Landor said aloud for Prior’s benefit.
I got a brief view of Landor’s panic before he closed his mind to me. I saw the moment he realised what was about to happen and dived to avert it. He’d been terrified for me. The thought of me burning up would haunt his dreams for long moons to come. Finding me and then losing me so soon... it couldn’t be borne.
“I don’t care,” I snapped, instantly over missing Zem. Because Landor was right. Had he seen my burns, he would have tried to put his foot down. And I wasn’t letting him do any such thing. If Landor could handle it, then Zem would have to as well.
“Aye, then. Better he was not here. But good you were,” Prior said to Landor. “I felt it the moment she lost her magic and mine flared into the gap. But I couldn’t get away from her. My cock had a mind of its own. You knocking me aside was just enough to knock the sense into me.”
“I worried you wouldn’t let her go. That was your first climax, wasn’t it?” Landor asked curiously.
“Yes. It was... beyond anything I have ever experienced before. Like releasing my fire, but pleasurable beyond words. But now I feel sapped of all my strength.”
“That is normal. It will return fast enough.”
I listened to them exchanging sexual tips and let myself doze off, a smile playing on my lips. Three down, one to go. My family was almost complete.
Chapter Eighteen
I woke to find two men draped over me. One very black, one very white. It was interesting to see the play of colours our bodies made as they overlapped. I was used to being the pale, freckly one, but in this pair I was the colourful one, set against their monochrome tones. I was the splash of colour on a charcoal drawing.
The door flew open and Zem charged in, taking us in with a flick of his eye. “She knows where we’re going! Get up!”
We were all on our feet in the next moment, groggy and not fully with it yet, but at least we were up.
“Who, Airsha? Does Airsha know where we’re going?” I asked, after clearing my throat with a cough. Getting burned twice yesterday had left me a little fragile this morning. It was morning, wasn’t it? Prior’s room didn’t have a window so it was hard to tell in the shadowy light of the lamp-lit room.
“No, Shardra. You won’t believe what she has to say. Get moving and come and hear this!”
By the time we all tumbled into the common room Airsha and the Airluds were already there, as was Laric, Zem, Redin and Shardra.
Once we’d grabbed some food, we sat to hear Shardra out. I was desperate to have good news. My part of the mission was coming along well now, but there were still too many missing pieces yet to be resolved. The biggest one for The Five: where to find the key?
Shardra looked so much better than she had the day before. Her skin glowed, her dark eyes sparkled. She seemed to vibrate with inner joy. Had she and Redin found love together? They seemed to have a special connection when they came back from their trip to the Nether Plane.
“When I left here yesterday I was confused, doubting all I had taken as truth for so long. So I slept and went to my comforter. And he explained everything. By breaking me free of the hag, Redin allowed him to finally be able to share who and what he is with me. While ever there was the possibility the hag might pick up information from me, as I did from her, he had to stay silent. Which led me to think the worst of him.”
“That he is a daemon, you mean?” Redin said dryly, though he kept the jealous rage he was feeling well under control. Only I could read it.
So, not him last night then. Yet he could see, as clearly as I did, that Shardra was different. More confident, and glowing with a sensuality she had lacked the day before.
“He is a halfling,” Shardra spoke up defensively. “His mother was an air sylph raped by a fire daemon, who was returned to the depths for his crime. Even though forced by the Goddess to keep and nurture him until he was grown, his mother never hid from him the fact she despised him. No one ever loved him. Because of what he was. And only the Goddess made life bearable.
“When The Jayger began to flood the world, the Goddess told him he was capable of creating a doorway or portal into the underworld by mixing his blood with the earth. Only one who was a blend of air and fire could do what was needed. And She promised him that if he did this for her, one day a special woman would be born of the human line saved by his sacrifice. That woman would love him. The only one who would ever love him.
“So he became the key for Her and opened a circle of elemental magic made of fire, air and earth, which created a whirlpool that sucked The Jayger in when he grew close. After he was imprisoned, my comforter closed the portal. It took a great deal of his energy. So much that he wondered if he would survive.
“The Goddess then required of him to stay hidden in the side of that same mountain until he was needed again. If he was needed again. And so he agreed. And there he has remained for eons.”
She fell silent, as if contemplating all she had said.
“But how did he find you? How does he come to you? Not physically, I assume,” Darkin said, choosing his words with care.
“The Goddess told him that one day I would find him, accept him, and love him for who he was. And that is what happened. Hidden away on the physical plane, he used his magic to create another plane of existence for himself, one that only he knew about. Until I woke up there, when I was five suns old and had just moved to my new home in the cave. I thought I was dreaming him. Lovely dreams filled with beauty and play. He was the kindest person I had ever met, and I did not really care that he had fangs and claws because he also had the most beautiful wings, like fluffy clouds. But they could have been covered in thorns as far as I was concerned. Because all that really mattered to me was that he cared for me when no one else did.”
“So he knew who I was when I came to him. And he loved me. When the hag found me, he tried to break me free of her clutches, but to no avail. He could not visit the Nether Plane because it is restricted to humans.
“From my connection to the hag, he learned about the attempt to free The Jayger once more. He knew the timing of my birth was not an accident. The Goddess knew that only for me would he again do what had almost killed him the last time. Only to save me.”
For a long moment she seemed lost in amazement. In a way, I understood her only too well, as Airsha probably did too. To be the object of an incredible male—or males’— attention. To be singled out and considered special when everyone else treated you like garbage. It was a heady experience. But hard to accept. Hard to believe.
Maybe for good reason.
Yet Shardra seemed to believe what she’d been told. And the Goddess herself had given Redin the Knowing that Shardra could find the way to the key, hadn’t She? So what else were we to do but trust the word of this impossibly innocent, gullible woman? To believe she wasn’t being tricked by a m
alignant being from the underworld. That this daemon wasn’t leading her on, to get what he needed from her.
Maybe it wasn’t an accident that she had come into the world when The Jayger was about to be released, but maybe it wasn’t fate either? What if Shardra wasn’t the only girl who’d been groomed by him over the eons? Maybe she was just the last of a long line of gullible fools.
And we only had this monster’s word for it that he’d tried to get her free of the hag. What if he was the one to put Shardra in that bitch’s path? Wasn’t it a bit too convenient that he couldn’t tell her what he was until she was free of the hag? Couldn’t the story of him being the much sought-after key be a fabrication hastily concocted only when she started doubting him? He could have picked up from her mind that Redin had said she could lead the way to the elemental ring and used it. I knew well enough how to build a con around information already accepted as truth.
There was too much at risk to just accept this daemon’s word. I was no gullible lass. If anyone knew how easy it was to take advantage of innocents it was me. And a daemon.
“So you know where he is? This daemon key?” Rama asked, gentler than I would have expected.
She nodded a little uncertainly. “Not in precise terms. He said that if I trusted my senses they would lead me to him. As he said it I got an impression of the sea. He is across the sea somewhere.”
Again, predictably vague.
“We have already found a ship,” Zem said into the silence that followed. “A very large ship that is being fitted out as we speak with five perches and plenty of storage for grasses and water for the five airlings. Its captain and crew are all loyal to the Goddess.”
“But... But there is nothing beyond the sea. You will just fall off the edge,” Redin said plaintively. I could tell he didn’t want to sound like the buffoon yesterday. He wanted to sound brave and fearless, to compete with Shardra’s daemon lover. But he failed, and I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him.
I considered the options. The Goddess said Shardra knew where the key was. We expected it to be under a volcano across the sea. Even if the winged monster was leading Shardra astray, it was the right path to start out on. The only one we had, if I was honest. If the Goddess wanted us to course-correct she would find a way to make that happen.
