Of course, I was a human, and the human brain doesn’t always like to get out of the way. My thoughts were still jugging Do they like each other and Do they really like me and Maybe two is all right but what about three and Am I a terrible person for getting turned on by this and all sorts of other things.
I was still facing Forrest, and I knew I was getting that deep flush in my cheeks already. He peeled down my panties past my thighs, and let them drop at the knees. He glanced at Gilbert, who looked at the stool.
“Not yet…,” Forrest said. His eyes blazed down at me. They were both quite a bit taller than me, Forrest especially, and I felt utterly helpless, especially with Gilbert keeping up the teasing touch upon my nipples the entire time Forrest looked at me. “Phoebe, do you still feel like you’re not ready for a trine?”
“I’m ready,” I gasped.
“She doesn’t seem to need much foreplay, but it never hurts,” Gilbert said.
Forrest put his steady hands on my bare shoulders and kissed me. I practically sucked his tongue into my mouth, happy to have something for my mouth to do while Gilbert was drawing such desire out of me. He slid his tongue along mine and his hand held the back of my head. His other hand reached down and stroked my cleft, drawing small teasing sensations out of me. I spread my legs just a little, wanting more, and Gilbert seized on this action, using his feet to push my feet out even more.
“There you go, spread your little pussy for him, darling,” he said.
Gilbert was clearly willing to play the role of facilitator while letting Forrest claim the deepest intimacy, but I could feel his rigid manhood digging into my back. He was as hungry for me as Forrest, but more patient. I’m sure he knew that Forrest needed to be won over, and I could feel Forrest beginning to grow more relaxed and forward with his touch. He slipped two fingers inside me, fucking me with his fingers and stroking my clit with his thumb while he kissed me.
Quickly, I started feeling very close to coming from all the stimulation, especially to my clit, but when I started making eager little moans, Forrest drew back. He unfastened his trousers, letting his thick cock out. He picked me up by the knees and started backing up to the stool. They both carried me over there like they’d planned it. Forrest gripped my thighs, easing me onto his shaft. I was so slick with arousal that I my body slid all the way down to the hilt in one motion. I let out a breath of surprise and satisfaction at once. Forrest drew me down onto the stool, impaled on his cock, while Gilbert was still cradling my chest.
Gilbert kissed my ear and then gave it a little nip. “Comfortable? Not quite, I hope. That’s the best way to be.”
Ahh, he was right. I wasn’t quite comfortable but I was so full of Forrest and all the little sensations that meant he was close were welcome.
Gilbert lifted me up, still pinching my breasts, so my body started to pull away from Forrest. Forrest grabbed my ass and pulled me back down again.
I felt like a sack of grain, or—or something, I was not exactly up for great metaphors right now—the way these two strong men manipulated my body. They could do anything they wanted to me, and the idea of submitting to their control was making me even more excited. I trusted them so completely, and I knew they were completely devoted to my pleasure. I had never encountered anything like this before. The guys I’d known in the past seemed inherently selfish. The capital guys were pretty happy just to get a hot girl to jerk or suck them off, and village boys wanted wives who would cook and clean and tend the garden and the animals. Forrest and Gilbert—hell, they didn’t let me do enough for them. It seemed like this was all they needed from me, and Forrest was right—I was the star, and they would do anything to draw even more urgent moans out of me.
Maybe I wasn’t getting the bad end of the deal after all.
Not that they didn’t benefit, of course. My sigils were burning, and I could feel power flowing freely out of me and into them.
They fell into a rhythm, Gilbert lifting me almost off of Forrest’s cock and Forrest pulling me back down, so his shaft thrust into me, deep and relentless. My pleasure was building, but not fast enough, and I made little desperate sounds.
When Gilbert next pulled me up, he kissed me. I urgently drove my tongue against his, just as I had with Forrest. “Make sure to clamp tight,” he said, before Forrest pulled me down again. I clenched my inner walls against him. They had been going so fast that I had hardly been able to think straight, but when I made an effort to work my own inner muscles against the thrust of Forrest’s cock, it drove me to climax faster. When I started climaxing, Gilbert held me lower and leaned over me, suckling on my nipples, as Forrest pumped into me with rapid little thrusts almost like a vibration. I clawed at Gilbert’s shirt, screaming as my whole body convulsed. Once again, Forrest climaxed at the same time as I did. We were perfectly in tune. But it was so intense I was dizzy.
They both eased my limp body off of Forrest and carried me to my bed roll.
“Your sigils are blazing,” Forrest said.
“Mm.” I touched my chest, feeling the heat of my skin there. I was so spent I could hardly speak.
“It wasn’t too much, was it?” A hint of concern entered his voice.
“I just think I need to sleep now…”
“I’ll be back soon,” Gilbert said, ducking out the door, no doubt to finish his own satisfaction with Rin.
Forrest crouched beside me and smoothed a hand over my hair. I shut my eyes.
“Man—” He clutched his head. “The power you put out, Phoebe. It’s intense. I hardly feel like I can call that merely sex. It’s like plunging into a volcano and being reborn as a fire god. It’s true, what the book says. Your body is simply a channel for something much greater than anyone in this world understands.”
“It was almost too much,” I whispered.
“I see.”
“I mean, don’t feel bad. I’m still just…terrified. Gilbert’s the easy one. The next two guardians are not like him. They’re going to do—more intense things to me. And they don’t have Rins to go hit up afterward. And the power that surges through me…”
“I can protect you from everything but fate,” Forrest said gently, in his typical not-entirely-reassuring way. “But why don’t you sleep now. I’ll be next to you.” He settled in on the bedroll next to me, covered my naked body with a blanket, and held me against his chest. His touch, still stroking my hair, was very soothing. “We still have many miles to go before we find your next guardian.”
“Yeah…” I took a slow breath. He smelled like horse. Or should I say, Horse? Which made me think again of how much I missed Wretch. But I was far too tired to cry myself to sleep. I sank into dreams with Forrest’s arm around me.
Chapter Ten
We forged onward. We didn’t see many monsters, going forward, but what we did see were soldiers, even some from the Black Army. When we heard them coming, Rin and Gilbert and I would rush off the road and hide in the forests, bushes, abandoned buildings, or whatever else we could find. Forrest greeted them alone. He knew how to talk to fellow soldiers and tell them things that didn’t sound too suspicious. I would hardly breathe while I listened to him talk like a different person. “Congratulations on taking Gaermon Castle; they used to say it would never be done, but Abel proved ‘em wrong, eh?” he said to two Black Army soldiers, when we were just two days out from Capamere.
“Are you alone? I thought I heard voices,” the first one asked.
My stomach lurched. This is it.
“Must I admit that I talk to myself on these long journeys?” Forrest asked with a sharp laugh.
The soldier chuckled. “Fair enough. Well met, sir. I hope you have a good trip to the capital.”
We were safe again—for now. But we were about to enter the gates of the capital. We would be within the walls of the city that belonged to the emperor himself. The emperor who wanted all priestesses dead. It was not a comforting thought. It was the kind of thought that would keep me awake all night, e
xcept I could never stay awake at night anymore. Giving my power to the guys put me right to sleep, and thank goodness. That was better than insomnia and missing Wretch all night.
I was always scanning the road and the trees and basically everything and everywhere for some sign of my cat, and there was nothing. I started to consider more and more that the monsters caught her when she had to stop and rest. It was unbearable and there was nothing I could do now. I couldn’t turn back time.
I really wanted to turn back time and then stop it cold, for a lot of reasons. I liked my little band of guys as they were. Forrest felt kind of like my husband and Gilbert was my best friend with benefits, and Rin was kind of exciting in a different way; I knew I shouldn’t be eyeing him up, but I couldn’t help it, and it was nice to have those flirty is-he-can-I-does-he feelings I couldn’t act on, too. I was certainly never going to get bored.
But by now I could sense that my third guardian, the one whose sigil marked my forehead, was not on a ship, but in Capamere itself. We were getting close.
My fourth guardian, meanwhile, I could barely sense at all, and I kind of hoped we never found him. The Elders were in Capamere. Three guardians were surely enough. We could just get me confirmed at the Temple of Stones and head back north again, to save the world and stuff.
Capamere was a port and the biggest city on this continent, which meant it might as well have been the biggest city in the whole world as far as I was concerned. I was not likely to ever venture farther than my own realm. Most of the buildings were as high as people would tolerate climbing stairs, so it could be seen from a distance, with all of its buildings added onto over the years.
“This is where you grew up?” Rin asked Gilbert, as we drew close enough to see the buildings clearly.
“That’s it,” Gilbert said, his voice turning a bit solemn, as if his memories of the place weren’t good. An orphanage didn’t sound like a good start but otherwise he had spoken well of bardic college, being a troupe musician and hobnobbing with the rich and glamorous.
By now, we were on the road with plenty of merchant caravans, since this was the place where imports came from all around the world to be distributed to wealthy people inland. We even passed one of the dance troupe caravans, and I saw girls peering out of the thick glass windows. Ugh, I remembered how stuffy those carriages were, with a dozen girls crammed in, and we weren’t allowed to open the windows. They had mere slits for ventilation. The carriage bus looked pretty on the outside, though, painted up as fancy as a cake in soft yellow, red and white. “Sunflower Girls” was painted across the sides in bubbly letters. Two more buses followed, carrying the musicians, wardrobe, hair, and makeup.
“That was you, huh?” Forrest asked as the Sunflower Girls wheeled by. I could hear the girls’ chatter through the vents. They pressed their noses to the glass, staring at my guys.
“Yeah, that was me,” I said, unable to help feeling wistful. I knew how exciting it was to arrive in a new city, pour out of that hot carriage, wash up, get costumed and emerge to a crowd that was almost losing their minds with excitement.
“Packing up girls like tigers and bears,” Forrest muttered.
“Tigers and bears?” I asked, puzzled.
“It’s just an expression.” Forrest shrugged.
“No, it’s quite true,” Gilbert said. “Before they had the dance troupes, they had the circus, with many caravans of animals and performers of all kinds. Twelve girls were a lot easier to transport than tigers and bears. But that’s why we refer to tigers and bears when we speak of caging something up and training it to do something.”
“Hmm. What happened to the tigers and bears, then?” Forrest asked.
“They’re in the menagerie of the imperial palace,” Gilbert said. “A few of them, anyway. You’ve been to the capital, of course?”
“Yes, but only as a soldier.”
“You had some time off, didn’t you?”
“Not to go to putter around the palace.”
We were almost to the gates now. I could see them, shining golden in the distance. It was nice to be out in the open as we approached, so I could really take it all in. It was heavily guarded, but no one stopped us—the guards only kept watch for monsters, although Rin kept his hood down.
“Himika is here…,” he said, almost as if to himself, as we crossed into the city.
“Point the way,” Forrest said to me. “Where is the guardian?”
I took a moment just to admire the interior of the city. As soon as you crossed the gates, you came to a grand circular strolling path with beds of bright flowers and bushes landscaped to look like different animals. All around the circle were some of the finest shops in the entire realm. The stores were five and six stories high and crammed with imported goods, and the people strolling around wore all the latest fashions; the ladies in gauzy gowns with lots of jewelry and broad hats that shaded them from the sun, and the men in trimly cut robes and jaunty boots or—well, so, apparently sandals were in? I wasn’t so sure about that one. Some feet were better left covered up, especially the feet of rich old men. The capital tried out all kinds of weird fashions that never spread past the gates. Like a lot of the ladies were wearing strings of bells so they jingled when they walked. That was new, too, and by the time we left it might be out of style already.
“We’ve still got a walk ahead,” I said. “He’s by the docks.”
“It’s already getting late,” Rin said.
“Then, we’d better hustle,” Forrest said.
“Are we in such a hurry to share Phoebe?” Gilbert said, slinging an affectionate arm around me.
Forrest shot him a look. “I’m in a hurry to get this done. Don’t be fooled—this place looks like a party, but it’s not.”
“I’m the one who grew up here!”
“Yes, but you’re going on about menageries and bardic college.” (This was true—Gilbert had probably spent at least four cumulative hours talking about bardic college as we walked, and that was a conservative estimate.) “I was a soldier. I know what it’s like to be the one hunting down trouble. You’ve probably never been trouble before, but you are now.”
“I have not even begun to go on about bardic college, but, fine. Carry on.”
We had to cross the whole city, taking side streets whenever possible to avoid attention. There was always so much going on in the capital, it was hard for me not to feel excited to be back again. My neck started to hurt from swiveling it around so much to see the shops with their bright shutters, reaching to the sky, the fascinating people ranging from elegant ladies to grubby little urchins, even the different types of dogs. I think every dog in Istim was descended from the same boring brown dog. Although every time I saw a cat scurry down an alley or sunning itself on a stoop, my heart leapt and then sank. None of these cats had wings.
We had probably walked a couple miles when we saw the sky open up over the ocean, with gulls wheeling overhead. We were getting close—I could feel the strong presence of a third guardian. But around here, the streets were pretty empty. In fact, pretty soon we were the only people walking down a narrow lane surrounded by warehouse looking buildings.
“You looking for something?” hissed a guy standing in the alley, making me jump.
“Nothing you’re offering,” Gilbert said immediately. “Get back.”
His voice had changed. I could tell he was throwing some of his bardic magic into it. The guy withdrew immediately.
“We’re in a bad part of town, aren’t we?” Rin asked, keeping his hands on his swords.
“Yes. We are indeed,” Gilbert said. “I’m not so sure about this. Bad characters lurk around here… On the bright side, the Black Army and the city guard leave this neighborhood alone. Everyone leaves this neighborhood alone. Unless you want to get rid of a body, of course.”
“What?” I sputtered.
“That’s not true,” Forrest said. “You’re scaring her.”
“Oh, it’s true,” Gilbert
said. “They throw bodies in the water up there. I knew a fellow who saw a guy doing it.”
Forrest narrowed his eyes. One day his eyes were going to get stuck that way.
“Should we turn around?” I asked. “What’s going on up ahead?”
A plain black coach, the kind you hire on the street, came rattling down the lane in the distance. It was slowing down in front of a white stone building. The coachman got down and opened the door, and a girl in a fashionable striped gown stepped down. She was all dressed up with a big hat, and as the coachman got her trunk down, a man in a red coat came out and took it for her. She curtseyed a little and followed him inside. I heard the sound of doors closing heavily, even from here.
“I think that’s where he is,” I said. “In that building. Gilbert, do you know what that is?”
“No…but I am hardly an expert on corruption in Capamere.”
“Then, let’s check it out,” Forrest said.
Gilbert hesitated. “I can almost guarantee that whatever goes on there is illegal.”
“We’re plotting treason, Gil. Whatever goes on there, we might find some common ground. He won’t be able to deny the power of the sigil.” Nothing would stop Forrest from proceeding with his mission. He walked ahead of the rest of us.
“I don’t go by ‘Gil’,” Gilbert said, but not loud enough for Forrest to hear.
Rin laughed. “Phoebe and I will hold your hands if you want.”
Gilbert’s ears went pink. “I don’t need my hand held. I’m not kidding about this area. I know it’s not a party; at least, I know what parts are trouble. There are men here who’ll cut your throat first and ask you what you’re doing here as you sputter out your last bloody word.”
Rin regarded him a moment, like he had never seen Gilbert talk like this before. “I would never let them do that,” he said. “Come on.” He ended up putting his arms around both of our shoulders. I didn’t admit it, but I was glad. I wasn’t nervous until Gilbert started going on about it.
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