Olene watched as the red-eyed man extracted his bloody hands and forearms from Piero’s corpse, then gestured. The blood began to lift away, balling in the air in front of him. The red-eyed man made another gesture, and the ball began to contract and harden, the blood darkening and losing its shine until it was a dried ball no bigger than a marble. The red-eyed man snatched it out of the air, placing it gently in the middle of Piero’s chest.
He looked up at Olene.
“In the meanwhile, I think watching the thralls did indeed help. I am quite eager to have you again.”
Olene stared for a moment at the man in front of her, then at Uli shaking in the corner, then at Piero, a ball of his own dried blood sitting on his chest.
No warrior of the Dragon Clans could fear death, Olene reminded herself, for they were made of death.
She let the tent flap drop closed behind her.
Chapter 3
Kiera’s body was a roaring fire as Pol came inside her, filling her cunt with heat. The muscles in his back relaxed under her hands, but she held him close, not letting him pull out, even as his cum trickled out of her pussy and he softened a little. He kissed her, long and hard, and she could feel him stiffening again. She looked into his face, and he seemed worried and helpless, despite the sweet soreness he’d just caused between her legs.
“Please, don’t let me go,” he begged her.
Kiera woke in a damp sweat and reached a hand down between her legs where her hair was matted together. That was a mistake - she was still quite sensitive, and when her finger made an accidental stroke against her clit she moaned, a little too loudly.
She glanced over at where Pol was sleeping, but the warlock didn’t move.
Hells, she thought. And dragon’s bells. For three days, whenever she’d had a moment with her thoughts, she’d been thinking of nothing but Pol hunched over that farmgirl's seed-sprayed body, his beautiful cock covered in her cum.
Kiera had learned how to sword fight before she hit puberty. She’d knocked a man senseless in a joust when she was 15, and had killed five bandits by the time she was 22. And she’d fucked and been fucked by plenty of men, as well as a few women. Yet here she was, having early-morning wet dreams like a teenage girl.
By Vash’s song, he was pretty. His nose had been broken, who knew how, but it had mended in a way that accented his strong features, and the grey eyes that always seemed to have a light in them and his easy smile that could made her smile back in spite of herself. And his breeches were a tad too tight; more than once, she’d caught herself staring at the curve of his ass as he’d walked away from her.
“Fuck,” Kiera muttered to herself, catching her mind wandering again. She crawled out of her bedroll, collected her sword and rooted around in her saddlebags for her toiletries. They’d been riding for nearly three days straight, and they were close enough to the river again that she figured now would be as good a time as any to get clean before the dust of the road was caked to her body again.
The water was cool, but that suited Kiera. She waded out till she was waist-deep, and placed her soap and cloth on a nearby rock. She dipped under the water and burst back to the surface. She ran her hands across her hair, feeling the sides where it was growing out. In Coulain, where they traded regularly with the Dragon Clans in the west, they’d told her shaved sides and a long top made her look fierce, but the longer she went without being able to correct the sides, the more she couldn’t wait for it to be long enough to cut down around her ears again.
She reached for her soap and scrubbed her arms and shoulders, and then along the curves of her breasts, paying attention to her large dark nipples, which were hard as rocks from the cold water.
“Mind if I join you?”
Kiera jumped a little, and nearly lost her bar of soap. She glanced over to where Pol sat chuckling on the bank.
“It’s not my river,” she said as indifferently as she could dare, turning her back. Behind her, she heard Pol undo his belt.
“Vash, that’s cold,” he swore, wading out to her. “This might be embarrassing.” Kiera sank down until her chest was under the water, lifting a leg to rub the soapy cloth along it.
“Can I borrow that when you’re done?” asked Pol, looking rather helpless. It was clear he’d planned only up to getting in the river with her. She nodded, switching to the other leg. When that was done, she passed him the cloth.
“Where’s the soap?” he asked.
“On the rock,” said Kiera, sinking down until just the top of her head from her nose on up was poking out of the water, watching him as he debated what to do.
Eventually Pol clambered up to the rock, lifting most of his body out of the water, and Kiera watched with excitement as his cock came out hard and long, even in the cold of the river. Pol caught her looking, retrieved the soap and sank back into the water, his cheeks flushed with color.
“You’re very beautiful,” he shrugged.
She watched as he cleaned himself, rubbing the cloth along his chest, and when his cock made a repeat appearance as he put his legs up on a rock to clean them in turn.
“You need a shave,” she said, rising out of the water a little, when he was about finished.
“Well, I don’t trust myself without a mirror,” he said. “So unless you have one…”
“I’ll trade you,” she said. She lifted one stubbled leg back above the water. “If you shave my legs, I’ll shave your face.”
“Deal,” said Pol. He took the soap and cloth and worked up a lather and Kiera fetched her knife from the rock and handed it to him. He knelt in the water.
“Place your foot on my shoulder,” he said. Kiera lifted her right leg out and placed it on his left shoulder. This raised her chest partway out of the water, so that the tops of her nipples were partially exposed. If Pol noticed, he said nothing, spreading the soap lather up and down her leg. His hands were firm and confident and Kiera began to relax a little. The water was fairly clear and Kiera was sure he could see her pussy from where he was. But he seemed focused on his work, starting the knife at the thigh and dragging it gently back towards him down her leg, taking the hairs with him. When he’d finished with one side, he moved her leg to his right shoulder, and worked down the right side. When he thought he’d finished, he ran his hand back across the grain of the smooth shapely swell of her shin to check and make sure he hadn’t missed anything. As he reached her thigh, Kiera regarded him with watchful eyes. His hand reached her inner thigh and she thrilled at his touch, though she betrayed nothing to Pol. He stopped well before the point she might accuse him of taking advantage.
“Now the other,” he said, tapping her ankle. She removed her right leg and lifted her left.
“You’re pretty good at this,” she said, watching him lather the new leg and start the knife on its journey. His breath was hot on her ankle.
“It’s not exactly the first time I’ve had a woman’s foot on my shoulder,” said Pol. “Or shaved.”
“Hmmm,” said Kiera.
When he’d finished with the other leg, he slipped her foot off his shoulder and handed her the knife and soap and cloth.
“Have you ever shaved a man before?” he asked.
“Many times,” said Kiera. “It’s not much different than shaving a leg, only legs are generally smarter.”
If having her leg on his shoulder had seemed intimate, Kiera realized too late this was nothing on how tight she had to get to shave his face. Her breasts hovered just against his chest as she rubbed the lather on his face, and when she lifted his chin to get started, his grey eyes considered her, shining with glee.
“Remember how close my knife is to your throat,” she warned.
“How could I forget?” he said.
“Don’t talk,” she said. “My hands are a little numb. They could slip.”
She stroked each of his cheeks with the blade. To get under his chin, she placed a hand on the side of his neck and lifted his jaw with her thumb, pressing even
closer against him. There was an unmistakable hardness against her belly that she tried her best to ignore. She was practically sitting in his lap.
“You wouldn’t look atrocious with a beard,” she told him. He started to reply, but thought better of it and held his tongue until she’d finished.
“It comes in too patchy to start,” he explained, when she took the knife away, sliding away from him in the water. Pol paused, trying to think of some reason to stay in the water with her, as Kiera placed the knife back on the rock.
“I—” he began.
“Could you—” started Kiera at the same time.
They both paused and waited for the other to speak.
“I’m sorry,” said Pol. “I had nothing. You go.”
“I forgot to clean my back, and I have a hard time reaching it,” explained Kiera. “Would you mind?”
“Not at all,” said Pol. He took the rag from her, and she turned her back to him, rising halfway out of the water. He rested one hand on her waist, and used the other to scrub her back.
Kiera closed her eyes, enjoying his touch and the feel of his breath on the back of her neck. The hand on her waist began to travel, and when it cupped her breast, she arched her back to give it a better grasp. She could feel the hardness between the cheeks of her ass, and heard the cloth land with a wet smack on the rock. The hand on her breast grasped at her nipple and rolled it between thumb and forefinger and her breath caught in her throat. Another hand dipped below the water and began to explore the space between her legs. When it found the nub of her clit, she gave a groan and shuddered.
A bird called and she heard a fish jump further down the river, and she remembered where they were. She pulled Pol’s hands off her body and stepped away from him.
“All clean?” she asked.
“Sure,” came Pol’s dejected voice.
“Thank you, Pol,” she said, gathering up her things on the rock. She waded to shore. She was sure Pol was looking at how swollen her lips were as she bent over to pick up her clothes, but it seemed unavoidable.
“Coming out?” she asked.
Pol sat motionless in the water.
“I might stay a little longer,” he said. “I think I’ve still got a bit of feeling in my toes, and I’d like that to go away.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. “I’ll see you back in camp. Soon, please. Tia Vashil is still a long ways away.”
* * * * *
Just before the sun considered setting, Kiera called a halt to the day’s travel into the woods. Pol was better at finding fire-worthy kindling this time, and in almost no time they had a sizable blaze going.
Pol was telling a story, a bawdy tale that managed to help put the encounter in the river behind them, something they’d strenuously avoided talking about since it had happened.
“What did you do then?”
“Well, what was there to do?” asked Pol. “She’d only just thrown me my pants, and here comes the betrothed, bearing down on me like a bull, and I’m trying to put my pants on, backing up, and there’s the window, open, of course, because it’s how I came in.”
“And that’s when you went out?”
“That’s when I went out. Five stories, too. A long drop.”
“Into a cart of manure?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Saved my life.”
“What’d you do after you landed?”
“Well,” said Pol, laughing. “I put my fucking pants on and walked away.”
“I can’t imagine surviving a fall like that,” said Kiera. She put a new log onto the fire, watching as the flames lapped at it for a bit before leaping upwards. “What goes through your mind?”
“Oh, you know, the same things you think about before you go to sleep, only faster and there are more of them. The good times, the bad times, the people you love, the people you hate, the regrets you’ve had. The women you bedded, the women you didn’t bed.”
“A lot of those?”
“A few.”
“You don’t seem the type, judging from the farm girl.”
“I’ll have you know I’ve loved and lost just like the best of them. There was this one girl—”
A branch snapped in the woods, and Kiera glanced up, but Pol kept talking.
“Shut up, Pol,” she said.
“Oh, you can handle the humor, but you can’t handle the sappy stuff?” asked Pol.
“Shut up,” she commanded, using the tone she usually saved for her younger brother. Or for her horse. Pol shut his mouth, watching her. She drew her sword, rising her feet, watching the brush.
A branch snapped off to her left and she spun on her heel.
An instant before the spearpoint went whizzing by her head, she recognized the trick, dodging backward.
The spear was connected to a wild looking man with a mane of red hair and glowing yellow eyes. A wolfskin, the fur painted in different colors, decorated his shoulders, but other than that he wore no clothing at all. He snarled at her, jabbing again.
Kiera danced away, batting the tip aside with her sword, the red-haired man readying it and pushing forward to close the distance each time. On the next jab and bat, she threw her foot forward, catching the spear haft under her boot and pushing hard until it snapped.
The red-haired man rolled away, dodging the hissing blow of Kiera’s sword meant to decapitate him. He pulled the pointless spear shaft out from under her, and Kiera stumbled as her footing shifted. Still too quick for him, though, as she caught the blow he tried to deliver with his fresh-made staff using her sword. They were too close now, and Kiera realized it before he seemed to, lashing her foot out around his and sending him tumbling backwards to the ground.
The point of her sword touched the red-haired man’s throat.
“Don’t move,” she said.
“Or we’ll kill your man here,” came a feminine voice. Kiera glanced over her shoulder. Two women were standing next to Pol, a spearpoint in his ribs.
“I was afraid it was wolves,” said Pol, his hands wrapped around the spear, trying to keep it from gutting him.
“We are wolves,” said the taller of the two women. She had coal black hair and one of her breasts was visibly larger than the other.
Pol only look confused and Kiera sighed.
“They’re Canians,” she offered.
“I thought Canians were just a story mothers used to keep little boys from behaving badly. You know, ‘if you talk back, the Canians will come and eat you.’ Are you going to eat us?” Everyone knew about Canians. The wild men of the woods, who’d lain with wolves and ran on all fours and had the eyes of their lupine forebears.
“We were going to just slip by you, but then Mox decided he had to show how much of a hardass he was by killing Dragon Clan,” said the tall one.
“Shut up, Atti,” snarled Mox. Kiera tightened her sword against his throat.
“Shut up yourself, we’re talking. Hostages don’t talk.”
“He’s talking,” said Mox.
“That’s as close to Pol comes to being silent,” said Kiera. She looked back the thief and his captors.
“Looks like we’re at a bit of an impasse.”
“Could be, could be,” said Atti, nodding. Her companion gazed off into the ever-darkening woods.
“Why don’t we count to three, and we’ll each release our prisoners, and go on our merry ways?” asked Kiera.
“Why don’t we just stand here a bit and get to know each other better?”
“I’ll kill him,” Kiera threatened.
“I don’t really care,” said Atti.
“Really?” asked Pol.
Atti shrugged and Pol adjusted around the movement of her spearpoint in response.
“I kind of hate Mox,” she said.
“Fuck you, Atti,” snapped Mox.
“Oh, I’d like to see you try. Probably like fucking a dead rat.”
“Shut up, Atti,” came a r
umbling voice from the woods. The brush parted and a massive man stepped forth. He was nearly a head taller than Kiera or Pol, with jet black hair and a beard. Over his broad shoulders he’d slung an entire deer carcass, which he tossed to the earth with a crash. A massive scar ran from under one nipple down across his chest and stomach before terminating just above his groin, as if beckoning the beholder to glance upon one of the most distractingly large cocks she had ever seen.
“This is an odd way to end a hunt,” said the giant.
“Sorry, Largan,” said Atti. “Mox went and got himself captured by Dragon Clan.”
“Atti’s been teasing him,” said the other woman.
“She’ll do that, Yina,” said Largan. He hunched down by the fire, examining it, then found another log, setting it carefully among its already burning fellows.
“We’re not Dragon Clan,” said Kiera.
“Sure, now that we outnumber you four to two you’re not,” said Atti.
“We were never Dragon Clan,” said Kiera.
“That’s a lot of dragon jade for someone who claims not to be Dragon Clan,” said Largan, gesturing at Kiera’s armor, laying on a blanket from where she’d been cleaning it before setting up the fire. “Where’d you get it?”
“Family heirloom.”
“Dragon Clan pass their jade down from parent to child,” observed Yina.
Largan shrugged his shoulders.
“Better come up with something better than that,” said Largan. His eyes sat like two gold balls in his head, catching the flames of the fire and glittering as he looked Kiera over.
“I don’t have their tattoos.”
“So you say. Plus you have their weird haircut,” said Largan.
“It’s all the latest rage in Coulain. I was just there.”
“I’m not up to date with the latest styles in Coulain. Not often we get invited to the Metropolises,” Largan sniffed.
He looked at her again, grinning. Kiera was no stranger to that look, and if it hadn’t been for his comrades with their spears pushing up against Pol, she might have returned it in kind. The Canian man wasn’t half bad looking. He had a toothy grin, a confidence that echoed across his muscular frame. And the look he was giving her felt like he was already half way to devouring her...
Dragon Jade Chronicle: The Warlock And The Warrior Page 5
