The musician found room for another finger, his wrist pumping hard into her. His other arm wrapped itself around her waist, his fingers dancing along her clit like it was the neck of his mon-to box.
Kiera shuddered, her whole body quaking as her climax overtook her. She wanted to cry out, but stifled it into a low, continuous moan. She wanted this to continue, not have it broken up by some nosy tavern girl coming to investigate the noise from the basement. Her pussy gripped the fingers inside it tighter, squeezing hard as they continued to pump into her.
“Oh, fuck, oh fuck,” she murmured.
“You like that?” teased the mon-to box player.
“Uh huh,” moaned Kiera. She reached one hand behind her, cupping his face, gripping his hair tightly, her back arching even more as he rammed his fingers into her, her body still shaking in aftershocks as his fingers drove across her sensitive body.
She pressed forward, his fingers slipping out of her. Kiera shuffled around, her pants caught on her boots, to face him. He made to kiss her, but she ignored him, sinking down to his waist, undoing his breeches and drawing his cock out into the dark of the cellar.
It was hard enough to see a hand in front of one’s face, let alone a person’s eyes at one’s crotch, but if the mon-to box player had been able to see Kiera’s, he would have had trouble controlling himself. As it was, he pressed one hand to her head, encouraging her to plunge his cock into her mouth. At a torturously slow pace, she complied.
Kiera held his cock in one hand, her other finding its way down to her clit to play with herself. Her cheeks hollowed as she slurped on the musician’s cock, her technique growing sloppier and more hurried as her own pleasure began to grow again in response to her fingers.
She fed as much of him into her mouth as she could, the sudden sensation of her nose pressing against the skin above the base of his cock making him groan even louder as her tongue rolled itself around him.
Kiera pulled his cock from her mouth, the whole length covered in her spittle. She caught her breath, then rose and turned around again, resuming her previous pose against the shelf. She found his cock, and guided him forward, feeling the head press up against the entrance to her pussy.
“Fuck me,” she ordered.
“Oh, hells,” he muttered as she pulled on him, his cock sliding between her folds, well lubricated by her spit and her own juices.
He was eager, for sure, which Kiera appreciated in her current state. She wanted a good, hard fucking to take her mind off things. The mon-to box player slammed into her, his hips pistoning in long, firm strokes that pushed her up against the shelf. His hands roamed her body, playing with her tits for a moment before sliding down her sides to grip her waist and hold her steady.
Kiera bent even lower, so that she was leaning past the horizon of her waist, her ass jutting back against the man fucking her from behind. She rocked back, pumping him in return, lengthening each pull stroke, deepening each push stroke. Her movements urged him to take her harder, and he rose to the challenge, spearing her with his cock on each thrust as hard as he possibly could, her body shaking with each clap of her buttocks against his waist, his repeated grunts of effort making her coo in response.
“Oh, fuck!” he cried. His cock pulsed inside her and she felt his cum rush into her pussy. She continued to ride him for a moment, moaning with pleasure at each subsequent pulse of his seed inside her.
Soon enough they were simply two sweaty half-naked companions in a wine cellar, his softening cock sliding out of her when she straightened her back.
“You’re a pretty good mon-to box player,” said Kiera. She pulled her pants back up, doing up her belt. She’d had a shirt when she’d come down here, she was pretty sure. It had to be around somewhere.
“Thanks,” he said. “That’s why they call me the Stupendous Sandon.”
“Hmmm…” said Kiera. The Stupendous Sandon? Had they really introduced him as that?
“Have you ever thought about calling yourself the Amazing Marris?”
“Um...no.”
“Just a thought. Unless you like playing in dives like this.”
“It has it perks,” he said, reaching out to grasp Kiera’s left breast and giving the nipple a tweak.
“To be honest, I usually don’t come to these establishments, I usually stay closer to the Guild Hill when choosing places to drink.”
“Then why are you here tonight? Has Vash chosen to bless me?”
“The dragonwater on the Hill costs more and it’s more water than dragon,” said Kiera. Her shirt was draped over a wine cask, and she took it and slipped it on. A couple of the buttons at the bottom had ripped off, but that was okay. It was modest enough for her purpose.
“Anyhow, Marris—”
“Sandon.”
“—there’s lots of ladies on the Hill who’d lift their dresses for a man as talented with the mon-to box as you are.”
“You think?”
“Sure. It’s a complicated instrument. Lots of strings. Women like a man who’s good with his hands.”
“I’d never thought about it like that.”
Kiera patted his cheek, then stumbled a little. Sandon caught her around the waist, and she took a moment to steady the world before pushing his hands off her.
“Can you get home okay?”
“No one’s going to bother me tonight,” said Kiera.
She wasn’t wrong, either. The green and gold gryphon on the left breast of the jacket she collected from the main hall of the tavern where she’d left it with the barman was as good a warning to anyone. The Exarch might not exactly be a king, but no one doubted that he’d scour the entire city if someone raised a hand against someone in his house. That and the dueling saber she carried allowed Kiera to stumble her way to the Guild Hill unmolested. Only the vai Ullan men-at-arms challenged her, until she hiccupped her passphrase at them. The walk had sobered her out a little, but not enough.
A servant took her sword and jacket from her at the door.
“Your father is in his library, ma’am, if you’d like to say goodnight,” he told her.
“Thank you,” said Kiera. “I just might.”
Kiera plodded up the stairs, pushing open the doors to Ked’s library, then throwing herself into one of the easy chairs with the softer plush padding.
Ked only glanced at her askew, then went back to whatever he was working on.
“What are you doing in here so late?” she asked.
“Looking at the maps,” said her father. His chair was pulled up to his great table, maps and charts spread across the table.
“What are you looking for?”
“Oh, many things. I had thought to find the most likely places your friend might have washed up if he made it out alive. When we send scouts out ahead of the army, we can have them take a look. He might have found help.”
“If he didn’t, he’ll have died of starvation long before then,” said Kiera.
Ked frowned.
“It’s not wrong to keep your hopes up, you know,” he said.
“Master Hralgar said, ‘Hope is when you delude yourself into thinking that the things that can’t happen can happen’.”
“And Master Hralgar was a fine swordsman and warrior and an excellent teacher. But, as I recall, he was also a terrible drunk with a number of debts, which was why I was able to hire him for so little.”
“You cheaped out on my education?”
“Not at all, I merely got a bargain for it.”
Kiera slumped lower in her chair, the room spinning a bit more than she was comfortable with.
“Surely the Exarch of Tia Vashil is losing his sleep over more than just his daughter’s missing friend.”
“Just so. I am also looking for a battlefield. Something that looks tempting, that the Clans will think gives them the advantage when in it really does us.”
“How’re the preparations going?”
“For once, our family’s dwindling numbers have serv
ed us well. With the coin I might have spent on nephews, nieces, and cousins, I’ve been able to raise nearly as many men-at-arms as vai Keller. Vai Auin has nearly half again as much, but vai Banda and vai Tischer are lacking. I’ve sent to Coulain for reinforcements.
“It’s not enough, though,” sighed Ked, rubbing at his temples. “Thus a battlefield.”
“Found anything?”
“There are several promising loca—”
“Tea, sir?” asked a servant from the doorway.
“Ah, yes,” said Ked. He waved the servant to him.
“Any for me?” asked Kiera. The servant, a girl with close cropped dark hair, wearing a rather ill-fitting vai Ullan doublet, the green and gold gryphon pulled tight over her chest, jerked at the sound of her voice, having missed Kiera collapsed in the easy chair. The porcelain on her tray jittered.
“I’m sorry, milady, I thought it was only the Exarch here,” she said, nodding her head in deference to Kiera. The laces at the neck of the girl’s doublet were just barely done up. Kiera smiled. The old man was slipping as he got older; he never would have let such a thing pass without comment when she was a child.
The servant put the tray down on the table. As she leaned over, Kiera thought she saw a mark on the girl’s collarbone, one that tickled the recesses of her memory, even in her drunken state. She turned from Kiera, straightening as she poured tea from the pot into a cup.
When the girl leaned back down to hand Ked his teacup, Kiera caught a better sight of the mark, a black bird of prey, a falcon, in mid-fall. Her brain was screaming at her, dread flushing through her body, a chill running down her spine. She pushed herself as best she could out of her chair.
“Father,” she said.
The panic must have been quite apparent in her voice, because both Ked and the servant looked at her as one. Ked caught his daughter’s gaze, following it back to the eyes of the woman looming over him, each of them holding one edge of the teacup’s saucer.
“Who are—” he began in confusion.
The knife seemed to appear in the girl’s hands out of thin air, and she drove it into the Exarch’s stomach, ramming it through his clothes and twisting. The teacup and saucer smashed to bits on the floor as they slipped from his hands.
Ked roared and rose out of his chair, grappling with the woman, throwing her onto the table, the knife going with her, his hands grasping at the wound it left behind. He turned to face her.
His assassin was much faster than he was, rolling up to her knees and slamming Ked’s head against the surface of the table, then stabbing him again in the shoulder as his back became exposed. Ked fell to his knees. Paper crumpled and tore as he tried to grab at anything to steady himself. Thick crimson stains were appearing in his clothes, blood soaking the fabric.
The assassin gripped her weapon in both hands, readying it for her final blow.
Kiera’s shoulder took her in the chest, the blow misaimed by the alcohol in her system. She’d tried to grab the woman’s wrists, but stumbled at the last minute. The Dragon Clan raider went sliding off the side of the table opposite Ked, and Kiera rolled after her, landing roughly on her tailbone.
Luck was on Kiera’s side as the assassin lost her grip on the knife in her fall, the blade skidding over the library’s floor and stopping a distance away. The other woman scrambled to her feet, only to go thudding down as Kiera grabbed her ankle and ripped it out from underneath her.
She was fast, rolling onto her back as Kiera came screaming on top of her, Kiera’s fist slamming into the ground where her head had been. She blocked the next blow, catching Kiera’s other hand before it could connect with her face, then holding the wrist of the hand Kiera had punched the floor with.
Which left her with one too few hands to stop Kiera from headbutting her in the face.
The Dragon Clan warrior screamed in pain and clutched at her face, the nose clearly broken and flushing with blood. Kiera gave her a hard right hook, then matched the blow with a counterpart from the left.
The assassin’s face broke into a scowl, and she lifted her leg, hooking it under Kiera’s armpit as she lifted the arm back to strike again. She kicked down, pushing Kiera back, giving her just enough leeway to free her other leg from where it’d become entangled by Kiera’s. As Kiera scrambled up to her feet to try and pin the assassin again, the Dragon Clan girl kicked her in the stomach, sending Kiera stumbling backwards, lights dancing in her field of vision, obscuring the girl rising and retrieving the knife.
Kiera steadied herself on the table, trying to regain her senses and her balance before the next attack. Her father was slumped over the table, his eyes staring at her, his face a mask of pain and, perhaps more disturbing, given that she’d never seen it on his face before, fear. She reached out to him and he tried to move his hand but groaned instead.
“Kiera…” he said, his eyes flickering to something else. She followed his gaze to the Exarch’s Baton. It wasn’t much. Just a bit of ceremonial steel Ked carried around for knightings and dignitaries, a short rod about twice the length of a man’s hands.
She heard the Dragon Clan warrior’s footsteps behind her, drawing near. She spun away, the knife catching her just below the ribs, cutting through her jacket and undershirt, slicing a gash across her stomach.
Her hand closed around the baton and she swung, almost in blindness, guessing at where the assassin was. Her arm rattled, the rod making a dull smacking sound as it connected with the other woman’s jaw, sending her reeling back.
Kiera advanced on her opponent, but carefully—the assassin was still formidable and Kiera was still quite drunk, relying mostly on instinct to guide her. The cut across her chest had sliced along the ribs, just under her left breast, and it burned like fire. Not good.
The assassin caught herself on a bookshelf, then fell into a hasty fighting stance, her knife rising, leaning forward to keep herself low, her legs splayed out, ready for a feint or attack. Kiera gripped the baton in one hand like a cudgel. She had at least a head’s height on the other woman, and probably a good few pounds, but if the Dragon Clans were sending assassins, they would have sent their best.
The other woman shifted her jaw, as though tonguing something peculiar in her mouth. Her lips puckered and she spat. A tooth went bouncing across the floor.
The Dragon Clan raider began to circle, and Kiera moved to keep herself between her father and her opponent, the baton held at the ready. They eyed each other carefully, watching for a slip or stutter in movement, a space to make an attack.
Kiera feinted, enough to draw her opponent into a slashing counterattack that fell on empty air. Kiera drove the baton into the woman’s back, sending her sprawling onto the floor.
Kiera tried to bring the baton down on the assassin’s head, but the woman rolled away, leaping up and slashing with the knife. Kiera threw up her free hand, catching the blade square in the palm.
“Fuck!” she screamed as the blade sliced a large gash along her hand. She stumbled and landed up against the wall near one the great windows that looked out onto the gardens.
It was bad—deep. It’d need Guild healing for sure, if the Guild wasn’t being slaughtered by more Clan assassins.
Her own assassin was running towards her, screaming a battle cry of some sort. Kiera tried to raise the baton, but caught by surprise she dropped it instead, cursing as she did. She tried to stoop for it, but saw it was too late. Instead, she lifted her hands and caught the raider by then waist, then spun.
There was the unmistakable sound of glass and wooden frames shattering as the other woman went hurtling through the multi-paned window of the library, carried along by her own force. Kiera was almost pulled along too, but she dug her heels in and let go of her opponent at the last second, watching the surprised Dragon Clan assassin become airborne as she flew past.
There was a clipped scream that ended in a dull thud. When Kiera looked out at the gravel walkway at the base of the window, there was no movement, just a
prone figure, a couple of its limbs bent at odd angles. She slumped down against the wall, her breath coming in rapid, ragged bursts.
“Kiera!”
Jin was there, and her mother was too, sobbing over Ked, cradling his head in her lap. The servants were flooding into the room, and everyone was screaming. When Kiera looked down at the floor, it seemed to her there was an awful lot of blood, and then she realized it coming from her.
“Jin,” she said. “Father.”
“We’re sending a runner to the Guild, Kiera.”
She nodded, not really hearing, but the confidence in Jin’s voice felt very reassuring.
“I’m going to pass out now.”
“Kiera! Kier—”
* * * * *
“Kiera.”
“Pretty name,” said Rouran. She hung her clothes on the line. “What do you think she’s up to while you’re here?”
“Oh, I’m sure something important,” said Pol. He looked up from the fishnet he was untangling. The sun felt nice and warm on his face. Rouran had found him some of her husband’s old clothes. They’d been a poor fit, but Rouran had tailored them to the best of her ability.
Beyond Rouran, a verdant field rolled up from her cottage to the forest. A squat stone wall marked the boundary of the field. Children played in the grass. One girl had a stick, ordering the others about like it was a scepter from where she had taken a seat on the wall.
“Shit, this is going to take forever,” Pol said. It wasn’t even a very big net, he realized. It was, however, hopelessly tangled.
“Yep! That’s why I was so happy when you volunteered.”
“Somehow I thought this was going to be easier.”
“No, I hate those things.”
“I always thought fishermen fished with, well... fishing poles.”
“I guess they could, if they liked catching one fish at a time. But we prefer to catch a lot at once, so casting nets is the way to go.”
Dragon Jade Chronicle: The Warlock And The Warrior Page 32
