by Sarah Hawke
I held up my left hand and studied the ring she had given me. “So I get to activate or deactivate mine whenever I want, but you don’t.”
“Correct. My collar cannot be removed.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It is not meant to be fair.”
“Maybe it should be,” I said. “Here’s to equality…”
I tapped the ring with my thumb. The tiny glyphs inscribed on the surface began to glow, and a moment later I felt a wave of emotions crash over me as if I had just smashed open a mental dam. Sorting through them was almost impossible, but amidst the deluge there was one that stuck out above all the others.
Specifically, her overwhelming desire for me to throw her onto the ground, mount her from behind, and fuck her ass until her cries of pleasure echoed throughout the forest.
She smiled devilishly when I met her eyes, and my cock hardened to full length in less than a second. The raw intensity of her lust was almost unbelievable. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had spent the entire day fantasizing out what would happen when we finally set up camp for the night.
“Holy shit,” I stammered. “I don’t—”
Kaseya leaned forward and kissed me. Her tongue pierced my lips at nearly the same moment her hand slipped into my trousers. Her fingers deftly worked my cock free, and she stroked me in perfect rhythm with the movement of our lips. I couldn’t believe how much she wanted this—she, Kaseya, not just her collar.
She wanted me to hold her down and fuck her as hard as I could. She wanted me to tame her, to dominate her, to remind her that even though she was a proud amazon warrior, I was the one in charge. Her taut, perfectly honed body was ultimately nothing more than a wet sheath for my aching cock. And it always would be.
Grabbing ahold of her wrists, I tossed her down into the dirt next to the fire as hard as I could. She gasped in surprise, but I could feel the ripple of excitement shudder through her body. I pounced on top of her before she could turn around or stand, effectively pinning her beneath me.
“Get your ass in the air,” I growled into her ear. “Now!”
She obediently shuffled her knees forward, lifting her ass off the ground and presenting herself to me like a bitch in heat. I kept one hand pressed firmly against her head to hold her face flat against the ground while the other swatted aside the leather straps of her skirt and ripped apart the thong beneath. With a primal roar of conquest, I plunged my manhood straight into her sopping, smoldering cunt.
Her muffled squeal echoed off the trees, and once again I felt a shudder of pleasure cascade through her entire body. Our magical bond had essentially created an endless loop of ecstasy: my pleasure rippled through her, which then in turn rippled back through me. The rougher I thrust, the harder she whimpered; the harder she whimpered, the harder I thrust. Within mere moments I was pounding into her so violently that her ass and thighs had turned red.
But I wasn’t done yet.
I pulled out mere moments before I flooded her cunt with my seed. My glistening cock twitched in mid-air, enraged that I hadn’t given it the release it so desperately craved. I paused just long enough to catch my breath and regain control before I shoved her face even harder into the dirt.
“Spread your knees,” I ordered. “Give me your ass!”
Kaseya did as I commanded, offering me the one hole I had yet to claim. I pressed my throbbing cockhead against her nether entrance, using my free hand to help guide it into her swollen inch by swollen inch. I could feel her pain and her pleasure all at once, and it only encouraged me to plunge deeper more quickly. Knowing that I’d been the first man to claim her virgin cunt made my cock twinge every time I thought about it, but there was something truly special about being the first man to fuck a woman’s beautiful ass. The pleading whimpers, the impossible tightness, the undeniable sense of power and domination…
“Take it all!” I snarled, shifting my grip to her long ponytail. I wrenched it back every time I thrust, lifting her head and then slamming it down again. My inhibitions faded as my cock swelled. My guilt evaporated as her cries became more and more intense.
“Maskari !” Kaseya cried out. “I am yours!”
I yanked her head back one final time as my seed flooded her bowels. My cock seemed to plunge deeper with every spasm, and by the fifth volley I was completely spent. I collapsed atop her yet again, pinning her flat against like a lioness who had just been dominated by the king of the pride. I remained there for several minutes until my cock had completely shriveled, and when I finally leaned up I was once again astonished at how much I had pumped into her. The viscous white stream trickling down her ass to her quim was already pooling on the ground.
I have no idea of how long I sat there on my haunches, marveling at the sight of the moonlight glinting off her body and wondering for the millionth time what in the multiverse I had done to deserve her. She turned towards me and smiled tiredly but contentedly. I was a big enough man to admit that I had enjoyed the company of whores in Vorsalos, and once I had even enjoyed the attention of a guild lord’s harem. All those women had been attractive and attentive, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I had thoroughly enjoyed filling them—and occasionally covering them—with my seed.
But Kaseya wasn’t a whore or a slave, not really. She had chosen this. She wanted this. Her smiles and pleased whimpers were the greatest gifts of all.
I crawled back over to her, and in response she lifted her ass and presented herself for me again. But I didn’t want her that way. I flipped her over onto her back, placed her ankles upon my shoulders, and pressed down until her knees were touching her chest. My lips hovered an inch above hers, and I waited for her to smile and placed her hands around my neck before I kissed her. My tongue slipped into her mouth at the same time my cock thrust into her quim.
I pumped her slowly, gently, as if she were the most important thing in the world. When her nails dug into my flesh and her body seized in climax, I flooded her with every drop of seed I had left. Our names echoed through the forest, screamed from one another’s lips.
I was her Maskari , and she was my amazon warrior. I had only known her for a week, and I already couldn’t imagine it any other way.
5
As hard as it was to believe, Kaseya and I were actually able to walk mostly fine the next morning even without the aid of restorative magic. We made even better time than the previous day, actually, though I did have to deactivate my ring after only a few hours. Containing my own libido was difficult enough without hers amplifying it, and we did need to move fairly quickly if we wanted to reach the bandit’s stronghold by nightfall. Assuming it was real and not a hoax, anyway.
The map led us more or less in the right direction, and Kaseya’s tracking skills filled in the gaps when necessary. We passed the North Road around noon, though we didn’t spot any travelers or caravans. The boot prints in the nearby forest were still fresh, however, and based on their number alone I was fairly certain we had found the right trail. A few hours before nightfall, my suspicions were confirmed.
Unfortunately, so were my biggest doubts.
“That’s not an outpost,” I whispered. “It’s a bloody fortress.”
Based on the description from the bounty, I had expected a ramshackle wooden fort built into the side of the mountain, not half of a damn castle. End to end, the walls stretched at least a hundred yards, though the size worried me far less than the battlements and the twin watchtowers. Even from here I could see at least nine men on the walls, and for all we knew there could have been fifty more inside the actual keep and courtyard. The only remotely encouraging sign was that the stone was old and crumbling, but it was probably more than sufficient to repel an assault from anything short of heavy siege equipment or powerful magic.
“I thought you said there were dozens of small mining villages along the edge of the mountains here,” Kaseya said, leaning down in the grass next to me.
“According to the map, there are,” I said. �
�Their militias wouldn’t have a chance in hell against fortifications like this. Then again, a patrol of knights wouldn’t have a chance against fortifications like this, either.”
I slumped behind the knoll and swore under my breath. I hadn’t expected this to be as easy blasting a few thugs and recovering the stolen cargo, but this had devolved from “dangerous” to “suicidal” in record time.
“Based on the tracks we found and the fact that these men haven’t attempted to rule any of the villages, I doubt there are more than fifteen or twenty warriors inside,” Kaseya said, her eyes narrowing in thought. “You shouldn’t be so concerned. If we wait for the cover of night, we should be able to—”
“We could be outnumbered twenty to one for all we know,” I interrupted. “I don’t care how dark it gets—we’re not overcoming those odds.”
She frowned. “They are merely brigands. You are moshalim , and I am a trained amazon warrior. They will not be able to stand against us.”
I sighed and rubbed at my temples. Last night I had found her earnest self-assuredness charming, but it had suddenly become a liability. “Look, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but we have to be realistic. The two of us can’t—”
“I am as skilled with a bow as a blade,” Kaseya interrupted. “Once I remove the sentry in the eastern tower, your magic can propel me up onto the wall. I can easily eliminate their other spotters and catch the rest in their sleep.”
I paused and studied her silhouette as she squinted out towards the fortress. I didn’t need to reactivate my ring to know that she wasn’t just blustering. She was fully convinced that she could sneak inside the fortress and discreetly murder a few dozen men in their sleep. My mind flashed back to a few years ago when Valuri and I had shared almost the exact same argument about an underground base filled with local gangsters. I was the one who constantly ran the risk of overchanneling the Aether and destroying himself, but apparently fate thought it was a good idea to repeatedly pair me off with beautiful, deadly, suicidally-confident women.
“Getting you up onto the wall would be easy, true,” I admitted, “but I’m not just going to let you take on an entire fort full of brigands by yourself.”
“It is the only way I can guarantee your safety,” Kaseya told me. “If I am overwhelmed, you will still be able to escape.”
“Just because you pledged to serve me doesn’t make you expendable. If we’re going to do this, we’ll do it together.”
“If that is your wish. But whatever our strategy, you should allow me to bear the brunt of the risk.”
I couldn’t help but shake my head and grin at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Last night I had been holding her face-down in the dirt while I savagely fucked her ass, and now, barely half a day later, she was perfectly willing to charge into an enemy fortress and die on my behalf. It was ludicrous beyond reason. And yet here we were.
“Before we do anything, we should get a closer look at their numbers and defenses,” I said. “We can’t risk approaching on foot, but there’s a chance I can scry on them from here.”
Kaseya turned to face me. “I did not realize you had mastered such magic.”
“I haven’t, which is why I don’t know if it will actually work,” I said. “As a friend of mine used to say, I know a little about a lot of things. Sadly, in the real world that doesn’t seem as useful as knowing a lot about a few.”
I closed my eyes and stretched out through the Aether. In my mind’s eye, I could see the field surrounding us almost like I had become a leaf on the wind, but moving my field of view closer to the fortress proved even more strenuous than I’d anticipated. I felt Kaseya stir next to me, and after a few moments she pressed her forehead against mine.
“I am no sorcerer,” she said, “but the moshalim on Nol Krovos often find that physical contact aids with their concentration.”
“All right,” I whispered. It didn’t make any sense to me, but I wasn’t about to push her away for no reason. The flowery scent of her hair—how did it always smell so damn good?—greeted my nostrils and did actually help me relax.
It took a few more minutes, but I eventually I managed to stretch my senses all the way to fortress. Other than the nine sentries on the battlements, I only sensed a handful more inside the actual keep. They were all haggard and half-starving, and their weapons and armor were clearly scavenged and/or stolen. I made a mental note of the structural weaknesses in the stone and the locations of all their potential light-sources…
“All right,” I said, opening my eyes. “There are fewer men than I thought, and they’re not equipped particularly well. I’m a little surprised they managed to steal cargo from guild wizards, honestly.”
“Do you know if the supplies are still here?”
“If they are, they’re probably inside the keep. I can’t stretch my senses that far.” I paused. “They certainly don’t look like they’ve received any kind of massive payment. I bet they’re still waiting for their buyer to show up.”
“Then we arrived just in time,” Kaseya said.
“Yeah,” I murmured. Something about this didn’t feel right, and not just because we were so badly outnumbered. If the cargo the mages were delivering was at all valuable—and the five thousand coin bounty suggested it was—then why wouldn’t the guild have had more guards defending it? Even a few apprentices and a hired sword or two could have probably held off an ambush from this sorry lot.
Regardless, at this point it didn’t really matter. Our odds were a lot better than I’d first thought, and the bottom line was that I needed the coin—or a way to buy my way into the good graces of the Black Mistress. Either way, an opportunity like this might not present itself again for a while.
“All right,” I said. “We still have some time. All we need now is a plan.”
***
We waited until a few hours after nightfall before we risked creeping closer to the fortress. Without the torch sconces on the battlements we wouldn’t have been able to spot the sentries, and even with them my eyes took quite a while to properly adjust. The cloudy sky had all but smothered the moon tonight, which Kaseya considered a good omen. I was reserving judgment until after we got through this alive.
“Not that I doubt your training,” I whispered as she drew her bow and nocked an arrow, “but I wouldn’t trust an elven ranger to make a shot from this distance in this lighting.”
“I can see his silhouette,” she said. “The air is still and conditions are favorable. I have taken longer shots before.”
I sensed the slightest hint of wounded pride in her voice. I had only known her for a few days now, but I could already tell that she was the kind of the woman who took failure as a personal insult. Valuri had been the same way; she had practically thrown a fit every time she’d missed a shot with her crossbow, no matter the range or wind.
Apparently I really did have a weakness for perfectionist women with smoldering hot bodies. Who knew?
“If you miss, the whole fort will be after us,” I said, touching Kaseya’s arm before she could draw back the bowstring. “And if you don’t kill him outright, we’ll have the same problem.”
She traced a finger down the limb of her bow. “This weapon was enchanted by one of our most powerful moshalim . Arrows fired from its string are designed to kill quickly and quietly.”
I frowned and studied the weapon. I could feel the Aetheric energy coursing through the wood, though I couldn’t discern the exact nature of the enchantment. Artifice was well outside my realm of expertise.
“It’s still too risky,” I said.
Kaseya cocked a red eyebrow. “You have a different suggestion?”
I pursed my lips and stared at the fort. The reasonable voice in my head was still yelling at me to turn and get out of here, but the impulsive voice—the one I usually listened to—had a better idea.
“I know a technique to enhance my own vision,” I said. “Normally it doesn’t work on anyone else, but maybe we can explo
it this bond of ours somehow.”
Taking a deep breath, I reached out to the Aether and tried to remember exactly how to weave this particular spell. It took a few minutes, but eventually my eyes sharpened to the point where I could see through the darkness almost as well as if it were broad daylight. The tower sentry, once an amorphous shadow, was now clearly a man leaning back against the battlements and struggling to ward off sleep.
“I can see him,” Kaseya said, her own eyes narrowing in concentration. “It is…remarkable.”
“Then this is all you, sweetheart,” I said, releasing her arm. “Go ahead and show me what you can do.”
She drew back the bowstring and took aim. Considering what was at stake, I should have been completely silent and focused on her target. But because I was pathetic and apparently insatiable, my eyes drifted down to her bare thighs as she braced herself on a knee. I couldn’t help but imagine her naked, thong-less quim beneath the leather straps of her skirt. If we got out of this in one piece, I promised myself that I was going to have an enormous amount of fun destroying that tight little ass of hers again tonight…
Kaseya turned and lowered her bow. “Shall I relieve you again before we continue?”
“What? No.” I sighed and rubbed at my forehead. “Sorry, I’m not trying to distract you. It’s just…you know.”
I was reasonably sure I saw her smirk before she drew the bowstring again, but she turned away before I could be sure. I took a deep breath and forced my mind to stay clear. I really hated being a man sometimes. Not often, admittedly, and not for long. But still…
The sudden twang of her bowstring refocused my attention. Her arrow arched through the night sky, its silver fletching glinting in the moonlight for a mere fraction of a second before it pierced the sentry’s neck. He died instantly and soundlessly thanks to the magic in her bow, though Kaseya still held up her hand and paused for a moment just in case anyone inside had noticed the shot. When we didn’t hear anything for half a minute, she pointed towards the wall.