“Alright, Joker,” I said, half certain that the horse recognized the name I’d given him, “I’ll let you rest from carrying my bones.”
I searched for Kyra’s scent on foot. Her mount’s was strong in the air, and I wagered she must be where it was. I swept through shadows and foliage, beginning to hear the gurgle of the river as I neared it.
Kyra’s white horse stood out like a ghost amidst the forest darkness.
“Alright, Kyra, this is enough,” I said as I slowed my run and merely strode toward the mount.
I could not spot Kyra. She must have abandoned her mount just like I had. This was madness. Or had something happened to her?
I lifted my face to the sky, breathed in. In my human form my senses were not as heightened, though they were still sharper than they ever had been before Fenris gave me the gift. I thought I smelled her, but it was mingling with the strong scent of the river, its waters carrying so much wet soil, amphibian smells, rotting things, minerals of some kind. I leapt over fallen trunks and bushes, snaked through the small dense tree lines that grew all around the river. My legs flung me through the forest, as fast as a raven and as agile as a squirrel scurries over branches. Finally I reached the edge of the water itself.
I looked up and down the shoreline. Was she really mad enough to try and ford the fiver on her own? I ran toward the sound of splashing water, and had my answer.
“Kyra!” I said as I stood at the edge of the river, my feet submerged up to my ankles. There she was, a third into the river, holding a bow, quiver, and bag above her head as she waded through the water. “By Fenris, what are you doing?”
“Our quests were never the same!” Kyra shouted back and kept making her way through the water.
“Kyra! I know how much you want to find your brothers, but there is nothing you can do once you cross the river! You will have no mount! No supplies. The Lantern Forest is still at least a two day ride from here!”
“That won’t stop me! I’m going!”
I knew I could dive in and haul her back, but I also knew how much it would wound her pride. Still, I began making my way into the water, in case at any moment she needed help. I thrust my shirt off and hurled it back to the bank. The freezing water lapped up to my thighs.
“Kyra, be reasonable! I’ve given you my word, we will make our best effort to find them. Don’t you trust me?”
“You have your own goals! Just like when you decided war was more important than staying here with—” she almost said something then stopped herself, “than with your family. You chose adventuring, gold, women, over… over…
“Kyra.” I dove into the water. My limbs surged with such strength that in a few plunging strokes I was a third through the river and she was just within reach.
“Kyra!” My voice was controlled but a storm was brewing under it. She struggled against me, twisting, kicking, her teeth clenched so that for a moment I thought she would actually bite me. She was strong, stronger than many a war-faring man I had encountered... but I was no longer a man. I clasped one of her wrists, pulled her arm in tight around her own body and held her to me. With my other hand I flung her quiver and bow back to shore.
“Come, we’re going back to camp!”
“No! I’m not—”
She gasped when she felt my arm curling around her waist. Still, she resisted, but I went on slowly tugging her back to the bank. We tussled in the water, twisting and pulling at one another. We exchanged grips and pushes, spins and pulls, but eventually I overtook her and locked my arms like a vice around her. Wrestling against one another had left us both panting with exertion. But now my arms were clasped around her so tight she was completely immobile from the shoulders down. She was completely at my mercy as I slowly brought her away from the river. My hulking mass was wrapped around hers like a great python. We were still up to our waists in water.
“Let go! You think I’m a servant of yours like that Sarathean!”
“No,” I said, cold water lapping all around my waist. “You’re a child, and when I'm near with you, so am I. It’s like you are seventeen and I am nineteen again.
She gasped ever so faintly as her nipples rubbed against my bare torso, and she trembled as she felt me hardening against her below the water.
“Kyra…”
We looked at each other for a long silence, her green eyes locked on mine, neither of us being able to look away. Drops of water glistened along her golden hair, and pooled on the groove above her lip. My lips seized hers. Pangs of wild desire ran through me. She kissed me back, our lips merging together in a warm, wet affection, in a tenderness and roughness all in one. As we kissed my grip softened and she broke free of it.
“How I hate you,” her voice broke, then she flung herself into my arms. She clamped an arm around my neck. She ran her hands through my hair, along my chest, my shoulders, and we went on kissing.
Her lips parted and I felt her legs wrap around mine. Our lips intertwined as our limbs did. Her full breasts pillowed against my chest. I hardened. My hands plunged into the cold water. I clasped her ample hips and slid her undergarment off. “Kyra,” I muttered as our breaths intermingled. My manhood pushed inside her, feeling the smooth heat of her folds. Her voice turned higher, a little raspy as she gasped. I took the swell of her ass in my hands, my fingers digging into the firm flesh, and held her weight up so she could lock her legs around me. The water began swishing as I rocked her hips up and down on my cock. They were languid strokes that let me me feel sliding every inch into her. The winds brushing my wet torso only made my senses come alive all the more, made me enjoy the muscular, voluptuous curves of the woman I had thought of all these years. I relished being so near to her now, our foreheads touching, being able to see every drop of water on her face gleaming in the moonlight, every strand of gold hair turned amber with dampness—some so wet they stuck onto the contour of her forehead. Her lips glistened as they parted to let out ragged breaths.
“Rothan, I missed you—I missed you so,” she gasped into my ear as she now held tight to my neck and began grinding her hips to match my thrusting. I felt her abs work against my own with a growing hunger. “Take me… truly take me.” Her fingers dug into my back, her nails nearly piercing skin. Even the muscles of her sex squeezed on my cock as if asking me for more. I obliged. My knees bent just enough that I could thrust faster, water splashing all around us, her wet hair tossing as she bounced on me. My own breathing became a furnace as I enjoyed the maddeningly sweet feeling of holding onto her hips while I pierced her again and again under the cold water.
I felt the beast stir in me, the pleasure and desire building upon one another—like quicksand, they dragged me down into a frenzy. I slid out of her and carried her back to the shore, still wrapped around one another. I set her down on the moist grasses that grew all along the river bank. My hands slid her brassiere off, her heavy breasts flopping down onto her wet torso. They parted toward her sides under their own weight. The flowery pink flesh around her small nipples stood out from her tawny beige skin. My thumb brushed her hard nipple as I gave her tits a hungry squeeze. Some of her wet hair clung to her cheeks, a red flush on her face. “Take me as you used to.” Her full lips were slightly parted as she stared at me with a desperate urge.
I snatched her by the hips and turned her over.
“Yes, like this.” She glanced back at me with smoldering eyes. “Just like this.”
Her backside faced me. Her muscular flesh gave her a full, thick ass, powerful thighs which were spread so that they would take me. My cock traced the full curve of her ass, its tip sliding across her wet skin. It nuzzled along her pink folds, tingling a passing moment as it brushed along the feathery down of hair above her slit. Then her tightness spread as I pushed my manhood inside her dripping wet sex. I surged with pleasure. The flesh of her ass bulged as I pressed into her with each thrust. “Grah!” I grunted, almost losing control of myself.
“Nnnh! Yes… ohhhh….” she moaned
as I slammed into her again and again. My body seemed to take on a mind of its own. A primal instinct overwhelmed me and my human mind was only witness to how much my body had been desiring her since I had seen her once again.
Her body shook, her ass smacking against my thrusting hips so much that water droplets burst off her jiggling cheeks. I leaned over her, reached with one arm to fondle her flailing tits, felt their jostling weight in my hand.
“Kyra...” I managed to mutter through the pleasure that was running my blood into a fever. I knew I was even stronger than before and some part of me worried that if I lost control it would be too much. “Can... you take.... this?”
“Yes, Rothan—ohh!” As I was leaning over her, my chest brushing against her defined back muscles, she reached back with her arm to take hold of the back of my head. She brought us closer still so that our faces were close, our cheeks burning against one another. My lips glanced her earlobe, my breath washing over it, and this stirred her desire even more. “More...I want all of you”
Even before my change into a Fenrir, I was careful as my sheer strength was too much for some women, but not with Kyra. Finally, this was a woman who was my equal in sheer vitality, at least equal to my human side.
She kept her hips elevated, throwing her head back now and then when I hit an especially pleasurable spot and crying out in broken gasps. A climax was building in her, as I knew her voice turned raspy when she was about to cum. Her wet hair swirled as she tossed it about. Grass tore as she squeezed fistfuls of it. I saw her green eyes closed shut tight, now and then glancing back at me as I went on pounding her. My hands squeezed even tighter on the flesh of her ass as I worked her, and she matched my rhythm, letting her hips hurriedly rock back and forth to smash against my every thrust. We had reached that spot where I knew both of us could stay forever in that timeless bliss of taking one another. The sight of her broad back tapering to her slim waist, contrasting with her wide hips that were taking my full force—it was something I could stare at for days.
The squishing sounds as my cock went deeper into her pouring wet folds.
Her ass cheeks clapping loudly against my thrusting hips.
Her gasps. Her moans. Gods, her moans.
This woman drove me mad.
“Mnnnh! Yes, Ro… Ro…” She tried to say my name but was losing her ability to speak just as I was.
“Ky….. ra…..ahhh!” I belted as I felt the climax building inside me, like a dam that was about to burst.
“I’m… I’m…” she gasped out, “ahhhh!” Our bodies became like a single writhing creature. Ecstasy washed over us. I felt wave after wave of shuddering pleasure ripple through me as I my hips flailed and hot seed rushed out of me and into her. It was like a hot, sweetly aching arrow that shot out of me. The climax shattered her as well, and her inner muscles squeezed my pulsing cock again and again as her hips bucked up and down, squeezing themselves against me like hungry lips on a wine bottle. Convulsion after shuddering convulsion went through us as I spurted seed into her again and again.
As I spilt the last of it into her, our hips slowed to suck the last thrusts of aching pleasure from one another. I slid out and collapsed of ecstatic delirium. Wet grass tickled at my every limb.
She let herself turn over, lying on her back. I could see her chest rise up and down with her quickened breath, her heavy breasts spreading to her sides. Our foreheads touched and our mouths gently grazed one another as our breaths mingled together.
I put my arm over her, to cover her breasts from the chill air and pulled her in close to me so that despite the night and our wet bodies, we were warm cradled in each others arms. We stayed like this for a long silence.
“Neither of us are bards,” I said, “so perhaps this is the only way we can truly speak to one another.” We laughed a moment. “You know I left for the war because it was my duty? It was a fight for our freedom.”
“I know.” Her eyes glanced down. “I just… I suppose I always wished you hadn’t. And I… was angry.”
“And this marriage arrangement you have… was that also out of anger.”
“No. That was out of greed.” The whites of her teeth shone as she grinned. “I figured it was an easy way at some money.”
“Easy? You would have to perform your wifely duties, Kyra. And some are quite personal.”
“Ha! If he ever tried getting any from me, I’d beat him senseless.”
I felt laughter in my chest. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
She grinned, a grin that won me over all over again every time I saw it. Then her mouth tightened, and she almost looked melancholy. “And you, you’ll have husbandly duties soon, if you have your way. But somehow I doubt you’ll try to escape them as I will.”
The mention of it all made me pause, shake my head slightly. “Look at us, Kyra,” I pulled a damp strand of hair from her forehead, “talking of marriages. It was only a memory ago that all we talked of was a escaping our parent for a good meal, a trip to the Silver Glades, and a good bam in the ham—though that last one we didn't talk of so much as did.”
We laughed together—our noses brushed up against one another—and then our breathing settled so that the burble of the river and singing of insects were clear once more. “A lot can change in five years, Rothan. Especially with a war within those years.”
“Sometimes I wonder if it was all worth it. I lost my brother, lost my freedom for many years, endured all manner of humiliations. And we lost the war all the same.”
There was a wet gleam in her eyes that looked like the beginning of tears.
“Kyra…” I began forming a question.
“My brothers are dead, aren’t they?”
I looked at her, and wiped a tear from her cheek. Kyra. The girl who lived in the meadows. “I will not lie to you. Most likely, it is so. But there are stranger things that happen in this world than two warriors surviving a battle only to be found much later. Have hope. We should not give it up until it is truly gone. And it is not gone yet.”
She sat up and put on her soggy clothes. “Do you promise we will ride as fast as we can to the Lantern Forest after we rest tonight?”
I felt the urgency to slay this Orc warlord Ghazrak and release my father—for these were my first duties. Yet I knew what this meant to Kyra. And finding them could give us valuable information. In this way, I justified our course of action and replied to my blonde beauty, “I give you my word.”
Our horses’ hooves clopped, kicking up dirt and scaring away small rodents as we thundered on through the hill lands on the border of Wolf Rein and Ironrise. Kyra had been up at the crack of dawn, readying for the journey. I didn’t know quite what to say to Bellabel as I slept next to her, though not with my arms around her as we had grown accustomed to. I couldn’t sleep well as I was in a strange confusion. She seemed to notice this as she caressed my bare shoulder.
“I am for you alone,” she whispered into my ear, “but you are a great man, a warlord
and so I know you must have others. This is the way of kings.”
“I am no king, Bellabel.”
“You will become one. You already are one, in my eyes.”
I had not asked how she knew that Kyra and I had bedded earlier that night. Now, as we rode on horseback, I thought of her strange thought that I be treated as a king. My mind was brought back to the present as Kyra slowed her mount.
I brought my own next to her and studied what she saw in the valley below. There were great plumes of smoke blanketing the sky with ash. Fires smouldered all throughout the forest which surrounded the town.
“That is the town of Nevolruud,” Kyra said. “And there beyond it is the Lantern Forest. It burns. What chaos is this?”
My vision grew more concentrated. I peered at the small cluster of the town buildings. These at least were not consumed by smoke and fire. “I see a banner, one of King Albrecht’s it looks like.”
“If there are soldiers, they might know something of
my brothers’ fate.”
We made our way through the wooden buildings—little more than a few shops and houses. Townspeople spied on us from cracked windows. There were a cluster of soldiers sitting all around what looked to be the town’s tavern. There were some two dozen of them. Their armor and gear were off and collected next to them. Many had bandages —the rust brown of dried blood seeping through them.
“You there, what’s your business?” a soldier asked. He seemed to be one of the few who were uninjured, and slipped on his hauberk as if he were embarrassed to be caught without it. His beard and hair were unkempt, his eyes squinty and gaunt—fever perhaps.
“We are travelers from Wolf Rein,” I answered, “allies to Ironrise and to the King.”
He nodded. “You’re a little late.”
“You fought in the Lantern Forest?” Kyra asked.
“No, woman, we were just out picking flowers. We got scratched up a bit on their thorns.”
“My brothers fought alongside you, you fool!”
“We mean no insult,” I said, seeing the sudden leer on the soldier’s face. “It’s just that we’re looking for some kin of ours that went missing in the fighting. Might be alive.”
“If you had been here for the actual fighting, you might have found em’ alive.”
“Can you at least tell us what happened? Where in the forest we might find them? The last place of battle, or where they might have been taken?”
He seemed to consider that for a moment, his grimy face peering about him slowly.
“Aye, I suppose I can. These kin of yours are from Wolf Rein, I guess?”
“They are,” Kyra said.
“Tell us what you know of the battles with the Orcs here in Ironrise,” I clarified, “especially what happened to those from Wolf Rein.”
The soldier nodded. “The King sent our allied forces to hold the Anvil Keep in Ironrise. The Jarl was holding out there in his capital and we were supposed to break the siege. But these Orcs had war machines, and fell beasts with them besides. When the Ironrise capital fell the combined forces of the King as well as Ironrise had to fall back. We regrouped and rallied what men we could and made a stand, at two spots. One at the edge of the Lantern Forest, one in Breg’s Mill. I don’t know how the fighting went at the Mill, and I suppose it doesn’t matter because there weren’t any Wolf Rein men sent there, only us King’s men and Ironrisers, a few stragglers from Alfheim. Those of us who fought in the forest were to hold the pursuing horde, not let them through the forest. We thought we could trap the Orc force with fire. But the force at Breg’s Mill was supposed to buy us time while we set a trap. We were going to draw the Orcs into the forest, hold them just enough to mass where we could light oil fires we had set. The forest was going to burn and take all the Orcs with it, even if it meant we would all burn along with it too.”
Wolf Blade: A Sword and Sorcery Fantasy Harem Page 18