by Eric Vall
When we pulled back for air, the petite summoner’s amber eyes were dark and sultry with want. She’d sobered up a lot as the night progressed, and I felt the sharpness of her desire distinctly as she purposefully moved a hand down my chest and past my stomach to rest on the waistline of my pants.
“It’s been far too long since we’ve done this,” she purred as she leaned forward.
I swallowed hard and moved my hands down to pull her hips close to mine. She made a soft, small sound and rolled against me with an unmistakable hunger for more.
“I think it’s time we take this upstairs,” I breathed as I grew harder between the press of our bodies.
“I got us a room for two,” she said with a gasp as I squeezed her tight ass.
“Very bold of you,” I hummed back.
She grinned cheekily and caught me by surprise with a kiss that was all rough heat and passion. I moaned into her mouth, and she made a low noise that vibrated back along my throat like an answering echo.
Before I could respond in any way that wasn’t pure reaction, Layla stood suddenly and sauntered her way over to the staircase with a tantalizing sway of her hips. Then she gave me one last look over her shoulder before she disappeared into the upper level.
That look gave me the distinct impression of a cat who’d gotten the cream. Oh, she was pleased with herself for setting this up so smoothly.
I’d just have to do her one better.
I adjusted myself in my pants subtly under the table as I cast an eye over the mostly-empty bar.
It would have to do.
As I followed Layla upstairs, I realized I hadn’t gotten the number to our room. It would be embarrassing to have to wander as I looked for somebody to ask.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to.
For a few tantalizing seconds, I saw Layla silhouetted against the candlelight of an open doorway. The dim glow cast her auburn hair in brilliant shades of red like a fire had been lit within her.
Then she turned and disappeared into the room like a ghost that faded into the night.
Each throbbing beat of my heart sent a wave of pleasure through me as I followed that phantom down the hallway. I was too enthralled to do anything but step through the entrance and gaze on what awaited me within.
Sometime between her appearance in the doorway and now, Layla had abandoned her shirt and pants to the floor. She sat on the bed in anticipation and reminded me of a panther lying in wait. Her modest breasts cast burgundy shadows over her chest, and her pink nipples stood out clearly in the darkness as arousal hardened them into firm nubs.
How could I resist?
I closed the door, settled beside her, and stripped my own shirt off in one motion. Then she ran a hand over my chest as I leaned in to take one nipple in my mouth.
She squirmed and gasped as I flicked my tongue across her breast before I bit gently at the soft, creamy flesh.
Layla shuddered in response and wound her legs around my lower back. Then she kissed me longingly and pressed me toward her with her slim legs as she let out a needy mewl of desire.
I lowered one hand obligingly and ran it along the surface of her panties as I pressed lightly between her thighs. I was rewarded with a breathy moan that escaped desperately from her mouth, and she panted and rolled her hips forward into my hand.
I needed no more invitation, and I moved my hands around the sides of her panties to pull them off her trembling legs one by one. Each time my fingers got close to the pink heat between her thighs, she shuddered and tried to push herself closer to me.
I drew back with one last nibble before I asked innocently, “Do you want something?”
“Yes,” Layla breathed, “please, Gryff, I want you inside me.”
I kissed her along her neck as I took my pants off and threw them to the floor. The head of my cock was slick already, and she ran a hand along my length as if she couldn’t wait for it to be inside her.
I wouldn’t leave her waiting. She panted and sighed as I teased my lips along her chest before I entered her in one smooth motion.
Layla cried out and ran her nails along my shoulders as my cock delved into her. With every thrust, I went a little deeper, and her tight warmth enveloped my cock like she was made for me alone. Her ragged breath filled my ears as she gasped in time with our rhythm.
I picked her petite body up off the bed, and her gasps turned into desperate moans that rose in volume as I rammed into her. My hands cupped the curves of her ass as I controlled our motion with slow, deep thrusts, and she threw back her head as I moved inside her.
I picked up the pace only when she began to squirm desperately, but I wouldn’t let her go too quickly. She was a master of teasing and tantalizing me up to the edge, and now I was about to show her exactly the same treatment.
I moved one hand back around to press against her clit, and I kept the pressure just firm enough to hint at more. Once in a while, I twitched my hand in a circular motion, and she shivered and moaned responsively every time. Before she could get any real satisfaction, I stopped my movement and waited until she began to gasp out needy whines and pleas.
I would feel bad for teasing her like this, but she smiled and kissed me wherever she could reach. Despite her noises, she never asked me to move more quickly. Layla knew exactly what kind of game I was playing, and she was enjoying every second of it.
Finally, I began to finger her clit with real intention, and I increased my speed to match it. Soon, our bodies moved together at a pace that rocked us as one in ecstasy.
Her breasts bounced perkily as she arched into me and spread her legs wider. My cock filled her completely as it barely brushed up against the resistant flesh at the end of her depths. Every time I reached that spot, Layla spasmed and let out a needy sound.
“Fill me,” she pleaded.
My body stuttered as she moved onto me even further. She was wet enough to drip down around my cock and onto the bed sheets. Her moans turned to shouts as I slid deep and pressed my hand back and forth across her slick clit.
Then she came hard enough to wrack her body with uncontrollable spasms. She tossed her head and bounced on top of my cock, and I felt her tighten around me with delicious pressure.
I wasn’t done yet, though. I grabbed her ass again and poured my energy into my hips as I drove into her with stronger, deeper motions. Just as she finished her climax, I rocked against the far wall at the end of her depths and sent her into a second orgasm.
Layla came undone.
I wrapped her petite body in my arms as she came again with my name on her lips. Her spine arched as she pressed us together tightly, and her toes curled against the bedsheets. Her legs moved as if to escape the intense sensation, but she only drew closer and forced me deeper into her. She clung to me and made a ragged sound as I finished off inside her.
My seed filled her tunnel, and I moaned as waves of agonizing pleasure moved through my body. I remained inside as I held us tightly together, and white liquid seeped out from inside her and ran down her thighs in rivulets.
“We’re going to need new sheets,” she murmured in a daze.
“We can do it later,” I responded quietly.
Her small body was formed so perfectly for me, I wondered if I’d filled her womb completely with my seed.
I slipped out of her and laid her on my chest as I stroked her hair and ran my hand lazily over her breasts. She mumbled out occasional soft, delighted noises and then gave me a contented smile.
We shared a few slow kisses as we lay together in satiated bliss. Her body twitched occasionally as aftershocks from the intense orgasms ran their course through her, and I couldn’t help but smirk.
The cool sheets on our feverish bodies were so overwhelmingly pleasant we simply stayed in bed and didn’t move another muscle. My mind drifted, and I noticed distantly Layla had fallen asleep beside me while she was still partially filled with my seed.
In the pale glow of the moon that shone through the cur
tains, her body looked like it was carved from marble. I loved the way her small breasts curved across her chest, which led gracefully into her tiny waist and flared hips. She looked like the work of a master artist, and she was completely mine.
I had missed this, and Layla clearly had, too. It was hard to find time together with everything else getting in the way, but I wanted to satisfy her more often anyway.
I shut my eyes and held her close as I drifted off to sleep.
For a while, everything was perfect.
Then the sound of gunshots split the night air and jolted me awake with a pounding heart.
Chapter 8
Next to me, Layla sat upright and turned to meet my eyes with a frightened expression.
“Soldiers?” she asked in confusion.
Gunshots popped out across the night, and I threw back the covers to swing my legs out of bed.
“I don’t know,” I confessed, “but I’m going to find out.”
I threw on yesterday’s clothes and my bandolier of crystals while Layla got ready with impressive speed in an entirely new outfit. When I raced for the door, she was right behind me.
I banged the door open and dashed into the hallway. The inn was dark, but lights flickered to life as people roused at the noise. Distant screams spilled from outside the inn and sent chills down my skin.
Something terrible was happening.
I took the steps two at a time as I rushed downstairs. The light at the bar was dim, but it was clear they hadn’t closed yet. Frightened and drunken patrons ducked under tables and shouted loudly in confusion.
We must not have been asleep long. Layla rubbed her eyes and tucked a hand into the bag of essence crystals at her side. She was ready for a fight if need be.
I scanned the room and found Varleth, Erin, and Cyra crouched behind the bar as they questioned the bartender and our waitress from earlier.
Varleth had thrown on his wrinkled clothes from the day before, and his hair stuck out messily in all angles.
Erin wore an oversized flannel shirt and a pair of miniature cotton sleep shorts that concealed nothing from the imagination.
Cyra had matching pajama pants and a shirt dyed in pastel blue, but the fabric was incredibly sheer and molded close to the curves of her body.
My teammates were clearly in a rush yet ready to help, and my heart swelled with pride to see them leap in to defend citizens without question.
I took cues from them and bent low to the ground to scurry from the safety of the staircase to the tight space behind the bar. I gave each person a close look to check for injuries, but they seemed alright.
“I’m glad you’re here, Gryff,” Cyra said gratefully. “This is crazy.”
“What’s the word?” I asked as I touched her on the shoulder reassuringly.
“Some people have been injured, maybe critically,” Erin explained. “There’s a man outside with a strange gun. Apparently, he started shooting for no reason and won’t stop.”
Our eyes met, and I bit my lip as the same grim realization in her gaze crossed my mind.
It sounded like Gawain, of course. I’d led our tracking team with the expectation that we would be able to find him, get an explanation, and all go home without much of an incident. I’d been sure whatever reason Gawain had to steal the ciphers, it would be the worst of his crimes. He’d broken my trust, but I’d been holding out hope that this would be his only transgression.
Now, he was shooting innocent people.
I shook off my despair before I nodded and gathered my plan together.
I motioned for the team to listen up. “Alright. Varleth, you stay back from the fight. Don’t engage unless lives are in immediate danger. Your sword is deadly, and I don’t want this to escalate into an execution.”
The banisher pressed his lips into a tight line as he nodded, but he didn’t seem too surprised by my decision.
I pointed at Erin next. “Whose magic do you have mimicked right now?”
“Yours,” she said with a worried crease between her brows. “Summoning is the only magic I can copy from our current team, and my monsters aren’t good for restraining a mage or protecting people.”
I was afraid of that.
“Okay,” I said as my mind churned through battle plans. “Erin, you direct people away from the fight and try to move the ones caught in the fray to safer locations.”
The mimic nodded in determination.
“Layla, Cyra, and I are going to try to stop Gawain without killing him,” I went on as I looked to the other two women in turn. “Be careful of his gun, since he can switch elements and use that unpredictable power against us.”
My friends nodded, and I threw down an essence crystal to cover Layla, Cyra, and me with a bullet bass. It fluttered in place with rubbery wings as its fishlike body undulated in the air.
Our skin shimmered into a strange metallic sheen as we took on the characteristics of the bullet bass. I waved my hand as I gestured us forward, and we scrambled toward the inn’s door. Layla and Cyra ducked against the far wall while I put my back to the thick, wooden doorway.
A quick peek out from behind the door gave me all the information I needed.
Gawain was uncharacteristically dirty and disheveled, and his cloak was torn and mud-covered as he stood in the middle of the road. He was covered in scrapes and scratches as if he’d stumbled blindly through a thicket in the woods. His clothes hung off him raggedly, and I could see bloodied skin beneath the rips in his shirt.
Dark shadows encircled Gawain’s eyes, and he stood with a tilted hunch as if he were about to fall over. His gaze moved sharply in fast darts, and his eyes rolled wildly with a crazed look. He whipped around in circles to shoot at anybody or anything that moved, but his bullets pinged wide off the sidewalk just as often as they got close to their targets.
“Foolish humans,” he snarled feverishly to himself as his gun arm swayed. “The ciphers are mine. I need them for our realm. I need them, I need them. Potions. They’re mine. I want them, they’re mine.”
His mutterings grew louder but incoherent as he repeated himself, then they sharpened into lucidity again for brief moments between the gibberish.
I felt like I could see straight into his mind as it unraveled before my very eyes.
This wasn’t the friend I knew at all. What in Mistral had happened to him, and how had he hidden it for so long?
A middle-aged woman darted from the alley behind the inn as she tried to escape, and Gawain swung around to shoot her in the leg. She went down with a cry as she clutched at her left calf, which trailed blood down her foot and onto the pavement below.
Gawain leveled his gun unsteadily, but with a still target, he couldn’t miss. One more shot, and he would kill her.
“Go!” I shouted, and my team burst from behind the doorway. We threw crystals down with panicked urgency as we rushed the raving fire mage.
My wallerdon emerged in front of the bleeding woman, and an air bullet pinged harmlessly into the side of the big creature. I grinned as the woman looked up in relieved surprise at her saviors, and several more bullets pinged uselessly against my wallerdon’s stony torso.
Gawain frowned, and his gun clicked as it switched elements. The scan had completed, and the next bullet from the gun was coated with ice. Each ice bullet carved out a deep, frosty hole in the wallerdon’s surface, and I felt a bit of mana drain as my monster took the hit badly.
My wallerdons did poorly against ice, and Gawain’s gun was unerring in its ability to assess elemental weaknesses. The gun’s special construction meant with a brief scan, it could switch its element to one that could cause the most damage to its target.
If we moved quickly, we might be able to avoid the scan altogether and keep the gun guessing at which element would be best.
Still, a bullet was a bullet, and we’d have to be careful either way.
I’d always been happy before to have that gun’s devastating ability on our side. Now that
I had to face it in battle, I dreaded the results.
Gawain fired off another barrage of bullets, and my wallerdon collapsed under the onslaught. I recalled it and sent out a second wallerdon to take its place.
It gave Erin the cover she needed, so she ran forward and dragged the woman by her arms out of the fray and into the relative safety of the inn.
I covered them with my monster as best as I could.
“Come back here!” Gawain yelled, and he sent off a few wild shots as Erin and the woman escaped. One bullet pinged off the metal Ricochet Inn sign and buried itself in the wood of the door below it.
Well, wasn’t that ironic.
Layla sent out her keichim, a nearly-invisible batlike monster that glowed with a faint silvery outline. It was able to grow and shrink at will, an ability that had proven invaluable before.
Since the keichim was Layla’s familiar, it was a great choice for a fight like this. We needed our monsters to be completely under control, or we would risk killing Gawain as well as any nearby bystanders.
Familiars were the easiest monsters to control, since the owner and the monster formed an incredibly potent bond that made for strong, reliable communication. Layla and her keichim had pulled through a tough situation during the Magicae Nito trials because of that shared bond.
Layla’s keichim squeaked and shrank down to about half the size of a regular bat before it flew for Gawain. I could scarcely track its erratic flight by the sparks of electricity that arced along its wings.
If the keichim could get one good shock in, it might be enough to incapacitate Gawain without creating a dangerous situation.
My hopes were crushed when Gawain fixed his glassy eyes on the keichim with alarming accuracy. Layla’s monster was quick, clever, and stealthy, but the fire mage had seen it in action before.
At first, I thought maybe he wouldn’t be able to stop the keichim in time.
Then he swung around with one hand outstretched and poured out a blaze of roaring, white-hot fire.
The keichim shrieked as it backpedaled and just narrowly dodged the flames, but Gawain was prepared for his first attack to miss. He followed up with a swath of fire bullets that popped from his gun in rapid succession.