by Sarah Hawke
He erupted so forcefully it nearly bowled me over. The first two volleys struck my lips and tongue, but the rest splattered wildly across my cheek, nose, and forehead. I forced myself to keep my eyes open—again, I wanted to make sure that this moment would sear into his memory for decades.
“Escar’s…oh, gods…”
He practically fell over when he finished, and I smirked as I licked even more seed from my lips and glanced back up at Cassel. Now that his men were out of the picture, he shifted his hands from my tits to my throat, and he squeezed harder and harder with every thrust. Tiny black specs soon filled my vision, but they only made my quim burn hotter.
“More!” I rasped. “Give me more!”
Cassel slammed into me so hard I honestly thought the old wooden table would snap, and I had no doubt that everyone on the main floor heard his scream of triumph when he finally exploded inside me. Every one of his desperate spurts rippled through me like a tremor. My toes curled, my thighs clamped even harder around his waist, and my hips continued milking him until he collapsed atop me in exhaustion.
I caught my breath a few moments before he did, and I dragged the fingers of my left hand through his hair while the fingers of my right gathered the thick, rapidly cooling strands of seed from my nose and cheeks. I could only imagine how whorish I looked right now; I shuddered in delight at the mental image. Yet again, Faewyn had liberated me from my own mental prison. She offered me freedom in a way nothing else ever could. And I was determined to enjoy it as long as possible.
“I hope you’re not finished yet,” I said, lifting Cassel’s chin and smiling at him as I licked my seed-covered lips. “These squires of yours still have a lot to learn.”
He smiled back. “They do indeed.”
“I’ve heard that good commanders lead by example,” I said, dragging my nails across his chest. “Why don’t you show them the way?”
Chapter Two
“All of them?” Aluriel breathed. “You took all of them at once?”
I shrugged as I finished pinning my hair back behind my ears. “You’re the one who told me to enjoy myself.”
“I’m not complaining! Honestly, I’m impressed.” She smirked and wrapped her hands around my midriff from behind. “Though now I am annoyed you didn’t invite me...”
“I’m sure you found another way to entertain yourself.”
She kissed the back of my neck in the exact perfect spot to send a tingle down my spine. “I returned to my quarters and read through scouting reports until I fell asleep.”
I scoffed. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did!” Aluriel insisted. “Right after I tracked down that cute night watchman and sucked him off behind the battlements. Unfortunately, he didn’t last very long…”
I laughed and placed my hands on top of hers. The sun had already broken over the mountains to the east, and I was scheduled to meet with Watch Commander Lurkin in a few minutes. I had only slept about two hours last night, but I wasn’t the least bit tired. On the contrary, my skin was still tingling and my quim was still burning. The hot bath I’d just taken might have washed the seed from my body, but when I closed my eyes I could feel their hands on my thighs and cocks in my throat. Those young men—I didn’t even know their names!—had used me like their personal sex toy for hours, and I had loved every moment of it.
But now it was time to get back to work. Faewyn was gone, and if I had any sense I wouldn’t bring her back for a good long while.
“Take care of Highwind while I’m gone,” I said, pivoting around to face Aluriel. “And beware the circling vultures. With Highlord Kastrius dead, Archmage Beloran will have trouble standing his ground against the others.”
“I’ll keep the home fires burning,” Aluriel promised. “I’m more worried about you. I don’t trust anyone else here to watch your back.”
“I’ll be fine,” I promised, leaning down to give her a long, deep kiss. As much as her antics annoyed me sometimes, I really did love her. This would be the first time we had spent more than a few days apart in almost a year.
“Just promise me you won’t go out there alone,” Aluriel said when our lips finally parted. “It’s too bad that amazon and her friends left the fort so quickly. We could still use their help.”
“Never rely on mercenaries for long,” I said. “Anyway, the garrison here is thin enough without me poaching anyone else for scouting duty.”
Aluriel sighed. “And you think I’m impossible to reason with.”
“I work better and faster alone.”
“Then I guess it is a good thing you got all the companionship you needed last night.”
“Not all of it,” I said, kissing her again. I was seriously tempted to lift her up onto the table and feast on her sweet quim one last time before she left, but I was already running late. I made a silent promise to myself that whenever I finally returned to Highwind, I was going to strap on a phallus and fuck her senseless.
I escorted her down to the stables, and shortly thereafter she and a small convoy of travelers trotted south towards Highwind. I watched them ride until they had faded into tiny specks on the horizon before I turned and strode across the fortress to the remnants of the main gate. Watch Commander Lurkin and a few of his men were waiting for me, as was Knight-Captain Cassel. I took a deep breath and braced myself. I had never spoken to him as Serrane so soon after Faewyn had paid him a visit. I really, really hoped I wasn’t making a horrible mistake...
“Good morning, General,” Cassel said with a bow. He looked just as exhausted as I should have felt. “We were just discussing the latest reports.”
“A thousand barbarians at Donath’s Crossing and another five hundred near Velek’s Pass,” Lurkin murmured. His pale, moon-shaped face looked like it had just seen a ghost. “Escar knows how many they could have at Dawn’s Reach by now. If they attack us again, there’s no way in the abyss we can hold out.”
“We’re going to have to, at least until the Council agrees to send us more men,” I told him. “I dispatched my second-in-command to petition them in person.”
Lurkin snorted. “If they couldn’t be bothered to send soldiers before, why would you expect them to send more now?”
“I don’t, at least not for a good while—that’s precisely why it’s important for us to rebuild our defenses as quickly as possible.” I glanced off to our left where one of the Roskarim catapults had blasted a gaping hole in the wall. “I know your men are working as hard and fast as they can, but it might not be enough. That’s why we need to send out sorties to keep the enemy off-balance—and to deter them from regrouping altogether.”
“No offense, General, but you can’t honestly expect us to go on the offensive when we barley have enough soldiers left to hold the line.”
“I expect you to do whatever is necessary to hold this fortress,” I replied matter-of-factly.
Lurkin’s cheek twitched. “Is that why you felt the need to kick the hornet’s nest yesterday? Attacking their outlying sentries will only make them angry!”
“It will make them afraid, which is the whole bloody point,” I said, turning to glare at the balding, middle-aged man. “The longer the Roskarim survivors lurk out there in the tundra uncontested, the more confident they’ll become. And the more confident they become, the more likely they’ll be back at our doorstep. We have to convince them that coming anywhere close to Icewatch is a death sentence.”
The other watchmen looked at me like I was completely insane, and I honestly couldn’t blame them. The men and women the Council had assigned to defend Icewatch weren’t exactly knight or ranger material. The fact that any of them had survived the battle was nothing short of miraculous. But the bottom line was that sitting back and waiting for the Roskarim to return was a suicide pact, whether they wanted to admit it or not.
“If you want to throw your rangers to the wolves, be my guest,” Lurkin said. “But I’m not about to order my men to leave their posts and charge in
to a horde of angry savages.”
“Your men will do whatever the General says,” Cassel said, crossing his thick arms over his chest. “She is in command here.”
Lurkin scoffed. “I am the Watch Commander here, Captain. I don’t care what the Council says, I am not about to throw away the lives of my men to sate the bloodlust of some elf who—”
Cassel grabbed the other man’s collar so quickly and so forcefully I actually hopped in my boots. “Get a hold of yourself, man,” the captain said, his eyes boring into Lurkin’s face. “General Serrane doesn’t even have to be here. With the Highlord dead, the Council is probably screaming for her to return home, but she has decided to stay with us because she knows how important this is. I suggest you listen to her.”
I had to resist the urge to smile. Maybe Aluriel was right—maybe I really would like Cassel once I got to know him better.
Lurkin, for his part, seemed just as impressed. He swallowed heavily and cleared his throat. “I…I apologize, General,” he managed. “We appreciate your help, we really do. Escar knows that you and the Highlord are the only councilors that would ever risk your own skin like this. But if you try and order my men out into the Ridge, I can’t guarantee they’ll go…or that they won’t run off the moment they’re out of sight.”
I nodded and gestured for Cassel to put him down. “I understand your concerns, Commander. Are there any men here you would trust to get the job done?”
Lurkin shrugged. “A few, perhaps.”
“Then that will have to be enough,” I said. “I’ve already drafted several simple routes they can take. They’ll stay low, strike hard, and leave enough traps in their wake to slow down any pursuit. As for the main force…” I shielded my eyes against the morning sun to the east. “I will head to Dawn’s Reach myself.”
For a moment, I honestly wondered if both men might faint. Cassel recovered first.
“Are you certain that’s a good idea, General?” he asked. “Your own rangers spotted the highest concentration of Roskarim just beyond the Crystal Flats. If you head all the way to Dawn’s Reach, you’ll be—”
“As you just reminded the Watch Commander, I am in charge here, Captain,” I said pointedly. “We lost too many good men defending this fortress, and I don’t intend to lose any more. We must convince the clans to scatter farther beyond the Ridge.”
“Be that as it may, Highwind cannot afford to risk its Ranger-General,” he protested. “Not now, not after what happened to Highlord Kastrius.”
“I’ve been fighting orcs and gnolls and barbarians for longer than your grandparents have been alive,” I reminded him. “I will manage.”
Cassel stared right at me, and I wondered distantly how strange it would be to get into an argument with a man who had mounted me over a table just a few hours ago—and who didn’t know it.
“Be that as it may, I would feel much better if you at least took one of my knights along with you for support and protection,” he said after a moment.
“I’m afraid that knights and scouting do not mix, Captain,” I said.
“I will find the one who is lightest on his feet,” he said. “And who can function without his armor weighing him down.”
I open my mouth to protest but stopped myself at the last instant. I could almost hear Alurel’s warning voice in my head. She wouldn’t want me to go alone, and she was probably right. Still, the thought of dragging some bull-headed Silver Fist recruit across the tundra was almost enough to make me hop on Whisper and ride back to Highwind.
“As you wish,” I said. “I plan to depart in an hour. In the meantime, Commander Lurkin will pick his best people and deploy them.”
“Of course, General,” Lurkin murmured. “I sincerely hope you’re right about this.”
“If I’m not, we’re all doomed anyway,” I replied dryly. “Now get moving. Every person in the North is counting on us.”
***
I was packed and ready an hour later, and I was seriously tempted to set out into the Ridge without waiting for Cassel to assign me a partner. I respected the Silver Fist well enough—they were excellent cavalrymen and front-line soldiers, and most of them were capable battle healers as well. But I had no doubt in my mind that the least competent of my Duskwatch Rangers would still be a better scout than any knight who was stationed here in Icewatch.
Still, I decided to humor Cassel, if for no other reason than to make him happy. At this point, I just hoped he didn’t pick some chatty twenty year-old squire who would insist on trying to flirt with me the whole damn trip.
“General,” the knight-captain called out as he approached the gate. “Ready to set out?”
I glanced back at him and frowned. He was clad in a suit of studded leather armor, and he had a heavy pack slung over his back along with his enormous great sword. I almost didn’t recognize him at first—to date, I had only seen him covered in plate armor…or naked.
“I’ve been ready,” I said, leaning my head to peer behind him. “I thought you said you wanted to send one of your knights with me.”
“And I am,” he said with a faint smirk. “You’re looking at him.”
My first assumption was that he was joking—I still had almost no idea where or not he had a sense of humor. But it only took a moment to realize he was telling the truth.
“Like you said, knights and scouting usually don’t mix,” Cassel said. “But I’m reasonably light on my feet, and as you can see I ditched my armor in the barracks. I’m ready to go whenever you are.”
If I actually took a moment and thought about it, I probably could have come up with a dozen reasons why this was a terrible idea —and that was without considering the fact that I had been sleeping with him in costume for almost six months. My stomach fluttered nervously, and my throat went so dry I had to cough and glance away.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his brow creased in concern.
“Yes, I just…” I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second and mentally braced myself before I glanced back up at him. “We’re the two highest-ranking officers in this fortress. One of us needs to stay here and keep an eye on Lurkin.”
“Realistically, both of us should stay here and keep our eyes on Lurkin,” Cassel corrected. “But like you told him earlier, we don’t really have much of a choice if we want to hold the line here. We need to scare the Roskarim, and the best way to do that is to hit them hard and fast.” He flashed me another lop-sided smirk. “Well, I hit hard and you’re pretty fast.”
My brain was screaming at me to say “no,” but I could hear Aluriel’s voice in my head screaming “yes!” right back. Normally I tried to avoid listening to her imaginary advice, since it was usually just as bad as the real version. But in this case I honestly didn’t know how I could refuse without upsetting him, and that was something I absolutely didn’t want to do.
This is a terrible idea and you know it. There has to be a better way to have a first date than flitting across a barbarian-infested tundra.
“Fine,” I said instead. “I just hope you can keep up.”
“I’ll find a way,” Cassel said. “After you.”
***
Thankfully, the first leg of our journey wasn’t nearly as harrowing as I had feared. We didn’t encounter a single Roskarim patrol before we reached the edge of the Crystal Flats, and Cassel actually held his own quite well. I was so used to scouting with Aluriel that I probably moved faster than we needed to, but the knight-captain kept my pace and never once complained.
Still, every once in a while I caught him grimacing when he thought I wasn’t looking, and I grinned at the thought of him trying to impress me. Was he determined to defend the honor and competency of the Silver Fist, or was this just a bit of old-fashioned macho pride?
Either way I found it charming, especially since I knew for a fact he was more sleep-deprived than I was. Elves could function much better on two hours of rest than humans, especially human males who had spilled three or four ti
mes the night before…
“We can stop here for a bit,” I called out. “That cluster of pines over there should give us plenty of cover.”
“I’m all right to keep going if you are,” Cassel said, trying and failing to conceal how hard he was breathing.
Well, that answers that. This is definitely macho pride.
“We might as well eat something before we try and cross the Flats,” I said. “Once we start, we won’t be able to stop until we’re all the way across—there’s very little cover.”
Cassel nodded. He furrowed his brow like he was disappointed, but I could see the relief in his eyes. “You’re the expert, General.”
I led him over to the trees, and once we were safely in cover we retrieved some rations from our packs. I stood the vast majority of the time while we ate, mostly so I could pretend I was keeping a lookout. In truth, I was just terrified to say anything. I didn’t even know where to begin.
You should be embarrassed by how bad you are at this. Ask him about his family. Ask him about the knights. For the love of Shalassa, ask him about something.
“I’m surprised you weren’t called back to Highwind,” I said. “The rest of the Council seems intent on leaving as few people in Icewatch as possible.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if I get a recall order soon,” Cassel replied as he gnawed at a piece of dried meat. “Everyone down south seems convinced that the threat has passed.”
“It’s not,” I said, glancing back out to the Flats. “Only nobles who spend their entire lives behind the city walls could jump to that conclusion.”
He nodded solemnly. “For what it’s worth, the Highlord believed you. I know that the two of you didn’t always get along, but he respected you.”
“And I respected him,” I murmured. “He was a good man. I’m concerned about who might replace him.”
When Cassel didn’t respond for several seconds, I turned back around to face him. He had paused mid-bite, and I could see the shroud of sorrow darkening his features.