by Mark Albany
Considering that she was the only one of our little group that wasn’t intertwined with it, I could understand why she needed to fall back on such tricks, but it still felt like she was trying to get me to say something that I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Finally, I’d had enough. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“No, but you’ve been trying to ask me something,” I replied, leaning forward until my nose was only inches away from hers. “Don’t beat around the bush. Ask me what you have on your mind.”
She shrugged her delicate shoulders, not moving away from me as I came closer. “You seemed a little... off during the meeting. Like your mind wasn’t wholly a part of it, like you were somewhere else. Even as I approached you here, you appeared to be in conflict with something that you didn’t appear to understand yourself.”
I nodded. “I’m not sure what your point is.”
“Well, and know that I mean no offense with this, but you are young,” she said. “Even by human standards, and definitely by elf standards. You are incredibly powerful and gifted, but you seem to lack... vision. Your mind isn’t focused on what it should be.”
“I just lost one of the people that I care for most in the world,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I don’t know if she’s gone for good, and I certainly hope that she isn’t, but chances are, even if she isn’t... dead, she is facing a great deal of torment for what she did to Abarat in saving us. Saving... well me.”
“You don’t appreciate that she put herself in harm’s way to save you,” Lyth said, understanding. “You... seem not to realize that while you care for her a great deal, that she cared for you in an equal amount, or maybe even more. You know that it was her decision to do so, yes?”
“I... I loved her,” I blurted out, pausing as I realized what I had said. “I love her. But I’m only human. Like you said, young, prone to stupid, thoughtless action. You’re all older, wiser, more hardened to the world than I am. A human life... hell, it must seem like the blink of an eye to you. What I call love... I don’t see how or why she could have felt the same way for me. And yet she still...”
I shook my head, trying not to think about it, but as all the anger that I felt roaring through my body suddenly came to rest, I couldn’t do anything more but lower my head shaking it gently. “I’d made my choice. She had no right to take it away from me.”
“You think she didn’t care for you as much as you cared for her?” Lyth asked, narrowing her eyes.
“I’m saying that it didn’t matter.”
“Or that you didn’t matter,” Lyth said softly, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You need to understand that Aliana did what she did because she thought otherwise, and if you trust her now as much as you did then, you must realize that she did what she did for a reason.”
She was right, but the anger was back. I didn’t want to hear her tell me more about it. I pushed her hand off of my shoulder, but she gripped my hand instead. A low rumble rose from my throat as I pushed her hand back, rising up from my seated position as she caught my other hand with hers.
Even with so many years of training and fighting under her belt, the elf was still slim of build and lacking in too much physical strength. Enough to draw that bow of hers, of course, but as I pulled her towards me, either she had no means, or lacked the interest to resist.
I wondered if it wasn’t the latter as she glided her body over mine, her fingers reaching up to lightly caress the side of my face. Her eyes were hooded and as she took in a deep breath, I couldn’t help but enjoy the sensation of her breasts pressing against me through the thin robes that she had on.
All doubts disappeared as she pressed herself closer to me, her head dipping down and her lips pressed lightly to my shoulder, my neck and along my jaw-line before she paused, her face less than an inch away from mine.
“I would have thought that there was some kind of rule preventing this sort of thing,” I whispered, suddenly breathless, suddenly momentarily resisting the urge to rip her clothes from her body. “You know, royalty spending time with the common folk?”
“You’re far from common, Grant,” Lyth whispered, her hand gripping my shirt and dragging me closer to her, pressing her lips to mine.
I let out a soft grunt of surprise as I felt her kiss me, the restraints that I had put up crumbling down. Something that I had been repressing over the past few weeks, except when we found ourselves in combat, suddenly roared to the surface.
It was her turn to sound surprised as I gripped her hands in mine, pulling them down and away from me, though not breaking the kiss as I angled her away from me and pushed her down to the ground. Her gasp turned into a giggle of anticipation as I pushed myself atop her, feeling her trying to pull her hands free from my grasp.
I pushed her hands down so they were pinned by only one of my own, above her head on the soft grass as my free hand gripped at her clothes, ripping them off, hearing the sound of tearing fabric as I undressed her as quickly and roughly as I could. She moaned softly, wrapping her legs around my waist, using them to tug my trousers down.
“Fuck me,” she said through clenched teeth, trying to free her hands again. “Fuck me hard.”
I was more than willing to comply. My head dipped down, my lips and teeth lightly grazing over her neck, shoulders and letting her hands go free. My right hand came down, taking hold of her small, yet perfectly shaped breast, letting it just fill my hand and graze over the soft, sensitive nub, feeling it harden as the other slipped between my lips.
“Please,” she whispered, her now freed hands coming up to run through my hair and down to try and pull my shirt off. I could hear more tearing fabric as she showed just as little restraint as I had, tossing the ruined piece of clothing aside.
She could hear and feel a rumble coming from my chest as I gripped her hips, picking her up off the ground, disentangling her legs from around my waist and pushing her down firmly on her stomach over the remains of her dress.
“No, no,” she grumbled, trying to turn back around as I straddled her firm, pert ass, reaching down to press my cock between her thighs.
“Oh... oh,” she said, realizing what I was doing, stopping her movements and instead pushing back into me as I guided myself down and into her warm, wet sex.
“Yes... yes,” she hissed, reaching behind to grab my hips, pulling me down into her in a firm, rough thrust that drove her down into the ground, her fingers digging into my skin as I pumped her full of me over and over, feeling her body wrapping tightly around me.
“Harder,” she gasped, her agile body contorting beneath me, her lips pressing against my hand as it settled over her shoulder to support me. I could feel the comfortable burn in my muscles which was complimented once her teeth sunk into my arm, driving me to fuck her harder, as she was begging in that low, sultry voice of hers.
She reached back, grabbing a handful of my hair to pull me down as I pinned her to the ground, feeling the burn contribute to the building pleasure in my body, and as I could now sense, in hers. It was something odd to forget, I realized, that she was connecting in the same way that the other three had been as I pushed down deeper, feeling her gasping for breath.
I could sense a growing feeling of surprise in her, since the connection was new for her as well. That surprise faded as the rush of pleasure not only from her own body, but from mine as well, swamped her senses, her cries of pleasure losing all meaning as her focus was solely on what we were feeling, together now as I pulled her in closer, my teeth digging into her shoulder.
When her climax peaked, it hit the both of us like a tidal wave, sending the two of us over the edge, my hips bucking hard into her ass, quick enough for the wet, resounding slaps to be heard through the gardens.
Gardens that I was suddenly glad were abandoned as I shuddered against her, my cock twitching inside of her and my fingers holding her to me for the long, pulsating seconds as we slowly came back down from the climaxes that we had shar
ed.
“What... how...” she whispered, turning around to face me again as I pulled myself off of her.
“There’s an explanation,” I said, dropping to the ground and looking up into the vines above us, and the sky beyond them. “I... just can’t remember it now.”
“I believe you,” she said, giggling softly. “How is it that you and the others aren’t doing this... just all the time?”
“We used to, I suppose,” I replied with a small smile, turning onto my side to face her. “Just... not as much anymore.”
4
A moment was needed to recover from what we had done, and once again, I was glad that the place was mostly abandoned during this time. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of what we had done, but rather that it had been intimate, and not something that I wanted shared with one of the palace servants.
Once we had both recovered, it was quick work to recollect ourselves, cleaning off the small spots of grass and leaves that had collected on our bodies and our clothes. For myself, my shirt was mostly ruined, but my trousers remained more or less intact.
Lyth was not so lucky. In my urgency to unclothe her, most of the long, flowing dress that she had been wearing had been torn and ruined, leaving her with nothing to wear.
Or so I thought.
She smiled at me as I watched her pick her dress up from the ground, lightly brushing the greenery from it before pulling it around her shoulders, pulling it on like that was how it was supposed to be worn. She whispered a word that I didn’t understand and ran her fingers over the torn edges of the fabric. I could see a rune on her fingernail lighting up dimly.
To my surprise, I watched as the dress repaired itself, coming together and binding once more into the state that it had been before. There wasn’t even a sign of stitching from where it had been ripped, as the piece looked as perfect as it had before I’d taken it upon myself to rip it off of her.
“That is a handy trick,” I pointed out.
“It becomes useful when my particular taste in sex becomes a little too rough for the clothes I wear,” she said with a small, cheeky smile, biting her bottom lip as I picked up my own ruined shirt.
“I don’t suppose that you could apply that trick to my shirt?” I asked, holding the piece up, the state if it reflecting the enthusiasm that she had used to tear it from my chest.
“Unfortunately, I think I only have the power for one repair,” she replied with a gentle shake of her head.
“Is that so?”
Lyth nodded.
“And your desire to see me walking back to the palace with a bare chest has no bearing on this?” I queried, raising an eyebrow.
She simply shrugged her shoulders.
“You know that I can tell when you’re lying through our bond now, yes?” I asked, draping my shirt over my shoulder and letting her take my arm in hers as we started walking back to the palace.
“But how can you really tell if I’m lying?” she whispered, standing on her tiptoes to place a light kiss to my cheek. “I’m only glad that your spirits are lifted.”
“Impossible not to have one’s spirits lifted after that,” I pointed out, rolling my shoulders. “Although you should be made aware that the others already know what happened.”
“Ah, is that what I’ve been feeling?” she mused, leaning in to lightly nibble at my arm.
“Yes,” I replied. “You should feel them just on the edge of your thoughts, barely there. That is, until you join in with them involved as well.”
“Huh,” she grunted. “Interesting. It does merit some further thought, though.”
“I would encourage more,” I said with a small smile. “As the connection grows between us, the more... well, that rush of pleasure from our shared orgasms does rush through all of the connections.”
“Something to contemplate with anticipation,” Lyth agreed as we headed into the palace.
There were a few who looked questioningly at my state of undress, but there wasn’t time to engage with them about it. Besides, having to explain that my shirt had been torn off while fucking an elf queen in the imperial gardens felt like the sort of conversation that was best to have with close friends and leave the rest to question and imagine.
I could only wonder where their imaginations were going, but honestly, I didn’t much care what they thought. Besides, there was something of a war happening at the moment, and it seemed the kind of thing that would stay on the mind of those around us instead of idle gossip.
Lyth, for her part, showed no sign of being intimidated or embarrassed by the stares, keeping herself close to me and holding my arm as we made our way back to the chambers that had been reserved for Norel, Braire, Faye, Lyth, and myself. The queen could have asked for separate rooms, of course, but she had elected to stay close to us.
I now knew why.
Braire was waiting near the door of the quarters when we returned, enjoying what looked like a freshly picked apple and raising her eyebrow suggestively at us, especially when she noted my missing shirt.
She knew what had happened, and had felt the intensity of it through me, but there were certain questions pressing at the back of her mind.
“I see you’ve had a productive time,” Braire finally said when she realized that I would not be directly indulging her curiosity.
“I had a few... issues to work through,” I said by way of explanation, pouring myself another goblet full of that watered wine that we’d had for our previous meal.
“Might I point out that he wasn’t the only one that felt the need to express his issues in a physical display, your grace?” Braire wondered, taking another bite of her apple as Lyth joined me in grabbing something to drink as well.
“Well, I could see that Grant needed someone to help him address those issues,” Lyth replied, without a hint of shame touching her. “Considering that I had a few to take on myself, it seemed like the perfect exchange.”
I could hear Norel chuckling in the back, nearer to the bed. The mood of the whole room seemed vastly improved, and I couldn’t help but think that I might have had something to do with it.
There was a feeling that the rest of them wanted to be included in it now, but that would have to be addressed later as they appeared to be focusing on the problem that they had been talking about when I left; how do deal with Abarat.
Or rather, how to take the elf out of the battle.
“Honestly, when we look into the actual numbers of the fight that we’ll be engaging in, anything that we could do at the front line would be horribly insignificant,” Norel said, bringing the topic back to something a bit more serious, drawing the rest away from engaging Lyth and I in what we had been doing out in the gardens.
“Wait,” Lyth whispered, leaning in closer to me. “Does that mean that any time that you...”
“Yes,” I answered the question that I knew was coming.
“And now, any time that I...”
“Yes,” I repeated.
“And so anytime that they orgasm, you feel it?” she wondered.
“That is how it tends to go,” I said. “Although for now you have a bond just with me. To extend it with the rest of them, you would need to fuck them as well. Trust that I speak from experience when I say that the intensity of feeling multiple orgasms at the same time is beyond words.”
She tilted her head. “I can only imagine. I can’t help but feel a little embarrassed in knowing that all my sensations are shared.”
“You’ll get used to it,” I said, in a hopefully comforting tone. “Once you’ve shared that much with someone, it almost feels silly to try and hide anything from them anyways.”
She smiled, leaning in and pressing a light kiss to my cheek. “They’re lucky to have you, you know.”
“And I them,” I whispered, smiling down at her before returning my attention back to the discussion at hand.
“There would be points in the battle where it would be useful to have us,” Braire pointed out. “Holdin
g a breaking line, helping in a retreat, and regrouping.”
“Nothing that the imperial guard wouldn’t be able to handle,” Faye said. “Besides, it’s not like we would be able to get to the points any quicker than they could either, so our efforts in the battle as a whole would be woefully insignificant.”
“Is there a problem with that?” I asked.
“Not on its own,” Norel said. “But you can’t deny that our skills and abilities would be better used in a decisive strike to strategic points in our enemy’s command.”
“But again, we can’t even reach those points without exposing ourselves to the full force at Abarat’s command,” Faye said.
“That isn’t completely true,” I said. “As I recall, you are able to open portals as well, aren’t you, Norel?”
“Not over any great distance,” Norel replied, shaking her head. “It could be useful if we are in the middle of the battle, but in terms of the distances that we would be facing... horribly insignificant. In point of fact, the short distances hampered Aliana’s abilities in the skill as well. When she was an elf, at least. Once she was turned into a djinn, other avenues of opportunity were opened, I suppose. It’s definitely something to be studied.”
I nodded, tilting my head, the sensation at the back of my mind returning, but less intense than it had been before.
“If we could find Abarat, we would be able to keep him away from the battle,” I said, recalling Norel’s plan. “He would be the most significant strategic target that we could find.”
“An interesting idea, but again, he would want to be as far away from the fighting as possible,” Faye said. “He could be literally miles away from the fighting while still coordinating the force, and we wouldn’t even know where to begin looking.”
“But we could still look,” I said. “We would have targets to strike at, while trying to find where Abarat has hidden himself. Remaining on the move, striking for the most damage as possible and searching for Abarat.”