by Dante King
“Is this a fetish I didn’t know you had?” I whispered. “Because if it is, then I have to say I’m into it.”
Tamsin panted out a short laugh. “Mmmm, no no no, this is just a hobgoblin riding that line between gratification and discomfort.”
It took all my self-control not to ram my prick into Tamsin as hard as I could, so keen was I to fill her up. Slowly, I eased out and back into the hobgoblin until my balls were pressed against her clit. Then, with equally intense and excruciatingly delightful slowness, I pulled out again. I could just see the side of Tamsin’s face from my position behind her. Her blazing yellow eyes were closed, and her teeth bared in a snarl of longing and rapture.
I fucked Tamsin slowly and silently from behind for a little while, as she continued to rub and stretch herself. Soon, I was unable to contain my rampant lust anymore. With a barely audible growl, I grabbed Tamsin by her raven dark hair and thrust my cock deep into her. She gasped and, as I pulled out of her, I saw the tip of my cock leave a long strand of girl juice connecting her pussy lips to my rod.
I took the string of moistness as a thumbs-up to ratchet up the tempo. I picked up the pace then, thrusting harder and quicker into Tamsin as her pussy contracted and released around my shaft. The soft squelch, squelch, squelch of our naughty bits mashing together was the only sound apart from the crackle of the fires outside and the deep breathing of Renji and Hana.
The fact that we felt like we had to keep so quiet, and fuck as carefully as we could, only added to the heat and amatory of the situation. I could hear the soft squishing sound of Tamsin’s sex as I pressed into her, and could feel the intense hardness of her nipples as I reached around her side and squeezed her beautiful, firm tits.
“That’s the spirit!” Tamsin whispered fervently, her eyes screwed tight shut. “I want it rough. Give it to me rough, Dragonmancer Noctis!”
I could feel Tamsin’s stomach muscles clenching and unclenching. Could feel her juices running down her thighs thanks to the way her legs were tight together because of the unorthodox half-lying half-sitting position we had adopted.
With irresistible strength, I pushed Tamsin forward and slapped her gently on the ass. The hobgoblin gasped and stuck her fist in her mouth to stop her cry. Carefully, I bent her over so that her elbows were resting on the padded arm of the opulent sofa.
I could see Tamsin’s hand between her legs, the red fingers working feverishly away at her pussy.
“Open your legs a little wider,” I ordered her quietly.
The hobgoblin dragonmancer obeyed.
“Now, spread your cheeks,” I muttered into her pointed ear.
Not without some regret, I slid my cock out of Tamsin’s deep red sex. Then, I leaned down and started to lick hungrily at my fellow mancer’s exposed pussy. My eager tongue probed, like a mad knight trying to break its way into some gated palace. Occasionally, I flicked my tongue as fast as I could across her engorged opening.
I pulled back and started to stab at the red-skinned beauty’s butthole with my fingers. Tamsin let loose a low moan, which morphed into a long deep animal groan of pleasure, which she had to muffle by biting the arm of the couch.
It was a thing of pornographic beauty to partake in, but I could only do it for so long. My own selfish libido was crying out to have its thirst slaked. So, with no warning, I grabbed my cock by the base and slipped it deep into her once more, so hard that Tamsin cried out with pleasure into the couch.
With no little effort at keeping her voice to barely above a whisper, Tamsin said, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, that’s it! Fuck me like the naughty whore that I am, Dragonmancer Noctis! Come on. Yes. Like a fucking slattern!”
I closed my eyes and lost myself, as the red dam of desire rose, burst, and flooded through my pleasantly wine-soaked brain. My balls slapped softly against Tamsin’s sex as I fucked her from behind, the noise masked by the snap and crackle of the shifting logs in the numerous braziers outside.
I was sweating. Hot. Even with the breeze that was blowing into our chamber off the Silver River that flowed serenely along a javelin’s throw from our balcony.
Tamsin’s midnight dark hair was all over her face, and her dandelion yellow eyes were narrowed in rapture, looking at the far wall, looking at Renji and Hana, looking at nothing.
At some point, I must have sat backward, so that I was leaning back on the couch and Tamsin was straddling me in the time-tested reverse cowgirl position. I had no recollection of making that conscious decision. Perhaps it just happened.
Tamsin writhed on top of me, grinding and gyrating as my dick slid in and out of her tight, wet pussy. She was growling and hissing like a wild thing, uttering unintelligible words that sounded more like the drunken ramblings of an intoxicated leprechaun than actual words. We twisted and turned this way and that, sending embroidered cushions scattering about the place, but always maintaining our silence.
At the pinnacle of our (almost) totally silent animal fucking, the two of us came together in complete and utter silence. Not making a sound as we climaxed on that couch, with Renji and Hana snoozing peacefully and innocently away within ejaculating distance, was one of the toughest trials of my sexual career.
Both our bodies went rigid. It was only after the pink mist of intense climax had faded from my head that I realized that Tamsin had judiciously pulled my cock out of her at the last moment and I had spurted my load all over the sumptuously upholstered sofa.
With a sigh, I slumped sideways, breathing hard through my nose.
Tamsin, never one to strike me as keen for a cuddle and a spoon after sex, got up and pragmatically padded naked over to the bed and slithered between the sheets with a long drawn-out sigh of beatific contentment.
“That was just the thing that I needed to finish off today,” the hobgoblin whispered.
I looked over at her, wedged cozily into the pillows and wrapped in silk sheets. She was quite a sight for sore eyes.
“You’re telling me,” I agreed. “Fighting and fucking, that’s what I signed up for. None of this political mollycoddling bullshit.”
Tamsin made a noise of concurrence low in her throat and closed her eyes.
I watched the three gorgeous women sleeping for a few moments, before heaving myself to my feet with the thought that a breath of air before bed could be just what the doctor ordered.
I stepped naked out onto the expansive balcony to cool myself and let the balmy river wind wick the sweat from my body. Beyond where I stood, I could see the river running and rippling with reflected moonlight. There was a pleasant spicy sweetness in the air; the scent of clean running water mixed with the palms that lined the banks, the fragrant tang of frying fish and spiced vegetables down at the market. Figs, plums, and dried apricots. It reminded me of the scent of Tamsin; exotic and heady. I breathed deep, leaned forward, and propped my elbows on the stone railing, watching a few lantern hung boats being rowed around the jetties.
“Your lovemaking could have woken the entire palace, dragonmancer,” a soft, purring voice said from the shadows to my left.
I swore under my breath and twisted around, my Chaos Spear crackling into being in my hand even as I moved to face the stranger.
Out of the thick gloom cast by the convergence of two walls, just beyond the reach of the firelight that flickered in the braziers spaced around the balcony, a woman stepped.
I recognized her at once. It was the woman that had first spotted us on the dunes after we had taken down the desert worm, the woman who had stood mute and patient behind Shaykh Antizah during our meeting over coffee.
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked bluntly. I didn’t much like someone getting the drop on me. Someone getting the drop on me while I was basking in that peaceful post-coital glow was definitely unwelcome. Someone getting the drop on me while I was basking in that peaceful post-coital glow and was as naked as a shucked corn cob, well, that was probably the absolute worst.
The woman laughed softly, her black almond-s
haped eyes running over my muscled naked body. Those liquid eyes were lined with dark mascara-like face paint, so that they seemed even bigger than they were. Her short black hair, with the few intricate plaits weaved through it, reminded me so much of Elizabeth Taylor’s cinematic portrayal of Cleopatra in the 1963 flick that I couldn’t help but stare. When she spoke, it was in a smoky voice that reminded me of naked midnight swims, mulled wine, and the thrill of the hunt.
“Seeing as we have now shared bread and salt at the table, I see no harm in telling you that my name is Zala,” she said.
“Well, Zala,” I said, “where I come from, it’s customary for a visitor to knock at the door and wait to be let in.”
Her eyebrow, which was so dark that it might have been drawn on with a permanent marker, lifted a fraction. “Hm. But, this is not where you are from, dragonmancer, is it”
I couldn’t really contest that. I looked down at my cock and then at the spear in my hand. With a shrug, I vanished the weapon.
“All right, I’m unarmed,” I said.
“Almost unarmed,” Zala said, her mouth crooking up at the side.
“Very good,” I said. “You don’t mind if I just…”
I reached out and, with a deft tug, whipped the white linen tablecloth out from under the wine jug and goblets that sat on the patio table. To my astonishment, the cloth came out clean, without barely rocking one of the goblets or spilling a drop of wine. I tied the cloth around my waist like a sarong.
“Okay, that’s a little better,” I said.
“Speak for yourself,” Zala quipped in her lazy, crooning voice.
“What do you want, Zala?” I asked.
Zala tipped her perfect chin backward and regarded me from under heavy lidded eyes.
“I am here to warn you, dragonmancer,” she said.
“Call me Mike,” I said distractedly and on automatic.
“Very well. I am here to warn you, Mike,” Zala said.
“That’s good of you,” I said, trying to keep the sarcasm to a bare minimum. “A warning about what?”
“I felt… compelled to warn you that the battle in the arena will not be easy,” the feline woman said softly.
I raised my eyebrows. I had been expecting a little more than that.
“You came to warn me that the fight to the death that I’m facing with Shaykh Antizah’s chosen undefeated champion of killing isn’t, um, isn’t going to be easy?” I said stonily.
Zala nodded, her black eyes boring like burning coals into my blue ones.
“Right…” I said slowly. “Well—and I mean no disrespect to you by saying this, Zala—but no shit. I didn’t think it would be easy.”
“You misunderstand me, Mike,” the catmancer said, taking another silent step toward me. “It will not be easy. Not easy at all.”
I frowned slightly. “You mean it won’t be fair?”
Zala’s face gave nothing away. “I can say no more. Not without betraying the Shaykh, who commands my utmost loyalty.”
I sighed softly through my nose. “Tell me this,” I said. “What’s with you desert types and the heavy eye makeup? I’ve always wondered about it. Doesn’t it run in the heat?”
Zala smiled thinly. “It protects against the sun. Helps to stop us being dazzled out on the dunes.”
“You learn something new every day,” I said. “Are you sure you can’t tell me more about how—”
“No,” came the soft, but very definite, reply.
I turned away from the Akritite catmancer and ran my fingers through my long unbound hair. I looked through the swaying gauzy curtains and saw that Tamsin was asleep on the enormous bed, wrapped in silk sheets. Hana and Renji were still out cold on the couch that they had nodded off on, Hana’s head in Renji’s lap.
“Look, you’re going to have to be more specific,” I said, turning back to Zala. “You can’t just say that things aren’t going to be…”
Zala was gone.
Not a whisper, not a sound had I heard. She had just vanished. I looked up, but the edge of the palace roof was lost in the shadows and there was no shape of the woman against the starry sky. The only other way was off the balcony, but we were six stories up.
I looked over anyway, just to make sure she hadn’t tossed herself to her doom or anything overly dramatic like that, but there was no sign of her in the courtyard below.
I shook my head. The image of the beautiful woman, and the way that she moved with that distinctive feline grace, was seared into the forefront of my brain. I smiled ruefully to myself and stared back out over the sparkling moonlit Silver River.
That had been some full-on Batman shit right there.
“No,” I said to the night, “better make that some full-on Catwoman shit.”
Chapter 8
I pulled myself out of bed, smiling ruefully to myself. I wasn’t going to let a little potential impending doom, watched by thousands of eager and bloodthirsty spectators, get in the way of me enjoying my morning in this new and wondrous place.
The sunlight coming through the waving curtains was freshly minted, hazy. It was only a little after dawn, but the air was already comfortably warm. I could hear fishermen and traders readying themselves in the streets and on the riverbanks below.
“Another day, another battle to the death,” I said drily to myself.
The three women were all still sleeping to the right of me in the giant bed. Tamsin and I had gone to sleep, but Hana and Renji must’ve woken up in the night and joined us. I slipped out and padded onto the balcony. I could have benefited from a coffee or a cup of lightning, but there was only a jug of the sweet, rich Akrit red. I poured myself a goblet and took a sip, savoring the mellow taste of figs and chocolate and berries that were alien to my Earthen pallet.
I pulled on my breeches and shirt in the light of the sun and looked out at the waking city of Akrit.
“What a sight,” I muttered.
It was like stepping through a time portal and waking up on the banks of the Nile around 2,500 BC; after the Upper and Lower Kingdoms of Egypt had united, prosperity was in full flow, and the development of great cultural traditions like the implementation of writing and hieroglyphics was booming.
I didn’t need to know exactly what was going on below me to recognize that trade was flourishing here. However seemingly lifeless and barren the desert was, it was obvious that the pockets of water and the river were rich with life and the potential for profit.
Watercraft of all sorts were cruising up and down the river, powered by sails and oars and poles. Palms lined the banks of the Silver River, children played in the shallows, and there wasn’t a scrap of inorganic trash to be seen anywhere.
It was, all things considered, pretty idyllic.
That, I had to remind myself, was on the surface. I was sure that, like anywhere, it would only take a little scratching to peel away the veneer of this thriving, halcyon place and the grime would be revealed. Still, right then, it wasn’t a bad scene to be greeted with first thing in the morning.
“Hell of a day to get my Spartacus on,” I said.
It wasn’t long before the girls roused themselves and walked out to join me in enjoying the incredible view.
“There are many perks to being a dragonmancer,” Renji said pensively, “and one of them is that you never lack for decent accommodation.”
I laughed softly and tossed her an orange. We had been supplied with a breakfast of assorted fruits, many of which I didn’t recognize, along with breads, cheeses, meats, and dainty pastries. The servants that had delivered them to our suite had the same tough, uncompromising look as the domestic help that had shown us to our rooms the previous evening. When I thanked them for the platters, they simply bowed and walked away without a word.
I would have liked to check out the city that morning, but the number of guards stationed outside our suites told me that we would be politely, but firmly, told to keep to our rooms.
Together, Tamsin, Hana, Renj
i, and I could have decimated about two-hundred regular foot soldiers without breaking much of a sweat. Doing so now, however, would ruin the relations that we had started building the previous evening. I didn’t know much about royalty, but I doubted a king or duke or shaykh would appreciate someone washing their hallways in the blood of their troops.
Around midday, after I had bathed in a scented sunken pool in one of the rooms that led off from the main bedchamber, there was a knock on the door. It was the poker-faced woman who had collected us from outside the gate the day before. She was dressed in the same deep purple robes with the same helmet wrapped in cloth that ran down her back. There was also, I had to note, the same jingle of chainmail under the robe, and the same subtle clink and scrape of sheathed blades moving.
“Shaykh Antizah requests that you come with me, Dragonmancer Noctis,” she said.
“It’s time, is it?” I asked.
“It is time,” she confirmed.
“What’s your name?” I asked the woman. “We seem to be seeing a lot of one another and I feel rude not having a name for you.”
It looked like the austere commander was half tempted to tell me to go and shove my question where the sun doesn’t shine, but after a second, a thought seemed to strike her. A slow smile lit her face. Somehow, it was not a comforting look.
“You may call me Commander Sabika,” she said. “I do not think that you and I will call each other anything after this day’s sun goes down.”
I pulled a theatrically sad face. I knew what she was getting at, the sour bitch.
“Why?” I asked. “Are you going somewhere?”
The cold smile faded from Commander Sabika’s face. “Follow,” she said.
“What about my friends?” I asked.
“They will watch you alongside Shaykh Antizah in places of honor,” said the commander of the guard.
I translate that to mean that they would be watching me fight under the watchful eye of the best of Shaykh Antizah’s personal guard. There seemed little to be done just then, though. I’d win this one-on-one gladiatorial contest, throw down Shaykh Antizah’s champion, and grind his or her guts into the dust, and then we would see if the good shaykh was as much of a snake as I had the feeling he was.