by V. K. Ludwig
Her tense jawline and protruding collarbone clarified that the truth wasn’t an option. After all the hate she received from her Clan, I included, keeping my mouth shut would finally show some kindness.
“Just politics…”
She mustered my face for a moment, her eyes searching for signs of a lie among the fine wrinkles around my eyes.
“Climb onto that step over there,” she said and rose.
I did as she commanded, catapulting my body out of the water with its surface barely reaching above my ankles.
She took the soap bar and lathered me down, rubbing the foam deep into my skin. Her cold hands touched my steaming skin, sending electric shocks across my body. When she reached my cock and took him in her slippery hand, I couldn’t help but let out a deep, guttural moan.
“I think you’re ready,” she said, letting go of me and slipping the wet bar from one hand to the other.
I looked down at myself and gave a nod. “There’s no hiding that.”
I quickly lowered myself back into the water, washed the soap off my body, and climbed out of the hot spring. Without warning, I scooped her up bridal-style and marched back toward the hut.
She gave a muffled screech against my chest, letting the bar slip out of her hands and onto the cold stone. “You’re getting me all wet.”
“Fuck yeah,” I said and stepped back inside. “At least that’s the plan.”
Hard and ready, I marched over to the table and placed her on the rough surface. Blood pumped through my body in quick bursts, fueled by the adrenaline of taking a life and keeping my family protected.
She wrapped her hands around my neck. “Oriel will —”
“I don’t give a shit about Oriel.” I planted a hungry kiss on her mouth, nibbling and pulling her lower lip. “Or anybody else for that matter. I don’t care about anybody else but you. And Rose.”
With her dressed soaked in some spots, her body went still between my hands except for the occasional cold shiver. Her eyes widened and narrowed, staring at me as if she contemplated if I really meant it.
I meant it and bunched up the layers of her skirt against her stomach. All three of them.
Fuck the rumors.
Fuck the truth.
Fuck being a chieftain.
All I ever wanted now had her legs wrapped around my waist, pushing her panty to the side in a glistening, wet invitation. I wanted her, and I wanted her for the rest of my existence — together with that beautiful girl she brought into my life.
She kicked her heel against my lower back, drawing the head of my cock closer to her entrance.
I shook my head, a devilish smile tugging on the corner of my mouth. “Uh-uh.”
Then I grabbed her panty and pulled it down, fumbling it off her toes. I went down on my knees and dived between her thighs, spreading them apart with my broad shoulders. My tongue lashed straight for her clit. A jerk quivered through her legs. A moan followed, so deep of surprise and anticipation at the same time.
I licked between her lips and sent the tip of my tongue inside of her, sucking myself drunk on her juice. Blood shot into my cock, making him jerk. I wrapped my hand around him and pumped into my fist. Only three times but hard and unrelenting. I kneaded my cockhead between my fingers, lathered in pre-cum and throbbing in the air.
I pushed myself up and rubbed my cock across her pussy, towering over her body with two wet fingers resting on her lips. Her innocent eyes darted to them. Appetite and lust replaced innocence, and she took my fingers into her mouth. She sucked my pre-cum right off them. Twirling her tongue around them. Sending shivers down my spine and another pump of blood into my veins.
Her wet folds hugged my shaft, driving me to the border of control and fucking losing it all. I took a deep breath, pulled out, and lowered myself back onto my knees, working those two fingers deep inside her pussy.
“Rowan…,” she moaned my name and nothing more as if it entailed everything that needed to be said.
I fucked her with my fingers, my tongue never stopping the tapping and licking across her clit. All the while, I stroked myself running my fists along my shaft, using whatever cum dribbled out for lubrication.
The more her clit pulsated and trembled, the harder I stroked myself. She rammed her feet onto my shoulders and curled her toes into my skin, her pubic bone lifting and thrusting against my mouth. Her hands dived into my hair and tugged on a fistful, curbed moans stuttering from deep within her ribcage.
Once her trembling body turned satisfied and limp, I got up and stepped closer to the table. I pumped into my hand, my fingers wrapped tightly around him. Each time they slid across the ridge of my cock, he stretched, and my balls tightened.
She pushed herself closer to me, and her hands reached for my nuts, juggling, and caressing them between her fingers.
The way she stared at my cockhole made him swell, sending quick and hurried pulsations through him. She arched her back and rubbed her hand across her breasts, showing me exactly where she wanted it.
I held my cock a bit higher and threw my head back, rubbing my hand up and down. Everything turned dark. My ass clenched and a long, husky moan escaped from my lips, my cock throbbing against my fingers and spurting my cum all over her body.
When I opened my eyes again, she stared at me, something hopeful waiting behind those beautiful, green iris. I knew exactly what it was, and for the first time in a long while, nothing held me back. Not even the old, worn out pain.
I wrapped her in my arms and took her deep into my heaving chest. “I love you so much. Always did and always will. And I love you even more for that child you gave us.” I gazed down into her eyes, filled with tears and a deep sense of relief and mutual forgiveness. “Nothing will ever get between us again.”
At that moment, a death-weight lifted off my shoulders, as if the past had finally moved on to where it belonged. Behind us.
Foolish, foolish me. Nothing ever comes that simple. Especially not for a chieftain.
Chapter 21
Rowan
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked Max, the clear-blue plastic liner of the examination table in the lab sticking to my sweaty ass. That thing he hovered in front of my face wasn’t a tiny needle. No, it was a big ass rod, and there was no way in hell he’d poke that into my ballsack.
“This is how it’s being done in the Districts,” he said in a smart-ass tone, waving the syringe around as if stabbing a guy’s nuts wasn’t a big deal. “I’ll rub some of this numbing gel onto —”
“You’re not gonna touch my balls, Max.” I dug my hand into the collar of his sweater and pulled him down. “If you as much as look into the direction of my package, I’ll strangle you to death with that stethoscope dangling around your neck. This is wrong. Just wrong. And I don’t give a shit about how things are being done in the Districts.”
He patiently waited until I let him go from my clasp and took a step away from me. The lights above us shone weak, flickering like Morse-code every couple of seconds. A telltale of solar panels waiting to be cleared from the snow which had fallen on our way home.
“For the record,” he said, “I don’t want to touch your balls. But the fact is, if you want to find out what’s going on down there, I’ll have to examine your marbles along with little Rowan.”
“Little… what?”
He flicked his eyes to the white rag draped over my manhood. “We might also have to do a prostate exam, but we should rule out other things —”
“Now you wanna shove your fingers up my ass?” I jumped off the table, pressed the rag against my cock, and turned my ass toward the wall. “If I would have known my sister wants to marry someone whose job it is to rummage through a man’s butthole, I sure as hell would have said no.”
He put the syringe onto the metal tray beside him and raked his fingers through his hair, pulling the ends, straining his scalp.
Yeah, right. If anybody had a reason to pull his hair, it was me. Here I stood, nake
d from my bellybutton down, trying to find a way to put a child in my wife’s belly. But… fuck… this guy’s nerves…
“Look.” He held up both palms in some sort of peace offering. “You asked me for help. This is how I can help. But if you’re too chicken to go through with this tell me now, because I still have a lot of work to do with that program I designed.”
I looked about the white walls, my eyes getting stuck on the corner we used for collecting sperm samples not too long ago. Back when the Districts still wanted them. A thick layer of dust had settled on the glass table. The mini-fridge had stopped humming months ago.
I wanted this for Darya, but I needed this for myself. Needed to know that I am worthy of being a husband, a chieftain, and a man of the Clans. Uncertainty clogged up my throat, turning every breath into a struggle. Shit, what good is a man if he can’t knock up his wife?
“What program?” I asked, buying myself a little more time. This was the right thing to do, but the entire idea made me curl my toes inside my socks. The thought of my brother-in-law turning a finger in my asshole didn’t help either.
“Stop confusing the subject. You’re only bringing up the program because you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared. What’s there to be scared about?” Except for a huge-ass needle lancing into my balls. I scoffed. “And I didn’t bring it up. You did.”
He let out a deep breath, walked over to his desk, and activated a holo-projector. Light-filled images popped up and changed every couple of seconds, flipping through mugshots and an endless amount of numbers.
“It’s a database for the genetic profiling of all members from this Clan,” he said proudly, the undertone of his voice leaving no doubt he had put a lot of hours into this. “The program will show you potential genetic issues if a couple has a child, along with an approximate probability.”
“Sounds like you wanna found your very own Newgenics program.”
“Nope.” He shook his head and turned off the projector. “I’m just giving people the chance to make an educated choice. That is, if they agree to use it. So far, less than forty people gave me permission to include them. I hope more will follow.”
“Not fucking likely. Many don’t see you as one of us yet. And even if they did, forming a family is difficult enough as it is. No need to bring genetic issues into it. We’ve done ok without it so far.”
His face dulled, and he stared down at his hands. “My dad said the same. We never see the need for intervention until it’s too late. There are still a lot of old studies about the healthcare system of the twenty-first century. Many died because they couldn’t afford to get better.”
“That was different,” I said. “They were too many people, and the system simply couldn’t support it anymore.”
“Who says we can’t reach that point again?” He stood there silently for a while, his mouth twisting into something grim. “The Clan is growing, Rowan, especially since you became a chieftain. Autumn and I are having twins. Now River and —”
“Ayanna is pregnant?”
A wave of hope gushed through me. Whatever Max did worked for River. Why wouldn’t it work for me? The thought of having another child with Darya made heat radiate through my chest. This time I would get it just right. I could be the man she deserved. Could give her what she wanted.
Max pointed at the white rag in front of me. “Whatever is going on in your mind is getting you too excited. That’s not helpful for the procedure. So… are we going to do this or not?”
I looked down at my half-hard cock who clearly had a mind of his own and couldn’t wait to take charge of it all.
“Alright, let’s do it. But under one condition.” I walked over to the examination table and sat back down. “I’ll rub that stuff onto my skin. And if you ever tell anyone —”
“I know, I know. You’ll choke me with my stethoscope, punch me in my cunt, or drown me and make it look like an accident.”
“Exactly.”
Satisfied with his answer, I sat back down on the sticky liner, opened my palm and gestured for the little tub.
“All over, please,” he said, handing me the gel and turning his head. Not out of decency, of course. Tight and contained as his voice now was, it had given away how much he enjoyed having me in this embarrassing situation.
I dab-dab-dabbed that cold shit all over, making an uncomfortable tingle spread across my crotch. “So… um… what exactly are we looking for?”
Max slid his fingers inside a pair of latex gloves. “Movement first. I need to check if your sperm cells are moving. Need to check the efficiency of the movement. Measure the size and all that good stuff.”
I handed him the tub back and gave a nod. “That’s what made it difficult for River?”
“Not exactly,” he said, picking the syringe back up. “His sperm cells were fine. Let’s just say that his freeway was a bit too narrow for the cells to make it through without crashing. Easily fixed with a straightforward procedure.”
“Turned it into a six-lane?”
“Uh-huh.”
He gestured me to lie down on my back, but I shook my head. “Not gonna happen, Max. I gotta see what you’re doing down there.”
“Suit yourself.”
He gave a shrug and folded the rag neatly to the side as if exposing only one testicle would somehow take the weird out of this situation.
The shiny, sharp point of the needle pushed a wrinkle into my skin. It was too late to lie down now. Everything around me went blacker than my sorrows. I heard nothing. I felt nothing. Except for the sweat pressing out of my pores, which settled as a fine mist on my forehead.
“You can open your eyes now,” Max said, one corner of his mouth lifted along with the brow above. “Do yourself a favor and don’t get up yet because —”
“Whoa!” My knees turned wobblier than a chair on one leg, and I clawed my fingers into the dry and worn-out chair foam. “Why do I feel so fucking dizzy?”
“It’s the adrenaline. Too much in a short period of time does that to you. Happens to the best of us.”
I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up. However, the risk I’d barf all over the room as soon as I opened my mouth made me reconsider. I sat back down instead.
“You can get yourself dressed if you want,” Max said and walked the probe over to a work station. “It’ll take some time for me to look over this sample. Depending on what I see, we will decide if a procedure is needed.”
“The highway?” came muffled from behind my hand.
“Or the prostate exam.”
I gave a little grunt. “I prefer the highway.”
“You sure?” he asked, turning the microscope on and squirting some of my probe between two thin sheets of glass. “Because that means I’d have to work a scope into your urethral opening and work myself through your ejaculatory duct.”
“I have no fucking idea what that opening is you just mentioned,” I said. “But I think I underestimated you. Perhaps I underestimated the entire Districts. You’re fucking savages.”
“Coming from you, I’ll take it as a compliment.”
I jumped back into my jeans and pushed my junk to the side before I zipped it up and leaned against the wall. From the corner of my eyes, I observed Max pressing his face onto the lens, turning knobs and adjusting the base.
My palms turned sweaty, and I let out a hurry-up kind of sigh. “So? How’s it looking?”
His face turned slowly toward me, the hint of a shake bouncing off his chin. “I only just started, and I told you it will take me some time. Especially with this ancient equipment you’re expecting me to work with.”
“If you don’t like your microscope,” I said and jutted my chin toward it, “how ’bout we toss it, and you go back to the ancient practice of swishing samples through your mouth?”
His body neither stiffened nor did his shoulders shrug. Instead, he turned a few other, smaller knobs and pressed his lips tightly together.
“How qui
ckly after that procedure would I be able to, you know… put him to use again?” I asked, waving my hand about casually as if the sample beneath his eyes wasn’t holding the future of my life with Darya. Or the future of the Clan.
“Mmh…” came from behind his watertight lips, the vibration of his vocal cords pounding against my heart. What did Mmh mean? Mmh… a few weeks? Mmh… I don’t know yet? Mmh… there’s no saving this? A cramp started somewhere close to my main artery and spread across my chest.
“For fuck’s sake, Max,” I snarled. “Tell me already what’s going on there! Can you fix me or not?”
“You’re making yourself sound as if you’re broken.”
“Shit… I am fucking broken!” I pushed myself away from the wall and began pacing around the examination table, stealing a glimpse of the microscope every other step.
I wanted to crush that damn thing. It was my enemy. But that it had neither bones to break nor blood to spill made me feel fucking powerless.
“You understand how the Clans work,” I continued, my voice shakier than I cared for. “Things around here are already strained, and if I can’t produce an heir… soon… people will turn on me. You heard they tried to come for Darya.”
My own words made a cold shiver run down my spine. No matter how much safety and peace I brought our Clan, the next ambitious motherfucker just waited around the next corner. Waited to cut my throat. Rape my wife. Kill my family.
“Autumn told me you never wanted to be a chieftain,” Max said without looking up, his fingers inching the glass sheets a bit further to the left. “Why not resign and give the chieftain to someone else?”
“Oh, I will resign, alright. I will resign the moment my head gets severed from my neck.” I stopped my pacing for a moment and stared down at the cheap vinyl floor we tore up from a lumber yard three years ago. “That’s how you give the chieftain away here. By dying. It’s not like I can pin a blue ribbon on someone and be done with this fucking shit.”