Kumiko springs to her feet. Her pale pink irises deepen to magenta. When she looks at me, it’s not fear or sadness in her eyes.
It’s hunger.
-The Tyral Ruin-
She stomps past, and as she passes grabs a fistful of my leathers and drags. She’s tiny, and she fucking drags me back to the camp. She shoves me through the tent flap and flips it up over the roof pole.
Time has stopped just after sundown. I take a last look at the astratempus. The arrow has stopped.
Fire light casts everything into deep shadow and I can barely see her face with her back to the fire, but I know what she’s doing. Kumiko tears at her clothes, her linen top and the wrap that hugs her thighs.
“Off,” she demands, and we tear at our clothes together. I’m almost afraid of what will happen if I’m not naked when she finishes undressing.
Her body is so tiny, and strange, and beautiful. She has long graceful rabbit’s feet, covered in silken silver hair that hugs her legs almost to the knees, like boots. It appears again between her thighs, a small gossamer patch over petite lips. Her skin is silver white, small athletic breasts blushed with pink around tiny jutting nipples. They barely bounce with the heaving of her chest.
The second my hands finish the last buckle she bowls me over onto the cot. It collapses. She climbs over me in nimble little hops. The soft hair at her inner knees tickles my hips. Her ears flop beneath her ocean of white hair with each bounce. Kumiko rests on her long feet with just enough leg to reach the ground.
She has to stretch because she’s not sitting on me. She squats above my throbbing cock, our bodies silhouetted by the firelight, and lowers until my head rests in the cleft of her silky lips. My cock is wider than her whole pussy. I can feel her wet seam. It parts as she lowers.
I slide hands around her waist to stop her. My fingers bury in a soft mound. Her tail. I go from hard to aching at the idea and Kumiko overwhelms my grip.
Her hole is so tight. This is never going to work. I’ll split her in half before I’m all the way in.
She dips the tip of my cock, wets it before raising up again. When I try to raise my hips and help her, she shoves me down. “I can do this.”
She may be tiny, but she is fully in control. Will she let me raise up?
I bend just enough to get a nipple in my mouth. Her skin smells like rain water, fresh and earthy. The smell fills my nose; when I roll her beaded nipple along my upper lip she moans, and the scent magnifies. Kumiko flinches and her body opens a little. I can feel the muscles of her pussy surrender in small ripples that barely let me press inside.
I play with her tail; she doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes squeeze shut, face flushed and glistening with a sheen of perspiration. She’s fully concentrated on getting my cock into her. Can I break it?
I suck my finger, flick her tail with it. I slide down the cleft of her backside and press the tight star of her asshole.
Kumiko yelps. Her eyes fly open and wetness paints my cock.
She rocks her hips back and I slide into her pussy by achingly slow increments. Stretching her. The head of my cock presses a bulge through the flesh above her mound.
“We should sto-”
Kumiko smacks a slender hand over my mouth and rides me to the bottom. I can see the root of my cock, the tiny curve of her lips and her small pink clit straining between them like a ripe berry. I want to suck it, devour it. Run my tongue over her-
I’m so lost in all the ways I’ll pleasure her that I’m not ready for what happens. Kumiko hunches, grabs my shoulders, and fucks me. Her hips move like a piston. She fucks me, so fast I can feel the friction heat my cock. Our flesh smacks and my balls vibrate. Before I can beg her to slow down, control myself, I’m at the edge, and then I’m all the way over it. Orgasm tears through me, powerful, almost painful, except that it’s fucking intense and feels so good.
It’s the fastest I’ve ever cum.
She doesn’t stop. Her hair waves around us in a white curtain and her ears gently slap me, and she doesn’t slow down. Small as it is, her pussy tightens, and the muscles in her ass shake. Cum spills hot down her thighs, lubricating us both and she takes me faster.
“Unf unf unf unf!” Her little noises heat my ear with each breath, driving me crazy. Nails like tiny claws nip my skin where she clutches me.
Despite how wet she is, the speed and friction almost burn. I open my mouth to say something, anything, and my cock spasms, engorges, and I cum again, buried in her quivering pussy.
And again. My balls ache and the feel of her pussy gloving, kneading, has me rock hard against my will. This time I grab her hips. She struggles. I slide her down my cock and hold her there while she bucks and writhes. I’m already fighting to not cum again. How the hell is she doing this? It might kill me.
Kumiko struggles against my hands, making feral noises.
“Stop. Stop!” I’m laughing and fighting her.
“Why?”
“Did you cum a single time?”
She looks astounded by the question. “No! Now let me-”
“Whoa!” I grip harder when she grinds her pussy down on me. “Kumiko, slow down.”
“Why?” She’s breathless, frustrated.
Because I’m a mortal, and you’ll kill or maim me before I ever leave this realm. I don’t say this because I’m too fucking proud. “Because there’s pleasure in taking your time.”
“I’m a kaltes. Our mating habits aren’t a preference. We couple how we couple.”
“Which is?”
She reaches down, massages low on her belly. I’m so deep inside of her that I can feel her hand through the wall of her stomach. I hiss in a breath. “When a female is crazed, she mounts a male until she achieves satisfaction.”
She sure does.
I wait for the rest.
This is all that matters to Kumiko, so she isn’t going to tell me the rest. Her pussy twitches around me, impatient.
“And when a male feels the urge?” I draw down my hips and wedge a hand between her leg and mine, so she can’t take me fully inside.
“He stalks her, lunges her from behind. He mounts her and pins her to the ground with his weight and his teeth.”
“That sounds awful.”
She frowns. “His release only takes seconds.”
“That sounds worse!”
Kumiko writhes again. “A kaltes female doesn’t allow anything she doesn’t want.”
Is that so?
Without warning I fist the hair at the back of her neck and pull her from me.
Kumiko lands face down on the forgotten quilt. I turn my body over hers in one fluid motion, trapping her between me and the blanket-covered ground. She whimpers, warm and sweat-slicked beneath me.
My fingers keep ahold of her hair, pressing her cheek gently into the quilt. I work a hand under her belly, wrap her, and drag her hips into the air. Her tail rubs my belly and I can smell her pussy on the night air.
Hunched over her, I prod her with my cock until she raises her ass and I slide inside her heat. With her small body lashed to mine at the waist, I press my teeth into the meat of her shoulder and thrust.
Kumiko shudders and releases a muffled cry into the blanket. I stay buried inside her, dragging in breath after breath to keep my sanity. Her ass jiggles, her hips begin to vibrate.
“Hm mm.” I dig my teeth a little deeper and slide out of her pussy to the tip.
She whimpers, shaking. “It’s pointless!” she pants. “What is the-”
Her protest ends in a gasp as I push into her slowly, stroke deep and slow just once. Keeping my grip around her waist, I work my fingers down to the wet cleft of her lips. Her clit licks my finger like a tongue, swollen and eager. I slide my middle finger over it, bury in her narrow slit, spreading it until I feel where my cock disappears inside her.
“Oh! Ohhh...” Kumiko’s shoulders relax, tits crushing against the blanket, and her ass raises higher, begging. She still hums with need and an urge to go crazy; I
can feel it where our bodies touch.
Releasing her hair, I toy with one of her velveteen ears. She makes a sound I’ve never heard a woman make, not even in the throes of wild orgasm. On a whim, I lick it. Her climax is one long, throaty moan, and the walls of her pussy spasming against my length almost take me with her.
But not yet.
I slide into her slowly, relentlessly, rolling her clit and stroking her ear. She tries to bounce, desperate. Squeezing her waist, I bite harder. Stroke her ear faster. Push my cock until her pussy lips spread over the hair at my root.
Kumiko’s little shrieks grow into one short scream. She shudders, strangles my cock and goes limp under me.
“No. We’re not finished.” Banding her tighter, I drag her back against my hips and pound her, slow and hard, slicking two fingers against her pussy. She’s barely stopped shaking when she comes again on a ragged moan. “Stop...no more.” Her hips raise even as the words tumble out. My balls are wet from her, and my belly where she slides up each time I press inside.
I want to make her wait, keep on fucking her like this, but I can’t. I need to take her as hard as she took me.
I lay all my weight on her, bite her, and rail her until the slap of our flesh is nearly one continuous, dirty sound. Kumiko cums over and over, her body shaking, weakening with each round of desperate cries, and tensing when I fill her again.
“Harder!”
I drive into her.
“Harder!” She jerks her shoulder, slams my mouth.
I sink my teeth in and fuck her.
“Uh...uhh...yes!”
We cum together, but for a second my body hangs on the edge and I’m not sure I’ll finish. The feel of Kumiko’s pussy surrendering, cumming violently around me because she has nothing left, pushes me over the edge. I pump hot and hard inside her, our cries in unison for a second before hers trail into satisfied, exhausted whimpers in time with the quiver of her body.
I loosen my grip, lower her gently to the quilt and roll away before I crush her. After what just happened that seems a lot less likely than when I first saw her, but still. I lay on my back beside her, admiring the low taut curve of her backside in the firelight. She slips and sits up in one quick movement, shaking out her hair and ears, her limbs. Her tail makes a cute, impatient flick.
“Up.”
“All business?” I mumble. I sit before she answers. It’s like being kicked in the back. “What the hell?”
Kumiko turns and cocks a brow.
My muscles feel tensile, primed.
She grabs something from the writing table and hurls it. I don’t have a chance to see what it is, but it doesn’t have a chance to hit me. My hand is there, faster than though, catching it.
“Godsdamn!”
Kumiko throws something else, and something else, squealing on her third toss. She’s so fast, and they hurtle like bolts from a crossbow. Just to show off, I catch the second item, and then bend, letting the third miss me by a finger’s width.
She picks up a fourth item, speculative.
It’s a dagger.
“Hey, hey! That’s enough. I proved myself.”
She looks me over wide eyed. “Did I do this to you?”
Multiple couplings. I stretch, feel the speed, the tensile strength in my limbs. “Yes. Yes you did.”
Her ears flip, and she wriggles into her wrap. “Perfect. Maybe you won’t go so slow next time.”
-The Garden-
One Minute to Midnight
The Gardner hovers. Her form now is softer, illusory fabric and flesh over stone. She looks at me looking at her.
“Are you indicating attraction for my improved form?”
After the time I’ve had in the temple, this isn’t an unfair question. But stone conundrums aren’t yet on my sexual horizon. However, my mother taught me to be polite.
“You mean, do I want to chisel you?”
The Gardener giggles. Unlike before, it doesn’t sound like it’s been filtered through layers of stone.
More and more interesting.
I turn, ushering a timid Kumiko into the garden.
She hardly budges, hunched and tugging at an ear.
“Hey, are you alright?”
She looks everywhere, but I don’t think she sees a thing. “I’ve never been here before. I keep waiting for–” Her eyes dart to the copse, the pond. “It’s hard to believe it’s over.”
The Gardener gentles her. “There is nothing in the garden which I have not cultivated. Even the weeds are eradicated.” There’s something terrible and intimidating to her words, so simple, so final. I’m glad she’s on our side.
I hope.
Kumiko relaxes against me, but barely.
“Go now, and rest,” instructs the Gardener like a parent. “Tomorrow your true tests begin.”
“My–” Is she serious? Yep. She’s right. I need my rest. “Goodnight, Gardener.”
“I had a name, once.”
I turn back. “What?”
“It was so long ago. I…”She trails off, is silent.
Have we made progress? “Were you a–”
She’s already drifting away, done with me.
I exchange a look with Kumiko, who clearly doesn’t understand.
“It’s complicated. Come on. You’ll meet the others in the morning.”
Turns out she’ll meet the others now. Lamplight glows from between the columns of my chamber and the sounds...more giggling and shrieking than a drunken whorehouse.
And the furniture…
I look to Meridiana because I feel in my heart this is her doing.
She shrugs. “Two beds in two rooms or two beds in one room. The answer seemed rather simple.”
The answer is one massive bed, wedged between the walls of my room, sprawled with three stunning, powerful women.
Meridiana gets to her knees, smelling Kumiko, who looks hunted in a very different way. Meridiana strokes her ears, brushes the silver hairs at Kumiko’s knees. “My my.”
She slips her fingers between Kumiko’s and tugs her to the sheets. For all she’s been through, the bunny girl looks happy to obey.
Freya is the only one clothed. Finna leaves an illicit damp spot with her body, and Meridiana goes on playing with Kumiko’s ear - to great effect, judging by Kumiko’s face.
So much delicious, previously explored flesh, and my cock barely stirs. “Listen to me,” I warn, mostly to Meridiana. A little to Finna, but mostly that headstrong succubus. “I am utterly wrecked. You can stay in here….” I point to each girl, “If you keep hands to yourselves.”
“Oh,” Meridiana whips her ass with her tail and squeals, “We promise not to touch you.”
“Nice try.” I strip to my braes and fall between the four. “I said hands to yourself.”
Meridiana hmm’s. I see the look she passes to Finna.
“And tails. Tentacles. Appendages. Wings. Tongues-” I yawn. “All parts to yourself.”
Meridiana’s tail flicks up, loops, and disappears beneath her silk drape.
“And out of yourself!” I can’t fight my laughter. Neither can Freya.
“One night of sleep. That’s not too much to ask?” I prod.
Kumiko pats away a yawn. “It’s not like you have anything to worry about tomorrow.”
I drift away, warmed by her praise, entranced by the twine of slender limbs and the press of warm soft bodies, of fingers slipping together. Five people taking comfort from each other.
But on the edge of my thoughts, just before sleep takes me, behind closed eyes I see blood...
PART THREE
-The Garden-
My eyes snap open. The echo of a scream hangs between my ears, sharp against the soft sounds in the garden. I’m used to waking up this way, though it’s been a while.
The bed is empty, my companions absent. I sit, face in my hands, try to forget the blood, the screams, my family.
“The memories are less frequent, but they do not fade,” pred
icts the Gardener, hovering in my door.
It’s arresting, how almost human she looks. Her face has lost the smoothly blank maternal gaze. Her color is still earth toned but vibrant, lending her expressions depth. I forget the dream, forget to answer for a second.
Then her words pry in. “No, they don’t. It try not to think about Esmanth, what she’s suffering, and her memories, and–”
“You are right to fear.” The Gardener interrupts. “Perhaps you do not fear enough.”
I sit bolt upright. “What do you mean?”
“The Oryllix. Even if you succeed, here, capture all the artifacts and survive your trials, you will face them.” She is silent a moment, but I know there is more, and I hang on her next words. “They possess unquantifiable power. You will likely not survive.
I swallow, mouth dry. “You know them?”
“Hunter, and Gatherer. Subdue and Capture…” She hums. “Aspirant and Artifact.”
What and what? “Wait...One defeated this temple?”
“Another temple. Another realm. Twins, lovers, abominations. Two halves of the same darkness, their real names long forgotten. They deceived the Mad God, One entering as aspirant and Two positioning herself as an artifact. Together, they razed the temple with their incestuous bond and their hunger for destruction.”
“And the artifacts they freed?”
“Consumed.”
Fuck. “That’s why magic users are forbidden inside.”
“And still, the Oryllix try. They tried in the realm of Horux, one sun cycle ago. They attempted to enter here, this cycle.”
Hah. What a pair of village simpletons.
The Gardener catches my smug expression. “They still try, Tamlir Kynthelig. They will try to get in. To disrupt.”
Getting in...I’m not so much of a prig that I can’t admit this puts me on guard. But waiting outside? The Gardener’s earlier warning gave me pause, but now? I’m surprised by the heat in my face, the bloodlust. I want them there, waiting. “Perfect. That’s what I was hoping for. I’d be a little disappointed if there was no victory celebration.”
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