Sirens of Faldion: The Final Bond

by Anya Merchant

  Kai reached his hand out and flicked one of her ears, knocking back several strands of blonde hair and partially exposing the pointed tip.

  “Are you done? Can we please get on with this?” He waved a dismissive hand through the air. “It’s going to get dark soon, and I don’t have time to waste on verbally sparring with you.”

  Sky watched him for another second before nodding and turning back in the direction of where she was leading him. The sun was setting over the ocean on the western horizon, casting a blood red streak against the water and making the city’s docks look like they were on fire.

  Kai followed Sky until she finally came to a stop in front of a small, well maintained building made of white sandstone and sharing a wall on either side with its nearest neighbors. She pushed through the cloth curtain that served as a door and held it open for Kai.

  He found himself inside a small, but adequately stocked clothing shop. A number of tunics, robes, trousers, and dresses hung from hangers on the walls and from racks spread out through the center of the room. A squirrely looking man with puffy grey hair stood behind the counter, and immediately perked up upon seeing them.

  “Welcome…” The man took a long look at the both of them and frowned. “I’m afraid we don’t have much in currently that can be purchased on a budget.”

  “Given that we have adequate funding, that will not be a concern for us,” said Sky, smoothly.

  Kai looked from her to the merchant, frowning and feeling out of place. Sky’s words from before echoed in his head, and he began to realize the full implications of her assertion. He wasn’t a slave anymore. He didn’t have to bow his head or keep his gaze directed at the ground.

  “Er, the changing stalls are in the back,” said the merchant, still wary. “I only ask that you take only one set of garments into them to try on at a time.”

  Sky was already striding through the shop, examining fancy looking tunics. It had been almost ten years since Kai had worn any clothing that had been dyed or sewn together with any skill. He watched as Sky flicked through the tunics and trousers, eventually settling on a set and handing them to Kai.

  “Here,” she said. “Try these on.”

  The fabric was black with gold trim along the hem and a black and gold sash to hold it tight across his waist. The pants were dark grey and made of heavy fabric that felt like it would resist tearing and maybe even provide a small defensive boon against cutting weapons. She’d even grabbed him a new pair of shoes, brown boots made from wolf skin and padded with sheep’s wool.

  “Sky,” he said. “I don’t need anything this expensive.”

  “Of course you do.” Sky gave him a level look. “I won’t have my master prancing around in rags.”

  She pushed him toward the changing stall and Kai slipped through the curtain. He pulled his old rags off slowly, grimacing as the movements exacerbated a few small tears. His body was somewhat clean underneath them after all the swimming he’d done in the river the day before, which made him feel a bit better about pulling on the finery Sky had chosen for him.

  There was a small, battered mirror secured to the sandstone wall in the stall, and Kai stared at it in disbelief. The clothes fit him as though they’d been tailored to his body, revealing the outline of his broad shoulders and the muscles of his arms. He almost didn’t recognize himself, and began grinning like a fool when he thought about how Selene would react.

  Sky was nowhere in sight when Kai returned to the store’s main room. He walked over to the merchant and began pulling out coins. The outfit cost, in total, two golden drakes, eight silver bulls, and a couple of copper crows, an amazing amount of money, however, Kai felt even more amazed by the amount still left in the stolen purse after he’d handed the coins over.

  “Uh… this should cover it,” he said. “Right?”

  The merchant nodded, and Kai breathed a sigh of relief. He’d never been given money before under his old master and had only managed to pick up an understanding of the rule of ten, the math behind it, secondhand.

  He turned around and did a double take upon seeing Sky. She’d picked out a flowing white dress, cut low enough in the chest to reveal her cleavage. It was short and tight on the bottom, clinging to the curves of her thigh and butt. She had on a pair of tight leather leggings underneath, unusual but not unheard of for a lady in the city. Her shoes were a plain, but pretty pair of grey slippers.

  Kai only managed to lift his mouth off the floor when she started walking over to him. Her eyes were golden, the same color as her fine blonde hair, and she had a smirk on her face that made him feel a little foolish.

  “I’m glad to see that reaction,” she said. “Hopefully anyone trying to kill us will have a similar one for at least as long.”

  “Sky…” Kai shook his head, smiling. “You look incredible.”

  She opened her mouth to shoot out another quip and then hesitated, as though thinking better of it. Sky bowed her head forward slightly into a nod.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You look rather dashing yourself.”

  Sky paid the clothing merchant out of the purse she’d taken for herself, and the two of them left the shop. There was an immediate difference in the way the nearby crowd treated them, with people moving out of there way, servants bowing to them out of habit as they went by.

  “All we did was buy new clothes,” Kai muttered.

  “You’d be surprised at how far that can get you,” said Sky.

  CHAPTER 14

  Sky led him forward, weaving through the complicated patterns of Last Port’s stone paved city streets toward a group of buildings nearer to the center of the city. The buildings around them became larger and nicer, and most notably, cleaner. The people as well shifted from a mix of mostly commoners and the poor to the upper classes of the city, with guards standing on corners and patrolling into alleys more frequently.

  “Every city has an area like this,” said Sky. “If we weren’t dressed like this, the guards would come up with some excuse to keep us out.”

  “Even here in Last Port?” asked Kai. “This place is a collection of different cultures.”

  “Money has culture of its own,” said Sky. She shot him a sharp, almost wounded smile, and Kai again began to wonder about her history.

  Sky stopped in front of a door set into a clump of buildings, all of them reaching up several stories high. She pulled the door open and ushered Kai inside.

  A small room sat on the other side with a man sitting behind a wooden desk, reading from a massive ledger. He looked up as the two of them walked in, scanning them over from behind his spectacles, appraising them. The smile he flashed a second later was a clear indicator that they’d passed his scrutiny.

  “Welcome,” he said. “We have lodgings available, several in fact.”

  “Yes,” said Sky. “We’ll take the nicest room you have.”

  Kai tried to keep his face from looking shocked as he glanced between them. The old man at the desk kept right on going.

  “Excellent!” He paused, running an ink quill down the ledger and writing something. “That will be a golden drake and five silver bulls per night.”

  Sky pulled the money out and set it down on the desk without a moment’s hesitation. Her purse was looking a good deal lighter than it had originally, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. The old man handed them a key.

  “It’s the only door on the third floor,” he said. “Please call on me if you need anything. Fresh towels for the bath are provided for your leisure, along with scrubbing stones. If the two of you get hungry-”

  “Thank you,” said Sky, cutting him off. “You are ever so kind.”

  She reached out and took Kai’s hand into hers, pulling him quickly up the stairs. Kai felt a strange urgency in her movements and couldn’t stop his concern from perking up.

  “Sky?” he asked, quietly. “Are you okay?”

  Sky got to the third floor door, fumbled with the lock, and all but fell through t
o the room on the other side. It was beautiful, beyond anything Kai would have imagined being available for rent. The walls and floor were clean white sandstone. A bed with fresh sheets stood against one wall, and a sunken stone bathtub with a copper piping jutting out from the wall above it sat against the other. A heavy wooden mechanism set into the wall controlled the stream of water. Kai had seen the setup before, but never used it himself.

  “Sky,” he repeated. She was close to doubling over on the floor, holding one hand to her breast, and another between her legs. Kai shut the door behind them and hurried to her side.

  “My… abilities,” she whispered. “I’ve been using them too freely over the past few days without. It puts a serious drain on my spirit reserve.”

  “Oh…” said Kai. “Oh!”

  Almost everyone in Faldion that had heard of the Chosen and their spirit sirens had also heard at least a few scattering details of how the bond worked. All life generated an internal magical energy, or spirit essence. Spirit sirens could absorb that energy and channel it into physical forces, but couldn’t produce more than a baseline amount on their own.

  Kai helped Sky up and over to the bed. He felt her moving against him, reaching one of her arms against his broad shoulders, the other across his chest. Her eyes were a soft pink, and her lips quivered with excitement and need.

  “Kai…” she said. “I need you… to kiss me. Just a few kisses, it should be enough.”

  “It’s all true then?”

  Sky nodded, her cheeks blushing slightly.

  “As far as I can tell,” she whispered. “I can feel it in me… this, this need. This hunger. I just want to…”

  She blushed even deeper and arched her back slightly on the bed. Kai put his hand on her shoulder and leaned in, worried that if he waited longer, she might start feeling actual pain.

  The moment intensified as he brought his face in close to Sky’s. She was beautiful in an odd kind of way. None of her features, from her rounded nose, to her sharp chin, or even her oddly pointed ears, were objectively attractive on their own. The way they went together as a package, however, was cute, seductive, and everything that fell in between.

  Sky slipped an elbow against the bed, lifting herself up to meet Kai as he moved toward her. Kai’s body hovered over hers for a moment, within easy touching distance. She looked into his eyes, blushing slightly, and Kai would have given anything to have seen what she saw.

  He slowly closed the last bit of distance and let his lips push against hers. Pleasure exploded through him in a singular burst. He felt her mouth moving, pulling him in. Kai could think of nothing else but Sky, of her breasts, her body, her clothes and how easily he could rip them off.

  There was something else to it as well, something intoxicating and insidious at the same time. Sky was sucking his spiritual essence out of him, taking it for herself. It was as though she had the power of a sexual leech, using the promise of her full, feminine body to mask the crime.

  Kai kissed her lips again and again, going deep on the last one and letting his tongue spar with hers. He fell on top of her on the bed, letting his body press tight into hers. His cock was rock hard within his newly acquired trousers, fighting against the fabric for a way loose, a way into her.

  Sky writhed and moved with him, every bit as desperate and eager as he was. Her dress had slid lower in the front, coming within inches of exposing the illicit centers of her breasts. Kai wanted to see her naked like he’d wanted nothing else before in his life. He pushed himself between her legs and kissed her on the neck, letting his palm settle over her breast as he did.

  “Wait…” whispered Sky. “No!”

  She pushed him back with rough, unbridled strength. Kai flew a foot or so up into the air, bounced once on the bed, and then fell to the side in an undignified heap. He let out a groan and pulled himself up to face her, the erotic spell broken for the moment.

  “What…” He shook his head, staring at her. “What was that?”

  “That’s one of my powers, I think,” she said. “If I had to guess, I’d say all of the spirit sirens can do the same thing. It’s probably where a lot of the rumors come from.”

  “Oh.” Kai looked at her. She was still on the bed, her clothes and hair disheveled from their earlier movements, one of her legs bent at a suggestive angle.

  “I don’t think we should yet,” said Sky, quietly. “It might end up hurting you, Kai.”

  “How would it hurt me?”

  Sky looked away from him, her cheeks flushing red.

  “You don’t understand what I am yet,” she said. “I… I don’t understand what I am yet.”

  INTERLUDE

  Keaton Margellis sat up in bed and scanned the room around him. The windows in the Margellian Palace’s harem chamber were curtained, beyond which lay the setting sun and the gardens, leaving no direct line of visibility into the city.

  Cannias root smoke wafted through the air, the scent sweet, rich, and intoxicating in high enough concentrations. The bed in the center of the room was massive, easily large enough for Keaton and his three female consorts to sleep in tandem without encroaching on each other’s space. A large metal bath ran across the chamber’s back wall, sunken into the floor and continuously filled with hot water by chambermaids on request.

  Keaton frowned, searching the corners of the chamber with his eyes and seeing nothing but empty space and discarded clothing. Two of the three girls remained sleeping. Tania, his favorite as of late, perked her head up when she saw him rise, crawling across the bed and smiling at him deviously, her large breasts enticing and very naked.

  “Keaton,” she whispered. “You said you had the weekend free. We should make good use of it.”

  She slid her hand underneath the sheet covering him and let her fingers run across his cock. Keaton felt himself hardening under her touch and frowned, trying to keep his focus on what had awoken him in the first place.

  “She’s not here,” he said. “She told me that she was going to make time for me this afternoon.”

  “She’s probably busy,” cooed Tania, letting her tiny hand take a more confident grip around his erection. “You’ve told me about how much of the busywork you delegate to the Metal Queen. Would you rather be the one having to work late?”

  Keaton shrugged. It was hard to speak openly about it, even to Tania, who’d been his slave almost since he’d first assumed power and restored the rights of the practice a decade earlier.

  “Still,” he said. “I’m the Metal Chosen. I’m her master. This is insubordination.”

  “You’re my master, too,” whispered Tania. “Maybe there is something I can do? To make you feel better?”

  Her head disappeared under the sheet and Keaton felt her lips and mouth gliding across the sensitive skin of his cock. He let out a soft moan and put his hand on the back of her head, pushing down a little harder than he should have and jamming it deep into her throat. Ariexa’s face, her pale and flawless skin, lips the blue of cold metal, flashed in the forefront of his mind.

  Tania sucked dutifully, bobbing up and down underneath the blanket. Keaton pushed down harder and felt her squirm slightly in discomfort and pull back.

  “Easy,” she said. “We have all night.”

  Keaton felt his anger surge and slapped her hard across the face before he had a chance to think about what he was doing. Tania let out a tiny cry and then moved away from him on the bed, whimpering in pain.

  “We don’t have all night,” Keaton said, gritting his teeth and forcing himself to calm down. “Ariexa will be here.”

  “Of course, milord,” whispered Tania. “I… I apologize.”

  The other two girls had woken from the commotion. Keaton couldn’t remember either of their names, but one of them had a particularly nice set of breasts, large and rounded, and still buoyant and young. He waved her over, pulling the sheet off himself and sticking his cock out toward her face.

  She didn’t need to be told what to do, a
nd immediately went to work on it with desperate eagerness, the type of enthusiasm that couldn’t be faked and was more about lust and hunger than anything else. Ariexa had been the same way, back when she’d first seduced Keaton and ushered him into manhood.

  Keaton leaned back on the bed. The second unfamiliar slave girl began sucking on the shaft of his cock, lower down, as the big breasted one suckled on the tip. Tania finished nursing her face and kneeled next to him on the bed, waiting submissively for her master to tell her to join in or stay put.

  None of them were a match for Ariexa’s sensuality, the way she could seduce with her words, the way she’d make him look forward to her body and her touch as though it carried with it an illicit form of divinity. She’d been so eager to please Keaton, even for the first few years after he’d taken his father’s title and become the Metal Chosen and her master.

  Her affections had cooled as time had worn on. Now, ten years later, Ariexa would only give him a night alone with her every now and then, maybe twice a month if he was lucky. She was practically running the city of Margellis, seeing to most of the day to day busywork, leaving Keaton with not just the free time to indulge in his vices, but a growing sense of paranoia over her true activities and intentions.

  The big breasted slave slid her assets down the length of Keaton’s cock while Tania and the other one kissed each other, the head of his cock coming between their lips. He was sure that it was something they’d come up with in their free time, planning how they’d use it on him, hoping it would be enough to curry his favor and win themselves preferential treatment among the other harem slaves.

  And it was impossible for him to deny that it did feel amazing. His cock was slick with saliva and precum, and the girls kissed and rubbed along it as though bathing in his seed would give them eternal youth. He met Tania’s eyes and saw a flash of fear in them. For some reason, he felt his anger spark again and bowled forward, pushing the other two slaves aside and grabbing Tania roughly.