“It’s alright honey, if it makes you feel better, I’ve imagined you naked several times now. In fact…”
The queen deliberate drew her eyes up and down Cordelia’s figure as she bit her lip.
“In fact, I’m doing it right now.”
Cordelia blush intensified and she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Y-you! You’re horrible!” But despite her words she was soon laughing.
After a few more teasing digs, the queen took pity on her.
“So, where did you want to take me?”
Cordelia nervously fiddled with her hair for a moment before answering.
“Apple picking.”
“Hmmm?”
“You said you liked my pie, so I thought we’d visit the orchard. In Kettering it’s actually kind of a first date tradition. Like I said, kind of dumb.”
“That doesn’t sound dumb at all! I love the idea!”
Cordelia shifted a bit in discomfort.
“Yeah, it’s just, there will be other people there, and after Helen and my dad…”
Oldeera frowned.
“Are you… ashamed to be seen with me?”
Once again Cordelia was backpedaling frantically.
“What?! No! Not that, I’m so sorry, I would never!”
With a sniffle, the Hornet queen turned her back and her bare shoulders shook.
“Oh shit! No please, Oldeera, don’t cry! I didn’t, I’m not ashamed! Why would I be?!”
But Oldeera kept her back to the girl, her shoulders still shaking.
Cordelia was growing frantic as she tried to move around her, but Oldeera kept turning away.
“Please, what can I do? Please tell me what I can do to make you believe me?”
Her shoulders stopped moving, and she mumbled something.
“What? I can’t-”
“Kiss me. Like before?”
The young woman’s heart pounded at the thought, and she was so desperate to make the queen smile again that she immediately agreed.
“O-okay, sure if that-”
Oldeera abruptly turned and gripped her cheeks, pressing their lips tight together. Though surprised, Cordelia couldn’t help but respond to the passionate embrace as she wrapped her arms around the queen and moaned into her mouth.
They stayed in each other’s arms for several minutes, their tongues dueling as their passion mounted.
It was heady, it was needy, and it was making Cordelia entirely too horny to be safe, so she finally tore her lips away with a gasp, though Oldeera buried her face in her neck as her head tilted to the side.
“Oldeera, fuck, okay. Let’s, ahh.”
The queen took a couple seconds to deliberately suck on the tender flesh of her neck and give her a nice hickey, before she pulled her face away.
“Oh I feel so much better now honey, thank you!”
The Hornet leaned back, their arms falling until they were standing apart with their hands clasped together.
“You… you were faking it just now.” Cordelia accused.
Oldeera at least had the decency to look a bit guilty, but then she winked.
“Something you should know about me honey, I’m a bit of an opportunist. I hope you aren’t too put out with me?”
She again adopted her best pouting expression, the one that made Cordelia want to suck on her bottom lip and kiss her all over again.
Cordelia struggled for a few seconds, trying to figure out whether she was mad, amused, or flattered as she pulled her hand free of the queen and rubbed her tender neck.
She shook her head and decided to take the queen’s deception as a compliment.
“Yeah, I get that impression. And no I’m not mad.”
The kiss had been good after all.
“Oh goody! Well, if anyone stares I will command them to leave. So why don’t you and I go pick some apples?”
Cordelia rolled her eyes at the bold statement, but once again took the queen’s hand to do just that.
__________
It was late when Miranda poured herself another cup of coffee in Lucinda’s kitchen.
Whenever she closed her eyes she could see the lettering of the shipping manifests that she and her team had been poring over for the last day and a half.
At this point she was running on coffee and sheer grit.
With a shake of her head to clear the cobwebs, she turned to go back into the living room with the girls, while Lucinda had long since gone to bed.
Jan’s head had slumped down into the sheaves of paper before her and she was snoring softly, Kala was likewise asleep on the couch with papers all around her.
This kind of investigating wasn’t their area.
Meanwhile Jez and Lilly were sharing the coffee table and busily going over their own stacks of manifests.
The papers in front of Jez were in perfect order while she was humming absently. The piles in front of Lilly were a disaster but the big wolf glared at the papers doggedly, determined to suss out their secrets.
Miranda gently scratched at Jan’s ears to wake her.
“Any luck puppy?”
The Wolfen sat up quickly, eyes shooting open and a piece of paper stuck to her cheek.
“I’m didn’t sleeping!”
Miranda smirked as Jan’s tongue curled out in a yawn.
“Right. How about you Lil?”
The pack-leader growled low.
“Paper is meant for the bottom of birdcages. How can anyone hope to find anything in all-”
“Found something!” Jez shot out of her seat with several sheaves of paper in hand.
Her outcry woke Kala, who promptly rolled off the couch and onto the floor in a flurry of rustling paper before leaping to her feet, her eyes glassy.
Miranda tilted one eyebrow up at a now sheepish Lilly before turning to her smallest bond-mate.
“What have you got baby?”
“Apricots!”
Blank looks greeted her smug expression.
“Apricots?”
“Uh-huh!”
Miranda rubbed at her eyes and set her coffee down on the table.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What about apricots?”
“They’re not in season!” Jez said while waving her papers around.
There was a long pause as the other girls shared confused glances, until the froggy rolled her eyes and explained.
“They’re not in season, so how come this manifest lists a whole wack of them coming into this warehouse two weeks ago?”
Miranda took the papers, her interest piqued. The other waited while she scrutinized the shipping order, Jan’s long tongue curled out in another yawn.
But the older woman sighed and her arm dropped.
“Jez, this manifest is for canned apricots.”
The Gripau’s smile faltered and she screwed up her face as she puzzled over the problem.
“Oh… do they grow those differently?”
Jan snickered.
Miranda lifted the papers and began reading again.
“No, but canned goods keep longer so they can…” She drifted off as she flipped through the pages of the manifest.
Kala leaned over her shoulder, fully awake now though her hair was a mess from her paper pillow.
“What is it?”
The older woman gave a slight shake of her head at the Amazon while she read onwards.
Several minutes later she stared at her Gripau with an intense look on her face.
“Jez, where is the fourth page? The inspection report?”
The little green girl looked helplessly to the other piles of paper in front of her, then back at Miranda.
“That’s all of them, I swear!”
“What is it?” Kala repeated from behind her, insistent now.
Miranda drew in a deep breath and held up the papers for the others to see.
“The declared weight doesn’t match the number of cans, hell it doesn’t match twice this number of cans!”
“
Okay?”
“And more importantly, where is the inspection report?”
“I didn’t lose it!” Jez protested again with a stomp of one tiny foot.
Lilly patted the frog on the head as she moved to stand next to Miranda.
“No, but maybe the warehouse staff did?”
“They submitted this whole stack to the public archives, most of which are just duplicates of their own records, but misplaced the most important piece of paper in the bunch?” Miranda shook her head; “Not bloody likely.”
They were all on their feet now, eager to solve the mystery.
Staring at the page again, Miranda smiled.
“Girls, looks like we finally have a lead.”
__________
It was past sundown when Cordelia and Oldeera flew back to the bakery.
In the dark the human girl found she wasn’t so afraid of being airborne. That, and the Hornet queen stayed close to the ground and flew at a reasonable speed.
They stood at the bottom of the stairs leading to her home.
“This was, really nice.” Cordelia admitted with a coquettish look.
Her voluptuous date bit her lip.
“It was, and I would very much like to do it again sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
There was that same awkward moment again, and just as in the hive before Cordelia darted in for a kiss, but unlike last time the Hornet was ready for her and returned the kiss with vigor.
It was several minutes before they finally broke apart, and Queen Oldeera smiled coyly with their faces still close together.
“Maybe next time, our date can be a bit more… graphic.”
She ran her tongue quickly over Cordelia’s lips.
Cordelia swallowed.
“M-maybe.”
A shudder went through them both at the word, but the young girl stifled a yawn.
“But for now, I really need to go to bed! We start work early.”
“Of course honey. Sleep well, and be sure to picture me naked in your dreams.”
Oldeera gave her a saucy wink and with one last peck she flew away into the night.
It was a couple minutes before Cordelia made her way up the stairs on rubber legs with her little basket of apples, it was really late in the season so pickings had been slim.
But her blissful expression was short-lived when she opened the door and saw her family waiting to ambush her.
“You two took forever to say goodnight! How was it? Was it amazing? She’s so beautiful, I bet it was amazing!” Helen gushed.
Christine immediately followed up with questions of her own.
“So what are the Hornets doing here? What are this woman’s intentions? Is she kind to you?”
Mercifully, her father interceded on her behalf, or so it seemed.
“Girls, give her some air-”
Cordelia took a breath when her sisters backed off a bit, but then her father jumped on her instead.
“-so that she can answer some questions! Especially the one about her intentions! Remember what I said Cordy! These are Hornets, they aren’t like the local Lambdas, they’re fighters! You need to be careful.”
She groaned.
“Daaad, it’s not like that! She’s really very nice and sweet.”
“And a good kisser from what I saw!”
“Helen!” Christine admonished.
“What? She is! I mean-” The youngest daughter drew in a sharp breath as she tugged the collar of Cordelia dress to one side; “Are those hickeys?!”
Cordelia groaned as her family jumped on her again.
Outside the bakery, hovering in the air not far from the second story, Oldeera watched the drama unfold with a smile on her face before flying back to her hive.
Chapter 14:
Communal
Nameless was hammering boards into place when Nina approached him, soot on her cheek and a small yellow bundle in her hand.
“Hey babe.” She called out.
His head tilted towards her, he was sitting cross-legged on the earth as he fumbled with the board in front of him.
Internally he was thrilled to see her acting like her old self, but externally he projected an air of nonchalance.
“Hey babe.” He responded around the nails hanging out of his mouth.
He was no carpenter but any idiot can swing a hammer, at least that’s what Paul had said. The hard part of the fence was the posts, but Milly had taken care of that in record time, the rest was just hammering the boards into place, and strength didn’t do much to make that go any faster.
“Look at you acting all tough.” She snorted even as she leaned in and kissed him on the temple.
She dropped her own hammer and placed one hand on the board to steady it for him while he set a nail in place.
Before he took up his hammer again he looked to her out of the corner of his eyes, she did seem normal again…
“I am bonded to the baddest girl around, or hadn’t you heard?”
With a few quick wacks he drove the nail home. But when he set the next one in place Nina shifted one leg against her hammer and reached out to push the nail in with the tip of her finger, the wood squeaking in protest.
He sighed.
“Where were you two hundred nails ago?” He got to his feet and stretched his back with a groan; “So what’s up?”
He moved next to his bond-mate, who was now sitting on her hammer, the bundle in her lap.
“Wanted to give you my heartstone back. Maybe sit on your face for a bit.” She tossed the bundle at him.
He fumbled to catch it, but between his hammer and little basket of nails he ended up dropping everything.
Nina rolled her eyes.
“You better not have broken it.”
Nameless was going to stammer out an apology but he caught the hint of teasing amusement coming from her stone, still wrapped in the bundle at his feet, so instead he adopted a faint frown.
“You did that on purpose.”
He bent at the waist and scooped up the mystery object, wrapped in what looked like one of Ophelia’s yellow kitchen towels.
“Meh, you’re just slow. Now open your gift already or I’ll go and tackle Milly and sit on her face instead.”
He sat next to her on her hammer and she angled herself to face him, wanting to watch him unwrap the gift.
“Actually, I’m supposed to meet her and the Amazons at the bathhouse in a bit if you want to come.”
He tried to keep his tone from being too pointed; her arms and face were smeared with soot after all.
But then he felt his Gigas fighting to hide her impatience from him and turned the towel around in his hands, whatever was inside had a bit of weight to it.
“This is important to you isn’t it?”
Once again she rolled her eyes, though this time she reached over and snatched the bundle from him, quickly tearing the cloth free and dropped the shiny object in his lap.
“Don’t be mushy, this isn’t me wanting mushy. This is me wanting a firm pat on the butt and an even firmer tongue fucking. And if we need to be at the bathhouse soon then we better get on with the tongue fucking.”
He chuckled at her crass attitude but then sucked in a breath as he examined the object.
It was an ornate bracelet, set with her ruby red heartstone.
It was much smaller than the witch-charmed bracer that he had been using to hold the girl’s stones. And though it was simple in design, one solid piece of shiny metal instead of simple leather and iron, it was far more decorative.
In fact, it looked like pure silver.
“Nina… this is beautiful.”
He twisted the incredible piece in his hand, examining all of the intricate workings on its surface until his eyes fell on her heartstone.
The ruby coloured gem was deeply set on the thicker side of the bracelet, making it impossible to remove; it was centered in a raised image of Nina’s hammer, which was itself within an engraved
image of Volka’s shield.
The level of detail on the shield was incredible, almost true to the real thing, which was itself very intricate in its design.
Nina didn’t bother hiding her smug satisfaction at his appreciative gaze on her work.
“I’ll admit I drew a lot of inspiration from Volka’s armour, and I wanted it to match. You looked badass when you were carrying her shield.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, but his expression shifted to one of puzzlement as he hefted her gift.
“Where did you get all the silver? Wait, this is silver right?”
“Yeah it’s silver, and if Ophelia asks I have no idea what happened to her good cutlery.”
His jaw dropped.
“You swiped her silverware? Are you nuts?!”
Nina took the armlet back from him and split it on nearly invisible hinges.
“Nope, just horny, now give me your wrist, your right wrist. That way you’ll think of me when you’re jerking off.”
With a roll of his eyes he held out his arm and she quickly clamped it in place with a satisfying click. Unlike the bracer it was much shorter, jewelry rather than armour and it fit very comfortably.
When he commented on the difference she let out a snort.
“Yeah it needed to be comfortable because you aren’t taking it off.”
He blinked at his new accessory while her words fully sank in. Then he brought his wrist to his face and tried to find the seam, while simultaneously working to hide his growing alarm from his giant.
She smirked, and her amusement grew by the second as he tried to figure out how to remove her gift.
“You can’t take it off, no one can. It will be with you forever, just like Milly’s braid. Well, I suppose you could try to slip it off, but then you’d have to break every bone in your hand and lose most of the skin. And yeah, you could also cut your hand off, but that would be stupid.”
She tapped her chin thoughtfully as she spoke; still amused at the panic he was desperately trying to hide from her.
Finally she relented and grabbed his wrist.
“Oh relax you dumbass.”
With a click the bracelet came free in her hand, though he had no idea how she had removed it.
“How-”
“No one can remove it… except me. As it should be, because you belong to the mountain. With this you won’t ever forget that.”
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