She nodded, “It is required of me, if I am captured, will you release me when you learn what you must?”
He frowned, afraid if he told her the truth she’d withhold her tongue, “I shall consider it. Now tell me all you know about the field that suppresses technology.”
When he learned the truth, that it could not be turned off, he screamed with rage and ripped the small beings arms off, and crushed her underfoot. When he came to his senses, he was shocked to see the large tree instantly wither and die.
Garrock asked, “Sir?”
Tarrock thought for a moment. The field, or magic as that creature called it, depended on several magical races, gods, and something called the balance. He knew his people would slowly die if he stayed to fight, but that didn’t mean he would give up, or that he didn’t have a plan.
“Come, gather our people, we go back to civilization to prepare.”
Garrock asked, “Prepare what?”
Tarrock frowned, “The trees have ears, we will discuss it later.”
Garrock nodded in chagrin, “Yes sir.”
Tarrock, and his remaining crew left the area at a very fast pace…
Chapter 17 – Katie
Katie started to wonder if she’d made a big mistake. John still hadn’t gotten over his jealous streak, and it was starting to really bug her. The fact was, that men were going to check her out, often, and he either needed to get over that fact, or she needed to move on. She didn’t mind a little possessiveness, that was normal, and meant he cared and wanted her safe, but intense jealousy she wouldn’t deal with, it was poison.
The worst part was he’d been so confident, loving, and giving up until now. She couldn’t reconcile the insecure jealousy with the man she’d slept with, but more than that, the man she’d known for years. She shook off her thoughts.
They’d stopped for the evening already, and Nim had informed her that they’d meet up with Kurien, Brianthenia, and Arielle sometime late morning tomorrow. That would double the people they were travelling with, and she thought the second half of their trip would go much faster. There wasn’t a huge urgency in what she felt in the balance, she still had time, but something had changed, and recently. Of course, she had no idea what, a direction and vague feelings were singularly… unhelpful. She cut off that train of thought, not even wanting to complain to herself, she’d already decided to do this, no point in dragging ass or grumbling about it.
If anything, it had given her a new lease on life. Back on the farm she’d been depressed, and quite literally waiting to die. She never wanted to feel that way again, melancholy and hopeless, and she didn’t believe she would ever have to.
She suddenly got angry, and stalked off into the wooded area next to the road, it was either that, or confront him, and she wanted to give him time to work through it. It had occurred to her that maybe he just never felt about anyone else the way he felt about her. It was her hope anyway, because if he couldn’t get a handle on it.
“Where are you going?” John asked in a loud voice, tinged with annoyance. The cursing was implied in the tone and immediately made her bristle. With some effort she kept going.
In the deep recesses of her mind she intoned, “conceal,” and kept walking. She’d discovered random thoughts, even angry thoughts, wouldn’t set off her magic, but if she took the mindset of intended speech, she didn’t actually have to speak aloud to cast. If that made any sense. She was also doing better at focusing her magic, the last farm she’d cleansed had left half the magic in the staff, so wasting a small trickle to… conceal her presence, wouldn’t harm anything.
In the stories, Merlin had always been alone. She wondered, if that would be her fate as well. The idea didn’t make her happy, she wasn’t a sex addict or anything, but she was a healthy twenty-year-old woman who quite enjoyed it. And the idea of… meaningless hookups to scratch that very natural itch didn’t appeal to her at all. She wanted… more. She wanted John.
Goddess, she was an idiot.
She found a small clearing, and laid down on her back, and stared up at the stars. It was a clear night, and light pollution was non-existent these days. She wondered for a moment where the aliens had come from, and if their star was even visible from Earth. She cut her spell before it drained her resources any further, although it was still close to half, the spell hardly took any magic.
It really was a beautiful sight, and she wondered what else was out there.
She heard footsteps, and frowned when she felt John’s signature in the magic, but he didn’t say anything, he lied down next to her, and took her hand silently. She was considering pulling away when he spoke softly.
“I’m sorry. I’ve never felt anything like I feel for you. I suppose my mind interpreted your lack of… ire as encouragement, or acceptance of his regard. A part of me thought you must’ve enjoyed it. I’ve never felt that jealous before, it was eating me up and I couldn’t think straight.”
She asked curiously, “So you figured out that me acting like a bitch to every guy that looks at me would be utterly exhausting.”
He chuckled, “Not exactly. Nim read me the riot act as soon as you left. So I suppose it was her that made me realize you acting like a cast iron bitch to everyone that hit on you would be exhausting.”
She giggled as relief swept over her, “She did?”
He snickered, “Oh yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if half my ass was missing. You’re mine, but only because you choose to be, and I think I can keep that in mind from now on.”
She sighed, and rolled up on top of him, straddling him. She smiled and leaned down and kissed him passionately.
She whispered, “Don’t forget you belong to me as well,” and ground her body against his quickly hardening manhood.
His strong arms went around her, she felt safe there again, something she’d feared she’d lost. Passion rose in her chest, and her center warmed and tingled as he devoured her with a kiss. She reached down and unbuttoned his pants, took down his zipper and fished his manhood out, she stroked it firmly, twice, and squeezed when he growled into her mouth.
She pushed off his chest, and stood, pushing her own pants off, followed quickly by her panties. She was overcome by lust, and the need of him. Her body was flushed with heat and desire. She knelt down in spontaneous need, and licked the gleaming bead off of his swollen tip. She moaned softly at his taste, and stretched her mouth around him, and took him inside.
He groaned in pleasure, and she looked up at him through her eyelashes, and reveled in her wanton act of devotion, that perversely filled her with a sense of power and control, as she took him to the back of her throat. She raised her head up and smiled alluringly, and then crawled up his body. She felt… possessed, and out of control, surrendering to her body’s needs and desires as she straddled his center, and lowered herself down on him, slowly, taking him into her inch by deliberate inch, she lost herself in his intense gaze as their eyes locked.
She ground down when he was fully encased in her warm moist center, she felt so stretched and full. She pushed against his chest and moved her body straight and arched her back. She looked down at him with a sexy smile, and stripped her shirt over her head, and then reached behind herself to release her breasts, as she wantonly ground herself in circles on his invading pleasure while she arched her back, and reached down behind her to caress and tease his balls.
“Goddess, you feel so good in me Tony.”
She leaned forward, and dangled her breasts temptingly in his face, and gasped as he took a nipple into his warm mouth, and bathed the tip with his hot, wet, and rough tongue. Shocks of pleasure ran from her nipple down to her heat, moistening her further as the pleasure radiating through her body rose further. She ground down again, and bore down on him with the silken pleasure of her walls, hugging his sex tightly within hers.
“Katie, you are so beautiful, you drive me crazy.”
She gasped as he ran his hands down her side firmly, and then reached around
and squeezed her ass. She started to move faster, rocking her hips up and down his length, fast, and hard, as she bore down and made it nice and tight for him. He was so big, and she gasped as he hit all the right spots, and she didn’t stop. She felt possessed, she needed him to fill her, explode inside her, just the thought of him filling her set her off as he bit down on her nipple and kneaded her ass cheeks firmly with his fingertips.
The tight coil in her center broke, and blissful ecstasy rocked her body, and blew through her mind like a tornado hitting the ground. She collapsed forward, and she barely felt his hands squeeze and hold her ass, as he started to plunder her hard and fast from below, as her moist heat fluttered, squeezed, and milked him hard for his seed as his demanding assault extended her pleasure, and she felt her core start to coil quickly once again.
She gasped when she felt him start to expand, stretching her grasping sex even further.
“Yes… fill me my love,” she said in gasping breaths, and when she felt him shoot inside of her, she rolled into another more intense orgasm. She could barely move or think as the rapturous pleasure overwhelmed her body and mind. She trembled and squeezed him, as his body pushed up into hers hard, while continuing to fill her with his liquid pleasure.
When they came down from the heights of pleasure, they were both breathing hard, and she claimed a soft loving kiss.
He said in an out of breath voice, “I love you, and I love makeup sex. I had no idea you were such a wild thing.”
She laughed, “You ass,” and then said softly, “I love you too,” and did some more of that kissing, she wasn’t done with him yet.
They kissed softly, teasingly, and sometimes passionately, as their hands roamed each other, and in hardly any time at all she could feel him growing again, within her sex. They went slower this time, and made love under the stars, before returning to the camp and their tent. She felt sated, and very content, as she snuggled into his side and waited for sleep to claim her.
She really needed to find a way to thank Nim…
The next morning after breakfast they broke down their camp and mounted up. It was a little overcast and she felt the humidity rising, and wondered if they were in for a big storm. She could see some dark thunderheads to the north, but the wind seemed to be driving the clouds east, for now. They’d only gone a mile or two, when it started to rain.
It wasn’t much of a relief from the heat, the air was too damp for that, and she was tempted to figure out a spell for comfort, but realized that would be a waste of magic. She needed to conserve and only use it when necessary.
John fell back a little, “How are you this fine morning.”
The first thing that popped in her mind was pleasantly sore, and she was. It was the good kind of sore that reminded her of the pleasure they’d shared last night. The second thing of course, was the miserable weather, something she’d need to get used to, no air conditioned cars with wipers anymore. She didn’t want to swell his head, or complain, so she fell back on joking sarcasm.
She smiled, “Great, it’s a beautiful day.”
Nim laughed, “Try that again.”
She laughed, “Great! It’s a beautiful day!”
John snickered, “I almost believed you that time. It could be worse.”
She nodded, at least it wasn’t cold. She imagined she was a sight, even the goddess had frizzy hair this morning. She turned to Nim.
“You said something about transport spells?”
Nim chuckled, “It won’t help you to learn one yet, unless you want to go back home, since you can’t move anywhere you haven’t been, unless there’s a gateway. Just like people, a place has a certain… feel to it. You’ll be able to move anywhere you’ve been, but only since the magic reemerged. So even if you travelled all over in the past, it doesn’t count.”
John asked, “Gateway?”
Nim nodded, “Sure, there’s one where we’re going actually, or close by it. There’s one in Europe as well as the far east, a couple in the southern hemisphere as well, so when you need to go there…”
She nodded thoughtfully, she hadn’t given it much thought, but it made sense that the balance had no respect for borders, nationalities, or continents. At least she wouldn’t need to take a sail boat for her first trip, she couldn’t even imagine…
“So is there anything we need to know about… elven or dragon culture? I don’t want to offend them by… offering to shake hands or something.”
Nim smiled and looked thoughtful, “They have their own rituals and conventions, but they aren’t that easy to offend. Just don’t ask a dragon for a ride under any circumstances, respect nature for the elves, and you should be fine. They don’t go for titles very often, but respect is important. Come to think of it, that used to be one of the major issues, the human nobility got all bent out of shape when the elves called them by name. Elves are more direct, respect is respect, a title is, or at least can be empty of respect when spoken in their view. Even Sianne, queen of the elves, is addressed by first name.”
The rain started to come down a little harder, and it got a little windy, they also couldn’t see much farther than fifty feet or so. The continued on in silence for a while, and Katie was thoughtful. She was excited of course, and a little nervous, and she felt like a drowned rat. This wasn’t how she expected her first meeting with the other races of Earth to go.
She did her best not to block out anything she felt through the magic, with their limited sight she figured they could walk right past them. It was coming up to noon when she felt them in the magic. They felt completely different from humans, they were a part of the magic, connected to it more intimately than humans were. If a human were a rock in the stream, where magic flowed around them, Elves and dragons were like… she struggled with idea. They were porous, the water would flow through them, but she couldn’t think of a good analogy for it, not in that moment.
She called ahead when she realized John out on point had no idea they would need to stop now, “John, we’re here,” and she turned her horse off the road, and onto the field toward the signatures she felt.
They moved into the trees, and she studied the magic going on there. It seemed they’d created some kind of canopy with the trees to keep dry. She used a little magic to dry, clean, and fix herself, then did the same for John when she saw his sour look. She felt… good and not sticky for the first time in hours. Of course, Nim handled herself, and she felt better about meeting them now.
They were close, so they dismounted and led their horses into a copse of trees and she got her first look at them, and couldn’t help the smile that came to her face. The dragon wasn’t hard to pick out, she looked more human than the elves as far as facial structure, and was more… filled out, excepting of course the silver hair and bright golden eyes that marked her as a silver dragon. There was nothing human about those two things.
As a result, Brianthenia was exotically beautiful, and she felt a twinge of jealousy at the appraising look the dragoness was sending John’s way. Karma was a bitch, still, it wasn’t enough to make her lose her smile, just enough of a twinge to poke fun at herself in her own mind.
The other two were obviously elves, with their slightly pointed larger ears, thin faces, high cheekbones, and deep vivid blue eyes she’d never seen in a human save contact lenses. In a human the thin faces would have looked gaunt, but somehow for them, it was very attractive, strikingly so. They both had blonde hair as well, though the male’s, Kurien’s, was a darker golden blonde, whereas Arielle’s was an attractive ash blonde color not seen on human woman excepting a dye job by Clairol. All three of them were… very attractive.
The initial introductions were a little stilted, as they greeted each other. She should have known, but Nim knew them already, personally. She supposed that made sense, the goddess had been in that other realm with them. She picked up quickly that the two elves were newly in love with each other, and Brianthenia, who insisted she should call Bria, had a thing for Kur
ien, who was apparently clueless. Of course, she kept those insights to herself.
Finally, after some awkward small talk, they got down to business.
Kurien said rather formally, “The council wanted us to help with your task, we are committed to the balance as well, for us it is life itself, even though we can’t see it as clearly as the bearer of the mantle. We have always been allied so, and hope that can continue. What can we do to help?”
She gathered her thoughts a moment before she said, “We are heading toward your village, whatever is going to happen to disturb the balance will happen near there,” she turned to Arielle, “Could you ask the council if anything strange or different has gone on there since you left?”
Arielle’s eyes widened a little and the elven woman nodded slightly before closing her eyes.
She watched the magic with fascination, as they all waited for the Arielle to finish. It was true she could do a lot more with her magic, but at the same time she was very limited in the amount of magic she could safely channel before it started to degrade and age her body. She wasn’t looking forward to a sleep of restoration, she knew once that happened John would be long dead by the time she woke up.
As a result, she’d be very careful. The less she used now, the more she could use in large spurts when she truly needed it. Yet, she had to balance that against learning new things, and the more she did the more she would learn to conserve her magic and be effective with less. It was… a juggling act.
Nim had intimated she could safely fill her staff once every day, but that would keep her at her very limit, constantly. So far she’d been doing it every couple of days. Theoretically if the crap hit the fan, she should be able to draw enough to fill the staff twice before she risked aging right now.
Arielle’s magic was limited to her goddess’s sphere of influence, but she could use it constantly, she was part of the magic itself, and had no limits on how much she could safely channel.
Katie’s range of abilities might have been far more, but at the cost of be able to do far less overall magic. There were so many questions she would have asked if Merlin wasn’t gone, she’d just have to learn as she went, and hope she didn’t do anything too stupid. Luckily she had Nim to advise her, otherwise she’d have been screwed.
Emergence: Return of Magic book 1 Page 12