by Dante King
“You’re right,” I said. “The walls are quite thin in the tavern, only made of wood. They can probably hear us already.”
Veronica reddened slightly and put her hand to her mouth. “What will they think of us? How will I be able to face them tomorrow?”
“Well, I don’t think you need to worry about Jacques. He’s not going to be bothered by a bit of noise; it’d probably just bring back fond memories of a time when he could engage in such pastimes himself.”
Veronica smiled at this.
“And you certainly needn’t worry about the Mistress,” I continued. “She’s probably enjoying listening in.”
Veronica chuckled, but this time her cheeks went a bit redder. “And what about Amelia? What would she think? I don’t want to ruin your relationship with her, and I’m coming to value her friendship myself.”
“Don’t let that concern you,” I said. “Amelia already gave me her blessing for us to do this.”
“She did?” Veronica’s eyes widened in shock. “Why would she do that?”
“Amelia is open to this possibility; she’s not jealous.”
“How is that possible? What would make her be all right with such a thing?”
“We have a theory.” I lowered my voice, almost conspiratorially. “As I explained to you, I acquired my second affinity, Cold, right after I had sex with Amelia for the first time.”
“I remember you saying that. . . ” Veronica’s brow furrowed.
“I believe that’s how I can acquire new elemental affinities as an Ink Mage. By sleeping with women who have those affinities.”
“You mean …” Veronica’s mouth parted as she paused in thought.
“You might be able to give me the Lightning affinity.”
“Oh.” Veronica’s voice was hushed, and a look of awe was on her face. “I would love to be able to do that for you. That would be a fitting way to say thank you for giving me the tattoo.”
I leaned in to kiss Veronica, but she put a finger on my lips, her eyes sparkling mischievously. “I think we’ve done enough of that.”
Veronica stood up next to the bed and pulled the blue gown all the way over her head, casting it onto the bed beside us.
The perfection of her olive skin was fully revealed in the moonlight, every shapely curve of her perfect body gleaming. Against the wooden wall, I could see the faint reflection of her tattoo glowing. A small amount of her Mana must have been flowing into the tattoo as a result of her physical excitement.
I looked down and saw that my own tattoos were glowing as well. I couldn’t tell what purpose there would be for the tattoos to glow when we were having sex, but it was atmospheric at least.
Veronica turned to face the bed and bent over, placing her elbows on the bed cover and spreading her legs, presenting her sex to me. “I want you inside of me,” she panted.
I was happy to oblige. Just the sight of her luscious thighs and the moist lips of her entrance was enough to make me grow rock hard.
Taking her curving buttocks between my hands, I slid my member against the slick surface of her already wet labia. Veronica moaned, loudly this time, her concern about others hearing us evidently forgotten.
I parted her entrance with my swollen head and gently pushed forward. The walls of her tunnel squeezed against my cock, and I had to slip in and out several times before I could push all the way inside her.
As I began to slide in and out, our bodies slapped noisily against each other, mingling with the sound of Veronica’s cries and the creaking of the wooden floor to create a cacophony of passion.
The light glowing from the sprawl of lightning drawn on Veronica’s back glowed brighter as we both approached climax. Our pants and cries grew louder, and I felt a wave of pleasure rushing toward me.
I kept thrusting, faster, our hips grinding against each other. Veronica’s breath came in gasps. Then it happened. With a burst of light from our tattoos, we both climaxed together, and the wave of pleasure washed over me, as I emptied myself inside her.
Veronica’s head was thrown back, her hair wild across the pillow as she bucked against me. I could feel the rhythmic clenching of her sex around me. She opened her eyes and met mine, a look of wonder and questioning in her eyes. Then, suddenly my vision dimmed swiftly to darkness.
The walls of the room around me vanished. There was a moment of blackness, then I saw a mass of boiling storm clouds before me. Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder boomed. In the middle of the storm, standing on the blackest cloud of all, was a woman, wreathed in mist which swirled in the wind.
She was standing on a mountain peak, surrounded by the boiling storm clouds. Vast cloud banks moved behind and above her, and her silver hair whipped and billowed in the wind. With both hands lifted, she shouted, her great booming voice sounding like the breaking of waves on a cliffside. She spoke words in a language I did not understand, and lightning flashed from her fingertips. A torrent of rain swept the scene as she gazed out with piercing eyes at a horde of wraiths in front of her.
Just as in my previous visions, this woman gave a command to her horde, and they rushed to obey, fleeing into the distance in pursuit of some unseen foe.
When I came to myself, Mana was pulsing through my veins with more energy than before.
“I think I just acquired the Lightning affinity,” I said to Veronica.
She was lying halfway to the floor, and she pulled herself up onto the bed. “That’s wonderful news.”
I moved to sit with my back against the wall at the top of the bed and gestured to Veronica. She came to sit next to me, leaning her back against my chest, her flowing locks pressed against my skin. I put my arm around her, the weight of her breasts resting against it.
“How can we test to see if you acquired the affinity?” Veronica asked, her voice subdued with contentment.
“We can’t test it right now,” I said. “I don’t have any more Lightning Cores.”
Veronica stiffened and turned her head to look at me. “You mean, because you gave me a tattoo, you can’t test this on yourself?”
I laid a finger to her lips. “Don’t be concerned about that. I was happy to give that to you as a gift.”
“Are you sure, William?”
“Of course, I’m sure. And what you gave me today was worth far more to me. I don’t just mean the affinity. Bonding with you in this way and having your companionship is something far more important to me. I will always treasure the memory of this night.”
“So will I, William. This will be a precious memory to me.”
“Now it just means we have to hunt some more monsters to find another Lightning Core,” I said.
Veronica smiled. “Then we’ll have to hunt them together.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “For now, I just want to enjoy this moment.”
We settled in under the soft covers to rest for the night. Before my eyes closed in sleep, I couldn’t help thinking of what kind of sleep Katlyn had where she was right now. My rest would be far less fitful than hers. Doubtless she was tied up in some slaver’s wagon, or worse, chained up in a mine somewhere. Anger burned in my stomach, and I might not have been able to claim sleep but for the beautiful woman beside me who was already taken by slumber. I calmed myself by listening to her soft, steady breathing, and soon I was in a deep and dreamless sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
I woke to the rosy glow of dawn filtering through the window of the Sticks and Stones Tavern in Brightwater. It was early, and that was good; I was glad not to be sleeping in too late. A lot had happened recently, but everything else had paled in comparison to the horrifying news I received yesterday: Katlyn, my lover from my old life in Aranor, was a captive of slave traders. Only days ago, she had been seen passing through Brightwater as part of a slaver’s caravan, being transported to the Beast mines. Now, I needed to find out which mine she had been taken to so that I could rescue her.
There were dozens of mines in the mountains
north of Brightwater, and Katlyn could have been taken to any one of these. For information on where she had been taken, I would need to get access to the records about the trading caravans that passed through the town. These records were held in the Trade House in the main square, and the only person who could access these records was Arnold, the Governor of Brightwater.
But Arnold was not in town. Instead, occupying the suite of official guest rooms above the Trading House, was Maximillian of Astros. He was one of the Arcanists, a group of powerful Mages who wielded influence at the King’s Court in Astros, the capital city, and oversaw much of the enforcement of law and order in the populated regions of the Kingdom. The Arcanists oversaw the training of people who had magical talents. Some of these trainee Mages would go on to become Arcanists, some became magic users in the King’s Army and some, like the beautiful woman who lay sleeping beside me now, went out into the world to forge their own path after their training was complete.
All of the magic in the Kingdom, from the spells of the most powerful Arcanist to the work of the humblest village healer, was powered by one thing: Beast Cores from the mines. A steady flow of Beast Cores came down from the mines, through the Trading House here at Brightwater and then out into the rest of the Kingdom.
Beast Cores were everything to the power structure of the Kingdom; without them, magical vectors could not be manufactured, new Mages could not be trained, and experienced Mages could not gain new powers. The high demand for Beast Cores was supplied by the network of mines in the mountains north of Brightwater. In the deep shafts and endlessly winding passages of the mines, Elementally Sensitive slaves toiled alongside convicts and other unfortunates to fight and kill magical monsters, and then to harvest the Beast Cores from the monsters for transport to the capital city.
I shuddered; that was where my lover Katlyn was being transported to right now. Perhaps she was even already there. And Governor Arnold, the one man who could help me to find out which mine she’d been taken to, was absent from the town!
He was supposed to be coming back today. I hoped that was true. I suspected that the Governor was deliberately avoiding the Arcanist Maximillian. From what I’d been told by my friend Jacques, who knew Brightwater well, the Governor was a man who might be willing to turn a blind eye to nefarious dealings if the price was right. I’d already had a run-in with Arcanist Maximillian, and he didn’t seem like someone to trifle with. If the Governor had something to hide, I couldn’t blame him for making himself scarce, but I was frustrated by the delay in finding out where Katlyn had been taken.
Well, I would just have to be patient. Katlyn was a tough woman, I reminded myself, and not likely to be broken by misfortunes. There was no point in me getting angry and upset now—I’d do better for everyone if I kept myself together. That would give my companions confidence in my leadership. After all, I reflected, I didn’t really have anything to complain about myself. Quite the opposite.
I took a breath and turned my head to look at the woman beside me. Veronica’s head rested against my arm, her silver-white hair flowing over the blankets. We were both as naked as we’d been the night before. Veronica’s smooth dusky skin rose to the swell of her breasts, just concealed by the blanket. She opened her eyes as I stirred.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked.
“Never better,” she murmured. “Last night was magical.”
“It really was,” I smiled.
She laughed. “I guess it was, although I didn’t mean it in that sense. Life will never be the same for me again.”
I shifted, my leg pressing against her side. I heard a muffled groan under the blankets.
“What’s that noise?” Veronica asked.
“I don’t know.” I lifted the blanket.
“Good morning,” said a sleepy voice, and a tangled mass of blonde hair rose to greet us.
“Amelia?” I said. “What are you doing here?”
Veronica squeaked with surprise, and her cheeks went deep red as she tried to clutch the blanket to herself.
Amelia sat up, bringing her knees in front of her. She was wearing a very small shift which reached just low enough to cover the tuft of blond hair above her sex and provided a thin veil for her bright red nipples.
Her cheeks were rosy, and she was smiling. “I’m so glad you both bonded last night; I was hoping you would.”
“Uh, so am I,” I said. “What are you doing here now though? And how did you get in?”
“I just wanted to be with you both last night. I was lying awake by myself for a while, and I thought I would sleep better if you were both nearby.”
“So, you snuck in under the blankets in between us while we were sleeping …”
“Correct.” Amelia’s voice was chirpy.
Veronica was still looking at her distrustfully, clearly quite shocked by this turn of events.
Amelia looked closely at me. “So, did you unlock your Lightning affinity?”
I glanced at Veronica. Normally, I wasn’t the kind of man to brag to others about my sexual encounters, but the Lightning Mage gave me a subtle nod that said she didn’t mind. After all, last night might not have been explicitly Amelia’s idea, but she wasn’t opposed to me making love to Veronica to gain the affinity.
“He did,” Veronica said. “At least, we think that’s the case.”
“I saw a vision, just like last time.”
Amelia smiled. “I’m so happy; this is just what we were hoping for. And Veronica, I’m so glad you’ve joined us as well.”
She reached forward and embraced Veronica, who froze for a moment, taken aback by the close contact with another woman while she was naked. Then she embraced Amelia too. The blanket slipped as she did so, revealing the side of her breast. This time I didn’t look away. We’d enjoyed a night of bliss together. I wasn’t sure whether the two women would ever be interested in making love with me at the same time but seeing them embrace made me think it might be possible one day.
Their embrace lingered longer than it needed to, and Veronica met my eyes over Amelia’s shoulder and smiled. Suddenly, it seemed like they would be quite open to sharing in this new relationship, and I felt myself beginning to grow hard immediately at the sight of my two beautiful female companions sharing such an intimate embrace.
A knock sounded on the door, and we all looked round.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s the Mistress, bringing your breakfast,” Mistress Blossom’s voice called out.
“Just a moment while I get some trousers on,” I called out, though I was really giving time to Veronica, who had nothing on at all.
Quickly, Veronica pulled on the blue dress she had been wearing the night before. Amelia was only wearing her skimpy undergarment, so she wrapped herself in a sheet from the bed. I put my trousers and tunic on. Once the girls were sufficiently covered and sitting together on the bed, I walked to the door, unlatched it, and pulled it open.
“Oh my, seems like you had a busy evening last night, William,” the Mistress said as she walked in carrying a tray laden with food. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to join you.”
She laughed, suggesting that she was joking, but I suspected there was some truth behind the joke as well. I laughed as well, as I accepted the tray of food and took it to the little table by the window. There was bread, dried fruit, a soft cheese, and a platter of cold cured ham. A covered ceramic jug contained steaming hot coffee. This was a luxury. Coffee was not easy to get in the Kingdom, as it could only be imported from the Sunlands, the land that Jacques originally came from.
I took a deep breath, smelling the rich scent from the steaming jug and then raised my eyebrows questioningly at Mistress Blossom. She smiled. “Only the best for my special guests,” she said, then made for the door. “I’ll be back shortly to take the dishes and things.”
Once she’d left, Amelia and Veronica came over and sat down at the table, helping themselves to food and coffee. Both women ate heartily, and it wa
s good to see them enjoying food together. Since there were only two chairs, I layered cheese, dried fruit, and ham between the bread and sat on the bed to eat, a mug of the coffee on the floor beside me. We ate in comfortable silence, enjoying the food and each other’s company.
Just as we were finishing our meal, Mistress Blossom came back. This time, Jacques was with her. He walked in behind the Mistress and chuckled as he saw the three of us. I had been angry at my old friend for not telling me about Katlyn sooner, but my wrath had died down after a good night’s sleep and a meal. Jacques and I had shared a lot of experiences together, and he’d never intentionally meant to keep the knowledge of Katlyn’s whereabouts from me. Had he not been in Brightwater and seen Katlyn pass through, I would never have known that she’d been sold into slavery.
“Quite the appetite you’ve got there, William,” Jacques said, eyeing Veronica in her revealing blue dress and Amelia still wrapped in one of the thinner bedsheets. It was clear that they had spent the night with me. “One at a time isn’t enough for you?”
Veronica and Amelia both reddened.
“I came after they were finished,” Amelia protested. I wasn’t sure why she thought that sounded better.
“That was polite of you,” Mistress Blossom said, “letting these two climax before you.” She chuckled as she bustled the empty dishes back onto the tray.
“That’s not what I meant. I—” Amelia started to say, but she was cut off by Jacques.
“You meant to say that you came in for a bit of action while William and Veronica were asleep?” Jacques guffawed.
“That sort of thing is almost beyond my own boundaries,” the Mistress exclaimed, putting a hand to her mouth in feigned shock. “You really are quite the deviant, young Amelia.”
Amelia reddened even more at this and went silent. Obviously, she was far too embarrassed to defend herself.
“Amelia wasn’t doing anything untoward,” I said. “She wanted the company of my bed. That shouldn’t be an issue.”
Jacques and the Mistress shared a look.