by Logan Jacobs
“I am sorry!” the strawberry blonde woman cried out immediately, and she retreated back a few paces from me with a horrified expression on her face, like she thought I might reach out and strike her in anger.
“It’s, uh, it’s fine,” I said quickly. I was still a little stunned because I just hadn’t expected her to do that, but I shook myself out of it.
“I just couldn’t bear the thought of death for that creature.” Ainsley cast her eyes to the ground and tightly folded her hands in front of her. Then her knuckles blanched even more white, which I hadn’t even thought possible.
“Hey,” I murmured. “It’s alright. Don’t worry.”
I took a few careful steps toward her, and Ainsley’s head snapped up like a terrified deer as she watched me for a long moment.
I froze and made sure not to make another move. Nothing had prepared me for this sudden shift in her demeanor, but I had to remind myself these women were a hell of a lot more skittish than any of my serpent women. Plus, it sounded like they hadn’t seen a man in an even longer amount of time.
I glanced at Mira and saw she had the exact same reaction I did. She stared at Ainsley, wide-eyed and quiet, but without a hint of judgment, and I felt my heart swell a little at the kindness the warrior exhibited.
Mira’s gold eyes looked up at me, and she nodded once, nearly imperceptibly, before she stepped forward and laid a careful hand on Ainsley’s thin shoulder.
“Ainsley,” Mira muttered, and her voice was low and husky.
It took a long moment, but Ainsley finally let the fear drain from her eyes, took a long, shuddering breath, and gave us a small smile.
“I am sorry,” she mumbled. “I, uh … ”
“Don’t worry about it,” I assured her. “But, uh, next time, don’t mess up my shot, okay?”
I made sure to slap a shit-eating grin on my face to let the lithe blonde know it was a joke, and to my absolute surprise, I actually earned a laugh from Ainsley.
The sound was like wind chimes on a warm summer day. It was soft and musical and everything a woman’s laugh should be.
“You are funny, Ben,” she giggled. “And maybe you are right. To show you these fields, well, I feel a bit embarrassed about how meager our crops are.”
“If by meager, you mean non-existent,” Mira snorted, but then she cleared her throat and frowned. “Sorry. Too soon.”
“But you are right.” Ainsley shrugged. Then she took a step toward me at the edge of the field where we could look out at the dark, nutrient dense dirt.
“If you had more time, these fields would be full,” I pointed out, “but you don’t have more time, because of the pirates. I want to change that, Ainsley, I swear. But until I can do that, we need to find some way to feed the village.”
Ainsley slowly leaned into me until her entire right side was pressed against me. I could feel the chill of her skin, the way her breath flew in and out of her lungs with the speed of a hummingbird, and the way her entire body was tense with years’ worth of worry.
“Maybe we should not be so picky with our food,” she sighed. “If the Goddess is truly peaceful, I have to wonder why the invaders have come. They are violent and bloody and horrible. They do not seem like creations of the Goddess I love.”
That seemed like an extremely reasonable assumption to me, since I’d made it the moment Jemma had expressed the whole “non-violent” thing to me, but I didn’t want to press my luck. So, I just nodded and slowly brought an arm up to cup Ainsley’s fragile, thin shoulders.
“I agree with you,” I finally said, “but the ultimate decision is up to you and your people.”
Perfect. That was the perfect response. Sometimes, I was pretty damn good at this whole Dragon King thing.
“We still need to figure out how to fix our raft, Ben,” Mira pointed out when Ainsley and I finally stepped away from each other.
“Right.” I nodded before I spun around to look at the mountainous trees before us. “I don’t think it’s going to be very easy to harvest these things. Unless, of course, your people have a way to do it?”
Ainsley shook her head. “We use what we find on the ground.”
“What about the cloth?” Mira inquired. “How do you make that?”
“From the fibers of the bark.” Ainsley smiled. “We scrape the bark off in large pieces and pound them until they are soft.”
The slim woman did a little spin to show Mira and me the white dress she wore.
“That’s made out of bark?” I gasped. “That’s way cool.”
Ainsley tilted her head and stared at me as she mouthed the phrase I’d just used, before a smile as wide as the ocean spread across her face.
“I enjoy that expression,” she giggled.
“Well, I don’t think we can start felling trees until we have some way to make a new raft,” I pointed out to Mira. “But I do think the first thing we need to do is stop those invaders before they try to make you move again. Ainsley, you can’t keep moving. You won’t be able to feed yourselves. We have to stay where we are and help these fields grow.”
The look in Ainsley’s eyes was a combination of fear and determination. I hadn’t expected to find any sort of fire in these timid women, but it was there in her big blue eyes.
“Tell me about your home island,” she murmured. “How did you stop the invaders there?”
“Ben taught us how to fight,” Mira explained. “He showed us how to make bows and arrows, and how to use them to take down invaders from many paces away. We do not even have to get close to them to shoot them right in the heart and kill those fuckers of mothers!”
Mira got adorably excited and waved her hands in the air, as if to relive our first ever battle together.
I smiled as I thought about how we’d taken those assholes down from on top of the gate, and how that had been the moment I’d found the map on that fatass’ dead body.
“You killed them without touching them?” Ainsley blinked rapidly in shock. “I suppose, maybe, I could be okay with that. If I do not have to feel their blood on my hands with any weapon.”
“I bet you’d be damn good with a bow, too.” I grinned. “You guys are so slim and fast. You could knock them out one after the other, and then you’d get your home back.”
Ainsley paused, and I watched the wheels turn in her head, but I already knew what she would say. The idea of self-defense was an intoxicating one, even if it took a little while to sink in, and something told me if I could get Ainsley on my side, the entire village would soon agree. They may not think they had a leader, but in any civilization, there was always someone in charge, someone the people trusted just a little more than anyone else, and since Jemma has taken me to Ainsley, I figured the blue-eyed beauty was that person.
Finally, she nodded her head once.
“Ben, I would like you to show me how to fight,” the deer woman said, “and I would like your help to show everyone else that it is okay to fight back. The Goddess will not punish us for defending what is ours.”
Mira grinned at me behind Ainsley.
“Absolutely,” I told her as a broad smile overtook my face, too. “You have my word.”
Now, we were getting somewhere.
Ainsley led the way back to the village, and as soon as our feet touched the entry platform, she stuck her thumb and forefinger into her mouth and whistled so hard I was afraid the sound might pop my eardrums out.
Instantly, everyone’s head turned toward us, and the women who had been in the tents came out.
I saw Jemma, with her arm wrapped in a tight cloth bandage, on the platform just outside of the healing tent, and the moment she saw me, she batted those thick black eyelashes and sent a winning smile my way.
I returned the smile with a quick wink, and I was proud as I watched her giggle, blush, and duck her head.
That woman needed a healthy dose of male attention.
“Hello, sisters,” Ainsley greeted everyone. “I understand you are all
still a little suspicious of our newcomers, but I do not want you to be. Ben has promised to help us defeat the invaders.”
“Yes, we know,” someone called out. “But how? They have plagued us for too many years to count.”
I found the woman who had spoken among the crowd outside of one of the larger tents. She had long, thick brown hair that fell past her waist, and her piercing green eyes were hardened by loss.
Ainsley paused and bit her lip as she thought over just what to say. A part of me wanted to jump in and help her out, but I knew now was not yet the time for that. These women needed to trust me first, and right now, they still didn’t.
“He wants to teach us how to fight,” Ainsley finally announced. “He has experience with these invaders. They once plagued his home island, too, but he defeated them, and now his people are safe. We can be, too.”
Shock rippled through the village of women, and I heard gasps and whispers fly through the air as they all immediately discounted my idea.
“We already told him no!” someone shouted. “We are not a violent people.”
“I understand that,” Ainsley replied in a diplomatic tone, “but ask yourselves, if the Goddess forbids violence, why would she make creatures such as the invaders? Why would she let them attack us, rape our women, and kill our men? The Goddess I love would not wish us to stand idly by!”
For a moment, I thought her speech would work. I figured the women might trust the sentiment of self-defense a whole lot more when it came from one of their own.
But of course, it wasn’t quite that easy.
“If you want to fight, go ahead,” the green-eyed woman spat, “but I will remain peaceful.”
A murmur of affirmation went through the crowd, and I could tell Ainsley wouldn’t be able to get much farther than I had this morning.
“It’s alright,” I whispered to Ainsley. “I’ll convince them somehow.”
What I didn’t want was for her to make my case for me and have the rest of the village cast her out, or do something equally terrible.
“Why don’t we just return to Ben’s home island with him?” another woman called out, and I searched the crowd, but could not place the voice.
“Because this is our home!” Jemma shouted out, and the small woman stepped forward and raised her head so she could address all fifty villagers. “We cannot run and hide just because we are afraid! That is not the way of the Goddess.”
“But the invaders have taken everything from us!” someone cried out. “We have nothing left on this island.”
“We will again,” Ainsley insisted. “Ben is a Dragon King, a leader of his people. He is a savior, and he is here to help us. We will reclaim our home from the invaders.”
I could tell her argument didn’t have the desired effect. These deer-elf-women would be a hell of a lot harder to convince then I’d thought, and I could tell it all came down to their deeply held religious fervor.
I’d encountered that kind of thing before, back home, with all sorts of people. It seemed to be a cross-civilization thing, apparently, and I knew there was only one way to prove to them I was right.
I could teach Ainsley and Jemma how to fight, and the four of us could begin to knock off some of those pirate fuckers. Once the women saw I was right, and that they could get their home back, too, then I knew they’d agree to let me teach them how to fight.
I just had to figure out exactly how to make that all happen.
“Listen,” I spoke for the first time and addressed the entire crowd. “If you really don’t want to fight along with Mira and me, then we won’t force you. But think about how much destruction and death the invaders have caused. Is it really worth it to give up your lives for this?”
I let that thought hang in the air and said no more. A heavy silence fell across the crowd, and the women shared looks. I could see that, despite their silence, I’d already started to change some of their minds, since a few of the women looked at me with wonder in their eyes.
At this rate, I would convince them at some point. I just needed to prove to them I could be trusted.
“Night is falling,” Ainsley sighed. “Let us eat and disperse, and we will discuss this again at a later time.”
The crowd of deer women muttered and whispered as they began to break up and go about their evening routines.
“Good speech,” Mira murmured in my ear. Her hot breath sent a tingle of need down my spine, and I let my hand brush against her warm thigh.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Let’s just hope this works.”
“I can show you to your tent,” Ainsley informed the two of us. “We will share our food with you. Tomorrow, if it is alright, I believe I would like to try meat.”
Excitement and nervousness shone in her bright blue eyes, and it reminded me of the look a teen gets when she’s about to drink alcohol for the first time.
“Of course.” I nodded and grinned.
I’d make meat-eaters out of these hippie-deer women yet.
Ainsley took Mira and me across a bridge and up a red-barked tree to a much smaller tent that was clearly not in use. We stepped inside to see a fire pit, similar to the one in the healing tent, and a few pads made from the same white cloth as the tent.
Ainsley returned with food a few minutes later, and Mira and I scarfed down the meager rations quickly.
We would definitely have to hunt in the morning. All these women had to eat were those little golden potatoes and some sort of bright green fruit that reminded me of an orange, if oranges were green.
“Tell me more about your home,” Ainsley insisted as we started to eat. “Are there many of you?”
“More than here,” I replied. “Our village has a few hundred, but I am the only man. Well, my son is also there, but he’s still a baby. Hopefully, for a very long time.”
Like, permanently. I wished I could keep my kids children permanently.
“You have children?” Ainsley gasped, and her blue eyes widened.
“He has four.” Mira grinned. “We are repopulating with the use of Ben’s thick and long penis and his potent seed.”
A blush crept up both mine and Ainsley’s cheeks at the proud way Mira spoke of my member. I saw the strawberry blonde throw a heated glance at my crotch, and the hard-on was nearly instant.
“I am sure you are correct, Mira.” Ainsley bit her lip and brought her eyes up to meet mine, and the innuendo behind her words was clear.
Oh, man. The way she toyed with her lip in between her perfect white teeth was enough to make me want to rip that pretty dress off her right then and there.
“Oh, she’s very correct,” I chuckled.
“Our people have not had a man around for far too long,” Ainsley sighed.
Suddenly, though, the heated look in her eyes turned to embarrassment, and she ripped her gaze from mine to stare at her nearly empty plate of food.
“Well, then it seems like it’s about time you had one, huh?” I asked her.
“You are right, Ben.” Ainsley nodded, and then stood up and took our plates. “I will let you sleep now. May the Goddess bless your dreams.”
I watched her slender form retreat from the tent, and then I allowed myself to daydream just a bit about what it would feel like to touch her bare skin.
“She is a pretty one.” Mira smirked as she laid down on one of the pads.
I laid beside her, and we quickly assumed our usual sleeping position.
“That’s for damn sure,” I sighed happily.
I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep plagued by absolutely nothing for a few hours, but I wasn’t nearly well rested enough when Mira and I were both yanked from our slumber by a loud, terrified scream, followed by an angry, monstrous roar.
“Shit!” I gasped as I sat bolt upright.
Mira and I immediately rushed to the flap of the tent as the scream was joined by others, and after a second, the sounds of terror had filled the camp.
And I could see why.
&nbs
p; As soon as I stepped out onto the platform, I saw three different wargs rampaging the camp.
Chapter Four
“How the fuck did they even get up here?” I demanded as Mira and I both dove back into the tent for our weapons.
“I don’t know,” Mira growled, “but we’re going to make them regret it.”
“Fuck yeah, we are.” I nodded, and then the two of us sprinted back out of the tent.
Outside, two of the wargs rampaged the village. They ducked into tents and yanked the women out, only to toss them onto one of the center platforms, where the third warg kept watch.
I saw Jemma down there, with terrified tears on her face and a tremble in her lips.
“Hey, you!” Mira hollered. The warrior leapt off our platform and onto the one next to it, where one of the wargs held a brunette woman around the waist.
I let Mira deal with that one while I searched for the second warg. I finally spotted him among the hubbub, down a level and to my left, with his clawed hand around Ainsley’s right arm. She struggled against him, and even managed to land a kick right between his legs, but the monster held on.
My breath came hot and heavy in my lungs as I leapt from the platform and onto the nearest bridge, then made a beeline straight for the monster.
The warg laughed out loud at Ainsley’s attempts to free herself, and then he leaned his twisted, nasty snout down to take a whiff of her pretty hair.
“The masters will reward me for bringing you to them, pretty one,” the beast growled.
Ainsley screwed her eyes shut and bit back a scream.
“Get your dirty fucking hands off her!” I shouted.
The warg’s fat head snapped up, and its beady yellow eyes landed on me just as I skidded onto the platform it stood on.
But before I could make another move, the warg wrapped a clawed, hairy hand around Ainsley’s neck. Her blue eyes went wide, and her hands scraped at his own as she desperately gasped for air.
“Make another move, and she dies,” the monster snarled.
I froze.
Any move I made would never be quick enough, not when the warg could snap Ainsley’s neck in a millisecond.