by R. Lee Smith
“Doru, I really must thank you for a delightful evening,” Bodual said sleepily. He got up, caressing Olivia in passing, and went into the washroom, still thrumming a little under his breath.
“Delightful,” Olivia agreed. She stayed where she was.
“A man tries,” Doru replied, twining Olivia’s hair around his fingers. “Are you tired?”
Olivia opened her eyes. The sweat and seed of their spent passions had already been absorbed, leaving her with renewed strength and unexpected desire. “I could be awake.”
Bodual reappeared in the sleeping room’s doorway, his hands still lathered with soap. “Are you two serious?”
Doru peered over her shoulder and laughed at him. “He’s kind of puny,” he explained to Olivia. “Give him awhile.” He cupped her hips and began to move her gently as he hardened inside her. “In the meantime, I don’t mind having you all to myself.”
Olivia bent over him, her eyes closed, all her body open fully to the pure sensations he raised in her. She rocked steadily, her hair brushing against his chest, emitting soft cries that quickly rose to a crescendo as she climaxed.
“There,” Doru panted, falling back into the pit. “All yours, Bodual.”
“He’s kind of old,” Bodual explained as he gathered her up into his arms and retreated to a bench by the fire. “He has trouble catching his breath.”
“Old?” Doru thundered, sitting up and glaring after them.
“You shouldn’t get emotional at your age,” Bodual said primly. “Lie still, revered elder. I’ll wake you when I’m done.”
Olivia arched her back lazily as Bodual’s hands found her breasts, his tongue found her mouth, and they were joined. Three timeless orgasms later, Bodual brought her back to the pit and handed her to Doru, who was drinking Olivia’s ginger ale and sending dark looks at Bodual. “Old,” he growled, fitting Olivia to the cradle of one arm and slipping his hand expertly between her thighs. “Revered elder. I’m six days older than you, you damn fool.”
Bodual snickered sleepily and dropped into the bedding, curling on his side.
“I only seem older because I’m so much more talented,” Doru added, nuzzling at Olivia’s neck as she clutched him and moaned with pleasure.
“May be something to that,” Bodual yawned, and lifted his head to watch Olivia buck and moan. “Look at that. That inspires a man.” He yawned again and tried to say something more, but fell asleep instead.
“Youngsters,” Doru told her. “No stamina.” He rolled her gently over, twined his legs over and through hers and pulled her up taut against his chest as he penetrated her. He pulled her wrists up over her head in one hand, holding her perfectly still as he rocked against her and traced complex patterns against her clitoris with the tips of his expert fingers. She could feel her orgasm churning through her, but denied movement, all she could do was scream and shiver in its grip until she thought her whole body would catch fire from the friction alone.
She could feel him cumming inside her as he scraped his teeth lightly over the nape of her neck and lowered her face-down in the pit. He continued to work his hand on her, never allowing her to fall back from the peak of climax, only driving her further and further out until she came again, clawing at the bedding and tossing her sweat-damp hair. He kept her there, sometimes lifting her to thrust at her from behind until he came, sometimes turning her to taste her breasts and mouth, but always moving his hand over and in her, until Bodual finally woke up.
“Old,” he growled, and bent to take a final deep kiss from her. Then he lifted Olivia, keeping all her weight for one incredible moment balanced on the hand that stole another shivery climax from her, and dropped her into Bodual’s waiting arms. “Eight,” he said. “Beat that, whelp.” And then he stretched out with a cat’s yawn and pulled a corner of the bedding over his hips.
Bodual agreeably pulled Olivia down over his shaft and began to rock her hips in his strong hands. “Can I count the three from earlier?” he asked.
“No,” Doru muttered. “You slept in between. You have to start over.” Doru watched with slitted, sleepy eyes as Bodual coaxed the first from her, and then began to snore heavily.
All day long, they alternated in this fashion. Sometimes there was only one, sometimes she had them both. Sometimes they both slept and thought she slept beside them, but in reality, she sat and watched, power like a storm inside her, and waited for them to wake.
5
At noon the next day, Doru and Bodual reached their final joint climax, lying on their sides with Olivia squeezed between them in the pit. Bodual sighed and hugged her while Doru kissed her shoulder. Then they both slid away from her and she rolled onto her back and stretched luxuriously. “We have to go,” one of them said.
“I know. So do I.” She sat up, watching them puzzle out whose loincloth was whose. “I still can’t believe how good that was. I could do it all over again right now.”
Bodual and Doru both groaned at precisely the same time. Bodual finished dressing first and came back to the pit, pulling her up into his arms and squeezing her backside playfully as he kissed her. “I came here last night because I was depressed,” he said, grinning. “Today, I can’t even remember what that felt like.”
“Have a good night, Olivia,” Doru said, picking up his spear on the way out. “Do me a favor and get some more fuel for the fire before you leave.”
Olivia heard the unmistakable sound of a heavy hand smacking into a furry body and Doru’s arched comment, “Old, huh?” as they receded from the pit room.
She washed herself off and dressed, feeling extraordinarily jubilant, not like a woman who’d spent the last fourteen hours having marathon sex with two partners. She took up Doru’s bucket and jogged down to the women’s tunnels to pick up the fuel. Some gullan were here, working, and a few greeted her as she passed them. She filled Doru’s bucket, turned to leave, and saw Logarr waiting in the doorway.
“Not now,” she said, moving past him.
He caught her arm. After checking to see that no one was close enough to hear, he dropped his voice and said, “Who were you with last night?”
She started to ask why that should matter to him, but he was already changing his question.
“Was it Sudjummar?”
“No,” she admitted, now more confused than affronted.
“I didn’t think you had time enough to go to him,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong? Is he hurt?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” he said. “But hear me, Olivia. Sudjummar came to the mines for ore this morning very distressed. He claimed that you were gone from his side when he woke.”
“When he woke?” she echoed, interrupting. “I was gone from his side all night.”
“He says that you came back to the forge last night, in season. That you and he coupled until mid-day without pause. Now he thinks another male has taken you against your will and is holding you while you are in season.”
“But I’m not in season,” she said lamely.
They looked at each other.
“Go to him,” Logarr said, and she realized that he was very afraid.
“What am I looking for?”
“If it is what I suspect, you’ll know.”
Olivia dropped Doru’s coals off in the passage to his chambers, and then raced to the forge. Sudjummar was not at work, but he was above in his lair, putting Somurg to bed in his cooler.
She spoke his name, hesitantly.
The reaction was immediate and baffling. Sudjummar swiveled around, saw her, and leapt over Somurg’s cradle to get his arms around her. “Are you safe? Where you taken?” He broke off his anxious babbling and inhaled deeply. “You aren’t in season,” he said.
Olivia was staring into his face with an expression of polite inquiry and thoughts of absolute horror.
Something was inside Sudjummar. Something with a woman’s face, buried in him like a ghost in a well, glaring out at her in jealous hate.
“I wasn’t in season last night, either,” she said with a laugh she hoped was both embarrassed and contrite. “I was trying to mix one of Murgull’s potions and spilled some on me.”
The face inside him was screaming at her, the perfect mouth opening and closing with silent shrieks of rage and warning. Sudjummar looked both puzzled and exasperated. “Why didn’t you say so last night? Olivia, I…I never would have been so…rough. That isn’t me, Olivia! That isn’t me.”
Olivia didn’t think about what she was doing. She simply put her arms around his neck and drew him down to her, smiling. “Well, I could have said something, but after I had you in my arms I thought that silence was more prudent and a lot more fun.”
The woman beneath his features was distorted with her own vicious malevolence, and now that she was touching him, she could hear, in the far back of her mind, wordless shrieks like the droning of distant bees. Sudjummar himself wore an expression of reluctant misery. “Olivia, you know I cannot have you back.”
“I know. And I can live with that if I must. But for now, let me take a memory to keep me warm.” She cupped the back of his head and drew him down into a kiss. She pressed her lips against his, and that was where her mortal self stopped. A different aspect of her, one that had been charged beyond her previous limits by the morning’s activities, pushed further. She bit down hard on the invader and sucked it violently inside her.
“I wish things were different,” said Sudjummar when she broke the kiss. “Even the touch of your mouth makes me shiver.” He brushed his claw along the curve of her jaw. “But I feel better. I was sick with fear for you.” He stood back with effort, and might have said more except that Somurg chose that moment to start howling. “Goodbye, Olivia.” Sudjummar turned gently and deliberately away.
She smiled in what she hoped was fond farewell, and strolled towards the washroom. Once inside, positioned over the running water, Olivia’s expression transformed into the look of a woman who has just realized that she is eating a batter-fried rat.
Bahgree was shrieking, filling her mind with obscenity.
Olivia unlocked her jaw without opening her mouth and bit with her physical teeth. Power screamed out of her, forcing substance into the shade of the thing caught in her body. She felt a gritty crunch, as though she were chewing intangible sand, and the furious screams became ones of agony. Olivia’s jaws worked until Bahgree’s shade fell silent. She leaned over and spat.
There was nothing physical in her mouth, not even saliva. Nevertheless, something hit the water with a splash, and became a wad of disgusting, bloody filth. “Bitch,” Olivia hissed, wiping her mouth.
Bahgree swirled down the crack in the floor.
6
Olivia took herself from the forge and went to the commons in search of Doru. A young male she almost recognized tried to step in front of her and she ducked impatiently under his wings without looking at him and called the hunter’s name.
“Right here.” He was leaning against the wall with Bodual and a can of Coors. He watched her approach, flicked his eyes over her shoulder and bared his teeth meaningfully at whoever was standing there. “What can I do for you?”
“I need a favor,” she said. “A big favor.”
“Biggest favor in the mountain,” he said with a modest shrug, then handed his beer to Bodual and said seriously, “What is it?”
“I need to go away for a little while and think. Can you take some things to a cave I know, and…and can you keep it secret?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Lead on.”
Olivia took him by the hand and led him through the maze of uninhabited passages to the cavern she used to meet with the Great Spirit. She could hear Doru fumble in his belt pouch and an instant later she was shielding her eyes as he explored it with a flashlight.
“My, this is out of the way, isn’t it?” he said mildly. “What do you need?”
“A bench,” she said. “Some furs, I think, or some other kind of bedding. A cooler full of food that won’t spoil. Enough water for, say, a week.”
He was nodding. “Easily accomplished. Give me one hour. If you mean to isolate yourself tonight, you’d best go and tell Horumn. I’ll be done when you return.” He touched her shoulder, running his thumb along the curve of her neck. “Is it… what happened last night that troubles you?”
“God, no,” she said, and laughed a little. “I needed you last night. You have no idea how true that is. But there’s something I have to do…and this is the way I have to do it.”
“As you like it,” he said, and that was all he said as he went to find her supplies.
Olivia went to the women’s tunnels as he had suggested and found Amy giving Liz a tummy massage. “I’m leaving,” she said.
“For good?” Amy asked, glancing up.
“No, but for a while.”
“Okay. Bye.” Amy returned her attention to Liz. “I’m not a bit surprised, might I add.”
“Me, either,” Liz agreed. “I’m sorry about you and Sudjummar. He seems like a nice guy.”
“He is a nice guy,” Olivia said bleakly. “And he doesn’t deserve this and neither do I.”
“Tough nipples, baby,” Amy said bluntly. “If we all got what we deserved, I’d be living in a tower of gold with ten horse-hung harem boys licking butterscotch topping off my clitoris every hour of every day.” She wiped off her hands, looked thoughtful and added, “Well, that or in jail for excessive lewdness. Either way, I’d be gettin’ some.”
Olivia came to her friend and hugged her. Amy hugged her back, patting her as though comforting a child. Olivia said, “Sudjummar is keeping Somurg. I…I’m not allowed near them, or it’ll cause problems. Please!” she said, as Amy started to make her awkward sympathies. “I need you to nurse my baby for me. Even if it’s just once a day. Please.”
“Sure, I guess.” Amy drew back slightly, troubled. “Dare I ask why?”
“I can’t answer that right now. Please, just do it. I don’t know how long I’m going to be gone, but I’m not leaving the mountain. If something happens, tell Doru. He knows where to find me, but he probably won’t act like he knows. Okay?”
“Okay. Heap Big Secret-Keeper.” She held Olivia out at arm’s length, smiling faintly. “Take care of yourself, kid.”
Olivia returned to her meeting place at nearly the same time as Doru entered, bearing a solid stone bench on his broad shoulders. He had already brought the furs and provisions, as well as three lanterns and a 2-liter pop bottle filled with oil. He set down the bench, draped a thick fleece over it, and stood back, rubbing his neck.
“Thanks, Doru.”
“Feh, it wasn’t hard. Bam, as Tobi would say. I only hope you find what you’re searching for.” He gathered her up and kissed her thoroughly, then stroked her hair and left her.
Alone, the first doubts crept in. The Great Spirit was the only one she could think to ask for help in breaking Logarr’s hold over her, and it seemed she’d lost the ability to call him to her. If she wanted to talk to him, she’d have to stay here until he lost his patience and his temper and came in person to collect her. This, so soon after she’d ordered one of his sacred sons castrated.
Olivia sat down on the bench to wait. When she was tired, she lay in a sleeping bag on the floor. When she was hungry, she ate. When restless, she paced the confines of the little cavern. She did not mark time. She did not know days. She tried not to think beyond the moment of now.
Olivia waited.
7
An explosion of light and sound shattered her sleep. The Great Spirit took two swift strides towards the tunnel mouth, flames filling in the footprints he left behind him, then sensed her and swung around.
“Again you have lied to me!” he roared, advancing.
She leapt up and shouted, “I tried! I called for you and you weren’t there!”
“You—” He stopped, looked at her intently. Without warning, he lunged, seized her brutally by the chi
n and yanked her up to stare deep in her eyes. The molten gold of his own began to darken until she stared into empyreal pits of blood. The mountain rumbled beneath their feet. “Who has done this?” he asked quietly.
She started to babble out a reply, but he had no patience for it. Reaching out one claw, he tapped her hard on the forehead.
Her jaw snapped shut as she felt his presence enter her mind, invade her memories, and read them. When he withdrew his hand, she sank back onto her knees and shivered, looking up at him.
“She knows,” he murmured, gazing at the empty wall. “She knows everything.”
“How could she? How could she know where to come? And how could she do what she did to Sudjummar?”
“Questions.” He cut her a swift, not unkind glance. “You ask too many. Why should you need to know these things, when I am here to protect you?”
Her temper snapped before she could catch her tongue. “You’ve done a fuck-lousy job of it so far! Where were you when Logarr took me that first time? Where were you when this could have been stopped? Don’t you dare pat me on the head and tell me not to worry when she could have killed Sudjummar!”
He seemed taken aback by the vehemence of her words, but had altered his tone and demeanor before making a wary reply. “Undoubtedly, there is one like this Logarr in every tribe of my people. She is connected to them through that power she placed inside them; when she felt it being used, she knew at once where to go. As for how she may have arrived, the world is full of rivers. Perhaps her essence was absorbed into the skies, released as rain upon this mountain, and melted down into the waters of your baths.”
“She had a physical form when she came to Sudjummar. How did she do that? You told me she was powerless!”
“Powerless to an immortal. This I told you also.” He looked slightly annoyed with her. “I hardly think the how of it is important. She entered his body because she believed he would enter yours when next he saw you, and while her power is not great enough over my children to do him harm, you are her daughter. If you had not suffused yourself with power enough to see her there and bite her out, she would be wearing you now like ill-fitting clothing.”