The Amoral Hero

by Logan Jacobs

  “How could we know he’d be here?” Katrina was wringing her hands.

  “And Sheriff Cavendish on top of that,” Janina sighed.

  “Circumstances are not optimal,” I agreed. “It’s not too late to call the whole thing off, you know. You could just spectate the tournament and let the winner leave in peace. Even cozy up to other audience members, as you have been doing already since we got here… you could probably still turn a profit that way.”

  “No,” Janina said emphatically. “Kat and I always get what we want. This time is no exception.”

  I said nothing. I had expected as much, but it had still seemed worth asking just in case they decided to be reasonable for once. Then again, maybe I couldn’t judge them too harshly, considering how I had recently determined to pillage a sorcerer’s enchanted castle despite the odds being overwhelmingly against me, and Theo attempting to discourage the attempt. Stubbornness was an emotion I could relate to.

  Soon after that, we returned to the inn for supper. The dining room was crowded with well-dressed patrons, but thankfully, neither Janina’s ex-fiancé nor Sheriff Cavendish appeared to be present.

  We found the last empty table next to a table where an elderly woman and two large and surly looking young men were seated together. She had very few teeth left and was dribbling soup down her chin. The young men appeared to have all their teeth, but they were nonetheless also dribbling soup into their beards.

  The twins and I seated ourselves and ordered food, which took longer than usual to arrive due to the busy kitchen.

  The old woman, who was wearing a floral dress with a huge crinoline skirt that was several decades out of style, started peering at the twins sidelong, and we could all hear her mutter to her young male companions,

  “You see those girls? You’ve got to stay away from ones like that.”

  Well, she wasn’t exactly incorrect, but I still didn’t like her tone.

  “The pretty ones, in dresses that shameless, are full of vanity and make faithless wives,” she continued sharply. The young men glanced over at the twins and back to the elderly woman across from them, with expressions of dull forbearance. The woman herself had a remarkably large nose, even for her age, and a pointed little face with a pinched mouth. I doubted very much that she had ever been comely herself, even in her youth, and evidently she was one of those homely women who resented good-looking ones.

  “Do you understand me?” she asked sharply, apparently dissatisfied with the young men’s mute acceptance of her speech.

  “Yes, Great-Aunt,” they mumbled obediently.

  “Good,” she said. “I tell you this so you will not come to ruin. If you want a whore, choose a pretty one. If you want a wife, choose a plain one, who’s modest.”

  “And how did that work out for your husband?” Janina called over to the neighboring table.

  “Very well indeed, you insolent creature,” the old woman said icily. “We had three children who all lived respectable lives. And I was faithful to my husband for as long as he lived.”

  “You mean, the rest of your family is all deceased?” Katrina asked. “What a pity.”

  “It’s very poor manners for you to address me, girl,” the woman informed Katrina angrily.

  “It’s very poor manners for you to disparage us within our hearing,” Janina replied.

  “The two of you are only proving my point about how girls who look like you inevitably have poor character!” the old woman declared.

  “Well, I don’t think that hags like you are inevitably bitter and spiteful, but unfortunately you do seem to fit that pattern,” Janina sighed.

  “Aren’t you going to do something?” the old woman hissed at her grandnephews.

  “What would you like us to do, Great-Aunt?” the blond mustached one asked meekly. Both of them had sort of potato-like features of the imminently forgettable variety, but the other grandnephew was brunet, clean-shaven, and, I presumed, the elder based on his receding hairline.

  “Yes-- what, exactly, do you intend them to do?” I asked quietly. All three of them, old woman and middle-aged grandnephews, turned their attention to me and looked me up and down. Her with annoyance, them with a bit of dismay.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. “Are you married to one of these women? Or are you--”

  “He’s our cousin,” Katrina interrupted as the old woman’s lip wrinkled in a sneer, before she could voice whatever insulting speculation she was forming on her tongue.

  “Well, if he’s going to pardon your behavior, then I suppose all three of you are rotten apples,” the old woman sniffed.

  I said nothing. It wasn’t my job to defend the twins from verbal attacks, only from physical harm. And they relished verbal sparring more than I did anyway, so I’d let them fend for themselves in that regard, as long as matters didn’t escalate beyond words.

  “The same could be said for your grandnephews,” Katrina scoffed. “Why do you put up with her, anyway? Is it because of the inheritance? Since all her children are dead?”

  “We’re loyal to our family,” the balding grandnephew said with a scowl. “But maybe you wouldn’t understand that.”

  “I’ve quite lost my appetite,” the old woman declared. “I simply cannot eat in the presence of vicious harlots. Alfred, Manny, assist me.”

  And with that, the grandnephews quickly sprang up from their seats and went around the table to pull their great-aunt’s chair out for her and assist her to stand. She was quite frail with a badly hunched spine, and the bulkiness of her crinoline did not help matters any. Then, with one grandnephew supporting her by each arm, she hobbled away up the stairs toward the inn’s sleeping quarters.

  Soon after that our table’s food was finally delivered, and all three of us ate with relish.

  “If that woman eats less because of us and wastes away to death sooner, we will have done the world a great favor,” Janina remarked.

  “The world, yes, but her grandnephews in particular,” Katrina pointed out.

  “Do you think she’s come to play in the tournament?” I wondered aloud.

  Both twins laughed at the idea.

  “How could she do that, when surely she considers women who gamble to be vicious harlots?” Katrina asked.

  “Well, I don’t see why else she would have made a journey to Sunderly, at her age,” I said. “If she lived here, and had only come to the inn for supper, then she wouldn’t have gone upstairs afterward. And I hardly think she would have accompanied one of her grandnephews here to watch him play. She treats them like her servants.”

  “Well, I don’t care why she’s here,” Katrina replied. “All I care is that now we have three people to avoid in Sunderly, instead of two.”

  “I don’t wish to avoid her at all,” Janina objected. “I wish to antagonize her into suffering a heart attack.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit unkind?” Katrina exclaimed.

  “I think it’s entirely reasonable,” Janina insisted. “And I don’t even mean that we ought to terrorize her. I mean that she is offended by our very existence to the point that it seems to put a strain on her health. So all we need to do is exist near her and she’s sure to expire soon, as she is already past due to do so.”

  “Let’s talk of something pleasanter,” Katrina pleaded.

  “Oh, very well… ” Janina said as her greenish-blue ocean-hued eyes glittered with mischief, “how about the fact that I won our bet last night, fair and square?”

  “Not that,” Katrina groaned as she looked over at me and flushed. I winked at her, out of amusement at her evident embarrassment, and sipped from my beer.

  “Let’s talk about which fashions we will buy for next season when we return home, then,” Janina relented.

  Katrina perked up at the suggestion of that topic, and I tuned out of the conversation as they began excitedly describing fabrics and colors and cuts that they had seen in catalogues, or worn by other women. I didn’t mind a bit, rea
lly. The food was hearty and plentiful and quite deserving of my full attention.

  Once we finished our meal, I went out to carry Theo some choice tidbits and relate the exchange with the old woman to him.

  “She sounds ready to be sent to the knackers,” he snorted.

  “You’re as heartless as Janina,” I laughed.

  Then after giving him a good brushdown which left him blinking with contented drowsiness, I returned to the inn and to the room next to the twins’. I stripped off my clothes, scrubbed my teeth with a brush, and climbed into bed. I was just starting to nod off when I heard a timid knock at the door.

  I grabbed my sword from beside my bed, walked over to the door, and cracked it open, to see one of the Elliott twins standing there in a frilly white nightgown. So I swung the door fully open. I didn’t get a chance to look closely enough at the hue of her eyes to determine which sister it was before she let out a shocked gasp and covered her mouth with her hands, which firstly reminded me that I was completely naked and secondly informed me that she must be Katrina.

  I pushed the door closed except for a crack again and asked, “Katrina? What is it?”

  “I just wanted to… t-talk to you for a minute,” she stammered. “But I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “You’re not bothering me, Katrina,” I said. “Give me a second.”

  I set the sword aside, grabbed my pants, and quickly threw them on. Then I went back to the door, opened it for her, and wordlessly gestured to invite her inside.

  Katrina timidly tiptoed into my room and looked around uncertainly as if she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.

  “Have a seat,” I said and gestured at the bed, which should have been the obvious choice to begin with considering that the room lacked any other furnishings, having been one of the last few still available at the inn. She bit her lip and gingerly perched on the edge.

  “What is it?” I repeated as I stood over her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I was just wondering… ” she said hesitantly as she twisted her hands together and looked down at her feet instead of up at me.

  “Wondering what?” I asked and tried not to get impatient.

  “If you prefer Janie to me,” she blurted out and at that, her wide bluish-green eyes flashed up to my face with the urgent need to read my immediate reaction to the question.

  “No, I don’t,” I answered honestly.

  “But you slept with her last night,” Katrina said.

  “Yes, I did,” I admitted.

  “Instead of me.”

  “Instead of you? You were asleep. You never offered.”

  “So you would have, if I had offered?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Yes,” a tiny smirk started at the corner of my mouth and I tried to suppress it. I didn’t want Katrina to worry that I was laughing at her.

  “Then do you prefer me to Janie?” she asked slyly.

  “No,” I said flatly.

  “So, you don’t prefer either of us?” Katrina asked.

  “I like both of you,” I said. “I find you quite charming, when you’re not annoying the hell out of me. But I haven’t thought of either of you much in that way, or tried to pursue you, because you’re first and foremost my clients right now. Your safety is my responsibility. I’m not going to get romantically entangled with either of you and muddy that situation. But you’re both beautiful girls, and yes, that naturally rouses certain urges.”

  “I suppose I can understand that,” Katrina said quietly. “I’m just glad that you don’t prefer Janie to me. I’m sorry if I was cross today, I just didn’t think it was fair that, last night… ”

  “That she won your bet, you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, yes, that, she’s been quite insufferable about it,” Katrina agreed. Her eyes roved over my body, from my shirtless torso to my unfastened pants, and she leaned back onto my bed with an expression that was growing less shy by the moment. “But I think I’m more jealous of the fact that she knows what it feels like. With you.”

  That was enough of an invitation for me. More talking would have just been an awkward and unnecessary formality, so I pushed my pants down past my stiffened cock and stepped out of them and left them on the floor. Katrina’s lips parted as her eyes fastened on my cock, and her chest heaved as she inhaled.

  I stepped up to the bed and lowered myself on top of her. My nose tapped hers gently and she arched her neck up to meet my lips for a kiss.

  “She knows what your cock feels like inside her,” Katrina whispered into my mouth as I ground my hips against hers through the thin linen of her nightgown and kissed her passionately.

  I could feel a patch of wetness on the fabric and looked down to see that she had soaked through it with desire. I reached down for the hem and pulled the nightgown up to her arms to find that she was completely naked underneath it. I continued to kiss her and grind against her, but now I could feel her soft, round breasts squashed beneath my chest, and her legs trembled as she wrapped them around me.

  “Put it in me,” she gasped out.

  I just chuckled, because I was enjoying her impatience. Then she reached down and used her hand to insert my throbbing cock between her legs. When I felt my tip prod her entrance, I couldn’t resist anymore, and I started pushing my way in. She was just as tight as her sister, but once my tip was wedged in securely, it was just a matter of time before I was able to force my entire cock inside of her. Halfway down my shaft, she locked her heels behind my ass and started using her legs to assist me.

  Once I was all the way inside of Katrina, I just surged my hips slow and deep and let the waves of pleasure course through us. Her tunnel felt just as perfectly tight around me as her sister’s, and Katrina moaned and writhed beneath me as I slowly dragged my tip against her velvety walls. After a few minutes I started picking up the pace and pulling further out of her with each thrust, so that I could briefly feel the cool air on the exposed inches of my slick cock and the satisfying slap of my balls as I slammed back into her.

  “Ohh, Hal. That feels amazing.” She started whimpering with more urgency. “I’m going to… ohh, please.”

  “Yesssss,” I hissed as Katrina’s climax claimed her body, and she began to groan like a wind storm while her body began to shake.

  Her tunnel clamped around me like a monkey hugging a branch, and she forced her mouth against mine so that she could scream down my throat. I pushed my cock in as deep as I could so that I could feel her spasm around my entire length, and then I kissed her for a few minutes while she slowly descended her climax.

  “Wow,” she finally gasped when her orgasm had relaxed. “That was incredible.”

  “We aren’t done,” I growled as I slipped out of her. “Lay on your side.”

  Katrina did as I ordered, and I laid on the bed behind her, wrapped my fingers around the base of my cock, and then guided myself back into her dripping tunnel. She let out a moan as soon as I was back deep inside of her, but then the moan turned into staccato whimpers when I grabbed her hip with one hand, wrapped the fingers of my other hand around shoulders so I could firmly grab her throat, and began to pound her like a miner who just got yelled at by his foreman.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” she gasped out her throat each time the tip of my cock flicked against the bottom of her tunnel, and her body almost instantly began to tremble again.

  “Do you like that?” I growled in her ear as my fingers slightly increased their hold around her neck. It wasn't anything close to the pressure it would take to choke her, or even leave a mark, but it conveyed the fact that I was dominating her entire body at the moment.

  “Yeeesssssss,” she hissed through her teeth, and then she reached down between her legs to rub the bottom of my cock while I pumped her. That little touch of her fingers sent me over the edge, and My own growl turned into a moan that she correctly guessed meant I was about to climax.

  Katrina’s climax hit her a second before mine, and she pushed her ass back into
me so that my length was as deep as possible before I exploded into her.

  “Fill me! Oh, yessss! Oh, godddddd!” Katrina arched her back into my chest as her walls convulsed against my shaft, and my balls tensed half a dozen times as I emptied a copious amount of seed into her accepting body.

  We laid there panting for a few minutes, with Katrina still entrapped in my arms, my cock still buried inside of her, and my fingers still around her throat. Then her hand lazily reached back to caress my face, and I released my grip on her neck so that I could reach down to tease one of her nipples.

  “Well, now you don’t have to be jealous anymore,” I remarked as I slowly slid out of her.

  We both let out a gasp when our bodies were no longer joined, and she turned around on the bed so she could stare into my eyes.

  “No, Janie will just have to share you, for as long as you’re still with us,” Katrina purred.

  Then she shucked off the nightgown entirely, which had still been bunched around her arms and shoulders, and tossed it aside before climbing up on top of me, with her arms around my neck and her legs straddling my lap.

  I looked down at the little patch of fine blonde hair between her thighs, exactly like Janina’s, and her cleft that I could see gleaming wetly through it. Dewy drops of my seed still clung to her hair, so I reached down and stroked her cleft with my fingers. She sighed and tipped her head back. But then she felt my hardening cock prod her from beneath, and reached down to push my hand away, and replace it with what she really wanted. When she had my shaft snugly inside of her tunnel again, she bounced up and down and pleasured herself with it as vigorously as her sister had done the night before, until she climaxed again with a cry.

  Then she slid herself off my shaft, dropped down between my legs, and took it into her mouth. She swirled every inch of it with her tongue and started sucking on it, softly and gently at first and then harder and faster until I warned her that I was going to come. She nodded her head without removing her mouth and continued for another few seconds until I released into her mouth.