by D. R. Rosier
I nodded. I sent my request to my elemental to hover, or levitate, and I felt the air lift me up. This was a sustained spell, so I had to keep my stream of magic constant. I could also move up or down by changing the amount of magic I was channeling.
I tried to get a sense of it. My magic seemed diffuse through all my body. When I used it, it would rush through my body to my mental reservoir, then out my floodgates. There wasn’t one big pool of it, there were flows and eddies around my whole body, my blood. So as I kept up the spell, it didn’t drain, it was still everywhere, just less of it.
To figure out how much less was the goal. The one good thing is I seemed to have a lot of capacity for magic in my blood. I wasn’t sure if I was born with it, or if it was a side effect of the immortality enchantment.
I heard Ari whisper as I stayed inwardly focused, “That’s about half.”
I couldn’t really tell. To make an example of it, it was the difference between staring into the sun, or a high powered spotlight. Either one will blind you. Magic was bright to my senses; it didn’t seem any duller or less to me.
I changed tactics worried that she’d tell me to stop soon. If it was everywhere, I didn’t have to watch everywhere, maybe that was making it overwhelming. So I tried to ignore the rest of my magic and focus on a very small area in my chest above my heart.
The change was immediate; it was like standing in a lit baseball stadium at night, then turning off every spotlight except one. It still wasn’t easy to tell. To carry on the metaphor it seemed like the single spotlight dimmed slightly, but it could have been in my imagination.
Ari said, “That’s enough.”
I slowly closed my floodgate, so I would slowly lower to the bed instead of dropping.
“I think I figured something out, but I won’t know for sure until we do this again. Tomorrow night?”
She frowned but nodded, “Yes, but on the road I won’t let you go under half. We’re much more likely to run into trouble. We should get to bed if we are going to wake up early tomorrow.”
I grinned and raised an eyebrow, “I am in bed…”
Damn it… special room in hell, all for me. In my defense it just slipped out.
She winked, “Well I need mine, goodnight Marcus.”
I could swear she blushed again while getting up.
“Night Ari.”
Chapter 10
I woke up with her delicious scent and with my arms wrapped around her. Sienna must have come back to the room last night and I’d grabbed her in my sleep. I moved her hair with a fingertip and kissed the back of her neck.
She made sleepy sounds and burrowed back into my body, and then she froze.
I said tentatively, “Good morning.”
Sienna said in a rush, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t sleep last night without you, and I feel fooli…”
I covered her mouth with my hand and moved back, rolling her so she faced me.
I said, “I love you. I’m sorry it was such a shock what I told you. You know, you’re the first woman I’ve loved in over a thousand years. I need you love, do you believe that?”
She said, “The first?”
I shrugged, “Probably not the time, but we talked about this before. I certainly wouldn’t want a second mistress or wife that I didn’t love. Would you? I was speaking theoretically though.”
Why did that last part feel like a lie? Or at least a partial one, I had a good idea I was halfway there with a certain Elf woman and I hadn’t even kissed her yet. We were close friends but… my mind was going off track here.
She nodded, “Second wife?”
I frowned, “I think we’re straying from the point, which is, I love you. There may be options for you, I think I can share what I have, but there are major risks to even try.”
She looked at me in disbelief, “You want me to be immortal too?”
I sighed, this conversation seemed to be wandering, “All I know is I don’t want to lose you, ever. But we have plenty of time to think about that, I don’t even want to try unless you’re already dying.”
She bit her lip and just looked at me.
“Please tell me you know you’re perfect for me,” I said.
She answered, “How, I was a…”
I’m guessing she was going to say prostitute.
I smiled, “I know, and at one time in my past I was a mass murderer who killed his victims to keep living. I think I lose on the worthy card. Forget the past, think about what you’ve done for me and for yourself the last couple of weeks. Your beauty and talent in bed is merely a bonus. You have stuck by me, even after you found out people are trying to kill me. You are trustworthy and now hold all my secrets, you take care of everything without complaint, and on top of that you love me just as much as I love you.”
I wasn’t sure what else to say, there was no way I could make her believe it.
She sighed, “I do love you, and it’s just taking a while for my new reality to sink in. We… fell in love so fast. I was just used to becoming a good mistress, and now…”
I nodded, “Why don’t we wait for the next town then in six or seven days, plenty of time to think about it.”
She frowned, “Think about what?”
It was probably the worst marriage proposal of all time as I said with exasperation, “If you will marry me of course, isn’t that what we are talking about? Be my first wife, run my household when I have one, help decide on any new mistresses or wives? Everything we have talked about my love. Everything you said you wanted. You and me.”
I’m such an asshole, who berates a woman during a proposal? An asshole like me apparently, if anything I’m not worthy of her.
Suddenly I had my arms full of Sienna; she had her body crushed against mine. Her lips sought mine and we kissed ardently. When she pulled away there were tears in her eyes.
She said lightly, “If you’re dumb enough to marry me when we get to the next town I won’t say no.”
She was kissing me again, grasping at my pants to get them undone.
I think somehow I got left behind again, because it seemed like she was fine now, ecstatically happy even. Maybe I’d ask Ari to explain it to me later… Right now we had things to do in bed before we packed up for our trip…
When we were finished with our fast and hard makeup sex, we took a quick bath just to get cleaned up. Everything seemed ready so we went down for breakfast. Ari was already there waiting for us and had food for us all.
I sat down, “Thanks,” and dug into breakfast.
A short time later we were on the road outside of town. I led with Ari behind, bracketing in Sienna. We’d have to show her how to use a bow tonight, and hope she was a natural; otherwise it would take a few hours a day for weeks before she became just a decent shot.
I thought it was curious the local mayor hadn’t tracked us down at all, considering what happened at the ambush. That told me there was probably a political reason for them to stay neutral. If they in anyway contacted me, they would have to approve or disapprove officially of our actions.
Doing that could bite them in the ass if they backed the loser. I didn’t really like playing the political game, but at least I understood it. I was sure there were layers I didn’t know about yet, but politics is the same no matter what world you’re in. Cover your ass, pass the blame and steal the credit whenever possible, while accumulating as much wealth as you can from your constituents.
The first day’s ride we made good time and distance. There were no ambushes, and we decided the likelihood was low at first, until someone found out about their recent failures and came up with a new plan. Even with mage communication spells it would take a few days to work that stuff out.
We were still careful, none of that ruled out a normal bandit ambush.
When we stopped for the night I took the time to set up a target made of compressed grass with my magic. I was trying to conserve the arrows, and target practice on a tree would chip the blade or straight out
break an arrow.
Sienna was done with dinner when I had all that set up and we ate quickly. There wasn’t all that much light left and I wanted her to have some practice with the bow before it got too dark.
I’ve said before I wasn’t the greatest archer and avoided it when possible. If there was an opposite of a natural at archery, that was me. I was going through the basics with Sienna when Ari interrupted.
“No Marcus… You’re holding it all wrong. I’ll teach her this. Why don’t you sit over there and practice feeling your magic level. I’ll watch from over here. And please, don’t ever touch a bow.”
I was feeling a little bemused and insulted at her tone of voice, like I was being talked down to, but did as she asked. I really did hate the bow, and I needed to learn my magic. This time instead of levitating I had a few small rocks orbiting me, held aloft by tiny twisters, as I sat on the ground.
Examining that small portion of my bloodstream above my heart seemed to work. I saw it slowly draining away. It still wasn’t easy as the size of it never changed; it was the… concentration of magic that went down.
Ari called out, “Alright Marcus, stop it there. That’s about half.”
I cut off the spells and considered that. I had a pretty good idea what full looked like, as well as half. I also had a good idea what a quarter looked like from the end of last night’s training. It was somewhat of a relief, considering the consequences of failing to notice running out for me.
When I got back Ari said, “With just the three of us, a ward will be easy to set. I’ll show you how and let you do it tomorrow, but all I am really doing is giving my elemental the order to wake me if an intelligent creature outside of us three gets within a hundred yards of us. There is no actual spell; the elemental will literally be our guard, but only to wake us up. But to keep its attention, I’ll need to create an extremely small stream of magic hooked up to him, even in my sleep.
“When I say small, I mean so small I’m going to wake up with more personal magic then when I went to bed. You can take a look once I get it set up. The point of that is to keep the elemental on task, stop feeding it that tiny bit of magic and it loses the thought and wanders off.”
When I nodded she closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them. I could detect the sprite now, just hanging around us. There was also a miniscule amount of magic being sent to it. I frowned, I didn’t think my dam and gate idea would work for that, I’d need to come up with something that I could visually fine tune down to that level. Something to consider during tomorrow’s ride.
I said, “Got it I think, at least on how much magic to use. I think I have a handle on my magic usage as well. How went the archery practice?”
Sienna grinned, “Take a look for yourself.”
I watched as she knocked an arrow, pulled back, and released. She looked… really good shooting a bow. I turned away reluctantly and saw the arrow in the center of the grass.
I smiled ruefully, “Better than me in under an hour,” I turned to Ari, “Can we combine training tomorrow, maybe I could give her some moving targets, and distractions.”
Ari nodded, “Good idea.”
She grinned and pulled her sword, “Spar?” she asked with her eyebrow raised in challenge.
I nodded and pulled out my sword. I hadn’t sparred with her since that first night when I tried out to be a caravan guard. I had been pretty much unofficially tasked at bringing Niol up to speed. I wasn’t worried about speed anymore; everyone here knew what I was. Still, I kept myself down to Ari’s speed.
Despite my moves being nowhere near as graceful, I was a master swordsman and we were fairly well matched. It made me wonder just how old she was, because she was better than most human sword masters I had ever met, but she looked barely twenty. I kept it to her speed and couldn’t seem to find an opening. So far I’d managed to duck or step away from all the slashes that I couldn’t move my sword to in time to block or parry. This went on for about ten minutes and Ari called a halt.
Ari looked at me suspiciously, “Was that your best?”
I shrugged, “Sort of, I didn’t hold back my skill at all, but I could have moved faster. Better work out that way, and I might learn something new.”
We stared at each other for a moment, and then Ari nodded.
Ari said, “I’d like to try against you at full speed sometime, that might help me, I’ve never fought anyone faster than me before except my old master.”
I nodded in agreement.
It was getting close to full dark, so we went to our tents and got ready for the night. Sienna gave me a considering look as she stripped down to her underclothes. She lay down next to me and started caressing my chest still looking thoughtful. She smiled at me mysteriously as if she made a decision, and then ran her hand down south, slipping into my breaches and fished out my manhood.
She kissed me teasingly before going for my neck and ears while she stroked my growing pleasure. I gasped, my hand explored the curves of her supple body. She straddled me and sheathed me inside her pleasure in one slow movement. She ground down hard to get me as deep inside her as she could, and then I felt her wet heat tighten and loosen in ripples as she got used to me.
I moaned softly and she smiled down at me. She tightened herself around my invading flesh and ground down in circles.
She leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Does this feel good love?”
She started to quickly roll her hips back and forth; I could feel her squeezing hard on the bottom and releasing when she went back down. She had an intense look of mixed pleasure and concentration on her face.
I said fervently, “You know I do. I love it when you take control on top and fuck me.”
She smiled and sat back up; arching her back she continued to grind and bounce up and down slightly while she reached back behind her and started to fondle my balls.
I moaned, “Holy shit!”
It was so intense, between the amazing control she seemed to have over the muscles near her core, and her soft nimble fingers gently rolling and caressing my balls it was all too much. I was losing control. I reached down where she was riding me and started to graze and play with her clit. She was driving me to orgasm fast and hard, and I wanted her to cum first. I lost the ability to do that though when she started to bounce up and down in full strokes, rising to the tip of my manhood, and then impaling herself down hard and grinding slightly with each stroke of her caressing wet silken heat.
I reached up to pinch and twist her nipples with thumbs and forefingers while kneading her breasts on the sides, squeezing them together.
“Oh god, Marc, fuck…” she gasped out between breaths.
She gave a final gasp and whimper before her body locked up, her mouth open in a silent scream of pleasure. Her undulating tight wet heat was too much and I abandoned my failing efforts to try to hold back. Her juice and mine both mixed as I was pulled into blissful rapture by her hot demandingly grabbing sex.
She collapsed on me and I wrapped my arms around her as she trembled. I caressed her lower back with one hand, and the back of her neck through her hair with the other.
I whispered, “What brought that on? You’ve always been incredible in bed but… wow.”
She kissed my neck and I felt her tears as her cheek touched my jaw line.
I whispered, “What’s wrong?”
She giggled, “Nothing, happy tears, just give me a minute.”
I kissed her hair on the side of her head and waited.
She finally seemed to calm down and I fell out of her when she moved to lie on her side.
She said softly, “I’ve always held back. One of the things I used to do was exercise my… muscles down there. I… don’t feel the need to anymore, hold back I mean. There are other things too, that I can’t wait to surprise you with.”
I asked gently, “Why did you hold back love?”
She giggled again, something about that and the tears seemed cathartic.
&
nbsp; She said, “I was afraid, if I… showed you all my talents in bed, you would forever be reminded of what I used to be. I’m sorry, I was worried you would just use me for the trip then dump me in the capitol and find a better woman. One who didn’t used to fuck all comers who had a few copper coins to rub together.
“It was kind of stupid; I knew you wouldn’t forget and there was shame mixed up in that too. Then of course, you are so strong, brave, kind, and good looking that I fell in love with you. Suddenly the idea of losing you after we got to the city was unbearable. But I was positive that was going to happen, I had resigned myself too it.
“When you made love to me yesterday afternoon, it felt… like a dream, unreal. Then you told me you loved me. It was just too much to hope for. It was both everything I had hoped for, and everything I was terrified I would lose. Then right after that you told me your secret and that just made my doubts worse. So… sorry I spiraled like that.”
I kissed her softly, not sure she was done I remained silent.
She said softly, “Then this morning… you asked me to marry you. Even more, you didn’t want me as an ornament. You wanted me to help run the house and servants. At first I was dumbstruck, how could you dump me later if you marry me? Then it all just kind of clicked. My doubts felt foolish, it was obvious you did love me, and didn’t care what I had been, only about what I was and could be. Then I thought about it all during the day, and holding back in bed felt stupid too, it always was really.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, I was glad she had worked it all out. I just held her and caressed her for a while.
She whispered so softly I could barely hear her, “Is Ari asleep?”
I checked using my magic to detect air. She seemed to be still, breathing regularly. It felt like a violation so I backed off my magic.
I whispered back, “I think so, why?”
She giggled, “I couldn’t help but notice the way you too act and look at each other. With just the three of us she is very open. I just wanted you to know I approve of her, even if we won’t be married another five or six days.”