Out of Darkness: Cirenthian Chronicles (Erotic Fantasy) Book 1

by D. R. Rosier

  She looked considering, “What’s our chances of not having to kill a lot of soldiers with us walking over there with him cuffed?”

  I snickered, “Not good, so we could… nope, got nothing.”

  A loud horn blew.

  I frowned, “That couldn’t mean what I think it means… could it? That kind of bad timing doesn’t happen in real life.”

  She peered at me, “Goblins have mages too you know. They could have been scrying the mayor looking for an opportunity and seen all this happen. The horn definitely means Hunter’s Ridge is under attack.”

  Fuck. Now what? Hopefully the troops don’t need close supervision, but without mages the goblin mages will tear the wall apart…

  Chapter 15

  I checked on Sienna and growled, she was in the street and moving our way. I had between a half and three quarters of my magic left, we were being attacked by goblins, and we were standing around the dead bodies of the city’s leadership without proof they did anything wrong.

  I laughed.

  Ari raised an eyebrow.

  I shrugged and said mirthfully, “Who needs plans, let’s wing it.”

  I kicked James in the stomach, not that hard, and he moaned. He came to and squinted up at us. He had a good size knot on his forehead and his eyes were glassy.

  I growled, “We are under attack, I’m taking you to the healer. If you call out or try to have us attacked by the guards that need to be protecting the city right now I’ll slit your damn throat.”

  James looked mostly out of it, but he nodded in agreement, and then groaned in pain.

  “Grab his other arm.”

  Ari looked at me for a minute, then shrugged and helped me pick him up. We helped him outside and I called over a soldier.

  Ari glared at me.

  I was probably losing it to tell the truth. But I had to do something, right?

  I barked when the soldier got close, “Where would mage Amy be set up during an attack?”

  He looked at me strangely, and then at James.

  The soldier pointed to a building on the barracks side, “The infirmary.”

  Ari and I started walking that way.

  Ari sounded stressed, “How did you know he wouldn’t sound an alarm?”

  I laughed, “I didn’t, but human nature was on my side. I looked and sounded like I was in authority. I had a wounded mage the man knew and was asking about a where to find a healer. The last part is we are under attack and he’s probably focused on that.”

  Ari grunted, “We will have a talk when this is all over.”

  I sighed, “We could just dump him and run for the gate, use the goblin attack as an opportunity to escape. Leave all the people to die. I know you don’t want to do that.”

  Ari growled, “Yes, but that doesn’t mean winging it, whatever the hell that means, is the best way to handle this.”

  I winced, “That means make it up as we go back where I’m from.”

  She snorted and sounded annoyed, “Obviously”

  James mumbled, “What are you planning.”

  I could clearly feel the healer’s magic as we closed in to the building.

  I growled, “That’s up to you, if you can be trusted to keep your oaths and protect the city, and not turn on us at the first opportunity, we’ll let you get to your job. We will even help, protecting the city is more important right now than your crazy ex mayor’s plans.”

  He said blearily, “Not hers, just in this city.”

  I rolled my eyes, great. Something to look forward too.

  I asked, “Who?”

  I felt him try to shrug as we entered the building, “Dunno, only Friesa knew.”

  “Friesa?”

  He coughed, “The mayor.”

  There were no other wounded yet, I was pretty sure the lookouts sounded the horn and battle hadn’t started yet. We walked him over to a cot and poured him in it.

  Ari looked at me and said, “Are you sure about this?” as she put up her hood.

  I shook my head, “No, do you have a better idea?”

  She said, “No. I’ve been scrying around the city. The back wall faces the mountains and the goblins are slowly surrounding us. The gate is clear right now, but no, I wouldn’t sacrifice all these people to escape. Not when his forced testimony can prove we weren’t in the wrong.”

  An older woman came in the room wearing white robes. She looked at the scene concerned and moved over to heal James. I assumed he had a major concussion. She saw the cuffs on him and frowned.

  “What happened here?” she asked.

  While she healed him I gave her a brief version of our last two weeks and the mayor’s words.

  She nodded, “I had a feeling something wasn’t quite right about them. But letting James go is a horrible idea young man. He needs to go to into a cell. Linden is old, but he used to be head of the military until mayor Friesa got here and put in her toady. He knows what to do, if you want to stay and help. He should be here in a minute, I sent him a message.”

  Ari looked at me, “I like her plan.”

  She was doing that stone face under the hood thing, I had no idea if she was angry with me or not. I checked on my wife. Sienna was by the inner gates looking both determined and unsure on how to get past them. Stubborn woman.

  I smiled, “So do I, Sienna is by the inner gate, I’d feel better if she was with us.”

  I heard a gruff voice behind me, “If you’re willing to help, pick her up on your way to the main gate. They usually concentrate their attack there. Hell of a story you told Amy here. Don’t know if you’re familiar with using magic in battle, so the rule I’m going to tell you is don’t. Leave the killing to the soldiers; only use your magic to defend against goblin mages. Otherwise you’ll run out real fast before the battle is close to being over.”

  I replied, “I understand.”

  He grunted, “Follow me.”

  He took us outside and called over a captain.

  “Escort these two mages to the front gate and inform the Colonel they are there to protect against magic only, and that he still holds command but is to leave them to do as they will. Understand?”

  The captain said smartly, “Yes sir!”

  I asked, “Any idea where our swords might be?”

  The captain said, “If they were taken from you yes.”

  We stopped quickly at another building on the way to the gate. I wasn’t happy about the delay but I felt naked without a sword, magic or not. He came out a few minutes later and we claimed our swords back and started for the gate.

  We were moving somewhere between a fast walk and a jog. I wanted to stop and give Sienna a hug, a kiss, and start an argument over her leaving the room, but I wasn’t sure how much time we had. Instead we merely shared a relieved smile as she joined us, and I sketched out the last hour or so that she had missed.

  The conspiracy may be dead here, but it was still in the capitol and we had no way of knowing who. There were a bunch of mages there as well since it was the seat of power, plus another ten to fifteen mages in training and I knew we would have our work cut out for us. About the only ones we could safely eliminate from suspicion were the king and the heir.

  Assuming we survived the goblins trying to sack the city of course.

  When we turned the corner toward the gate I could see battle had already started. I could sense the goblins climbing up the walls, and when they were either killed or knocked off. The gate was on fire and I was going to drench to the wood with water and ice, but the fires blinked out.

  Ari ordered in her teacher voice, “Fire is my element, let me handle that. We can share air and you have water. Earth could be a problem; those attacks will cost the most to repel. We’ll just have to deal with it the best we can.”

  I grinned, “Yes beautiful and wise teacher.”

  She shook her head and whispered, “Stop that.”

  I said innocently, “Stop what?”

  She said, “Trying to get an emo
tional reaction from me while I’m amidst these strangers.”

  I snickered, “Would I do that?”

  Yes, I would…

  We stayed on the ground level by the wall, scrying the area. There were a lot of goblins but the men seemed to be holding the walls just fine. They were very well trained and motivated. We defended against strikes of fire, water, and air. The stones that were thrown at the wall as if from a catapult were a different story. We could block one, if I was willing to build a few feet thick wall of ice, but we had to conserve our magic.

  We did the best we could to deflect the forward momentum of the stones but they were still pounding the walls pretty hard. I had a feeling the defenders wouldn’t do as well if the wall crumbled out from under them.

  I said, “I know what the old man said about just defending, but we need to take out that earth mage before he exhausts us and takes down the damn walls.”

  She shook her head, “We can’t take our focus from defense. If we start a duel with the earth mage the others will take it as an opportunity and take us out. We can defend against the four of them, barely, but we can’t defend and attack.”

  Sienna frowned, “How far out is the earth mage?”

  I grunted, “About fifty yards?”

  I moved my scrying away from my eye and enlarged it so she could see.

  She turned and ran for the tower and my mind finally caught up to why she was asking. I wanted to growl in frustration because I wanted her to stay safe. But I also couldn’t help but be proud that I was her husband, I didn’t marry a weak woman, and when I was honest with myself I knew I didn’t want her to be one.

  Not getting to have it both ways was a source of frustration I’d have to learn to live with.

  I was definitely getting faster with my magic though and tried to imagine the last few weeks if I hadn’t befriended Ari and gotten her to train me. I was sure we’d be dead. I didn’t know any true spells or advanced magic yet. I wasn’t even sure all of what it could do, but luckily battle magic seemed to be the fluid non-structured kind based on affinities that I had learned.

  As the battle went on I had moments to regret my enhanced senses. I could smell all the blood, and unlike on earth it filled me with disgust instead of a bloodlust. I could hear the weapons not only clang against each other; I could hear the crunch of bone, the tearing of flesh and the last breaths of the fallen all across the top of the wall.

  I pulled my scrying back to the small size and position, and continued to defend. I was under the halfway mark, though it was still well above one quarter which was my cutoff. But could I in conscience stop defending when it dropped that low?

  I wasn’t sure what Sienna did to convince the colonel, but suddenly every archer on the wall was firing at the earth mage. I was positive Sienna was raining arrows down at him herself as well. I saw the goblin mage raise walls of dirt to stop the arrows coming for him in all directions. He wasn’t exactly stopped, but he was distracted, attacking less, and I was sure he was quickly going through his magic.

  The other mages started to target the archers, but Ari stole the fire before it could reach them. I destroyed any water attacks by disrupting the magic holding it together and we both defended the archers from air blades and other forms of attacks.

  It seemed to take forever as the stalemate went on. But I still had close to a quarter of my magic when the goblin horn sounded and they went into retreat. The goblins slowly bled back into the mountains and I felt relieved. Thanks to Ari and me they didn’t have the quick victory they expected after the deaths in the mayor’s office.

  Still, if not for us they wouldn’t have attacked at all…

  It was time to bury the dead and count the cost of the butcher’s bill.

  Chapter 16

  We went back to the inn. I was sure that Linden would want to speak to us again at some point, but was too busy to do so now. We were tired, and I could see the relief in their eyes that I was sure I held in mine. We seemed to be safe for now.

  Sienna said, “I’m starving, I’ll bring us food.”

  I smiled, “Sounds good, I’ll start the bath going.”

  When I got up in the room I changed the ward back to just a detection ward and drained the magic out of it and back into myself, which put me a little above a quarter. It would take about a day to recover. I turned on the bath and stripped my ruined clothes. There were holes and burn marks all over my outfit from that fireball explosion, but my skin was completely healed already.

  I slipped into the tub and started washing. I closed my eyes and sighed in relaxation when I felt Ari start washing my back as she stepped into the tub behind me. Then she started massaging my head and rubbing soap in. I moaned and closed my eyes and she laughed throatily.

  “You like that?” her questioning voice was soothing and just a little bit sultry.

  I nodded slightly and whispered, “Very much.”

  Sienna came in and put our food on the bed, then stripped as she walked over. I sighed in contentment as she got in the tub in front of me and pushed back. Their soft silky bodies surrounded and pressed into mine felt heavenly. I could feel myself respond and it pushed against Sienna’s back. For now though I ignored it and started washing Sienna from behind as Ari washed me.

  We took our time as if convincing ourselves we were all fine, still together and alive. It was very sensual but we stopped just short of sex. It was very soothing. But eventually the water started to cool and get uncomfortable, and our bodies were telling us we were hungry.

  We fed each other and touched and caressed a lot. Sienna and Ari were touching each other too, although I was the only one they kissed. In modern earth parlance I didn’t think they swung that way, but still, they cared about each other.

  We had never discussed the possibility of a threesome. It seemed more like it would just be two women who shared my bed at different times, and shared our lives together. But the kisses slowly changed their nature from reassuring and expressions of relief from the stress of the last week, to more passionate. I could scent both of them as their arousal grew moist.

  Ari’s scent drove me wild, but so did her taste and I found myself kissing my way down her body. Instead of stopping me she made encouraging noises as I kissed my way down to the source of her arousing scent. I moaned in approval as I ran a tongue up her silken, swollen, and glistening lips.

  The feel of Sienna soft kisses down my back while she wrapped her arms around me and lightly stroked my length drove me to greater efforts as lust and desire mixed with a tender love. I reached up and separated Ari’s labia with fore and ring finger, sliding my middle finger into her small tight pleasure while flicking her hardening nub with my tongue.

  I gasped as Sienna reached the bottom of my back and continued to kiss down my crack. She teased my rim briefly before turning on her back and shimmying under between my legs. She stroked me up and down a little harder now while teasing my balls with her tongue. Then she pulled my manhood straight down and her soft full lips wrapped around it.

  Ari whimpered in pleasure and she ground against my tongue while pulling me into her by my hair. I continued to flick her clit with my tongue and slowly circle it as I slid a second finger into her silken heat and then curled them, finding and rubbing her g-spot with my fingertips.

  I could tell Sienna was enjoying my hard pleasure in her warm talented mouth. She was making sounds of enjoyment and teasingly held me right near the cusp of pleasure. I was also pretty sure she was playing with her hot core and I bet she looked like a goddess doing it.

  Ari’s sexy body closed tightly around my fingers, her delicious honey flooded my fingers, face, and mouth as she trembled on the tip of my tongue. When she could move again, Ari used her legs and rolled me onto my back popping my manhood out of Sienna’s mouth.

  Ari said hungrily, “I need him in me.”

  I looked at Sienna and she just smiled.

  As Ari forcefully mounted me and impaled herself Sienna crawle
d over to me and straddled my head, facing toward the wall and away from Ari. With Ari’s taste and smell all over my face and mouth I dug into my wife’s heat with my tongue. I slapped her ass then squeezed it with my hands while she ground against my face. I loved the taste of both of them, but something about tasting them both on my tongue at the same time drove me crazy.

  Ari reached out and took one of my hands and place it over one of her breasts as she started to bounce and grind on my manhood. I knew what Ari wanted, and started to tease her breast and pinch her nipples one at a time while also caressing, squeezing and occasionally spanking Sienna’s sweet supple ass.

  I wanted to thrust up into Ari, but between working my tongue deep into Sienna’s hot pleasure as she ground herself on my face and tongue, and my hands doing two completely different things, I just didn’t have the focus to do more through the intense pleasure of loving the both of them at once. So I just let Ari take me. Ari was so hot and tight, the wet friction pure bliss, it caused me to moan deeply into Sienna’s hot core, and she gasped at the feeling.

  Ari felt too damn good, and eating Sienna as she got herself off on my face was driving me crazy. When Sienna’s juice fell from her heated pleasure into my waiting mouth it all became too much and my body reflexively pushed up hard into Ari’s soft body as I emptied myself in her.

  Ari kept going as I filled her and didn’t stop. I was coming down as I felt her tighten around my extremely sensitive tip and felt her cum around my girth.

  It didn’t take long to get me hard again. Sienna wanted her turn with my hardened pleasure as well. The second round went even longer as I drove Sienna and Ari to multiples before I filled up my wife with my seed.

  We laid there after that last round, both of them snuggled into either side of me. I wasn’t sure if we would ever do something like that again. Perhaps it was just the carnal need after battle and the relief of the stress from last week that drove them to love me together. Perhaps neither of them wanted to be the one to put off connecting with me.