Steel Sirens

by Maxx Whittaker

  Which I do, gladly.

  I channel her strength, send a quick surge of power through abused muscles that cords them beneath my skin. My hands are under her ass, and I lift her clear, freeing my cock from her, all but the head. I hold her like that for a long moment, suspended above me, barely inside her.

  She bares her teeth, fearsome, eyes half lidded.

  I pull her down, hard, rough. One thrust, savage, piercing her.

  For the briefest moment, she loses her iron control, goes boneless as her hands come down like thunder on each side of my face. She growls against my chest, heaving, each explosive inhalation tinged with bliss.

  This time, when I lift her, I don’t need the gift. She lets me take control, comes up with me, sitting up as her thick lips slide up my shaft.

  She towers above me, raised high, waiting expectantly.

  And then Emeree steps over my face.

  I stare up, along long legs to a pussy I can still feel. My eyes roam across her taut belly, her little breasts that bounce with her heavy breaths. Up to her face, staring down at me, and though she’s ravaged, face blotched with dark color, she still grins in expectation.

  Somewhere, I released Siri's bond, though I don’t remember when. It’s left me weak, but the Siren holds position, doesn’t slide back down my cock as I release my hold on her ass. She watches Emeree, with some combination of invitation and jealousy, almost possessiveness, and my admiration for Emeree’s courage climbs when she doesn’t back away.

  Instead, she lowers, slowly, until her pussy is a finger’s width from my face. I can feel its heat, smell the delicious mix of strawberries and our cum, and I long to lick, to reach up and pull her down, to drown in the ocean of her body.

  But instead, I wait, wonder what impossible thing is going to happen next.

  Emeree leans forward, trails a long line of wet kisses down Siri's breasts, her belly, slowly marking her bit by bit before fully laying along my length. On hands and knees, now, I watch, helpless, as her ass wiggles, pushing her clit tantalizingly close. I can feel her breath on my cock where it still stands, held upright by the tip still clenched in Siri's thick warmth.

  “What are you–” The words die in my throat as nimble fingers circle the base of my cock, grip tight. She pulls me free of Siri, and takes me, deep in her mouth, sliding wet lips along my length. I suck in a ragged breath at the heat of her tongue at it pulls roughly at my head, before she takes me so deep I hit the back of her throat.

  I look up, can barely breathe. Siri stares down, expression indecipherable, waiting.

  With agonizing, delicious slowness, Emeree pulls free. Her lips pull along each inch of me, before I slide free with a vulgar pop.

  She sits up, once again upright above my face. “Just wanted to taste all three of us.”

  Siri, still unreadable, narrows her eyes. Leans forward, slow, then slides her tongue into Emeree’s mouth, pressing their lips so tight that fresh blood trails from her bite.

  Something in Siri's kiss, how she takes Emeree, is a silent signal, and we’re lost, licking, devouring each other. Siri takes me mercilessly, bouncing along my shaft, as I take Emeree’s pussy with my mouth, sliding my tongue as deep as it will go in her pink warmth. They kiss, bite, lick, hands full of each other’s tits, taking each other with as much passion as they take me.

  Emeree reaches forward, laying a finger along my length in such a way that as Siri pounds down, it slides along the other woman’s clit. Siri's moans deepen, and she buries her face in Emeree’s neck. She feels so fucking incredible, so different than Emeree. Not as tight, but more muscled, and her pussy grips my cock like a fist, milking me, drawing me closer and closer to the edge.

  Emeree grinds her pussy back and forth across my lips, my tongue, every inch of her soft folds delicious. I gasp, over and over, into her as Siri fucks me, so hard that my motions against Emeree are almost clumsy. Still, I find her clit with my tongue each time she passes, and her little yips of pleasure heighten until she cums against my face, falling helplessly against Siri.

  When she recovers, she reaches forward again, and between strokes that drive me absolutely wild, she grips the base of my cock, and jerks me off in time with Siri's bouncing. When Siri lifts, she pulls upward, bringing the skin of my shaft along with it, and her fist never breaks contact with Siri's pussy. When Siri comes down, she leads, bouncing my tightening balls.

  The combination of sensations is too much, too intense. Even so close after cumming, I’m close, ready. I lick, tease, pull whimpers from Emeree as Siri grunts over and over, eyes closed, muscles straining as she takes me.

  The bonds between us stretch taut, thrum with promise. We all feel it, know when the others are close, time it. When we cum, it’s at the same time. I explode inside Siri, cum so hard that my face spasms against Emeree’s pussy over and over, increasing the potency of her orgasm. Siri curses as I fill her, her moans animal, feral, and her pussy grips me so tight it’s almost painful. We tremble in each other’s arms, waiting for the sensation to pass, waiting to come down.

  Emeree pulls away first. Her fingers trail little strings of my cum, and she examines her hand, eyebrow arched with silent accusation. I laugh, but any words I’d speak are robbed as she leans in and takes a long finger in her mouth. Siri follows, and their lips meet across her knuckles as they suck away thin white threads.

  Gods. Damn.

  They settle on either side of me, not bothering to dress. I open my arms and they rest their heads on my shoulders, painting my cheeks, ears, lips with little kisses and licks. They lean across me, kiss, a quick brush of their lips filled with affection, long practiced. They come closer, making contact with my lips, and for long moments we all kiss, tease, lick.

  There’s something so intimate, so familiar in the way they treat each other. They were together a long time before being cursed, and now I’ve become a part of it.

  Siri reaches down grips my still trembling cock and jerks it, once, rumbling approval into my neck. “Some battles are better than others.”

  Emeree laughs into my neck as her fingertips dance through the hair at my chest, roam until they find one of Siri's nipples. She tweaks it playfully. “I told you that you’d like him.”

  I shake my head. Every part of me is battered, abused, and I loved every gods damned minute of it. “I need a drink. Or five.”

  ***

  The urge to sleep, to rest in the cooling afternoon, is powerful, but I don’t close my eyes. Can’t. After the last hour, I’m a live wire, and I want...I don’t know what I want. To right. To run. To fuck again.

  Siri's hand still rests across my cock, her grip gentle yet dominant. I wonder what I’ve got myself into, whether I could leave right now if I wanted to.

  Then I realize I don’t care, that I’m happy right where I am.

  Siri feels something in me, some change, lifts her head to peer at me with a question. Her grip tightens, and she pumps me, once. I’m instantly hard in her grip, ready, and she rumbles approval.

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Emeree yawns, languid. “If you two are ready for another round, don’t think that I–”

  I silence her with a finger to the lips.

  Something’s wrong.

  Siri releases me, is instantly crouched on the balls of her feet, a from lazy to ready in a heartbeat. “What?” She whispers.

  “Impossible,” I breathe, crouching. “There’s something...Not like last time, when we were ambushed, but I can feel...something. Coming our way.”

  “How did they track us?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t track us, not with ten more of me helping.”

  The Sirens scan the tree line, intent. “What is it?” Emeree whispers.

  “Like nothing I’ve ever felt. The forest is silent, somewhere out there. And something just feels...Wrong.”

  Their glances are quizzical. They need more. I shrug. “I’m sorry. Just...We have to go. I don’t know what it is, but something is comi
ng.”

  We’re armored impossibly fast, gather our weapons and stow our bedrolls just as quickly. The Sirens mount up, and Hafna protests under Siri's weight. I’m not worried. She’s a good horse, powerful.

  “Which way?” Emeree asks as Falnir dances under her. The horses whicker, irritated, sense our agitation.

  “Doesn’t matter. Upriver, stay in the stream when we can. It’ll help hide our tracks.”

  Siri's eyes narrow. “Good. Aleska is that way.” She points in the general direction the river flows.

  I’m the last to mount up, and I move around the camp, doing my best to erase signs of our presence. We didn’t light a fire, which is good, but there are some decidedly… Unnatural… Impressions in the sand. I use a long branch to smooth the shore, cast about for anything else out of place. “Okay, I think we’re good. Let’s go.”

  I mount, and then we run. Chased once again.

  But this time, I’m not alone.

  23

  “What do you see?”

  Emeree’s shout is distant, echoing up through the branches and leaves of the giant tree I’ve climbed. “One second!”

  We’ve travelled north, leaving the river behind, for roughly four hours. I’ve done my best to cover our tracks, to find paths over rock or through streams, but it’s not working. Whatever’s chasing us is unerring, drawing closer, faster than our horses. And the closer it gets, the initial feeling I had, that this was something wrong, abhorrent, grows more powerful. It has the same flavor as Myranda’s necromancy, but is somehow far worse, like sin made flesh.

  I really don’t want to find out what it is.

  But stumbling through endless woods, getting more and more lost, isn’t going to help us, hence my decision to take a few stolen moments to climb the biggest tree I could find. Emeree and Siri are familiar with the world, and if there’s a landmark they can use to orient us, it might save us.

  I scan the treetops, breath stolen by the panorama. My tree is taller than all but a few for miles, and the remaining are a lush, emerald ocean, flowing lazily in the breeze. The rustle of the wind through hundreds of thousands of leaves flows and ebbs, and i wonder if this is what the ocean sounds like.

  Above it, the sky is beautiful, a perfectly cerulean carpet only marred by a few drifting white specks of cloud. Birds whips back and forth in the distance, little schools of flowing ink.

  The vista is stunning, so peaceful that for a moment the violence, the darkness of the last few weeks seems unreal, impossible.

  But it’s not.

  Enough musing. I peer, turning full circle. Off to the west, far distant, is a mountain range, craggy teeth that challenge the sky. Despite it being midsummer, some are so tall that they have caps of white snow. The range stretches off to the northeast, like the spine of the world.

  They must be The Long March. A strange name for mountains, I always thought, peering at the map back home. I’ve never seen anything like them. But they stretch from horizon to horizon, and I have no way of knowing exactly where we are in relation to them, so they’re not much help.

  I turn, scanning west, and when I see it, I almost fall off my branch.

  Another mountain, hulking, massive, the color of dark rust. It has no brothers, this time, is alone. It’s so tall that it dwarfs The Long March, but despite that, no snow tops it.

  And it’s glowing.

  It’s dull, barely visible in the evening sunlight, but I can see it. Dark red light radiates from the entire peak, pulsing like a heartbeat.

  I don’t remember seeing this on the map.

  “Ewan?”

  “Em,” I shout, unable to tear my eyes from the monolith. “There’s a... a mountain over there. Giant, red... Some kind of light bleeding from it!”

  A pause. “Come on down, I think I know where we are!”

  I shake my head, pulling my gaze away, and scramble down the tree. Years of climbing, of hunting, would make this easy, normally, but the ride here has undone much of the healing that the Sirens leant me. With a start, I realize that I haven’t had a real night of sleep since the tavern with Emeree, what feels like years ago. The night in the keep with Siri wasn’t spent sleeping, for the most part, and we only caught a few hours. Since then, it’s been running, fighting, almost dying.

  Gods, I’m exhausted.

  I fall from the last branch, crouching to shield sore knees as I land.

  Emeree’s eyes dance. “He’s like one of those monkeys the Ailish monks train.”

  “What’s a monkey?” I groan, standing.

  Siri hmm’s. “I haven’t seen him throw shit. Yet.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Emeree elbows the other Siren. “He climbed you easily enough.”

  Siri coughs, and the tinge of color to her cheeks would be the most impossible thing I’ve ever seen, if I hadn’t just laid eyes on a giant glowing mountain. “Em?”

  “Right. That’s the Spike of Van. We don’t know much about it, just that it’s been there since the dawn of the world, and you can’t climb it. Or, at least, no one that we know of ever has.” She adjusts her blade, readying to mount. “Which direction?”

  “That way,” I gesture, “and exactly opposite is a long mountain range, The Long March, I think.”

  Emeree nods, eyes distant, thoughtful, as I climb aboard Glaer with a wince. “Why hasn’t it been explored? And why isn’t it on maps?”

  We move off, Emeree leading. “The light you saw? It repulses life.”

  “Life?”

  “Mmhmm. It’s bizarre. The closer you get, the more you’re resisted, until you can’t get any closer. It’s like a wall of light. Doesn’t hurt, won’t kill you. Just wants you to leave,” she laughs, nudging Glaer around a rocky outcropping.

  “You sound like familiar with it.”

  Siri sighs. “You know her well enough to know why, by now.”

  I roll my eyes. “You tried to climb it.”

  “Maybe!”

  “And couldn’t.”

  She shrugs, flashes me a heart stopping smile. “Yet.”

  “I want to be there the day you succeed.”

  She blows me a kiss. “Anyway, it’s probably not on your map because it was Dray made.”

  “Dray? I didn’t know they were smart enough to follow a map, let alone make one.”

  “Hah. Don’t underestimate them. Some may be dumb, but they aren’t all. And some of them are lovely. Why, I spent a summer with one in the east, at least a hundred years ago. That was fun. He had the endurance of a–”

  “The map?” I cough.

  She winks. “They worship the Spike, not as a god. It’s complicated. But it’s holy, to them, and to depict it in writing or picture is punishable by death.”

  “Must make navigation hard.”

  “They can feel it,” Siri says, surprising me. She’s so quiet, I almost forget she’s there, sometime. “They all do. From anywhere, they can tell which direction it lies.”

  “That’s incredible. How?”

  “No one knows.” Emeree casts me a speculative glance. “There are a lot of unsolved mysteries in the world, Ewan. Kind of like you.”

  “Me? The only thing unsolved about me is how in the hells I got lucky enough to be with the two most beautiful women in the world.”

  Her face turns wry. “That was pretty rough.”

  I blush. “Yeah, I’m not really great with...Compliments. Too much avoiding people.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say I minded.” She reins alongside me and fits our hands together. “I meant it. There’s something...Sensing the thing chasing us? You denied it before, but there is more to this. I’ve been alive several hundred years longer than you, and I’ve never seen magic that grants ability like that.”

  “My father was a ranger. I’m a ranger. We’re a part of the forest. There’s nothing magical about it.”

  “And the cavern?” Siri asks, pulling even with us. “The spider? I couldn’t hear it until it was almost on top of us.”<
br />
  “I... I don’t know. I just knew it was there.”

  Emeree gives me a told you so smile.

  I’m about to open my mouth for a retort, but stop. “It’s coming...We have to move faster.”

  They don’t ask questions, just spur their horses. “See what I mean?” Emeree’s face is serious. “I’ve struck a deal with a goddess and I can’t feel anything behind us.”

  I don’t answer, chewing my cheek. What if she’s right?

  Who were my parents?

  “Where are we going?” I ask, eager to change the subject.

  “Based on where we were, Lake Bororos should be five miles north, roughly. It’s huge, so we’ll have to cross it, but maybe that’s a good thing. Help us lose our friends.”

  “We going to build a raft?”

  Her lips quirk. “There’s a little fishing village on this coast, should be easy to find. Fifty years ago, it was cozy, busy. We can hire a barge big enough for us and the horses.”

  “Sounds good. I’m not much of a swimmer.”

  She makes a subtle motion to Siri. “No, you’re much better at climbing.”

  I can’t help but laugh, despite everything. That she can still make lewd remarks when we might be dead in an hour makes me love her so much more.

  “After we cross the lake, you’re welcome to mount me, again,” Siri says, and a surge of lust and desire hits me, so powerful it nearly knocks me from my horse.

  And what’s still odd, to me, is that moments after wanting nothing more than to pull Emeree from her horse and drag her into the bushes, I feel the same about Siri. Damn. Am I in love with them both? I think I might be. Is there something wrong with me?

  Back in the village, instances of cheating ended with thrown crockery, screaming, and tears. I’ve never heard of a man being with more than one woman at once, or a woman with more than one man. Not without hellfire following. I’ve always thought that was normal, a man and wife.

  But the Sirens don’t seem to care. In fact, if anything, this is normal for them. And what happens when we find the others? If all four of them share everything…