by Eric Vall
“Yes, but you’ll fix it,” she purred with a careless shrug.
“Thanks,” I snorted. “I needed another mess to clean up. I wasn’t busy with anything as important as defending the regions from the Master. I was actually bored before all of this happened.”
I turned and headed for the entrance, but I only made it halfway there when the Baroness materialized from the shadows to my right, and she caught my arm in her slender grip to stop me.
“I know it is inconvenient,” she told me in a low voice, and I spared her half a glance. “Sometimes inconvenience is necessary to put you in a position of greater power.”
“Are we talking about your power or mine?” I clarified.
“Yours, of course,” she replied. “If this attack had not taken place, the other Defenders would not have been forced to heed your warnings about the possessed mages. Hulsan would still be attempting to sway your loyalty, the king would not have realized you are the perfect man to lead this Order, and you never would have learned that young Markus has knowledge you and your mages could benefit from.”
I pulled my arm free as I turned to face the woman.
“Should I be grateful?” I challenged. “I’m not impressed you can creep around in shadows and infringe on private conversations. I had to kill our own mages off by the dozens yesterday rather than save them, and I should be building defenses and scouting the eastern foothills to prepare an attack. Instead, I’m here arguing with you in a city that never should have been destroyed.”
“Admit it,” she chuckled without concern. “You’re a little impressed.”
“Look, I’ll spell it out for you,” I growled. “My business is my own, and it isn’t for sale, Baroness Batonova. Anyone who’s looking to trade my secrets can kiss my ass, including you, so stop following me.”
“Then you are angry with me.”
My fury was mounting now, but the ebony bed of cleavage only an inch from my line of sight was difficult to ignore as I glared down at the woman. She kept casually bringing herself closer, too, and all the while, her expression was impossible to read. It was a flawless, coal black mask, and her two-toned gaze had some kind of hold on me that made me forget I was in the middle of storming off.
“How the hell did you know about the king’s offer?” I demanded as my focus faltered. “Only the king and two people know about that. I haven’t even told my women.”
“But Haragh will tell them for you,” she said with a smirk, and my jaw locked.
“See that?” I muttered as my pulse pounded in my ears. “That right there is exactly why I’m done having this conversation with you. Or any conversation with you for that matter. Every time you open your mouth, you give me more proof I shouldn’t trust you, but you act like I should be flattered. I’m not.”
Finally, the Baroness’ mask shattered as her eyes widened in alarm, but I turned my back and headed for the entrance before she could say anything else to piss me off.
Then I heard her heels clicking against the stone floor as she followed after.
“Fine,” she said, and the hair on the back of my neck rose at the velvety tone of her voice. “I may not work in a style you appreciate, Mason Flynt, but I assure you I only have your best interests in mind.”
“Prove it,” I growled over my shoulder. “So far, I’m not convinced.”
I had every intention of storming down the steps and washing my hands of the woman for good, but then I felt the Baroness’ powers closing in, and I didn’t make it to the archway before her shadows bloomed in front of me. The darkness undulated slowly like a curtain of smoke as the ancient hall disappeared from view, and I tried to push through, but the disorienting haze had me turned around within seconds.
I could hear the Baroness’ heels clicking closer as my hand finally knocked into a wall, and I flipped around with my back braced to see her sauntering through the fine black mist.
Her eyes were hooded as she eyed me without blinking, and her tautly bound cleavage rose and fell heavily with every breath. Still, my hand slid to my pistol as I realized the shadows were drawing closer, and something in her expression had my blood slowly heating up.
“Baroness, if this is some--” I tried, but she pressed herself flush against me before I could finish, and she held an ebony finger against my lips to silence me.
“I thought I told you,” she murmured softly. “Call me Nulena.”
Then the Baroness lowered herself onto her knees in front of me, and I could only stare as she began to unlatch my belt.
“Say it,” she purred, “please?”
There was a depraved sort of glint in her two-toned eyes now, and as I felt her grip tighten around my cock, I realized her mask was completely gone.
Chapter 4
The Baroness gasped lightly as she pulled out my already raging erection, and she bit at the meat of her bottom lip while she admired my girth. Then she began slowly dragging her satiny tongue up the length of my shaft, and when she finally got to the head, she lapped up a bead of precum. Her two-toned eyes flicked up to me as she swirled her tongue teasingly around the tip, and the sight of the secretive woman kneeling so wantonly at my feet made it impossible to come up with a logical rebuttal.
“Nulena, I don’t think--” I tried, but the moment her name left my tongue, the Baroness whimpered softly and wrapped her lips around my tip.
Then she pulled me deeper into her mouth, one inch at a time, and my entire lower half started to tingle as my head fell limp against the wall. The heated pulsing of her tongue against me shut my brain down immediately, and I stared up at the shifting shadows. The depth of the darkness surrounding us gave me the sense we were completely cut off from the rest of the world, and I knew no one would even know we were here if they walked into the hall now. It didn’t matter that my breath grated in my lungs as pleasure overtook my whole body, or that the Baroness moaned with shameless enjoyment while she sucked more desperately.
I had her completely to myself, and as my head became light on my shoulders, I managed to look down to find her eyes burning up at me.
She looked at me like I was a god and she had hundreds of sins she was confessing right now, and the abyss of her coal black eye looked so impure while the ghostly white one blinked submissively at me.
That’s when I realized I’d never seen a woman look at me like she was right now, and I immediately released my hold on my pistol to slide my hand around her neck instead.
With the Baroness clutching at my wrist, I cupped her against me while I began slowly thrusting myself deeper into her mouth, and I couldn’t resist tightening my grip to a punishing one as I felt the back of her throat finally constrict around me.
Her soft flesh felt like heated silk as her moans vibrated straight through me, and when the Baroness suddenly forced me even deeper, my restraint snapped. I gave her what she wanted as I gradually drove myself into her with more powerful thrusts, and when she took my full length deep into her, I couldn’t wait any longer.
My seed burst from my shaft and gushed down her throat, and the Baroness struggled to take it all in as her nails curled painfully into my arm. I could feel her muscles pulsing deeply as she began to tremble in my hold, but I didn’t stop thrusting as my cum kept streaming out, and the whole time, the woman’s eyes remained locked onto mine.
Only when every drop had coursed into her did I finally loosen my grip a bit, and the Baroness’ eyes fluttered shut as I slowly pulled myself from the heated sheath of her mouth. Then she rolled her tongue thirstily against the underside of my cock, and I realized she was already wanting more.
I had half a mind to test her resilience for a while longer, too, but the brassy sound of horns suddenly erupted across the Oculus, and I heard the king’s guards march through the stone gates. The Defenders all abandoned their work and hurried to stand at attention for the king, and the Baroness’ sinful gaze flicked up to me.
She refused to stop her suckling, though, and I grinned while I
let her enjoy herself for another few minutes. Her ebony lips were slickened with semen when she slowly slid them up the length of my shaft to release me, and I let out a ragged breath as she casually swiped a finger at the corner of her mouth.
Then I grasped the Baroness firmly by the shoulder and pulled her to her feet, and I didn’t say a word as I slid my palm down her bare arm to settle it on her breast. I could feel her aroused nipple beneath the taut velvet as I stroked my thumb across the bud, and as the Baroness shivered with pleasure, she instinctively tipped her lips up to mine. I let her linger there, though, while I considered her penetrating gaze, and there was a glimmer of something in her ghostly white eye that I thought I imagined for a second. It looked a hell of a lot like complete devotion, and I decided to see if she was still feeling as evasive as usual now that she didn’t have her taunting mask on.
“Tell me what Temin’s doing here,” I ordered in a low voice.
“He’s looking for you,” the Baroness told me at once. “The Elders of Aurum have arrived, and the borders of Orebane have been closed.”
I sobered immediately and furrowed my brow. “Already?”
“Yes, they’ve lost patience with Temin,” she replied. “The Elders come seeking a meeting with you, but the king will gather the nobility instead. Ten of the noble families hoped the borders would close, while the rest can be swayed to reconsider their tariffs.”
I nodded as the Baroness trailed a slender finger along my jaw and down my neck, and she brushed her lips against mine just enough to get my blood heating up again. So, I slid my palms to the cinch of her waist as I let the heady scent of her distract me from my concerns about the Elders, and she curled against my chest as a contented sigh drifted from her lips.
Then she began murmuring a couple more of her secrets, though, and my veins slowly turned to ice.
“Six men who will be in attendance would have me killed if they knew about this,” the Baroness informed me. “Nine would pay anything to have you killed instead, and two would like to see Deya and Aurora’s throats slit, but they fear you too much to risk an attack yet.”
The Baroness pulled away, and despite the weight of her words, she had a careless grin on her face again.
“Just because they’re elves?” I clarified.
“Of course,” she said with a shrug. “Your elves. I suggest you address the issue soon. I would hate to see anything happen to them.”
With that, the seductive woman turned toward the mist at her back as if nothing had happened, and the moment her silhouette faded into the shadows, the dense haze around me lifted to reveal the deserted training hall.
My legs were shaky, and my spine was still tingling, but my gut hollowed out as all of this sank in, and I stared straight ahead while I mechanically adjusted my belt. Then I walked from the building in a blank state as I tried to absorb everything that had just taken place, but by the time I neared the other Defenders at the entrance of the Oculus, I was still lost.
How any of this proved I was supposed to trust the obscure woman was beyond me, but I had a feeling I was about to find out firsthand how good her word was. Hopefully, there was some overlap in the number of murderers wandering around Serin, too, because holy shit.
“Defender Flynt,” Temin sighed with deep relief when he saw me coming, and he deserted the others as he waved for the two guards beside him to fall back. Then he caught me by the arm and turned me toward a more secluded area beside a carpenter’s shop. “The Elders of Aurum are here in Serin.”
I nodded.
“They’ve refused to allow the last two trains to cross the borders of Orebane,” the king continued hastily. “Now, they don’t want to waste any time addressing the tariffs at all. We must repair this. I was relying on their weaponry since the blacksmith’s quarters are out of commission here, and Defender Urn tells me the repairs will take two weeks to complete because the forges were destroyed.”
“Where are the Elders now?” I asked.
“I’ve had rooms prepared for them in the castle, but it took half an hour just to convince them to stay there for the afternoon,” he said with an offended frown. “They tell me they’ve only come to speak with you and have no interest in the affairs of Illaria any longer. I already had little sway with the Elders to begin with, but without their cooperation now, half my army and the mages in the Oculus will be grossly under armed. We’d only just begun to increase production when the attack occurred. Not to mention, the majority of the wealth being brought to Illaria as of late is on account of our alliance with Orebane.”
“I’ll speak with them.”
“Do you think you could convince them to remain here a day longer?” Temin asked. “I can gather the nobility by tomorrow evening, and if we can manage to turn the tides where the trade tariffs are concerned … ”
“No promises,” I told him, “but I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you,” the king sighed as he kneaded his hands nervously and eyed the few destroyed buildings around us. “This is terrible timing. I had no idea they were coming here, and to make matters worse, I’m entirely out of dwarven wine.”
“I’ve got a steady supply in Falmount,” I chuckled. “I’ll have everything we’ve got sent over.”
“Have you really?” Temin asked, and his eyes widened eagerly. “That would help immensely. The Elders were disgusted to hear I had nothing better than our own wine to offer. I told them it was strictly of the highest quality, but that only upset them further, of course.”
I smirked. “Yeah, I wouldn’t say anything like that.”
“I don’t know how you ever managed with them,” Temin sighed.
“To be fair, they’re more approachable once you kill off an army of giants for them,” I admitted, and the king chuckled as he finally relaxed a degree.
“Well, let’s hope that still applies,” he muttered. “I’ll do everything I can to make tomorrow appropriately lavish on such short notice, but would you come speak with the Elders now? They say it’s urgent.”
“Yeah, the Defenders have the repairs under control here,” I told him, “and we’re expecting more mages to arrive soon.”
“Excellent. I believe there are a handful of healers waiting to speak with you as well, though.”
“Healers?” I asked as I furrowed my brow. “What do they want me for?”
“Just a guess, but I assume they require your assistance in some extravagant way like all the rest of us,” Temin snorted, and he sent me a wry smirk as we turned to head back toward the others.
The Defenders were still at attention in the streets, and a few of them raised their brows when they saw me walking beside Temin rather than behind him.
“Defender Urn, I will be borrowing Defender Flynt for a while,” Temin told the burly mage, and Urn nodded diligently. “I’ll speak with the blacksmiths of Serin about the new forges within the next two days. Where are the healers you spoke of?”
“They’re working on clearing the streets, Your Highness,” Urn replied as he gestured just beyond the buildings at our backs.
“If you see Haragh, will you let him know I’ll meet him at the entrance?” I asked another mage.
“Certainly, Defender Flynt.”
The Defenders promptly dismissed themselves to return to their work on the repairs while Temin’s fifteen guards stood aside in waiting, and we headed toward a wall of swirling dust being swept up in an Aer Mage’s powers. There was a group of six healers joining in the effort on the next street over, and the two who were Flumen Mages stood nearby while they spoke quietly to one another. I recognized the gray robes they all wore as belonging to the Order of Pallax, and the delicate stitching along their hems displayed their elements.
Then they saw us approaching, and they ceased their work to bow deeply to their king.
“I was told you wanted to speak with me,” I said in greeting.
“Defender Flynt,” a blonde Flumen Mage replied, and she stepped forward with her hands clasp
ed neatly together. She had kind, deep brown colored eyes that were lined with thin wrinkles, and she wore her feathery hair in a high, crisp bun like Shoshanne used to do. “I’m Mage Hellia. I have been overseeing the infirmary here while we await an appointee for the position.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” I said with a nod.
“The other healers and I have little to occupy us while the repairs are taking place,” Mage Hellia explained as she raised a graceful hand to gesture to the others behind her. “I understand your own infirmary is operating with only one healer to tend to your patients, and we’d like to offer our assistance.”
“Really?” I asked with some surprise. “That would be very helpful. Shoshanne has a retired healer there assisting with some tasks, but with patients arriving every few hours, her hands are pretty full.”
“Then we would be happy to assist her,” Mage Hellia said.
“I should warn you, the work there is strictly surgical at the moment,” I admitted.
“Yes, we’re aware you’ve undertaken difficult measures to restore our mages,” the woman replied. “I’m sure none of us would object to joining in the efforts, if your healer could instruct us on the proper procedures to be followed.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“Shoshanne will be relieved to hear it,” I told the healers. “She’s working there right now if you wanna gather your supplies and start heading to Falmount. I’ll make sure she knows to expect you within the day.”
Mage Hellia smiled softly and bowed once more before she led the others away, and the king promptly summoned his guards from the streets.
“I hope you don’t mind that I--” I began to say, but the king waved me off.
“I’ve already told you Defender Flynt, the resources of my kingdom are at your disposal,” Temin said as his guards fell into step directly ahead and behind us. “You may do as you please within these walls.”