Barren Harvest

His grunts grew louder by the moment, but Danica was ahead of him. No matter how hard she tried to maintain her concentration, she couldn't do it. A shockwave of ecstasy exploded within her, causing her to throw her head back and gasp. As soon as her lungs filled, she released the breath in a loud cry of "Yes!"

Jared's hips thrust one final time, and a growl erupted from him along with his seed. Thick ropes of cum spattered her face and hair, coating one of her closed eyes. She licked her lips as she panted and moaned in orgasm, tasting his cream smeared across them. Even when he ceased to spurt, copious amounts of milky semen pooled atop his tip, still nestled between her flushed breasts.

He pulled away long before Danica could catch her breath. As soon as he released her breasts, she could feel his cum dribbling between them, and down her tummy. With some effort, she managed to free her hand, only to have it stiffen and tremble when another wave of bliss flooded her body.

As her senses returned, she moaned, wiped up the cream closing her eye, and brought it to her lips. When she opened her eyes, she saw him leaning against the table, admiring her cum-spattered body. She'd never thought about not swallowing every drop before, but seeing the fascination in his eyes made her consider having him cover her in cum again — soon.

"Gods, Danica," he remarked as he sat back on the table, his softening cock draped against his leg.

Danica moaned and said, "You came so hard. Do you like seeing me all sticky?"

"Oh yeah," he answered, and smiled when she pulled more of the cum on her face to her lips.

She gathered up the semen dripping down her belly and soaking into her skirt, trying not to think about how obvious the spot there and what had ended up in her hair was going to look when she returned home. She sucked her fingers clean and said, "You taste so good, but could you get me a towel?"

He nodded, the gesture a little exaggerated by weakness, and levered up from the table. He took about half a step before he had to pull up the pants entangling his legs. A loud grunt accompanied the cloth covering his sensitive cock, prompting Danica to emit an aroused chuckle.

Ever thoughtful, Jared returned with a damp cloth and a towel, allowing Danica to clean up as well as she possibly could without taking a bath. After hunting up her sweater, which had fortunately only moved a few feed away from where it should have been, she noticed that Jared looked out of sorts.

She shrugged apologetically. "Sorry about... You know."

"No, that's okay," he quickly assured her. He glanced toward his new arrows.

She guessed that he must be worried about completing his preparations for the hunt, so Danica suggested, "Why don't I see if I can help you get ready, and then maybe we can sit in front of the fire and have a little wine?"

"Yeah. Sure," he said, his eyes darting toward her breasts of their own volition for a moment.

She had little doubt that before the night was through, his cock would be nestled between her breasts again, and the thought made her tingle all over.

♠~~~~Π~~~~♠

Danica took the task of watching over the students the next day, allowing the master of the school to concentrate on the constant stream of his elderly acquaintances making reports or asking questions about their role in organizing the Harvest Festival.

With the work of enchanting the crystals out of the way, the students were simply enjoying the task of carving interesting lanterns to house them. Everything from demonic visages to comedic ones soon adorned the dark-stained tables of the school, and all of the pumpkins were finished shortly after mid-day.

Danica found that she was just as excited about the festival as the younger students. When her master told the students to start gathering the pumpkins to load them in a wagon out front, Danica went on ahead, so she could have time to fix her hair and change before going to see Jared. She couldn't wait to see how surprised he was when the festival actually happened.

Though already walking fast from a combination of anticipation and the biting wind, the smell of corruption reaching her accelerated her pace further still. On a completely different section of road, she wondered at the coincidence, but decided that the people probably weren't the only ones suffering from a lean season. The animals were obviously finding it difficult to survive as well. More than a few twigs and acorns hit her along the way, and often in places where nothing was really overhead. The poltergeists were growing more restless by the day, gaining in strength.

Thankfully, the scent of death didn't reach her on the chill breeze between the house and town. The slight sting and dull ache she'd felt the day before was gone, and she was looking forward to having Jared's cock somewhere other than between her breasts.

She was wearing her new sweater to exactly those ends. It displayed her breasts so prominently that she'd blushed when she looked in the mirror, and thrown on a wrap over it before going into town. While she had no qualms about displaying her charms to Jared, the rest of the world was a different matter entirely.

Her shoulders slumped as she approached the house, seeing his father walking back inside. She'd hoped that he would still be away, letting her and her beau take advantage of the house again. Too excited to let the weather stand in her way, she seized on an idea to get him away from the house.

"Want to go for a walk? There's something I want to show you..." She paused just long enough to let the double meaning come across. "With your bow."

He looked a little confused and distant, but nodded. "Yeah, sure. I could use a little target practice, and we could talk. Let me get my bow and tell Dad."

A minute or two later, Danica was leading him down the dirt road farther away from town. She actually did want to show him something of her magic that had to do with his bow, but the location she'd chosen had more to do with other things. Away from prying eyes, she pulled off her wrap and hung it over a shoulder.

The effect of her breasts bouncing with her gait in the tight sweater was hardly lost on Jared. He could barely keep his eyes off the hypnotic display.

"So, where are we going?"

"Delita's. They went up north for the winter, but there's a perfect place to show you what I want to show you there." Again, it had a double meaning, which she conveyed with a crooked grin. There was an old stump where she could display her magic — and a barn that was the perfect place to display herself.

As they walked up toward the barn and the stump, Danica said, "Get out those arrows with the red feathers I helped you with."

He pulled them out of the quiver as he followed her. She walked up next to the barn where the structure would block the wind, and ran over the change in the words and gestures in her mind. Though she knew this version of the magic missile spell, she'd never tried it.

Once sure that she had the spell firmly set in her mind, she said, "Just hold them out in front of you."

"Okay," he said rather dubiously, holding the arrows at arm's length.

Danica fell into her Art, weaving the magic. She released it, and felt the spell take hold.

"What is it supposed to do?" he asked in response to her grin.

She nodded toward the stump. "Shoot the stump. You'll see."

Jared knocked one of the arrows, muscles bunching as he pulled back the limbs of his powerful longbow. Then he took aim and let fly.

The arrow streaked forward like a lightning bolt, shining with the power of Danica's magic. It slammed into the stump, blasting through the wood and embedding itself in the earth to nearly the shredded feathers a few feet beyond.

"Son of a..." Jared cried out, startled by the power of the enchanted missile. He then turned around to look at Danica, his eyes wide.

She laughed. "What do you think?"

"I think I've got to see where that stopped. I swear it went all the way through."

Danica waved him on, giddy from the excitement in his voice.

"It did. Damn. That would knock a grizzly on its ass." He let out a hearty laugh.

Only he could make her feel so confident in her magic. It was but one of so many things she adored about him. Now, she was ready to show him just how much.

"Why don't we go in the barn and get out of the wind?"

"Yeah, sure."

Danica rotated the wooden latch that secured the door and stepped inside. Though the light was dim, it was more than sufficient to see a pile of clean straw not far away that looked more than comfortable enough. She stopped before reaching it, waiting for Jared to come inside.

When he turned to push the door closed against the force of the wind, she reacted to a naughty whim. By the time he latched the door, she'd pulled off her sweater to stand bare-breasted with the woolen garment dangling from her fingers.

"Danica..." He trailed off, seeing her standing in a square of light from a high window.

She giggled. "I love the way you look when I surprise you." A couple of steps that set her breasts to bouncing for his entranced eyes brought her to his side. She wrapped her arms around him, her kiss leaving little ambiguity about what she wanted.

He responded, fingers gliding over her skin, but suddenly stiffened and leaned back away from the kiss. His voice was husky as he said, "Danica, wait."

Confused, she asked. "What?"

"I need to talk to you."

Baffled and hurt that he would stop her when she was half naked and obviously in the mood, she took a step back. "What's wrong?"

"I've been trying to tell you since I got back. I got asked to work on an estate up in Freeland, by the city. There's a good chance I could be Huntmaster in a couple of years."

She knew what working so far away meant. He couldn't go out for a week or two, and then return home — at least not here. Her mind reeling, she continued to back away toward the door, arms moving to cover her bared chest. She was watching the one bright spot in her life dim before her eyes. "Y-you're leaving?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. That and us. There's something just... I don't know."

Her world crashing down on her, she shook her head, muttering, "No. No. No." She fumbled for the latch of the door, trying to hold onto her sweater and cover her body.

"Danica, wait a minute. You're overreacting."

The latch released, and the wind blew the door open, letting her step through. Anger mingled with the shock and hurt, and she snapped, "What were you going to do? Just keep fucking me until you left?"

He winced. "No. I was going to tell you as soon as I got back, but you were all over me."

"I can't believe you're doing this to me," she sobbed, turning and running for the road while trying to pull on her sweater.

"Wait, Danica!"

Tears streaming down her face, she ignored him and continued to run. His calls faded into the distance as she gave up on the sweater, holding it in front of her breasts instead. Somewhere before the next house and the town proper, modesty finally overcame her tumultuous emotions, and she stopped just long enough to dress.

When she looked down the road and saw that Jared wasn't following her, it was another knife in her heart. Skirting the edge of town despite the extra time it would take, she avoided everyone until she reached home.

Locked into her room, she cried herself to sleep.

♠~~~~Π~~~~♠

All she really wanted to do the next morning was stay in bed. Her mother ensured that wasn't an option, though. Jared had come by an hour or so after she'd returned home last night, and again this morning. Her mother wanted to know what had happened, and said that Jared would be coming by again. Not wanting to explain, she took advantage of an escape — school.

It was sufficient to get her out the door without an immediate explanation — and before Jared tried to see her again. Once she'd calmed down, even in the midst of sobbing into her pillow, she realized that he might have been right about her overreacting. She had been riding too high on the compliments of her master and beau about her magic, and intensely aroused when he brought her up short. Now, in addition to fearing what else he was going to say, she was embarrassed at behaving the way she did.

Everyone could tell she was upset about something, and so her Master didn't protest when she asked to study alone rather than help with the final preparations for the Harvest Festival. Concentrating on her Art was one of the few things that could calm her mind, keeping her from thinking about what had happened the day before.

That reprieve had to come to an end, though.

Her master, the clergymen, and students were nearly ready to go to town and do the utmost to bring the festival back from the brink. Hardly in a mood for it, Danica left before everyone else. She knew that there was no escaping an explanation to her mother and a talk with Jared. Trying to sort it all out in her head turned her thoughts inward, and her feet followed the familiar path with little conscious direction.

The faint sound of a feminine voice raised in alarm — swiftly silenced — shocked her out of her ruminations. Lost in thought, she hadn't experienced the disquieting feeling of eyes upon her in the morning, but she felt it now. Having narrowly escaped a rapist not so far from this spot two years earlier, her senses instantly went on alert. Her eyes narrowed as she thought about that terrifying incident, and — overreacting or not — she still was a little mad at Jared.

Danica stepped off the road, her face a mask of determination. A moment later, her face disappeared as she called upon the power of a ring on her finger to fade into invisibility. If a man was daring to assault a woman, or take advantage of her, he was in for a very rude awakening.

At first, she crept in the direction of the cry she'd heard, weaving amongst the trees and undergrowth to make as little sound as possible. She could hear something moving in the distance, but nothing that resembled a woman's voice.

Then it hit her. A shifting breeze carried the stench of death to her nostrils — far more pungent and overpowering than what she'd experienced earlier. Her heart nearly stopped when the source of the reeking corruption shambled into view.

Even as part of her screamed that she should turn and run away as swiftly as possible, the words of a spell passed her lips, and her invisible hands danced through the necessary gestures. The walking corpse came to a lurching stop and turned toward her. She nearly stumbled over the final word of the spell out of fear, but completed it with a gasp.

Her invisibility enchantment evaporated as bolts of light leapt from her outstretched fingers, streaking across the distance between her and the zombie. The creature reeled from the missiles striking it in the chest, but did not fall. With a clear target now visible, its dead eyes focused on her. The undead monstrosity stretched out one rotting hand, the fingers curled into claws, and stalked toward her with a dry groan.

Danica took a step back, her heart pounding. She heard a stifled whimper from somewhere beyond the zombie, and knew that she couldn't flee. The thought of a rapist now paled in comparison to what the woman might truly face. Danica cast the spell again, her voice confident and her gestures perfect. The bolts streaked into the creature's leg this time.

The monster continued to move toward her for another step, seemingly unaware that her spell had decimated the rotted limb. As soon as it put its weight on the leg, the monster collapsed in a heap. Undeterred, it crawled toward her, red-hot pinpricks of hatred for the living burning in its glassy eyes.

Again and again, Danica cast her spell, blasting away chunks of flesh and bone. Finally, the zombie's face split open when a barrage of magical missiles overwhelmed the magic animating it.

Danica let out a nearly sobbing whimper as the creature slumped unmoving to the earth. She gave it a wide berth and panted for breath as she moved beyond the monster. Somewhere deeper in the woods, a woman was in trouble. No matter her fear, she couldn't possibly ignore another in so desperate need. A thought summoned up the invisibility enchantment of her ring, further weakening its limited power.

She was afraid to even breathe when she saw him. The man was dressed all in black adorned with bone, his face hidden in a deep hood. The impenetrable darkness of that hood faced her, as if alert to her presence.

He stood in front of a large, rotted stump, in the midst of a circle cleared from the detritus of the forest floor. Bones and skulls lined the circle, dancing with black flames of evil power.

A young blonde woman — nude and strikingly beautiful — lay bent backwards over the stump, her arms and legs held in the grip of dead hands. Horrible symbols decorated her flesh, drawn in what appeared to be blood.

The necromancer — for he could be nothing else — held a bone-handled dagger.

Danica knew that she couldn't possibly begin a spell without giving away her exact location. She was almost as much of a prisoner as the captive woman bent over the unholy altar.

"Guard the altar." The voice was deep and sounded as if it echoed from the depths of a tomb, making Danica's skin crawl.

Realizing that the bone wizard meant to investigate what had happened to his zombie servant, Danica crept off to one side, praying that he didn't think to search for anyone cloaked in magic. She knew that disturbing a single leaf could give her away, and she couldn't even see her own body to know how close she was to such danger. All she could do was sidestep, one foot at a time, the process agonizingly slow in the face of the necromancer moving toward her around the trappings of his black art.

He was so close to her when he stepped out of the clearing that she could feel the wind of his passing. This was the only possible chance she had to save the other woman, and it was a narrow one. Danica swallowed, her hands trembling. Her life might very well be measured in a few heartbeats, should she choose to act.

The woman bent over the log whimpered, apparently rousing from a faint. A second later, she screamed in mindless terror, writhing as she tried to break the clammy grip of the undead holding her down.

All thoughts of her own danger fled. Danica knew that she had to act. She moved to where she could see the desiccated arms of both animated corpses, praying that she could direct enough power into her missiles to repeat the magical blast that had first toppled the zombie earlier. She doubted that she would have a second chance this time.

She didn't even get a first.

Three things happened simultaneously. Danica moved into the perfect position to try her shot, she completed her spell, and a column of night-blue light sprang up around her. The magical bolts fizzled harmlessly against the necromancer's trap.

Danica's hands, now visible again, snapped in front of her eyes as the power of her spell rippled through the barrier in flashes of light. Though she'd never seen one, she knew the spell cage for what it was from her studies. A reach toward the wall of the magical prison confirmed another element of her memory when a shock jolted her before she could touch the barrier.

"What have we here?"

Danica stiffened and turned around slowly, mindful of the confining space.

"Yes," the necromancer said in his hollow voice as he pulled back his hood to fully reveal his emaciated, cadaver-like face, and a bald head covered in horrific tattoos. His eyes bored into her, centered on her chest. "You will make an attractive addition to my legion, once I tire of your warm flesh."