A Monster Life Ch. 19-21

He smiled softly at Kaui and stroked her back. 'I'm pretty confident she has no regrets.'

She stirred, blinked her eyes, then rubbed them with one hand, and looked up at Ulric's face and smiled softly at him. 'Master.' she said softly.

He smiled back at her. 'How are you feeling?'

'Happy.' she said and a tear ran down her cheek. 'Truly happy for the first time in my life.'

Iphigenia wiped the tear from her cheek for Ulric. 'Welcome to our state of mind, right El?'

Elzbieta sighed and rubbed her breasts along Ulric's hard dick and her hard nipples through his fur once. 'Yes, as shameful as it is, I confess that's true.'

Ulric chuckled. 'Would you rather I send you back to Winter City?'

She looked up at him with large eyes. 'No!' she said, then averted her eyes. 'Unless you're not satisfied with my performance.'

He took a deep breath. 'Elzbieta, Iphigenia, Kaui. I'm absolutely thrilled any of you magnificent girls chose to be at my side. That's my honest feeling and it won't change, as simple and easy as it might be.'

Iphigenia pushed herself up and kissed him hard until she had to pull back to breath. 'As long as you feel that way, I won't leave your side.'

Kaui blushed but she pushed herself up as well and kissed Ulric long and gently, sharing her tongue with her master's for the first time while her heart beat fast.

Elzbieta sighed again after Kaui pulled back, and crawled up to his face. 'Don't you dare let anyone else ever get a hold of me like you do.' she said and kissed him urgently.

The four enjoyed lying together for a while longer until hunger reared it's head and they had to cease being lazy. Ulric sniffed the air, located the few rare prey in the area, and hunted them while the girls reheated the leftovers and prepared for the day's trek.

Iphigenia noticed Kaui holding her tummy and looking down. 'What's wrong?'

Kaui gave her a little smile. 'Nothing, really. It's just, after what you told me about your poison healing and Elzbieta's recovery from her amputations, I thought maybe I'd become slender like the really beautiful orc girls or like you two after Master had me.'

'You wished for that?'

Kaui looked up at Iphigenia. 'I just wanted to be beautiful.'

'Beautiful as you saw it?'

Kaui fiddled with her fingers. 'Beautiful for Master.'

She gasped when Ulric embraced her from behind. 'You are, Kaui. I think you're beautiful just the way you are.'

Kaui blushed hard and couldn't control her happy smile. 'Thank you, Master.'

He kissed her in the side of her neck. 'If you ever dare to doubt how beautiful you are, I'll punish you by fucking you until you pass out again.'

Kaui face turned even redder. 'I won't! but Master is mean for tempting me to say I doubt you!'

He chuckled and growled in her neck. 'Hey, I'm lusting more than enough for you girls that it doesn't matter to me.'

Iphigenia gazed at him with sad eyes. 'Ah, I don't think I'm beautiful either!'

Ulric smiled at her. 'Iphi, do you think you need any excuse to have me take you?'

She giggled. 'Yeah, I know.'

Elzbieta huffed as she held up a skewer with the leftovers. 'What's it going to be here, eat or more sex?'

Iphigenia looked at Kaui, then gave Elzbieta a smirk. 'I think you know the answer, and won't disagree.'

***

'I've never felt this energetic before.' said Kaui after they'd walked for a long time into more and more dead surroundings. 'Master is really incredible.' She checked her tallies once more to convince herself that they really were much higher than she'd ever seen before.

Iphigenia smiled as she looked at Ulric while stroking his neck. 'Wolfie is life.' she said. 'My life.'

Ulric blushed and smiled back at Iphigenia. 'Circumstances just made me fortunate enough to save you.'

Elzbieta squeezed the fur near his shoulders between her fingers. 'I'd say restoring my limbs counts pretty much as incredible.'

'Ah, yeah, that too, was something that actually makes me very proud, if I could really believe it was truly me.'

Kaui stroked the fur near his back. 'When an experiment delivers three equal results, it's pretty much proven that it works, Master.'

Ulric looked up at the faint presence of the sun behind cloud cover and light fog. 'It'll take more to really convince me it's me, and not just what that wizard did that summoned the bloodwolf and me. For now the only incredible thing I accept is you girls, and how I need you to survive in this world and spooky environments like this.'

They looked around at the grey landscape of sparse dead trees and plants where even the rocks and ground looked dead and no speck of green, or even any other colour was visible. 'I'm not surprised they call this the Dead Land but I'm baffled by anyone spending a long time here.' said Ulric.

'I even doubt the demon lord or any of the high demons would come here voluntarily.' Iphigenia said. 'Not even they could enjoy this depressing mood.'

Ulric looked at the darkening distance ahead of them. 'Still, there's only one way to be sure, and that's go find out for ourselves.'

***

The dreary grey landscape had turned into a dense forest of large, dead trees and thorny thick bushes while the sky had become black as the night but missing all the stars. The light from the moons was enough to reveal an ancient stone path through the trees and the gang followed it.

Kaui shivered at the fitting dead silence around them and held Ulric's fur a little tighter between her fingers. She'd visited a burned forest before to gather materials but even that still had some life to it.

He turned his head to look at her. 'You okay, Kaui?'

She gave him a gently smile while his concern for her filled her chest with warmth. 'I'm all right at Master's side.'

He smiled softly at her. 'Tell me honestly when you're not or I'll worry too much about you.'

She smiled more and nodded while relaxing her fingers and running them gently through the comforting fur of his upper back.

***

None of the gang had any idea what time of day or night it was when they stopped to have a bite to eat and rest. 'No use trying to hunt here.' Ulric said. 'I haven't smelled anything alive for a long time.'

Iphigenia opened her pack. 'It's a good thing we stored plenty of food in our packs all this time.' she said and pulled out different ingredients for cooking.

Elzbieta collected firewood and tried to light it. 'Damn it.' she cursed after many failed attempts. 'This place is so dead even the wood can't be set on fire.'

'Really?' said Kaui and she tried to set the bare twigs on fire with her alchemy skills but she failed as well.

'Looks like we'll have to survive on dried and uncooked food.' Ulric said.

Iphigenia grinned a little as she pulled a tasty smelling bundle out of her pack. 'Then thank Monna for providing us with this.' she said and the mood turned better while they enjoyed her cooking.

After they had their fill Kaui peered around between the trees. 'Will it be all right to rest here? Maybe nothing alive is around but does that mean we're safe?'

Ulric ran his fingers through her hair and stroked her ear. 'Don't worry, I'll keep watch while you sleep. I know I couldn't sleep right now anyway.'

She smiled at him and leaned into his hand. 'Thank you, Master.'

Iphigenia stroked his cheek. 'But wake me if you do feel sleep coming on, Wolfie.'

Elzbieta poked his other cheek. 'Or me, so don't you dare deny yourself rest.'

He chuckled. 'I wouldn't dare make you worry about me, my precious ones.' he said, and the girls took their covers and snuggled up tight against him, and closed their eyes while he smiled proudly as he watched them drift into peaceful sleep.

***

They had walked in silence for a while when faint flickering lights in the corner of his eye caught Ulric's attention and he halted. 'What's up, Wolfie?' asked Iphigenia and peered into the direction he was looking.

'I see faint lights.'

Elzbieta and Kaui squinted to see what he meant. 'I see.' said Elzbieta. 'Several of them fluttering about.'

'Too far away for me to see them.' Iphigenia said. 'Shall we take a closer look?'

Ulric peered at the trees to the side up ahead. 'I think I see a path in that direction a little further from here. We'll use that.'

Ulric was correct and they followed a narrow path through the undergrowth. 'I can see them now.' Iphigenia said through their link. 'What do you think they are?'

'Doesn't look like lanterns or candlelight to me.' said Elzbieta.

'It's a blurry shape.' said Ulric. 'Let's just silently get closer. If it's anything bad we go back.'

'It's like they're little ghosts.' said Ulric when they approached an open space underneath the trees and where several glowing white shapes like fluttering rags floated about

'Spirits.' said Elzbieta. 'They don't look like bad spirits but we can't be sure.'

'Could we find out anything from them?' Ulric asked.

'Maybe. Some can be intelligent enough to understand simple questions.'

Carefully they approached the edge of the clearing with stony bare ground while Ulric sensed the slight nervousness of the girls as they held on to him. The spirits didn't seem to notice them and fluttered and swung about the same way that Ulric had seen from the start. 'Maybe they can't see us. Like how people in my world can't see ghosts. Although I don't think they actually exist there.'

'That might explain why they haven't reacted to us so far.' said Iphigenia.

'I'll move a bit closer.' Ulric said and stepped forward. Nothing changed and he stepped closer again until he was just a few steps away from the closest spirit. 'Yeah, looks like they don't even notice us.'

The girls felt some relief and joined Ulric to have a closer look at the fluttering apparitions. 'They're like thick wisps of smoke.' said Kaui. 'The spirits I read about had shapes like one of our species.'

Ulric waved at one spirit and thought it twitched for a split second, but it continued its drift towards the edge of the clearing. He looked around and noticed the other spirits had drifted farther from the centre of the clearing, and it seemed to him there were more spirits there than before. An uneasy feeling welled up in his gut. 'Girls, I think we'd better leave here, right now.'

The girls looked at him. 'Trouble?' asked Iphigenia with her hand on her sword.

'I hope not.' Ulric said and the group stepped back towards the path.

Deafening high pitched screams started all around them from the spirits while they transformed from gently flowing beings to large and sharp edged ones.

'Go!' shouted Ulric and followed the girls who ran towards the path, but a stream of spirits rushed at it first, then changed direction towards them.

The girls shouted as the spirits hit them hard and threw them back just before Ulric could block the stream with his scaled body. 'Are you all right!?'

Elzbieta shook her head to chase away her daze. 'I'm fine!'

'We're too!' said Iphigenia while she helped Kaui stand up. She pointed to the side. 'Wolfie! Watch out!'

Another thick stream of screaming spirits rushed towards him and hit him with the intensity of a blast of thick hail. They couldn't hurt his body but they threw him back and he had to cover his eyes and flatten his ears to protect them.

'Ulric!' shouted Iphigenia but she had to jump out of the way fast to evade screaming spirits aiming for her.

Elzbieta blocked attacks against her with fast movements of her sword and gloves and protected Kaui in a crouch between her legs. 'I can't slash them! They have no body!'

Iphigenia slashed at two spirits and watched their cut halves combine again. 'I can't either! They can touch us but we can't touch them!'

Ulric roared loud and thrust his fist harmlessly into another raging stream attacking him. 'Is there no way to fight these things!?'

'If spirits are controlled by someone they can only be stopped by that person!' Kaui said. 'There might be someone else around here because this does not look like a spirits attack according to the books!'

Ulric focused his senses on the area outside the clearing while he ducked and weaved his attackers, then caught a scent of clothing that didn't smell like himself or any of the girls.

Still ducking and weaving, he moved indirectly towards the source of the scent, then snarled and bolted straight through the prickly undergrowth towards their enemy.

A black cloaked shape jumped up and turned but Ulric tackled it and threw it forward into the prickly bushes, then pinned it down and froze at the female cry of fear.

###