Drowning at Dusk Ch. 04

As the others wandered through the ruins and unpacked their gear, I continued my idle sojourn through the ruin, picking at moss, vines, and overgrown clumps of grass. Boredom and idle curiosity drove me forward, along with a desire to distract myself from the day's earlier tension.

Once I tore away a thick carpet of moss from a large stone in the center of a half-collapsed room, I finally had my answers.

Etched into the stone were two crescent moons before three crossed spears: the sigil of Venkaya, god of death and mercy. Patron of the White Talons, and my former god.

My laugh echoed through the old ruin, and I wondered why it had been abandoned. Had it been destroyed during one of the early wars of the Commonwealth, and the worshipers of Venkaya had opted for the grandeur of larger temples in the city rather than rebuilding? Or had it been brought low during an orcish raid, and the locals had decided not to risk rebuilding out in the dangerous wilderness?

"What is so amusing?" Xelari's soft, cold voice asked from behind me.

I turned to see her dressed only in a billowy white shirt, which fell down just past her hips. Despite the tension from earlier in the day, my breath hitched at the sight of those soft thighs and the ample cleavage on display.

"This was a temple to Venkaya."

Crossing the ruined chamber on bare feet, she moved to stand beside me, and brushed her fingers over the sigil.

"This wasn't a temple they ever taught us about," I said. "Must have been destroyed some time ago."

"I confess I am not an expert in the cults of human gods, so I can only hazard a wild guess as to what happened here. When I laid out my stone to replenish it, I did feel a surge of magic. A scar. Great sorcery was deployed here once, either by this temple's defenders or its foes."

"My wager is orcs destroyed it, or one of the rival human cities from the founding wars of the Commonwealth."

Her fingers traced over the crescent moons.

"This place means nothing to you now, does it?"

"Not a damned thing. I abandoned Venkaya years ago."

"Considering the blasphemy you already committed in abandoning his holy order, there's no harm in a bit more blasphemy, don't you think?" she reached out, cupping my backside.

Scowling, I stepped away.

"Really? After what happened today, after the way you spoke to me at the mill, you think-"

"Yes," she said abruptly. "I saw the desire flicker in your eyes when I walked in here."

"A brief flicker of lust doesn't mean I want you."

"Very well. I shall go to Dazyar, then."

My laugh echoed off the ancient stone once again.

"Is that supposed to make me jealous? Besides, you all but threatened to kill him today and-"

"Itortured you, bound you with a chain-rune, and had you tasting between my legs within a day. What makes you think Dazyar would be any more resilient?"

I gave another laugh, softer than the first.

"Fair point. But he was the most wounded out of all of us. Better to let him get his rest."

"So youare jealous, then?"

Rolling my eyes, I snorted.

"Gods, no. I actually think it might be fun to watch or listen to you fuck him, whether or not I decided to join in. I just don't want a bout of fierce lovemaking to kill off the poor bastard before we've had a chance to make use of him in Arkostead."

"I suppose I could be merciful."

Her fingers returned to the altar, tracing over the ancient etchings.

"Does this mean you will join me back in my tent?" she asked. "Or do you need the same rest that Dazyar does? Must I be content with my own touch this evening?"

I bit my lip, watching as her fingers traced over the stone, knowing how delightful those same fingers would feel upon my own skin.

"I'm not opposed to it, despite our argument. I would rather...talk about what happened, first."

"As I said at the mill, there is nothing to discuss. You made your choice. And in the end, we have enough information to continue our investigation."

I narrowed my eyes.

"Is that an...apology?"

"It is not an apology. It is an acknowledgement that the death of Reynard was not as great a setback as I initially feared."

"Gods above, Voids below." I rolled my eyes, raked my fingers through my curls, and looked away. "It's always a fucking game with you, isn't it? Every fuck, every conversation, every interaction..."

"I like games, Esharyn. And so do you."

"Well every now and then it would be nice to have areal gods-damned conversation, wouldn't it? Person to person, not captor to captive or mistress to pet or..." I gritted my teeth, my fingers digging into my palms.

Her hand reached up, gently cupped my cheek.

"Speak, then."

I laughed: a sharp, breathless sound that turned into a groan of exasperation halfway through. For all my blustering, I still wasn't sure what in the Voids I wanted to say.

"When that undead brute was choking you, I wasn't thinking about the mission. I wasn't thinking about Heroth, or the Deathless, or even the chain-rune and what that rune might do to me if you died."

A gentle tug of her hand forced my gaze to meet hers. Those bright green eyes were...surprisingly soft. Gentle. Nothing I'd seen from her before.

"Go on," she urged.

"That's the thing, Xelari, I don't know. I don't exactly know what drove me into that killing rage or why I struck him without thinking things through. I..." I uttered a few foul orcish curses I'd picked up from Terakh, closed my eyes, and looked away. "I don't know. I don't know what this is. What we are. What I am. Any of it."

I knew it wasn't love, of course. I wasn't that big of a damned fool. 'Love' could not sprout from murder, light torture, captivity, and a chain-rune. I did know, however, that I'd never had a partnership anything like this one. Wild lust, distant trust, ignorance, mystery...

Perhaps there was a word for it in the language of the dusk elves, but I could find no single term that could remotely capture the bizarre bond we'd formed.

"You are not alone, Esharyn. I will admit you are far from the first enemy I have turned to my cause or taken into my bed. Not the first plaything I have used as a weapon. I have had lovers with which I've shared many more nights, and even more debauched acts than what we have shared. But this..." Her hand fell away. "This I cannot quite define. And I think that, perhaps, is what worries me the most. An unanswered question is a terrifying thing."

I came close to laughing with relief or even delight at that display of vulnerability. For a moment I wondered if it was the most honest she'd ever been with me...and yet was her cruelty not another sort of honesty? The woman who'd used me and teased me was still the same woman holding my cheek and confessing her own fears. A storm of contradictions and mysteries.

Was that this was?

A storm?

And where, exactly, would that storm take us?

"What now?" I asked, my voice emerging in a breathless whisper.

"We could stand here, parse through our emotions, share our thoughts and desires until the sun rises."

"Sounds dreadfully boring," I said, cracking a grin.

"Indeed. Better to parse through those emotions bit by bit, I think, rather than in a single evening."

"And our other option?"

She leaned up, her soft lips caressing my cheek and brushing over to my ear.

"We return to my tent, collect my toys, and you punish me for the way I spoke to you today."

My eyes fluttered, and a needy groan left my lips.

Voids take me; she knew the damned perfect thing to say.

"All right," I rasped.

Her hand clasped mine.

"Let us-"

I used my other hand to tear her wrist away. Her eyes bulged in shock, and I grabbed her by the hips, twirled her around so her back was to me, and shoved her head down onto the altar.

Blasphemy indeed.

"I don't need your damned toys," I snarled.

I shuddered at the gasp my fierce words drew from her. My trembling hands tore off my belt, and I quickly affixed it around her wrists, binding them together at the small of her back.

"Yes," she said with a delirious laugh, exalting in the surrender. I yanked up her billowy shirt, revealing that she was utterly bare beneath it.

This was what we both needed. The gentle truths we'd shared had been quite welcome indeed, but neither of us could deny the lusts we were chained to.

"Already wet," I said in a low hiss. "So damned wanton."

"For you? Of course."

A fierce slap to her backside turned that last syllable into a yelp. One hand gripped the back of her neck, while I shoved the other towards her mouth.

"Get them wet."

She obeyed, moaning and trembling as she licked and lapped at my fingers, soaking them in a matter of moments. Given how glistening her sex already was, I didn't really need the extra moisture, but I wanted to bask in my triumph, to loom over her and bend her to my will.

I slapped her ass again, withdrew my fingers from her mouth, and brought them between her legs.

Two fingers slipped inside her, and I took in a deep breath at how unbelievably wet she was.

Whimpering my name, she raised her hips to adjust the angle, and I adjusted my hand so I could tease my thumb over her clit. Another whimper of my name, and a few guttural phrases in her native tongue.

"What did you say?" I demanded.

"Hask tahuuk veshna," she repeated, the words interspersed by soft gasps and cute little moans. "Your language lacks the nuance to convey the true meaning. It means that...I yield, but not completely. An admission of incomplete surrender."

And a challenge, no doubt.

One I would rise to.

My thrusts intensified, as did the firm flicks of my thumb over her clit. The soft moans grew louder, more desperate. That pretty mouth of hers gaped, taking in heavy breaths. Soft hips bucked against me.

I'd experienced enough of her climaxes to detect the telltale signs that she was close, in particular the way her hips tilted and her stomach tensed.

A mere moment before I expected her to rise to that peak, I withdrew my fingers.

Her needy moan turned to a cry of frustration, which grew louder when I gave her ass another slap. I tugged on her hair, turning the fledgling pleasure into pain, followed by three more slaps to force the rest of the bliss from her body.

And then I set to work again.

Thrice I drove her just towards the edge, only to pull back mere moments before she could truly reach her climax. With each abortive orgasm she grew more desperate, pleading and begging in both her native tongue and mine, her drool spilling onto the altar, her wetness running in rivulets down her thighs.

I laughed in cruel defiance to each of her supplications.

Finally I relented in my teasing, but only so I could seek my own bliss. I yanked her from the altar, forcing Xelari to her knees in front of it, and then sat down in the same spot where I'd bent her over. She gazed up at my cunt with a gaze equally desperate and enraged while I undid my boots, trousers, and undergarments. Kicking the clothing away, I spread my lean, lithe legs.

"Taste me," I growled, my fingers digging into her scalp and shoving her head between my legs. "The quicker you make me come, the sooner I'll tend to your needs."

A lie, of course. This was just another way to torment and tease her. Xelari, after all, was not the only one among us who could play such cruel games.

When I'd first feasted upon her sex, I'd teased her a bit, prompting her to threaten me with punishment. That evening, though, she did not repay that impudence, and set her soft, delicate tongue to work at once.

The sensation was nearly enough to make me weep. My eyes rolled back into my head as that devious tongue circled deftly around my clit, before those soft lips locked around it. My hand scraped against the stone at a sudden spike of pleasure. Her moans thrummed against me, and I draped my legs over her shoulders.

She didn't even attempt to edge me as I'd done to her, though I was certain she had the skill to do so if she wished. Instead, she forced me relentlessly towards my climax, her eyes wide and warm.

I lost sight of those beautiful eyes as I threw my head back, loosing a ragged moan. My thighs braced against the side of her head, my back arching. The moan turned to a burst of soft gasps, and my hips rocked against that beautiful mouth.

"Again," I snarled.

She obliged, licking me to a second climax even faster than I'd reached the first.

As I languished, forcing deep breaths into my lungs as she continued to service me, my mind drifted back to when I'd listened in on Terakh going down on her in her tent. I flashed her a wicked grin, and tilted my hips up a bit.

"My ass now. Quickly," I said, echoing the same command she'd given to Terakh.

I'd expected her to eventually defy me, if only to force me to punish her for her own twisted enjoyment. But instead she gave a pathetic little nod of her head, a mewl of affirmation, and dragged her tongue down from my pussy towards my other hole.

Her sopping tongue licked and probed at me, and though I much preferred the sensation of her tonguing at my sex, the sight of that depraved submission was a damned wonderful thing. My grin widened at how quickly and dutifully she'd obeyed me, and I moved my fingers to my sex, teasing over the same spots she'd so expertly licked.

The slightly ticklish sensation of her tongue flitting against my ass, combined with her muffled little moans and the firm rubbing of my own fingers...

Voids below. It was going to be a good one.

Given her penchant for cruelty, though, I fully expected her to pull away at the last moment, to drive me as mad as I'd driven her, or to force me into lashing out.

"Good little pet," I purred.

She defied my expectations, continuing to lick and service me like a 'good little pet.' My fingers quickened, and I reached my other hand beneath my tunic to pluck at my nipple. She flattened her tongue and licked firmly against my ass before pressing the tip inside. The depravity of it all poured fuel onto the fire, and I let out a long, trembling moan interspersed with triumphant laughter.

My hand darted from my nipple down to her hair, pressing her face firmly against my ass as I rushed towards that agonizing peak. My laughter turned to a breathless moan. Bliss detonated deep within my core, sending tremors and shivers throughout my entire body. Clenching my teeth, I growled out her name as the trembling intensified, and I managed a proud smile before leaning my head back, loosing a soft, trembling cry.

As I slumped back onto the altar, my legs fell away, and I grinned at the half-collapsed ceiling at the glittering stars above.

"Have I not earned a reward for my efforts?" she said, her voice pathetic and weak. Almost like that of a completely different person.

I propped myself up on my elbows and smirked down at Xelari. She was quite the sight: hair disheveled, lips dripping, eyes wide and needy.

As she stared up at me, I pondered my next move. My mind drifted to the cruelest option: to deny her, or to tease her again and again while drawing back from the brink each time. I recalled how she'd teased Terakh as well, denying him a chance to taste her even after he'd brought her to climax, and the way she'd denied me my own climax during our first time sharing her tent.

"I can be merciful, but not foolishly so," I murmured. I reached out and brushed my fingers over her jaw. "If I grant you this boon, what do I get out of it? What is in it for me?"

"Whatever you want," she murmured. The need in her voice was so intense it was almost painful to hear. Almost heartbreaking. As if denying her would cause her great harm or distress, as if her very life depended upon me granting her wish.

"A tempting bargain," I said, my fingers tracing over the mess upon her lips and chin. "One of these nights, when we are at an inn with a proper bed, I think I should like to repay you for what you did to me before we parted ways with Terakh."

Shudders rippled through both of us.

"My ass is yours, Esharyn."

Laughing, I brushed my fingers through her hair.

"Very well. I'll undo the belt, and then you can finish yourself off."

After all, I wasn't in the mood to be entirely merciful, and it would be a delicious sight to take in as she pleasured herself.

"No need," she said with a sweet smile, lifting her hands as the belt fell away. "I wriggled out of it a few minutes ago."

I laughed so hard that my lungs burned. Even when helpless and subservient, that wicked dusk elf had still found her own little way to defy me. Gods, what a prize.

Xelari remained on her knees between my legs, and rested her head upon my trembling thigh while she slipped her fingers between her legs.

With her eyes affixed with mine, she moaned and whimpered beneath the skilled efforts of her own fingers. Occasionally she muffled a groan by kissing or biting my thigh, and I gently gripped her untamed silvery curls as her neck tensed with a rising spike of pleasure.

Whimper after whimper. Moan after moan. Her eyes widened and she mouthed my name; I grinned like a conqueror, and laughed as her climax struck. Xelari shook beneath my grasp, her arm tensing as her fingers practically blurred against her folds, moving at a breakneck pace to draw that beautiful orgasm out.

My grip tightened in her hair.

"Again, little pet," I growled. "Come for me again."

She probably didn't even need the command to do so, given how frantic and desperate her fingers were. Within a few minutes she moaned out my name once more, and I laughed anew at the way her eyes rolled back into her head, and hissed with painful delight as she bit down on my thigh to stifle yet another cry.

With a groan of exhaustion, the spent dusk elf collapsed, slumping against my lap. Only the quick grasp of my hands prevented her from sliding off of me entirely.

"Poor Dazyar," she muttered. "I hope we didn't wake him. He needs his rest."

"He can consider it a preview of the delights he'll soon enjoy. I fully intended on getting into bed with him."

"As do I, of course. Think he has the energy for the both of us?"

"Give him a few days." I laughed, running my fingers through her hair. "It'll be a good way to ensure his loyalty." I raised my eyebrow at her. "Speaking of which: was that why you slept with me?"

"No. The first time was a test. Seeing you fight those barrow-walkers wasn't enough. I needed to see you in a different light to fully assess you. But even that wasn't enough." She smiled. "Rest assured, Esharyn,this particular tryst was not yet another assessment."

"If it was, how did I fare?"

Impish delight sparkled in her eyes.

"Adequate," she cooed.

I could have slapped her. Instead I laughed, and pulled her up to my lips for a slow, lazy kiss. As our bodies melded together, I forgot all about that quip. I forgot all about the bard, the dangers of the road, and what awaited us in Arkostead.

For the moment, all that mattered was her touch, and the storm that we'd created together.