From Ages Past Ch. 01

Rather than finish the thought, he decided to let the leather pouch that was in his pocket speak for him with the soft, chime-like sound of coins coming together and scraping against one another as they struck the table together. "Take what you think is fair. If you think all of that is what's fair, help yourself. It's a small price to pay to get rid of my biggest problem."

Anatol let it rest there for a moment and he tried to judge the look in the other's eye. It was friendly, but practiced, and, in its own way, inscrutable. He reached for the pouch and looked inside at the not insubstantial pile of gold collected there. With thumb and forefinger, he collected coins into his palm until his hand was full before he dropped them on the table and returned to plucking out gold pieces until he'd counted twenty-five before tossing the pouch back in Prestin's direction who caught it in mid-air without effort before looking at the collected coins. He seemed satisfied with the result. "And your fairness continues."

Anatol shrugged. "It's what I paid, plus a not exorbitant bit of profit." He took a deep breath and gestured about the room. "If you're interested, I have a variety of other maps. Some of them are quite old."

"No." He smiled again. "While I'm sure they are incredibly interesting, as I've said, this was my biggest problem and it's been amicably resolved. He rose and extended his hand to the other. "I'd like to thank you for taking the high road in this."

Anatol took the hand offered and grasped it firmly, "You're welcome. I imagine this concludes our business and you won't be needing to stalk me anymore."

"You won't see me again after tonight," Prestin promised.

Anatol tried to pull away from the grip, only to find that it was iron. His eyes widened as he tried again to pull his hand free, but Prestin's hand had his so tightly gripped that his fingertips were dimpling the other man's skin. A strange sensation, a creeping numbness, began in the palm of his hand where it met Prestin's, moving slowly from wrist to arm. He could still sense them, barely, but the feeling that his limb was asleep had spread across the entirety of his chest, the sensation wrapping around him ever more tightly.

"You have helped me see to the biggest problem, but not the only one." He watched Anatol's eyes widen slightly as he realized that his heart was slowing noticeably and that his breathing was turning rapid and ever more shallow.

"The other problem is that you've seen it. You remember enough of it to maybe piece together some bits, or that someone else could take from your mind."

"Wait," Anatol whispered.

Prestin ignored the nearly breathless plea. "My employers can't have that. I can't have that. It's not personal, though I can certainly understand if you don't believe that under the circumstances. You've been more than reasonable. You haven't gone out of your way to make my job more difficult and, honestly, you've been an honorable man here, so that deserves some consideration."

"You're shocked and struggling and that's understandable. You're going to go into a deep sleep and then your heart is just going to stop. There won't be any pain. I promise."

Anatol tried desperately to claw his way out of the pit he was sinking into, but it was like his fingers were digging into mud and he could find no purchase. He looked pleadingly into Prestin's eyes and he doubted the sincerity. There was a touch of...excitement, perhaps, at watching his vision darken at the edges and that blackness closing in around him.

All he could do in the end as the light dimmed was hope that Prestin told the truth when he said there would be no pain.

Prestin held on tightly. He watched the light fade from the other's eyes as he clenched his will around the other man's heart. He waited until his consciousness slipped well away, and then waited longer before he wrapped that will around the muscle and felt the beats against it. He tightened that grip and felt the beats press more weakly against him as they also became fewer and farther between. Prestin hung on until he was sure the job done and then some before he finally let go. Opening the leather pouch wide, he put the mouth to the edge of the table and swept them back inside it. Cinching it back up, he dropped it back in his pocket before he put the chair back where he'd found it before leaving Anatol alone in his chair with the click of the closing door.

* * *

Deres Valtise was in the midst of displaying his mad love and sometimes seemingly unquenchable need for one of the two women he was closest to in the world. He was trying to rein in his ragged breathing in the moment, standing on his knees on the fur blankets as Bryana let her bottom teeth graze his neck. "Let me look at you," he breathed. She kissed his cheek before brushing her lips to his again. "Let me look."

She pushed playfully away from him, backing away on her own knees. "You expect me to pose for you like some courtesan?" She asked him even as she put herself on her belly and rested her head on her crossed arms as her feet went up and her toes curled. She may not have been a courtesan, but, as woman, she knew exactly the image she was giving him.

It was an image he drank in as though dying of thirst. Hers was a long, toned, lithe body that still well held its youth. As a mage in this part of the world, she augmented her power with runes and other markings on her body and hers were beautiful. Virtually all of them were intricate black and gray affairs that used the negative space of her skin enough that her body did not look overdrawn. It all served to make her look exotic and end enticing.

"Why don't you have Elan do this for you?" she asked as she rolled over onto her back and lifted herself on her elbows and bent her silky smooth right leg. "Or Cassea?"

"Sometimes I do."

"Point being," she began as she shifted with a dancer's grace to the center of the bed, the lamplight's light and shadow playing on her body as she pressed her back to the headboard, her legs together, her toes pointed towards him. She was a lovely dancer, too, as movement, flow, and rhythm were key components of tapping the energy of the universe to manipulate it in the use of magic, "you have adoring, happily mindfucked slavepussies for this. Why me?"

"Because, my queen of the dark arts," he said with the smart-ass grin that was uniquely his, "lovely female bodies make me hard. And I like that you will display your wiles for me. I will note, that, even while you call them slavepussies, you are also posing for me like one of them."

"Oh, I suppose because we each love you. I may be slightly less corrupted by you than they are, but your magic has still touched my mind." Her blue eyes were playful and her elegantly sculpted features clearly amused by him. She then gave him a look that was a mix of amusement and boredom. "I suppose I just don't see the point of this pose and that one to amuse any man." She accented her dismay, by briefly arching her back and stretching her arms over her head, "when all you really care about it this one." She grinned coyly as she drew her legs up and allowed her knees to gently part like a flower opening itself to the sun.

He looked upon her and wanted. That smooth, pink slit beckoned, made all the more enticing was the serpent that coiled her thigh and slithered so that its piercing, lifelike eyes stared back at him and her fangs guarded either side of her passage. "See? That's what you want," Bryana purred, crooking her finger to beckon him. "You need her and she waits to please her love."

He closed in on her, kissing as he straddled her, "Yes. Because this is always about me. Women get no pleasure from sex. It's just a vile duty that women resign themselves to so that we all don't just fade away."

"Of course, my sweet," she agreed, looking down at that long, thick, hard piece of manhood and her mouth watered at what she knew was coming next, spitting some of that wet from her mouth into her hand. She looked at him just to have the joy of watching his face as her hands caressed it, alternating as she jacked it with several delicate slides of her hand up it's length so that her hand would make harder contact at seemingly random points, with the wonder as to where the more intense contact would come, putting him more on edge. When she'd decided that he'd been on that edge enough, she took it more firmly, feeling the veins and the hardness of it, knowing that he very much liked the more aggressive handling. "Who would truly want to play with such a beast? What woman would want to feel such a thing in every part of her body?"

"You fake it well.'

"One of my many gifts," she sighed as she caressed it.

"Neral seems to enjoy it."

"Our love only goes through the motions with you. It's my touch and my tongue she truly adores." In every way that mattered the three of them were as one as they had built their lives together over years. Brought together by Bryana's attempt to corrupt Neral into using her as a tool in a greater plot, she was ensnared by Deres's greater magic. At first, her affection for Neral had been born of a need to make amends and to protect her. And Neral, on some level, had enjoyed the adoration. But bonds had grown between them as deep and intricate roots would hold a tree to the earth against almost anything that would come. And, when Bryana was faced with the choice to be who she had become or go back to her life before, she had sacrificed everything to claim the life she had now.

"Is that why she looks like a slut in heat as she positions herself so she can watch my cock spread her lips and fill her?"

"And she cries on my tongue." She looked up at him, "Isn't it lovely to see her so lost in pleasure that she fucking weeps?"

"It is," he agreed. "I could use some of that."

"Fortunately, I adore you, and that includes this lovely, lovely piece of meat." Her mouth watered again, knowing what was coming. She relaxed, opened her mouth and let it slide effortlessly down her throat until his hairs brushed her nose and chin. She flushed in the submission and depravity of it. It was a dirty, submissive thing for her. It was an expression of complete acceptance and love. A woman could just stretch out on her back for a man and let him in with indifference if it came to that. She would feel him rut and hear his sounds and let him go about his business while she planned her errands for the day.

But to have their other in their mouths was something else. All the senses were employed. To see and taste and scent the other was an act that couldn't be ignored. There were times that she had performed the act and endured it for a greater good, but when she gave it simply because she chose and craved to, she could think of few greater intimacies. She felt it too as something of a surrender and there was no one else in the world beyond Deres and Neral that she would truly surrender herself to.

She brought the smallest bit of her own magic forth to the flat of her tongue to touch him with a hint of current. Her eyes smiled when his cock bucked at the back of her throat and his body shivered before he bit his lower lip and growled at her. She gave him another lick of power as she slid him down her throat again and then parted ways, his cock glistening in the lamplight as she caught an extra breath. She saw the animal look in his eyes and smiled as her hand found the length and she dipped below to flick her tongue to his balls, lifting their heft with her flesh, "I know that look," she said, moving to the next one, "I know that sound."

"Do you now," he said, hand running through her flowing blonde hair that curled in soft waves down her back.

"The animal wants out." She swallowed and licked and sucked, rolling the his balls firmly in her hand.

"I've missed you, and I have needs."

She took his cock on another leisurely trip to the back of her throat, this time without the touch of current, enjoying the change in his breath that suggested he was expecting and wanted it, grinning when he whispered, "Bitch."

"Sometimes," she said playfully. "If that bothers you, leave my bed." Bryana took it deep again, cupping and rolling his balls, her eyes closing for a moment as he ran his fingers through her hair before taking the back of her head. She knew he was fighting his own urges, she just wanted to see how long he would do it. So she continued to use her mouth to tease him, bringing him fully inside, holding, as she pressed her tongue flat to the underside of his cock, rolling it side to side, not unlike the movement she would give a clit with the tip. Every time she would send a flick of power with it, he would jump because she kept to no pattern, not allowing him to anticipate the added delight. It frustrated as much as excited him, as she knew it would. Truth be told, she wanted the beast out to play. She enjoyed as much as he did. The exchange of power that could flow from one moment to the next was as exciting as the sex act itself and only enhanced it for her. Bryana ignored his pleas for more, then his demands, simply waiting for the inevitable.

That came when the fingers in her hair curled around it, and he began to push himself into her mouth. He groaned in ecstasy as he finally got the pace that he wanted, and there was an added rush that came with looking down as she looked up and watching his own hips thrust. He would withdraw completely every so often to allow her to catch a quick breath before plunging back in. After pulling free at one point, he listened with satisfaction as she gasped and looked down to see his cock dripping saliva. "Messy little mage slut, aren't we?"

"I dare say you have a hand in the mess-making. Or two."

"Still your mess," he explained with a grin. "You made me hard, you have to take care of it, so any mess is still yours."

"I have to?" she asked, taking it in her hand.

He took it back. "Have to, want to, what's the difference?" He held her head with his left hand and, cock in his right, he began to smear his cock all over her face. There was just something extra exciting about making a mess of the otherwise regal, composed Guild Mistress. She was one who, when the situation called for it, could behave with perfect propriety. It was nice to see her let that go and enjoy her body, getting pleasure and giving it with abandon. He liked the idea that acting as the slut was her notion of propriety just now. There was the animal at play within her, too. He saw it in the way she chased it with her tongue as it passed her and then followed it with the turn of her head so her cheeks would touch the length.

"Shut up and feed the little mage slut then, rutting pig."

"Good girl." With that, he took her head in his hands and pumped himself at a leisurely pace wanting it all to last. It was all just...perfect right then, from the satisfied look in her eyes, to the magic that she would run to his cock, making it jump and threatening his control. This was a familiar game for them and occasionally she did take that control from him, which frustrated in the moment before that gave way to a wave of pleasure that overwhelmed everything else, leaving him unable to be terribly upset over the fact that the experience ended before he wanted it to.

This is what you like. Her thoughts in his mind were like a sultry purr. You like your women to rut like you...like animals. Look at you staring into my eyes while your fucking cock disappears down my throat. You can't get enough of it, can you?

He sighed. "Of my proud Guild Mistress looking like a whore from the street with my cock in her mouth? That does have some appeal."

Gagging on your meat. Luckily for you, I actually like that myself at times. Sometimes I enjoy giving you control because I need to let go. And there are times that I allow you the illusion of it because that amuses me, too. Bryana pulled herself from him and began kissing her way from his belly to his breastbone before pushing him down, her weight sinking him more deeply into the fur and the bed beneath.

She gazed at him with beautiful blue eyes that could melt a heart or pierce a soul to make their blood run cold, depending on the mood of the moment. Now, however, they looked playfully sinister. "I think that thing is wet enough by now, don't you?" With that, she reached down and took the hard wet mess and aimed it towards the viper who dripped in hunger. She knew he loved when the woman took this step. To open her legs was willingness; to be the one who took control of it to sate her own needs was an open display of want, and, there was no doubt that she wanted.

She inhaled as her pink flesh spread to accommodate him. Her lips parted in something of a smile watching his eyelids flutter just a bit as the delicious entrapment took hold. Bryana rode slowly at first, tempting them both. Truthfully, she wanted to stay on the edge for a moment. She wanted to stay on the edge before she plunged into heat and abandon and she became the animal he wanted and that she wanted to be. She could feel every inch of that thing touching the deepest parts of her as she looked upon him while she felt his strong hands on her firm breasts, his thumbs and forefingers tweaking her nipples in just the way he knew would drive her. He kept at it, stopping occasionally to feel her ass and let his hands run up her back.

"You've teased us both just about enough," he said sweetly. "See to that urge to fuck that's making your belly twitch."

"There does indeed seem to be something rooting around in my belly just now." Her eyes closed as she came back down upon it again.

"Let go, my love. You know you want to. And, right now, I'd sort of like that, too."

She opened her eyes and looked down at him and his roguish smile and his own eyes a shade of blue that never failed to draw her in. "Just...savoring the moment."

"Let go."

"Do you insist?"

He smiled, the promise of more driving him. "I'm afraid that I do."

"Make me."

"Do you insist?"

"I'm afraid that I do," she breathed, "just for a moment. I want the rush just now."

"Not in the mood for a full clouding spell?"

"I'm afraid not," she advised, with no real disappointment. Sometimes she liked the clouding spells with her loves; to simply turn off most of her mind with those she loved and trusted completely. It was liberating to dismiss her worries or cares and to become an empty, vapid thing for a night only interested in fucking and being fucked. But she liked those nights when the day that followed wouldn't be too busy. She could take some time that followed to remember and enjoy the feelings that lingered. She even found that they helped her in her meditations. This time though, there was just too much to do to truly enjoy the afterglow.

Her anticipation piqued as his fingertips wandered down her back. That anticipation alone led her to slide herself up and down his cock faster and grinding her clit on him by bringing her body forward. His fingers laced at the base of her spine and he enjoyed the sensation of being inside her as he devoted the part of his mind not focused on that to weave the small bit of spell that she wanted that would fade on its own; a small hit of joy in every inch of her body and haze in her mind that she sought. "I'm glad that you want this as opposed to need it, my love."

"Fearful that I might need to compensate for one with shit ability to fuck a woman?"

"I've never had complaints."

She hummed, feeling his power coalesce within her, "I'm not surprised. A big cock like this one takes skill. Too many men seem to think that all he has to do is bury something that large in her and the result is nothing but bliss."

"I take joy in learning how to best please my partners. And I know what you're doing?"