Tales of the Apprentice 01 Ch. 06

"Defensive reflex?"

Serana nodded.

"For lack of a better term," she said. "If it had been a separate guarding spell, Irya might have noticed it, but in this case it might have been an aspect of the original slave spell that bound him to this death mage. Slave spells are designed to prevent anyone from escaping, but sometimes they also have a defense to prevent the victim from being liberated by someone else. While the main spell seems to have mostly worn off, the defensive portion of the enchantment appears to have remained dormant until it was triggered by the attention of another mage."

"So how does that explain..." Galen begun.

Irya smiled.

"You seem to be particularly receptive to the workings of other mages around you," she said. "You appear to have a definite tendency to attract and absorb their Energetic emanations.

She thought for a moment, looking slightly embarrassed.

"That sounded a lot more pompous than I meant," she apologized. "What it boils down to, though, is that you picked up on what I was trying to do. The first half of your dream was the release of my Energy when Ayden gave me my orgasm. The second half was the dark spell doing its thing. Maybe it was because you were asleep that this was a two-way thing. I knew what you were dreaming when it happened. I could feel it, and I caught most of what you were dreaming about."

"Dreams only take moments, you know," Ayden said. "They seem to last a lot longer to the dreamer, but in reality they're only very brief. And of course our own mind plays a role as well, when it comes to the details of a dream."

Galen slowly nodded. It made sense, somehow.

"And Raven? What was it like for him?"

Ayden thought for a few moments.

"Hard to say," he said finally. "He was on the inside of it. We were on the outside. But I think he did notice something, although he may not have been aware of exactly what it was."

"Do you think that's why he left?"

"He's troubled by it, I'm pretty sure," Irya said. "And he's feeling a lot of guilt and self-loathing to begin with. He's going to need more time to work through all that. But I think he understands that he has help available, if and when he wants it, and that he's got friends here."

Galen sighed.

"I hope you're right."

"He'll be back when he's ready," Ayden said confidently. "I'm sure of it."

Galen slowly nodded.

"Alright. I think I'd like to have a quick bath, if you don't mind," he said. "I don't like the way I smell."

"Feel free," Ayden said. "It's there to be used. Irya practically lives in that tub most of the time."

"Be nice, Ayden," Irya replied with a great show of dignity. "It's a practical consideration. You know I like to be clean before sex, which means I like to be clean all the time. You never know what may... arise, so to speak. It's best to be prepared."

"That's her excuse and she's sticking to it," Ayden joked.

"I'll be about it, then," Galen said, smiling as he stood. "I will leave you all to your own pursuits for a bit. It's probably for the best."

Ayden's chuckle followed him as he left the room.

The windows in the bathhouse were set high into the walls, and they were opened slightly to admit a bit of the spring breeze. With a sense of relief Galen stepped over the stone rim of the tub to let himself sink into the water. The atmosphere in the room was pleasant and the temperature of the water was just right as it gently welled up through a hole in the bottom of the tub, where one would normally expect a drain. The water made a gentle, tinkling sound as it trickled out of the overflow of the tub and into the gutter leading to the outside.

He closed his eyes and leaned back against the high wall of the basin. The water buoyed him and made him feel lighter. He sighed contentedly as he felt himself relax and the last ragged remnants of his troubled night were washed away. His relaxation deepened until he felt himself drift on the edge of sleep again.

But then he was distracted by a sound. It took him a moment to realized what was: the door had been opened, then closed, softly and gently, and the sound was followed by the pat-pat-pat of bare feet on the stone floor. The steps were light. That, and the bare feet, essentially ruled out Ayden. And Serana would have said something by now, he was sure. Which left...

"Hello, Galen," Irya said.

Slowly he opened his eyes. She stood by the side of the tub and smiled. Then, with both hands, she took the hem of her light, white dress, pulled it up and over her head, and let the garment fall on the floor. She wore nothing underneath.

"May I join you?" she asked.

Galen manfully tried not to stare, but he failed miserably. She was a vision. In fact, she looked much as she had in his dream, but with a few refinements. Her pose brought out the best of her features: the curve of her back, the swell of her buttocks, the slenderness of her thighs with the delicate folds of her sweet, pink little pussy just visible between them. Her lithe body was beautifully proportioned, and he now saw that her breasts were actually rather small, but on her slender frame they looked just the right size, with a youthful, perky firmness he had not seen before. Her nipples were small and cute, and their beauty was accentuated by the little pink round circles that ringed them.

He felt how his cock began to swell. It hardened and rose quickly, and within seconds he had a raging erection. Fortunately the rippling, glistening surface of the water hid it from her eyes, or at least so he hoped. But the water was very clear, and something told him she was completely aware of how his cock was standing to attention in the depths of the tub.

"Well?" she said with a slightly amused expression on her face.

"Ehm... Yes, ah... Yes, of course," he stammered.

She put one foot and one hand on the stone rim of the tub and stepped across, sliding into the water without making so much as a ripple. She leaned back against the basin wall across from him and lowered herself until the water came all the way up to her neck.

"I think it's time we talked," she said.

"Alright. Talk about what?"

"About this."

Suddenly she was standing very close to him. How had she done that? She put her hands on his chest and gently scratched it, her fingernails scraping down across his skin, and little jolts of pleasure and excitement shot through him where she touched him.

Then her hands slid further down until they found his cock. Her fingertips explored the hot, rock-hard shaft, the retracted foreskin, the exposed and engorged head. Then she took his rigid length in one hand and began to stroke it, slowly, while she gently cupped his balls with her other hand and caressed them with her fingertips. He gasped at the sensation as sparks of pure pleasure shot through him.

"Good," she said with a soft smile. "I'd have been really worried if you hadn't been hard by now."

As if in response, he felt himself grow even harder in her hands. His balls began to tighten.

"I, ehm..." he began.

"Your dream, last night," she said. "You obviously felt my presence while you slept."

"Your presence?"

"Yes. You know how you can leave your body behind for some magical workings?"

He nodded.

"Yes. I don't know how to do it, but I do know what you mean. Serana took me, a few days ago."

"Well, that's what I did last night. Ayden gave me Release, and I left my body to examine the spell that Raven is under. My... awareness, I suppose the best word is, passed you quite closely. You must have noticed it, even in your sleep. The nightmarish part came after that, as a result of the defensive part of the spell on Raven. Your own mind just filled in the blanks."

She smiled.

"That's quite alright, by the way, Galen. I know you're attracted to me. And we are going to be working together quite a bit, so it's absolutely fine for you to feel that way."

His breathing had deepened while her hands continued to caress his cock. A familiar pressure began to pool in his loins. Irya's smile turned mischievous.

"Galen, are you paying attention?"

With some effort, he nodded.

"Yes. But if you keep doing that..."

"This, you mean?"

She wrapped her hand firmer around his shaft, her thumb and forefinger forming a ring just behind the crown of the head, and she began to stroke it back and forth, back and forth, her movements purposeful and deliberate. Her other hand continued to caress his balls, but in a slightly different fashion now, one calculated to maximize his pleasure. Slowly and gently, but in a way that left no doubt about her intentions, she pumped up and down across his now rock-hard shaft, pulling the skin taut with every stroke and her fingers playing across the smooth, taut head, large and swollen with the pressure of his building arousal.

But it was more than just that. A wonderful pleasure infused him, a delicious pre-orgasmic sensation of a kind that he had never felt before. It filled his cock, concentrating in the head but extending through the shaft and infusing his groin, his balls, his abdomen and from there flowing into the rest of him. How did she do that?

The feeling increased, spread, increased further, until he thought he would explode with it. She touched him in ways he had never been touched before, playing him like a lute, and somehow she managed to make it last, and last, until the pleasure filled his entire body and he thought it would drive him mad. His cock had never been this hard, the head never this taut and engorged, and her fingertips did wonderful things to it, filling it with sparks of pure pleasure as she touched him here, and there... Impossibly, his cock seemed to grow even harder in her hand, and his balls tightened...

Finally he could no longer contain it, and she must have sensed it, because suddenly her hand moved up and down his cock, stroking both the head, the shaft, the super-sensitive crown and the area behind it. At the same time her hand that had been caressing his balls slid further back, and he felt her fingertip probe between his buttocks, finding a spot there that no-one had ever touched before. He felt his entire body grew tense as the pleasure within him rose to an almost unbearable level, and she held him there, right there, by what magic he knew not, for what seemed to be an infinitely long moment while he hovered on the brink of orgasm...

And then, quite deliberately, she pushed him over the edge, and with a huge roar he exploded in her hand. Stars burst out from the head of is cock, which seemed to crackle like lightning as a jolt of pure pleasure struck it and shot down his shaft into his groin, his balls, his abdomen and the rest of his body. He shook with the force of it. He'd had intense orgasms before, but nothing like this. Time seemed to stop as the pleasure of his climax surged through him, filling him completely.

She continued to pump him, gently but insistently, as his cock began to pulse in he hand. Her strokes kept step with every contraction of the muscles in his shaft as they forced spurt after thick spurt of his cum out of him and into the clear water, where it made small white clouds that remained connected by delicate threads. His body shuddered with the intensity of his release, and he cried out with every spurt as she milked him for all he was worth as he kept emptying himself, his cock pulsing in her hand, until he had nothing more to give.

She held him then, her body against his, as he leaned against the wall of the tub until his breath gradually grew calmer and his vision slowly cleared.

"That..." he managed after a while. "That was..."

"Interesting," she said thoughtfully. "Very interesting."

He smiled.

"Not the word I was looking for, but, yes... I never..."

"No, Galen. That's not what I meant."

She looked closely at his face, into his eyes, her hands exploring his still-hard cock.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"What do you think? That was amazing. I feel great."

Then he felt her gently squeeze his still rigid shaft with her thumb and forefinger. It has lost none of its hardness. In fact, he felt like he was quite ready to continue with what she clearly had in mind.

"Does this happen often?" she asked, continuing to test his cock for hardness. "Even for a young man like you this is somewhat unusual. You should have grown at least slightly soft after an orgasm like that. But you're just as hard as you were before."

"No. Now that you mention it... No, that doesn't usually happen."

She gave him another thoughtful look.

"And your Energies? Did you pay any attention to them?"

With a shock he realized that he had forgotten all about his Energies. It was true that she had taken him by surprise, and the pleasure she had unleashed in him had been beyond anything he'd experienced before, but still... How could he not have paid attention to his Energies? Suddenly he was ashamed at his own inattentiveness. Some sex mage he was going to be!

"I completely forgot... I..." he stammered.

"Don't worry too much about it, Galen. You're still fairly new at all this, aren't you?"

"Well, I... Serana has taught me a lot already. But, yeah... It still does take a little getting used to, sometimes."

Under water she gently squeezed his cock, which was still rock-hard as if nothing had happened.

"Well," she said thoughtfully, but with a hint of a smile. "As long as you're still ready, we might as well take advantage of the opportunity."

She rose slightly, lifting herself out of the water until her breasts cleared the surface. The look she gave him was very direct, and very inviting. Galen wasted no time accepting it. He put his arms around her upper back, moved his hands up to caress her shoulders and then, moving from her back to her front, down again to cup her breasts.

They fit perfectly into the palms of his hands. He caressed them, feeling the slick, wet smoothness of her skin, the soft yet firm flesh underneath... His fingertips traced the lovely roundness of their outer curves, then moved inward until they found her nipples. They were lovely: small, pink, cute, and very responsive. He felt them swell and harden under his touch. He took them between thumb and forefinger and caressed them, rubbed them, gently squeezed them. They grew even harder as he did so. She closed her eyes, and the expression on her face clearly told him how much she enjoyed his ministrations.

He leaned forward until his mouth touched one of those lovely pink buds. He took it between his lips and gently sucked on it, and she shivered with delight as his tongue played across its tip. With his other hand he continued to caress her other breast, tracing light, teasing patterns across the round shape of it, occasionally stroking, rubbing and gently squeezing the little rosebud adorning its tip. Her breathing grew deeper.

When he let go of her nipple with his lips and looked up, he saw she had her eyes closed, but her face now spoke of a more intense desire, a need, and he wasn't quite sure what she wanted him to do now. Experimentally he moved his hands around her back and slid them down. When they found the swell of her behind he caressed those lovely round globes with the palms of his hands. He gently stroked them, squeezed them, then carefully pulled them apart and let his fingers slowly move inward into the gap between them, until they found the little puckered hole that hid there. She sighed softly. Then she put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him closer to her.

"Galen..." she whispered. "Lift me up."

He felt rather than saw how she lifted one leg, and he shifted his hand to support her thigh. Then she lifted the other one, still holding his shoulders until, aided by the buoyancy provided by the water, he was supporting her, his hands under her thighs. She pulled herself against him, opened her eyes and smiled.

Guessing her intention, he carefully turned until she had her back against the wall of the tub. She put one hand on its rim, then the other, and pushed herself up. He lifted her further until she was sitting on the edge of the tub. Looking down upon him and smiling again, she spread her thighs wide for him. Her pussy was lovely; there simply was no other word for it. Those delicate folds, soft, pink and completely smooth, just begged to be touched, and the little nub at the apex of them had already begun to swell and peep out from under its hood.

Galen required neither further instruction nor encouragement at that point. He bent forward and placed a gentle kiss there, right between her thighs, nuzzling the softness of her nether lips. Then he extended his tongue and ran it across them, slowly, from bottom to top, and he felt her grip the back of his head and pull him against her. Her message was clear: she wanted more, much more of this. Galen was only too happy to oblige.

With the tip of his tongue he probed between her nether lips. Her velvety-soft folds parted as his tongue slid between them until he felt it reach her entrance. The first of her nectar had already pooled there and it tasted sweet: thick as honey, soft as velvet, and with a promise of much more yet to come.

Then he licked her a little higher, until his tongue reached the folds covering her pleasure button. Entering from underneath, he carefully slipped the tip of his tongue under the little hood until he felt the hard, taut smoothness of the little nub there. She moaned softly and he felt her hands grip the back of his head harder as she pulled him more firmly toward her.

He put his hands on the insides of her thighs and slowly slid them inward, stroking her lightly, caressing her there, teasing her, while he began to flick the tip of his tongue across her pleasure button. He felt the muscles grow tense under her skin and she squirmed as the ministrations of his tongue on that little hard bud slowly became firmer and more purposeful.

Then his fingers reached the lips of her pussy, which were much larger now, and he gently pulled them apart. Giving her little button a last flick for now, he moved his tongue down again to lick the insides of those lovely pink folds. Her entrance had begun to flower open and he was able to enter her a little deeper now with his tongue. He pulled up the hood of her pleasure button with his thumb to expose the delicate pink tip, while the forefinger of his other hand found the hot, wet center between her nether lips and slipped into it.

Deeper and deeper he entered her with his finger, while his lips found her little button again. When he had it just where he wanted, he began to suck on it gently while moving his finger in and out of her in a slow, steady rhythm. She moaned very softly, clearly trying to stop herself from vocalizing but not quite succeeding, and her hands gripped his head like a vice. He felt her little button swell and grow even harder as he sucked on it, and then he touched it with the tip of his tongue...

Suddenly the muscles in her thighs became taut as cables. Her hands gripped the back of his head as if they were trying to crush it, and he felt her pussy clamp down on his finger as she climaxed. The wave of her Energies hit him full in the face, but something about it felt different this time. In the past, when he had felt the Energetic release of Serana's orgasms, it had been a wave that seemed to sweep past him, around him, through him. But this time it seemed to envelop him rather than go past him, almost as if her Energies hovered around him, encapsulated him. His cock, still standing to attention, swelled even further until it was impossibly hard, the head impossibly swollen, and for a moment it felt as if it was about to burst. He almost came at that point, but somehow he managed to hold it off. He felt himself tingle with Power. It filled his body almost to the point of exploding, just like his blood filled his cock.