The Soul Refiner Bk. 01 Ch. 10-12

"Why would they do that? What purpose could it possibly serve?" I was oddly glad to hear the heat in her voice. She had been so deferent to this point, so oddly passive, that part if me wondered of her fire could be truly rekindled.

"I have a suspicion, but it doesn't matter right now. We will deal with the Pure later. For now, you need to relearn everything you know, step by step. Begin you first form again, at half speed..."

Chapter 12

I spent the remainder of the morning helping Myta adjust her spear forms. She was quick study, and a natural at harmonizing her body and spirit. The monks must have been incredibly strict to train her away from those instincts. The way she sometimes tensed when altering her movements made it clear to me how they had beaten the destructive patterns into her. It was easy to spot someone tensing to receive a blow.

After lunch we broke camp quickly, and got back on the road. We made decent time, though with how far behind my normal schedule we were it hardly mattered. The goats scented a few mana-rich plants near the road, and I was able to explain their signals to my vas. Ket accompanied us, remaining out of sight, but sending us the occasional bit of mental commentary. She alerted us to an already wounded deer in the woods, and I sent Myta to hunt it. It turned out that she was as proficient in throwing spears as she was using them in melee.

Setting camp was a bit more difficult with the larger tent. Not so much that erecting the tent was difficult, but finding the space to do so was more challenging where the woods were thick. We ended our travel a little later than I'd have liked, but the day had been a relatively easy one. Once again, I warmed a pot of therapeutic oil, and Myta laid out our bedrolls nearby. She stripped out of her clothing without a word, but lingered standing near me rather than laying down immediately. I eyed her, first with a clinical eye, but then allowing my gaze to linger in a more lecherous appraisal. Blushing, she refused to meet my eyes, but she also remained standing with her hands at her sides.

"Tell me what you want." I kept my voice calm and low. But already I could hear the hint of a growling rasp to it.

"I wish to please you tonight, master." Her voice was strained, her feelings alight with nervous anticipation.

"This will be different than the visions. Things do not work so simply, so easily, in the real world."

"As you say, master." I could feel the weight she put on that word. She had chosen to put her trust in me entirely, which might not have been the wisest, most emotionally safe choice. But I couldn't find it in myself to care when the term fell from her lips like a prayer. Like a form of worship.

"Lay down as before. The treatment comes first." She complied with my order, and I began, stimulating her body and mana once again with the hot oil and massage. In her arms and legs, her channels has begun to twist back into unhealthy shapes, but the the reversion was not as bad as I'd feared. In fact, her mana was flowing far more strongly, and the faint wisps of her presence had thickened into an even, faint haze. It was a much faster process to regain the ground that had been lost, and in only about half an hour I was again ready to cleanse the nodes of her main channel.

Myta had made a request of me. One I had every intention of indulging. But, there was no reason not to mix business with pleasure. I continued with the physical massage, pressing my fingers into the tense muscles of her neck, working my way down her back. I didn't push my mana into her yet, or attempt to draw her corrupt mana out. But I did press against her spirit with my own presence, letting her feel my spiritual weight. I normally took great pains to hide my true strength, but I felt her revel in the sensation of being overpowered.

Myta's newly restored physique was not accustomed to the training she had done today, so I spent nearly as long relaxing her back as I had treating her peripheral channels. That was fine by me however, as I indulged my possessive desires, scraping her skin occasionally with my nails, and checking to see if her erotic responses were the same in real life, as in our shared dream. For the most part, they were. By the time I finished with the massage she was squirming uncontrollably under my hands. The scent of her arousal, almost like mulled mead, hung heavy in the air.

"Stand up," I ordered her, and she leapt at the chance to actually spend some of that restless energy. I took her place on the bedroll, facing upward. My cock was at full attention, pointing rigidly toward my chin, tight to my stomach. "Now, sit down on me, straddling my hips."

Groaning, she did as I bade her, and the wet furnace of her sex pressed to the underside of my shaft. She gasped, her hips shifting slowly, languorously. Pressing my shaft between her lower lips, and grinding her pearl against it. I let her do as she wanted for a time, her motions slowly becoming faster, more pronounced. When her hips made a little circle, forcibly grinding her nub of flesh against me, I grabbed her to hold her still.

Slowly, deliberately, I guided her up to hover over me. I dug my fingers into her hips, enjoying the feel of her in my hands, the ridges of her pelvis pressing back against my thumbs. When I let go she stayed obediently where I put her, awkwardly hovering in the air, thighs flexing strongly to maintain the position. I took another long look to admire her lithe form, her athletic musculature softened by a healthy layer of fat. Her light gray skin glistened with a sheen of mixed oil and perspiration. In the dimming light of the tent, her eyes flared, their subtle glow highlighted by the darkness, more coppery orange than red right now.

Reaching down between us I grasped my cock, firmly angling it upward. Myta was positioned just right, and she let out a guttural moan that sounded almost pained as the tip slipped between her lips, just passing through her short and tidy bush, grazing her pearl along the way. Her hips jerked, her legs trembled, and her fingers dug into her thighs where she was using the to help support herself.

"You really want this? To be my vas, and my slave?" I asked her.

"Yes, master."

"You wish to belong to me, body and spirit? To be, not just my servant or patient, but to be my possession? To care for and use, only as I see fit?"

"Yes master!" She screamed the words this time. I would not have gone so far, presumed so much, if I hadn't felt her desire, and her ecstatic joy, increase with each sentence. Honestly I felt that I could have pushed her further, but her easy, eager acceptance of my will was dangerously intoxicating. I needed to rein myself in, and I was eager to be inside her.

"Stay like that as long as you can." That was all the warning I was prepared to give her. Closing my eyes, I tightened my presence around Myta, while pushing more of my mana into her through the bond. She released a desperate cry, as her body sank a little, her entrance kissing the tip of my cock. My arousal, and the heady knowledge of my control over this beauty, stripped away my patience. Though fortunately my skill was intact.

Very little corrupted mana had returned to her crown, but I still started there. I flooded her meridian with my mana, forcing the sickness out with a level of brute force that should have had her screaming in pain. Instead her cry was decidedly vulgar. The next major nexus of her channels was the third eye. I was a little more careful this time, but only a little. When I purged it, I could feel the connection between us deepening. Her emotions snapped sharply into focus for me, and I could sense her physical sensations as well. Not as though they were my sensations, but in a similar way to how I would sense her location. I simply knew, with complete certainty exactly what she was feeling.

Finally I understood why my vas responded so differently to my manipulation of her spirit body. It was invasive, yes, and it did hurt her. But for her, the pain was a minor inconvenience, nothing worth noting when compared to the incredible closeness it brought, and the cleansing silver fire of my mana in her veins. She was absorbed in something like religious ecstasy, a holy communion between our souls.

Myta was shaking. Not just her thighs now, but her entire body. I knew that she was nearly done, only her desperate desire to obey me preventing her from collapsing, and plunging herself down on my length. Her eyes were blazing brightly now, seeming almost literally alight, like candle flames in her skull. And her hair rippled with the colors of a bonfire, the way I'd only rarely seen it, even in her memories. I had just enough strength of mana, and room in my spirit, to purify one more of her nodes.

I tightened my presence around her throat, while moving my mana within her to the nexus there. To Myta it felt like my hand squeezing her throat, or perhaps a collar tightening around her neck. She couldn't decide which to imagine, and suddenly it didn't matter, because she was done. The last dregs of her rationality and self control washed away in a sudden spike of helpless panic and utter release. With a strangled scream her legs gave out entirely, dropping her weight. I barely had time to move my hand before my shaft was buried inside her

I struggled to maintain my control, even as Myta's burning wetness plunged down on me. Her flesh gripped me tightly as she came at once. A slow, rolling climax, born more of the anticipation and buildup than the actual penetration. My hands were both on her hips again, hers were on my chest. Fingers curling, her nails dug red furrows into my skin. Her hips began to rock, forward and back. A steady rhythm we set together, like a slow heartbeat. Our mana surged with the motion, as though it were blood shared between us, driven by our movements. With each surge her sickness ebbed, and our spirits drew closer.

Our pace increased steadily, and I was heading towards my climax rapidly. Myta had been experiencing small peaks steadily, but they were building up toward something more. Sloping one hand off her hip, I slid it between us to rub at her pearl with my thumb. Her insides were a furnace, and I almost wondered if her affinity might make this genuinely unsafe, if she might burn me. Then I was past thought, my body reaching the point of no return.

It was like a choreographed dance, as the last of the poisoned mana drained from my lover's throat, the catharsis set off my physical release. I brought up the hand that was still on her hip, and grabbed hey neck instead. I tried not to squeeze too hard, but I was too far gone to know if I succeeded. Perhaps it was the feeling of me choking her, or of my seed shooting deep inside her, or maybe she was also responding to the release of our mana. Regardless, Myta also found the climax she had been chasing, the peak she had been building toward. She screamed again, long and loud, and her hoarse cries were music to my ears.

Falling atop me, she shook and shuddered, her sex clenching around my shaft in an uneven rhythm. I felt replete, perfectly satisfied. The intoxicating thrill of power had given way to something much warmer, and more tender. This woman was mine to care for. It wasn't the greedy desire I'd felt for her before. Rather, I felt a calm certainty, suspiciously like love. What was it Ket had said? Myta belonged to me, and with me. And now I knew, the reverse was also true.

*Yes master, thank you. This is perfect.*