Chapter Ninety-Two: Past and Present

Walking away from Allie like that was one of the harder things I’ve had to do in my life. The truth was that it took everything in me not to hold her close. To keep her in my sight until I’d had the chance to say all the things I’d regretted not saying since the day I’d walked out of Karn’s burning laboratory with her body in my arms. But that would be unfair. To both of us.

I’d meant what I said. She needed to know the truth of that day, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to tell it to her. I’d tried in my head dozens of times now, but there was no way I could explain the last minutes of her life without sounding like I was making excuses. And while I could tell her everything that had occurred, I would never be able to tell her how she felt about them. I’d never be able to tell her what had gone on in her mind in those final few seconds. Whether she blamed me at all. Whether she hated me for what I did. And if I gave into the pull in my chest, the one I was fairly certain she felt as well from the look on her face, and later on she regained her memories and decided she couldn’t stand me any longer? I wasn’t sure I could handle that.

But I’d also meant what I said when I’d told her I’d reevaluate in the morning. This was the safest option. I might be walking away from her now, but she was safe. She was protected as long as she was in my home, if not by the slightly excessive protective wards I’d had layered around the property then by the rest of my family that I trusted implicitly. Not that Eliya had ever really needed protecting from anything except the one person I couldn’t ever protect her from.

There was an irony in where I found myself after, though. Thinking about the old days while trudging through the pitch black underground beneath the city. Tight, dark corridors still made my heart claw at the insides of my chest and my stomach twist painfully, but right now it felt more like a penance than punishment. There was something disturbingly comforting about a fear I could understand the root of.

The route from our manor to Stella’s workshop was a slightly convoluted one, but I’d left marks on the walls the last time I’d walked through. It took me about two hours to walk it, which meant plenty of time to think. Both a good and a bad thing. At the very least, by the time I found myself stepping over the first of her traps, I was fairly certain I’d come to the right place. Every other shimmer I knew of was safe under my roof for the night. Even if I knew Stella was safe thanks to our Link, I needed to see her.

I thought about playing our usual game. Sneaking past each of her traps to try and catch her unawares. After the first few I avoided I decided I didn’t have the patience for it today. I set off three to let her know I was coming then stopped paying attention. She hadn’t put any traps down that would be dangerous to anything larger than a rat anyways.

She was sitting at one of her desks when I arrived. A smile tugged at my lips when I saw her, once again wearing nothing but my coat. At least this time it was tied closed. I’d barely made it past the secret door before she looked up at me and smiled. My body immediately relaxed and some of the tension in my chest eased.

She hopped off her stool and strode over to me with none of her usual saunter. She didn’t speak a word as she walked straight into my chest and wrapped her arms around me. She didn’t push out her chest or rub against me in her usual teasing way, either. She nestled her face into the hollow of my throat and just squeezed me with all the strength her small frame could manage while I enveloped her in my own arms and crushed the air out of her.

I wasn’t sure how long we stood there before we loosened our grips enough for her to pull back and turn those gold-flecked green eyes up at me. “You looked like you needed that,” she said softly.

“I definitely did,” I replied.

Already she was worrying the ring in her lip. “It’s late already. Does that mean you plan to stay the night?” “I was considering it.” I rested my hands on her shoulders, not quite able to let go of her knowing what I now knew. “Assuming, of course, you promise not to take advantage of my naive innocence,” I added with a smirk.Her eyes twinkled. “Well shoot, there go my plans for the night. Come on, I was just finishing up.”

She led me by the hand into her workshop, not letting go until she’d pulled a stool up to sit by hers. I sat and she went back to working on whatever diagram had captured her attention. I sat with my back to the bench, just watching her. Cataloging every time her eyes drifted away from her designs and towards me. There was something different about her tonight. Her normal demeanor, flirty and unable to keep from enjoying making me uncomfortable, was nowhere to be found. There was a part of me that missed the unseriousness of it.

“Are you okay?” she asked finally, with all the air of someone who was already well aware of the answer but didn’t know how to start the conversation any other way.

“Not really,” I admitted. “I just got some news that has…implications.”

“Good implications or bad ones?”

“Remains to be seen. I’m kinda going back and forth on them still.”

That lip ring ended up trapped between her teeth once more. “You could bounce some thoughts off me if you wanted. An outside perspective could help.”

“It certainly could.” She went back to her diagrams while I thought over where to start. Finally, I figured I’d just go for it. “Can I ask you an odd question?”

Her eyes flicked to mine, locked in and intense. “Of course.”

“Hypothetically,” I said slowly, “if you were a reincarnated soul, and someone who knew that person back when they were alive had that information, would you want to know?”

A startled laugh slipped past her lips. “Wow, talk about a conversation starter.” She set her pencil down and crossed one arm under her breasts, bringing the other up to chew on her thumbnail. “Not knowing any more than that, I think I would. But I’d definitely have…questions.”

“Naturally,” I said, nodding.

She took a slow breath, then pulled a lock of her hair over her shoulders to have something to do with her fingers. “I’d want to know who, of course. And how. Why. I’d want to know what kind of relationship they had to this person that knew them, I suppose. And I’d probably want to do some reading on how exactly reincarnation works. If I’d be influenced by my past self at all. If their life affected who I am, or if this is just who I am in the last life and the next. And I’d want to know if I’d ever… I don’t know, remember, I guess.”

I chewed over her words thoughtfully. “If there was no guarantee you ever would?”

She looked back at me, her eyes searching my face for something. When she spoke again, her voice was painfully soft. “I think I’d still want to know. I mean, partially because it’s really interesting to think about, but also…” She turned her body to face mine and swallowed. “I think it would be unfair to the person who knew them to have to keep it to themselves forever.”

That…took a lot of the weight off my shoulders. “You wouldn’t feel manipulated at all?”

“Honestly?” When I nodded, she shrugged halfheartedly. “I think I’d feel manipulated if you waited to tell me. Like, if I was really similar to my old self and you knew that, then you could easily play to my likes and dislikes and I’d never know.”

Air vacated my lungs like I’d been hit in the chest. “That’s a fair point.”

Her uncharacteristically serious expression cracked a little. “One you didn’t even consider because you’re about as far from a manipulative person as it gets.”

A nervous sounding laugh escaped me. “That makes me sound like a much better person than I am.”

Her smile widened. “I don’t know about that.” Then her expression sobered. “Zaren, I…”

Uh oh. That tone very rarely preceded anything good. “Stella?”

She chewed on her lip wring more. “I have a confession to make. I won’t bother asking you not to be angry, just… please don’t hate me,” she finished in a small voice.

My stomach dropped like a stone. “Stella, gotta be honest here, I’m not sure I can handle more bad news with the day I’ve had.”

She nodded. “I know that. It’s just,” she hopped off her stool and started pacing, “well, kinda like your whole hypothetical, there’s something I need to tell you. You won’t like it, but you’ll like it less and less the longer I wait and I think it would be best to just rip off the bandage.”

I rotated to face her and rested my hands on my knees, braced for whatever she was about to drop on my head. “Alrighty then, proceed to rip.”

At first I thought she was nervously fidgeting with her ear, then she pulled off a long bronze fixture that hugged the base of her ear. “So, that first night you were here, I kinda sorta…slipped a listening enchantment on you,” she blurted out.

I blinked. Then I blinked again. “A listening enchantment.”

She cringed. “Yeah.”

“One connected to that ear piece.”

“Yep.”

“So you’ve been listening to everything I’ve said the last two days.”

“Well,” she said, her face turning crimson, “not…everything. I have to sleep too, and I take it off whenever you’re using the toilet.”

“What a relief,” I said dryly. Then, as the initial shock wore off, the implications settled in. “Which means you already know.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “But I really appreciate that you immediately came and told me,” she said quickly. “And, um, sorry.”

I ran a hand over my face, briefly running through what I’d done and said since I’d met her. Then I realized I didn’t care all that much what she’d overheard. I trusted her with enough to damn me already. “Can I ask why?”

She started fidgeting with her hair again. “Well, you were just so annoyingly perfect!” The look on my face must have been comical, because she made an annoyed sound. “Well, you were! I’ve spent my whole life alone down in this basement holding on to a stupid dream that my life would end up as anything other than another demi-human spreading her legs so someone else could make money and you just fall out of the fucking sky promising more than I could have ever dreamed of!”

I opened my mouth to cut in, but it seemed I wasn’t the only one running conversations in my head in my spare time. She was on a roll.

“Here you are, this big, muscular, hot, nice guy, pushing all my buttons. I’m literally flashing my ass at you and you’ve got the nerve to be all respectful! I mean, who does that? And the way you made me feel? That whole first night I didn’t know if I wanted to curl up in your lap and sleep for a few years or beg you to pound me into the floor and see if the sounds I hear coming from the other girls are real or not!”

If she noticed me suddenly readjusting myself at her words, it didn’t so much as slow her down.

“So yes! I put a listener on you! I had to know! I had to know why I felt like I could trust you when I’ve never trusted anyone in my life. I needed to understand why you make my heart race any time you look at me. Why it hurt so bad every time you, a complete stranger, walked out that door. Why, even when I can literally hear you and your surroundings in my ear, I’m gripped with such a potent fear that I’ll never see you again the second you’re out of my sight.”

By now, her chest was heaving. She clenched her fists with her face tilted towards the floor, looking away from me. “I just wanted to know who you were. I wanted to know how you acted when you weren’t around me. When it was just you and your partners. How you treated your servants when there wasn’t anyone else around. I didn’t mean to…” Her words died off with a shuddering breath.

She finally forced herself to look at me with tears building in the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t mean to overhear something so big. I just… I was scared. I figured you were too good to be true. That there had to be a catch. A trick. I didn’t expect…”

“Didn’t expect to what?” I prompted softly.

She shook her head angrily. “I didn’t expect to want to be one of them so badly. The women you surround yourself with. You probably don’t even realize how different you are when you’re with them versus when you’re with outsiders. How quickly you can go from all scary and dark to this warm, fuzzy guy that I just…” She hugged herself. “At first I listened because I needed to know what I was getting myself into, but that didn’t last long. After that…”

She took another shuddering breath. “After that, I was just taking in every moment I could. Closing my eyes at night and pretending it was me you were whispering to in the dark. Enjoying it while it lasted, because I didn’t think I’d ever actually get to be one of those girls. I doubted anyone would ever talk to me the way you talk to them, so I selfishly took what I could. And then, when Allie showed up and all that happened, even though there’s so much I don’t know and so much I still don’t quite understand, I just couldn’t stop listening.”

Well, at the very least, now I knew why she’d been acting different since I’d arrived. She’d already known what I wanted to talk to her about. And, if she was half as smart as I knew her to be, she’s already put together a lot of the pieces for me. “And…?” I said finally.

Her head snapped up. “And what?”

“You gave me all those reasons for why you did what you did,” I said, keeping my voice even, not betraying an ounce of what I felt, “so what conclusions did you draw?”

She swallowed. “That I really regret betraying your trust. That you’re even more than you appeared to be that first day.” She looked down again. “That I really hope I can earn your forgiveness, because if I fucked this all up then I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive myself.”

I nodded, even if she wasn’t looking at me. I leaned forward and held my hand out far enough that it entered her vision. “I’m not angry with you,” I said softly, almost surprised that I was telling the truth.

She took my hand with a sniffle. “Y-you’re not?”

I gently tugged her closer. “No.” I’d only intended to pull her close enough to wipe away the wetness coating her cheeks, but somehow she ended up straddling me, sitting in my lap with her arms around my neck and her face buried in my shoulder. I gently rubbed her back as she settled into me, every part of her fitting perfectly into my front. “I’ve been where you are, alone and afraid and certain nothing was ever going to get any better. I understand needing to do whatever it takes to stay sane. You were protecting yourself. I won’t fault you for that.”

The tension bled out of her. “You don’t hate me?”

“Definitely not,” I assured her. I ran my fingers through her silky black hair. “Honestly, while I might get a little annoyed later, right now I’m just too grateful that I don’t have to try and explain all this insanity.”She laughed, turning her head so she could press into my neck. “Are you sure? I could go get the lie-ball out for old times’ sake.”

That made me chuckle. “Tempting, but I’m guessing we have other things to talk about.”

She went quiet, and for a time the only sound was our breathing and my fingers against the fabric of my coat while I rubbed her back. “Do you know?” she asked, her voice so quiet I thought I’d imagined it at first, “who I was?”

I exhaled slowly out of my nose. “I have a pretty good idea, but I’m hesitant to say for certain in case I’m wrong.”

She nodded against me, shifting and adjusting until she could look up at me while resting her temple on my shoulder, the fingers of one hand drawing patterns into my chest. “Will you tell me about her? Assuming its a her, of course.”

I chuckled. “It’s a her, yes. Her name was Esther.” Stella listened raptly, hanging on my every word as I told her about Esther. I told her how my friend had been engaged to the son of one of Grimsbane’s generals. He hadn’t been a good man. Abusive and cruel, she’d told me on more than one occasion she often felt lucky he’d only beat her. But she hadn’t been content to just be a victim. She watched, waited, and bided her time, passing information to the resistance, designing magical weapons and tools in secret to help oppose Grimsbane and the family she was being forced to marry into in any way she could.

She was found out, but resistance members she’d helped managed to smuggle her out of the city before she could be dragged to her execution. All that happened before I met her, but it still felt important that Stella know that aspect of Esther’s life. That, even when she’d been trapped much like Stella was now, she hadn’t taken it lying down.

Then I told her about my time with Esther. How she’d been this brilliant girl who refused to quit. Ever. She was slow to trust after her time with her fiancée and could be skittish around men, but I was still damaged from losing Ria. Our broken parts fit together perfectly, and it wasn’t long before she was the best friend I’d had in a very long time.

The entire time Stella just laid against my chest, soaking up every word. When I’d finished telling her all the important things I could remember, she frowned. She sat up, still in my lap, so she could look me in the face. “So we weren’t—er, you weren’t together? Like, together together?”

I sighed, resting my hands on her hips. “No. Our relationship was purely platonic. Though…”

She arched a brow. “Though…?”

“I’m not sure I can say it without coming off arrogant,” I admitted.

Her fingers splayed out over my chest. “Try?”

“Well,” I said slowly, “I can tell you for a fact that the last few times I saw her I was trying to get up the courage to try and take things a step further than just a brief hug any time I was coming or going. And the last few times, it felt…”

She leaned in closer. “Go on.”

“Well,” I said slowly, “those hello and goodbye hugs started lasting longer and longer. The last one… I remember wishing I never had to let go. That I didn’t have to go back to the frontline. And when we finally pulled away, the way she looked up at me?” I shook my head. “Maybe it’s something I’ve convinced myself of over the years, but in retrospect I can’t help but wonder if she wasn’t expecting me to kiss her.”

I hadn’t realized I’d closed my eyes until I felt the pads of her fingers tracing my jawline. “Why didn’t you?”

“I was afraid. Back in those days, I didn’t really have a whole lot of self preservation. I’d lost one too many people. Seen one too many horrible things. Every time I went out, I expected not to come back. And this mission in particular was high risk. It didn’t feel fair to start something only to go off and get myself killed.” When I opened my eyes, her expression was filled with pain and longing. “I regretted not making a move the second the door closed behind me. As I mounted my horse to leave Haven, I promised I’d remedy that as soon as I returned.”

“But you never did?” she guessed.

I shook my head. “Grimsbane’s forces took advantage of our absence. I never saw her again.”

Her bottom lip trembled as she pressed her palm to my cheek. “How did I—how did she die?”

“In a blaze of glory,” I promised. “She lured the worst of his forces in, giving thousands of innocent families a chance to escape, then blew the whole city to hell with her in it. She gave us the opening we needed to win the war and saved a whole lot of people in the process.”

She made a gasping sound and jammed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “I can’t remember it, but that feels… right. Like…like I already knew it, you just reminded me of it. I can’t explain it, but…” She shook her head. “I’m her, aren’t I? I’m really her?”

With the hand still on her hip I pulled her closer, cupping her face and running my thumb across her cheekbone. “That’s what my instincts are telling me.”

She leaned into my touch, placing her hand over mine. “Does it feel like this with the others, too? The other reincarnated?”

“No. This feels like—”

“Like how you felt about her, right? Towards the end?”

She was right. And as soon as she said it, I breathed easier. The way I was holding her now was the way I wished I’d held Esther about a million times. And as soon as I came to terms with that, other pieces started to fall into place. Each one making the pain in my gut uncoil a little more. But I could deal with all that later. Right now, Stella deserved all of my attention.

“Yeah, exactly that,” I said.

“And the others? None of them have reacted like me, right?”

“Not exactly like you, no.”

A smirk pulled at the corners of her mouth, and it was only then that I realized how close our faces had become. “Then would it be safe to say that the way I feel right now is probably pretty close to how she felt towards the end as well?”

“That seems like a reasonable enough conclusion,” I said, our mouths so close I could feel her breath on my lips, “but you’re the only one who can really make that leap.”

Her eyes flicked from my lips to looking into my own, and the look in them was so like the look in Esther’s eyes that final day that I couldn’t stop myself. My hand slid to cup the back of her head and I pulled her lips to mine. She kissed me back eagerly, fisting my shirt with one hand and sinking her fingers into my hair with the other. We’d barely even begun before I felt her tongue pushing at my lips. I gave her access immediately, palming her ass and pulling her into me like I could fuse our bodies together if I tried hard enough.

She moaned into me, hooking her heels under my legs and pressing her core into mine, grinding along my erection. Her moan turned into a frustrated groan, and she pulled back enough to say, “cot. I’ve got a—”

I recaptured her lips as I stood with her still wrapped around me. It wasn’t until I navigated us both to the cot tucked into the corner of the room that I realized she even set her shop up like Esther had. Another thought for later, when I wasn’t marveling at the taste of the ring in her lip.

I laid her down without breaking contact. Not until her hands started pulling at my shirt. I pulled back enough for her to tug it over my head, then her eyes went wide as she took in my bare chest. “Oh sweet gods, today is the best day ever,” she breathed, running her palms down my front.

The brief break was enough for a hint of doubt to creep in. “Are you sure—”

“Zaren,” she said, gripping my chin, “I want you, and I want you now. I’m pretty sure I’ve waited two lifetimes for you and I am not above ugly crying to get what I want.”

That was all I needed to hear. With deft fingers, I stripped her of her only clothing. As much as I liked the idea of fucking her silly while she wore nothing but my coat, I figured she didn’t want it to get messy. Plus, I felt the need to catalog each and every one of her tattoos. With my tongue.

So I did. She moaned and writhed as I kissed, licked, and bit my way up her body. The spider web on her calf. The thorny vine that wrapped around the inside of her thigh. Each and every one of the birds on her ribs. The dragon resting on her collarbone. Then she arched into me when I took her pierced nipple into my mouth, flicking the hard nub with my tongue before I took the piercing between my teeth and tugged.

She cried out, but the hand that fisted my hair only pushed me into her chest more. I slid the hand not holding me up down her belly, soaking in the moan she let out when my palm dragged down the piercing in her belly button. I rubbed slow circles around her clit while I continued to attack her nipple with my mouth.“Fucking gods!” she cried out, “I didn’t know mouths could feel like that!”

I pulled back, letting her nipple out of my mouth with an audible pop that left her squirming. “Want to see what else I can do with my mouth?”

“Is that a trick question?” she panted.

Her pants turned into moans as I sank a finger into her. I arched a brow when I met no resistance. She did her best to look annoyed, even while I pumped my finger in and out of her pussy. “Zaren, I make sex toys in the basement of a brothel. I’ve never been with another person, but if you think for one second I still have anything resembling a hymen then I—unf!”

Her words cut off with a cry as I slid a second finger into her. I leaned down to capture her lips once more, reveling in the sweet, literally magical taste of Elf on her. Then I started working my way down her neck alternating between soft nips and kisses. Trailing her collarbone. Between her breasts. Down past her belly button.

She moaned in frustration when I went past the heat between her legs, kissing my way down the inside of one leg until I was back at the spiderweb tattoo on her calf. I put her leg over my shoulder and kissed my way back up the other one, sinking my teeth into the thorny vine just hard enough to leave a mark. The sound that slipped out of her showed no signs of protest, so I did it again to the other thigh. By the time I’d worked my way back up to the soaking wet, puffy lips at the apex of her thighs, she was squirming underneath me.

“Zaren, if you don’t—” she said breathily, trying and failing to sound threatening.

I took that moment to deliver one strong lick to her clit. With how close I’d pushed her to the edge, that was all she needed to fall apart in my arms. Her thighs clenched around my head, muffling her cries as she came. I let her ride out her climax, waiting until the tremors started to subside before slanting my mouth over her pussy and delivering a long, slow lick around her outer lips. She made a muffled sound of halfhearted protest that devolved quickly into appreciative moans as I picked up speed, working my way from the outside in while I gently fingered her clit.

Her legs locked behind my head as I drove her closer and closer to a second climax. Whatever words she managed were blocked by the thighs firmly covering my ears, but it was easy to read her reactions with my tongue sunk as far as I could reach inside her. Her inner walls started to twitch, so I switched my mouth and my fingers. I locked my lips over her clit and plunged two fingers deep inside her, curling them towards myself and pressing on the spot that all my girls seemed to have while I furiously sucked and tongued her clit.

She came twice as hard as she had a moment ago, her fingers in my hair clenching to the point of pain. My only regret was that I couldn’t see her face over the peaks of her pert breasts, pushing towards the ceiling with so much force that the only parts of her on the bed were her head and her shoulders, her lower half supported entirely by the grip her legs had on my head.

All at once, she went limp. Her legs released their hold on my head and her body collapsed to the bed, her chest still heaving as she recovered. Her gold-flecked eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling and a blissful expression told me just how much she’d enjoyed that.

“Where have you been all my life?” she managed eventually.

I crawled up her body and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Divine coma, technically.”

I was just getting ready to lay down next to her and let her drift off to sleep when I felt her fingers slip beneath my waistband and wrap around my cock. “More,” she moaned.

I arched a brow at her, but I was hardly going to tell her no. Not with the heat I saw in her eyes. She whimpered a little when I pulled away, but her protests died when she realized it was only so I could lose my pants. Her eyes fixed on my erection immediately and she licked her lips.

“Fuck, if I didn’t need that in me so badly I’d return the favor.” She scooted back, widening her legs and baring everything to me. “Next time,” she promised, more herself than me.

I took my place between her legs, hooking an arm under her thigh to lift her to the right level. I searched her face for any sign of hesitation, but her attention was locked firmly on where the head of my cock pressed against her opening, the hot slick flesh begging me to thrust forward and fill her.

Who was I to deny it?

Her eyes rolled back into her head as I sank all the way inside her with one long, slow thrust, her tunnel already plenty prepared thanks to the two orgasms she’d already had. She hooked the leg not in my grip behind my waist, helping to pull me deeper, while she mauled her breast in one hand and raked her nails down my front with the other.

“Shit,” she panted, “that’s not quite like any dildo I’ve ever used.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said, rocking my hips once.

Her head fell back and she rolled her hips against mine as best she could. “Fffffuck, you’d better.”

Once I was certain her pussy had grown used to my girth, I gripped her hip in the hand not holding her leg and started delivering long, slow strokes. From the pressure of her heel digging into my ass, long and slow wasn’t what she was in the mood for. Trying not to appear too amused, I let her set the pace. Soon enough I was pounding into her with fast, frantic thrusts while she wailed out her pleasure.

If she thought that was good, she was completely unprepared for me to tilt her hips enough for me to hit one of the sweet spots I’d cataloged earlier when I was between her legs. Her pussy clamped down on me, and in the beat where she sucked in breath to cry out I pressed my thumb to her clit. She came with her most violent scream yet, her pussy walls and her legs both clenching around me so tightly that I couldn’t do anything but gently massage her clit with my thumb while she rode out her most powerful climax yet.

By the time she returned fully to reality, her breaths were coming in short gasps. Her head lolled until her eyes landed on me. She reached out with both hands towards my face and made a whimpering sound. I’m sure she wanted me to go down to her, but I had other ideas. I leaned forward enough to slide an arm under her back then lifted so that we were both upright, chest to chest, with her legs wrapped around me.

She immediately shifted her legs to give her the leverage she needed to start rocking against me even as she captured my mouth with hers. I wrapped an arm around her waist and ran my other hand between her shoulder blades while she sunk both her hands into my hair, ensuring I could do nothing but return the furious kiss as we rocked frantically against one another.

I was pretty certain that another orgasm rocked through her at some point, but it was nowhere near as strong as the last few so I fucked her right through it. She finally broke the kiss only to pull my head close enough that she could sink her teeth into my earlobe. I returned the favor, trailing my tongue along the long, pointed, pierced elven ear. She shivered with delight and clamped down on me again, rocking her hips with renewed fervor and sliding along my cock with all the energy she had left.

“Fill me, Zaren,” she breathed into my ear. “Cum inside me. I want to know what it feels like to have you dripping down my thighs.” She must have felt me twitch inside her judging by her sharp intake of breath. “Would you like that? Me, in just an apron, crafting magical weapons of mass destruction with your cum dribbling out of me? Marking me as yours?”

Apparently, judging by the climax that surged through me, the answer was a resounding yes. I wrapped my arms around her tight and slammed into her one last time before doing exactly what she’d asked me to. I fired rope after rope, filling her until I felt the results of our union leaking out around my cock. I was so lost in my own release that I didn’t realize she was cumming just as hard until her bones turned liquid in my arms. She sagged against me, nuzzling into my neck and making happy, nonsensical sounds.

Gently, without slipping out of her, I lowered us both to the cot. I laid us down side by side while she remained wrapped around me—in more ways than one. When I tried to reposition again I realized she was clamped around me tightly enough that her limbs were trembling. I gently started running my fingers down her back until she slowly started to relax, then I pulled away enough to look at her face.

There was no regret in her expression, thankfully, but there was a fear I recognized all too well. She knew as well as I did that our time was all too limited. “Not to sound crass, but I’m afraid as soon as I pull out there’ll be a bit of a mess.”

Her cheeks reddened and some of that fear dissipated. She pointed to a set of drawers. “Second drawer down, red cloth.”

I summoned a tendril and followed her instructions, pulling out a red rag with white stitches creating arcane symbols. I handed it to her and she rolled away with a satisfied sigh, using the cloth to clean herself up. “Specially made after-sex cleaning cloth,” she said, tossing it onto the dresser. “A best seller. Also good for cleaning up lube and other bodily fluids.”

Then, after a moment of hesitation, she turned into me and curled up against my chest, slipping one of her legs between mine. I ran my fingers through damp hair, a sudden worry occurring to me. “Shit, protection.”

She giggled. “Come on, you really think I didn’t have Rhallani walk me through that contraception crest the second you left earlier? I knew I’d need it sooner or later.”

I lifted her up enough to catch her lips. “You did, did you?”

“Mhm,” she said, smiling triumphantly. “And I was right,” she said, wiggling her bare chest against mine.I kissed her again, this time slowly. “You certainly were.”

We made out softly for a while before she nestled back into me, resting halfway on my body. “You don’t have to go yet, do you?” she asked in a small voice.

Someone cleared their throat nearby. Stella jumped, but I just shot Festus a glare. The familiar, still in his cat form, blinked slowly at us. “The mistress would like me to pass along a message. She requests that you remain—” He made a sound similar to passing a hairball, then sighed. “I am being instructed to relate her message verbatim. She says, and I quote, ‘Zaren, if you do not spend the night cuddling the shit out of that cute ass Elf you will regret it. Everything is fine here for the night, we can worry about the you-know-what tomorrow.’”

Hearing Rhallani’s words coming from Festus’s posh, monotone voice was quite the experience. Stella immediately burst into giggles, hiding her face in my chest. “Thank you Festus,” I replied, somehow keeping a straight face.

The cat inclined his head then stalked off. Stella inhaled deeply through her nose, curling her arms between us. “I can’t wait to meet her for real,” she said.

“You will soon,” I promised. “I’ll figure something out.”

“I believe you,” she said, her voice painfully earnest. “Whatever happens, I’m glad I got to give my first time to you.”

I brushed some sweaty hair from her face. “When I get you out of here, I’ll give you a whole day of whatever you want. Whoever you want, too. I’m sure you and Rhallani could certainly put me through my paces.”She grinned up at me. “You bet your ass we could.” Her hand trailed down my chest to cup my already-hard-again cock. “Until then, though, you’ll just have to fuck me good enough to not leave me wanting.”

“Not to brag,” I said, pressing a kiss to her lips and rolling her on top of me, sinking into her at the same time, “but I may or may not have been literally blessed by a goddess with a divine cock.”

She let out a moan as she rocked up and down on me. When she looked up at me, her eyes twinkled. “Is that so? No wonder you’re better than any of my toys.” Her head fell forward as she picked up speed. “Fuck, I was going to suck you off, but now that you’re in me again…”

I laughed, gripping her by the hips so I could thrust up into her. “The night is young still.”

Her eyes flashed. “Oh, I know.” She tapped her ear. “Don’t forget, I’ve got a pretty good idea of how many times you can go.”

That brought a chuckle out of me. “Not quite sure about that. I haven’t really had the time to really go all out since we’ve met.”

Her eyes widened, and she picked up speed. “Guess now I’ve got a goal, then.”

I grinned, trailing my hands up her sides. I could deal with all the other shit later, right now I had a horny little Elf to please. “I guess you do.”