DarkFyre

Chapter Twenty-One

Rael sank back into the large brass tub sitting in the middle of their room. The room’s furnishings were modest, but the bed was large enough for them both to settle into comfortably as long as Silmaria curled in tightly to him, and the room was clean and tidy. The bedding was simple cotton spun, with a thick wool cover and soft, fresh straw stuffed into the mattress. There was a small ash wood table and two small chairs set under a shuttered window. A patterned rug made the room a bit more cozy, on which the brass tub sat.

Surprisingly, the tub was large enough that Rael could really stretch out his long legs and recline back in a comfortable way, which was something rare indeed. The water from Silmaria’s bath had been drained and refilled with fresh, steaming hot water. He gave himself over to the hot water’s soothing embrace.

Allowing himself a rare unguarded moment, the Nobleman shut his eyes and willed himself to relax. It was more difficult than it seemed; being alert and on guard, ever ready for trouble had become a part of his life. His vigilance had kept them alive through the long weeks of their journey, true. But even he couldn’t keep his guard up, always; his constant watchfulness was exhausting.

“Hey, handsome,” Silmaria called softly.

Rael cracked one eye to peek at her. Then both eyes opened wide.

His Gnari love stood before him, gloriously naked, her hands resting on the sumptuous curve of her lush hips while she regarded him with a curious expression. Rael hadn’t realized just how much the toll of life on the road had changed her until just that moment. The rigors of their dangerous journey had transformed her, just as finally washing the road off had done likewise.

Silmaria had always been fit and strong, but living on the move, walking for miles on end every day, climbing and hiking through hills and valleys and treacherous mountain passes and all manner of other hardships had trimmed and sculpted her body well. Silmaria was still amply curvaceous and soft in all the most delicious of places, but now her flat belly was taut with gently defined, feminine muscle, and her smooth legs were solid and strong, well-muscled in her shapely thighs. Her ass was sculpted and round. Two solid, tantalizing globes of fit, firm, grab-able flesh. She was still the same little slip of a woman she’d ever been, but her small stature and deliciously sensual curves were now complimented with an athletic sense of vitality and feminine strength.

Even more evident, she was glowingly beautiful now that she was clean. Which was not to say she hadn’t been beautiful and alluring when covered in trail dust and the wear of the wild, of course. He’d found her every bit as desirable then. But now, freshly washed and brushed, her abundant black curls were light and silky soft with health, the true depth of their darkness revealed and begging to be twined around his fingers. Likewise, her pelt was healthier than it had been in some time, glossy and satin, with the richness of the whites and orange and black all mingling together in stark, exotic contrast. Even her face seemed refreshed, and her smile was radiant and proud when she noticed his eyes on her.

Silmaria came to him, her steps a purposeful feline slink. For a moment Rael’s eyes didn’t know where to go, so they settled on going everywhere.

“Have I told you lately how heartbreakingly beautiful you are?” Rael asked her softly as she perched lightly on the edge of the tub.

“You’re just saying that because I’m not a dusty, dirty wildcat anymore,” Silmaria laughed softly, the sound of smooth stones falling into a deep pool.

Rael smirked lightly. “Clean wildcat, dirty wildcat. Beautiful all the same.”

“Sure I am,” Silmaria said with a smile, and flicked droplets of water at him with her fingertips.

Then the Gnari bent to kiss him, soft and slow. After, naked still, she knelt beside the tub. Her movement was purposeful and careful, and Rael senses a shift in her demeanor. He had trouble placing the expression on her face, but the closest he could equate it to was focused. Calm, and somewhat reverent.

Silmaria grabbed the lump of soap they’d been given. She took one of Rael’s large feet, dripping from the tub, and began to wash it.

Rael’s brow rose. “What are you doing?” he asked curiously.

“Washing you, what does it look like?” Silmaria said with a light smirk before her seriousness returned. “May I, please?”

“I’ve never had someone else do it for me,” Rael admitted with an awkward smile. Though it would have been well within his right and privilege as a Noble, Rael had never had anyone else wash him since he was old enough to do it himself.

“Please?” Silmaria repeated.

Rael paused, noting the tone of her voice. And he realized then that this was as much for her as it was for him, if not more.

“Go ahead,” he acquiesced.

Silmaria gave him a soft smile of thanks, and continued.

The girl handled her Master’s body carefully, soaping up his sore foot with careful hands, getting it thoroughly sudsy and clean before beginning to massage his foot with surprisingly strong, small fingers. She worked her fingertips and thumbs, even her palms into his foot, the arch and heel, the top. Even his toes she paid special care to, thoroughly massaging him with that same focused, calm, if somewhat determined look on her face. Then she rinsed the soap from his foot, and moved her soapy hands up to his taut, hard calves. Her fingers worked at the thick bundle of muscles there in a slow, purposeful way, and then up to his knee, and the powerful swell of his thighs before switching to his other leg and repeating the process all over again.

Silmaria continued her ministrations to the rest of Rael’s body. All the while, she maintained the same purposeful pace, the same reverent touch. There was a peace in her eyes, during those moments, a peace that spoke of a depth of love and devotion and a deep seeded need to serve and provide for his needs. Her care left Rael humbled, and his chest tight with warmth even as his body relaxed under her ministrations.

It was a strange experience, but wonderful. Rael had never allowed someone to so devotedly working at his body to ease his aches and pains and make him truly relaxed. Indeed, he was deeply, utterly relaxed just then; the aches and pains of the long road seemed to disappear under Silmaria’s skilled fingers.

He wasn’t sure he would have enjoyed it in any other circumstances, and likely would have felt quite strange and uncomfortable. Silmaria’s dutiful care, however, felt right.

The last of the soap was rinsed away from his body. Rael stood slowly, and stretched his back and legs with renewed vigor and health, feeling like a new man entirely.

Silmaria knelt beside the brass tub. She stared up at her Master as the water rolled off him in rivulets, little streams of the glistening water running along the many grooves of his battle-toned muscle and scared flesh.

Wordless and with the same careful, tender purpose, Silmaria leaned forward and took Rael’s still dripping cock between her lips.

Rael let out a low groan of pleasure. Silmaria stared up at him, her big, bright green feline eyes never leaving his own strange silvers as she drew the full length of her Lord’s dick into the warm, softly suckling confines of her mouth. Immediately Rael’s cock began to grow, rapidly expanding and filling with blood and arousal. Silmaria kept her lips firmly nestling against the base of Rael’s cock, letting it fill her mouth as her tongue played along the length of that swelling flesh. Even when his generous cock lengthened to slide down her throat, spreading her supple, slippery muscles there around the meaty girth, Silmaria held herself in place, swallowing him down with hungry little swallows.

Not until his cock was fully erect and throbbing, fat and jerking deep down her throat and Silmaria was softly gagging on his flesh, her muscles contracting and squeezing, did the Gnari at last pull back. She let his cock pop wetly from her mouth, and she gasped and softly choked with a thick rope of saliva dangling from full, trembling lips to drip down her neck and ample chest. As she gathered her composure, Silmaria stared up at Rael, her eyes glossed over with lust and shining with utter devotion.

Rael plunged his strong hands into the still slightly damp darkness of her lustrous curls. His hands found her delicately made furred ears atop her head, running them between his thumbs and forefingers. Silmaria shivered, that touch sending a primal surge of pleasure racing through her body, twisting along the pathways of her nerve endings and hopscotching down the length of her spine. She pressed her face to Rael’s swollen, wet cock, nuzzling it, rubbing it against her cheeks and lips as she inhaled the scent that was so intrinsically and unmistakably him.

“Master,” Silmaria breathed just to hear the word on her lips, to feel it roll meaningfully off her tongue, the word and the tone and the weight of its meaning making the both of them ache for what she offered to him with that single, deceptively simple word.

Control. Power. Her devotion, undying. Unguarded, unrestrained access to all that she was. She laid herself bare, right there at his feet, offering all that she was.

His.

Rael stared down into those upturned eyes, and did the only thing he possibly could.

He took.

There was all of her, at his fingertips. Rael guided her head back to the rigid shaft of his cock and she went oh-so willingly. The girl ran her talented, agile tongue along the pulsing underside of her Master’s heavy flesh. Silmaria traced the distended veins throbbing along the solid sides. Felt the beat of his strong heart and the coursing of passion burning in his blood.

When Silmaria took Rael back into her mouth he gripped her head and began to thrust his hips in deep, long thrusts, driving his bulging dick down the sweet surrendering Gnari’s supple throat. Silmaria moaned deeply, her head swimming with satisfaction as her Master took what he pleased from her. His cock throbbed with life as it thrust down her gripping throat, and she slurped, her tongue working over his flesh. He buried himself down her throat until her lips kissed the root of his meat, and she gave a wet, strangled gag. And again. And again.

Saliva glistened in sticky strands from Silmaria’s puffy lips, shining threads of passion that dripped down onto her heaving tits. Silmaria was utterly filled with him, all her senses consumed and overrun with Rael. The smell of him. The strong, fleshy taste of him, peppered with the snatches of his sweet, syrupy precum. The feel of his powerful guiding hands in her hair and his engorged cock stuffing her hungry little mouth. The sound of his growl; the rumbling of it made her cunt clench violently. And his eyes, staring down into hers.

His eyes, as intense and focused and vivid as ever they’d been, and understanding more and more just how deeply he owned her.

Rael grew rougher, his thrusts harder. Silmaria sucked and slurped and gagged, choking on her Master’s cock until tears glazed over her eyes, and still she stared up at him. She stared at him as he choked her with his cock. She stared too as his forceful claiming of her mouth and throat made her tears spill over. And she stared into his eyes even still, as she reached between her splayed thighs and shoved three fingers into her cunt, and desperately thrust and screwed her fingers deep into her clenching pussy as she violently exploded, cumming hard as she screamed around Rael’s impressive cock.

Rael jerked his dick from her throat, and Silmaria gasped in a huge lungful of breath and collapsed onto the floor, trembling and twitching. Rael stared down at her, sprawled on the floor, her knees bent with her hand still trapped between her strong thighs, sticky and wet. Her breasts bounced with her gasps, coral pink nipples vivid against the creamy white of the velvet pelt along her belly and the generous round mounds of her tits. Her hair, clean and glossy and silken was disheveled and hung forward to hide her face.

The Nobleman gave a soft growl, his desire ignited into a raging inferno. He easily gathered the smallish woman into his heavily muscled, powerful arms and carried her to the bed, where he placed her on her belly.

Silmaria began to stir, but before she could even fully rise, Rael gripped the round, supple swell of her ass and pulled it up into the air. Silmaria gasped lightly, her eyes going wide, and then Rael’s powerful hands parted her solid buttocks and the hot, wet press of his tongue dragged firmly along the valley between her cheeks, from the drooling cleft of her slippery pink slit up along her crack and over the tight, quivering pucker of her asshole. Rael’s talented tongue worked along her anus, circling the fluttering ring of pink muscle, swirling along her delicate rosebud in a deliciously wicked erotic dance.

“Oh fuck, oh Master, yes,” Silmaria moaned, her breath coming out in a frantic pant. She pressed her ass back, wiggling, eager for his attentions in whatever form they took. Rael licked at her pert, clenching asshole, prodding it briefly with the tip of his tongue before he shifted his attention back down to her pussy.

His hands, powerful and rough, kneaded and squeezed the Gnari’s lush ass as Rael plunged his tongue into the quivering depths of his love’s fragrant pussy. He lapped and sucked, his mouth filling with the distinct flavor of her. The silky sweet stickiness of her arousal was a delicate treat that quickened his lust all the more. Silmaria moaned and whimpered, and she writhed beneath him as he feasted between her legs.

Once Rael found the hard, tight little swell of Silmaria’s clit, it took but moments before the Gnari came again, screaming. Her back arched as she pushed back into his hands and torturously talented mouth once more. Her flanks trembled and her muscles tensed deliciously as ecstasy raced through every taut fiber of her being. Before her first orgasm fully died down Rael cruelly, and wonderfully, began to lightly worry and nibble and nip at her clit with his sharp, oh-so lovely teeth, making her cum again, violently now, a great burning explosion of pleasure-pain slamming her in the gut and radiating through her in great, racing waves.

Silmaria shrieked. And screamed. Then she sobbed, tears of overwhelming pleasure and unexplainable release running down her cheeks as firecrackers went ballistic behind her eyes. Her pussy contracted, desperately gripping at nothing, and great gushes of sticky wet pussy juice spilled from her in shining rivulets down her wiggling legs.

Rael watched, felt, and tasted every last moment, and he reveled. Reveled in her pleasure and her pain. Reveled in her release, her spiral into that deeply gratifying, desperately needed pleasure. He basked in her surrender, and fed on the primal, overwhelming sexuality that was His Silmaria.

“M-more…please,” she whimpered when at last she could breathe again. Her voice was raw, full of tears. Twitchy with overstimulated nerves and gut-wrenching lust.

“Tell me what you need,” Rael rumbled behind her as he trailed a solitary, powerful fingertip slowly up the drooling length of her heated slit.

He knew. He asked her, even though he knew. And she knew it. He asked her to make her say it. To make her speak it aloud. To make her face it, that she wouldn’t try to hide it or deny it.

Because she couldn’t.

Not to him.

“Hurt me.”

Rael pressed his finger deep into her core.

Yes. Oh, fuck yes.

Pressed inside her, swirling in her clutching wetness, caressing inside. That was good. But it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t scratching that part of her itch, wasn’t sating that need. Almost, she wondered if he was denying her this time.

Then he surprised her. Silmaria let out a soft gasp, her eyes fluttering when she felt the press of his thick finger retreat from her cunt to move to her exposed, vulnerable little pucker of an asshole. She bit her lip, stifling a moan as he circled her anus for a few tantalizing moments. When the slow, patient, steady pressure of his finger pressed to her rosebud, she moaned out loud and pushed her ass back, welcoming.

“Tell me why you want me to hurt you,” Rael spoke as he slid his finger into the warm embrace of Silmaria’s ass. The Gnari girl moaned, quavering. His strong finger opened her asshole slowly but firmly open, spreading her sphincter, the tender muscles parting and yielding for him. Her ass was tight and gripping. Yet, no stranger to this type of invasion, she took her Master’s finger with relative little discomfort.

But his question was throwing her off. Her mind was afog with lust and pleasure and need. She could barely form a clear thought beyond a simple and primal fuck me, fuck me, dear gods fuck me.

“Wh-what?” she croaked at last.

“Tell me,” Rael repeated, punctuating his words with a twist of his finger up her succulent bottom. “Why you want me to hurt you.”

“I c-can’t!” Silmaria moaned, swallowing, and arching her back to offer her ass up more. His finger felt delicious up her ass, but oh, she needed so much more than that!

“Tell me,” Rael insisted. Confident now that she could handle some force her, he thrust a second finger up her ass, much less patiently this time, ramming it up her clutching bowels alongside the first and stretching the ring of her asshole wider.

“I…I…”

Conflict and confusion. And, startlingly, embarrassment welled inside Silmaria. They settled, heavy weight in her clenching belly. What he asked was simple… but so very hard. She shook her head, tossing her thick mane as she whimpered. She was grateful he couldn’t see her face, scrunched up as her eyes misted with tears. His fingers probed and pressed into her ass, slowly swirling inside her, stretching her delicate, gripping anus as he thrust them in and out of her asshole.

“Tell me!” Rael growled into her ear, this time a command.

“Because I need it!” Silmaria whimpered. She pressed the side of her face into the bed as she arched her ass up, utterly exposed, wanting, and desperate for his touch. Any touched he wanted, only please, please, more.

“Because I need to hurt,” she went on as his fingers probed deeply at her ass, sliding in and out of her straining, welcoming bowels. “Because it’s what I know, and it’s what I need, and what I crave! It makes me feel wretched, and worthless, and complete and so wrongly right!”

Rael continued to explore her tender, dark hole as the words came tumbling out, now beyond all control. “Because I love you. Because I know you can hurt me so well. And because I know you’ll scrape together the pieces when I’m done shattering. I need it, my Lord, my Master, my love, I need your pain and I need your tenderness and I need you to know me, every last bit of me!”

“I know you,” Rael rumbled behind her, and as his fingers continued their rough work in her ass, stretching her little ring open, he leaned down and kissed the firm, meaty swell of her supple ass before biting it firmly.

Silmaria cried out, her eyes going wide as her back bowed, arching. Her asshole stung perfectly, mingling waves and pleasure and pain washing through her and wracking her body with quivering ecstasy. His teeth on her flesh only made the sensation all the more overwhelming.

“I know you,” the Nobleman went on, “I know your goodness, and your darkness. Your kind, loving heart, and the wicked demands of your cunt. I know your tender love and devotion, and your cravings for pain and torment. I know you, Sil, and I love you without fail.”

“Fuck,” the Gnari grunted through gritting teeth, her belly hot and tight, coiling into a small, hard ball of arousal. Tears spilled, just a few of them, hot and salty on her cheeks.

It was too much; his words, his love, his kindness and his cruelty. He acknowledged that shameful, hungry part of her, honored it and accepted it as easily and equally as he did the light of her smile and the loving devotion of her service. Her shame and her love mingled in a heady cocktail of lust and adoration and deep felt devotion that gave a glossy coat to the desperation of her sexual haze.

His fingers twisted inside her tender ass, exploring the forbidden depths of her, and his teeth once more found a hard, sharp grip on the luscious rounding of her buttocks.

It was too much, indeed.

“Please, Master, please may I cum!” she begged so prettily, her voice quavering with the need of her release.

“Cum, little Silmaria. Cum for me,” Rael growled deeply behind her, and his big, powerful hand slapped hard at the globe of her ass.

Silmaria screamed, spasmed, and roughly came as her ass stung from his blow. Her asshole clutched wildly around his pumping fingers, gripping and fluttering with delight as she came and came, thighs trembling as her breath sucked frantically in and out. Her pussy splashed her release, a glistening spill of arousal running in shining tracks down her strong inner thighs.

When the intense, heady orgasm faded Silmaria sank, panting, all the tension gone from her body to leave her limp and twitching, her muscles all contracting and releasing, out of her control. She panted, little moans and mewls and whimpers coming from her as she weakly squirmed on her belly.

So wrapped in the haze of her orgasm was she that Silmaria hardly registered Rael pulling his strong fingers from her hot, gripping ass except to softly grunt, and wonder distantly at the suddenly empty ache in her backside, the distracting, unpleasant sensation of her ass squeezing on nothing but air, which was not nearly filling enough, no not at all.

Her flesh twitched, heated and trembling, and for a moment she lay there limp and unable to so much as shift, panting with her face pressed into the bed and her ass raised up high still.

There he was, then. The firm, warm, steady pressure of Rael’s bulbous cockhead pressing to her twitching little asshole. For just a moment Silmaria tensed, her ass clenching tight. Then she took a deep, steadying breath and relaxed, willing her muscles to loosen. The Gnari girl sank slightly as she settled there on the bed, her ass upturned and offered. Rael’s cock felt huge, blunt and swollen against her small, shivering rosebud, and Silmaria felt a thrill of anticipating race through her.

“I’m ready,” she breathed softly as Rael slowly circled the tip of his heavy cock around her pucker, enticing and exciting her even more. She bit her lower lip softly and nodded to herself. “Take me. Please.”

Rael pressed forward, slowly and gradually but firmly. A steady, insistent forward pressure. Silmaria’s tender asshole began to open for him, spreading around the thick knob of his cockhead. The girl gasped softly, a sharp inhale of breath as her tender, intimate hole began to accommodate her Master’s thick organ, and then she once more forced herself to relax and be pliable.

Rael grit his teeth, his hands holding to her hips, lightly gripping the round contour of her ass as he pressed into the tightly gripping heat of her asshole with gradually increasing pressure.

Silmaria held as still as she could, but already her breathing was coming faster and deeper as she experienced that delicious stretch, her ass burning in a deeply pleasurable way as he forced her tender little ring to spread wider and wider to accept his generous, swollen size. She felt every moment of it in a starkly surreal and pronounced way. He felt enormous, bigger by the moment, and as inch after bloated inch worked its way into her bowels, filling her clutching asshole up, Silmaria shook with the pleasure-pain of it. She had taken a fair number of men this way and had always enjoyed the wickedly carnal experience, but this was especially intense, and soon she was quivering, bent before him with her ass raised up, offered completely to his whims and desires as she began to wiggle her generous ass back and forth to take that wonderful cock in deeper.

“Fuck,” Rael said in a deep, rough edged growl of lust and appreciation while he fed his cock deep into the twitching, stretching passage of Silmaria’s wiggling ass. He pressed inward, sinking, sinking, with the Gnari girl’s muscle ring splayed around his flesh and clutching as it fluttered from the stretching sensation. He watched his bulging cockmeat disappear into Silmaria’s delicate, hot backside, and continued his slow, deep thrust until he was at last fully embedded in the milking heat of her pliantly eager ass.

Silmaria let out a low straining moan and her thighs trembled for a moment when Rael finally sank in to the root. She was so fucking full, so stuffed with that beautiful, powerful cock of his and her ass couldn’t be happier. Laced with the sweet sting of the muscles of her ass being opened wide was the exquisite pleasure of the penetration, of feeling his cock lodged so deep in her hungry little asshole. It was a unique, strange sort of pleasure, very different from having him in her cunt, but just as powerfully arousing.

“Fuck me,” she moaned, gasping as she pressed back into him now, eagerly, grinding her plump ass into his hips and rotating her asshole around the thick post of his cock. “Fuck my ass, Master, oh gods, fuck it hard!”

Rael’s body was tense, his muscles corded. His fingers dug into the ripe globes of Silmaria’s ass as he drew his hips back, his cock dragging out of the desperately hot clutch of the Gnari’s bowels, and then drove inward again. Deeper and faster this time, he buried his cock into her fully once more. Silmaria yelped and squealed softly, and pushed her ass back eagerly for more. Rael’s cock was surrounded in the deep warmth of her bowels, gripping at him snugly, rippling around him in a way that was similar but entirely different from the girl’s demanding little pussy.

After a few more moments of adjusting and testing, Rael settled into a deep, hard fucking rhythm, driving his cock powerfully in and out of Silmaria’s accepting, bouncing ass. The Gnari girl moaned and softly screamed, wailing now and then as she arched her ass back to eagerly take the painfully pleasurable thrusts that Rael gave her. Her ass burned and stung where he stretched her wide around his fat cock and she liked it absolutely fucking fine just like that. She wiggled her hips, offering herself up totally for his demanding lust.

And demanding his lust was. Sensing that Silmaria was able to take this without any distress, Rael fucked her harder and harder until he was spearing his length in and out of her heat, stretching her over and again around the unyielding fatness of his cockflesh. Silmaria’s back arched and her ass shook for both their pleasure. Her firm, buxom tits bounced and swayed beneath her. Her nipples grazed along the bed, sending little jolts racing into her belly from the stiff, stimulated nubs. Silmaria gripped the sheets, wadding them in her small fists as Rael had his way with her so perfectly, claiming her, using her in just the way she needed to be used, pounding her warm, welcoming ass for his pleasure.

“Gods, you’re so fucking tight,” Rael growled through clenched teeth as his cock sawed in and out of her trembling asshole.

“Oh, oh, please Master, please!” Silmaria screamed in a voice overwhelmed with lust and pleasure and that wonderful pain he gave her.

“Do it,” Rael ordered roughly, his tempo increasing as he powerfully drove his cock to the root up Silmaria’s spasming little asshole. His hips worked heavily, crashing with sharp little slaps into her meaty thrusting ass. “Cum for me!”

His words released her, and Silmaria obeyed, launching violently into an intense, rushing orgasm. Her ass clamped down around him, sucking at his flesh as Rael drove his cock past the stubbornly gripping muscles. Her pussy quivered, gushing out her girlcum as her poor cunt squeezed and gripped at nothing. Her juices splashed down her shaking thighs, spilling down to her knees as she came and came hard, losing herself in the pleasure of her Master’s demanding, demeaning fuck.

Once she started, Silmaria was almost incapable of stopping. All too soon, scant moments after her orgasm subsided, she was cumming again, shrieking and screaming as Rael slam-fucked her lush, rippling ass. Light burst and flared behind her eyes, blinding her with the pleasure.

His hand shot out to wrap her long, thick black curls around his fist, gripping powerfully. Silmaria sobbed quietly with delight, her body overwrought as she arched her back, her neck craning back at a sharp angle as he bowed her, using her hair for even more leverage to drill into her hot, twitching backside. She could feel his cock swelling huge and warm and relentless in her narrow, gripping passage. The combined pain in her tingling scalp and her stretched-wide ass tripped Silmaria up into yet another all-consuming orgasm.

Rael stared down at her, watching her lose herself in the wicked, carnal fuck, cumming over and over again all over his throbbing length. It was a beautiful, wonderful thing to behold, his little Silmaria panting and sobbing and screaming, her back arching so fucking deliciously as she lost herself in violent release while he powerfully and roughly slammed his cock in and out of her clutching anus. The toss of her hair and expression of her face, half hidden in the sheets, made his blood pound and race so intensely in his veins that he was dizzy with it.

“Fuck! Fuck! Oh gods it hurts so good, Master, shit, oh no, I…oh fuck yesss!” Silmaria screamed, and her ass clamped down around him as she sprayed her girlcum all over the sheets.

She was lost, then, Rael saw. Broken under the weight of the pleasure he inflicted on her. His Silmaria was limp and quivering like a leaf beneath him, and her eyes were far, far away as her hips shifted and arched still, but weakly now.

For just a moment, Rael wondered if he’d pushed her too far, if he’d well and truly broken her, and not in the right sort of way.

Silmaria, her eyes still distant and lost, panting softly with her whole body shaking and trembling, breathed out, a soft whisper with all her heart’s adoration in her voice, “I love you, Sir.”

It was immediately his undoing. Rael felt the pleasure surge in him, quickly and violently overwhelming. His blood coursed with his lust and need and love for the woman beneath him who was spent and sexually driven past her ability to cope, and professing heartfelt love for him.

With a deep, shaking roar of peaking pleasure, Rael plunged his cock deep into Silmaria’s ass, burying to the base, and began to cum harshly, his entire body wracked with pleasure as his muscles all tightened and tensed. His cum spurted heavy and thick and hot, splashing up Silmaria’s ravaged bowels, splattering her clinging inner walls and spreading deep inside her fluttering, hot asshole. Silmaria gasped, and then began to softly, gently coo, her ass slowly wiggling as her Master pumped her ass full of his rich, warm seed, soothing the ache inside her while he pressed tightly against her.

The heavy, reassuring pressure of his weight was comforting.

At last, with the Gnari’s ass full of his load, Rael let out a shaking groan and slowly drew back. Silmaria moaned, distantly and soft, and her asshole released him after a moment or two of gripping too tight. She sighed, then, so awash in endorphins and pleasure-pain and the heady, potent fuzziness of her repeated orgasms that she had yet to come fully back to herself. She lay there beneath him, and she was miles away, drifting, floating… her consciousness winding out into the ether like an unraveling thread caught on the gentlest of kind breezes.

When at last the Gnari girl blinked, and shifted, and was truly aware again, she found herself laying wrapped up tight in Rael’s powerful, protective arms. Both of them were tangled up in the warmth of a blanket. She blinked up at him, staring into his beloved face, for a moment just staring and enjoying the handsome arrangement of his strong features. Then, noting the clear concern crinkling the corners of his eyes, Silmaria gave an exhausted but entirely sincere smile.

“Sorry. I, um… went elsewhere for a minute there.”

“Are you alright?” He asked softly, and his sword-calloused hands ran slowly along her graceful flanks.

“Yes,” Silmaria sighed, and burrowed deeper into his comforting, safe arms. She nestled her face to his solid chest as she rested her fingertips along his scars. “It happens, sometimes. I get so overwhelmed and lost in the moment and the pleasure that I just… can’t quite process it all for awhile. I go floating off elsewhere, not really quite connected to myself. But it’s okay. Elsewhere is a nice place to go. Or visit, anyway.”

Rael looked down into her eyes. He did not seem particularly convinced. Silmaria smiled a bit more firmly, warmth shining in her emerald green eyes. She reached a hand up to tenderly cup her man’s cheek.

“I am wonderful, Master. I feel spent in every known way, but I am wonderful still. That… that was something else.”

Relief washed over Rael’s face, and he allowed himself a smile at last. “Something else is certainly an appropriate way of putting it,” he nodded, and squeezed her firmly in his strong embrace. “You scared me for a minute there. Just don’t float off so far into the distance where I can’t pull you back.”

“Mmm,” Silmaria acknowledged softly. She shut her eyes, breathed deeply of the scent of his sweat and his skin and their sex., and relaxed deeply. “I won’t, Master. Promise. I’m okay, really I am. It’s a good thing, for me to have that kind of release. I feel so wonderfully drained and soothed and empty, now. Light.”

She could tell he didn’t understand. Oh, he got her meaning, but he didn’t understand, not truly. It wasn’t something she could properly explain, and it wasn’t something he could properly grasp without going through it himself. And that was fine; it was enough, for her, knowing he cared, and he tried.

More than enough.

Silmaria gave a soft, delicate yawn. “It’s a good thing we’re going to be resting here for another day or two. I don’t think I’ll be walking quite right for awhile,” she mumbled to herself.

Rael gave a lighthearted chuckle, one that Silmaria felt as much as heard as he enfolded her deep into the safety and comfort of his arms.

“Absolutely worth it, by the way” she added, and fell into a burst of giggles into his chest.

***

As it turned out, the days of their stay were not as few as they would have liked.

Dusk settled outside the inn as it had every evening for the past week, vibrant and colorful, showing off every shade of red the mind could picture and more, as if the skies over the land borrowed inspiration from the crimson soil and rock and decided to do The Reach one better. It was an absurdly gorgeous sight, one Silmaria had thoroughly enjoyed near every day of their journey through the rocky region and their subsequent stay at the Brotherhood’s Inn. This face of the sky was very different from the one she knew in DarkFyre Dale.

But tonight, as she sat at the table they’d frequently used when eating in the common room, gazing out the window at the sunset outside, Silmaria couldn’t shake her unease enough to truly enjoy the view.

Rael was at the bar, his big hands braced on the bartop, speaking with Brother Ricard again.

His voice was hushed, but Silmaria knew from his body language that he was getting frustrated and thoroughly annoyed. As their stay over the past week had gone on, Rael had become increasingly wary and uncomfortable. Though he tried to hide it from her, Silmaria was getting more adept at reading his moods, and she sensed it even when the Knight gave his best effort at acting as if nothing was bothering him. His unease stemmed mostly from the repeated delays and problems that seemed to be arising regarding the supplies Rael was trying to procure before they went on their way.

First was the new sets of clothes; Brother Ricard had claimed they simply did not have any clothing big enough to fit Rael’s rangy and strongly built proportions. That has seemed fairly reasonable; Rael was an uncommonly large man, after all. A day had become two, then three. Five days into their stay and well after Rael had resigned to continue on with their worn out and red stained clothes, the Nobleman’s clothing was at last finished.

But not before Rael’s request for travel rations hit a snag. The Brothers kept a regularly restocked supply of fresh food, you see, nothing properly cured or preserved to last over a long journey.

This was, of course, ludicrous… how could anyone with a respectable larder and supply of goods not carry a large stock of cured and dried foodstuffs to last in case of lean times? And besides, why wouldn’t an inn stock proper travel rations when their entire purpose was to serve travelers in the first place?

By that evening, Rael’s agitation was palpable. His unease made Silmaria nervous, and she was liking these delays less and less. She picked up their bowls of turnip soup with venison broth. Rael had hardly eaten half his bowl, a clear sign of his preoccupation as the man could eat like none she’d ever known when he put his mind and appetite to it.

The Gnari girl carried their bowls up to the counter. She placed her hand in his, which he lightly squeezed to acknowledge her, but his attention remained otherwise on the uncomfortable looking Brother Ricard standing behind the bar, wiping his hands nervously on his apron.

“I say again, Ricard, I appreciate the sentiment, but I can do without the map. I asked for one out of an effort to ease our way a bit, but it’s not a vital thing. I’d as soon be away and continue our journey than wait any longer for it.”

“Begging pardon, Rael, but I feel I should insist. I know we’ve inconvenienced you with this waiting about for your supplies and the least I can do is be sure that you leave here with every bit of resources that you’ve asked for.”

The set of Rael’s jaw told Silmaria that they’d chased this particular topic around a few times already. He heaved a sigh and tried again, his words polite but tight. “Ricard. It’s fine. You mean well, but we need to be on our way. The inconvenience of going without a map is less important than the inconvenience of lost time. Time I cannot make up. We can’t tarry any longer.”

Ricard looked visibly upset at this point, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “You’re certain I can’t convince you to wait? Brother Ekar assures me he has just such a map that you are needing, he simply has to find it. The libraries are usually not in this sort of disarray, but he has been cataloguing some of our oldest tomes recently, and it is an uncommon jumble just now. Surely you can wait another day? Two at the most, my good man. The map will be ready by then, surely!”

There was a strange desperation in the man’s voice that he could not entirely hide.

“Thank you, Ricard, but no,” Rael said firmly. “We leave at daybreak.”

Ricard swallowed hard, and a light went out of his eyes. His face crumpled into something very like morose resignation. “Very well, sir. Very well.”

Silmaria’s brow furrowed as she watched Ricard’s face take on an almost sallow tint. She said nothing, but the hairs on the back of her neck raised in an unclear sort of nervousness.

For his part, Rael’s face remained sternly somber, resolved. “Good day, Brother.”

Stern of feature and mind made up or no, Rael still had his sense of fairness and honor. He paid the Brother good coin for their meal before the pair returned to their room.

The last of the sun’s rays peeked over the hills on the horizon by the time they headed upstairs, narrow flickers of golden light piercing the darkened sky like the lash of a whip. Little flashes of light reflecting off a razors edge, cutting across the heavens.

Then even that was gone, and only darkness remained.

“He was strange,” Silmaria said as she plopped down onto their bed, propping herself up on her elbows and staring at the dusky ceiling while Rael lit the small candle in the wall sconce just beside the window.

“Stranger than usual,” she clarified.

“He was,” Rael agreed in short tones. He stared out the window into the darkness of the empty night. Silmaria knew from his tone and his posture that he was lost in thought.

“He was unsettled, that much was clear. Frightened, maybe,” the Nobleman voiced at last.

“He seemed awful reluctant for us to leave,” Silmaria commented.

“Yes,” Rael agreed, his jaw setting hard. He leaned against the windowsill, and stared pensively into the distance.

Silmaria watched him, for a time, and seeing him stare into the blackness outside their window, the Gnari’s earlier unease began to rise, settling into a hollow ache in the center of her breast. Her tail twitched, swishing with anxious energy, and her ears flicked forward to lay flat along the top of her head.

By the moment her dread became a tangible, certain thing.

She sat up and went to him on quiet feet. She twined her arms around the Knight’s thick arm, pulling firmly at it, until he turned his gaze to her, staring down into her upturned eyes.

“Master… Master, we need to leave,” she said, struggling to fight down her rising panic and keep her voice steady.

Rael stared at her for a moment, his brows raised with surprise. “Now?”

“Yes,” Silmaria nodded urgently. “Tonight. Right now.”

Rael motioned toward the open window with his free hand. “It’s a moonless night, and not even the starlight is getting through. It’s black as the void out there.”

“I know,” Silmaria said, swallowing softly. She forced down her anxiety and frustration. She knew it sounded foolish, and she couldn’t even articulate why, but she knew that Rael saw it, too. She just had to get him to acknowledge it.

“Something is wrong here, Master,” she tried again, staring up at him with wide feline eyes. “Ricard has done everything he can to delay our leaving, don’t you think? You said it yourself. All his reasons, all his excuses for why we couldn’t get this, or get that, it all felt… wrong. None of it made sense. And he wanted too desperately for us to stay. Why would he care so much? It’s not for our coin or patronage. And we certainly aren’t the only travelers to pass through the Brothers’ door!

“So why? And why did he look like we’d just handed him a death sentence when we refused to stay another few days? It’s not right, Master. None of it is right.”

Rael listened to the distressed Gnari quietly, his intense eyes staring down into hers while he contemplated her words. At last, he turned to face her fully, and placed his roughened hands on her graceful shoulders. “What do you suggest is going on, then?”

Silmaria shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her face screwing up with uncertain frustration. She shook her head quickly, sending black curls flying. “I don’t know, Master. I’ve no idea! All I know is that it doesn’t feel right. Call it intuition. Call it a gut feeling. I just know it, in my bones and in my core. We need to leave.”

The Noble stared down into his love’s eyes, and then nodded. “I agree. I was feeling much the same. I told myself I was being paranoid. But you’re right. Something is strange here. And I’d honestly as soon not linger and find out what.”

The air went out of her in a rush, and Silmaria felt herself relax, if only somewhat. She gave him a shaky smile. “Thank you, Sir. For listening to me. For not thinking I’m a fool.”

“You’re many things, Sil, but a fool you are not,” Rael nodded, reaching up to brush away the tumble of rich, gleaming curls that had fallen before her eyes. He bent and kissed her, soundly, and then nodded to their things in the corner. “Let’s get our things together, and be away from here.”

They gathered their supplies quickly and orderly in the manner they’d become accustomed to over the long days on the road. Silmaria felt lighter already. It was a strange sort of thing, the impulsive urgency to be away from the inn.

Silmaria cinched her belt on around her narrow waist and shouldered her pack. She glanced around the room while Rael strapped his greatsword to his back, and not without more than a bit of fondness in her gaze. Despite the unease she felt, and a certainty that their stay had reached its end, their brief time here had been welcome, and needed.

“I never thought just a few days ago that I would pass up a chance at one more night in a bed,” Silmaria mused.

Rael chuckled softly, and shook his head. “Neither did I. All things in their time, I suppose. And it’s time we moved on.”

“Yeah,” Silmaria agreed softly. “We still have to go find our answers.”

“Yes,” Rael nodded. “And one night sooner is still too long away for my liking. Let’s go.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Rael opened the door leading out into the inn.

The candles and wall lanterns spread throughout the inn were each and every last one extinguished. The hallways and common room below were as dark and empty as the moonless void outside.

The inn reeked of death, a coppery tang in the air of fresh spilt blood.

“Get back,” Rael hissed.

The knight took a single step back, one hand motioning behind him as the other reached for the hilt of his greatsword at his shoulder.

Before his fingers could wrap around the hilt, a curved blade plunged into his back.

***

I am NOT dead, I promise!

Seriously though. My sincere apologies for the much, much too lengthy wait on this chapter to all my regular readers. I hit a whole bevy of snags and changes and delays. Life got away with me for awhile. I will do my sincere and honest, absolute best to not take so long on the next one! I may manage to get the next chapter out quicker, or it may take awhile again. I can’t say for certain.

But what I can say is this! I WILL finish this story! Even if it takes me longer to get the remaining chapters out, I will not let this story go uncompleted! So please, everyone, bear with me as I move forward in this work!

Thank you so very much, everyone, for the continued support and encouragement on my work. I sincerely appreciate every one of you! And I hope everyone enjoys this and it was at least semi-worth the wait while I got back on track!

P.S. Cliffhangers may very well be my new addiction. Just sayin’.