I get a wicked chuckle from him. “Almost like you are right now. Then these fluttering contractions hit, all up and down my shaft. The longer I can draw it out, the longer they go on, and the stronger those are. It feels amazing. The only thing more amazing is when I join you. All those little flutters make my own climax even more intense.”
I am screaming out his name, and he roars out mine. Sometime later, he hooks a finger under my chin. “Don’t worry. I can’t get enough of you. I don’t think "enough" is a word that will ever apply to the two of us. If you’re aroused, I find that I can’t resist you and that I’m willing to do most anything that might pleasure you. I’ve discovered that if I’m aroused, it seems to be the same for you. I think you’ve let me do things no other male ever has, like riding through the checkpoint at the city gate with my fingers still inside you.”
I nod and blush, which makes him chuckle before he continues. “I want you so sated and so spoiled that you never look at another male like that for as long as I live.”
I laugh and snuggle in closer to him, soaking up the warmth and comfort that he offers so freely.
He now knows precisely what it takes to make me shout his name. He enjoys it and takes pride in pleasing me. He’s truly a glorious male, and I might be the luckiest woman alive. He’s wonderfully, sensually, wickedly passionate, and nothing seems off limits. I think if I told him I wanted him to mount me like a stallion in the middle of the taproom, he’d be all in.
He’s also kind, thoughtful, and incredibly generous. He tries to give me the same honesty that my First Oath demands from me. He’s loyal and seems to be a devoted husband. All his wild and naughty parts seem reserved just for me. I remember him saying something similar while standing on the walkway to my parents’ house in Imelenora.
I’ve noticed other women trying to catch his eye, but he ignores them and pretends to be unaware of them. I know that he isn’t because he comments on it when we are alone. This isn’t common in this time and place. Males here tend to use prestige and money to attract women of lesser standing regularly.
Instead of working on themselves to become attractive and seduce those they desire, they rely on other means to find bed partners. Males here boast about this to each other, and it seems to boost their status among peers.
Kenric doesn’t seem to partake in this almost ritualized display of masculinity. I am incredibly thankful for that. I don’t know what it would do to us if either of us sought that release with someone else, but I sense it would be something profound. I think he senses it too.
He is fiercely and unapologetically my male when these things come up. I have heard him say more than once that he’s completely satisfied with his wife. Some others tease him about it, which he always turns into a joke. I will do my best to be just as fiercely and unapologetically his female.
If this king tries to lay a finger on me, I am tempted to take it off – maybe all the way up to the shoulder. I could shift and devour the king before taking his place with some glamour. Becoming something of a cannibal isn’t my first choice for handling this king, but it’s an option. We’ll see what happens. I won’t break what’s between us for anyone. Not his king and not my own.
We’ll be in Dobile tomorrow. I won’t have to face the king right away. For now, Kenric needs to sneak back to his own room. I shift so my senses become sharper. I see no body heat, smell no one, hear no one. I let him slip out and quietly close the door. Is it time for a few hours of sleep yet?
I can always nap in the carriage. Usami and Nasu will be riding with us tomorrow. We’ll need to find horses in Dobile. I’m tempted to search through more nags to see if we can rescue a few more. What’s happened to these five horses weighs on me. I know I can’t visit every glue maker to buy them all, but I can try to find two more.
Satisfied with what I can do, I decide to see what else I can do about this lecherous king. I'm thinking of hiring a courtesan and making her look like me. Then Oskar can have his way with her instead of me.
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Now that I have some tentative plans in place and feel more confident, I curl up, inhaling Kenric’s scent, and fall asleep. Melina wakes me in the morning. I am bathed, dressed for travel, and back in the carriage. I’d rather ride, but then Melina would have to ride, and she can’t.
Women here don’t ride properly. They have these silly ideas that riding a horse astride affects a woman’s abilities and ability to bear children. Most women here never learn to ride because of the ridiculous sideways saddles they’re put into. I’ve tried one, and the balance on them is terrible. Anything faster than a trot feels death-defying.
I sit in the carriage with Kenric, Usami, and Nasu as we pull away from the coach inn. I start with languages. I don’t seem to have any language in common with either Usami or Nasu, except for what I learned of their language yesterday from Inaba and Miyabe. Usami is quick to correct my pronunciation. Their language is tonal, and saying the same word in different pitches can mean completely different things or add layers of meaning to the word or phrase.
It seems to function somewhat like genuinely telling someone to have a nice day, but with a touch of sarcasm. Nasu mostly appears amused by my awkward attempts to learn their language and equally entertained by his own efforts to learn Kenric’s language.
I pull out my cards and begin teaching them how to play Iron and Embers. It’s one of the simpler games here, and it’s played in all the barracks. The sailors on The Hamadryad were utterly ruthless at this game and finally admitted that they regretted ever teaching me how to play it.
Once it’s shuffled and dealt, the deck doesn’t get reshuffled, so if you can memorize the deck, you gain a big advantage later in the game. Inaba realized this almost immediately but played along. Miyabe took a bit longer but still caught on quickly. Usami has no patience for this, but we’ll be stopping in a few hours to water the horses.
I can’t wait to see what Falke, Corrado, Ulrich, and the other horses look like now. My impression of Usami is that he’s very focused, and everything with him has meaning. I don’t think he ever does anything that isn’t essential. I’ve picked up a bit more of their language and tried, badly I think, to explain that knowing how to play this card game will give them a way to talk to men from other lords and gather information. It’s also a good exercise for training memorization of sequences.
No matter when we stop to water the horses, I’ll see if Miyabe or Inaba can help clear up any misunderstandings. Nasu seems to understand that I’m trying to learn their language, so he starts pointing out various parts of his armor and weaponry and naming them.
Usami keeps correcting my pronunciation, and finally, I begin to say them correctly, earning myself a nod of approval from him. Learning this is a bit easier when you have another language to explain things in. Finally, we arrive at the water stop, and I’m excited to see the horses.
Inaba comes galloping up the line and leaps off a positively heroic white horse, just as the horse stops. “Lady, he is a magnificent animal. The five of us have spent a good part of the morning testing out different commands. All five of these animals are well-trained. He seems to be aware that my sight is different from most. Even without my direction, he avoids obstacles like low-hanging tree branches that might catch me unaware. I cannot thank you enough.”
Inaba bows to me formally before dropping to one knee and offering me his sword.
I wrap his hands around it and laugh, reaching up to scratch Falke under the chin. “The two of you are a blessing to each other. He had given up on even living. You had given up on finding a suitable horse. It pleases me to no end to be able to help both of you, like this.”
I lean in toward Inaba and speak softly. "I might have told him he’d need to be your eyes."
Inaba stands, head tilted for a moment. "You truly speak to them?"
I smile. "Come. Let’s walk a bit. I need to stretch my legs."
I walk between Kenric and Inaba, up the road a little, out of earshot of the Centis part of the group. “I do. It’s a gift most of the larger Fey have. I can talk to most creatures. Hive mind creatures, like bees or ants, are the hardest since their intelligence is spread throughout the whole colony. Dealing with that usually gives me a splitting headache for a while. Individual animals like this are much easier. It only gets tricky or dangerous if I try to take control of them. He told me his name is Falke. It means falcon here. Falcons are fast hunters. They strike precisely. It’s a good name for a war horse. I’ve always liked horses and have ridden since I was old enough to climb onto one.”
Inaba processes this for a moment, as does Kenric.
Kenric looks at me and asks, “How did I manage to catch you in the Old Forest then?”
I laugh and rabbit punch his arm. “Who said I was really trying to avoid being caught? Do you remember what I told you when we first started dating? The day I made you run from me so you could see me fully shifted.”
Kenric nods. “I do. You said that when you’re shifted, you can see in the dark, hear my heartbeat, and run for days at speeds horses struggle to match.”
I smile. “That’s most of it. If you’re going to keep dealing with Fey, you need to memorize the rest of what I said. Do you know why I took you out into the forest, so far from the road, to shift like that?”
Kenric shakes his head, so I explain. "Had I done that too close to the horses, they would have spooked, and we would have been walking back to Imelenora. If I hadn’t been moving so fast down the caravan line to get to those bandits, all those horses would probably have spooked, too.”
- Which character would advise and what advice would you give them?