Homecoming (Sex Wizards #5)

Strange Dreams

When collaring a conduit, it’s not always possible for a caster to give their undivided attention.

However, saddling your conduit with a toy and a seemingly impossible challenge can keep them happily occupied.

Having a conduit try to reach orgasm while locked in a chastity cage can lead to an entertaining and challenging afternoon for them, while giving the caster time to focus on other important matters.

Advanced Casting Principles: Collaring by Felix Kessler

EVER SINCE I STARTED studying magic, conspace has been a comfortable place for me.

Put a blindfold on me, bind my hands, and I slip into the surrender of it all like a warm bath.

It’s... freeing in a backwards sort of way.

As if by giving up control, every responsibility, every thought that’s weighing on me goes with it.

And gods, but it’s nice not to think.

My cock is locked up so tightly that it’s been turned into little more than a nub inside of the tiny metal cage. The plug filling me is a constant, teasing pressure, and the strict control of my pleasure has shot me so deep into conspace that it’s a struggle to will myself out.

Not that I have much of an urge to. Too many troubling thoughts exist out there. Like the Royal Guard’s presence around the Crux, the hostilities in town. The dreams I’ve been having.

Arlon’s hand strokes idly through my hair, and I nuzzle a little more firmly against his thigh. I let my eyes slide closed as I adjust the pillow under my hip. It’s such a comfortable spot that I don’t realize I’m dozing until I jerk back awake.

Arlon’s hand stills, and he looks away from his parchment to peer down at me over his spectacles. “Still not sleeping well?”

I shake my head, burying my face back against his thigh. “Galiva’s tincture puts me out, but it’s made my dreams... weirder.”

“How so?”

They’re still about Diran, so I don’t really want to talk about them.

This one was only different because it was about the Black Burrows, too.

Usually, my dreams revolve around the Eastern Tower, but last night, they decided to dredge up old memories of me loosing my arrow into Diran’s back on my very first assignment.

“Just... more vivid,” I say. “Cancassi said the tincture did the same thing to them. I sleep, but... it’s not exactly restful.”

Arlon makes a quiet noise of sympathy. “You don’t have to do this sending spell, Dom,” he says gently. “You can just sleep if you need to.”

I straighten, shivering as the plug shifts inside of me. “No, no, I’m fine. I can do it.”

Arlon’s eyes search me before he sighs. “Alright. Galiva will be back from the palace in a couple of hours. Rest until then.”

I nod before I gratefully retreat under Arlon’s desk.

The small space has accumulated a few more pillows in the months I’ve been home.

It’s a comfortable kind of nest, and I bite back a moan as I settle into it, the plug rubbing in just the right way.

I lay down before I grab a pillow, resting it against Arlon’s boot.

The teasing haze of pleasure never quite goes away, but I’m able to doze in spite of it. And at least for a while, my fragmented dreams are peaceful.

They meander in that nonsensical way until I’m in the heart of the Crux, surrounded by gently glowing magiline on all sides.

Tendrils of the glowing stone seem to reach through the earth, spreading like roots.

The stone hums a long, low note that seems to resonate with something in me.

An unfamiliar but comfortable sort of harmony.

I follow the sprawling root of magiline easily, scurrying down it like a mouse through a tunnel. It goes on and on before it’s broken by the clank of a pickax.

A piece of magiline comes free, falling into a dust-coated hand. And as that hand lifts, the dream stops being so peaceful as Diran’s hungry face appears.

“Incredible,” he says before tossing the chunk of magiline onto an already full cart of it.

“What do you think?” Lucien asks as he rubs dust from his sweaty face.

Diran looks around, and suddenly, I know I’m in the Black Burrows again. It’s the same sinuous tunnels, the same dark passageways.

“I think there’s more,” Diran says before he goes to the cart, hands brushing over the pile of softly glowing stones. “I think this is just the start.”

These past few months, I’ve wondered how things would have turned out if I’d aimed true in the Black Burrows. How things at the Tower may have gone if I’d killed Diran then.

I fall into the cart full of magiline, and suddenly, the feel of it around me is no longer peaceful. It tightens, constricting, trapping me again. I fight against it, only to wake with a jolt.

Pain sings from my elbow as I bang it on the corner of Arlon’s desk. My eyes water, but then I realize someone is knocking on Arlon’s door.

“Alright, Dom?” Arlon asks, amused.

“Yeah - shit. Yes, sir,” I say quickly. The pain in my funny bone is already starting to fade, but the unease from my dream lingers. “Just surprised me is all.”

The door opens, and I realize it must be Galiva. No one but Arlon’s apprentice would be bold enough to walk in without an invitation.

“I think we’re all ready,” she says as I pull myself out from under Arlon’s desk. She takes one look at my disheveled appearance before her grin turns sly. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Just my nap,” I mutter as I get to my feet, biting back a moan as the plug reminds me of its presence. Inside of my cage, my cock throbs in protest.

Galiva chuckles as she watches me brace against Arlon’s desk. “Come on, Dom, you’ve only been at this a week.”

I give a small laugh as I shake off the dream as best I can. Galiva’s coming up on the end of her chastity stint for her conjuration mastery, and I have no doubt that Arlon is putting her through it. She seems as composed as ever, but gods only know what all she’s got going on under that skirt.

“Take a minute to wake up,” Arlon says, amusement still coloring his tone. “How was the palace, Gal?”

“We’ve gotten another urgent missive from the Chamberlain,” she says before she hands the sealed letter over.

Arlon groans and takes it, but not before I catch sight of the King’s rearing griffin stamped into the wax. It’s become a common sight lately.

“How urgent?” he asks.

“She only said to look at it as soon as possible,” Galiva says.

Arlon tosses the letter onto his desk with a scoff. “Then it can wait until after we finish the sending spell.”

Galiva gives me a long-suffering look, and I smother my grin. No doubt the promise of that letter is driving her up the wall, but Arlon’s right. We’ve got a spell to cast first.

“Third time’s the charm, right?” I say as I reach down to discreetly adjust my caged cock through my trousers. Gods know I don’t mind the process of making it, but even I’m getting tired of this spell after two failed attempts.

“Are you ready to start it, Dom?” Arlon asks.

The question makes a knot of unease tighten in my gut.

Sending spells are damnably hard to make, even more so when I can’t seem to remember what I ate for breakfast, let alone the poem I’m supposed to recite.

Ever since the Eastern Tower, I feel like I’ve been fighting against a fog that’s wrapped around my thoughts.

My lack of sleep isn’t helping, and even though I dozed, I still don’t feel like I really rested.

I can’t help but wonder if I was the one who fucked the spell up the last couple of times.

I shake the thought away as I say, “Yes, sir.”

Arlon offers me a string of uncharged focuses, and I drape them around my neck, letting them rest under my shirt alongside my own strands.

“I picked a poem that might be a little easier to remember today,” Arlon says.

I give myself another shake, but I regret it immediately as it shifts the plug in me. I shiver, biting back a groan before I say, “I’m ready, sir.”

Arlon leans back in his chair with a grin before he starts to recite:

“The fire that smolders behind your eyes

Is nothing to the heat betwixt your thighs.

Your wanton sex drips with molten need,

An inferno I will douse with my river of seed.”

For a second, I’m too stunned to speak. That’s poetry?! I thought poems were supposed to be flowery, and subtle, and metaphorical, but good gods, there was nothing subtle about any of that.

Galiva snorts at my reaction, and for the first time in what feels like weeks, Arlon laughs. I’ve missed that sound, and a warmth settles inside of me, right next to the heat of embarrassment.

“One more time?” I chuckle, having already forgotten it in my surprise.

Arlon dutifully repeats it back, though this time, I’m a little more prepared.

I pay attention to every word, though I can’t do anything to keep my face from heating all over again.

It’s not a long poem, but it doesn’t need to be for the spell to work.

All I have to do is make sure I repeat it word for word to the next person.

And then it’s up to them to continue this game of messenger until it gets back to Arlon.

“One more time?” I say, just to be safe.

Arlon repeats it back again, but it’s like there’s a drain in my head that can’t be plugged. The words seem to slip away the second I try to recall them. Something of my frustration must show, because Arlon says, “Repeat it back to me.”

“The fire smoldering in your eyes is nothing compared to the heat betwixt your thighs -”

“It has to be word for word, sweet boy,” Arlon says, and I fight back a scowl. I’m so tired of this finicky fucking spell.

“One more time,” I say, determined, but Arlon looks me over, the good humor fading from his face.

He gets to his feet, and my heart sinks as he gently lifts the uncharged focuses from around my neck. He takes them over to Galiva, draping them around her neck.

“Do you remember it, Gal?” he asks as he tucks the strand under her shirt.