Chapter Seven #2
with a reputation for meanness that ain’t tall tales and exaggeration. She
relishes putting down rowdy sailors. Any skimmer she graces better not have a
single unbent knee on its planks, or it’ll be drenched in blood before half the
hold’s been taken. She’s not crazy. She ain’t reckless. And she ain’t a bad
captain, neither. Generous with her grog.” Zaria
fingered a spot on her waist, grimacing. “She just waits for an excuse. Once
she’s got it, you’ll wish you were never born.”
He lay back on the stone tiles, watching her.
“I’m not risking that again,” Zaria said. “I ain’t goin’
back. I’ll take any bloody chance other than seeing her standard come my way.”
“How, exactly,” Isaac asked, “is this treasure supposed to
stop her? A wealth of gold sitting at the bottom of a tomb won’t do you much
good. It might as well just be some shiny pebbles.”
“A vain hope is better than none.”
She looked away, blinking at the fires, as if she were only
noticing them for the first time. The chapel was silent and gloomy. A vaulted
ceiling perched beneath a spine.
“Fine,” Isaac said, holding up his hands. “If you’re so
eager for survival, untie me.”
She snorted, sitting back fully on his groin. Her usual
mirth returned. “Oh, what, I’m supposed to trust you after you stabbed my back,
first chance you got?”
“It’s better you do it now, before it’s too late.”
“How ‘bout you be happy you got all your breathing tubes
intact?”
“How about you repay me for rescuing you?”
She clicked her tongue. “Accidental rescue, love. Them don’t
count.”
“Those don’t count!”
“Ah, right, words. Your favorite.”
Isaac thrashed his legs. Her weight had him pinned down.
“Listen—”
“No.”
“Zaria!”
She leaned forward, draping herself over him. “My squire
stays tied, and he best be happy to serve his knight.”
“This is more important than you! This is my life’s only
purpose!”
“And I’m still aiding that purpose, despite your efforts.”
“You’re endangering this purpose! I won’t let you risk my
father’s life!”
“Who said you’re letting anything anymore?”
“You’re going to get us killed!”
“Hold your tongue, sir mage, before it’s relieved from you.”
“No! I will not, you filthy pirate! You furry mongrel! You stupid
cunt!”
Her response was halfway between a snort and a growl. “Fine.
You know what? I’ve been too lenient on ya. If you’ll choose not to obey, then
I’ll just start—” She stopped, stiffening. Her eyes widened slightly. Shifting
up at the waist, she looked down at the connecting point between them. Between
her legs, clear as day, illuminated by magical green fire, Isaac’s pants had
pitched upwards at the groin. He had an erection, and it had poked her in the
groin.
Silence filled the chapel.
Isaac looked dumbly at his own arousal, shocked at himself.
Perched above him, Zaria glanced between his lower half and his face,
momentarily at a loss for words.
“What in Xotra’s name—”
Isaac scrambled, trying to wriggle away. He grabbed the edge
of the altar, but Zaria sat back down on top of him, her heavy hips pinning his
body to the floor, crushing his erection against his groin. He kept trying to
pull himself toward the altar. She pressed her hands to his shoulder. When he
was completely trapped beneath her, she started to laugh. Slowly, with all the
pleasure of someone completely in command, her chuckles went from surprise to
disbelief all the way to naked amusement.
“What’s this, Isaac? You got a weapon I’m not aware of?”
He tried to push her off, but she grabbed both his wrists in
one hand and forced them down over his head. All he could do was kick his legs.
“Does my squire want something of his knight?”
He couldn’t look at her. He turned his head away. Shame
burned across his face. When she spoke again, her weight shifted down, and her
rough voice was soft in his ear.
“Do you want to fuck me, Isaac?”
He shook his head vigorously.
“No?” she asked.
“It’s—it’s—it’s—” He swallowed, overcome. “It’s a physical
response, it’s not like that, it happens, I don’t touch others often, and it’s
happened before, it’s—it’s nothing. I can’t control it. It doesn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t mean what?”
“It doesn’t mean anything! I don’t—I don’t touch people! It
happens! My uncle told me—”
“Oh, your uncle, huh?”
He focused on the church architecture, feeling like any word
he spoke would only betray him further. He strained for any perch to rest his
thoughts.
Apses.
Arcaded piers.
Studded reliefs and curving pews.
The purpose of a mortuary chapel was to prepare and anoint
the dead—
She thrusted herself across his groin, like she was trying
to scrub through a stain. He could feel her lips slide across his length
through the layers of fabric. It seemed to grip—
Anatomy lessons.
Beasts.
Sandwyrms. Vestigial wings. Composition of scales.
Labia, vulva—
“Gotta be honest,” she said, breath hot and close. “I’m not
usually this chatty with a hostage. Like to think I’m a professional, most
times.”
He wanted to thrust. He wanted to grab. He wanted to run and
hide and never be seen by anyone ever again.
“I’ll admit,” Zaria said, “I am grateful to you, for
savin’ my life. At the same time, you got a petulance about you that just begs
for teasing. It’s like you’re askin’ me for it.” She bucked her hips
particularly hard, and his leg kicked out against smooth tile. “Maybe, in the
end, I’m just weak for the cute and helpless.”
His father.
Think about his father.
Her teeth nibbled at his ear.
“Maybe, also, I want you to stop lying to yourself.”
Weight. Pressure. Sliding.
“Whatever the case, whatever it means, I gotta say.” She
breathed out, slow and hot. “You’ve been drivin’ me mad, Isaac. Last night, I woulda fucked you right in the
sand.”
He closed his eyes.
“But I didn’t,” she said, “because I got some decency. Not
much, but enough to matter.”
He felt her face begin to rise. When he took a frightened
peek, she was hovering close above, their noses inches apart. Several emotions
crossed her face.
Anger.
Calculation.
Amusement.
Lust.
“Now,” she said. “You went and fucked me first. And that
settles it, for me.”
His face was burning. Their breaths were hot. There was a
tight, screaming furnace at his waist.
She lifted her rear off his groin, letting his erection
spring back to position. With a slight shifting of legs, her hand managed to
reach down between them, probing and shifting. “Here’s the deal, love.” She looked him right in the eye. “You can stop this anytime. Say
the word and it’s over. Pirate’s honor.”
Her hand wrapped around the hem of his lower robes, cocked
and waiting.
“If you don’t want this, say so. Right now.”
Her breasts pressed into his chest. Her thighs wrapped
around his waist. His cock strained like a bolt notched in a crossbow.
She was waiting, watching him with gleaming eyes. It wasn’t
a ploy. He could tell, right then, that she really would stop if he said so.
Nothing further would happen. He had the choice, and that was the point.
That was the humiliation she was inflicting. That was what made it so much
worse.
There would be no violation. There would be no shame. All he
had to do was speak. Say the word.
Stop.
She had left a faint dampness on his robe. A residual heat.
It was all he could focus on. There was so much warmth and wetness and pressure
and guilt and fear. The smell of her musk seemed to bury him alive.
“Speak up,” Zaria said.
Isaac gazed past her, towards the high-vaulted ceiling,
where giant vertebrae stitched themselves across the
sky. He gave one last bit of defiance against himself.
“Come on. Prove me wrong.”
He tilted his head back across the tiled floor, looking up
at the ornate carvings of the ceremonial altar. Slowly, he nodded.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Y-yes.”
“You want it?”
He nodded again. He did not see the expression she made, but
he still felt it, all the same.
“That’s a good boy.”
She pulled down his robes, and his erection was freed. Her fingers
wrapped around his shaft, stroking up and down, making him twist and clench.
Her hands were a combination of rough, leather pads and tufts of golden fur,
all of which quickly grew lubricated with his leaking arousal. The sensation
was a chaos of friction. She kept pistoning at a measured pace, and Isaac kept
his face turned up and away, knowing she was waiting for a reaction.
Slowly, never slowing her strokes, she raised herself above
his chest, taking her other hand away from his wrists, as if testing his
resistance. When he did not struggle, she lifted herself higher, her strokes
slightly changing angle, and the gentle motion of her thighs made him realize
that she was undoing her own clothes.
Lowering, letting free.
He had seen the way her breasts—
Think of the altar. Think of the statue above their heads,
the man with the necromancer symbol kneeling before a god. This god was made in
the likeness of an animal.
Think of the history that could be—
A drop of liquid fell on the head of his cock. It was warm,
viscous, almost like saliva. Before he could stop himself, he opened his eyes
and saw her loins glistening openly in the green firelight, drooling strands of
her excitement down the length of her inner thighs. Around the wet fur, there
lay a subtle play of creases and folds, a pinkness that seemed to emit almost a
hot breath of fog against his skin.
“Ready to ride, squire?”
She was grinning down at him with a mixture of amusement and
cruelty. He turned his head away, embarrassed at being caught, but the hand not
currently gripping his cock came to his face, forcing his gaze back on her.
“No,” she said. “Look at me while I fuck you.”
She tilted his cock until his head ran over her lips, slowly
sliding through until he was poised at her opening. He felt heat and wetness
and desperately sensitive skin.
He could stop this. He just had to say the word.
It was right there on his tongue.