Epilogue #6
those things you got can be put to better purpose. You realize that? I mean,
what do I got to offer? Slinging a rope, swinging a sword? It’s like she said.
World’s full of my sort. I ain’t special. You are. You’ve got a chance to be in
the history books. They’ll speaking your name for centuries to come.”
Isaac felt sick again. He had to stare at the lantern,
watching the droplets fall.
“Circumnavigation,” Zaria said. “First expedition to clear
the globe. You’ll be inking the maps, making diplomacy, hauling trade, you’ll
be collecting all these monsters and going to all these places and it’s
just—it’s right there.” She opened her hands to emphasize the point.
“You can have it. You can live all your dreams.”
“I don’t care,” Isaac said. “I’m coming with you.”
“Well, I’ll fucking care, even if you don’t got the bother.
I don’t want you wastin’ your life for me. I’m just—” Her breath came through
his hair. “I’m just street trash, love. I was never meant for greatness. Never
had hope for it. I’m fine this way. It’s expected. I’m not worth . . . all
this.”
Isaac slid his hands beneath her back, rubbing the muscle.
“Yes, you are.”
“No.” Her chest was hitching. “No, I’m not. Don’t do this.
Please. You don’t know what you’re throwing away. You can have more than I’ll
ever offer.”
“Z,” he said. “I don’t care.”
“You need to care. This ain’t right. You need to—”
“Z. I don’t care. You know? I’ve always. . . .”
He lay there for a moment, his cheek rising with the breath
of her chest. The lantern swayed with the sea. The air was salty, and his mouth
was dry.
“I’ve always cared,” Isaac said. “Every decision I’ve ever
made. It’s always—what if this is wrong, and what will others think, and I’m
just not good enough, and. . . .” He swallowed. “I’m always second-guessing
myself. I never feel like I know what the right decision is.”
He took a deep breath.
“I keep worrying that, deep down, my uncle has ruined me.
I’ll just be scared the rest of my life, always fretting over everything I do.”
He tightened his arms, pulling himself against her.
“I’m not scared now. You know? I don’t care about the
contract, or adventure, or posterity, or whatever else I used to want. If it’s
a choice between you and everything else, then I’m picking you. It’s that
simple. For the first time in my life, it is exactly that simple.”
A smile emerged, completely on its own.
“I don’t know what I’ll end up doing with myself,” Isaac
said, “or even the person I want to become. All I know is that I want you to be
there with me. That’s all that matters.”
There was a long pause. It went on so long that Isaac
thought she might not answer at all. Suddenly, he felt her breath turn ragged.
There was a whine in his ear. When Isaac pushed himself up, he found Zaria
struggling not to sob.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She closed her eye, wincing.
“Z?”
“I thought it was happening,” she said, her voice thick. “I
thought you were finally gonna leave me.” She breathed, ears folding flat.
“It’s just what happens. People stab your back whenever they can. Everyone does
it. They’ll take the chance, if it’s there. For a second, I was certain that
you. . . .”
“What?” he replied, shocked. “No! Of course not!”
Her chest hitched.
“I would never,” he said, feeling instantly sober.
Zaria looked up at the cabin ceiling, her face scrunched,
her efforts at restraining her sobs meeting with only mild success. Her breaths
became quick and jagged.
“Oh,” Isaac said, breaking out into a grin. “Is my knight
losing her grace?”
She tried to smile back. The tears kept coming.
“Actually,” he said, poking her chest, “I don’t think you’re
my knight at all. She’s always so flippant and strong. Oh, she makes me weak at
the knees, just thinking about her heroics, her charm, her eagerness to laugh.
I’ve hardly ever seen her cry.”
“Isaac,” Zaria whined.
“Oh, surely you can’t be her. My knight would never lose her
composure. Gods, it would wrench my heart to see her sad.”
She tried to turn away, furiously rubbing at her remaining
eye. He wrapped a gentle hand around her muzzle, making a point to coax her
back.
“Maybe you’re right,” Isaac said. “I should go serve a
different knight, instead. Clearly, you’re no longer up to the task.”
“Shut up. Shut your fucking mouth, squire.”
She kissed him. It was barely less than a bite. Fur and
teeth assaulted his lips, hot breath filled the air, and her tongue barreled
into his mouth, wrestling him down before he could mount a defense. Both of
them became desperate for leverage. A hand grabbed his chin, an arm balanced on
the mattress, there was a war erupting between their tongues, and he had to use
all his strength to keep himself lifted while she pressed the attack.
She dipped down, dragging her tongue along the length of his
throat. He took the chance to breathe. When she reached the nape of his neck,
the nibbling began, her incisors gently pinching the flesh, and the hand he was
rubbing through her mohawk began to go slack. His shuddering breath only
encouraged her. There was a flurry of licks, each one longer than the last,
and, whenever her tongue moved to a different spot, the thick fur of her neck
always followed, rubbing along the slick, steaming skin.
She attacked his clothes. He rose to his hands and knees,
trying to gain leverage. Every movement he made forced a loss of contact. Every
time, it made her growl. He went from a crawling position to kneeling back on
his haunches. As her onslaught continued, he was tilted until he lost his
balance completely, falling against the cold, damp wood of her cabin wall. By
then, only his undershirt remained, and she was already using the chance to
yank the pants from his legs. His belt buckle glinted in the lantern light. It
was still glinting when it was thrown against the opposite wall.
Zaria stood off the mattress. Her trousers hit the planks.
Right then, she wore nothing but the light of the lantern, and Isaac could not
decide where his gaze should settle—the spotted fur, the curve of her hips, the
slope of her breasts, the muscles, the scars, the thin hint of pink already
glistening between her legs.
“Take it off,” she said.
“You’re beautiful.”
“Take it off.”
He removed the last of his clothes. She rushed for him.
The thin mattress did not cushion the impact—he felt more
wood than cloth as she sank her weight atop him, and he felt even more wood
when his back was pressed to the wall, nearly crushed beneath her larger frame.
She had a plan, clearly, but she spent more time kissing him than following it,
and every shift of position only came gradually, reluctantly. They developed a
pattern of licking, breathing, moving. There was a kiss, a grab, a turn. By the
end, Isaac was sitting cross-legged, Zaria was hovering above him, and she was
rubbing the head of his cock through the slick creases of her cunt, trying to
reach the appropriate angle. Both of them felt it when she did.
Their foreheads pressed together. She was gazing into his
eye as he entered her.
A wave crashed against the hull, burying the sound of their
gasping breaths. Her descent came slow enough that Isaac felt every bump and
fold of her inner walls. She was slick, tight, burning hot. Every trace of the
wine seemed to vanish from his mind. There was nothing but her scent, her
breath, her grip tightening on his shoulders, the weight of her fuzzy thighs
sinking into his lap.
When he was fully hilted, they kissed again. She shifted her
legs, wrapping her calves around the small of his back. Her arms pressed him
into a hug. With her breasts on his shoulders, and his face in her chest, it
felt as if no part of them was not in contact with the other. Slowly, she began
to rock back and forth. The penetration barely changed, the heavy weight of her
thighs never quite left his lap, but every motion earned a hitch in his breath
and a whine from her chest. She never changed the pace. It remained slow, firm,
and steady.
“Do the—”
He pulled back just enough to take her nipple in his mouth.
A sharp breath blew through his hair. As he tugged and licked, her hands roamed
along his back, seeking a place to grip. She settled on kneading her fingers
through his hair. The shift in attention only barely slowed the rocking of her
hips, and he felt her walls contract as he worked her breast. Every reaction he
sought to earn was received in ample supply.
“My squire.”
She pushed him back. He only had a second to glimpse her
face before it was bending down to kiss him. The
contact rapidly devolved into licks. He was forced to close his eyes against
the long, heavy drags of her tongue. Soon, the wetness on his face was more
saliva than sweat, and every attempt he made to pull away only earned a growl
and a tighter grip.
“My squire.”
She kept licking. He continued to resist, more playfully
than not.
Down below, their point of connection had turned sopping
wet. As her fur ran across his thighs, it left streaks of their emissions.
Every sensation came together as one—her lips brushing against his groin, her
walls gripping him like a fist, all the heat and wetness almost making him
forget the growing ache in his legs. She was sitting heavily in his lap,
keeping him buried as deep as he could go, and, with her legs and arms wrapped
tightly around him, he did not think that he could pull away, even if he wanted
to.
A whine came from deep in her chest. When he looked, she was
crying again, wiping her face with so much force that the clasp of her eyepatch
came undone. Her other eye blinked open, the iris milky white. She blinked it
shut, turning her head away as the whine was buried under the crash of a wave.
Isaac reached for her face, taking her cheek in his palm.
“Fine. I’m fine.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“Shut up. Stop.”
He used his hand to coax her head down. When it was in
reach, he kissed her eye. Slowly, he began to kiss his way around the rest of
her facial scars, the ones they had earned together, and the ones she had
carried before they met. Her tears broke through again, and she buried her face
in the crook of his shoulder.
“Just a thief,” she said. “Just a thief.”
His other hand found its way to hers. “I know. You’ve stolen
my heart.”
“That’s awful, Isaac.”
“You deserve worse.”
She laughed, hooking her chin against his shoulder. With
their hands still entwined together, she sent their arms on a journey down her
body—through the valley of her breasts, the furry grassland of her abdomen,
and, finally, the sodden heat of her thighs. She pressed his hand to the hood
of her sex, and Isaac did not dally with the task. His fingers rubbed around
her nub, kneading her lips in circling motions. The rocking of her hips began
to falter. There was a sharp breath, a tightening grip.
“Don’t stop.”
“Is that my knight’s command?”
He felt the growl travel through his body. Her chin left his
shoulder, and, as she rose to her full height again, his head was forced
between her breasts. There was no effort required to keep him there.
“That’s my squire,” she said, now fucking his hand as much
as his cock. “That’s my—”
The ship lurched with a wave, perfectly timed with a stroke.
He had never been deeper before.
“My squire.”
His hair was a mess of hot breath and kneading fingers.
“My—oh—”
A wet, burning friction. The rocking came faster.
“Oh, Isaac.”
His arm wrapped around her waist. Her arm wrapped around his
shoulders. Their hands were still together, down below.
“Isaac.”
His face buried deep, an entire world of warmth and fur and
smell.
“Hey.”
“Z.”
“I’m—”
“Yes.”
“Hm?”
“Hm.”
“Hm!”
It was all she needed to hear. The rocking came even faster.
She bent down, hooking her snout against his head. There was a growing
pressure. Isaac had been so focused on her that he’d almost forgotten this
would happen.
There were hot breaths. Hot skin. A burning heat between
them.
Cold, salty air, dripping from wood and lantern.
Hands together, searching for grip.
Fur and scars and warmth.
Her voice. Her smell.
Her.
They came together, every contraction of his cock receiving
a similar response in kind, and their bodies were already entwined to the point
that, when the waves of pleasure surged through them, they had nothing to do
but tighten their grips, breathe as one, gasp and moan and shake until it was
hard to tell one voice from another. Isaac felt like he’d spent his soul inside
of her. When the sensations began to retreat, they left behind a euphoria that
spread through every vein of his body, a feeling of contentment that left all
his muscles tingling and warm.
Neither of them moved. The lantern was growing dim, a wave
pounded against the hull, and it was immediately obvious that her mattress had
been soaked down to the frame. Even still, they held on to each other,
breathing deep and long. Nothing but their touch seemed to matter.
Isaac was the first to break the spell. He rubbed his cheek
against her chest, relishing the fur, breathing deeply of her scent. In a quiet
voice, he said: “I love you.”
She stiffened, pulling slightly away. A stab of fear went
through his heart. All the old worries came flooding into his mind.
Was that the right thing to say?
Was it too soon?
All this time, had his feelings not—
Her hands came away, leaving his back and the web of their
thighs. When the hands returned, they held his face in their palms, the pads
soft, the claws applying gentle pressure. He looked up, and she was already
coming down to kiss him. She had no lips, her nose was cold, her snout was
long, and one of her hands was still slick with their joining. Right then, he
could not have imagined a better kiss in all the world.
When Zaria pulled back, her old grin had already returned.
“I love you, too, squire.”