11. Liora #3
“Something he’d never just volunteer. Something personal.”
Maldenis considered this, then called out to the minotaur over Liora’s shoulder. “Hey. Rough night?”
He grunted, then turned to face him. “You could say that.”
“Lose something?”
The minotaur’s shoulders dropped a little. “Three hundred and forty gold on baccarat. My wife’s going to skin me alive.”
“That’s rough.” Maldenis leaned an elbow on the bar, fixing his stare on the minotaur. “How much do you usually come with?”
“Four hundred. So I only got sixty left and I’m supposed to be saving for our daughter’s naming ceremony.” He rubbed a hand at his temple. “Don’t know how I’m going to explain this one.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
The minotaur nodded, seemingly unbothered by the fact that he’d just unloaded all of that on a complete stranger, then turned back to his drink as if the conversation had never happened.
Maldenis turned back to Liora.
She looked at him with both eyebrows raised, as if to ask, well?
He opened his mouth then quickly closed it.
“You didn’t even ask him anything personal,” she said. “He just told you.”
“I know.”
“You made him comfortable enough that he wanted to talk to you.”
“That could just be—”
“Maldenis.” She set her glass down. “That minotaur came here alone, losing money he didn’t have, and in under a minute you had his entire financial situation.” She tilted her head to the side. “That’s not charm. That’s something else.”
He was quiet for a long moment, staring down at the bar. The firelight moved across his face, and for once he didn’t look like he was about to make a joke.
“Huh,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Huh. See. You do have magic.” She took another sip of her drink. “Oh, and your eyes kind of did this glowy thing the entire time.”
“You couldn’t have led with that?” He raked a hand through his hair. “I have…powers. Magic powers.”
“Whoop-dee-doo, welcome to the club,” she raised a glass at him, which he clinked. And then, to her surprise, she asked, “How do you feel about it?”
“I don’t know.” He swallowed audibly. “All my life, I was nothing special, you know? Everyone in my family was. And my mother told me every day how I wasn’t.” Bitterness coated his every word.
She dropped her hand to her side, then changed her mind and placed it over his. “I’m sorry she made you feel that way. A mother should support and love her child.”
“She did love me, in her own way. She just pushed me a lot. To be as good as her other clutches. But I didn’t have what they had. Couldn’t excel in school or even find a skill I was good at.”
She bumped her shoulder to his. “She was proud of you, she said so. And you heard the things she said. At the meeting with the elders and then that morning at the briefing.”
“I suppose.”
The gears in his head seemingly continued turning, though he remained silent. Perhaps for the first time in her life, Liora wished she had Zara’s emphatic powers, so she knew how he felt.
Maybe he needed time. But now, he also needed a distraction.
“Say,” she began. “How about we blow off some steam? Have that fun you missed out on during your misspent youth?”
“Fun? What do you mean?”
“I mean…” She took a furtive glance around them. “Use your powers.”
“But Brontaios said—”
“He said no more gambling and don’t use magic to cheat.”
“But—oh.” It finally clicked in his brain. “What do you suggest?”
She grinned at him. “Follow me.”
They worked their way around the den, searching for their first test subject. They decided that their first guinea pig would be a minotaur at a dice table who suddenly felt compelled to announce that he’d once cried at a bard performance.
Then, a stoney-faced card dealer admitted that he’d named all three of his pet rabbits after his favorite soap opera stars.
After that, two minotaurs who had been glaring at each other across a game table for the better part of an hour suddenly decided they were best friends and began loudly toasting to their new brotherhood.
They planted little pockets of chaos here and there, not enough to get caught but just enough to send themselves into fits of uncontrollable giggles, even after the effects of their first drinks had worn off. They didn’t need anymore alcohol to get that giddy feeling, after all.
Just when they thought they could get away with it, Maldenis made one serious mistake: messing around with harpies.
They crept up behind a group of them as they played the roulette wheel. Maldenis tapped one of them on the shoulder and as soon as they made eye contact, whispered a suggestion to her. She suddenly slid her entire stack of chips onto a single number in the middle.
Of course, Maldenis and Liora had no idea that this was something the harpy would not normally have done. And so when the wheel spun and the little ball landed on a different number, she let out a shriek that shook the brass fixtures on the wall.
Liora couldn’t help the chortle that escaped her lips.
Then six pairs of blood-red eyes trained on them.
The jig was up.
“Stairs,” Maldenis whispered.
He did not have to say it twice.
They dashed across the room, toward the stairs and went up fast, spilling out of the bakery.
Maldenis grabbed her arm, pulling her down a narrow alley alongside the building, the sounds of shrieks echoing down the back lane.
Liora pressed her back against the stone wall and Maldenis stood beside her in the dark, shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
They stood there for what seemed like eternity. Liora’s knees were stiff from standing, but she didn’t dare move or make a sound. Eventually, the shrieks faded.
They locked eyes, and silently, mutually agreed they were safe. Maldenis gestured for her to follow him to the other end of the alley, which opened up onto a cobblestone lane that wound away from the main street, sloping gently downward toward the edge of town. She trailed behind him.
The stone buildings gave way to low walls and then to open ground and they trudged through silvery fields of grass lit by moonlight.
Ahead of them the lake stretched out wide and its onyx waters still.
The craggy mountains surrounded it on all sides, their peaks disappearing into low clouds, and the only sound was the water and the wind moving through the tree line at the far edge of the field.
Liora knew they should head back to the town. But instead, she grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the trees.
She didn’t know what kind of trees they were, perhaps they were endemic to this place or to Vale Crossing. Their trunks were thick and grew close together like walls, the branches overhead knitting above them to form a canopy.
Liora stopped at the edge of it and looked up through the branches at the stars.
She felt his presence behind her—how could she not?
Even with his tail coiled around, he was still a head taller than her.
Still, she drew in a breath of surprise when she turned and saw how close he was.
So close, she could feel the rise and fall of his broad chest.
Her fingers itched.
And she knew she shouldn’t, but—
Aww, fuck it.
She reached up and pulled him down to her. He came willingly, one hand braced against the nearest trunk, the other finding her waist. He stopped inches from her mouth.
“What happened to keeping things simple?”
She sighed. “I think ‘simple’ went out the door a long time ago.”
He closed the scant distance between them sealing his lips to hers.
The initial touch of his lips was cold and she was only happy to warm them with her own.
He let out a small sound, then that forked tongue of his worked its way between her lips, unsealing them.
The touch of it was as good as she remembered, maybe even better now, especially with the faint taste of liquor on them.
He shivered.
“Are you cold?” she asked. “The weather out here—”
“Is fine,” he said. “You’ll get me warmed up.” His tail slid up her leg, higher still, coiling and wrapping around the limb. He gave an experimental squeeze.
“Ohhhh…”
She practically melted against him, imagining that entire tail, his entire body, winding and compressing around her. While she didn’t have an erotic asphyxiation fetish, she could now see the appeal.
His fingers spread out over her hips, pressing against her, moving up the hem of her shirt and then sliding down under the waistband of her pants, his palms a branding heat on her bare skin.
“Yes?” he asked as his thumb skimmed over the top of her panties.
“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, to all of it.”
He didn’t even wait a beat as he slid down farther, first to the front of her cotton panties, teasing her.
The fabric grew embarrassingly wet under his touch and she was squirming and panting in no time.
When he stopped and moved his hand higher, she let out a whimper of disappointment, which was quickly replaced by a moan as his fingers dipped under her panties.
He immediately went for her clit, the thick calloused pads circling the nub, sending shivers through her.
When he slid a middle finger inside her, she grabbed at his forearms to steady herself.
“You’re dripping on me,” he whispered into her ear. “So fucking wet.”
He slipped in another finger, then ground the heel of his hand over her clit.
The sounds coming from between her thighs were obscene, but that only spurred him on, his arm pistoning up and down like his life depended on it.
The orgasm came quick and violent, and she barely had time to bite at her lip to stop herself from moaning too loud.
She was barely coming back when he captured her mouth again, the forked tongue flicking at her. Then he pushed her further back so she leaned against the tree trunk, his torso pushing up against her. “Stay there,” he ordered and began to slide lower.
“I’m not going any—oh!”