Chapter 30
On their way to the merchant guild, which Anya had chosen as their next stop, Shiro, at her request, gave her a rundown of everything he'd learned, careful to avoid mentioning that this whole adventure had originally revolved around him trying to fix his erection problem.
He didn't so out of shame, she already knew about his issue, so there was nothing to hide there. He just figured she'd rather hear about the hero's fighting style and what a confrontation with her might look like than about how he'd nearly gotten scammed by a trio of fake healers.
Halfway through the rundown, Shiro noticed the catgirl staring at him, her amber eyes carrying something complicated. "What's going on?" he asked.
"You just very casually told me a millennium-old hero is so deathly afraid of you that she's holed up in an underground section of a temple."
"Hard to believe, right?"
"Yes, but I don't think you're lying. So who exactly are you?"
"You're starting to think I might actually be one of them, aren't you. You wouldn't be alone there. Chaska thinks the same. I was skeptical about it too, but the longer this goes on, the more I think I might genuinely be a little special."
"Took you long enough, Master Shiro. I already suspected as much, just didn't expect it to be this extreme."
"Let's not inflate my ego too much wi—" From the corner of his eye, Shiro caught something down a parallel alley that made him yank on the reins, skidding his mount to a sudden halt, much to Anya's surprise.
"Shiro, what's wrong?"
"I think I just saw Chaska," he said, already turning the creature around. "Give me a minute."
Cutting through to the parallel street, Shiro confirmed it. There was Chaska, but not alone. Three men surrounded her, exactly the sort of street thugs you'd expect lurking in an alley like this. That explained why her hand was already tucked under her poncho, seconds from drawing on them.
Chaska spotted him before she could draw. Shiro, meanwhile, steered his raptor straight at one of the men. The dromaeosaurid reacted like the predator it fundamentally was, jaws snapping shut around the man's head, nearly taking it clean off.
"Fuck, man! You're crazy—" one of the trio cursed, before freezing entirely.
He seemed to recognize Shiro.
It took Shiro a few seconds to place him too.
"You're the drunk guys from the bar."
Neither of them confirmed it out loud, they just scrambled away, leaving the scene behind.
"Shiro," Chaska murmured, in a voice he rarely heard from her outside of bed. "What are you doing here."
"What are you doing here."
"I was—"
"You alright?" he asked, checking her over. "What am I even asking, of course you're alright, or you'd already be shooting," he said, pinching her cheek.
"What's that supposed to—" Halfway through her sentence, she slapped his hand away and noticed the high-tech gloves he was wearing, then the gun slung across his back. "What ha—"
"Shiro," Anya called, catching up. "Hi, Chaska," she greeted.
"Hi," Chaska greeted back, then turned to him. "What's going on?"
"A lot. But the important part is, I found it."
"It? The workshop?"
"Yes, what else would I be talking about? Got these there," he said, pulling the long gun off his back.
She inspected it, then looked up at him. "Where?"
"You won't believe me, which is exactly why I think we should head there right now," he declared, grabbing her hand and leading her toward the vaulter. But the sight of Anya reminded him of something equally urgent.
"Master Shiro?"
"Shiiiit!"
"Somewhere else you need to be?" she asked.
Wincing, Shiro nodded, then glanced at Chaska, unable to find the words to actually say it.
It was Anya who broke that particular deadlock. "How about you handle what you need to. Will it take long?"
"No, it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours."
Anya clearly didn't love that answer, but nodded anyway. "Be quick. You know where to find me," she said, turning her vaulter around.
"Thanks, I love you with half my heart, I hope you know that," Shiro called after her, and the man whose vaulter he'd taken.
"What about my vaulter," the man demanded.
"I'll pay for the damn thing, damn it!"
Shiro felt a little bad for the guy as he climbed onto the mount and helped Chaska up behind him, who asked, "What's going on with her?"
Shiro considered telling her the truth, then decided against it. Better to focus on getting her to the workshop she'd been chasing for so long. Halfway there, though, he started bracing her for the possibility they'd hit the same result as last time.
She'd nearly put an arrow through him the first time this happened.
He didn't think she'd shoot him again, but he still dreaded the heartbreak of it.
By the time they reached the underground section beneath the temple's prayer hall, the high priest was in tears, explaining, "One moment it was there, the next it was gone, with him still inside.
" Shiro and Chaska stood staring at the empty space that, less than three hours earlier, had held the workshop where Shiro had gotten his gloves, his gun, and his ammunition.
"Where is he," the priest begged. "Where's my nephew?
" Shiro's plan for keeping the workshop from vanishing again had been simple: leave a customer behind.
That was why he'd asked Antonein to stay put while he went looking for Chaska.
He'd known the shop might still disappear, but he'd assumed it would leave the priest behind rather than take him along.
"That damn kobold." He wanted to hurl worse insults at the creature but couldn't quite manage it. He turned to Chaska, who was staring silently at the space where the thing she'd wanted so badly used to be. "You alright?"
"To think it was right here..." she said, bending to retrieve the compound bow Shiro'd left with the kobold, an item he had assumed, on top of leaving Antonein behind, might have been enough to keep Nazim from moving on. "Twice in a row. I don't know whether to laugh or cry."
Shiro didn't know what to say to that.
"You think he just doesn't want to see me?" she asked.
"I don't think that's it."
"Then what is it."
Though the moment called more for comfort than explanation, Shiro chose honesty anyway.
"Nazim's shop seems to only exist to satisfy one kind of customer, heroes.
The hero staying here didn't even know where the shop was until she went looking for somewhere to hide.
She's left now, and I doubt she has any reason to come back.
Which probably means Nazim has no reason to stay either. "
"But you arrived after she left," she countered, a fair point.
"Yeah, she did. Which I guess confirms your theory. Seems like I might be one of the people he sees, and wants to keep seeing, as a repeat customer. God, I mocked your approach so many times. Now I just feel stupid. And guilty."
"Guilty?"
"I'd be lying if I said my first thought, when I stumbled onto this shop, wasn't damn it, now Chaska and I have no real reason to travel to the next city together searching for this guy," Shiro admitted.
"Go ahead, punch me, because on the way here I actually hoped the kobold and his shop would already be gone.
Might've even been the case before I even left this place to search for you, honestly, because look, before I left, I made sure to grab everything I needed, hoping that when I brought you back here, there'd still be a reason for you to stick around with me.
So go on, punish me. Just don't shoot me. "
Chaska walked up to him and asked, "Why shouldn't I shoot you?"
"Because you still need me," he said, with a wicked, unapologetic grin.
She raised a fist and pressed it lightly against his chest. "Why do I feel like I should hate you at least a little, and I can't?"
"I guess whatever was destined to happen just happened."
"Which is?"
"You falling in love with me."
"Fool."
His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer. "Dare to tell me you don't like it when I do this," he said, leaning in to kiss her. She made no effort to pull away. She kissed him back.
"See?"
"That's supposed to be proof of my love for you?"
"Need more proof?" he said, kissing her again, guiding her back against the wall. "I'd be happy to provide more. Can you feel that?"
"You're hard," she noted after a moment, then scoffed. "How's that proof of anything?"
"Call it a hint of mine, then," Shiro said, his hands wandering again, and just as his fingers brushed against her, the interruption came, courtesy of the high priest.
"What in the world are you two doing? What about my nephew?"
"Your nephew's fine," Shiro said, more than a little annoyed at the interruption.
"Shiro," Chaska protested weakly, though his hand hadn't stopped, not for this.
"Antonein's probably fine, somewhere, right now. Could you give us a minute? We're kind of in the middle of something important."
The high priest looked ready to argue further, until Chaska let out a moan that made him give up entirely and leave.
"And I'm the one called a pervert," he said, once the priest was gone.
"Yes."
"There are tiers to being a pervert. Not sure exactly where moaning on purpose to embarrass a poor old man worried about his nephew ranks, but it's got to be near the top.
" He lifted his slick, glistening hand between them, a proud smirk on his lips as he made her look at the evidence of her own arousal.
Matching his confidence, her lips curved into an equal smirk. She grabbed his wrist and guided his wet fingers directly to his own mouth, making him taste her, eyes gleaming with wicked pleasure at the gesture.
"What do I taste like?" she purred.
"Tell me yourself," Shiro retorted.
He closed the distance, kissing her with sudden, fierce intensity.
Amid the tangle of their bodies, her hand slid down his pants, fingers wrapping tightly around him.
"You're still hard. Let's do it," she said, already stripping down as she pulled him toward a bedroll in the corner, one he could easily imagine Antonein, or Karen, had slept on during their time hiding here.
Not entirely confident, Shiro moved between her parted thighs anyway. The cool of the room against her heat was staggering. Pressing forward, he found her entrance and slid slowly, deeply into her.
She gasped sharply, fingers digging into his shoulders as she clenched tight around him, a perfect, frictionless fit. He began moving, steady and rhythmic, friction rippling through them both, every thrust a small victory, the wet sounds of their joining echoing softly in the quiet corner.
He kept it up for a couple of incredible minutes. But mid-stride, the familiar, frustrating numbness crept back in. Despite the heat and her tight grip, he felt himself slipping, going soft inside her before finally sliding out entirely, well short of finishing.
He grimaced, a curse forming on his lips, but the frustration died instantly at the sight of her waiting with open arms. He accepted the embrace gladly.
"Sorry," he mumbled into the curve of her neck.
"What are you apologizing for? You did good. It felt good," she whispered, stroking his hair.
"Didn't last long, though," he sighed. "Not long enough for either of us."
"There's a saying about good things not lasting," she teased, and the two of them broke into laughter. Then she grew serious again, lifting his chin so he had to meet her eyes. "But honestly, I'm looking forward to more."
"More?" This performance was about all he had to offer right now. She knew that, so her asking for more was something he only had one explanation for. "Are you talking about the aphrodisiac?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Shame we're not at the Bower. We could've gotten right back to it."
"You're serious?" Shiro asked, feeling his spirits lift.
"Yes, why wouldn't I be?"
"Well," he said, pulling away from her entirely. He crossed to a corner stacked with crates, reached into one, and pulled out a flask of dark green, oily liquid. "Check this out."
Her eyes widened. "Are all those crates—"
"Aphrodisiacs?" Shiro filled in.
"Yes. Are they yours?"
"No," he laughed, easily picturing the wild conclusions she was jumping to. "This was Antonein's stash. The bastard really wanted to make a fortune selling this stuff to guys like me. Anyway, what do you say now? Still brave enough to try this with me without any restraints?"
"Depends. Is it safe?"
"I can guarantee seven minutes."
"Why seven minutes, all of a sudden? Didn't you say you were fine until you got poisoned?"
"Might have exaggerated my sobriety a little, back then, to get you on board, since you didn't seem too eager to experiment with it at the time," Shiro admitted, sheepish.
"After those seven minutes, I might get a little unhinged.
Probably best if I'm chained up. Or maybe we just don't do this at all.
This might be the smart time to back off—"
"Do it," she interrupted.
"You sure?" he asked, already uncorking the flask, raising it to his lips, ready to down it the instant she gave a final nod.
With a mischievous smile, she repeated, "Do it."
"Yeeeesss maaaaam!"