29. Bayn
BAYN
I tried not to listen to the distant, heated argument Izzy had with the dragon, but I still caught snippets.
Oddly, he didn’t seem upset that we’d had sex.
He’d been more concerned for her safety and physical condition, and once she’d assured him she was fine, he grumbled about it, but left, going to get clothes for both of us.
Not just her… both of us.
I didn’t know why she was being kind to me. She could have left me here, mostly naked. My clothes hadn’t been in great condition after my tantrum, throwing myself against these stone walls, my shirt mostly gone. Now my pants were entirely gone after I’d torn them off.
Bloody Bones!
Why hadn’t Izzy stopped me from doing that? Because… she’d wanted it too? She’d liked it… a lot, it seemed. But I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that. I’d been rough, with no foreplay other than a bite to her neck, which had apparently gotten her all worked up. Yet, she’d seemed to revel in it.
That seemed pretty messed up, but I wasn’t one to talk on that front.
Perhaps we were both messed up? That made far too much sense.
It might also explain why her binding on me was so hard to remove.
The more complex the bindings, the harder they were to break.
And given what the two of us had just done, I had a feeling our relationship — if you could call it that — was tangled and knotty as fuck.
Knotty.
Naughty.
I grinned.
Then I wiped that smile away. No. I couldn’t let myself fall for this woman, even if we might someday be married. As soon as I gave her my heart, she’d stomp on it and laugh at my weakness. It’s what women did. It’s what Osserime had done.
Yet despite my wariness, Izzy burned in my veins.
She’d been a curiosity before, but now, after having her, after seeing how much she’d liked it…
I needed more of her. It didn’t help that only a titan or an elf could have survived what I’d done with Izzy, but there were few titan women I’d ever let touch me, and certainly no elves.
Izzy was perfect. Not truly an elf, not a titan, but stronger than both.
And for some reason, she wanted to be with me.
She’d come looking for me, wanting to undo the binding, wanting to talk.
I’d been the one to throw that out the window and fight instead.
I’d seen how hard she’d tried to remain calm and be nice to me before I’d pissed her off, then we’d…
“Koar will be back in a bit. We have time to talk… if you’re up for it,” she said from behind me. I turned. She stood there, casually, even though she only wore a shirt, nothing more. And my lack of pants meant she could clearly see my cock respond to seeing her like that.
I looked away, otherwise we’d end up not talking.
She sighed. “Or… maybe we wait for pants to arrive before we talk?”
“No, say your piece,” I said, sitting on the jagged stone and liking the bite of it, the pain. I kept my gaze averted.
“How can you sit on this stuff?” she asked.
“Pain is nothing new to me,” I muttered.
“Ah, yeah… okay.” She crouched down — I could just make her out in my periphery — but didn’t sit. “It’s nothing new to me either, but I still don’t invite it.”
I huffed a mirthless laugh at that.
“Maybe I’m a masochist.”
“Oh, there’s no question about that,” she replied. “One look at this cave and I’d figured that much out.”
I barked another laugh.
She sighed. “So… yeah. Turns out… I have complicated feelings for you, and that’s hindering my ability to remove the binding.”
“No shit,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, well, I just figured that out.” Her tone changed, more questioning. “Wait… do you have complicated feelings too?”
I didn’t want to admit it, couldn’t say the words.
So, I flipped her a what do you think look before remembering why I wasn’t looking at her and turned away again.
Fuck she was sexy. She’d sweated a little from our exertions earlier, which made her blouse stick to her in all the right ways.
And given that was all she was wearing, there was very little left to my imagination.
“Right… so we’re both complicated and have feelings. It’s like we’re only human or something.”
“Only titan,” I corrected her.
She laughed. “Right, and I’m only half elf, half nymph, but that’s a bit of a mouthful.”
Her mention of a mouthful made me think of biting her and her reaction. My cock twitched again. Bones! She’d tasted so damned good. I wanted to press my lips to her in a very different way… but I quashed those feelings.
“Anyway,” she drawled, continuing. “So yeah. I am a bit scared of you, but also a little turned on and I also seem to want to hit you all the time. That’s a new combination for me and I need to figure that out before I can remove the binding.”
I nodded. “What do you need from me?”
“It would be easier not to be scared of you or want to hit you, if you weren’t so big of a dick sometimes.” She gave the sexiest little groan.
Her own words were making her think of my big dick… or so I guessed.
“Sorry, my dick only comes in one size, extra-large,” I joked.
“Don’t I know it,” she mumbled. “Can we stop talking about dicks?”
“You brought it up.”
“I’m pretty sure you brought it up first.” She gave another sexy groan. “Fuck! Why do I keep saying these things!”
I couldn’t help the genuine laugh which escaped me. A smile broke over my lips.
No! Don’t let her get to you.
She gave her own laughing sigh. “Where were we? Oh, right, complicated feelings and you’re a…
man who makes me want to hit you.” Another sigh.
“Look, I’m gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say someone close to you hurt you and you don’t trust anyone anymore.
You don’t have to admit it, but if that’s the case, what will it take for you to trust me?
Maybe then, you won’t want to fight me all the time and we can sort this out. ”
She’d hit the nail right on the head, but it only made me clam up. All I’d admit was, “I don’t trust easily, you’re right about that.”
“But my friends helped you get your sister back, doesn’t that count for something?”
“It does, it’s why I’m talking to you at all.”
“Ah.”
I needed to give her something, though.
“I… I won’t hurt you,” I said slowly. “I… don’t want to hurt you.”
I didn’t. She was different from any other woman I’d ever met, both powerful and caring. And that didn’t make any sense to me, but I wanted to find out more. “But I also won’t let you control me.”
There. Maybe that would do it? It was as much as I would admit here and now.
“What makes you think I want to control you?” she asked, sounding confused.
I blinked.
Then I laughed.
“Sometimes I forget you didn’t grow up in this world. Any elf who had… would want control.”
“That’s not true. The elf who taught me to use my powers, Lhorine, she’s a good woman.”
“Then she’s the only one, perhaps… one in a million.”
Izzy sighed heavily. “Given Saldrea and most of the others I’ve met… I can’t say you’re wrong.” Another heavy breath. “But look, I don’t want to control you. And I also don’t want you to control me. I’m all about freedom, so everyone can live their lives in peace.”
I’d heard her say it enough times, but it still hadn’t sunk in for me.
“Could be the long con,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t think Izzy was that deceptive.
“Yes, make everyone free and equal so that I could what…? Take control and piss them all off so they’d rise up and dethrone me?”
Yeah, it didn’t make much sense.
“It may… take me some time to get use to you then,” I said.
She harrumphed. “That’s the problem. We don’t have time!”
She was right.
“I need you to trust me so we can go face the titans together and convince them to join us.”
Face the titans… together?
“They’d never listen to you.”
“Because I’m an elf, yes, I know, and yet they’re currently listening to an elf, now, aren’t they?”
Huh… she was right about that too.
“What would you tell them?” I asked, curious.
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet. I was hoping you’d help with that.”
My shoulders slumped. I’d run out of arguments.
“I’ll help you,” I said, voice barely audible, but elves had good ears.
“Wow… ah… thanks,” she said, surprised. Then she blew out a breath. Koar’ll be here in a second. Why don’t we pick this up later?”
I nodded to that. “Yeah sure.”
The dragon arrived and threw some clothes at me, more than just pants. How thoughtful of him.
“Get dressed, both of you, Myel has returned from spying in the capital and has some important news. Actually… maybe take a dip in the ocean first, then get dressed. You two smell like… you don’t want to know.”
Izzy laughed at that. I turned in time to see her rip off her shirt and race naked into the water.
“Is she always this… carefree?” I asked Koar.
“When she feels safe,” was his stoic reply.
“I don’t know how anyone can feel safe in this world,” I muttered.
Koar laughed. “That’s Izzy for you, defying convention and expectation.”
I grunted. That was true enough.
But could she spurn years of hatred and convince the titans to join her?
Maybe… just maybe… she could.