16. Vireth #3
“You are the most exquisite thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispers.
The naked honesty in his eyes tells me this is so, despite my doubts and my insecurities.
“If I died tomorrow, my last thought would be of your face when you find your pleasure—the way your mouth softens, and your eyes sparkle. The rosebud blush of your cheeks, the dark pink of your nipples. Your eyes like garnets dropped in the snow. Your hair like woven moonlight. Your perfect cunt, so warm and wet and welcoming to me—a lowly farmer who will never deserve you.”
At that, he lowers his fingers to dip between my folds, still dripping with arousal for him, and I moan.
“Is this for me?” he groans, circling the pearl of pleasure at the top of my sex that’s swollen and aching for more. “Are you wet when you think of me? Did you watch me touch myself before, stroking my cock over and over to thoughts of you—to my own fantasies of how you might taste here?”
He slips a finger inside me and I buck up against him, going mad with want.
“Yes,” I answer. “Yes, I watched you.”
His finger slides in and out, slowly at first, and his thumb begins to press against that needy little bud, sending sparks of pleasure arcing outward through my limbs.
“And?”
His mouth is on my nipple, laving it gently with his tongue before he closes his teeth around it ever-so-slightly, then sucks it into his mouth.
“And I loved it,” I mewl. “I touched myself after watching you. I couldn’t help it. I wanted you, Renard—I want you. Please. I want you inside me—I want to shatter with you.”
A growl that’s desperate and helpless and wild wrenches itself from his mouth and he pulls back for the briefest of moments.
“As you wish,” he says, breathlessly.
He grasps his cock and slides the tip through my wet slit, earning another groan from us both, before he thrusts into me with one smooth motion.
The sensation is almost enough to make me climax from the sheer perfection of how we fit together, how hard and hot and thick he is—filling me in a way that begins to calm the aching void inside of me.
His eyes are squeezed shut, the muscles of his arms straining as he holds himself steady and tries to swallow the deep, guttural whimper of need.
“Are you well?” he rasps again.
“Gods yes. At least I will be when you stop teasing me and fuck me like we’ve both wanted for ages.”
His kiss-reddened lips quirk into a dimpled smile and he pulls back to thrust into me again, and again, and again, seating himself fully before pulling back out again.
I lift my hips up and lock my legs around his waist, giving him better access and mewling at the friction that now works along my sex.
“Goddess, you feel so good. So good. I’ve wanted, I’ve wanted so badly, and gods above it’s nothing—nothing compared to how good it feels,” he growls, matching my cries with deep, satisfying grunts.
His hands grip my hips so hard I hope they bruise, and his thumb finds the little bundle of nerves once more to rub in time with each plunging movement.
Pleasure begins to dance along my veins, winding through me like mycelium through the earth.
It picks up speed with the pounding of my heart as we move together on the ground, and oh, ohhh, ohhhh, it’s going to destroy me, this feeling, I know with certainty it is.
But there’s no stopping it, it’s going to come whether I want it to—whether I’m prepared for it or not, and oh gods—
“Renard!”
I sink my fangs into his neck and come harder than I ever have, screaming up into the sky and slamming my eyes shut as dark spots dance in my vision. Warm blood flows into my mouth and I lap it up, sending Renard into a frenzy of stuttering thrusts.
“Vireth, yes, yes, oh gods—”
He shouts as he finds his release, hips jerking and full body shuddering as pleasure wracks his body, finally collapsing on top of me.
The weight of him should be too much, but it isn’t—it soothes me and settles me as we both catch our breath in the wake of our ecstasy.
For the first time in I don’t know how long, I feel the sharp claws of hope in my chest. Renard is so strong, and he cares for me. He will be with me to see this through. I am not alone—not anymore.
He nuzzles my neck and as I look down to speak to him, something black catches my eye—drifting down from the sky like a snowflake.
A spore.
No.
Clouds of spores—black ones, falling lazily from the sky onto the ground around us. Concern giving way to panic, I move from beneath Renard, who makes a small noise of protest until he witnesses the same scene I do.
In the clearing next to the bandit camp, everything is dead. No animals remain, all plants have withered. Black mold and poisonous blood-red mushrooms are the only things left, pushing up through the decay-choked soil.
It is more than I have ever done on my own with my magic. The swathe of destruction is visible for a mile in every direction around us.
Despair and panic surge, and a new bed of toxic toadstools rises up at my feet. The ground begins to tremble faintly like the night in the cave, and once more, bones of long-dead things begin to shake up from their resting places in the soil.
No, no, no. No! Not again!
Sharp, searing pain splits my skull, blooming outward from my antlers, twisting in my gut like spoiled food.
The Blight Mother is awake.