Epilogue #2
“How are you doing, Zayr? I’m really glad to see you alive,” I said sincerely.
“I’m well, thanks to you.” He nodded, the end of his garment swayed over his face, and I had no idea how he clipped it to his bald head.
“If you didn’t tell me to run and hide, I’d be dead or captured for sure that day.
Ashgate is still a mess. The shacks are all gone, and half of the caves are unusable.
The water in the underground river is still briny after the Big Wave.
But I have salt, just like you told me. Two bags of it. ”
“You have salt?” I shook my head in disbelief. “You did it?”
“I did. It worked pretty well. Now…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you still want me to take it to Kalmena, or do you know someone who’d buy it from me here in Teneris?”
“Zayr, I’ll buy a bag from you myself. And I know Prince Rha’s cook will happily buy the other one from you. But there’s a huge shortage of salt in Kalmena right now. We’ll need to hire you some help. There’s a lot of gold to be made in this salt business, my friend.”
Even burned, flooded, and defeated, Ashgate remained a sore spot for the rulers of the Alveari Kingdom. Prince Rha left the shadow tunnel beacon in place, making the passage to it possible. He reasoned that if someone needed a shelter, they could still find it in the caves of Ashgate.
Of course that also meant that crime would eventually be free to flourish there again with time if we did nothing about it now.
“We need to establish a city council of Ashgate,” Prince Rha determined after several discussions about the future of the city. “I’ll station warriors to enforce the law there, and I will appoint a governor.”
He rested a pointed stare on me, and it made sense to me. I knew Ashgate better than anyone in Teneris.
I’d burned Ashgate, and I reveled in watching it burn. But I also knew that city was a refuge for the misfits who couldn’t find their place anywhere else in the kingdom. I was one of those misfits myself once. If there was someone who understood the needs of Ashgate residents, it would be me.
When I told Elaine about Prince Rha’s offer that night, she added her vision of Ashgate’s future.
“Very ugly things happened in that city,” she said.
“But the place itself is beautiful. The climate is milder than in the desert, with fewer storms during the day. It could be a great place for humans to visit, to swim in the ocean, and to enjoy the sun. You know, humans generally like all those things.”
“Swimming?” I grimaced, remembering Elaine’s joy at getting her clothes, hair, and body deliberately wet in the rain.
We were sitting in the warm pool in our house right now. But being wet now felt very different, especially with our tendrils intertwined and Elaine’s joy rushing to me in a shimmering stream of magic.
“Yes,” she laughed at my unimpressed expression.
“Believe it or not, I regret not getting a chance to swim in the ocean while we lived on the beach in Ashgate. But I was so terrified of every shadow there, scared to go outside, hiding all the time…” she sighed.
“It could be so much better, Timur.” She glanced up at me.
“We can make it better. Safe for everyone.”
“So be it then. We’re moving back to Ashgate.”
She beamed at me. “And we’ll make the beach safe to swim for everyone.”
Two months after our arrival to Teneris and two days before our departure for Ashgate, Elaine and I were leaving the palace on our way home for the day.
It was just before dawn, during that warm, golden hour that Elaine loved, and I’d learned to appreciate thanks to her. Teneris was ready for the approaching day. Its shutters closed, its doors locked, and most of its people were going to bed already.
I had my chair. I’d brought it to the palace that day because it made it easier to attend the formal meals and meetings that Elaine and I were often invited to. She sat on my lap, where she belonged and where she loved to be.
She relaxed against my chest.
“Tired?” I asked, winding the end of a wavy lock of her hair around my claw.
She shifted her delectable bottom on my thighs, and my cock stirred to life as if she had direct access to its operation, which in a way, she very much had.
“It was a long night.” She drew a circle on my chest with the tip of her finger, her warm breath fanning over my skin through the mesh armor of my uniform.
“Let’s get you to bed now.” I kissed her forehead.
All I really wanted to do was to keep kissing her face, her lips, her chest. To lick her skin. To bury my head between her thighs. To plunge my tongue deep inside her…
Something stirred around my cock. The mating cluster.
Fuck.
It’d been about a month since my last mating fever, hadn’t it?
Unlike shadow fae, human women’s fertile days came more often, monthly instead of yearly.
Not that I would ever complain about that.
I enjoyed sex thoroughly every month and almost every day in between.
But now, I wished I could take Elaine right here in the city plaza.
I didn’t even think I could make it all the way home in this chair.
But she was relaxed, tired, and in need of sleep.
“Oh.” She sat up straighter, obviously sensing the increased activity of all my mating equipment happening under her butt.
“It can wait until the evening,” I assured her, my voice hoarse from the intense arousal.
She tilted her head, giving me a sly look. “Are you sure? It doesn’t feel like it’s going to wait that long. And oh, look…” She leaned back, pointing at my skirt.
A golden glow beamed from behind my belt, like the sun was rising inside my fucking skirt instead of over the city.
“Timur!” A male voice shouted from the other end of the plaza.
No one called me just by my name anymore. For everyone in Teneris, I was “General Timur” now, or simply “General.”
Lord Arnaf rushed to us across the plaza. Eager anticipation lit up his eyes.
“Is that really you?” he gushed. “I can’t believe I found you here after searching all of Kalmena. And you have your joy Vessel with you. Well, this is just perfect.” He licked his lips, devouring Elaine with his gaze.
I hugged her closer to me, stretching my tail from under my skirt, just in case.
“Greetings, Lord Arnaf,” Elaine said calmly.
“What are you doing in Teneris?” I asked him.
“Oh, I’ve been looking all over for you, trying to book our next appointment,” the lord announced.
Elaine snorted a burst of laughter.
“I’m so sorry.” She brought her hand to her mouth.
He glanced from her to me, then back to her again.
“I miss you,” he said softly, pleading. “I can’t find anything close to your emotions anywhere else.”
“There is a Joy Source in Teneris. In the new temple right there next to the palace,” I suggested. “And it’s free for everyone.”
“Yes, it’s pretty good.” Lord Arnaf nodded. “Very good, actually. But… I can’t get the taste of Elaine’s joy out of my memories. If I could just feel it one more time, please.”
“We’re not doing that anymore,” I bit off.
“I’ll pay whatever you ask. Just once… Please, I never knew that the last time I saw her would be the last time ever.”
Elaine straightened on my lap, sliding her tantalizing ass over my hard cock. I sucked in a breath, gripping her hips to keep her in place, lest I fuck her right here in front of poor Lord Arnaf and through both our skirts.
Fuck. I had to get her home as soon as possible. I’d leave the chair here and fly home if I had to.
“We don’t need your money,” Elaine said.
No we didn’t. My service in Prince Rha’s army was compensated generously. Even if we didn’t have our substantial savings, I made enough gold to guarantee Elaine a worry-free life for the centuries we both had ahead of us now.
“Unless you don’t mind making a donation to the temple…” she added suddenly.
What did she mean?
I squinted at her with my unspoken question.
Was she actually considering it?
“Anything. I’ll do anything,” Lord Arnaf exhaled. His shoulders dropped in relief as his eyes filled with hope.
“Elaine?” I tried to catch her eyes, willing her to explain.
Then I sensed her growing excitement and rising arousal through our tendrils, and I knew the answer.
My little treasure was filled with lust, just as I was.
“Why don’t you go to the temple right now, Lord Arnaf,” she said. “We’ll meet you there.”
“Do you really want to do this?” I asked, already steering the chair back to the palace toward the private entrance to the temple as Lord Arnaf took off in a jog around the palace wall.
She drew another shape over my chest armor, a flower maybe or a cloud, I wasn’t sure. The important part was that the press of her little finger left a trail of thrill in its wake. My stomach tightened, and my cock tensed.
“It’s altruistic to share joy with others, is it not?” she murmured, arching her back as I ran my claws along her spine as the cut of her dress left all her leilathas exposed.
“You’re doing it out of altruism?”
“Sure.” She playfully tugged on my ear before kissing my lips. “But it’s your fault, you know?”
“How so?” I had a hard time focusing on this conversation already, barely keeping us on the right path to the temple.
“You got horny all of a sudden, and I felt it. Before that, I just wanted to go home and sleep”
“You still can. I’ll take you home right now.”
She slid a hand down our linked tendrils.
“I know for a fact that you won’t make it until home, sweetie.
You’re hard like a rock and glowing brighter than the moon already.
Even if we fly, you’d probably end up fucking me in the air.
Which…come to think of it is exciting. But I want you too much to wait.
Besides, we can’t disappoint Lord Arnaf now, can we? ”
She slid the strap of her dress from her shoulder. I tugged it lower, then ran my claws over the swell of her exposed breast. She moaned, arching her back.
“You want the lord to see you like this, naked and shaking with need for me?” I growled, yanking her up to her knees so that I could lick her nipple.
To my astonishment, her arousal spiked at my question, but only for a moment.
“No,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to see us. But isn’t there something hot about…um, letting others feel all of this.” She gestured between me and her, meaning all the wonderful emotions that were coursing through us right now.
“Love is magic,” I said between sucking on her nipple and kissing around it. “Sharing magic with others is a noble thing.”
Kurai designed the new Source of Joy not as a column like it was in the temple of the First Priestess.
From the Priestess’s writings, we now knew she had created it that way to share her joy with our ancestors, who back then were only shadows freely floating through the air.
The Priestess built the source up as a column for the shadows to access it from any height.
The new Source was shaped as a shorter but much wider cylinder so that more fae could access it from the ground.
The walls had already been put up around the Source to protect it from the day storm. But Elaine and I got inside from the palace, along the path that never closed.
Lord Arnaf was waiting on the other side of the wall. The six tendrils he’d slipped through the narrow gaps between the wall panels undulated impatiently, searching for Elaine’s leilathas.
We moved closer, and three of his tendrils quickly found the three vacant openings in Elaine’s leilatha harness. The other three had to retreat because Elaine’s own tendrils were out and in my possession, and I wouldn’t give them up to any lord, a king, or even a god.
My woman’s love coursed through my veins, keeping me alive. Her lust mixed with mine in an explosive combination that set my blood on fire. I used my tail to lift her skirt because my hands were busy caressing her naked breasts.
Her movements were frantic as she hiked up my skirt, then wrapped her fingers around my hard length.
“Gods…” I hissed, tossing back my head.
The feelers of my cluster reached for her hands, curling around her fingers and sliding up her wrists.
She moved closer, straddling my lap with her legs open.
The feelers quickly moved over, sliding up her inner thighs, prodding around her opening, and dancing around the hot swollen bud of her clit.
“Oh, Timur, my love…” she moaned, her body trembling.
Her pleasure rocked through me. But I felt my own pleasure rising too. The touch of her hand on my cock didn’t just promise a release, it filled me with pleasure all of my own making.
I knew it would happen eventually. Kurai had felt it first when having sex with Ciara. Prince Rha was now able to feel pleasure as well, even when his tendrils were not connected to Dawn.
The work that the First Priestess had started, the creation of people from shadows, was now continued by other humans.
My woman had taught me what joy was. And now, I could feel it too.
With time, all the shadow fae in Alveari would be able to feel joy without connecting to the Source or a human.
With centuries of life ahead of me now, I hoped it’d happen in my lifetime.
With a soft gasp of pleasure, Elaine lowered her hips, taking my cock inside her. A swell of bliss blinded me. I couldn’t hold back a feral growl, thrusting up, deeper inside her.
“Oh God, yes…” she moaned, hugging my neck. “Fuck me, my love. Just like that…”
She rode my cock while my feelers drove her pleasure higher and higher. I ran my hands up her bare back, hugging her to me so tightly, I no longer knew when she ended and I began. We were one. One heart, one soul, and one all-consuming pleasure.
Our pleasure crested, and we came together, always together. In the storm of our joint orgasm, I held on to her like to my guiding light.
She draped her arms down my back, resting her head on my shoulder, so thoroughly spent.
“I love you,” she whispered, naming the warm, sweet feeling encompassing us both. “I love you so much, Timur.”
“You’re my life, Elaine,” I vowed. “My sweet salvation. I love you more than I ever knew was possible to love anyone.”
I’d die for her without a moment of hesitation. But every day I did something far more important than dying—I lived. I lived for her.
Behind the wall, Lord Arnaf moaned, and Elaine giggled softly into my shoulder. I completely forgot about the fucking lord.
“It’s a good thing we didn’t charge him,” Elaine whispered into my ear. “Because how do you even price something like this?” She pressed her hand to her chest then to mine.
“You can’t,” I agreed, kissing her smiling lips. “What we have is truly priceless, my love.”
THE END