Sword Sirens Page 6

  They were nice. They were really nice. He let his kiss with Kerys deepen as he gently tipped her back onto the sleeping mat. He didn’t let his hand do more than graze her breasts, as he worried how she might react if he got too aggressive. Instead, he slid it lower, across her stomach, and then a little further down…

  “You’re still wearing your panties,” whispered Ari, as his fingers discovered the upper hem of the soft, silkworm spun garment.

  “I’m… embarrassed,” whispered Kerys.

  “They’re silk,” said Ari. “Leave it to the Weaver family to give their daughter panties that are borderline erotic.”

  “Aristial!” said Kerys in an even more embarrassed voice.

  He gave her another kiss, doing most of the work with his lips in an effort to draw out her passion. One of his fingers slid into the fabric of her panties, and he started to pull them down. A shiver ran through Kerys, and she wiggled against him.

  “That tickles,” she whispered. “Can I… leave them on? Just for now?”

  “Of course.” Ari slid his hand up and let it cup the entirety of one of her naked breasts. Kerys let out a gasp, and then they were kissing again.

  Kerys could keep her panties on, he decided. But he was going to take his underwear off. He pulled them down and straddled her, letting his hard cock lay across her stomach. Kerys arched her back as it made contact, lifting her hips with an instinctual impulse that he doubted she fully understood.

  “Aristial…” whispered Kerys. “Ari.”

  “Kerys,” he said.

  He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, and then the cheek, and then the neck. He let his hard arousal grind into her as his hands roved over her. The tip of his cock pressed into her impossibly soft panties at what would have otherwise been the perfect angle. It was knocking on the door, begging to be let in. Demanding it.

  He kissed one of her breasts but decided that doing anything to her nipples with his mouth might be too much for her. Instead, he kept up the pressure in other ways, kissing her lips with shifting intensity and letting his fingers caress the inside of her thigh.

  He could feel her getting more comfortable and even beginning to take the initiative. She wrapped her arms around him, letting her hands trace his broad shoulders. Ari moved his hips against her as he felt her hands shyly groping his buttocks, as though she was trying to pull him into her even though her panties prevented it.

  “I don’t have to take your panties off, you know,” whispered Ari.

  He heard Kerys let out a small, shaky gasp in response, as though she was too overwhelmed by the experience to speak anymore. Ari rubbed her leg gently and then let one of his fingers pull the soft, silk fabric slightly to the side.

  Physically, she was ready for him. Ari could feel the wetness and heat of her womanhood as though she’d just climbed out of the hot springs. Mentally, he wasn’t so sure. He pushed forward, but shifted to a safer angle, letting his cock graze between her thighs, just underneath his true goal.

  He kissed her and slowly pushed forward, letting his shaft slide against her but not into her. It still felt unbelievably good, and from the way Kerys tensed her muscles and squeezed her thighs to emphasize the point of contact, he got the sense that the pleasure was mutual.

  Ari kissed her deeply, letting his tongue enter her mouth for the first time. He let himself grind against her, his hands caressing her breasts as she squeezed his cock tightly between her thighs. Her body was so small, and so easily taken. Her hot wife body, ready and waiting to be taken and dirtied, and…

  Ari took a sharp breath, suddenly realizing how close he was to blowing his seed early. He pulled back slightly, and Kerys ran a hand across his cheek.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I… think so too.”

  Ari frowned. “What?”

  “I’m so worried about what my parents and brothers would think,” she whispered. “What Dormiar would think, even. We aren’t married, Ari.”

  Her hand drifted across his stomach as she spoke, and she absentmindedly took hold of his cock and gave it a squeeze. It felt awesome, almost too good.

  “I thought…” He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “I mean, after what you said before...”

  “We’re both scared and confused,” whispered Kerys. “Neither of us really knows what we’re doing.”

  Her words were rather apt, as her hand had begun to slowly stroke up and down. If Kerys lacked much natural skill when it came to kissing, she certainly didn’t lack for it in other places. Her palm was unbelievably soft, and she had a fidgeting way of squeezing her fingers individually that was as pleasurable as it was unintentional.

  “We don’t have to always know what we’re doing,” said Ari. “We’ll figure it out as we go.”

  “Right,” said Kerys. “As we go.”

  Her hand pumped faster, but she still barely seemed to notice the effect she was having on him. Ari was on the brink.

  “Uh, Kerys—”

  “We can take our time…”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Ari. “Maybe you should also take your—”

  “Then when I’m ready,” she said. Her thumb ran over the head of his rock hard cock, making Ari feel like he was about to explode. “We’ll come together, as man and woman, when it’s appropriate and—”

  “Kerys!”

  Ari jerked his hips upward, half straddling her again as his cock unleashed its hot, sticky seed. Kerys let out a tiny squeal and squeezed him harder, probably more out of surprise, than anything.

  The pleasure of it was unreal. Ari shivered from it, feeling like he’d just slipped into the hot springs after a long day. With Kerys alongside him, naked and willing. He ran a hand through her hair, only then noticing that she did not seem to be pleased with him.

  “Aristial… Stoneblood!” shouted Kerys.

  Ari kissed her cheek. “I told you I’d dirty you eventually, Kerys.”

  She slapped him on the shoulder and let out a frustrated noise. Ari chuckled a little and slipped out of the kellowack to find something to help her clean up with.

  CHAPTER 10

  A dagger of silver light cut through the sky in the distance, followed by a bang loud enough to make the air in Ari’s ears resonate. He dropped to one knee in surprise, clutching the loose scrap Kerys had torn from her dress in one hand.

  “Thunder!” Kerys said, from inside the kellowack. “That means it’s about to…”

  Water began to pour from the sky in small droplets. Ari furrowed his brow, glancing upward, and then all around. It was the strangest thing, as though he was being continually splashed by water from an unseen source.

  “Rain,” said Kerys. “It’s rain. Come on, get back in here before you’re totally soaked.”

  Ari was still naked, and he did the best he could to wipe the water he’d already accumulated from his body. He passed Kerys the cloth, which she used to wipe his seed off her stomach with the daintiest movements she could manage, under the circumstances.

  “I’m glad we set up our camp on a hill,” whispered Kerys.

  “Why?”

  “Mistress Ana said that occasionally it would rain enough on the surface for the ground to become a basin,” she said. “They call it flooding.”

  “That would be bad,” said Ari.

  “We should be fine up here, though,” said Kerys. “It usually doesn’t flood enough to reach the hills. And also—”

  A blood curdling scream came from the nearby woods, loud enough to be heard through the patter of falling rain against the leather of their tent. Ari sat up straight in an instant, gripping Kerys tightly by the shoulder.

  Another scream came, followed by the sound of snapping branches and an inhuman gurgling noise. Ari’s legs felt like they were paralyzed from terror, but he forced himself to think about what would happen if someone, or something, attacked them while they were still in the tent.

  “Ari!” hissed Kerys, as he began to move.

/>   “Stay here,” he said. “But be ready to run.”

  He only took the time to pull on his underwear before slipping out of the tent and scanning the nearby trees for the source of the disturbance. He grabbed his red-iron knife from his pack, clutching it so tightly in his hand that his knuckles turned white.

  Kerys. He had to protect Kerys.

  Ari took a step forward, making his way over to where the sloping hill gave way to the forest below. He couldn’t see anything through the curtain of darkness and rain, but he could hear the threat clearly.

  Something was feeding. Multiple somethings. Ari could hear the disgusting sounds of it, crunching and viscous gurgling. He willed himself forward, too frightened to come up with a plan of action other than to investigate and be ready to run.

  Ari pressed his back to a thick tree trunk and sneaked a glance around it. He could see them in the distance, gathered around their prey in a small clearing. Three of them were down on all fours, feasting on what looked like a human body. The fourth was standing, and though Ari could only see the outline of his shape, it was enough to chill him to the bone.

  The creatures were vaguely humanoid in form. The upright one stood on two oddly jointed legs, swaying slightly from side to side. It was taller than a human, rising at least seven or eight feet tall, judging from how much bigger they were than the corpse they were devouring.

  The most disturbing feature about them was their upper body. It looked as though someone had plucked a massive cave squid out of the depths of one of the water caverns and attached it to their neck. Half a dozen tentacles as long as the creatures were tall extended outward from their heads, and they moved and fidgeted incessantly.

  The one that was standing dropped to all fours and shifted forward into place next to the others, moving with forced, jerky motions. Ari couldn’t make out the detail of their faces, but from the way they were biting down into the corpse, he could only assume that they had strong jaws and sharp teeth.

  He didn’t know what to do. The fact that they hadn’t seen him yet was basically the only advantage that he had. Any fantasy of trying to sneak up on the monsters and initiate a surprise attack was, well, simply a fantasy.

  Ari slipped back through the forest the way that he’d come, resisting the urge to break into a sprint as the camp came back into view. He needed to stay quiet. He needed to get Kerys somewhere safe. He needed…

  There was another one of them at the bottom of the hill. And another one a short distance beyond it. Neither of them had noticed Ari yet, but they would, soon enough.

  He all but ripped the kellowack’s flap open and grabbed Kerys by the hand. She looked terrified, and from the way she blinked when she saw him, Ari was pretty sure that he did, too.

  “Run,” he mouthed. He gestured in the one direction he hadn’t seen the monsters coming from yet, and then hesitated, gritting his teeth. Where would it even be safe for her to run to? He couldn’t see or hear well enough in the dark to get a sense of their surroundings, and guessing would be gambling with her life.

  Not to mention that Kerys was clinging to his side so tightly that he doubted he could have pried her off him without using a specialized tool. She was still naked from the waist up and now soaking wet, as vulnerable as the day she’d been born.

  Ari found his pack and dumped it out, grabbing the bag of sarkin flower from the mess. He pulled it open and dumped the entire thing into his mouth, chewing and swallowing as quickly as he could.

  “Ari!” hissed Kerys. “One of them is coming!”

  Sarkin flower was a strong stimulant, and it worked quickly. Ari could already feel its effects as some of the dry petals touched the underside of his tongue. It amplified the senses and helped him focus, but it also made him better at handling his emotions. He felt himself waging an internal war, desperately trying to outthink his fear by coming up with a plan in what little time they had before being discovered.

  “Come on!” he whispered.

  He pulled Kerys through the camp and in the direction he’d originally told her to flee in. It was forested, and he could hear the sound of the falling rain, along with the rustling of tree branches, but nothing else.

  Behind them, however, the creatures were spreading out. Ari was basically dragging Kerys through the muddy grass. They were both barefoot, and aside from his knife, they’d abandoned all of their supplies. It didn’t matter. Surviving the night was the only thing that mattered.

  “Here!” said Ari, sliding to a stop in front of a massive tree. “Up!”

  Kerys understood his plan immediately. Ari laced his fingers together and gave her a boost to the first branch, which was just out of her reach. He stood waiting with his knife, giving her a few seconds head start.

  If it came down to it, he would fight off the creatures there, on the ground. If that’s what it took to protect Kerys, he would do it. It wasn’t that Ari was fearless in the face of death. It was that he felt more worried for Kerys than he did for himself.

  “Ari!” whispered Kerys. “I can’t reach the next branch!”

  He looked upward, spotting her amidst the foliage and cursing under his breath. She wasn’t high enough. Even if he made the rather large assumption that the creatures couldn’t climb, one might still have enough reach between their height, their tentacles, and a decent leap to pluck her loose from her current position.

  Ari tucked his knife into a rather precarious sheath in the back of his underwear as he started to climb up after her. By the time he was halfway to where she was, he could hear the creatures approaching, the sound of them crashing through bushes and branches only audible to his sarkin flower enhanced ears.

  “Hold this,” he said, handing Kerys the knife as he reached her. “And hold onto me.”

  “What?” asked Kerys.

  Ari didn’t have time to explain. He grabbed her and hoisted her onto his back. He could feel the points of her nipples pressing against his skin. He could also feel how cold she was, which gave him an implicit understanding of how challenging it would be for her petite, mostly naked body to hold its warmth in the pouring rain.

  He climbed for both of them, moving through the tree limbs fast enough to earn a collection of cuts and scrapes from the smaller branches he ignored in his haste. He climbed until his arms burned and then kept going until his biceps cramped up, physically preventing him from lifting them any further.

  They were on a thick branch, thirtyish feet above the ground. Ari sat down so that he was straddling the tree in a way that left his back against its trunk, with Kerys sitting on the tree limb directly in front of him. He wrapped his arms around her as much to comfort her as to warm her up.

  He could hear the creatures coming, and he almost wished that the sarkin flower hadn’t done such a good job of enhancing his hearing as his heart pounded in terrified anticipation. The foliage of the branch they were on and the surrounding ones was thick, but it wasn’t perfect. They’d be visible from a few different angles.

  Kerys squeezed his hand so tight that it made his knuckles hurt. Was she shivering from cold or from fear? Did it even matter?

  The creatures made strange purring noises as they passed through the underlying forest. Ari spotted one of them approaching their tree and prayed that Kerys wouldn’t notice it. The last thing he wanted was for her to scream, or gasp, or react unpredictably.

  There were at least three of them. One of them came right up to the trunk of the tree they were in and ran its tentacles over the bark. Ari took the knife back from Kerys, though he had no idea what he’d even be able to manage to do with it.

  By some miracle, the creatures continued on without making an attempt to reach them. Ari waited until they were completely out of view before letting out a shaky sigh. Kerys was still shivering, and he ran his hands over her arms and shoulders in an attempt to work some more heat into her.

  “We’re okay,” he said. “We got away from them.”

  Kerys’ shaking shifted into full
body, but totally silent sobs. Ari hugged her as tight as he could.

  “I knew…” she whispered. “We both knew. The surface couldn’t have been so nice and so beautiful. There had to be something.”

  “Well,” said Ari. “At least now we know what it is.”

  If Kerys had been put at ease by his attempt at looking on the bright side, she didn’t let it show.

  “We’re going to die,” she whispered.

  “No,” said Ari.

  “Aristial, don’t lie to me again,” she said. “They’ll get us eventually. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “They won’t,” he said. “I’m not lying to you, Kerys.”

  “Liar,” she whispered.

  “I promise you,” said Ari. “I won’t let you die. Kerys Weaver. I… I love you. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that we both survive.”

  She didn’t say anything, but Ari felt her hand squeezing his even tighter. He let his head lean on her shoulder as he hugged her and focused on the rhythm of her soft, scared breathing.

  CHAPTER 11

  Ari didn’t sleep much, only drifting off for minutes here and there and jerking awake each time. The rain continued throughout most of the night, stopping an hour before sunset. He waited until there was enough light for their surroundings to be visible to be sure that the monsters weren’t still a threat. Finally, he gave Kerys a shake and carried her back down to the ground.

  It was a bit of a challenge, given how uncomfortable his body felt after being stuck straddling the branch for hours on end. Neither of them said anything as they slowly walked back to camp, naked and muddy and barefoot.

  The kellowack’s leather covering had been shredded, and one of the poles holding it up had been snapped in half. Their clothes had been left untouched, as had the sleeping pad and most of the rest of the camp, including their food.

  “It could have been worse,” said Ari, as he pulled his tunic back on.

  “I don’t see how,” said Kerys. “Dormiar’s blood, Ari. What were those things?”