Flame of Cytherea: Cytherean Chronicles book 1 (14 page)

She started bobbing her head up and down in earnest, her
lips forming a seal around his girth as she sucked, and his tip popped slightly
into her throat each time, making a muted squelching noise.
 
The thrill of fear struck as she did this in
the open, she could be so easily caught if someone else woke, it drove her wild
and she found herself playing with her clit at the excitement of it.

She sped up even faster, the fear of getting caught and the
taste of Nicci on him driving her on, and when she felt him expand between her
lips she too reached her bliss as the taste of him filled her mouth.
 
She did not bother to limit her reaction to
the incredibly intense orgasm.
 
Her sharp
gasp then moans of blissful pleasure were muted by his manhood, as she felt her
juices run down onto her thighs.

She crawled up his body and kissed him lightly before
purring out with a mischievous smile, “Good morning love,” as a strange mix of
both relief and disappointment struck her, because no one had woken up, no one
had caught her…

She snuggled into his hard body, just enjoying the feel of
him for a few moments, before she gave him one more kiss, then rose to start
the day.

-----------

Nora watched warily as they walked through the town.
 
They had reached the village a couple of
hours after breaking camp, and at twenty to one odds had taken it back from the
Egerians with only one fatality and three wounded.
 
None of the enemy had surrendered, so most
had died, though a handful escaped into the countryside.

She didn’t let her guard down as Justin not only healed
their three soldiers, he was insistent on checking on the villagers as well,
and healing where he could.
 
Perhaps she
was being paranoid, but if she was an enemy soldier, now was the time to strike
for an assassin, right after a victory where your enemy would be feeling
confident and more liable to let their guard down.

She was still an angry little thing at times, and she
thought that probably would never completely go away.
 
Her early life had been hard and left its
mark.
 
But as she watched out for Justin
she knew she was changing, she didn’t want an attack to happen at all.
 
Her focus was shifting, she was dedicated to
keeping Justin safe.
 
She loved him.
 
And if no one attacking meant he was more safe,
she was more than willing to give up the chance at killing a few of the fucking
bastards…

--------

Nicci was a little sore, but just as intent as Nora as she
looked out for trouble.
 
She had
considered asking Justin to heal her, it would take almost no effort, but she
had decided she liked the feeling.
 
It
reminded her of last night, the way she had felt as he filled her so
completely.
 
The memory of the pleasure
he had evoked in her body made her tingle slightly.

She knew she couldn’t have fallen for a better man.
 
When she was younger her mother had explained
things to her.
 
Told her men didn’t
generally concern themselves with their partner’s pleasure in bed and to just
bear it if she felt uncomfortable.
 
Not
only was Justin nothing like that, he also gave weight to her words and treated
her as an equal, rather than something useless that he had to protect.

She shook her head, it was more than that.
 
He trusted her to guard him, trusted her with
his life.
 
Although she had known other
men, including her brother, that gave weight to her opinion, no one else before
had trusted her to that extent.

She had also sensed that despite how wonderful last night
was, he had held himself back, as if afraid to hurt her.
 
Even their second time together she had been
so tight, he must have been concerned he would hurt her, strain her center to
the point of pain.
 
Her mother had also
warned her of that possibility, if a man became to rough and how to treat the
pain.

In short, he was the best man she had ever met, and she had
no plans to let him go, ever…

---------

Sally did learn something about herself this afternoon.
 
Despite being barely above five feet tall she
did not cow easily.
 
In fact, her new
outgoing nature that had been a surprise to her the last few days, turned into
a feisty stubbornness that she could not back down from when confronted.

They had left the first town shortly after lunch and reached
the second town in late afternoon.
 
When
they discovered the enemy missing and unsure what it meant, Justin and Anton
had started arguing about what to do.
 
Apparently Justin was confident enough to push it, but not sure enough
to pull out his veto power through the oath and just order it done.

Anton wanted to split off, take most of the powerful talents
and go after them with a group of about seventy five at high speed, to catch up
before they could combine the troops and set another trap or escape back south.

Justin on the other hand argued that if they did that, the
bulk of their soldiers would be all but helpless to a small enemy band of
strong talents, especially that enemy mage, although he did agree they needed
to go faster somehow.
 
Finally, Sally had
enough of it.

“Stop it both of you, you’re going in circles and getting
nowhere.”

When Justin and Anton both glared down at her, instead of
shrinking back her back stiffened and she held her head high, glaring up at
them in return.
 
Perhaps it helped a
little, that she knew they were frustrated at the situation and not her, but
either way she had been proud of herself at that moment.

She continued, “Why not just increase the pace of the whole
group.”

Anton looked at her witheringly, but she held his gaze as he
said, “Because the soldiers will tire too much.
 
It’s too dangerous and makes us more vulnerable to ambush.”

She snorted.
 
“Did you
forget the person you are arguing with is The Flame of Cytherea?
 
He can just turn restore on full for five
minutes every hour to keep the soldiers fresh.”

They both lost their glares at that point and started to
gape.
 

She said innocently, “What?
 
Doesn’t that address all your concerns while still gaining the goal of
faster movement?”

She struggled to keep a straight face as she heard Nicci’s
tinkling laughter and Nora muttering something about men making things to
difficult under her breath.

She thought for a moment the prince would blow his top, but
finally he just shook his head ruefully, and started giving orders to move out
at double time march.
 
He also ordered
the scouts to range ahead double the normal distance…

Justin was exhausted.
 
It had sounded good when Sally said it, but now he was just plain worn
out from channeling all that magic all day.
 
The last village they passed had assured them they were only ten or so
hours behind, which meant they had closed the distance between them by half and
should reach the enemy sometime tomorrow if nothing changed.

He was also pretty sure they wouldn’t have time to set up
such an elaborate trap, not with them on their heels like this.
 
He thought back to the argument and wished
something wasn’t holding him back on approaching Sally, it had been hot the way
she stared them down.
 
He was willing to
wait though for whatever needed to happen first, the one thing he understood
was timing was everything to a relationship.
 

He was almost positive she would say yes now, but he was
also pretty sure it would be detrimental to a real relationship.

He wondered if he was selfish, wasn’t three enough?
 
Well, yes, more than enough really.
 
That didn’t mean he didn’t have room for
another love though did it?
 
Especially
one set up by the goddess.
 
He also
wondered what would happen next, once the enemy was removed from Abelaweth, but
he didn’t think too hard on it, wanting to stay in the moment.
 
He didn’t want to make mistakes.

Luckily after some time he was able to restore himself with
a light use of his magic, he knew he would need it based on the looks Kat and
Nora gave him.
 
He left it to them to
decide and found himself being dragged off by Nora.
 
It was a long night between the both of them
and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy every moment of it.

Early the next morning they discovered the enemy’s response
to their pick up in speed.
 
They had
picked up the scent of smoke a few miles away and were filled with dread as
they increased their pace until stopping when they could see it.
 
They all slowly walked in to the burned out
town.
 
People were huddling in what was
left of the burned out buildings.
 
Kat
looked freaked out, and I guessed it was because the next town was
Nerin
.

He couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind.
 
The enemy’s ploy regrettably worked, the
prince ordered the soldiers to help and he wasn’t going to give a heartless
order to continue.
 
As he went through
the town, healing burns, sword wounds, and people just plainly beaten he
watched in amazement as the earth talents built large buildings out of the
ground itself.

The soldiers with lesser talents were not idle, they swept
through the town helping to move any food or items that had survived the
fire.
 
The building was very basic and
clearly just temporary shelter, but it would do until the townspeople could
rebuild.
 
It was during this sweep they
found something horrible.

He struggled with his anger when he saw the dead.
 
He wanted to let the rage out, he wanted to
chase them down and kill them, especially the one who gave the order.

But that was not his purpose.
 
He was a protector, and although he had
failed miserably here, his anger would hurt his ability to wield his
talent.
 
He slowly calmed at the thought
that his anger was a betrayal to those he must protect, a betrayal to the dead
that he couldn’t.
 
But he could protect
those that would bring justice to the evil that had done this.
 
He took one last look at the pile of bodies,
every small child in the village, then turned away looking for a way to help.

It took about three hours to get things set, and after they
sent off a flying talent to the capital to ask for aid for the village they
continued on.
 
Nerin
was untouched when they reached it and they simply kept going, not even
stopping to ask about the men they pursued.
 
He did glance at Kat, and her face looked both relieved and guilty.
 
He didn’t bother to ask, he didn’t have to.

They ran into the evening until it got too dark out, then
made the camp by firelight.
 
After what
they had seen that afternoon, none of them including him was in the mood for
sex.
 
They made their beds, all of them
quiet and reflective.
 
It was not a
restful night, every time he tried to close his eyes and sleep he saw the
horror of it behind his eyes.
 
He was not
the only one.

Halfway through the night after waking for the fifth time,
he reached within and touched his magical talent.
 
As he felt the love of the goddess cradle him
and fill him, he was able to drift off into a deeper and untroubled sleep.

He woke up feeling a little better, as if something had been
lifted.
 
He kissed all the women good
morning, including Sally but on the cheek, but they all looked melancholy.
 
He hoped they would come out of it, he was
still upset by it as well, what they had seen in that town was monstrous.
 
He tried to talk to each of them as they
jogged a double march all morning, but they were mainly lost in thought.

He couldn’t even get them to smile, and he felt something
was wrong, but couldn’t identify it.
 
It
was almost as if they’d fell into some kind of fugue.
 
He ran out of time trying to track down his
concern when they caught sight of enemy soldiers marching in the other direction.
 
All the soldiers around him, and the four
women who were supposed to guard him, screamed in outrage and ran forward.

Something was very wrong, they would never leave him like
that.

It struck him finally that he had felt better after
embracing his full power, while running he had only been radiating the
restoring part of his gift to conserve energy.
 
Perhaps there was more to the burned town than he thought, more to it
than just slowing their progress.
 
Hoping
he wasn’t wrong about it he reached for his full abilities and sent them out in
an explosion of white protective fire.
 
Their charge forward halted as the animal like screams turned to one of
confusion.

They had been spelled somehow, most likely a spell left with
the pile of young dead children, subtle enough not to be noticed through the
horror and anger they felt at that act.
 
Even worse, the two hundred soldiers had turned, and over a hundred more
from each side started closing in.
 

He wondered for about two seconds how the enemy had all
their soldiers here before it struck him as obvious.
 
When the enemy commander saw them following
he must have sent a quick talent ahead to force march the rest back toward this
way.
 
They must have met here in the
middle and waited for the
Abelawethans
.

They still outnumbered the enemy by about five to two, but
breaking the spell had left them confused and he wasn’t feeling all that
confident.

The sky clouded over and it started to rain.
 
The clouds were out of his reach so he ran
over and shook Sally hard.

“Wake up!
 
You are the
only one who can stop this!”

Lightning struck.

He flew back forty feet and fought not to pass out at the
pain, if he hadn’t been holding his talent, all his magic, both he and Sally
might have died.
 
As it was his body was
slowly recovering, and the strike seemed to wake Sally up and the sky started
to slowly clear.

He heard a roar next to him at the same time Nora appeared,
he almost cried in relief that they seemed more like themselves now.
 
Angry, but in control of themselves.
 

The enemy soldiers seemed focused on him but that strategy
seemed to backfire.
 
If they weren’t
burned in a swath of flames from an angry Nicci standing over him protectively,
they were taken out by compressed air shots from Nora.
 
If they were lucky to get by both they found
themselves on the wrong end of a huge tiger claw, their heads ripped off in one
impossibly fast swipe.

He was ready if one got through, but the women were fierce
and none broke through their three layer defense.

The fight was short and ugly, and they lost close to two
hundred of their number due to the poor beginning.
 
He shuddered.
 
If he hadn’t figure it out and cancelled the enemy magic…

He saw Sally, still standing in the same spot, in a struggle
he couldn’t see.
 
He spoke softly trying
not to break her concentration.

“Where is he Sally, I can’t hold my magic much longer.”

She pointed to the south and he turned and ran, his aura of
power leading him.
 
When he got out about
fifty feet, he heard a brief scream of pain, then nothing.
 
He turned, and Sally had a satisfied look on
her face.

Sally said, “He wasn’t far enough away this time, not from
my range.
 
I held him there as he tried
to fight me off, once your aura cancelled his magic…” she trailed off and
shrugged.

No one wanted to stay there, and everyone was concerned
about the other towns, so they marched off again after disposing of the dead,
to the next town where they made camp outside it.
 
They would stay there until scouts verified
the condition of the other towns.
 
A few
scouts who had flying talents volunteered to check on the other villages.
 
He also thought there were more soldiers
coming south.

Between the adrenaline and almost losing them he was feeling
much more amorous that evening.
 
He
grabbed Nicci and she smiled as he led her behind the blanket and into
privacy.
 
She was still amazingly tight,
but without fear, and extremely enthusiastic.
 
He led her into many different positions and she seemed eager to try
them all in one night.

Even he didn’t have that much endurance.
 
But he got through as many as he could.
 
Even the powerful magic gifted to him by the
goddess could only take him so far before the body gave out.

Many hours later, and so many orgasms they had lost count,
he held her close…

---------

Nicci rested her head on his chest, his heart beat slowing
down after their last round.
 
She had
been unsure about that last position, she liked to look in his eyes, see his
face.
 
Run her nails down his chest.
 
But he had put her on all fours and mounted
her from behind.
 
She had decided after
the first five seconds she had a new favorite.
 

The feeling of how amazingly deep he got, and the angle of
his long strokes into her body, had led to her bucking back hard into him with
each stroke.
 
She shivered.
 
She wanted to do it again.
 
She smiled mischievously; she had wondered
what it would feel like if he ever didn’t hold back, now she knew…

She didn’t think anything would make her feel better than
she did right now, in his arms, completely sated.
 
She kissed his chest, then rested her head
back on it.
 
She loved the feel of his
arms around her, his fingertips drawing lazy circles on her back.

She felt him kiss the top of her head before he asked, “I
love you Nicci, will you stay in my arms and sleep with me tonight?”

As she said yes, she knew she had been wrong, very
wrong.
 
He had made her feel better, much
better, than she had moments ago.
 
She
was beaming like an idiot when he led her out.
 
She just couldn’t help it and couldn’t remember a time where she’d been
happier.
 
She blushed as Nora and Kat
snickered before they moved apart enough for both of them to lie down.
 

She lay down against him and sighed in contentment as sleep
took her.

---------

Kat was thinking about the future.
 
Now that the invasion seemed to be over she
wondered what would happen.
 
Would they
settle down?
 
Or was there more for the
Flame of Cytherea to do?

She missed her inn and wanted to go back someday, but
realistically she couldn’t expect a princess to move to a small village.
 
She doubted Nora would want to do so
either.
 
So that would mean either they
share him, and he moves back and forth, or she follows.
 
She didn’t like the idea of leaving her
tavern for good, but she hated the idea of not seeing Justin for long periods
of time.

She decided to talk about it with Nora and Nicci sometime
tomorrow, it was something they should discuss together.
 
For all she knew Nicci would be loathe to go
back to the castle she grew up in, from what she knew of it, Nicci felt like
she had grown up a prisoner.

She also wondered about Sally, he hadn’t even slept with her
yet, but she knew he cared for her.
 
She
wondered what was holding him back but daren’t ask.
 
Their relationship wasn’t any of her
business, at least, not until they had a commitment, and then her only business
was negotiating his time.