Chapter 44.3

Jax snorted with some derision, then began to guide the girl’s half-limp form toward the bed.  “Sorry, nothing.  We ain’t done with ye yet.  Not til we’ve made a proper woman of ye, least-ways.”

Lynnria landed on the mattress with something close to a sob.  “Oh, Hands!”

“You keep saying that,” I said, my fingers lightly circling her knee.  Playing with it almost as if it were something else.  Something I would rather be touching.  “I can stop any time.  We can take this slow.  Or as fast and hard as you like.  But you need to tell me what you want.”

“What I want?” she repeated, her voice near breaking.

I closed my eyes briefly and smiled.  “Ask and ye shall receive.”

She stared at me uncertainly for a handful of seconds, still breathing hard enough, you would think she had just sprinted a mile.

“Am—?”  She swallowed back the question.

There was an almost rabid fear in her eyes.  She quaked with it almost as much as from the lust ravaging her body.  But she was a brave girl.

“Tell me I’m good enough.  I want you tell me I’m good enough.  For you.”

I considered her for a moment.  It would have been a strange request were it not for how dismissively I had treated her when we had first met, but with all we had gone through, my attitude about the girl had evolved a great deal.  So much so, I was almost inclined to answer flippantly.  And I would have were it not for that look I seen in her eyes.  There was more here than what appeared on the surface.  This was no simple insecurity.

No.  Her eyes were telling a tale of deep pain.  An old wound.  Which should not have existed in a face so young.

I glanced at Jax.

She inclined her head in just the same way I had.  Whatever this was, it was related to what she had sensed earlier.  It could have even been tied to the issue Lynnria had spoken of—the one with her Core—but that might have been stretching things too far.  However, I saw no need to press her.  That would come when it needed to.

And sometimes flippant answers are the best ones.

“Of course, you are,” I said easily.  “You were good enough to survive that maze, weren’t you?  You didn’t flinch or cower when we fought back the golem.  When we had to run for our lives, you may have faltered, but you got back up.  And you kept getting up.  Even when you thought you couldn’t.  Not everyone has that sort of mettle.”

I paused there a moment.  All of that was true and important.  But she had asked whether she was good enough for me. If I really wanted to answer the girl, I needed to consider my deeper feelings.  However, there was an established order to these sorts of things.  If I said too much too soon, the lilim would go ballistic, so some care was required.

Then a peculiar little memory burbled to the surface, and I knew just what to say.

“No one who cared enough to weep when they thought I was dead could ever be anything less in my book,” I said significantly, in the hope she would read between the lines, but she only glanced away—from all appearances, embarrassed at having been caught out in a moment of weakness.

Arx’s restless pacing about the room halted briefly, and she shot me a mischievous little grin before turning away.  “Sorry, go on.”

At least someone picked up on the subtext.  I would have to content myself with that for now.  Plus, the bit of levity was a breath of fresh air.  It felt like things were getting too serious in here.

I hiked a thumb toward her.  “Besides, these two would have never let you get so far if they didn’t see at least some potential.  So, my answer is yes.  You are most assuredly good enough for me, Fatespear Lynnria.”

“Donum Lynnria,” she corrected me fiercely.

“Donum Lynnria,” I agreed, a faint smile on my lips.

Her expression slowly morphed into a mirror of my own, but magnified a thousand times.  Intense relief, an almost manic joy, and fierce anticipation warred for supremacy there.  All punctuated by the single, shining tear just beginning to roll its way down the side of her cheek.

“Then I want you to prove it,” she said, her voice ragged.  “Prove that you’re more than just a pretty face.  Show me I’m good enough.  I want you to make me a woman.  Your woman!”

My cock roared to life fully at those words.  Hard and hungry.  The aching and soreness melted away, forgotten.  It demanded action.

This little virgin had some serious balls to call me out after all that.  She wanted proof I was more than just a pretty face, did she?  Well, then.

“So be it.”

The words had scarcely left my lips than I heard a gasp escape from Jax.  Her knees hit the floor almost instantly, one of her shadow clones nearly coming unstuck from her on the way down.  A moment later, Arx came to a stumbling halt, and she had to put her back to the wall to support herself.  Lynnria looked at them in confusion before focusing on me once more, wondering.  Her eyes began to widen as some inkling of what was about to happen set in.

The Hammer of Glory thrummed through my body.  Screaming to be unleashed.  Used.  Ravaging any and all that crossed my path.

Yet I held still as a statue.  I had become good at that, to the point I no longer even needed to think about it.  I did not need to move at all, if I did not want to.  Everything I did was deliberate.

I simply waited while the duet of aching want filled the room with its melody.  Rising in pitch.  Calling to me.

“W-well?” Lynnria said finally, still fronting her challenge.