Tales from a Lewd Fantasy World – Tale 4 – The Hero from Another World 2

One of the things I always found ridiculous in fantasy worlds? An element of worldbuilding that required a hefty dose of Bellisario’s Maxim? The one piece of a setting that I would rather remain unexplored?

Dungeons.

Look, I understand, The Lord of the Rings is the grandfather of all modern fantasy, and everybodywants to have the Moria experience. Mysterious ruins, hidden treasures, monsters lurking in the lost shadows of time? That’s gold. That’s thrilling. That’s what fantasy is all about.

And then you go and institutionalize them.

Suddenly, you have Dungeon Core novels springing up like mushrooms, or LitRPG settings that handhold the protagonist through a place filled with level-adequate monsters, or, God forbid, isekai protagonists who use the dungeons effectively as mines without anybody wondering why the whole world looks even remotely similar to a European fantasy setting when every single trade relies on, or is effectively substituted by, hitting things until they die.

It… It used to infuriate me, you know? How nonsensical it all was, how deprived of wonder, of the very spark of magic that should be the whole point.

“Adrian? Are you going on another one of your inner rants?” Elena tentatively says from behind me, lifting up the oil lantern hanging from her left hand to directly look at my face and inadvertently sending the shadows of the cave dancing in menacing waves all around us.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I automatically answer her as she breaks me off my inner trance, and I go back to what I was desperately trying not to do.

That is, stare at Zhandra’s ass.

In front of me.

Swaying.

“You’re lying to me,” Elena says, rolling her eyes in that way she has of unfairly dismissing my perfectly valid claims as to the nature of reality, the cosmos, and whether or not I was trying to distract myself from the sex demon playing it up.

‘I’ll scout up ahead, Adrian. My eyes see better in the dark, Adrian. Just make sure to stay close to me and keep an eye on my back, Adrian.’

I swear, you tenderly and lovingly have sex with an affection-starved woman one time—

“And now you’re ignoring me…” Elena pouts. Which is terribly unfair.

To me. That is the gold standard of things being unfair, after all.

“I’m not. I’m just trying to ignore Zhandra.” Damn it, mouth; damn you and your sudden and expected betrayal!

“What? Why?”the blonde priestess asks with obvious bewilderment just as Zhandra’s hip swaying lengthens.

…

“I… Find her tail… distracting?” I say.

Because I do.

I really, reallydo, and that’s not even a euphemism.

Not entirely.

It’s mostly about Zhandra not having had a tail until the day after I slept with her in my arms, though. That, and the implications it brings up.

“It…” Elena stares up ahead, at the red, pliant, slithering flesh pushing down the hemline of Zhandra’s already low shorts, waving the heart-shaped tip in front of us in a mesmerizing wave. And blushes. “It kind of is, isn’t it?”

“If you both are going to be staring at my ass, the least you could do is praise it,” Zhandra says, shooting a look at me over her shoulder that tells me precisely how annoyed she is by the whole thing.

That is: not at all.

And that’s when I grab the back of her leather armor and pull her behind me as a goddamn giant black wolf jumps from behind a far too convenient rock, swiping its red claws right where my girl—my comrade was before I did the hero thing.

“This is the last time you complain about me not keeping an eye on your back,” I tell her, taking out my dagger.

“I’ll never stop complaining about you not looking below my back,” she answers, taking out her own pair.

“Stop flirting and kill the demon beast, please,” Elena says before sighing.

“Never!” Zhandra claims.

And then jumps forward.

Her movement is acrobatic, her body spinning in mid-air so she keeps facing the demon-wolf just as she goes past it, her blades always between her and the monster until she lands with her legs spread in a broad base, kicking up a cloud of rock dust.

The jump is also eye-catching, suboptimal, and risky.

I know. Because she taught me.

So I also know she’s just trying to get its attention to give me an opening, and so I flood my body with the same energy she helped me master, and I rush toward the flank of the already turning beast, something burning in my eyes as my aura covers my blade, as the edge glimmers as I make it become mine to the point I can feel the air parting around it as if it were my own skin…

And the wolf dodges back.

The monster is big. Tall as I am, even on all fours.

That line about things being deceptively fast for their size? It isn’t. It’s precisely as fast as I’d expect a roaming demon of gluttony that has struck no less than five villages in the last month to be. It’s as fast as a monster that comes out of taking one of the most dangerous predators in the world and infusing it with demonic essence and a capacity to grow in power the more it devours. It’s precisely as fast as I expect a wolf king to be after we’ve corralled it and killed all the beasts it had gathered around it.

That is, as fast as a boss monster should be.

I hate dungeons.

Elena chants a prayer behind me that I’m too focused to understand the words of, and Zhandra tries to circle around the beast before it cuts her off with snapping jaws. I try to take advantage of the opening she provides, but I end up pushed back as I desperately parry his claws with my dagger.

‘Use a bigger blade; you need reach,’ Zhandra said.

‘I like daggers. I feel like I will cut myself if I use something too long,’ I told her.

‘Look, as refreshing as it is that you aren’t using a zweihander to compensate for something, I’d rather you had a more substantial weapon.’

‘You use knives,’ I protested the hypocrisy of my teacher while ignoring the possible praise of my manhood not needing to be compensated (or the implied insult that I do need it).

‘I’ve got my own tricks,’ she told me, winking in a way that made the double entendre painfully clear.

And, in moments like these, when a monster able to overpower even my own strength is pushing me back, and I’ve only got a blade about as long as my forearm to protect me, a traitorous, completely baseless part of me thinks that Zhandra was right.

I shift my stance, my left leg stepping forward and to the side, taking me into the arc of the attack as I try to punch its foreleg, but the wolf’s jaws open as it jumps forward, its blocked claws making my right arm fly back as I almost lose my grip on my dagger.

I drop to the rocky ground on my back, kicking up with both my legs, trying to catch him beneath his jaw even as he turns down toward me, spittle that glows red with demonic essence flying at my face, brighter than his crimson eyes, than Elena’s lantern gleaming off oily black fur.

Zhandra rushes to me, blades glowing violet with her own strength, with the very trick I was using a moment ago, the only thing that let me parry a blow from a limb almost as tall as I am.

And Elena prays.

The wave of golden light is paler than the lamp’s flame. It’s barely there, almost not a thing.

To physical eyes.

But both Zhandra and the wolf look away as it washes over them, hissing in pain as it strikes at the part of their heritage that elevates them above mortals.

To me?

It’s… peaceful. Soothing.

And it just took enough power out of the wolf for me to actually land my kick right on his fangs.

The twin spikes shatter above my heels in a cloud of white shards and crimson blood, and the wolf rears back, howling in agony, as I redouble the kick to roll over my back and land on one knee, my blade right in front of me in a way I’m reallyglad no one in here can tell me that it looks like I’m trying to imitate something cool I once saw in a manga about ninjas.

The wolf lowers its head, ready to pounce at me, to claw my chest apart.

And Zhandra stabs its nape, making it drop lifelessly to the ground of the cavern, her blades sliding out with the fall, seemingly pulling out a brief fountain of blood.

Just like that, three days of hunting are over.

“That went… well,” I say as Zhandra turns to me with a look of sheer fury that makes her violet eyes blaze in more than one way.

“You stupid, suicidalman—” she says, walking to me with none of the swaying of moments ago.

“Oh, Vesper! I’m so sorry, Zhandra! Did that hurt—” Elena interrupts, running past me toward our demonic companion, already fretting over inconveniencing her.

“Not now, Elena; I’m about to make sure that our fearless leader learns to have some fear,” Zhandra says, brushing off the well-meaning hand to turn blazing eyes at me.

“I pulled you back from being bitten in half! The least you could do is thank me before tearing a strip out of my hide!” I say, being objectively right.

“I’m going to do far worse—wait, you really think you saved me back there?” Zhandra pauses in her raving fury, blinking at me as if I am being particularly slow.

…

“If you tell me you knew there was a giant, man-eating wolf behind that rock and didn’t warn us, I’m going to call bullshit,” I say, crossing my arms and trying not to poke an eye out when that brings the point of my dagger uncomfortably close to my face.

And Zhandra…

Facepalms.

Which gives Elena just the opening she needs to start checking her for cuts, bruises, or anything else she may have contracted through sheer osmosis, given that I’m the only one who actually came close to taking some damage.

“Adrian… of course I didn’t hide life-threatening information from you, but I was moving just as you tried to pull me back. The thing was loud, once it came out of hiding.”

It… kinda was, what with it being as tall as a grown man and his claws not having been properly pedicured.

“Fine… Fine, I didn’t just save your life, but I don’t see what I did wrong to—”

“You didn’t back away! You got surprised by an opponent with unexpected strength and skill, and you didn’t try to get some distance to reevaluate, to make a plan! You risked your life!”

My first instinct?

Argue back.

Take apart every little critique, tell her how wrong she is and how right I am. How she shouldn’t be raising her voice at me just because she’s a little emotional after a fight to the death.

That’s always been my first reaction, the way I tackle these situations, even before they were as charged as they become when one of us could die after a single misstep. That was how I handled things in my old world.

It… didn’t work out that well.

But I only realize that when I take a moment to look at her, at the fury in her eyes hiding something else even as Elena looks between the two of us, lost for words.

When I understand that Zhandra was scared of losing me.

After a single shared night, after banter and jokes, talking more and more as walls came down during this latest adventure, with Elena laughing by our side.

After letting me see more of her than she first intended, and then revealing even more.

I… I can’t throw that back in her face.

So…

“I… I am sorry. I’ll try to be more careful,” I tell her. Apologizing. Trying not to show how bitter I am at the admission.

I despise character growth.

“I… No, I… I overreacted. It’s… We’ll train. I’ll make sure you know better next time. This was my fault,” she says, arms crossed over the leather plate covering her chest, looking aside with as much awkwardness as I’m feeling as Elena…

Smiles brightly enough to light up the whole damn cave.

…

Let’s just gloss right over that.

Instead, let’s wonder at how convenient it is that the damn boss monster found himself at the end of a cave big enough to make me question whether or not dwarves are setting up some real estate agency in here, and—

Fuck!

I yell in pain as something pierces my thigh, and I catch a glimpse of Zhandra and Elena panicking as they move toward me before I look down to see a…

A gigantic, purple, glowing leech hanging off the stretch of my right leg unguarded by my hanging mail shirt.

Because powerful demon beasts attract anything with a demonic lineage, and that’s how dungeons get populated by more and more monsters as time goes by without anybody taking care of them. That is why demon descendants like Zhandra are so valued by the Adventurer’s Guild, as they can easily sense when a new dungeon is being formed. That is why there’s never a single monster roaming some desolate ruin when there could be many.

That is also why, as they are the more prolific of any sin, there’s always a lust demon beast prowling, waiting for its chance to turn a generic, wholesome adventure into something I’m going to regret living through.

I despise dungeons. Even more so, I loathe erotic dungeons.

I automatically switch my dagger to a hammer grip and stab right through the bloated thing drinking my blood, but it’s already too late. I can feel the heat rushing through my veins, traveling with every beat of my heart, and Zhandra taught me, but…

I focus. Sense the paths around my head, around my mind, the ones my energy should cycle through to purge any outside influence.

But it’s no longer outside, is it?

“Adrian! Adrian, are you all right?!” Elena yells, grasping my shoulders, forcing me to face her, to look at pure, azure eyes framed by cascades of golden hair reaching down to her hips, the white coif she wears doing nothing to disguise how utterly entrancing it would be to run my fingers through silky tresses as I lean forward to take in the scent of a summer’s afternoon that always follows her around, to get closer to pink lips that always gleam despite never having been touched by any make-up…

“Adrian!” Zhandra yells, pulling me away from Elena, forcing me to face her, to remember her body moving beneath mine in a room lit only by her eyes as they glowed brighter and brighter with every thrust into her yielding flesh, as she mewled her need of me, her—

“I… I think he’s… affected?” Elena says, her blush spreading, but not as much as it will once I tear off that robe of hers, that thing she pretends is functional, despite the twin slits by her sides parting to show me her creamy thighs, to tempt me into lifting the flaps of pure white cloth trimmed with sky-blue designs so I can see the leotard she wears below, the white fabric stretched over the generous curves befitting a priestess of a goddess of fertility—

“You think?”Zhandra quips back, biting her lip as she stares at the tent pushing up both my trousers and the chainmail hanging off my belt—

“I do! Unlike you, who’s just panicking!” Elena says, grabbing my hand, her skin on mine almost a balsam right before it makes the flames flare, roar, as I pull her to me suddenly enough that she stumbles, her breasts pressed against my chest, her lips close enough to—

And Zhandra kisses me.

Her hands on my cheeks, her tongue past my lips, her hips pushing Elena aside to rub up against me as I drop my dagger and circle her waist, pressing her body against mine—

“I can—he’s overwhelmed by lust, so I can drain him of his strength. Send him to sleep…” the demoness says right before her eyes meet mine, and she trails off, as entranced as I am.

So I kiss her.

My left hand’s still in Elena’s soft grip, so it’s only my right that undoes the clasps of Zhandra’s armor, the rigid leather offending me as it keeps me away from feeling her body against mine even as she gets the idea and starts undoing my belt, trying not to pull away even as she gets space to use those agile fingers of hers to undress me.

“Zha… Zhandra?” Elena mutters in a lost tone as she stands by my side, clasping my hand, staring as I finally manage to pull off the armor, to slip my hand beneath the back of Zhandra’s vest just so I can feel her red skin once again become pliant to my touch, so I can lean back from the searing kiss to see purple eyes flutter up at me as her hands slide beneath my own shirt and run over my chest, fingers splayed to touch as much of me as she can even as I slide a thigh between hers and press up against her sex.

Then we kiss again, and—

And Zhandra’s pulled away from me.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Elena yells at her, turning her back on me before I pull her to me, her back against my chest making me feel whole, complete in a way I never am when there isn’t a soft, warm body between my arms.

Elena freezes.

I kiss the side of her neck, staring at Zhandra as her glowing purple eyes hungrily take in the both of us, widening when I tear a cute little yelp out of the blonde’s lips.

She shivers, so I circle her waist with my arms, resting my palms on her belly, feeling her warmth, her breath, her being alive and by my side.

Then I pull her against me, and my tenting pants bury themselves between her soft cheeks as she yelps.

“You… Why aren’t you… Oh, Vesper, Adrian…” Elena says, her eyes closing as I gently suckle on her right earlobe, still staring at Zhandra as her breathing deepens, slows down, and…

“I… I can’t drain him. Not even like this. The sappy moron,” she says, a silly smile breaking out over her lips as she tries to glare at me for some reason I don’t understand, but that can surely wait until she’s sweating below me, panting in exhausted release—

“What do you even mean—Vesper!” she yells as I thrust forward, rubbing up and down between her plush cheeks with a member eager to explore her body.

“He… He taught me that I can’t… I can’t drain his lust if it isn’t a sin…” Zhandra says, coming closer, caressing Elena’s cheek, her fingers almost in reach of my lips.

“You… Oh, you finallyfigured you’re in love?” Elena says.

And thatmanages to cut through the roaring flames of whatever it is that’s running through my veins.

“We never said that!” Zhandra and I yell at the same time as I jump back fast enough that my back painfully smashes against the cavern’s wall.

And now I’m gasping, painfully erect, and blushing like a high school boy whose secret crush just came out.

All of this being an improvement upon my previous mental state.

Great. Now you see why I hate dungeons?

Also, a very flustered Elena, with her robe askew enough I’m seeing far more thighs and ass than I usually do, is alternatively glaring at the two of us.

“I… I told Zhandra that sex with affection may not be a sin… And whatever it is you’re thinking, please do it fast, because I can feel the damn poison burning higher, and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself a second time,” I tell our priestess.

You know, the one member of the party who should be able to deal with status effects.

Except this isn’t a videogame, and so something as convenient as a universal cure or even antidote doesn’t exist, or, if it does, it’s the stuff of legends—a unicorn’s horn, the panacea… things like that. So Elena needs to come up with something different for everything we encounter, and I’ve never been bitten by a demonic leech before, and I don’t even think leeches have poison, so whatever this is, she will need to study it, and my mind is on fire, and I’m strong enough the two of them don’t stand a chance if I just try to take them for myself, to make them scream my name in ecstasy until they can’t think of anything but the pleasure being with me brings them, until they can’t even conceive of leaving me behind—

“Zhandra, fuck him!” Elena commands, pointing imperiously at me with a gesture far more serious than one would expect from the indecently exposed priestess.

“What?! Why?!” Zhandra answers, already stripping.

…

I’m getting mixed messages.

Still, seeing the usually perfectly seductive demoness jump up and down to try and kick a stubborn boot off as her very responsive anatomy keeps bouncing with the almost comical display seems to be enough to let me… wait.

Ah. I see. Of course no curse of lust would ever get in the way of a striptease. How silly of me to think otherwise.

“To buy me some time!” Elena answers, dropping to her knees, setting the lamp in front of her, and clasping her hands in prayer.

Something that my current state of mind interprets rather… creatively.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Zhandra, naked in front of me, her bare sex precisely at the height of my eyes, warns me as she obstructs the view of the submissively kneeling priestess.

Then she bends right at her waist, her full breasts dangling with the motion, and undoes my pants.

“I can’t believe this is going to be our second time…” she mutters.

“Sorry. I promise I’ll get you adequately drunk for the third,” I can’t help but answer as I dig my nails in the palm of my hand hard enough that I think it brings me a moment of clarity.

A moment that I, of course, immediately invest in quipping at her.

Because priorities.

“And who says there’ll be a third?” she asks, not looking up from my cock before she grasps it between fingers that feel far, far better than my own.

“Elena just said you love me. You can’t stay away, teach,” I say, grinning at her and trying not to groan.

Because, apparently, our banter counts as sex. And so the curse, venom, aphrodisiac, whateverwill allow it.

Which means I get off on trading barbs with Zhandra, something I’m sure she always suspected but now has proof positive of.

Wonderful.

“I am not going to indulge your degenerate fantasies about teacher-student roleplay,” she says, still not looking into my eyes, her own lidded as she bends further down until my cock’s head is right beneath her flaring nostrils, and she bites her lip, her rough breathing washing over the wet tip.

“And which degenerate fantasies are you going to indulge, then?” I tell her, still clenching my fists, still trying not to jump at her.

“Apparently? None of them. Because… this isn’t a sin,” she says, her tone softening with every word until she peers up at me, finally letting me see her vulnerable eyes, her darkened cheeks, her timid smile.

Right behind my cock.

I roar.

My hands cup her face as I pull her to me until she staggers, straddling my hips, as I launch forward to devour her lips, to caress her tongue with mine yet again, to make Zhandra feel as secure as she should feel, with none of the pained shyness, none of the hesitation.

I want her to be free. I want her to be whole.

And I’ll make her so.

She moans against my lips, her sex sliding against the underside of my own, but my desire for her is already high enough that doesn’t elevate it, so I run my hands down her back, marveling yet again at the toned muscle, at how it shifts beneath my touch, how her spine arches when I press right over her coccyx and how her new tail wraps around my right wrist, squeezing my arm in pulsing caresses before her own hands on my cheeks help her pull away from me, looking at me with a hunger and yearning I’ve never seen before.

And then frantically tries to undress me.

I help her as much as I can, eager to feel her chest on mine, to embrace her fully, to surround her body until all she can feel is my warmth, my strength, my inner light bursting forth.

We stumble for a moment, both of us baffled when my shirt refuses to come off entirely until we remember it’s her tail that’s keeping my arm in place, and she embarrassedly giggles as she lets me go.

Then I am as naked as she is, my clothes laid beneath us to shield us from the cold rock of the cave as we slide away from the wall I’d been resting against, and she’s only lit by her dimly glowing eyes in front of me and Elena’s oil lamp behind her.

And I embrace her.

My right hand goes to her nape, to the delightful curve beneath her short, dark hair, and my left goes to her ass, squeezing her fully even as her breasts flatten against me and her legs wrap around my waist, my cock trapped between the two of us, throbbing against her, until…

Until we kiss.

And it should be frantic. Rushed.

It should be hungry.

It is… tender.

Because… Because this inflames my lust, but it turns out, what I yearn most for, what I really want from Zhandra’s maddening curves, tantalizing gestures, provocative words…

It’s this.

My lips brush over hers, not even parting, just feeling the shallow ridges over tender skin, the… the texture of her, and she opens her mouth just enough to let a shivering breath escape, soothing me in our shared eagerness, in our—

“Zhandra… You’re going to get stuck in a loop,” Elena whispers, her face sadly smiling at us from my right, almost touching us.

“What… What do you mean?” my… my teacher asks, quivering eyes never straying from mine.

“I… I am sorry. Really, I am, but… the way you draw out his lust and take it in… It’s going to hurt you when it is tainted.”

“You… You mean…”

“I mean that I will end up with two infected partners rather than just one. I’m really, really sorry,” Elena says.

And I believe her.

No, really, I do.

Mostly because Elena’s naked, which means she’s about to offer herself as—

“I refuse!” I manage to say, squeezing Zhandra against me to trick the curse into letting me speak so long as I’m still doing something else, so that I don’t have to think about tender, innocent Elena leaning back, spreading her legs, shyly inviting me between them and then—

“Adrian! Be reasonable; I’m trying to heal you—”

“I won’t do that to you! I won’t force you to—”

Zhandra grabs my face and forces me to look at her, the smile on her lips changing too fast for me to register all the myriad nuances of the moment.

“She wants you, you moron,” she says, kissing my forehead, rubbing up my shaft, spreading her wetness around me.

“Zhandra!” Elena yells, blushing in a way she hadn’t when offering me her naked body.

“Turnabout, Vesperian. I can see lust, remember?” the demoness giggles before kissing the tip of my nose.

“You… You are impossible!” Elena says.

And then dives down behind Zhandra, who makes a surprised face as she’s lifted entirely off me until my cock slides between her legs, her lips spreading against the top of my shaft rather than the underside.

And another set of hot, wet lips surrounds my member.

“Elena!” I hiss, eyes closed, fingers mauling Zhandra’s fleshy cheek until she moans.

“Wha—what are you doing?!” the demoness yells, looking over her shoulder at the priestess licking her juices off my member.

“Surprising you,” Elena answers before swallowing enough of my cock that her lips brush against Zhandra’s.

Who moans very, very nicely.

And…

Damn it, but I need to ask.

“Is… is it a sin?” I tell her.

And Zhandra’s eyes shoot open, staring at me in shock, her mouth dropping in slack surprise.

I guess that’s my answer.

So I hug her, trying to ignore Elena’s tongue on my tip, and I whisper into the woman’s pointy ear:

“You are too easy to love.”

Which makes me smile at her with all the warmth in my cynical heart for a brief moment before what I just said crashes through the haze of lust.

“As a friend! Or a partner! Or a very appreciated travel companion—” I try to clarify.

And Zhandra bites me.

“Learn to shut your damn mouth,” she mumbles right below my ear, over the patch of wet skin on my neck.

I would answer, but Elena’s being far too distracting.

Really.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Also, it’s kinda true…

Because as soon as Zhandra leaned forward to threaten my existence with fangs that usually look cute but are objectively terrifying, her weight shifts on top of me in a way that makes her grind her clitoris on my shaft and gives Elena just enough leeway to shove her tongue between the two of us, Zhandra’s look of surprise about the only warning I get before she wraps her arms around my shoulders and quivers on top of me.

And then Elena pushes her off.

“Zhandra, sweetie… I’m sorry, but if you stayed on top of him any longer, I would have to drain the taint out of the two of you, and I don’t think I’m strong enough to last all night doing… stop looking at me like that, Adrian,” she says, looking away from the demoness lying on her side who’s staring at us with a hunger I can thoroughly sympathize with.

“Not my real name,” I answer for lack of anything better to say as the blonde crawls up my body on all fours, pushing me until my back’s on my spread clothes.

“It’s not your old name. But you’ll always be Adrian to me,” she says, smiling without any annoyance, without any of the joking back and forth I’d expect from Zhandra.

Just…

Just smiling. At me.

Because she’s Elena.

Damn it.

“I… I really don’t want you to do this, Elena, but if you don’t get away soon, I’ll just grab your hips and—”

And she kisses me.

It’s not like Zhandra. It’s not full of promise and hints of something else. Her lips aren’t inhumanly soft, her tongue clumsily reaching for my own rather than demanding I give her my all, my everything.

It’s… Elena.

And so, the lust, once again, roars.

Because Zhandra saved my life far too many times, taught me how to fight, set on a journey with no clear end with me.

Elena… Elena gave up everything.

She warned me of what my summoning was really meant for. Told me who not to trust. Helped me select Zhandra amongst all the candidates brought to train the summoned hero, the Goddess-touched.

And, when I decided to leave, to fulfill the destiny I chose rather than the one that was chosen for me…

She came with us.

I will never be able to repay her.

So my hands roam her lithe back, noticing how the tone is different from the agile fighter masturbating by our side, how there’s a softer layer beneath her skin, and I pull her down to me so her generous bust stops teasing me, stops barely brushing me with her nipples and satisfies my need to have a woman I… care about between my arms.

She whimpers when I do, when her body lies flat atop mine, my cock sliding between her thighs, feeling her damp heat pulsing around me.

“Adrian…” she tells me, blue eyes the color of a summer sky lidded with a softness that reaches her barely there smile.

“I… I can finish. Just like this. I can rub between your thighs until I come all over you, and that… that would be enough, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t need to—”

She kisses my lips.

“You’re so lucky I know you’re trying to be considerate rather than offend me,” she purrs in a lazy tone, her smile widening.

“I just… I don’t want you to feel like—”

“It wouldn’t be enough, Adrian. Vesper is a goddess of fertility. I need you… deep inside me,” she says, biting her lip in smiling embarrassment.

By our side, Zhandra mewls.

I… do my best to ignore her.

“Then… Then you…” I say, desperately trying to come up with the right words even as my whole self screams at me that I’ve stalled too much, that caresses, and blowjobs, and soft thighs are no longer enough, that I need to—

“Then I will do something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while,” she says, brushing my cheek with tender fingers.

And that does it.

I swallow back the roar that fights to come out of my throat and grab Elena’s hips, lifting her entirely until I’m no longer between soft thighs even as my tip keeps poking at a tender opening, and she tilts her pelvis so I…

Slide right in.

She’s soft. Tight. Wet. Warm.

She’s everything I need.

I stop seeing her, for a moment, just feeling her body surrounding me, her legs by the side of my own, and then she leans back, depriving my chest of everything that makes me feel complete until her hands spread over it, the soft tips of her fingers making me…

Not whole. Not like her body draped on top of mine does.

But… better. Better than empty.

And so I open my eyes to stare up at her, at the woman surrounded by golden hair lit from behind, as if she was the priestess of Dawn rather than Vesper. At the halo of shimmering flame that overlaps the glow my new eyes can catch, that of the divine suffusing her as she smiles down at me with a gentleness I can only call angelic.

At kind eyes, tender lips.

Round breasts, full hips.

“Is it… good?” she asks, her smile wavering in front of my hungry eyes.

And I grab her waist, the delightful dip in her silhouette right above those maddeningly full hips of hers, and I hold her in place as I thrust up.

“Ah!” she pants in surprise, in a burst of something that makes her eyes widen.

I slowly get almost entirely out of her, and she bites her lip.

“You… you don’t have to hold back. I know you need this,” she says.

For the first time, I notice she isn’t wearing her veil.

I don’t know why that just… inflames me.

So my fingers tighten on her waist, and I pull her down as I thrust back into her, and Elena’s fingers on my chest briefly clench, almost scratching me as a soft grunt escapes her lips.

To my left, Zhandra moans.

And then I really fuck Elena.

The light around her keeps steadily rising as she mutters her goddess’ name over and over, trying to exclaim it every time I push deep inside her, even if far too often I cut her off when I grind against her and make her moan, or gasp, or pant.

Or call myname.

That… That’s when I really go at it.

When I sit up, surrounding her with my arms, pulling her to me, kissing her silent as my hips rock back and forth rather than thrust up and down, my hands traveling across her back, her sides, her breasts, her hips, her ass, until she throws her head back to offer me her throat as her fingers grasp my hair and force me to bite down on her, her neck quivering in attempted vocalization and something else, something that I bring out in her.

My eyes go back to the dead wolf behind her, and, for just a moment, I feel a kinship for the beast.

So I lick up her neck, kiss the small hollow behind her ear, that one sensitive spot touching the back of the jaw, and then whisper:

“Mine.”

Her legs clench around me, her feet hooked behind my back as she shudders in what I want to believe is the first of many orgasms.

And then I try to make it so.

As soon as she goes slack, as she relaxes around me, I turn around and gently lie her down on the improvised bedding made out of my clothes, her legs never letting me go even as she keeps shivering, keeps trying to mumble the name of her goddess, her mind straining not to let the power she’s gathered escape through loose fingers.

A part of me delights in making it hard for her.

So I lean back, yet again almost entirely out of her, and slowly move back in, timing the staggered entry to the movement of her lips, to the aborted starts of meaningful syllables, until she says the one thing I don’t want to interrupt, the one thing I’ll allow escape her lips:

“Adrian!”

And I go all the way back in, my body pushing hers down, her fingers clawing at my back, her teeth and lips around my shoulder as she muffles another release, a small one, but intense enough that I feel her rhythmic clenching and her body once again going lax below mine.

I take a moment just to stare at her, to take in the sheer beauty of her kind, tender face, showing me such defenseless pleasure, such open, unconditional yearning.

I feel it, that sensation on my chest when I hold someone to me, when I’m whole, complete. I feel it just by looking at her.

And so I strive to give it to her.

The lust of the curse roars in me, mingling with my desires, stoking them, bringing them to a white-hot point of no return.

But… But those desires…

I can’t be rough with her. Not with Elena.

And so I look at cerulean eyes, at tender lips gasping in surprised bursts of pleasure, and I…

I make love to her.

My body slows down, the back and forth turns to a sinuous movement, undulating over her, feeling as much of her skin on my own as I can with every wave of sensation traveling through our bodies.

I kiss her.

Her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks, her jaw.

She laughs, giggles, and returns my kisses.

And so I look into her eyes, and she looks back. I smile, and she smiles back.

I want her.

And she wants me back.

Her feet rest on my lower back, never rushing me, just letting me take my time with her body, and, for a moment, her muttering of her goddess’ name stops.

But the glow of divinity inside of her keeps growing, a new pulse of light added each time I go deep inside her, each time my tip knocks against something inside of her that I can barely reach.

And… And the next time I do, the next time I push as far inside of her as I can, she shudders, her eyes closing, and she has another of those small climaxes that make her look radiant, beautiful, divine in her own right.

The glow pulses.

And… something pulls at me.

I move. Back and forth, gathering strength.

Soon, her breasts are swaying beneath me.

Her mouth turns into a surprised ‘o.’

“Adrian…” she whispers as her hands reach up, pulling me down into a kiss that has our tongues dancing as she invites me into her mouth.

Our hips meet one another as our lips remain locked, and Elena’s moving faster, harder, inviting me to do the same.

I push at that point inside of her, that last barrier.

And then she shakes between my arms, a scream of pleasure rising up from her throat and into mine as she clenches around me, convulses, rubs that spot against my tip.

And I stop holding back and swing down as hard as her legs around my waist demand of me until I feel the fire rushing through my veins gather in my cock, demanding I give it release, that I—

I pull back from her kiss, clenching my teeth as hard as I can, until I see her wide eyes look up at me.

“Inside… me!” she manages right before her eyes clench shut and her whole body ripples beneath mine.

Her sex pulls at me, her light pulses.

And I come.

The first burst almost makes me scream through my clenched jaw.

“Adrian!” she yells, eyes closed, head thrown back.

And that brings out the second burst, the one that burns across my spine, that makes my eyes go dark and fill with sparkling colors.

“Yes! More!” she screams, looking at me, her own eyes hard to focus on.

So I give it to her, a last jet of semen that makes me roar, that makes me lose all strength in my arms as I fall on top of her.

“Vesper!” she finishes.

And the light gathered inside of her bursts forth, rushing down from what I feel is her womb to me, connected by my seed in her body, making the jump inside, purging me of everything that isn’t mine, that isn’t my soul or what the Goddess left of her touch when she brought me to this world.

I… I take a moment to feel the clarity dawn on me, to feel the haze disappear until only my thoughts remain, unaffected by the dead demon.

And then I look back at Elena, smiling up at me, cupping my cheeks, traces of tears on the edge of her eyes.

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” she says before leaning up to kiss my forehead.

I just… stare at her. At the beautiful woman, the caring friend, the… the one person I care for in this world other than—

And Zhandra chooses that moment to loudly cum.

“Gods… I needed that…” she mutters before dragging her naked, sweaty body to my currently very messy clothes and lying parallel to us, draping an arm over my back and shuffling closer in a way that makes me painfully aware of her breasts rubbing against both Elena and me.

…

“What the Hell are we doing?” I ask the two naked, sweaty, recently orgasmed girls beneath me.

They look at each other. Then at me.

And, of course, Zhandra answers:

“I don’t know about you, but I’m taking a nap.”

***

By unspoken agreement, the trip back to the nearest village is made mostly in silence as each of us processes in their own way whatever it is that happened back in what shall forever be known as ‘Crappy Generic Cave Dungeon Number Five.’

No, I haven’t gone through five of them. I just like the number.

By the time we get a hold of the traveling Guild representative and offer her the severed head of the giant wolf to get our pay, the sun’s already set, and, seeing as we’re within the village’s walls, we decide to spend the night at the tavern rather than set out to camp in the middle of a dark forest.

And… we just got paid. A generous reward, but one in accordance with what the beast had already done and was likely to do.

But, as we get a late dinner of hearty stew (and, in my case, not so hearty mead), we agree that maybe the next job won’t pay that well, and we should start saving a bit.

Or, well, rather, it’s Elena who suggests it.

The funny thing is, Elena’s far from materialistic and is actually terrible with money.

So, when she suggests we three share a room to cut down expenses, Zhandra and I suspect there may be some ulterior motives behind the proposal.

Yes, we are terrible people. Nobody should ever suspect Elena of anything.