Flame of Cytherea: Cytherean Chronicles book 1 (16 page)

She asked, sounding very annoyed, “Will you take me?”

He was struck dumb by two things.
 
The first, was the disparity between her
almost angry annoyance and the question she had asked.
 
The second, when he tried to come up with a
way to put her off, the reluctance fell away as if it had never been there.
 
His mind was trying to sort out both things
at once, and her face grew hard and she turned to walk away.

He realized he had been silent too long and grabbed her
hand, and when she turned his voice came out strong.

“I would love to take you.”

The look on her face indicated she was going to say something,
but he had waited long enough and he wanted her now.
 
He pulled her by her hand and caught her body
inside one arm, pulling her tight as he grabbed her hair and pulled her into a
passionate hungry kiss.
 
There was no
tentativeness like a normal first kiss.
 
He demandingly plundered her lips with his own, while the hand around
her waist lowered and he squeezed her perfect
ass
hard as he pulled her against his already hard pole.

He felt her stiff body relax into his as her mouth started
to kiss him back just as hungrily, her hands roaming his chest.
 
At some signal he stepped back a little, and
they took their clothes off while staring into each other’s eyes, he was sure
his looked just as hungry as hers did.
 
He took a moment to admire her perky B cups with large areolas and stiff
nipples, her body was perfectly scaled to her height.

He pulled her into another kiss, then gasped as he felt her
push him, her leg locked around his, and he fell on his back into the soft
bedding with a grunt.
 
She quickly joined
him, straddling his middle as she leaned down and kissed him again.
 
He gasped when she started kissing his neck,
as she pinned his now fully hard member to his stomach and started to roll her
hips.

The feel of her wet heat running up and down his length
drove him crazy, the feel of her lips suckling his earlobe made it so much
worse, he wanted her now.

His whole body shivered at her warm breath, and the words
she whispered into his ear.

“Do you want me?
 
Want
inside me?
 
Want me to pleasure that long
hard cock with my body until you fill me?”

He managed to gasp out, “Yes, the goddess knows how much.”

On the next stroke along his length she went just a bit too
far, then swiveled her hips in some way.
 
He wasn’t sure how she did it, but he felt his pole effortlessly slide
into her wet warm sheath.
 
She took him
all in at once, gasping into his ear.
 
Then she rocked her hips and pushed her body up, hands on his chest.

He felt her muscles tighten around him, squeezing his length
with her silken heaven as she throatily said, “Oh goddess, I waited too long
for this.”

The slight pain of her fingernails digging into his chest
felt good as she started to bounce up and down on his manhood.
 
They were both overwhelmed by the sensation
of finally being together that they, for lack of a better word, simply started
rutting.
 
She was gasping with each
bounce as he drove up into her, her perky firm breasts vibrating each time
their flesh smacked together and she finally screamed his name.

“Oh goddess, Justin!”

Her body locked up above him and he felt her tighten around
him.
 
He grabbed her by her long black
silky hair and pulled her down against him as she trembled in bliss.
 
As she started to come down and her heat gave
way slightly, he started to swing his hips up into her as hard and fast as he
could.

Her silky soft skin, perfect breasts and hard nipples rubbed
up and down his body as he furiously pounded up into her silky hot sex.
 
Her whimpers of pleasure rolled into a cry of
ecstasy so close to his ear as he drove her immediately into a second orgasm,
her trembling body, the velvety feel of her tightening wet and hot sheathe
overcame him and he expanded within her willing body.

The words that slipped out unconsciously as he filled her
were a strange counterpoint to the wild rutting fuck they had just shared,
“Goddess!
 
I love you Sally.”

He watched her face as her eyes widened, then softened.
 
Her answering smile to his somewhat
surprising declaration caused him to pull her down gently this time, by her
hair, and kiss her softly.

When the kiss finally broke she asked, “Then why did you
wait so long, why did I have to ask you?”

He caressed her face and ran his fingers through her hair as
he explained the feeling he had.
 
That he
didn’t really know why, but he had been determined to follow his feelings.

She didn’t look pleased by that answer so he said, “Well,
the feeling went away when you asked me, so perhaps you know why?
 
Can you think of a reason the goddess would
want you to ask me instead of me asking you?
 
I have to assume that was her goal, though I still have no clue why that
would be.”

When she got a thoughtful look on her face and sat up
straighter, he was struck by how beautiful she was, not to mention he was still
in her, and her movement and beauty combined had stirred his manhood back to
life.

He was curious about what her answer would be, but as her
warm center brought him back to hardness, he decided it could wait.
 
He pulled her back down, then carefully
rolled while cradling her in his arms.
 
He started out slow, pumping in and out of her as he explored her tight
and supple body with his hands.
 
He had
planned to make love to her this time, but was shortly overwhelmed by her
noises of pleasure and picked up speed.

But the final straw was when she whispered, her voice full
of both pleasure and desperation, “Harder please, faster.
 
Take me hard Justin.”

He was more than happy to comply with her wishes…

----------

Sally was overwhelmed with lust and pleasure as she rocked
her hips up to meet his thrusts, her body was practically vibrating as the
pleasure radiated through her each time he impaled her eager molten core.
 
She had loved being on top, but this was even
better, she could barely move as he took her hard and fast.
 

She had been shocked when he said he loved her, in a good
way.
 
She had liked it when he went slow,
and they would make love in the future, but this is what she wanted, what she
needed.
 
She was his and she wanted him
to claim her, to take her passionately, she wanted to be his, both through love
and in this almost insanely lustful coupling.

The other women had told her he was amazing in bed, but they
hadn’t mentioned his manhood was quite so big.
 
She had never felt so full in her life, and had never felt so free, as
she surrendered her body to his lust, and her heart to his love.

Her eyes widened as her center exploded in bliss, her body
was beyond control but she still felt him expand in her and she screamed as her
orgasmic ecstasy rolled into a new explosion of bliss as he filled her with his
seed.
 
She wondered again why she had
waited so long.

Then he surprised her again, by asking her to sleep by his
side.
 
There was only one possible
answer.
 
Finally, she was his, and he was
hers…

------------

Nora finally tracked down where Justin and Sally had gone,
and she was happy that he and Sally finally got together.
 
She had snorted when Kat and Nicci started
talking about where to live and all that.
 
What did that matter now?
 
She
would worry about that if they all still lived when things finally calmed
down.
 
But really, for her, anywhere he
was would be just fine for her.

It did seem important to them, so she just told them
whatever they decided was fine, but that she would be wherever he was.
 
Still, she was a little disturbed by the
priorities.
 
This wasn’t a normal man
that they had discussed, in her opinion it should have waited.

What if he had been attacked while they were blathering?

She frowned, knowing she was overreacting to their close
call, but as she explained to Kat, emotion trumps logic.
 
She just couldn’t bring herself to let her
guard down, and was almost panicking the whole time she was away from him.
 
Even though she knew it was ridiculous, she
couldn’t help it.

He was hers to protect, and she would do just that…

------------

Nicci was a bit nervous.
 
She had after all, snuck out of the castle, and got around her father by
making that oath.
 
Which technically
expired a day or two ago.
 
She wasn’t
sure what he would do, but she was sure he was mad.
 
The castle was the last place she wanted to
go.

Her father did love her, that’s what made it so hard.
 
Before her mother had died she had made the
king promise to protect her.
 
Her father
had told her it was an easy promise to keep.
 
Still, she was in a committed living relationship with the Flame of
Cytherea now.
 
She couldn’t be his little
girl anymore.

She was hoping that would convince her father to let go, but
still, she was nervous.
 
It should be
enough, a commitment would override any father’s demands or desires, or at
least, any man that wasn’t a king.
 
Her
father had never been reasonable where her safety was concerned, and they were
planning to prepare to go into an enemy kingdom.

She was sure it would work out though, thinking of Justin
she bit her lower lip and decided it just had to.

------------

Kat remembered the look Nora gave her when she discovered
they wanted to talk about planning and how to share his time.
 
She cringed.
 
She knew it was silly of course, they still had a long way to go and she
would follow Justin anywhere, even the seat of power in
Egeria
if she must.

But… she had to do something.

She was used to being in charge of her life, planning out
her day’s work at the tavern and being in control.
 
She had been feeling out of control
lately.
 
She could have explained it, but
she was embarrassed.
 
It wasn’t about
splitting his time and arrangements really, although she did want to do that,
the reason she had to do it now was it gave her something she was in control
of.

It was also mundane, a day to day thing to ground herself
in.

She hadn’t really spent much time with Justin today though
because of it.
 
Hopefully she’d be able
to grab him tonight...

Sara frowned into the mirror looking at the young woman
reflected there.
 
It seemed strange to
her, because she felt so old.
 
She had
long strawberry blonde hair, green eyes and a cute nose.
 
She was midway between five and six
feet.
 
Her clothes were loose, shapeless,
but it was hard to hide her generous C cup bust even in those shapeless
clothes.
 
She also had smudges on her
face, trying to hide the porcelain beauty of her face.
 
She hated it.

She heard a noise which broke her out of her reverie and was
horrified by the amount of time she wasted.
 
The visiting noble was with the Egerian king, and she wanted to finish
cleaning while he was out.
 
She quickly
hung up the clothes, made the bed and reluctantly emptied the chamber pots.

Six years ago, when she had just turned twelve she had been
hired as a kitchen helper.
 
Things had
been good for a while, until she started developing into a woman through her
fourteenth year.
 
At the same time, she
had developed her talent, which turned out to be empathy.
 
That was when the problems started.

As she grew, and her body changed, she started catching the
cook looking at her in a way that made her very uncomfortable.
 
She quickly learned not to use her emphatic
talent when he was around either.
 
The
way he felt while staring at her really freaked her out, it was… slimy.

One day the cook had caught her alone stocking the
pantry.
 
She was so terrified of what he
wanted to do to her, and she had no doubt, that she discovered she could also
project emotion.
 
Whatever she had done,
he collapsed to the floor and threw up, heaving his guts out until he passed
out.
 
She had fled, and an hour later she
was collected by the guard and taken out to the courtyard.

She gaped in disbelief when they told her she would receive
twenty lashes for magical assault on the cook.
 
Luckily, she escaped that as well, when the king happened along and
asked what was going on, and why punishments were being given out without his
knowledge or permission.

As a result the cook was ejected from the castle, and the
King had given her a new job, to tidy up the rooms in the royal wing.
 
She thought he was a good man, and for a
couple of years, she had no reason to doubt it true.
 
She had noticed the changes start, two years
ago when she was sixteen.
 
She felt it as
his emotions and moods grew darker as time went on.

Sadly, she couldn’t even see the shadow of the man that had
saved her that day four years ago.
 
She
could feel his rage even now down in the throne room.
 
She shivered.
 
He must have gotten bad news and she pitied the one who delivered it.

There were other changes over the last two years as
well.
 
She had learned to dress as drably
as she could, and also be dirty enough to avoid certain attentions.
 
Unfortunately, it didn’t always work, a lot
of them already knew what she hid, that’s why it was with great relief that she
finished the noble’s room and slipped away before he returned.

She had considered running before, escaping this life, but
where would she go?
 
How would she
live?
 
What if the next place was even
worse?
 
This place was all she knew…

--------------

Justin grinned as they ate up the ground, heading
north.
 
He forgot what a rush it was to
run with the wind pushing him along.
 
Although he knew Nora wouldn’t let any harm come to him, it seemed if he
ever put his foot down wrong, or tripped, he would break his neck in the
fall.
 
It took him some time to get used
to it again.

He was trying not to worry.
 
About the king, the dark god, where his life would lead with the ladies,
what he needed to do, though he had only a small inkling of the last.
 
Life was messy, and he wasn’t guaranteed
anything really.
 
He would just do the
best he could, he had a somewhat unique outlook since this was his second life.
 
His first ended abruptly in an alley, where
he was snatched from death at the last moment.

However it was human nature, so he worried a little about
all of it.
 
All he could really do is
live his life and enjoy it while it lasted.
 
Nothing lasted forever.

They enjoyed a quick lunch together.
 
It no longer felt weird to him, to be
surrounded by four women, all of them now truly in a relationship with him at
the same time.
 
And they got along so
well, joking and talking like a close family around a meal.
 
It did still strike him as surreal at times
though.

It was a bit intimidating as well.
 
He wasn’t given to self doubt often, but he
was surrounded by four women who amazed him at times, and wondered if he was
truly worthy of even one of them.
 
Yet,
for some reason he was chosen by a goddess, saved and brought to this world,
gifted with the rarest talent of all.
 
That was not a small shot to his confidence.

He thought himself paranoid as he gave off his full power
for a few seconds.
 
Just in case of
unwanted spells.
 
Refreshed and fed, they
continued on for the rest of the day.

They set up camp that night deep inside a forest
clearing.
 
Nora had said they would reach
the capitol late tomorrow morning.
 
Without the pack trains that followed the soldiers, they didn’t have
their large tent and just took out their bedrolls.
 
He left the tarp inside his pack, as the
night was clear.
 

He had slept with Nicci and Nora after dinner, but the
others didn’t approach him.
 
It was
almost with relief he realized they had made a schedule for his nightly
activities.
 
With his magic he may have
been able to satisfy all four of them in a row, but it would have been
brutal.
 
The same two also claimed the
inside as they lay around him.
 

It was him in the middle being cuddled from both sides by
Nicci and Nora with Kat and Sally on the outsides.
 
A secondary result of this new schedule was
he found it was building anticipation in him for tomorrow night, despite being
completely sated.

The next morning they had a cold dry breakfast, and he
actually missed the army encampment for a second.
 
The morning itself seemed to fly by as they
ran for the capitol.
 
He felt Nora’s
magic lessening until they moved to a normal walk.
 
He took in his first view of the city.

It was big, but he smirked to himself as he realized he had
expected it to be much larger.
 
Probably
from reading those fantasy novels back home.
 
The city was always surprisingly large in them.
 
Still, it was nothing to sneeze at, he
estimated it was at least two square miles as he studied it from the top of the
hill they were on.

It was built against another large hill that had an almost
cliffs edge.
 
He could see the castle was
built up against it, as if it grew out from the hill.
 
Then he realized it did.
 
Most of the city around the castle was wood,
but the castle itself was stone.
 
He
wondered if earth talents had used the missing portion of the hill to build it,
and as they got closer he realized the cliff didn’t look quite natural.

The city itself was clean like the villages had been, though
he noticed there were piles of trash in the alleyways.
 
But there was no smell, like the trash itself
was clean.
 
He finally realized the
talents couldn’t remove trash, no more than they could make a bed, or put the
dishes away, all they could do was clean and refresh.
 
His thought was verified when he saw men loading
the very clean trash into a wagon in one of the alleys.
 
Presumably to be dumped somewhere outside the
city.

The road led through the city, straight to the stone walls
around the caste.
 
There were a number of
guards there in addition to younger people, barely teens, dressed in some sort
of uniform.
 
He was guessing they were
probably pages or runners.
 
They guards
stopped them at the gates.

“What business do you have here?”

He managed to subdue a laugh when Nicci said in amusement,
“My face is higher than that sergeant.”

The sergeant’s face turned white as he moved out of their
way.
 
“Pardon princess, go ahead.
 
I was informed to tell you to go to the king
immediately when you arrived.”

Nicci nodded, indicating understanding.
 

He tried not to look like a village idiot, reminding himself
his world had wonders that would pole axe these people.
 
He did manage to keep his mouth from dropping
open, but couldn’t help his wandering eyes.
 
The surroundings were… palatial came to his mind.

Everywhere he looked something drew his eyes.
 
Artwork, sculptures, even the flowers and
plants were expertly displayed.
 
The
walls themselves were polished to perfection.
 
He couldn’t help feeling a bit intimidated by it all.
 
Outside of the rest of it, which was crazy,
he was also worried about meeting Nicci’s father.
 
Talk about meeting the parents…

---------

The king reminded himself he was a devout follower of the
goddess for the tenth time, but it didn’t help.
 
He was still angry.
 
He was
clenching the message that had arrived from Anton in his hand, his fingers
turning white as his mind raced.
 
How did
this happen?
 
The worst part is he knew
some of the fault lay at his feet.
 
He
had kept his daughter too much out of the public eye.
 
She had been inexperienced with life’s
realities when she had left.

It was done out of love and concern, but he could see now he
had done more harm than good.

Was it any wonder she had an infatuation with the first man
that had been nice to her?
 
Even worse,
the man she met was a legend in the flesh, a Flame of Cytherea.
 
One he couldn’t dare take to task for taking
advantage of his naïve daughter.
 

He would have to take some steps there, if it was a true
love match then the time apart wouldn’t hurt them, and if it was merely a
passing infatuation as he firmly believed, his daughter would get over it.

On top of that, the young man was right about one thing,
something had to be done in
Egeria
.
 
It wasn’t a simple enmity between two mortal
kings anymore that would pass with the next generation, or even simple
time.
 
If it was true there was a dark
god…

He frowned.
 
Still, he
couldn’t do anything about it now, not without risking the whole kingdom.
 
He could perhaps in a year or two, if they
started recruiting more soldiers now and started training them.

He looked down at the letter and turned red, once again
reminding himself he can’t strangle the young man, he was too important.
 
But the idiot actually wanted to take his
daughter into an enemy kingdom?
 
It would
be disaster if she were ever caught.
 
He
could be blackmailed, and much worse than that would happen to her.

Determined to maintain his temper, he left his suite and
went to the room he had them sent to, this wasn’t something he wanted aired in
the throne room with the rest of the nobles gawking and trying to gain some
advantage from.

All he knew is he needed to save his daughter from his
mistakes and her own naivety; he would do so at any cost.

---------

Kat was a little overwhelmed as they sat and waited for the
king.
 
Just one more thing in her turned
upside down life that she wouldn’t have believed if someone told her just a
couple of weeks ago.

Over the last week and more she had formed a friendship with
Nicci, and it had been natural, easy to develop.
 
As she looked around however she saw Nicci in
a new light for the first time, she was a princess, and while she was a woman
in a man’s world, she still had great influence.

Her estimation of her new friend had gone up drastically at
that realization.
 
Nicci had never once
when discussing Justin tried to pull the princess card, or treat her as
anything but a complete equal.
 
Simply as
a friend and potential other mate for the man they both loved.

She was hoping the king was of similar character…

-------------

Sally has pondered things on the run over the last day and
more.
 
Besides being in awe of what
Justin told her about his feelings, and that he thought they came from the
goddess, she thought she understood why the goddess felt she needed to ask him,
instead of the other way around.