Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (detective books to read txt) 📕

were crossed and petite tits on show under a spreading fan of pink hair, she was the sort of figure that Bernini might have sculpted—had the fifteenth century allowed him access to Vegas strip joints for inspiration.

I scanned the room for somewhere to wash my dick, and found a basin with a jug of water beside it. I figured Gertrude wouldn’t mind if I cleaned off before we began round two.

Once I was done, I turned to Leah. “Alright, we’re ready for round two.”

I went and pulled Leah down on top of me once more. Her sweaty body was slick against mine, her nipples pressing into my chest. She opened her legs, and I felt the warmth of her sex, wet and slippery against my thigh.

“There won’t be a spell at the end of this,” Leah said between labored breaths as I pumped her, “but you’re going to give me a good fucking all the same.”

“You bet,” I said as I drove myself deeper and deeper into her, my cock as hard as it had ever been. If Gertrude didn’t interrupt us, we could be in here all damn day.

Chapter 14

Leah and I left Gertrude’s chambers in a far more disheveled and sex-smelling state than we’d found it. I closed the door after we exited.

Leah looked as unconcerned at just having used a sweet old lady’s bedroom as an anal sex dungeon as only a Chaosbane could. She traipsed lightly over to where Mallory was sitting opposite Gertrude. Mallory fiddled with the quill relic, turning it over in her fingers and looking at it.

“How peculiar it is,” said the former priestess and bounty hunter target, “that so much power—the power to grant someone the ability to form a new spell—should be contained in such an innocuous thing. Such a small thing.”

Leah plucked the quill from Mallory’s unresisting fingers. “Size is no guarantee of potency,” she said dreamily. She looked at me and flashed me a reflective smile. “Although sometimes it helps.”

“You make a good point,” Mallory said, stirring herself and sitting up in her chair. “Look at words, for instance. They are as insubstantial as breath and yet they hold the power to pull down the walls of this castle, to raise the dead, and change futures.”

I cast an eye at Gertrude. The old Inscriber looked to be asleep. Her chin was resting on her chest and she was breathing steadily through her nose, but I thought that I could see a shining slit of eyeball gleaming out from under one lid.

“Mallory tells me that you two certainly did not waste too many words in my bedchamber, be they powerful words or not,” the old woman said. The purple perm rose and the eyes with their many wrinkles in the corner opened up to regard us. There was no sign of sleep in them that I could see.

“Uh, yeah, we certainly did what was required,” I said, a little stiffly.

“And some!” Leah said.

“And?” the old woman asked.

“You were as good as your word, Gertrude,” I said. “You came through for us. The quill relic opened up a slot just like you said.”

“And we filled it,” Leah said.

Gertrude did not say anything, but she looked pleased. I wondered if she would look as pleased when she saw the state of her bed.

And her rugs.

And the wall Leah and I had only noticed after she had painted it with her juices.

“Good,” the Inscriber said, reaching for the teapot.

“Oh, yes please,” Leah said, pushing her teacup toward Gertrude. “I’m a little parched after all that important business we had to do.”

Gertrude gave a little snort and pulled Leah’s teacup closer. As she poured, she said, “I like you, Leah Chaosbane.”

“I like you, Inscriber Gertrude,” Leah replied, off in her own world as usual. “I like that you let us borrow your bedroom. Kind. Selfless. Open minded.”

“I have had a little to do with your cousins over the years” Gertrude tapped the strainer on the edge of the thin porcelain cup to get rid of any clinging drips and replaced it on its little plate.

“You’d be amazed at how many people have had something to do with our family over the years,” Leah said. “It’s like people can’t get enough of us.”

“I helped your cousin Igor in a professional capacity when he was an up-and-coming Rune Mystic,” the Inscriber continued, reaching for the milk and pouring a dash into the cup. “I have supplied information on inscriptions I performed to your bounty hunting cousin Mort—he seemed a strange, quiet, and dangerous young man.”

“Yeah, he gets that a lot, bless him,” Leah said.

“And, of course, I have much correspondence with the Headmaster of the Mazirian Academy,” the old woman said, pushing the cup of tea smoothly back to Leah. “Regarding both Academic affairs and extracurricular concerns.”

Leah took her tea with a nod of thanks.

“And then, of course, your Great Grandaddy and I courted for a time, many years ago, before I became an Inscriber and married myself to my work,” Gertrude said with a wistful sigh.

Leah, who had just taken a sip of tea, snorted and choked. A little of the brown liquid came out of her nose. Distractedly, she wiped it away with a finger and sucked on the digit.

“You and my Great Granddaddy used to…” Leah said. She trailed off, then formed a circle with her index finger and thumb and poked her other index finger through it a couple of times.

“Oh yes,” Gertrude said. “Your Great Granddaddy was—”

Leah held up a hand. “With all due respect, Gertrude,” she said, “you make a lovely cup of tea and you’re like the grandmother that I never had—actually you’re like the grandmother I did have up until she was embroiled in a scandal involving a unicorn, a piece