Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

“I’m on board,” I said, shrugging. “Suri?”

Suri’s lips parted, and she looked back to Kitti, struggling with something in herself in silence for a few minutes. “Alright. Guess we were doing that anyway, weren’t we?”

“Thank you!” Kitti pulled her rifle back from Letho’s hands, then genuflected in front of Suri with the stock resting on the ground. “I swear to train as hard as you desire, my lady.”

Suri’s cheeks reddened with a dark cinnamon flush. “Okay, well, first lesson is that Berserkers don’t kneel to anyone, Kit. Anyway, if you’re my squire, you know what that means, right?”

“I expect you will have a list of duties for me.” Kitti nodded, pressing her lips together as she bounced up to her feet.

“Yeah, well, squires take care of their knights’ mount, right?” Suri grinned. “That means you’re gonna have to learn to handle Cutthroat.”

Karalti let out a shuddering snort, shaking her head. “Come on, Suri! That’s just mean!”

“Don’t worry, Kitti.” I wandered over to the suddenly crestfallen girl and gave her a friendly clap on the shoulder. “Cutthroat’s ever only eaten the face off every second person who’s ever tried to saddle her. The rest just end up with scars.”

Chapter 28

The colorful hallucinations from the battle tea were in full swing by the time we finished mopping up and got shown to our rooms. Suri and I fell on each other before the door was even closed. I peeled her out of her armor, shedding it piece by piece on the floor, and half carried, half dragged her to the bathroom. We didn’t actually make it to the water: Suri pressed herself against the vanity counter and hooked her legs up over my hips, moaning as I kissed from the base of her sternum to her neck, tasting salt and the faint scent of jasmine and sandalwood. She lifted her chest, pressing her skin to my mouth, her breasts sliding smooth and heavy against my cheeks.

“Ah! Mmmmnngh-oh!” Suri’s scarlet hair clung to her face as she tipped her head back and to the side, baring the long, dark line of her throat. My heart sped, and my mouth watered as I nuzzled up and bit down on the side of her neck. Her skin was so soft it felt like fur against my lips. She shuddered in my arms, gasping, then moaning as the points of my teeth pressed into her skin.

“Harder!” She clutched the back of my head, pushing it forward.

A flicker of anxiety made me hesitate, but when I pushed in between Suri’s thighs, they were slick with need. Skin-hungry, I pulled her hips forward and thrust into her as I bit. At the first taste of blood, my unnaturally slow heart surged to life, pounding in my ears.

“Mmph!” I clamped my jaws down, holding her like a lion with a gazelle by the throat, and drove into her with sudden urgency. Suri gasped, pressing up against my mouth, and I felt her shudder with need. Her muscles relaxed, leaving her hungry, willing… then ecstatic, as I clutched her close and fucked her down against the counter.

“Yes, yes, yes-” She panted the word, over and over, then let out a staccato cry when I reached up to stroke one of her nipples in time with the sucking pressure of my mouth. My teeth were to either side of her carotid, not penetrating it, but I could feel her racing pulse as she built toward an explosive, eager release. The sensation blended with the wet heat of her body, the rhythmic clench of her body around mine. My eyes rolled, then fluttered closed as brief, hallucinatory images and sensations overlaid the pleasure. I was flying, diving, two hearts pulsing like engines deep in my chest. The muscles of my back and shoulders worked like I had wings, flexing with every thrust, as a distant, alien excitement built with the heat in my own body. It was the dual heartbeat that tipped me off—and briefly shocked me out of my trance.

“…Karalti?”

She did not reply, but I knew was there with me, with us—silent, breathless, watching and feeling through the Bond the way she had watched the gauntlet in Lahati’s Tomb. I jerked in surprise, just as Suri climaxed with a deep, throbbing spasm that pulled me into my own release. And as I came, I heard and felt Karalti’s telepathic gasp of empathic pleasure.

“FUCK!” I snarled, pulling my mouth up from Suri’s neck. She was glassy-eyed and flushed as I dragged her down to the floor and roughly guided her onto her hands and knees. She let out a cry of surprised pleasure as I mounted her from behind, caught up in some instinct that was only partly human. I clutched at her waist with one hand, reaching around to cup her breasts with the other, and took her a second time as the flow between Karalti and I deepened and broadened into a two-way river of sensation. She was curious, nervous, excited as the unfamiliar sensations of my body echoed to her nerves… and when I came again, the orgasm rocketed between us like a sonar pulse, back and forth, as she reached her own private climax somewhere beyond the keep.

“Oh… god… holy…” Gasping, still bucking into Suri’s body, I collapsed over her back and pressed her chest down to the floor as I strained for more purchase, more depth, more… everything.

“Mmmm.” Suri stretched underneath me, resting her cheek against her arms. Her voice was thick and slow with afterglow. “Post-combat sex. The actual fucking best.”

I was tongue tied, my senses anchored somewhere between my own body and Karalti’s. It was all I could do to lie over Suri’s back and catch my breath.

“You ‘kay?” She murmured.

“Yeah.” My voice was hoarse—because god help me, I was still hard. Karalti’s own spasms of