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

pleasure were echoed in places in my body that didn’t rightfully exist. I felt her self-delivered orgasm at the root of my cock, driving me to keep thrusting, keep moving… until finally, she finished. The strength of the Bond began to ebb and narrow, and I was able to breathe without feeling like I was doing it with two pairs of lungs. “Yeah. I’m okay. Something really weird just happened.”

“Was it this?” Suri reached up to gently touch the deep bloody marks on her neck. “Because I’m fine, I swear. I’d have said something if I wasn’t.”

“No, it wasn’t that. It was…” I flushed, suddenly ashamed. “Everything’s okay. Just… uhh… it’s something to do with the Bond. You know, my link to Karalti.”

“I know what the Bond is, you dimwit.” Suri chuckled, and reached back to cup my head. She drew my face to hers and kissed me over her shoulder, long and deep, and the flush of shame faded as I lost myself in the feeling of her lips on mine. When we parted, I slowly eased out of her. She looked back and down, and her eyebrows rose.

“Well well well,” she said. “Guess we need to make Meewfolk Battle Tea a regular part of the castle diet?”

“If it lasts more than four hours, I’m calling a doctor.” I cleared my throat and kneeled back. “Holy shit.”

“What’s this about Karalti?” Suri scooted over to the vanity, searching for a towel.

“I-I’ll talk about it later. Give me a minute to talk to her.” I scrubbed at my eyes, reaching back out to my dragon—and finding a channel of blissful post-orgasmic fatigue as she lounged in her own afterglow.

“I’m sorry.” Karalti’s telepathic voice was sheepish, but also a little blurry. “I should have asked, huh?”

“It’s okay.” I said—and let her feel—that it really was alright. “Just took me by surprise. You’ve uhh… you’ve always tuned out when Suri and I are together. You’ve never tuned IN before.”

“I know. But this time, I felt you start to feel good and I just…” Karalti trailed off, and I felt a small, sweet wave of afterglow pass over me like warm sunlight. “I guess I just wanted to know what it was like.”

There was a heavy pause between us. Suri threw me the towel and picked herself up with a pleased groan.

“So… was it good?” I gave Suri a smile as she went over to the bathtub, spoke the command words to heat the water, and stepped over the rim to ease down.

“Yeah. It was.” Karalti hummed. “Suri is really awesome, isn’t she?”

For a second, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly. Then I realized that, yes, she had just said what she’d said. And meant it.

“You… uh… Yes. Yes, she is.” I rubbed myself down, then got to my feet and wobbled over to the tub. It was easily big enough for two people—or three—and in that moment, I felt a deep surge of resentment toward Ryuko’s developers for insisting on a 6-hour grace period between Karalti’s use of the Polymorph spell. “Look, I’m going to have to talk about this later, alright? But rest assured that I am not mad. I’m whatever the opposite of mad is, but also combined with an unstoppable prize-winning erection.”

“Believe me, I know.” Karalti’s voice turned dark and sly. “I can hear your thoughts too, remember?”

I winced as I eased down into the hot water between Suri’s knees, sitting with my back to her front. “After this, I seriously doubt I’m going to ever forget that again.”

***

I may or may not have been preoccupied with thoughts of Suri, Karalti, and myself in various configurations as we led the ships home on the morning of the 28th of Boseg Hava. I flew ahead of the frigates with Karalti, daydreaming for most of the four-hour flight until we came within view of Karhad. For the first time since I’d arrived in Myszno, the city was celebrating.

The marketplace was packed—a festival, by the look of it, with the townspeople feasting as best they could to celebrate the liberation of Bas and the restoration of all ten counties. Beyond the marketplace, I noticed that something had already changed about the city’s skyline. There was scaffolding everywhere.

“Wait a second. Are they... are they rebuilding the cathedral?” I zoomed my vision in, and sure enough, the big building now covered in walkways was the half-destroyed church of Khors. It had been third on my list of big projects to fund, after the university and hospital. “Did Vash come back with money, or did I miss something?”

Karalti flicked a wingtip, gliding easily on the warm currents of air rising from the city. “I dunno. Check the KMS?”

I opened the menus and flipped through to Karhad’s screen. When I saw the stats, my eyebrows shot up. “We have nearly a thousand volunteers mobilizing in Racsa. Like… spontaneously. By themselves. I did not order a thousand volunteers.”

“Well, duh. I’m pretty sure that volunteers who are ordered to work are called ‘slaves’. Wanna go say hi?”

“Let’s do it.” I banged my fist down on top of my helmet, and assumed the position.

Karalti let out a melodious, ringing roar, then pulled her wings into a swift dive. She tilted to the left as we descended toward the marketplace, roaring a second time as we passed the walls of the Merchant Ward. I adjusted position as I sensed her intent, hanging on tight as she rolled in the air over the crowd below. People squealed, cheered and waved to us; children jumped up and down, priests bowed their heads. She pulled out to glide gracefully around the perimeter of the market ward, high enough we didn’t blow anything over, low enough we could hear what everyone was shouting.

“Lord Dragozin!”

“Long live House Dragozin! Long live Myszno!”

“Is that the Volod?”

“BURNA