The Inn Ch. 15

Impregnation ... having to talk through whether we'd be keeping a baby ... holy crap.

Yet I felt surprisingly calm about that. The only real worry I had was Necromanata showing up before we were done and blasting us all to dust. Well, no I realized one other worry: Is Dwinvara supposed to hang out and watch while I impregnate her daughter?

"So ..." I asked. "What exactly is the other blanket for, if Leyna and I are supposed to use this one for ..."

"Aha! Here you are." Yilma's hand came out of her bag, palm up, holding a small glass vial. Its contents shimmered, pale and orange. "A philter of seduction. If a woman drinks it, the next man to lay eyes on her will be able to think of nothing else until he has her and is sated."

For someone who already looked mostly dead, Dwinvara managed to take on an even queasier appearance. But she only nodded, saying nothing.

"Wait, wait, wait," I said. "You mean, if Necromanata shows up -"

"When he shows up," Dwinvara interrupted.

"Even worse," I said. "When he shows up, you're supposed to drink that? And then the two of you are supposed to ... right there ..." I indicated the second blanket. "... while Leyna and I are on this side trying to ..."

Yilma trotted over and handed the vial to Leyna's mother.

"If there were more time, we might be able to come up with a less ... awkward plan. But in the current circumstances, I don't see any alternative."

Awkward. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for to describe trying to impregnate my girlfriend while a deer centaur is chanting over us and my prospective in-laws - one of whom is an evil death-mage - are boffing on the other side of a coffin from me.

Leyna wrapped her arms around mine and hugged it to her. "Simon, I know ... but we have to try, don't we?"

The blue truth of those eyes landed on me, knocking away doubts and leaving the only thing that mattered: Necromanata's defeat. I had no other way of protecting the most precious person I'd ever met from death.

"Sure," I said. "I, uh, just figured I'd better have the plan straight before we get started. Who doesn't love a challenge, right?"

"There's my Simon." She smiled bravely and squeezed my hand. "Care to help me out of these clothes while Yilma does whatever else she needs to do?"

"Um, yeah. Assuming everybody else is ready?"

Yilma nodded. Dwinvara looked about as uncomfortable as I felt, but nodded also.

"Okay, then," I said, squaring my body to Leyna's. She looked up at me, her eyes intense and worried and adoring all at once. Something in her face said she thought we might all die in the next few minutes - but that dying in my arms was some consolation. I put my hands on her waist and leaned in to kiss her, a soft brush of the lips to start, then firmer to show that I agreed with her. The warmth of her mouth on mine steadied me, strengthened me, pushed back those fears of death. I kissed my way along her jaw to her ear and whispered, "We're going to be all right."

Willing myself to believe that, I loosened the belt around her tunic and drew up the fabric with my fingers. Her eyes stayed on mine until I got the shirt high enough she had to duck her head through the neck hole, then returned to my face. I tugged the top free of her raised arms and laid her upper half naked to the night air. Yilma must have worked some spell to ward off the cold - either that, or the heat I felt inside, baring my lover to the world, took away my sensitivity to the cold. Leyna's breasts relaxed with the lowering of her arms, pale curves settling into place, rosy peaks tightly erect. I knelt and unfastened her pants, taking one nipple into my mouth, teasing it with teeth and tongue, then suckling with a press of lips together around its firm bead. When I pulled downward at her breeches, she laughed.

"Might ought to get my boots off first," she said.

The night sounds of the swamp receded as I helped her out of the footwear - receded further when I returned my hands to her waistband and slid it down, past rounded thighs and the perfect bumps of her knees until she could step free of the pants and panties alike. Naked except for her socks, she watched me from above, then lifted each foot in turn for me to strip them too. When I finished, I looked up at her, fully nude above me, a wonder lit half by blue moonlight and half by the warm golden glow of Yilma's magic star. She knelt before I could find a next move, leaning that perfect, plush body in to press against mine, kissing me again, eyes closed, face a mixture of contentment and want. I kissed her back and let my hands roam from her shoulders down her spine, finding each soft arc smooth and seamless to the touch.

Her tongue and lips devoured my affection. I felt a pull at my waist as she loosened the belt there. Then her small hands worked their way down each button on my shirt. Whatever worry I expected over the situation or our audience, her nearness and heat and scent drove away completely. Arousal stirred me, stiffened me, readied me to blend myself into her as a river meets the ocean.

In a heartbeat, I got my pants down past the knees, still not breaking our kiss. The rigid beam of my cock stood out into the night air, swaying with my movement. She unwrapped me from my shirt, collar first, dragging the open shirt-front up with it until she eased her hands to each side, revealing my shoulders and replacing the cloth with her quiet, caressing palms. I shook one arm free of a sleeve. She caught the cuff on the other side and tugged the rest down. Then she drew back, lips still parted, eyes opening to speak into mine.

Entangle us forever, they said. With a lick of her lips, she dropped backward to the ground, spreading herself upon the blanket there and calling me with those eyes. Be with me.

I took about half a second riding myself of boots and socks and kicking the last shred of clothing loose from around my ankles. Then I settled in over her, the raised round summits of her knees to either side of me, the smooth pillow of her belly gracing against mine, the perfect touch of her hands and arms rising to coax me closer. One found its way to the back of my neck, nestled there, urged my head lower, and lower, until she could put her lips to my ear and whisper.

"Make a child inside me."

It should have been even scarier than ghosts and necromancers, but instead, that plea jabbed my dick straight out harder than it's ever been. Her other hand circled around and down past my hip to guide me with gentle, sure fingers. Their lovely clasp brought me in where wet, gracious folds could meet the domed end of my erection in a flower-petal kiss.

I pushed in and down.

"oh ..." she breathed. "Oh, my Simon ..."

Each sliding inch of penetration filled my soul with awareness and certainty: this beautiful person wanted me for her mate.

"Leyna."

"Hmmm."

Her eyes had closed, and her mouth curled with a smile of utter peace and pleasure.

And just before I could lower mine to meet it, another voice intruded, jarring even at a whisper.

"Pay me as little mind as you can," said Yilma Greenwarden. "I just need to get into position here to work the fertility magic."

Leyna reopened her eyes with a giggle as the hindaur knelt just beyond her head, doe legs folding under furry forelocks.

"We just can't seem to do anything simply, can we, Simon?"

I shrugged. "Actually ... everything feels very simple to me right now."

With a smile, she said, "Well, that's all right then. Let us know when you're ready for us to start fucking, Yilma."

A hand came down holding a flower - something exotic with a vivid purple blossom and high, golden stamens covered in pollen.

"Breathe of this," the wood wizard said.

I shut my mouth and inhaled through my nose as Leyna did the same. Motes of shimmering golddust spread out from the bloom. Curiously, there was almost no smell. When the pollen settled, it left my marvelous woman's face sparkling in glitter.

The flower withdrew.

"It is done," said Yilma. "Now, we just need the jewel."

"Uh ..." Having not yet made even a single stroke, I didn't care for the idea of introducing a concentrated receptacle of necromancy already - to say nothing of alerting Necromanata before we had to. "... don't we want to sort of ... get close to the end first?"

She shook her head, swaying the glowing star in her antlers so that its light danced across us. "This is about the amplification and resonance of life energy. A crystal already vibrating will shatter at a lesser blow than one at rest."

"Yeah," I said glumly. "I suppose that makes sense."

Leyna squeezed me and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong? Don't you trust me to make you forget all about it once we start up here?"

"I suppose that makes even more sense," I admitted. Resting full-length inside her, my hard-on tightened staunchly in agreement ... although the sound of Dwinvara's footsteps drawing near kept me uneasy. They reached my side, where I could almost feel the woman's presence. But I certainly didn't turn my head to look.

Beneath me, though, Leyna smiled up at her mother. "Mama, I don't think I ever saw you so confused looking in my life!"

Dwinvara's throat cleared. When she spoke, I could hear the chagrin in it. "It's an awkward thing to see your daughter grown and naked and full up of a man, when last you knew she was a wispy little ten-year-old."

Leyna shrugged, and her lips trembled a little even though the smile held. "There's awkward and there's awkward," she said. "Right now I feel as loved as I've ever felt ... my whole life. I can't half mind if it's a shade awkward at the same time."

With a rustle of her skirts, Dwinvara dropped to her knees so close I felt the funeral gown's fabric graze my arm. Then she leaned and her hand reached past my head to tousle Leyna's pixie-cut blonde locks. I couldn't help turning now - to keep staring straight ahead with her right at my shoulder just seemed rude.

Her face, that lined, leaner version of her daughter's, glowed with pride and love. "Little scamp. I see you haven't grown out of that, at least."

"It's my best feature. Kiss me, Mama. In case there's not another chance."

Without hesitation - fast enough, in fact, that I had to twist up and away to make room for her head - Dwinvara bent and put her lips to Leyna's in a chaste, motherly kiss. When she withdrew, they both had tears along their cheeks.

"Now," she said, glancing at me and lifting a hand to the brooch at her breast, "lift up so I can fit this in where it must."

"Um, sure."

I arched my back to put some space between Leyna's tummy and mine. She hummed a little at the shifting pressure on her mound and the hint of movement my cock made inside her. I swallowed hard. With a twist and a click, Dwinvara removed the gem from its setting. The, her hand moved between us, and I shivered at the cold stone pressed into place where my stomach trapped it against Leyna's flesh below. Yilma leaned down to put a hand to the blanket on each side of Leyna's head, thumbs and ring fingers tip-to-tip and all other digits straight out.

"Begin," she said. "Slow to start, so that the resonance can build."

Leyna lifted her feet from the ground and hooked them behind me. Her eyes took hold of me just as surely, serious and the color of a sky reflected in a deep mountain lake. She moved her hips. The roll of her body lent motion to mine, calling my shoulders and back into a rhythm.

"Ahhhmmm," she said. Her eyes fluttered up in her head, closed halfway, then returned even stronger and seemingly even bluer. "Simon ..."

I gave a single nod, biting my lower lip to keep some focus in the haze of pleasure that her wet, sleekly muscled interior lavished on my buried shaft.

Yilma intoned something in a language I didn't understand, the words adopting a cadence that matched and also urged our rhythmic exploration onward. I kissed Leyna helplessly. Our tongues darted and clasped as the quickening beat of that chant drove us higher, faster.

"Dwinvara," said the greenwarden in a quick break from her incantations, "to the other blanket. Lie clothed where the casket will block you from Simon's view. Be ready with the elixir."

Distantly, vaguely, I heard Leyna's mother answer and move away. Something registered in my peripheral vision, but I couldn't tell if it was her - my whole world had become the woman beneath me, wrapped hot and wholesomely around me, arms, legs, vagina. Only the hard stone of death, trapped between our bellies, prevented me from forgetting completely why we were there. For three and four and five strokes at a time, I understood nothing but Leyna's gasps and the wonder of bringing pleasure to her and having it returned to me a hundredfold. Then a trickle of grave-chilled magic would interrupt and bring me back to myself - and I would see in Leyna's eyes the same thing happening to her: intoxicating passion brought up short by that cold presence.

Strangely, though, it gave me no fear - just recalled me to our purpose and gave me the coherence to read my own thoughts mirrored in Leyna's face.

About the sixth time it happened, she giggled softly and whispered, "We're making a baby."

I almost came right then. In fact, the groan that rose out of my throat intended to swell into a cry of orgasm, and absolutely would have - except that an entirely different cry interrupted in a voice that sounded like hearse tires on a gravel road.

"DWINVARA!"

Everyone froze. Yilma's chanting fell silent. The night air, whose bone-deep cold had been held at bay by Yilma's magic or my own passion, surged in from every direction. Something icy and black congealed on the island with us - so wrong and unhealthy that I knew exactly where Necromanata stood even though I didn't dare turn my head to look. Oh, fuck, the next word he says, my erection is going to droop like a bassett hound made of wet spaghetti.

"YOU -"

A gasp cut the sentence short, thankfully. The one word didn't wilt me, but any more would have. And if the raw lust in the gasp hadn't been enough to clue me in, the hasty shedding of robes that followed made it clear that Dwinvara had drunk the philter of seduction, after which one look reduced her husband to his most primal urge.

Leyna put a hand on each side of my face to gather my focus.

"Look at me, Simon. Only me."

I nodded and returned to motion, urgent to get back to that orgasm as quickly as I could. I had to beat Necromanata there. Shit, the dude may not have had sex in decades. He might go off as quick as a jackrabbit once he sticks it in her.

"Only me," Leyna whispered, pulling me in with her voice, with the blue of her eyes. The gentle caress of her palms on my cheeks, my ears - the brush of her thumbs through the hair at my temples - the light encouragement of her heels behind my thighs - with everything she had, she did her best to absorb the whole of my attention. "Oh, Simon, only me ..."

"Jesus, Leyna," I groaned. Her wet, warm flesh around my shaft contracted rhythmically to milk me with pleasure. "Yes ..."

A hormonal roiling woke itself in my scrotum - then fell back at the sound of vigorous grunting from the far side of the coffin.

"Simon, I'm close ..." She bit her lip, then released it as her throat and jaw twitched. "Ahh - oh -"

God, she's so beautiful. Here it is - here it is ...

"AH! Simon!" She arched up beneath me - grinding her father's gem of power into my abs.

Damn it! Come on, get there ...

Panting and moaning from beyond the coffin. The most wonderful creature in two worlds keening and spasming with ecstasy in my arms, swirling my cock in sensual bliss. Fuck, she feels so good - so good - almost ...

"Fill me, Simon ... love me, fill me ... pour our child into me ..."

That last, and the way she said it with her eyes, telling me of the deep blue skies that would watch over our life together, did it. The seed stuff of life came roaring up out of my gonads -

Just as a snap of fingers sounded beyond the casket ... and the gem flew out from between us to return to its master's hand.

Oh fuck.

Even the death of the whole world couldn't stop my orgasm at that moment. It surged through and out of me, immeasurable in its intensity, throttling my thoughts in physical pleasure and a blinding passionate love for the woman who received it. I swear, a piece of my consciousness burst out of me with that flow, jetted up through her loins, and connected with the fecund readiness Yilma had called up in her womb. I felt her conceive.

Too late.

By the second or third spurt, enough reality pushed its way back into my head to all but choke me with horror. Necromanata had been faster.

He'd won.

I moaned and pulled out and grabbed Leyna up in my arms, wrapping her in whatever futile protection they might give.

On the far blanket, the necromancer stood, black energy crackling from the artifact in his hand. He looked just as I'd written him - except infinitely worse, because he was real. Tall as a gallows, pale as a cave-fish. Eyes without whites, swirling with darkness like twin vortices of annihilation. Hands barely more than bones beneath stretched skin, the nails long and cracked and black. His ribs showed like snakes of ice beneath his chest. His long, drooping, dripping cock had a sickly bend to it and veins like threads of creeping grey fungus. If he'd been looking at me, I think I would have shit myself.

But he wasn't looking at me.

"Natam -" gasped his wife from the ground, obscured from view by the box in which they'd laid her to rest.

"Quiet," he snapped, lips peeled back in a grimace from teeth like a shattered picket fence. Then those black-hole eyes swept over to Yilma, paused, and turned their focus on the woman in my arms.

On her newly impregnated belly.

I got ready to move, to jump in front of Leyna, do whatever I could, and at least die before having to see him hurt her. But his eyes twisted away again to focus on Dwinvara.

"You," he said. "What can I do to you, to match the pain you have given me?"

"Natam -"

"Nothing." He let the word ring across the island and out over the lake. "It is unbearable. Losing you. Then thinking you dead. And now, to be reminded of the glory of your touch and see the life you made and stole from me? To be shown that if I'd agreed, then, I would have had you, and known her, these twenty years, along with ten more beyond? I cannot stand to exist long enough to inflict the suffering on you that you deserve. The one thing I can do is to leave you with that which will hurt you more than I possibly could."

His skeletal hand jerked skyward, brandishing the black-bleeding jewel. Two strokes of electric night flashed out of it - one to lift Dwinvara fully off the ground in a nimbus of ebony sparks, the other straight into the belly of my beloved.

I tried to get a hand in front of it. "No!"

But it had literally moved at the speed of lightning, disappearing before I could half lift my arm, recoiling into the gem, then doubling the arc of necromancy that contorted his wife's body in midair.

"That!" he cried.

And then - he crushed the gem and fell into a heap of bone and skin.

Dwinvara dropped with a thud to earth.

In my arms, Leyna put both hands to her stomach, shivering and shedding a thin stream of tears.

"It's gone," she said.