Monsters Under Mistletoe

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

“ T here was a shortcut this whole time?” Silver asked in disbelief, when the first passage came to an end, and the pair emerged into a small circular room, barely ten feet across.

The stacked stones led upwards for a few hundred feet to no ceiling, but a peek at the stars. Not that one could truly admire them from down here.

“It’s not much of a shortcut. You have to get almost to the top of the mountain just to have to climb down,” Nettle replied with minimal eye rolling. “And you have to be sure you have enough rope to make it back. You see that one dangling, about halfway up?”

He squinted up at the dark ledge for a long moment, and Nettle eyed the better view it gave her of the outline of his neck, his jaw.

“Are we at the bottom of a well?”

“We are. This gauntlet leads to an ancient spring. The Fey believe it has restorative powers.”

Silver raised an eyebrow to that, but said nothing on it.

“We’ll camp here for tonight.” He shrugged after a moment, his attention dropping to the dry bottom of the well. He walked around the space, gathering up the few branches that had fallen in.

While he built a fire, Nettle flew partway up the well, stopping when she found a familiar wild raspberry bush growing out between some of the stacked stones. The truly strange places some plants flourished in never failed to amuse her.

She plucked an armful of the raspberries and brought them back to the campfire. Silver caught her eye, a brow quirked.

Nettle held out a berry to him. He took it from her, delicately pinching it between two fingers. Then he held her gaze just as carefully as he brought it to his mouth, licking some of the juice off the tip of his thumb.

For her own sake, Nettle looked away quickly.

In the last few hours of walking and chatting, she’d gotten a little more comfortable with her bounty hunter’s coarse manners. She still wasn’t charmed by them, of course. And if she’d happened to have laughed at even one of his jokes, well, she would just keep that to herself.

She settled on the largest and flattest of a pile of stones rather than sit directly on the dirt. Every few moments, she couldn’t help but steal another glimpse at him.

Nettle noted the tears in the sleeves of his rough shirt, the myriad belts and buckles hanging off his hips. He seemed to keep everything he needed on his person. She watched as he undid the buckle that ran over one shoulder and across his chest, removing his cloak. He rolled it up into a makeshift pillow and made himself comfortable.

Sprawled out on the ground across the fire from her, the orc picked up one of the little birds he'd roasted over the fire and started taking careful bites around its delicate bones. He dragged the arrow he'd used to skewer the bird against his teeth, his clever tongue savoring the last scraps of its meat.

“You're not getting any of this,” he told her when he caught her watching him. “Your kitten eyes won’t work on me.”

“Oh, we’ve graduated to small animals now? Did you run out of insects you can name?” she teased. She couldn’t help but giggle at the thought that the gruff bounty hunter might be warming to her.

Silver scoffed and rolled his eyes, but tucked in the corner of his mouth, Nettle spied a hint of a smile.

Nettle turned away quickly. She was spending much too much time just staring at him. She needed to focus on anything else, or he'd start growing on her.

Her attention moved to the berry between her thighs. Not that one, the other one. The raspberry she'd foraged for dinner.

With her back to him, she separated each juicy kernel from the rest, each one its own perfectly sized bite. She spit the seeds out and tossed them towards the campfire, though few reached it.

The campfire crackled as they fell into a comfortable silence. Nettle yawned, closing her eyes and stretching. She rolled her neck, arching her spine with her palms flat on her lower back. She needed a dip in a hot spring, or at least a hot mug of water back at the inn, when this was all over. But a couple of nights roughing it and sleeping on the ground would be worth it to get her treasure back.

She linked her fingers together behind her head, stretching her shoulders out. At first she thought she heard a little sound like her joints popping, but it continued.

She frowned, released her hands, and turned around.

Nettle only had a second to look at the creature, a centipede as long and thick as some snakes, scuttling down the well wall towards her. Its pincers flexed wide as it approached, but before it could finish the threatening motion, Silver’s ax came down upon it.

“Ah!” she gasped, the shock of it all as resounding in her chest as forcefully as the blade that severed the insect’s head from its body.

The head rolled towards her feet, pincers stilled.

Silver looked as unmoved as he did when he slayed the toadbird.

“I said it’d be dangerous out here,” he grumbled, as if it was an arduous task to remind her he was right. But he leaned over from where he laid on the ground, plucking up the rest of the centipede’s body and threaded the arrow through its thorax. He dug the tip of the arrow into the dirt by the fire, letting it dangle over the embers to smoke overnight.

Nettle grimaced at the thought of having to eat that thing for breakfast, but had no time to linger on it, as Silver next reached for her.

She held back a moan as he lifted her, the way his touch lit a path straight to her most sensitive bits. His coarse touch against the delicate tips of her wings was electrifying.

If it weren’t for the firelight, he might have seen her glow flare again, the sensation of it running directly into her most sensitive places.

Then he deposited her on his stomach and laid back down, head propped up by his bundled cloak.

“Don't worry, I'm not a restless sleeper. You can stay safe from bugs here,” he said, as if him rolling over and flinging her off in the middle of the night was now her biggest concern.

“I thought I was a bug.”

“Yes, but you're my bug,” he replied as he made himself comfortable on the ground once again. “I’m not on a first-name-basis with the other bugs.”

Nettle was not as quick to find her bedding on his stomach. Again he had saved her. Again, she found some thrill in it.

Not that she was keeping score, of course. She just wasn’t sure she could be responsible for her actions if he was going to keep protecting her like that. The pulsing heat in her nethers seemed to reignite each time it happened.

And now, he could feel her every movement. Every time she turned over, he would know. Every time he spoke, she could feel the rumble in his chest beneath her, cradling her.

“Something wrong?”

“This is rather … intimate.”

He gave half a shrug, a movement that nearly sent her tumbling. “It happens on quests. Sometimes you find yourself cuddling folk you never would have sat next to in the tavern, simply because you’re trying not to freeze overnight.”

She couldn't help but wonder, what else might have happened on his many quests?

Before her thoughts could wander too far down that path, he reached to pluck the half eaten berry up from the stone. “Do you want the rest of your dinner?”

Nettle eyed the horizon of his chest, the rippling floor of abs beneath her. She was lost to the prospect of having to sleep on all this without being able to rock her hips against it. “No, I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Suit yourself,” he replied, and popped the berry into his mouth.

For a second time, Silvertongue licked the tip of his thumb clean of juice. This time, Nettle didn’t look away. She watched shamelessly, and drank in every detail of his mouth closing over it.

It made her shiver, the sensation creeping over her. It flushed from her cheeks, over her shoulders, down, tightening her nipples into little peaks, caressing her belly and settling deep in her nethers.

She could have bit down on her fist at the way he threaded his fingers together and put them behind his head, his arms flexed in either side. It was too much.

She felt the low, gravelly rumble of his voice, as he asked, lazily quirking a brow, “So why did you leave your Fey Court? Did you get tired of everything being perfectly suited for you?”

She swallowed.

“... I wanted bigger things for myself.”

He rolled his eyes, unsated. “That's a simple answer.”

“Ask me something more complicated.”

His dark, hungry eyes held hers, rooting her in place. “What makes a firebug glow?”

She could feel his stare warming her up, from her cheeks to low in her belly.

“Hard to say,” Nettle shrugged, rolling onto her stomach. She propped one hand up under her chin and trailed the other over his stomach. Immediately she felt too forward, and pretended to brush some dirt off his shirt. “But I have some theories.”

She watched his nostrils flare before he asked, “What theories?”

Nettle nearly flared, knowing she held his attention in the palm of her hand. It was her last few nights outside of the court, she thought again. And she would never see him after this.

“Well, it’s not every time something excites me,” she offered, her voice soft, “But I can feel the glow all the way up to my navel.”

Just fucking hump his abs already , she told herself. It felt inevitable, like she was set on a course to flare so bright and so hot, she would combust in it. It would either happen now, or in her sleep while she dreamed of straddling his lips and clinging to his tusks.

As she spoke, Nettle traced a hand up her thigh, over the swell of her bottom, over her hip to her stomach. She watched his throat bob as he swallowed, his gaze focused hard on her as he licked his lips.

Silver clearly knew an invitation when he saw one. He reached out, and she couldn't help but notice the way his hand shook a little as it neared her. Was the tremor from nerves, or the effort it took to be careful with her?

She laid back against his palm, and before she knew it, his thumb had slipped up under her petal dress, finding her breast to tease. The calluses on the tips of his fingers dragged over her nipples, making her gasp out loud, “Oh, Silver!”

With a tug, he pulled her petal dress off, and she stood naked in his palm. Then he dragged the tip of his finger through her folds. She was already slick between her glowing thighs, the evidence glinting off his fingertip. Gently, he transferred her to his other hand and tasted her wetness off his finger.

She glimmered, she flared, she flashed, hot and tooth-grindingly needy. She had to look away when his head tipped back in a groan, and caught a glimpse of his arousal.

The tenting in his pants would likely have been enough shelter for her, if not for the beast contained within. His cock gave a lively twitch, and Nettle immediately began pulling at the leather ties to free it.

In a moment, the fabric of his pants fell away.

Nettle stared up at it, the shadow it cast over her. It was taller than her certainly, and too wide to even consider, but still she ached to climb atop it.

With a flutter of wings, she brought herself closer. She laid a palm against his cockhead, felt the heat radiating off him, the pulse in the veins that decorated it, and the softness of its skin. A polished edge of gold pierced through the dual slits. Best of all was the shudder Silver gave at her touch. She landed primly, straddling the shaft the way some might sit on a fallen tree trunk.

"Wh-what are you doing?" Silver gasped, as she laid her body down over it.

"Riding you," she answered, rolling her hips against his shaft. She pressed her body fully to him, wrapping her arms around the head, rubbing her tits on it.

It was so warm and soft, and humping her body against it was making her wetter and wetter. Silver's grunts of pleasure spurred her on.

“Firebug,” he murmured, grinding his teeth together as he held back another noise. “You feel so good.”

She licked a long, wet stripe up the cockhead, and his hips bucked. She clutched her arms around his cock as the world shook for her.

“I'm close,” he panted.

Nettle glanced back at him, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. She flexed her wings, trailing her hand up the length of his shaft as she brought herself to hover over the tip. It was flushed deep purple, its strangely shaped head seemed like the perfect seat, its dual slits begging for her fingers to trace their edges.

His fist curled around the base of his cock, holding it steady. Her foot found purchase resting on his knuckle, her legs clamped around the shaft.

She knew she couldn't take him inside her, but she could still get a little friction between them. She settled her cunt against his cockhead, moaning lightly as the ridge of his piercing fit perfectly against her. Precum beaded between them, hot against her vulva.

Nettle rolled her hips again, and nearly sighed in relief at how good it felt to smother her cunt against something so warm and wet, the gush of his hot seed beading out of his slits. There was something about the intimacy of another body, the humid heat of skin to skin, that she had missed in the last month away from the Fey Court. Though the lovers she might take there were more appropriately sized to her, there had been something missing from the experience.

And he was just so large, his presence utterly overwhelmed hers.

She rocked her hips wildly, grinding her cunt to his massive cock head, his piercing pushing deeper into her with every thrust. She watched Silver's brows draw together as his head tipped back in a groan.

“Firebug–!” he started to say, voice becoming a deep growl, and then his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth ground together.

She felt his seed flood against her cunt first, flowing hot and hard through her folds. The sensation reminded her of the lily pond pools of the Fey Court, the clear waterfalls catching the sunlight, laying under one of the tiny waterfalls with her legs spread wide, to feel the current of water wash hard against her clit until an orgasm overtook her. The rest of the fountain of his seed spurted straight up, catching against her stomach, her breasts, her chin, painting her body with hot white jets.

It came once, twice, three times, each time a scaldingly perfect and still too brief sweep of sensation radiating pleasure through her.

And then it was just her and Silver, his chest rising and falling with every hard breath. His eyes moved from the spilled drops of seed across his stomach to her, painted from cunt to chin in it, straddled across his wobbling cock head.

Silver’s chest heaved with his breath, as he scooped her up into his palm, cleaning her off with the edge of his shirt. Soon she laid back down on his chest, starting to doze off.

Silver’s voice, low and tender, rumbled under her. “What's so special about this treasure of yours?”

“It's ... personal,” she answered after a few moments. She tried to tell herself that she didn't care what the orc thought of her, because they would simply part ways at the end of this adventure the way they had started: as strangers.

“You don't need to tell me.”

“No, it's just … it's hard to explain. I used to grow mistletoe every winter. Fly all over the land and see couples, old and young, sharing kisses under it. It used to make me so happy. But I haven’t been able to, since my glow …”

She swallowed then, a lump in her throat that made the words too hard to speak aloud. Since my glow faded. She nodded. “There’s a magic spring at the end of this gauntlet. It’ll fix me.”

Silver was quiet for a long moment, before he asked, “What will you do when you've got your glow again? Go right back to your Fey Court?”

“I must.”

“Why?”

“I tried being out in the world. Truthfully … I got my glow back the moment I left,” she admitted, and the glow deep in her being seemed to burn lower as she lingered over the memory. How excited she’d been to find it that quickly again, only for it to fade just as the novelty of being outside did.

“I meant to stay out here a while longer, enjoy myself. But then … everything I did seemed to go wrong. I couldn’t get through the passage alone. I lost it as soon as I had it,” she added, with a bit of a forced laugh when she caught sight of his frown.

She had thought at first her glow had dimmed because she had grown bored with the fairies she’d known since forever. That she couldn’t get away from every version of herself she’d outgrown. But it had persisted as she struggled to find her footing in the world.

Despite her reassurance, his face remained unchanged.

“Why should you go back to a place that made you miserable?”

“You said it yourself, before. I'm too prim. I’m not built for adventures.”

She watched the dim cavern light dance across his face as a muscle tightened in his jaw. She looked away quickly. It was dangerous for her heart to suppose he might care.