Chapter 105: Did you love this girl?

The distant sound of thunder began to encroach on my memories and the first rain-drops began to fall. There are many stories in which the presence of rain is a cliché and I am well aware of this. But sometimes, as you go about seeing to the fallen, rain begins to fall. It was fitting for me. I would have laughed at the irony of it but the laughter seemed as though it would be out of place at that moment.

Instead I wanted to cry.

I managed to lever Saffron's carcass out from the ash that was covering her. She didn't want to come free, her limbs were stiff and brittle after the fire and subsequent rainfall. It was only a little bit of consolation to discover that she was dead long before the fire had been set but...

There were ends of old leather tied to her ankles and wrists. As I wrote previously she had obviously been torn apart, probably by horses. I looked up from where I was working up to the tree where Kerrass was still struggling to free the corpse of Saffron's husband. He was having his own difficulty with the fact that he didn't want the body to just collapse to the ground. But he needed both hands to work the nails free.

I offered to help again but he either shook his head or ignored me. I couldn't tell from this distance. Instead I bent back to carefully brushing the sodden ash away from the succubus' body.

Another memory.

-

“And you're sure that you're ok with this?” I asked.

“Ok with what?” Pula was sat in one of the arm chairs reading the book that Kerrass had given to Sally. Sally was off somewhere doing whatever she did when she wasn't eating sleeping or reading. She had solemnly handed the book over to Pula before quickly eating her dinner, despite the fact that it was cold and congealing before running out into the summer air.

“She's your wife.” I told him incredulously.

“Precisely.” he told me without looking up.

“I don't understand.” I told him.

“Understanding is not required.” He told me with a grin. “Only obedience.”

“Is that a quote?”

“Yes.”

“But....”

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“Look, Freddie, can I call you Freddie?”

I shrugged. It rather felt as though it was a little bit too late to be asking the question.

“Yes, she's my wife but she's also her own woman. You are human and you worship the holy fire, am I right?”

“Yes. Which is not helping by the way.”

“I can guess. First of all, let me reassure you again that she doesn't take your soul. She's not eating your soul as you mate but rather, feeding off your life essence.”

“Holy fire Pula, you're a nice guy, but that is, in no way, reassuring. What does that even mean?” My fear was making me angry.

“Your seed Freddie, we're talking about your seed. There's more to it of course...”

“Of course.”

“...But that's essentially it. She's not dissimilar from a human woman. The difference being that a human woman can take your seed and use it to help make another human. My wife will take that seed and use it as sustenance.”

“That doesn't make me feel any better.” Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“I know.

“But....Are you sure you're ok with this?” I asked him again.

“Are you asking me if I'm jealous?”

“I suppose so.”

He considered this for a moment, marking his place in the book with a finger. “A little,” he admitted. “But she'll come back to me eventually.”

“I just....” I began, searching for the right words. “I just don't understand it. How you can be ok with this?”

“How could I stop her?” He countered. “She is much stronger than I am physically, she can run much farther and faster and apart from all of that, she has access to fire magic as well as her more natural powers and skills. Pheromones and such like.”

“Phere-what?”

“Pheromones....If you don't know it's hard to explain. Basically she is almost designed to be sexual and to attract men, whether they want to be attracted to or not. She gives off this aura, call it magical or chemical but it's probably both, that reaches past a man's civilising characteristics and causes him to fall into lust with her, giving him an urgent need to...well....fuck her. She can emphasise or restrain these things according to her whim.”

“So what you're saying is, that if she wants me she's going to have me.”

“Pretty much.”

“But you're ok with this?”

He sighed, carefully placed a book mark and examined me.

I was pacing in the trio's living area and it was about mid-afternoon. Kerrass had read the provided book before telling me to be good and do what I was told. An order that had caused Sally to laugh aloud. He then left, leaving my still incredulous and insistent outrage in his dust.

Pula had cleared up the cooking remains before sitting and beginning to read. I had oscillated between sitting and pacing nervously before Pula had advised me to rest properly as I would need my strength.

“What is it that you're really trying to ask me Freddie?”

“I just....” I struggled for words.

“I promise that I won't be offended, although I cannot promise that I won't laugh aloud.”

“WHYYYY?” I all but yelled at him. “Why are you ok with this? She's your wife!”

“Yes. She is. But she's not my property. Look. I get that you're a follower of the church of the holy flame and I understand that they use the phrase, “Love honour and obey” in a vow that the wife has to swear before they are married. But....that's not what happens here.

“Saffron is a beautiful, wonderful, individual woman that I love a great deal. It is an enormous privilege that she has chosen to remain here with me and it is not a privilege that I take lightly. I am also aware that that privilege can be taken away at a moment's notice. She, needs to love and be loved by multiple people, the broader the variety in that, the better for her. It's how she maintains her existence. I can feed some of that by being a Doppler but sooner or later she just needs that other person. To deny that is to deny who she is.

“She wouldn't be.... She wouldn't be Saffron without that and I find that it makes the return all the sweeter. When she does come back it is all the better for it. Also, she is not in the least bit demanding or jealous in return and when the opportunity presents itself, she is more than happy with it if I go off and have a little adventure or two.

“Hell, on more than one occasion she's even asked to join in. Just as I've joined in on her games on more than one occasion.”

“What do you mean?”

“What on earth makes you think that I am only male?”

My mind boggled. “You mean that you can....?”

“Oh yes.”

“And you....?

He grinned at me without answering. After a while he took up his book again. “I would take the opportunity to freshen up if I were you. There's a hot water tank out back, run yourself a bath.”

“How do you get hot water up here?”

“I had a wizard do it in return for a long essay on the inherent evil of the female form.” He told me with a smile. “Saffron took the opportunity to wear her smallest outfits which meant that she was, essentially, just wearing some jewellery with a belt, and spent her time doing stretches and things around the place. The poor man was sweating and shaking by the time she went out before he left.”

There was no denying that the image was funny and I had left to do what I was told.

-

The rain was getting thicker now but I wasn't cold. I had to force myself to go and get a cloak from my packs to keep dry. I dimly managed to decide that I was in some kind of grief related shock. I found that I liked the rain and didn't want it to stop, but I also knew that the chances of being able to dry my clothes was a remote one.

Kerrass had managed to get Pula of his tree now and had laid him next to the blankets that contained Saffron and Sally. We stood together, looking down at them.

“Do you want to say anything?” I asked Kerrass.

“Oh yes. Oh, but I have so many things I want to say.” He stopped suddenly. He'd closed his eyes and gritted his teeth for a moment before he relaxed. “But not just yet.”

“What do you want to do? Bury them?”

Kerrass seemed to think for a minute before nodding. “Yeah. There used to be a shed out back that might have some tools still in them. See if there's a shovel?”

I nodded and did what I was told. Even then I needed to root through some wreckage to find what I wanted. Kerrass took the shovel off me without a word. He hadn't moved from where I had left him.

“Is this something you want to do by yourself, or is it something I can help with?” I asked him after a long moment.

“No,” a small, sly and incredibly sad smile crossed his face. “I remember how bad you are at physical labour, remember?”

“I do,”

“I'll do it.” He told me. “Go and....” He had to take a deep breath, wiping some water from his eyes. “Go and see if the other cabin is usable for some shelter or if they burnt that too. I don't want to have to go back down to the village tonight if I can possibly help it but we can't spend a night out in this.”

“We've slept in worse.” I commented, already backing off to the much smaller path.

“We have, but I don't want to sleep in the rain tonight if I can help it.”

I nodded, trying for a smile but Kerrass was already marking out a square to start digging.

I turned and strolled across towards the beginning of Saffron's little path.

She had a secret little path that she liked to walk at night, up the hill, through the trees and along to where she had a private cabin. Turns out that she wasn't so thoughtless regarding Pula's feelings that she would take her other lovers to her marital bed.

Unless he wanted her to of course.

I sighed. The place seemed somehow empty of life, empty of...meaning without the three of them. The trees seemed to hang limp like rags and the grass lacked the shine and the...the lustre that that grass should have. You know, good, clean and above all “green” grass. It was as though the land surrounding the two cabins, itself was mourning the departed.

For all I know that might have been exactly what was happening. Spirits and Succubi affect the world in ways that we can't even begin to imagine.

The path was winding, twisting back in on itself past several flat areas of grass that were devoid of root, rock or branch. A bed of flowers that Saffron used to cultivate, sleep on and occasionally frolic on.

But I saw that the knights had found this path too. There were broken branches everywhere and deep, heavily booted imprints all over the ground so that even I could track them.

I sighed. If Kerrass wanted shelter then I guessed that we would have to go down to the village tonight.

I carried on anyway.

Another memory.

-

Saffron had come for me just as the sun was setting. It was a beautiful sight. As far as I could tell she hadn't changed her clothes or her jewellery. Her hair was still the same, long cascading waterfall of hair but there was definitely something different about her. When she opened the door to the cabin Pula made himself scarce, off through one of the doors but it would have been impossible for me to notice which one it was. He was right. I didn't really have a choice. Even if I had been trying to resist going with her I don't think I would have managed it.

There was a luminescence about her. She was glowing and the sun seemed to set around her. She just walked over to me and looked down at me from where she stood. She raised her eyebrow in a question although, as I sit here at my desk to write this, I honestly couldn't tell you what the question was. She must have seen what she wanted to see because she bent down and took me by the hand, lifting me up and led me out into the fading days light.

In the distance I could hear pipes being played.

“Sally,” she told me. “She read a book on how to make these little pipes, spent days carving them with this little knife that Pula made for her and hours more practising them until she could get it right. I have never heard focus or determination like it in audible format.”

I nodded. I was desperately trying to keep hold of my sanity. I could feel my cognitive function slipping away from me as though pulled beneath the waves. I felt as though I was drowning. I shook my head in an effort to clear it.

She laughed when she saw it.

“Still fighting me?” The path was wide enough now that she was walking next to me. She still had a firm grip of my hand but we had stopped. I had the distinct feeling that if I had wanted to stop then she would have allowed it.

“I don't know,” I told her and I really didn't. “It feels like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff. I know that I can jump in and that it will be exhilarating and wonderful...”

“Not to mention, insanely pleasurable,” she said with a mischievous smile.

“That too. Or at least so I'm told.”

She acknowledged that point. “But...”

“I'm also terrified of the jump.”

She nodded. “There is time, while we wait. Also there is some time to walk as well and if I may. I have a question of my own.”

“Oh?”

We had started to walk again. I could feel the heat from her body. She was holding my hand and there was no other, physical contact but I could feel the shape of her. I could feel her arms and her chest and her legs and her....

“Yes.” She said startling me. “Without wanting to boast or put you off. I am a Succubus and I have known many men. You understand that I'm talking in a religious sense of the word right?”

The stars were coming out and the sound of the wind in the leaves combined with the sound of her voice was hypnotic and oh so arousing.

“I do.”

“But here's the thing.” She went on. I could hear her gentle laughter running through the voice. “I know that you are attracted to me. That's not arrogance talking. That's not me saying that I know that I am beautiful or that I know that you must be attracted to me because of what and who I am. I know that you are attracted to me because I can feel it in my blood. It's part of who, and what I am.”

There was a small clearing in the trees next to the path. The floor of the clearing was covered in flowers, a bed of flowers with blue and purple petals covering it.

The term “bed of flowers” scuttled through my brain like a marble or a rubber ball bouncing in a box.

I was overwhelmed by the urgent desire to kiss this woman in front of me and drag my hands through her hair.

“Is that all?” she asked me with a sly smile and a twinkle in her eye. “We can do much more than that. I promise that the grass and the flowers are soft.”

I groaned and backed away shaking my head.

But she didn't let go of my hand.

“You see that?” She asked me. We had started walking up the hill again. I could begin to see the outlines of a house. There were windows through which I could see the fire light and the smell of the wood smoke and the flowers began to combine with the scent of this woman.

My arousal was almost painful.

“You see that?” She said again. “That's what I'm talking about. You're fighting your own arousal. You have yourself in a grip, a death grip of control. I don't think it's me that you're terrified of. I think that you're afraid of letting yourself lose control.

I groaned, again and forced myself to look at the stars. To pick one and focus on it. It was a mistake as all I could imagine was that same star reflected in Saffron's eye.

“It's actually quite impressive.” She told me. I could hear her laughter along with a certain amount of her own lust in her voice. “You will not be surprised to learn that you are not the first person that I have brought up here. Nor will you be surprised to learn that I am using my powers on you. It is a self building cycle. I wanted you from the moment that I saw you.”

I swallowed and clenched my first, digging my fingernails into my palm in an effort to distract myself.

“So because I want you, then you want me. Because you want me, I want you more. It's a cycle. I can feel your desire. Other men have not resisted this much. Not without help anyway. Witcher's are always more controlled, as are others who have certain....magical advantages over normal humanoids. But other men don't even bother to resist their own desires. Normally I have been grabbed and pushed up against a tree, or thrown down onto the bed of flowers before we get to this point on the trail. Often multiple times. So why do you resist?”

I had to take several deep and calming breaths. My normal, one quick, in and out breath wasn't going to cut it this time.

“Can you.....uhh.... Can you turn off the.....”

“My allure?”

“Yeah, that...”

She must have done something as my....oh, lets call it what it is.... My erection became less painful. I still didn't dare look at her though.

“Is it such a bad thing to have self control in the face of a beautiful woman?” I asked her.

Dammit, I had meant to not look at her. She was smiling at me but her eyes were hooded with her own desire. I turned away again.

“That depends,” she answered. “Largely on the circumstances and the situation. But let's say this. Let's say that the circumstances and the situation are not...what they are. Why is self-control so important to you? Especially in the face of a beautiful woman? You have taught yourself to be this way Freddie. Why?”

She still had hold of my hand and we had moved up so that we were just outside the front door of the cabin. I could barely breathe with desire.

“I don't want to be that guy.” It felt like a lot of effort to get those words out. As though I was forcing them out past gritted teeth.

“What guy?”

She had moved up behind me and I could feel her breath on my neck.

I shivered.

“A rapist.”

She laughed at me. “A rapist. I never met anyone less like a....”

“You're missing the point.” I told her. “I lived in a university town for several years. I suppose technically I still live there. Lots of young, attractive people having left home for the first time, tasting their first freedoms. They get drunk, one thing leads to another and they have sex.”

“Sounds natural to me.” She had reached round me and was stroking my chest. Flame help me but I could feel her breasts pushing against my back.

“Except when it isn't.” I told her, pulling away so that I could think.

She wouldn't let go of my hand though.

“A friend of mine made a mistake.” I told her. “Just a little mistake. But it ruined his life. He was seeing a girl, a nice girl that I liked a lot. But one day troops came and dragged him out of his bed to go and stand trial.

“As it turned out the couple used to enjoy a little rough-housing in their sexual play.”

“They liked it rough you mean,” I could feel her smiling.

“Maybe. I never asked for clarification. But then one night it went to far. I don't know what happened but it would seem that she wasn't into it one night but he couldn't tell. He couldn't tell, he didn't see the problem until it was too late. He was heartbroken, that was the thing that I kept coming back to. He loved that girl with all of his heart but then he slipped up. Till the day that he left Oxenfurt he swore that he didn't mean to hurt her. He swore that he loved her. I believed him. His life was ruined though and he was sent away as the courts took his side of the story. Because of course they did. But now he was a rapist and no-one wanted to go near him.

“But then the other side is also true. Another good friend of mine, also driven from Oxenfurt because of what happened. She came in sobbing after a night at some kind of....party out on the lawns. She says that she woke up in the early hours of the day, with her clothes strewn around her, covered with what she described as bodily fluid. She was distraught, traumatised and if I had caught the bastards that did that to her I would have killed them myself.”

I looked up at the stars and shivered.

“I used to see it all the time. I used to work with a girl during my aborted attempt to become a doctor. She was a nice girl, exceedingly pretty but she was a friend first. We had a good working relationship and I found that I didn't want to spoil that. One day I was talking to her after class, moaning about lecturers or something similar.

“I remember it distinctly.

“The university has this piece of lawn where students and lecturers like to sit and argue. We would like to tell each other that we're debating but we're arguing really and we all know it. So the girl and I were chatting,

Carla was her name, short blonde hair and bright blue eyes that shone in the sunlight.

“Then another man walked up and wanted to talk to her. He greeted me first as I remember before turning to her. His eyes hooded and his mouth hung open in lust. He was practically drooling.

“I'll never forget it.

“She turned to him, saw what was happening and her face fell. It literally almost collapsed in on itself. Suddenly this bright and happy young woman was insulating herself and protecting herself against this man's feelings.

“You wanna know what happened? The man, I think his name was Owain, wrote to his father about her and the two were engaged to be married six months down the line. I remember that she was happy at the wedding day.

“It was one of the reasons I changed my field of study to history. I wasn't happy with medicine anyway but that was just the icing on the cake. She was a fantastic teacher, lab-partner and co-worker, and to see her so....robbed of....Flame but I don't even know what I'm talking about any more.”

“Did you love this girl?”

“Flame no,”

“I think the man protests too much.”

I laughed. “I liked the girl. She made me laugh and yes she was beautiful. In another life I would have been happy to marry her or have a mutually consensual roll or two in the hay. But then and there I just didn't feel it.”

I sighed.

“It was early on in my student tenure. I had been in university a matter of weeks, but that was the moment that I decided not to be that guy. No girl would ever be made to cry by me. No action of mine would ever be misconstrued. I would never rape a woman or allow myself to be in a situation where it might happen by accident like what happened with my friend. I would never be that guy.”

There was silence for a while before I could feel a chuckle start in the chest that was pressed against my back.

She moved round me and stood looking up at me with a huge smile. Part mocking, part kind. “Are you asking me, a succubus, for consent?” She laughed as she said it.

I felt my own laughter rise to meet hers.

“The truth is...”I told her. “Even if you gave me your consent, I'm not sure I would know what to do with it.”

She looked surprised.

“I thought Kerrass said that you had satisfied the best.....No..... You're not a virgin. You know what to do.”

“I know what to do it. But I don't know how to bridge the gap between laughing and joking with a woman to kissing and fondling. Then again from that to....well....everything else. Even with those Courtesans or the two lovers that I had back in University, they had to be the ones that started....proceedings.”

“Oh.” She said. She was laughing again. “Then let me make it perfectly clear,” Suddenly her grip was like steel and there was no getting away from it. I couldn't have pulled away from her if I tried. She reached into my trews and pull out my rather....

It seems that I'm still prudish enough to struggle to talk about this.

She took my manhood out and held it in her hand.

I groaned at the contact making her smile and lick her lips. Her other hand came round and cupped the back of my neck pulling me close.

I didn't resist, I was completely under her spell by this point. She extended her legs so that she could whisper in my ear.

“You are very sweet.”