Chapter 16

I knew the spot the moment I saw it.

We’d left Rompelt behind that morning, the city shrinking into the haze at our backs as Seraphine guided the wagon east toward Sensluttia, following the directions Rylan had described. The land had opened up around us, the crowded streets and wood built structures giving way to rolling grassland. We’d made good time, the horses fresh and the mood light, Kira and Lazuli bickering happily in the back about whose turn it was to nap against the good pillow after they had both just finished taking turns sucking my cock.

But as the sun began to sink and the shadows stretched across the grass, I spotted the line of trees off to the side of the path, the way the ground dipped and softened toward them, and something tugged at the back of my mind. A familiarity I couldn’t place at first, and then, all at once, could.

“Pull off here,” I said, sitting up. “Just ahead, where the trees start.”

“You know this place?” Seraphine glanced at me, her hands steady on the reins.

“I do.” I stared at the treeline, the memory surfacing clearer with every passing second. “There’s a creek back through there. Five minutes off the path, maybe less. Quiet clean water.” I felt a strange smile pull at my mouth. “I’ve camped here before.”

She didn’t press, just clicked her tongue and steered the horses off the road, the wagon rocking over the uneven ground until we reached the edge of the trees. We made camp the way we always did now, Seraphine seeing to the horses while I got the fire going and the girls hauled out the bedrolls and the cooking pot. But my mind wasn’t really on the work. It was on something ... someone else. A different night, a different handful of faces around a different fire.

It was here, or close enough, that Neyla had let me all the way in. While Syli and Kaya splashed off to their own bend of the creek, the two of us had wrestled and teased like children until she’d pulled me to a shallow spot on the bank and pressed herself against me, her breasts soft against my chest, her arms looped around my neck, the moonlight turning her green skin to emerald. It was there she’d confessed her secret, that she’d been strictly a lesbian her whole life until she met me, that watching the way I held the girls and called us a family had changed something in her she hadn’t known could change. She hadn’t wanted to just fuck like the others, she wanted to take it slow. To kiss, and cuddle, and make love. To catch up at her own pace and, in her words, hopefully pass the rest. I could still feel the way she’d melted into me when I told her that was perfectly fine, the way she’d sighed against my lips like something she’d been bracing against for years had finally let go.

And it had been here as well, that sweet clumsy Hazel had first let her guard down. She’d been the one to point us toward the creek in the first place, still new to us then, still twitchy and shy, still not quite believing she’d fallen in with our strange little group. It was here she’d bathed with us for the first time, working up the nerve to shed her clothes and sink into the water with the rest of us, her fur turned silver by the moonlight. And afterward, wrapped in a scratchy blanket by the fire while the others slept, she’d thanked me quietly for making her feel safe enough to do it, telling me I was a good person, that not many people were, and that she appreciated it more than I knew.

Back then it had been five of us, and every one of those faces was gone from my side now, scattered across the land on their own roads. Neyla up in Windend, turning the town she’d grown up in inside out. Syli and Kaya, my fierce little wolf and my sly cat, hunting down every wolf and cat willing to believe in me and bringing them home to our cause. Hazel had gone back to her family’s farm outside Sensluttia to rally the farmers there, right under the elves’ noses. I hoped they were all safe.

But they weren’t here tonight. Tonight it was a different four of us, and as I looked around the fire at the crew I had now, I felt that same warmth I’d felt back then. The promise of something growing, even if the pieces had changed.

“You’ve got that look,” Seraphine said, settling down beside me, her tails curling around her legs. “The far off one. What are you thinking about?”

“The last time I was here.” I poked at the fire, sending up a swirl of sparks. “It was a different group. Neyla, Syli, Kaya, Hazel. We bathed in that creek, our first real night out of Rompelt. It’s funny. Same place, same water, probably the same fish in it. Completely different people around the fire.”

“Not completely,” she said, bumping her shoulder against mine. “You’re still here.”

“I am.” I looked at her, at the firelight playing across her face, and felt the truth of it settle. “And so are you. And those two menaces.” I nodded toward the wagon, where Kira and Lazuli were arguing over a fruit.

“We heard that!” Kira called without looking up.

“You were meant to,” I said, and Seraphine laughed.

We ate together as the last of the daylight bled from the sky, the stew simple but hot, the four of us pressed close around the fire against the growing chill. And when the bowls were scraped clean, and the stars had come out overhead, I stood and stretched, the memory still humming in me, and made a decision.

“Come on,” I said. “The creek’s just back there. Anyone who wants to get clean, now’s the time. The water’s cold, I’ll warn you, but it’s worth it.”

Kira was on her feet before I’d finished the sentence.

“Swimming! I love swimming! It’s been forever since I’ve been in real water!”

“It’s a creek, little fish,” I said, smiling. “Try not to be disappointed.”

“Water is water!” she declared, already tugging her oversized top over her head. “And I’m the best swimmer here, so everyone had better watch out!”

Lazuli looked less certain, her pink wings shifting against her back, her arms wrapping around herself.

“Is it very cold? I don’t know if I...”

“You don’t have to,” I said gently. “No one has to do anything. But it feels good after a long day on the road, and we’ll all be right there with you. Warm blankets waiting when we get out.”

She chewed her lip, glancing at Seraphine, who had risen and was already loosening the ties of her dress with the unbothered ease of someone who’d shed her clothes in front of me a hundred times.

“The trick,” Seraphine said kindly, catching the younger girl’s hesitation, “is not to think about it. You just get in. And I promise, once you’re under, the cold stops mattering.” She let the dress slip from her shoulders, her tails fanning out behind her, and gave Lazuli an encouraging smile. “Come on. We’ll go in together.”

That seemed to settle something in her. Lazuli nodded, a small brave nod, and began to work at her own clothing.

I led the way back through the trees, the path exactly as I remembered it, the sound of running water growing louder until the creek opened up before us, wider and deeper than a stream had any right to be, the surface silver under the moon. It was the same water. Different night, different bodies about to break its surface, but the same patient water, moving the way it had that night.

Kira didn’t hesitate for a heartbeat. She sprinted past me and launched herself off the low bank, tucking into a ball midair and hitting the water with an enormous splash that soaked all of us standing on the shore.

“Kira!” Lazuli shrieked, wiping water from her face.

Kira surfaced with a delighted gasp, her red hair plastered to her head, her green eyes shining.

“It’s perfect! Get in, get in!” She rolled onto her back, her tail returned as it splashed up a spray, utterly in her element.

I waded in after her, the cold biting at my ankles, my shins, my thighs, dragging a hiss through my teeth before I forced myself under all at once, the way Seraphine had described. She was right. The shock passed, and then there was only the clean, cool embrace of the water and the enormous dome of stars overhead.

Seraphine came in behind me with a soft gasp of her own, her tails floating out around her on the surface, dark and fanning, and she tipped her head back to wet her hair, her throat bared to the moonlight. And behind her, at the edge of the bank, Lazuli stood with her arms still wrapped around herself, one foot testing the water, her pink wings trembling faintly in the night air.

“I’ve got you,” I said, holding out a hand. “One step. That’s all. I won’t let go.”

Lazuli looked at the offered hand, then at all of us waiting for her in the water, and something in her face eased. She took my hand, and one careful step at a time, she came in.

The water closed around her waist, and Lazuli let out a shaky breath that turned into a startled laugh as her body adjusted to the cold. Her wings gave a reflexive flutter, sending droplets scattering across the surface.

“See?” I said, still holding her hand. “Not so bad.”

“It’s not,” she admitted, a smile breaking across her face, the fear giving way to wonder. “It’s actually kind of nice.”

That was all the opening Kira needed.

“Lazzy! Come here, you have to feel this!” She surged up out of the deeper water, grabbed Lazuli’s other hand, and started tugging her toward the middle of the creek. “There’s a spot where the current pushes you, it’s like flying but in water! Come on, come on!”

“Wait, Kira, I can’t swim as well as--” Lazuli’s protest dissolved into a squeal as Kira hauled her off her feet, the two of them tumbling into the deeper water in a tangle of limbs and wings and red hair. Lazuli came up spluttering, but she was laughing now, any lingering hesitation washed away, and when Kira splashed her, she splashed right back.

“Told you,” I said, watching the two of them shriek and paddle after each other. “The water fixes everything.”

“It usually does.” Seraphine’s voice came from just behind me, low and warm.

I turned. She was standing close, the water lapping at the soft curve of her hips, her six tails floating out around her on the surface like dark silk fanned across the silver. Her wet hair was pushed back from her face, and the moonlight traced the line of her throat, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts just above the waterline. There was something in her expression I recognized, a knowing kind of patience, and when she held out her hand, it wasn’t the way I’d offered mine to Lazuli. It was an invitation of a different sort.

“Come here,” she said. “Away from the splash zone. I want you to myself for a minute.”

I took her hand and let her lead me, the two of us wading against the gentle current toward the far bank, where the creek shallowed and the trees leaned close over the water, throwing moonlit shadows across the surface. Kira and Lazuli’s laughter faded behind us, still bright but distant now, and the further we went, the quieter the world became, until it was just the murmur of the water and the soft rush of the breeze in the leaves.

She stopped at a spot where the water came only to our thighs, a bend in the bank where the current pooled slow and shallow, and I felt the memory rise in me even before my feet found the smooth stones beneath. It was the spot. Or close enough that it made no difference. The same shallow shelf, the same lean of the trees, the same silver light spilling through the branches. The spot where a sharp-tongued goblin had once pulled me close and let all her armor fall away.

Seraphine must have felt something shift in me, because she tilted her head, studying my face.

“There it is again,” she murmured. “That look. You know this place even more, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” I let out a breath, half a laugh. “Right here is where Neyla and I had a moment ... I didn’t even mean to bring us to it. You did that.”

“Maybe I have good instincts.” She stepped closer, closing the last of the distance, her body warm against mine despite the cold water all around us. Her hands came to rest on my chest, her tails drifting to curl loosely around my legs beneath the surface. She looked up at me, her pink eyes catching the moonlight. “Does it bother you? Being here?”

“No ... It’s strange. It’s like ... coming back to a place and finding it still means something, even though everything around it has changed.” I brushed a strand of wet hair from her cheek.

Something softened in her face, the teasing edge melting into something more open. Seraphine didn’t hand out vulnerability easily, no more than Neyla had, and I’d learned to recognize the moments when she chose to.

“You know,” she said quietly, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my chest, “when I first found you, I thought you’d be a means to an end. Get my tails back, take what I needed, move on. I’d spent years chasing a cure, and I wasn’t about to get attached to some human who happened to have the magic I was looking for.” Her lips curved. “And now look at me. Standing in a freezing creek in the middle of nowhere, dragging you off to be alone with you like some lovesick girl.”

“A very beautiful lovesick girl,” I said.

“Flatterer.” But she pressed closer, her breasts soft against my chest, her arms sliding up to loop around my neck, and the last of the space between us disappeared. “I mean it, though. I didn’t plan on any of this. On you. On caring the way I do.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, her lips a breath from mine. “This is the part I never let myself want.”

I cupped her face in my hands, tilting her chin up, and kissed her. Slowly at first, softly, the way you kiss something precious, something you’re afraid might break if you’re not careful. But Seraphine had never been fragile, and the moment my lips moved against hers, she opened to me, her mouth parting, her tongue finding mine with the same hunger I’d come to crave, the same confidence she showed in everything else. The kiss deepened, our bodies pressing together, the cold of the creek forgotten in the heat that built between us.

She jumped out of the water, wrapping her legs around my waist, her arms still around my neck as she held on tight to me. I stumbled slightly, caught off guard by her sudden movement, but my hands went to her ass, supporting her weight easily. She was light, agile, her tails now free of the water as they swayed and flicked behind her, white tips catching the moonlight.

“Put it in me...” She whispered against my lips.

I pulled back just enough to look at her, her legs locked around my waist, her breath warm against my mouth, the head of my cock resting right against her slit. It would have been so easy. But I knew her, and I knew what she’d told me, and I wasn’t going to be the one to make her break it.