Chapter 11

Strong hands grabbed him and held him up as the snakes of the woman’s hair reached out and sunk their fangs into various body parts. The venom allowed the gorgon to move Kal’s body in the area where he’d been bitten. Getting him standing, she pulled him over and leaned him up against a nearby wall.

Terror gripped Kal’s mind. He was still recovering from the shock of believing he was about to die when the searing pain from the snakes’ venom began exploding everywhere they bit him. It faded quickly, which explained why the gorgon repositioned him as fast as possible after each bite. The venom’s effects may have disappeared within a couple of seconds, but each bite left two deep puncture wounds that made Kal want to howl in pain.

The mage’s mind reeled in panic as he realized another reason he couldn’t scream in pain, no matter how much he wanted to. He wasn’t breathing.

Fear welled up once again as he waited for the sign that his body was out of air and he was about to die. The gorgon stepped back for a moment, her hair hissing in alarm. She glared at him as all of the runes on his vambraces lit up. They flashed repeatedly in hopes of some way staving off suffocation. The woman’s petrifying gaze didn’t fall under a poison or disease, rendering those runes useless. The pain from the bites vanished along with the wounds as the healing rune pulsed but none of the others had any effect. Falling into despair, Kal awaited the end as he realized there was nothing he could do.

A minute passed, then another. The mage knew that if he had been swimming his lungs would be screaming for air right now. A third minute went by. He had another equally terrifying revelation: his heart wasn’t beating either. There was no low rushing noise in his ear that he could only hear when he was being very still and surrounded by silence. Nor could he feel the almost imperceptible rhythm of his heart pumping blood through his veins. More time passed and Kal’s expected end never came. Though his mind still worked, it was like his body was frozen in time.

Startled at first by the light show from his runes, the gorgon approached him again. She bent down and one of the snakes bit him on the inside of his elbow. Lifting his arm, she deftly untied the laces on his vambrace, tossing it off to the side then doing the same on the other arm. She then undid the fastener on his cloak, pushing it off his shoulders and tossing it on top of the bracers. A hand pulled his shirt away from his chest and one of her snakes bit down on the collar. It thrashed about for a second until the tiny teeth inside its mouth for holding prey tore the fabric. Gripping each side of the tear, the gorgon ripped the front of his shirt open. A moment later it joined the growing pile of his clothing.

Undoing his belt, the woman tugged his pants down. “Nice,” she said looking at his cock, “I’m gonna like this’n.” She spoke in the common tongue, but with a heavy Dwarvish accent.

Kal’s eyes were locked on a portion of the ceiling across the room because of the way she had leaned him against the wall. So far he had only caught fleeting glances of the woman as she undressed him. He was forced to rely on feel and sound to know what she was doing. As his trousers pooled about his ankles the mage felt a cool breeze washing over his prick. After the third time feeling the sensation, he realized it was her breath.

Kal wanted to groan in appreciation as her tongue made lazy circles around the head of his cock. A few seconds later he cursed his inability to look down as her tongue seemed to split in two, each taking a side and tracing its tip around the sensitive base of the head. Unfortunately, he hadn’t really been expecting to sleep with the woman that quickly, so he wasn’t even remotely hard when her gaze froze his body.

The woman took what she could of his prick into her mouth and began sucking powerfully.

‘Oh, no,’ he thought.

Pain flared in Kal’s groin as snake fangs pierced him just above the base of his cock. His traitorous prick stiffened in her mouth despite the burning of the venom as it took effect. Fighting back the urge to use his compatibility spell to make his dick tiny in retribution, Kal instead went the other direction. Reminding himself that his purpose was to convince the woman to leave the area, he pushed the spell to make him as large as it could without hurting the woman.

His cock expanded a bit more than he expected, earning him a hum of excitement from the woman sucking him. This was probably the largest he had ever been, with the exception of Ikuno, yet she was taking him without any issue. Despite the pain, a part of him really wanted to look down and watch as she began bobbing her head back and forth.

The snake disengaged its fangs as her tongue went to work on the underside of his prick. Her split tongue felt delightful and was completely unlike anything he had previously experienced. Though she wasn’t as experienced as Ikuno and didn’t have Alina’s soft mouth, he found himself quickly climbing towards orgasm from the sheer novelty.

Kal howled inside his mind as she slowly pulled back, teasing the tip of his prick before letting it slip out of her mouth. He had been so close! The mage was honestly surprised he hadn’t painted the back of her throat white already.

A new kind of horror ran through his thoughts, what if he couldn’t cum? What if his body being frozen meant that he could feel everything she did but couldn’t go through the motions of having an orgasm?

His moment of worry was interrupted by the gorgon lifting him into the air and walking over to a bed of the soft subterranean moss commonly found below the surface. With the ease she laid him down, he guessed that she didn’t have the insane strength of the golems, but something more akin to one of the larger blacksmiths he had seen in his wanderings about the metal crafting district of Carriston. It still seemed out of place for a woman with what he guessed was a normal, if a little on the tall side, female body.

More of the insufferable bites came as she situated his legs on the bed, getting his naked body positioned to her liking. As she moved up his body he finally got a decent look at the gorgon. The snakes of her hair were the first to come into sight. Many of them weren’t active, hanging limply like gigantic, colorful strands of hair. Those that did move about had eyes that glowed faintly in the scant light of the gorgon’s cavern.

Instead of a single type of snake, they were all different shapes and colors the vast majority of which he had never seen before. No two looked to be the same. One bright green serpent had small yellow spots spaced out along its side with a wide head and a vicious set of small teeth Kal got to see as it yawned. Another was nearly the same color but had a very thin body and seemed to be doing its best impression of a branch or vine.

Colors of the serpents ranged from a dangerous red to bright blue with black stripes and an orange head and from jet black to the tiny cream-colored garter snake that poked its head out between the larger ones. At least he recognized that one.

She finally came up where he could see her face. Serpentine eyes stared down into his, he mentally reeled back again but nothing happened other than the woman giving him a mirthless smile. Kal wondered if it had something to do with how her eyes had been glowing when his body froze but now seemed normal. Well ... normal as a woman with slitted reptilian eyes could be. He was surprised to see normal human teeth when she smiled at him, he had been expecting a set of fangs.

He saw two of the snakes go limp as the eyes of another two began glowing, both of which he knew. The red oak snake and the white-mouthed viper were both inhabitants of the woods around Telsin, though it was exceptionally rare to see one. Master Jurien kept a dried specimen of each along with a variety of other dangerous plants and animals in his shop for teaching purposes. He often hired the town’s youth to gather herbs that could be found nearby, the parents appreciated it when their children came back alive.

The serpents stretched out and sunk their fangs into each of his shoulders. Kal noticed that it wasn’t like they were striking at prey or defending themselves, extending out and only barely piercing the skin before releasing their venom. The gorgon lifted his arms as the magic from the bites took hold, he was extremely pleased to see his flesh was its normal color and not stone gray as his hands came into view.

The woman seemed to get an idea and stood up next to him. With his peripheral vision, he watched as she undid the belt which was far too large for her and pulled off the dirty and threadbare tunic she had been wearing as a dress. Thinking about the pile of his clothing lying somewhere in the room, Kal guessed that she had gotten them from one of her other victims.

Once undressed, she threw a leg across his thighs and scooted forward until her sex was resting against the base of his prick. The limp snakes acting as her hair had hidden the deep emerald scales that covered her shoulders and ran up either side of her neck, turning just below her ears and running down her cheeks where they came to a point at the edge of her mouth.

The scales ran from her shoulders down her sides and he could see thorn shaped offshoots wrap around the sides and bottoms of her breasts, tapering out just before they joined across her sternum. From what he could see the scales abruptly stopped at her bottom rib but further down was a large oval of the reptilian skin that covered the side of her hip and upper thigh. She also sported oblong patches of scales around her elbows and knees as well as smaller ones on the backs of her hands.

She leaned over slightly making his cock poke her in the abdomen. Two different fanged serpents slithered down and bit him on the wrists. Working quickly, she positioned his hands and fingers how she wanted then leaned forward a bit more. She placed her breasts in his hands then used her own to push them into her skin. As the venom began losing its effect she tugged her nipples through the gap between his fingers while using the rest of her hand to press them together, squeezing the tender flesh in a vicious pinch.

The gorgon groaned as she tugged backwards a couple of times while brushing her fingers over her entrapped nipples.

She looked down at Kal’s face and frowned. With a hiss that could have been either pleasure or discomfort, she lifted her abused nubs out from between his fingers. With a quick grind of her clit against his shaft, she dismounted the human. Moving up to his face she looked him in the eyes for a moment before another fanged snake stretched down and bit him in the neck. Kal would have screamed out had he been able. The viper sank its teeth further in this time and the burning sensation was much stronger. To make matters worse, it stayed there a lot longer than earlier, continually pumping the searing liquid into his body.

He hadn’t even noticed that the gorgon put a hand behind his head. Lifting up, she angled his neck so he would be looking straight at her while she rode him.

Despite the excruciating pain from the bite, he noticed that he seemed to have a tiny bit of control over his neck muscles and the sensation was spreading into his jaw. Even as it reached his mouth the feeling began to immediately fade as the snake withdrew. Remembering his mission, he did something that he wasn’t really feeling at that moment.

The woman pulled back, pleased that he would only be able to look at her when she used him later.

She did a double-take, staring at the human’s expression. It had gone from the fear and surprise from when she first caught him to a genuine-looking smile. A faint hiss escaped her mouth as she stared intently at the human’s eyes, looking for any sign of movement. Kal would have liked to tell her it was unnecessary. Once he felt his face move he had pulsed the Healing and Cure Poison runes on his back, closing the wounds in his neck and arms and canceling out the venom’s effect, locking himself in place instantly.

In the midst of staring at the mage’s face, her stomach let loose with a loud complaint. “Hush, ye,” she said. Reaching down, the woman ran a hand up and down his rod as she smiled at him, “I’ll be back in a bit to make use o’ this.” Leaning forward, she kissed him on the forehead then jerked back, looking bewildered as to why she had just done that.

Shaking her head at her own actions, she stood and donned the oversized tunic and belt before leaving. On her way out she took a moment to look through the human’s pouches in case he had any tasty morsels like some of her other victims had brought. As she walked out the entrance to her home she turned back and looked at the petrified human, touching her lips in confusion before vanishing into the inky blackness in search of her next meal.

The dwarves had told Sandy that most of the humans who came back did so in just under a week. Kal groaned inwardly that he would have days more of this ordeal before getting the chance to finally speak to the woman.

He wasn’t sure what to make of the kiss on the forehead, feeling just as mystified by it as she seemed to be.

He sent some calming thoughts to Perra. He had broadcast his panic to the girls when his body first locked up. From the impressions he was getting from the woman, he had nearly sent her into labor. It took a while, but she eventually returned to some semblance of normal.

Kal pushed the ever-present guilt for not returning home aside, or at least he tried to. He was only a few days away, as the harpy flies, and if he could wrap things up here within a week he might be able to get home before the baby was due. He had never expected this situation to ever come up, believing that he would be far, far to the east by now.

He still didn’t think he could do it; be there for the birth of his child then turn around and leave. It would be better if he just stayed away, but his resolve felt hollow.

In front of him, a small section of the wall glittered with metal deposits, his attention was drawn to a small crack in the ore in which a tiny rock had let loose, falling down to get wedged into the bottom of the split. Thankful for the distraction, he reached out with the magical cords he used for geomancy. Gerda had been insistent he not move his hands with her new style of geomancy, now he didn’t have the option.

Noises from off to the side roused Kal from his meditative state. He had been extremely unhappy to discover that he couldn’t fall asleep earlier. On the edge of his vision, he caught a glimpse of a dingy tunic and breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t need some subterranean horror stumbling upon him in his current state. His mind actively shied away from thoughts of such an encounter for the sake of his sanity. Horrendous sounds came from off to the side where the gorgon was. He hadn’t seen what she brought back, but thinking back to his brief look into the room before meeting her gaze, Kal recalled seeing a pile of large insect carapaces and the shells of cave-dwelling crustaceans. He was suddenly glad his body couldn’t feel nausea when he realized she didn’t have any fire to cook her food with.

When the noises finally stopped she walked into view as she approached his pile of clothing, sifting through his belongings she quickly found his waterskin. The gorgon was at least considerate enough to move away before upending the container and splashing herself in the face. Using her hand, she then wiped her mouth of any remnants of her meal.

Getting an idea, she then proceeded to soak down her entire head before bending over and grabbing the hem of her tunic. The snake-haired woman stopped just before cleaning her face, smiling and looking over at Kal’s pile of clothes. A few seconds later she was looking with disgust at the dark smear on his torn shirt left by the grime on her face.

She looked between the human lying in her bed and the dark smear. Dropping the shirt, the gorgon slipped out of her soiled tunic before picking the torn garment up again along with the waterskin. A moment later she had exited the cave once again.

When the gorgon returned, she tossed Kal’s shirt and waterskin into the pile with the rest of his things and strode over to the petrified man with a predatory look in her eye.

“Been a while since my last human,” she said straddling the mage’s hips. Her determined expression faltered upon seeing the smile on the human’s face. Hatred, fear ... those she was familiar with, but this was something new. Since she came of age, she had never been with a man who smiled up at her. The confusion brought about by the unfamiliar feelings angered the woman. How dare this human, who was probably sent to kill her like so many of the others, awaken feelings she didn’t understand or know how to deal with. She didn’t seem to notice that her hair had fanned out into a large halo around her head and was hissing menacingly at her captive.

Glaring at the human she squatted and took his cock in hand, lining herself up since his prick couldn’t bend. Lubrication wasn’t an issue, she had been looking forward to this on the way back from the underground waterfall where she had cleaned herself and refilled the waterskin. Droplets of clear fluid spread from the lips of her sex onto the head of the man’s dick as she swung her hips back and forth running the tip through her folds. With a loud groan, the snake-haired woman lowered herself until the head of his prick slipped inside her.

Fuck he was big. She might hurt herself if he was any larger or she went too fast.

As the gorgon lifted up and sank down a bit further, the snakes on her head with lit-up eyes shivered and twisted in upon themselves, appearing to mimic her enjoyment in their own way. Kal tried to focus on the woman they were attached to, it was a little weird thinking that her hair was liking this as much as she was.

Or as much as he was for that matter. The snake theme of the lady riding him extended to her sex as well. Kal could feel thick bands of strong muscle inside her as each one constricted around his prick. Each band was tensed as the head of his cock came into contact with it, making it feel like he was penetrating her over and over without ever withdrawing.

A flash of annoyance ran through his mind at the thought; it wasn’t like he could pull out right now anyway. He dismissed the feeling just as his cock pressed up against the gorgon’s cervix, the final ring tightening just beneath the head as the lips of her pussy touched the base of his shaft. She stayed that way for a minute making small circles with her hips, the motion brushing the tip of Kal’s prick lightly across the entrance to her womb. As she focused more on what was happening to her sex, more of the snakes’ eyes went dark until they had all gone still.

She rose up and slid back down more quickly now that he was coated in her juices. Leaning forward, she placed her breasts in Kal’s outstretched hands, putting her own hands on the back of his and pressing herself into his fingers. The gorgon closed her eyes as she began to ride the human in earnest, focusing on the feeling of the man’s cock filling her over and over. The bump of her clit against her captive’s pubic bone and the light tap of his cock on her cervix sent her careening towards her first orgasm at a speed that surprised her.

Panting hard, she stopped to catch her breath only moments before she was about to climax, her body shuddering in protest as she teetered on the edge. Sitting up straight she took her nipples in her fingers and slid them into the small gap between his fingers she had made earlier pulling them down and wedging them in place with a sharp intake of breath. Her hiss of pain as she let go contrasted heavily with the lusty grin on her face.

It didn’t take her long to get up to speed when she started moving again and she could tell already that the sharp sensation from her nipples along with the pleasure coming from her sex was going to make this a big one. She fought off her orgasm as long as she could but eventually slammed herself down on the human’s cock while leaning back. His frozen hands pulled painfully on her abused nipples as she gritted her teeth against screaming at the top of her lungs. Extremely loud noises could attract predators and carry over long distances.

She extricated her nipples from between the man’s fingers as her body wound down. A faint look of disappointment ran across her face. The dwarven researcher who had taught her how to speak dwarvish and common had explained that her body was wanting the humans to ‘fill her up’ with the stuff that came out the end of their dicks. The short man had even given her a demonstration after asking her to undress, leering at her as he rubbed himself. The white stuff that shot out onto the floor between them had an unusual smell and interesting texture when she rubbed it between her fingers but hadn’t been that exciting. However, the thought of seeing a human perform the same act had set her body aflame. As she sat there and recuperated atop the mage with the head of the human’s cock pressed up against the entrance to her womb, she wished wholeheartedly to know what it would feel like for the white fluid to spray up into her.

With a sigh she lifted herself up, quickly realizing that she had soaked the human’s waist with the strength of her orgasm.

“Bet ye liked that didn’cha,” she said to the man with a pompous grin. Her haughty attitude evaporated upon seeing the human’s kind smile as he looked back up at her. With a growl of annoyance, she pushed herself up and off of him, her breath catching as the head of his cock rubbed across that special spot inside her and slipped out of her sex with an audible pop. Her hair had gone dormant as she rode the man and now a few of their eyes were beginning to glow again as they began to move around. She strode over to where her tunic laid on the floor. Picking it up she threw it over her head before looking back at the human.

She couldn’t seem to understand why seeing him staring up at the ceiling of her small cavern was upsetting her so much. When the answer finally came to the gorgon, it didn’t improve her mood. With a frustrated yell and a loud hiss from her hair she stomped off towards the waterfall she had showered at earlier to clean the sweat off her human skin. She was pissed because she wanted him to turn his head and smile at her.

No, Kal was not enjoying himself. In fact, he now understood why her previous victims had returned to the dwarves mentally unhinged or broken. The woman’s pussy was nothing short of amazing and would have had him pouring his seed into her in short order were he not trapped by her gaze. Instead he sped towards climax ... but never arrived. This confirmed his fears from earlier, he wasn’t able to cum.

He and Ikuno had played around with keeping each other on edge for hours at a time and it had been interesting if not quite fun. On the other hand, doing it to Bea tripped something inside the butterfly that turned her into a quivering, but very happy, mess when she finally got off. His experience with the gorgon was like neither of those.

The pleasure had quickly built but there was no release. It was like bending a sapling to make a snare, but he just kept bending and bending and bending until it couldn’t bend any further then holding that tension until the snake-haired woman had finished. Worse yet, the feeling was dissipating very slowly. His nerves still buzzed from the experience, making everything from the moss beneath him to the slight draft blowing across his damp cock seem almost painfully vivid.

He didn’t know how much he would be able to take without ending up half-mad like the other humans the dwarves had sent to deal with her. Then again, it wasn’t like he had the choice to stop.

The next day was mostly uneventful. After leaving him the night before the gorgon had attempted to clean her tunic in the waterfall with little success. She then laid down next to him and went to sleep after biting him in the shoulders again and lowering his arms, bending one so she could sleep with his arm around her. Having a bunch of snakes, some of them very venomous, laying across the top half of his body was already not his favorite way to sleep. Some of her dreams must have been exciting judging by the way she ground her sex against his leg. One of her serpents scared him half to death when it began making its way down his chest towards his prick. Kal breathed a sigh of relief, or would have, when the snake stopped with a slight tug on the gorgon’s head. She mumbled something in her sleep and reached down, wrapping her hand around the base of his cock. With the desired appendage secured, the serpent returned to its previous position on his chest and the glow in its eyes faded out.

In the morning the sleepy gorgon just threw a leg over him and sunk down on his erection. Working herself up to a quick orgasm, the woman then laid on his chest enjoying the afterglow for a few minutes. With a kiss on the cheek, she started to climb off of him, her movements suddenly stuttering in confusion as to why she had done that. Before she went on about her day of hunting, gathering and cleaning her home, two snakes bit him on either side of the neck, allowing her to turn his head so he could watch her from the bed of moss.

The woman’s gaze also kept his eyes from focusing, anything further away than a couple of paces quickly became blurry. Even with this limitation, he tried to take in as much of his surroundings as he could.

Decorations in the cave were sparse at best. Strips of cloth which had been torn from various garments were stuck to the walls in random patterns. A variety of trinkets and items were used as decoration on just about every horizontal surface she could find, from rocky outcroppings to the floor. Remnants of the woman’s past victims were scattered all about and he was slightly surprised to note that there were no books to be seen. Surely he wasn’t the first magic-user the dwarves had sent down here.

There was no fire pit to speak of, though a black stain on a part of the ceiling showed there had been one at some point. Her only furniture was the bed of soft moss he was currently lying upon.

The gorgon disappeared through a doorway on the opposite side of the room. His poor vision that far out made the entrance nearly impossible to discern. Even with everything being blurry he couldn’t keep from getting nervous when she came back out carrying a stone statue of a previous victim. He also had to rethink the woman’s strength, a man-sized piece of stone would hardly be light. She did this a number of times, while he couldn’t make out what was on the statues’ faces, most of them appeared to be in the process of attacking when they were petrified. Judging by what he was seeing, those who never made it back were the ones who assaulted her after being freed from her gaze.

This meshed with Sandy’s story that the humans who returned were running in terror when they finally met up with the dwarves again. Those that ran, lived.

While she worked, the snake-haired woman often looked over at Kal. The first few times she again seemed happy then confused when she saw him looking back at her. As the day progressed the gorgon’s confusion seemed to fade and she started getting bolder. It started with her walking close enough to come into focus then posing for him. He didn’t think the first couple of times were on purpose from how brightly she blushed upon realizing what she was doing. Her shyness was short-lived and soon she was throwing lusty looks his direction while plucking at the hem of her tunic. Teasing him with tantalizing flashes of her bottom or the flesh around her sex.

Kal was more than happy to enjoy the view. Unfortunately, he could tell what she had on her mind for later and in his current state, he wasn’t looking forward to it. That morning had been as excruciating as the night before. While he was thankful that it didn’t actually hurt, quite the opposite really, not being able to finish left him wanting to howl in frustration.

Twice the woman had gone off to hunt, bringing back good-sized cave rats that she had washed off wherever she got her water from. One of her fanged snakes struck the large rodent as she held it in place. The venom freed it from its petrification but then appeared to act in a manner similar to a normal snake’s, dispatching it in little more than a minute. The second time she had the snake inject its venom but then gave it to one of the serpents with the wider head and body which wrapped it up and squeezed until the cave rat stopped moving, a couple of minutes later it released the dead rodent, dropping it into her hands. Kal was curious why the rat hadn’t seized up again like he did when the venom wore off.

The mage discovered that the lines of scales that ran down her jawline to the sides of her mouth weren’t just for decoration. Her mouth opened impossibly wide, splitting in the middle of the scales and revealing a thin membrane between them. Tilting her head back, she dropped her meal in headfirst then assisted it into her gullet with her hand. Her throat ballooned out comically as she ate, the reptilian skin on the sides of her neck stretching to accommodate swallowing her prey whole. Both times she looked over at him after eating, meeting his eyes with a pride-filled smile.