Chapter 55: Volume 1- [ - 56 ]
She splashed water on her face. The cold did not help. The flush did not fade. Her hands, scrubbing the armor, kept returning to the white substance — the thick, viscous fluid that had struck her breastplate with such force.
‘What is this? It is not water. It is not slime. It is — thick. Sticky. And the smell — it smells like — it smells like — him. That day. When his towel slipped. The same — the same fluid that was — at the tip of his—’
She stopped scrubbing. Stared at the white substance on her gauntlet. Her finger came out. Touched it. The texture was — warm, even now. Viscous. Stringy when she pulled her finger away, a thin thread connecting her fingertip to the pool on the metal.
‘Why does it smell like him? Is this — some kind of — poison? A contaminant? Why did my body temperature increase when it touched my armor? Is it — some kind of — aphrodisiac? Should I report this to—’
“Are you all right?”
The voice came from behind her. Seraphine spun — nearly fell — and found herself face-to-face with Elwen.
The elf stood at the edge of the pond, her green eyes wide, her wand in her hand, her head tilted at the angle that meant she was cataloguing. Her gaze moved from Seraphine’s face — flushed, wide-eyed, guilty — to the armor on the rocks — splattered with white — to the chemise — damp, clinging, revealing more than it should.
“What are you doing here?” Seraphine said, and her voice was too high, too fast, the voice of a woman caught doing something she should not be doing.
Elwen knelt. Examined Seraphine’s face with the clinical detachment of a healer assessing a patient. “You left the camp. I waited. You did not return. I followed. I saw you coming here.” Her eyes moved to the armor. “What happened? Why have you opened your armor? It is the first time you have done something like this — letting your guard down in the field.”
‘Her pupils are dilated,’ Elwen’s internal voice noted. ‘Her respiration is elevated. Her skin is flushed — not the flush of exertion or fever, but the flush of sympathetic nervous system activation associated with arousal or acute stress. The substance on her armor is — unfamiliar. I should analyze it.’
“No — nothing,” Seraphine said, too quickly. “Nothing happened. I just — needed to clean my armor.”
Elwen’s eyes narrowed. She was not convinced. “Do you not find it confusing?” she said, her voice soft, probing. “That man — the lord. He seems too kind. Too considerate. He is a nobleman traveling with two naked commoner women, one of whom is missing a leg. He cooks. He carries the wounded. He is gentle. And yet — how would he survive here? On this road? With two women who cannot fight? Something does not fit.”
Seraphine’s flush deepened. The image — his cock, driving into Lira, the sound of flesh on flesh, the screams that were not entirely pain — surged through her mind, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
“Of course — of course, you are right,” she said, but her voice was strained, thin, the voice of a woman who was trying to agree while her body remembered what it had seen. “He does seem kind, but —”
She could not finish. Because the sentence she wanted to say — ‘but I saw him fucking that woman like a beast and my body responded in a way I do not understand’ — was not a sentence she could speak aloud. Not to Elwen. Not to anyone.
Elwen studied her for a long moment. Then, without warning, her hand came up and pressed against Seraphine’s forehead. The touch was cool, clinical, the touch of a healer checking for fever.
“What are you doing?” Seraphine recoiled.
“I was checking if you have a fever,” Elwen said calmly. “Your skin temperature is elevated beyond normal parameters.”
“I DO NOT HAVE A FEVER—”
Seraphine stood. Grabbed her armor — wet, still stained, the white substance smeared across the breastplate. Ran. Her bare feet slapped the ground, her blonde hair streaming behind her, her face burning so hot she could feel it in her ears.
Elwen watched her go. Her green eyes were thoughtful. Troubled.
‘Something is wrong,’ her internal voice murmured. ‘Her physiological responses are inconsistent with her statements. The substance on her armor — I need to determine its composition. It may be a contaminant. It may be—’
She looked at the armor. At the white substance. At the spot where it had pooled in the depression of the breastplate — right over the area that would cover the heart.
Her finger reached out. Touched it. Lifted it — a thick, viscous thread that stretched between her fingertip and the metal. She held it up to the moonlight.
The substance was — sticky. Warm. Slightly translucent. It had a smell — not unpleasant, but unfamiliar. Musky. Biological. A smell she had encountered before, briefly, when the lord’s towel had slipped and she had noticed the fluid at the tip of his reproductive organ.
‘Why does this substance match the olfactory signature of the fluid I observed on the lord’s reproductive organ?’ she thought. ‘Is this — did this come from — him? How did it get on Seraphine’s armor? She was not near him when we separated for the night. Unless—’
She brought her finger to her nose. Sniffed. The smell was stronger now — the musk, the salt, the underlying biological note that her Academy texts had described but never demonstrated.
‘It matches. This is seminal fluid. Male ejaculate. The lord’s — reproductive emission. It is on Seraphine’s armor. How—’
She paused. Considered. The logical chain was straightforward: the fluid was on Seraphine’s armor. Seraphine had been away from camp. Seraphine was flushed and agitated. The fluid was on the breastplate, in a pattern that suggested impact — splatter, not transfer. Which meant Seraphine had been close enough to the lord during ejaculation to be struck by the fluid.
Which meant Seraphine had been watching.
‘I need to ask him directly,’ Elwen thought, and the thought was innocent — the thought of a scholar who had encountered a data point she could not explain and needed more information.
She did not understand the social implications of what she was about to do.
She did not understand that asking a man about his ejaculate was not a conversation that happened in polite company. She understood only that she had a question, and the man who could answer it was fifty meters away.
She stood. Walked toward the camp.
Seraphine was lying on her bedroll when Elwen returned. The tank was curled on her side, the blanket pulled up to her chin, her face hidden, her body trembling with small, involuntary shudders that she could not control.
Elwen looked at her. Looked toward the forest, where Caelum was emerging — carrying the one-legged woman in a princess carry, her head against his shoulder, her arms around his neck, her face peaceful in the way that only a woman who has been thoroughly fucked can be peaceful.
Elwen looked directly into Lira’s eyes. Then at Caelum. Then back at Lira.
“Follow me,” she said to Caelum, and her voice was calm, matter-of-fact, the voice of a woman who had a question and intended to get an answer.
My eyes widened. I heard her internal voice — the one about the white substance, the seminal fluid, the need to ask me directly — and the realization hit me like a lightning bolt.
‘Oh my god.’