Dan the Adventurer, page 18
part #2 of Gold Girls and Glory Series
When they had returned above ground, Ahneena said, “In recent years, we have used the remaining tunnel space as a hiding place. The entire community can squeeze inside if someone volunteers to stay above and cover the trap door. That volunteer is generally my nephew, Tibbin. He is very good at hiding.”
Which might explain why I never see the guy working, Dan thought. Of all the residents of Fire Ridge, the matriarch’s nephew, military advisor, and captain of the guard contributed the least. Rather than mending walls, clearing brush, or sharpening weapons, he lurked and loafed and disappeared on vague errands, a drunken malingerer.
Now the man surprised Dan by stepping from the shadows behind Ahneena. He strutted into view like a malnourished chicken with perfectly braided hair. “As the protector of Fire Ridge, such duties of course fall to me.”
“Did fall to you,” Dan corrected. “Hiding in this tunnel is no longer an option, not if Roderick’s Raiders overrun the walls. They would tear the fortress apart. Sooner or later, they would find the trap door and come down and slaughter everyone.”
Tibbin sputtered, and Dan braced himself for a wave of bullshit.
Luckily, Jorbin spoke up. “Lord Dan, we gnomes are expert miners. Would you object to our clearing the passage?”
“There isn’t time,” Dan said. “You all have jobs, and we’ve come to rely on you.”
“My Lord,” Jorbin said, “what if we worked at night, after our regular duties are finished?”
Dan shrugged. “Your free time is your free time.”
The gnomes burbled with excitement, smiles shining on their dirty faces.
Whatever floats your boat, Dan thought, and bade them all goodnight.
Walking toward his villa, he paused to fill his lungs with good, cold air and to stare up at the twinkling stars overhead. It would be hard to return to State College, where it never really got dark, after having been in the woods again. He loathed the thought of once more living in town, surrounded by people and pavement and spending his days sitting in classrooms and studying books.
I’m a barbarian, not a college student, he thought. Old-world Dan had felt like a misfit at the university, too. Hell, he’d even felt out of place going to middle and high school in town. He was a country boy through and through.
He turned the corner and entered the courtyard outside his villa. Lights burned inside. Holly would be working, of course. Hopefully, Nadia would return soon. He really missed her and—
His head jerked sideways, sparks exploding in his vision.
He staggered with the sucker punch but got his hands up in time to block a flurry of punches.
“You are a asshole,” Ula said, rocking back and forth before him, fists raised.
“Hey,” Dan laughed, surprised. “Who taught you to say that? Was it Holly?”
Ula circled, cursing in Hobgoblin as she feinted and juked. She moved smoothly, her athletic body looking super-hot in the torchlight.
“Can’t we just call a truce or something?” he said. “Or maybe you could attack me every other day or something? Or weekly? Yeah, how about weekly?”
He batted away her jab, but she drilled him in the chest with a straight right before dancing away again.
He twisted his torso, grinning and growling at the same time. “You hit really fucking hard, you know that?”
She leapt in again, chopping at his neck, but he blocked the shot and grabbed for her shoulder. As she jerked away, his hand accidentally hooked her fur bikini top, which tore away, revealing her beautiful breasts.
Ula gasped and reflexively covered the shapely green spheres. There was something sexy in this unusual modesty and vulnerability.
Then she dropped her arms, thumped her chest, and started circling again. “Unta deel peeta feen!” she ranted.
“Deel?” he said. “Are you saying that I have a small deel again?” Right now, blood was rushing to his deel, thanks to Ula’s naked breasts bobbing up and down as she circled him.
Dan stepped to the left, as if cutting her off. A split second later, anticipating her response, he reached to the right, caught the warrior woman around the waist and hauled her into him.
She roared and tried to knee him in the nuts, but he twisted and took the shot on his hip. After weeks of daily attacks, he’d learned her tricks.
Ula tried to headbutt him. He leaned and the attack grazed off the side of his head.
Normally, he would have thrown her to the ground at this point and choked her into submission, but the courtyard was paved in stone, and he didn’t want to hurt her, so he spun her around, wrapped his arms around her from behind, and carried her toward a patch of nearby grass.
She squirmed as he carried her, and then next thing he knew, one of his hands was cupping her breast.
Ula gasped.
Her breast was smaller than Holly’s or Nadia’s but round and very firm, the tiny nipple at its center as hard as a pebble.
He tossed her to the grass.
Rather than jumping up to attack again as usual, Ula lay there, looking up at him and ranting about his dick.
“No, my deel is not feen,” he said. He grabbed his erection through his jeans and moved it up and down so she could see the shape and size of his bulge. “My deel is big. In fact, it’s huge. What’s the Hobgoblin word for gigantic?”
Ula’s insults died away, and she stared at his bulge with a hungry look in her yellow eyes. She looked hot as Hades, lying there topless, staring at his crotch with obvious desire.
And then Ula really surprised him.
Without waiting for him to choke her into submission, she rolled onto all fours, facing away from him. She lowered her head, raised her ass, and jerked down her bikini bottoms, exposing her shapely ass and red-fringed mound. In the flickering torchlight, her sex was swollen and glistening with excitement.
Lust rose in him. Not just at the sight of her but also in the memory of how her breast had felt in his hand and the strange vulnerability she had shown yielding to him without a fight.
“Please,” she moaned, using another word she’d picked up. “Please.” And reaching back, she spread herself for him.
A low growling filled the air.
Ula rolled into a defensive crouch. Dan turned, ready to fight.
A huge brown wolf stepped from the shadows, glaring at them with burning green eyes.
Ula jumped to her feet and stepped in front of Dan, ready to defend him with her life. He pushed her aside, shook his head, and pointed toward the villa. “Go,” he said. “Please.”
Ula nodded, scooped her top from the stones, and retreated into the villa.
The huge wolf watched, growling, until the hobgoblin had disappeared.
“Nadia?” Dan said. The only time that he had seen her in full-wolf form was when she attacked Dr. Lynch, a desperate, chaotic moment that had saved Dan, ended quickly, and left Nadia fading back into her human form.
But now he could really see her.
She was huge, as big as a tiger, and still growling.
Then, remembering things that she had said about not having complete control over her full-wolf form, he held out his hand and said, “Nadia, it’s me. It’s Dan.”
Suddenly, the massive wolf rose onto its hind legs, blurring as it changed, drawing into itself, the fur shrinking away. Seconds later, Nadia stood before him, her naked body pale and perfect in the torchlight
Dan sighed with relief. “Not gonna lie,” he laughed. “You had me a little worried there, love.”
Nadia stared into his eyes for a second, saying nothing, then shifted again, this time morphing into her fused form. The half-wolf’s green eyes bore into him for several seconds. Then she shifted again, returning to her full-wolf form for several seconds before shifting once more back to her human self.
“This is me,” Nadia said. “All of me. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“You were going to mount her.”
“No I wasn’t,” he said.
“I smelled your desire,” she said.
“I didn’t say that I wasn’t aroused.”
Nadia stepped close and bunched his shirt in her hands. “If you had mounted her, she would have been your wife.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know. The idea doesn’t bother me. Ula’s tough and smart and really cares about me. You saw the way she stepped between us when you showed up. She’s—”
Nadia gave him a shake. “You can’t. You can’t marry someone else before you marry me. It’s bad enough that Holly gets to be first wife. I won’t be third. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah,” he laughed, pulling her into a hug. “I’ve been wishing you’d be my wife. You know that. But you always rolled your eyes at the thought.”
“You can’t ever leave me, Dan.” Nadia’s voice was strange, muffled against his chest and throbbing with emotion. Was she crying?
“I won’t,” he said. “Not ever.”
“You left Zeke.”
“I’m not married to Zeke.”
“Zeke was pack,” Nadia said, “and you abandoned him.”
“I haven’t abandoned him,” he said, and then he stopped himself. This was old ground. Going over it again would do no good.
Besides, she didn’t need his reasoning. She needed his reassurance. He took her by the shoulders, stepped back, and stared down into her beautiful green eyes, which sparkled with tears.
“I will never leave you, Nadia,” he said, and he meant it. “I am yours, now and forever. I will live for you or die for you, but I will never, ever leave you.”
Nadia sniffed, almost smiling. “Even though you’ve seen me… shift?”
Laughter burst out of him, borne upon the pent-up tension of the moment. “I’d already seen your three forms,” he said incredulously. “Why would seeing you shift bother me?”
“The changing,” she said, obviously struggling to put her emotions into words, “the spaces between. You accepted me as Nadia, as the wolf, and in my fused form, but that was like accepting three different beings. Now, though, seeing me shift and change, you can see that I’m a monster. I’m not Nadia, I’m not the Beast, and I’m not the half-wolf. I’m all of them and none of them, all at the same time.”
He reached out, took her face in his hands, and rubbed away her tears with his thumbs. “Nadia, I love you. All of you. In all your forms and everything in-between. Nothing in this world would make me happier than to call you my wife, but no matter what you decide, I need you to know that I will never, ever abandon you.”
29
Going Hot
“No, Holly,” Dan said. “Really. Don’t do this.”
“Come back here, you crazy elf!” Nadia shouted.
But Holly had already sprinted into the night.
“Well,” Nadia said, “I guess I’d better put some clothes on.”
Thirty minutes later, Dan and Nadia stood before a sizeable oak in the main courtyard, surrounded by the entire population of Fire Ridge.
Glowing with happiness, Holly officiated.
“I, Dan Marshall of the Free, promise to love you and serve you, Nadia, through sickness and through health, as your faithful husband, until death do us part.”
And then it was done. Dan and Nadia were married.
They kissed.
The hundreds in attendance cheered joyously and crowded around them, shouting congratulations.
Even Ula, who made for a grim bridesmaid with her shining axe, grinned.
Holly embraced them both. “Now you have a real harem,” she told Dan, as if that was the greatest news in the world.
“Yeah,” he said. “Um, thanks.”
Holly kissed Nadia on the cheek. “And now we really are sister-wives.”
“That makes me so happy,” Nadia said, embracing Holly. “But don’t get too excited, elf. Dan’s all mine tonight.”
Dan pulled Nadia up against him. “Sounds great to me,” he said, and they hurried back to the villa.
Their wedding night was wonderful. They had the villa to themselves. They talked and laughed, made love and just lay in one another’s arms, cuddling.
At some point, Dan drifted happily into sleep.
When he woke early the next morning, Nadia was propped onto one shoulder and staring down at him. “I’m so happy,” she said, and kissed him.
“Me too,” he said, and he was. Marriage wouldn’t change much between them in terms of lifestyle, but it was a real commitment, a forever commitment, a commitment he was excited to honor.
He was relieved to see his new wife was still happy this morning. After her recent moodiness and the abruptness of their marriage, a small part of him had been worried that they had moved too quickly, but her shining eyes and bright, easy smile put those fears to rest.
“I was restless for so long,” she said.
He laughed. “You think?”
“But now I feel calm and happy. At last, I have my pack.”
“Your family.”
She nodded. “No more wondering, no more worrying about the future.” She kissed him. “I’m so happy that you’re my husband.”
“And I’m so happy that you’re my wife.”
Nadia sat up and repositioned herself, kneeling on the bed beside him and leaning slightly forward with a sly look on her face. At the sight of her perfect, spherical breasts swaying back and forth, he felt himself growing hard.
“I can’t wait to have kids,” she said, beaming with excitement.
“You’ll be a great mom,” he said.
Nadia just looked at him for a moment, her smile getting a bit wider. “Let’s start trying right away. Well, in a few weeks, at the next full moon.”
Dan sat up and laughed nervously. “Wow, we’ve been married for how many hours, and you already want to have kids?”
“When I said my vows, I went all in,” she said. “You know I love kids. Now that I’ve decided my path, why wait?”
Dan shrugged. He felt off balance. This was big news and a huge decision, but everything she said made sense. The thought of having children filled him with both excitement and dread.
“You don’t think we should wait a couple of years?” he asked. “I mean, we’re both in school, and lately we’ve been hiking all over and killing people and stuff. Shouldn’t we wait until we’re, I don’t know… more settled?”
Nadia laughed. “We don’t have to wait until we’re old and boring to have kids. Besides, you’re kidding yourself if you think that you’re going to settle down and live some normal life.
“Holly’s right. You’re going to do great things, attract a powerful harem, and build a huge family. Holly might be first wife, but I want to be first mother.”
As Nadia talked, a grin came onto her face. She was making sense. If Dan waited for some long, boring stretch, he wouldn’t have kids until he was ancient. After Griselda killed him, he hadn’t returned to this new world in order to settle down and swap adventuring for mowing and mulching. He’d come back for the three things he’d wished for on that fateful day in the library: gold, girls, and glory.
“Besides,” Nadia said. “Aren’t you excited to meet them?”
“Who?”
“Our kids!”
“Oh,” Dan said, and for a second, he let the question sink in, picturing how their offspring might look and act. Then he smiled. “Yeah, I guess I am.” His smile turned into laughter. “I definitely am. I hope they have your eyes.”
On his way across the yard, he smiled to see that the residents of Fire Ridge were already up and at it without his prodding. Elves and gnomes offered congratulations as he passed.
“Lord Dan,” Jorbin said, “a question for you.”
Dan followed the potbellied little man to the rear of the warehouse, where now stood a massive pile of dirt and rocks. It was easily ten feet high and twice as wide. Tons and tons of dirt and rock.
“Where the Hades did all of that come from?”
Jorbin smiled proudly. “We worked on the tunnel last night.”
Dan nodded. They sure had worked. “And you carried that up here all by bucket?”
Jorbin nodded. “We formed an assembly line. It’s the gnomish way, Lord. Many hands make light buckets, we always say.”
“Great work,” Dan said, “but don’t wear yourselves out digging. Roderick’s Raiders could be here in just a few weeks, and there’s still a lot of work to do.”
Jorbin puffed out his chest like a fighting rooster. “We are a mining people, Lord. If anything, this work will give us more energy.”
Dan shrugged. “Great, then. Have a good one.”
But before he could leave, Jorbin said, “What do you want us to do with the dirt, Lord?”
Dan paused to think, frowning at the huge mound. “That’s a lot of dirt.” He started to think about what they could do with it, then slammed on the brakes. “You know more about dirt and rocks than I ever will. What would you recommend?”
Jorbin’s smile told Dan that he’d made a smart move, asking the gnome’s opinion. “We could reinforce the main gate. Place the biggest stones at the base and ramp the earth up against the wood.”
“Excellent idea,” Dan said.
Jorbin beamed, and suddenly, Dan realized that while the gnome had worked dutifully as a common laborer, he could do much more for the community.
“You’re in charge of this project,” Dan said. “How many gnomes do you need?”
Jorbin rubbed his bearded jaw. “Six should suffice, Lord.”
“Good,” Dan said. “Choose your crew and get straight to it. I’m counting on you to make that gate strong.”
“We will, Lord!”
Cutting across the main courtyard, Dan felt pretty good. Old-world Dan had never been a leader.
Now he was learning leadership on the fly.
“Husband!” Holly called from the guard tower. “Come see what we’ve done!”
Dan ran up the stairs, filled with excitement.
“We have a wedding present for you,” Holly said, ushering him into the tower, where her crew of elves and gnomes stood around the Fist of Fury, practically glowing with excitement.
