Chapter 4: Naked Truth

The next morning we decided to modify our route a bit, deciding to travel along the river and wash up once we found a slow shallow spot and then to head towards the nearest town, which we would probably reach the day after, to sell the cockatrice meat before it could spoil. Bags of holding didn't stop meat from going bad though they did slow down the process quite a bit, saving us from having to rush to the nearest settlement.

Thankfully we didn't run into any larger groups of foes that day. The scouting party had probably been sent way ahead and nothing worth noting attacked us in the forest except for a wild boar whose territory we had accidentally crossed and which yielded yet more meat for us to put away.

For lunch we had some of the jerky as well as some berries and nuts we'd picked up along the way and then we finally found a nice shallow part of the river to bathe in properly. After a bit of back and forth we'd decided to bathe in shifts. I'd wanted to let the women bathe together but Alisha had insisted on Selene going first, saying something about protecting her being our job and not just my job.

“So," I asked Alisha while we were keeping watch. “How is it? Traveling in a group where everybody treats you normally, I mean?"

She smiled. “Freeing. And stifling. On the one hand I've never felt so useful, so accepted. On the other hand, this is the first real bit of alone time we've gotten since we departed."

I felt a blush coming on. “Alone time, huh? Is that something you want?"

She blushed as well but nodded.

I asked: “Can I ask a dumb question?"

“You just did," she said and I stuck my tongue out at her.

“I always thought elves were against relationships with humans but you don't seem to mind."

Her ears twitched and I immediately thought I'd said something wrong, but then she shook her head. “The Light Elves think so, not us. Elves are a dying race. There's still quite a lot of us but we breed so much slower than you humans. An elven couple can spend up to a year of constantly sleeping together before the woman finally gets pregnant. The Light Elves reacted to this by outlawing relations with humans and forcing their women to breed. Us Wood Elves instead found another way."

“Oh?" I asked.

“We realized that a relationship between a human and an elf is almost as fruitful as one between two humans, as are relationships between an elf and a half-elf. On top of that, the children elves have with half-elves are indistinguishable from purebred elves. So we are encouraged to mate with humans or half-elves to keep our race alive."

I asked without thinking about it: “So I'm fine because I'm a human?"

She looked annoyed. “You know that's not true. If I only cared about making my father happy and being with a human I would have stayed with the Chosen One. But I didn't. I want you because..." she trailed off.

“Yes?" I prompted.

“It probably sounds really stupid to anyone but me," she said.

“I doubt it," I said.

She made an exasperated sound and said: “Alright. I want you because you treat me as a person. There."

“You lost me," I told her.

“See?" she asked.

“Come on, try to help me understand you."

She huffed and stayed quiet for a while, but then explained: “All my life nobody really cared about me, just about what I was. My father only saw me as a daughter he could marry off for a political advantage. My mothers didn't see me as much more than that either. They taught me to be a housewife and that was it. They only accepted my decision to become a priestess when I told them it'd make me a more attractive prospect for marriage. The Chosen One, too, treated me like a commodity, something that had been given to him just like his sword and his armor.
“But you? You talk to me. You value my input. You value my powers. You treat me as an equal partner. You apologize for underestimating me. Before you came along, the only one who saw me as a person and not as a commodity was my goddess."

I snorted. She shoved me.

“I'm serious. I know you have your issues with the gods but it's different for clerics. We don't just pray to our gods, we communicate with them. Any god worth praying to knows all their clerics by name and speaks to them as people, knows where they are on their journey and wants to know what ails them. And you do the same. You value me. And you're incidentally not hard on the eyes either."

I smiled. “I'm glad. I was a bit hesitant to start something with you, worried that you did this out of some sense of obligation. I mean, you're kind of too good to be true. You're smart, witty, far more powerful than I gave you credit for and breathtakingly gorgeous. But if it's mutual I won't hesitate any longer." I said the last part while turning to look at her.

She smiled and said: “Good." Then she kissed me. Now that we knew where we stood there was a new sense of belonging between us and we lost ourselves in the kiss a little until we heard a branch snapping.

Suddenly alert we looked around until we saw what had made the noise: Selene had finished bathing and dressing and was walking back to us, drying her hair with a towel.

“Alright, your turn," she told us. I wasn't sure whether she'd seen us but honestly I didn't really care. I did, however, notice how cute she looked with her hair wet and the sight of a drop of water trailing down between her breasts was rather distracting. Gods but I was a bastard. I'd only just been kissing a beauty I didn't deserve and only seconds later I found myself admiring another woman.

Alisha and I undressed close to each other but kept our eyes turned away from each other. Or rather, I did my best not to sneak glances but I didn't know whether she returned the favor. Eventually we both got into the water and started washing up.

A few minutes later she called: “If you scrub my back for me I'll do yours afterwards."

I swallowed and told her: “Sure. Turn your back to me?"

I waited to a count of five and then turned towards her and saw her naked backside. By all the gods. She was thin so her curves weren't too pronounced but still more than good enough to forget yourself over. Her skin was flawless and the way her wet hair clung to her back was mesmerizing. I swallowed again and stepped up to her before she could make a comment about me taking too long.

“Can you pull your hair out of the way, please?" I asked and she complied.

I grabbed the bar of soap she'd placed on a rock jutting out of the water and used it on her back, then grabbed the brush and began to scrub her back with it. When I was done it was a herculean struggle to take my hands off her. As I wasn't Hercules I lost and traced my fingers down her spine and traced the outlines of her shoulder blades.

“All done," I told her and kissed the back of her neck.

She moaned, then told me: “Thanks, now it's your turn."

I turned around quickly and almost immediately I felt her rubbing the bar of soap against my back and then she scrubbed me with the brush and I was more than shocked to find out just how pleasant getting my back washed by someone else felt. When she was done she, too, had trouble taking her hands off me. She felt the muscles in my shoulders for a bit and then wrapped an arm around me and pulled me closer to whisper “Payback" into my ear before catching one of my nipples between two fingers. It wasn't particularly warm in the stream so they already stood at attention and when she realized that she reached around with her other hand to squeeze the other nipple too. Then I felt her lips on the side of my neck and she pulled me even closer until I could feel her breasts pressed against my back. My cock twitched in response.

After about a minute of this her right hand dipped down and found how hard I was. She gasped, then wrapped her hand around it and slowly started pumping it.

“Selene... is sitting... just a few yards away," I told her, gasping. Despite my protests I was bucking my hips in rhythm with her pumping.

She chuckled and said oh so reasonably: “That's several yards more that we've had to work with so far. Also she's looking in the opposite direction." Her other hand dipped down as well and started gently cupping my balls and she whispered in my ear, her lips damn near touching my earlobe: “I want to make you cum so bad. I want to feel you lose control because of me. I want you to show me that I'm driving you crazy."

Then she started squeezing harder and pumping faster. It wasn't that her technique was that great, but the feeling of these soft, cool fingers on my dick, the wet breasts pressed against my back and her warm breath against my neck were driving me wild. She had me bucking and moaning and I worried that my knees would give out.

“You'll get your wish real soon if you keep this up," I told her, feeling my orgasm building.

“So," she said, out of the blue. “Selene is pretty cute, isn't she?"

I groaned. “Is this really the time?" I asked, bucking my hips harder.

“I wouldn't mind having her along, is all I'm saying. Just imagine it: I'd eat her out while you watched and cheer you on while you fucked her. Then I'd lick both your juices off you and let you fuck me as well." I groaned again, and visions of what she was describing flashed before me.

She chuckled, then switched tactics. With her left hand she pulled my foreskin back and squeezed the base, revealing the tip soaked in precum. With her right hand she made a tight fist around the head and started rubbing it hard, using my own lubrication to stimulate the most sensitive parts as hard as possible. I groaned and started bucking even harder into the tightness of her fist until I came hard, spurting more and more and more into her hand and finally into the water of the stream when her hand couldn't hold any more. My knees didn't quite give out but it was a near thing. When I came down from the high I turned around and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close and kissing her hard, mashing our lips together. I could feel my dick smearing the last of my juices on her belly but neither of us cared.

“I told you," I said in between kisses, “if you kept this up I'd return the favor."

She smiled into the next kiss before replying: “I was betting on that."

“Good," I said, before lifting her up and placing her butt on a nice flat rock jutting out of the water. She squeaked but I cut it off with another kiss and told her: “Remember, Selene is just yards away."

She groaned but kept mostly quiet.

I meanwhile kissed my way along her jawline, to her throat, then down to her breasts. Good gods, those breasts. They weren't all that big, but I'd never seen such perky breasts and such cute tiny nipples. I kissed each in turn before squeezing them together and kissing her cleavage, then blew a breath on the skin to make it erupt into goose-flesh. She exhaled hard and I continued kissing my way down her stomach, avoiding the spot I'd stained with the last of my cum before. I kissed her mound and then switched tactics. I spread her legs far apart and saw the cutest pink little pussy I'd ever laid eyes on, completely smooth and with no hair to hide it. But I ignored it for now. Instead I focused on the insides of her thighs, first the left, then the right, kissing and sucking and nibbling, making sure to leave a few hickeys on her flawless skin, marking her.

“Stop teasing me," she whined but I wasn't going to go easy on her after what she'd done, so next I placed a kiss on each labia and licked over her clit, just once, then watched her twitch in response. She growled and grabbed me by my hair to pull me closer. I let her, for now, and dove right in, looping my arms under her legs to hold the small of her back with my hands. She tasted the way her body smelled, like holly, honey and pine, but with subtle notes of citrus and I thought I might get lost in her flavor alone. I lapped eagerly, licking each part, suckling and nibbling, testing out what she enjoyed most and then repeating that. I could tell I was doing something right because soon I felt her rolling her hips, grinding them against my face, trying to feel more and more.

“Oh goddess I'm so close," she gasped and I stopped.

She stared down and I told her, my face just inches away from her soaking wet pussy: “Beg me."

She groaned, then said: “Please Felix, please let me come, please."

I obliged and sucked her clit into my mouth. She gasped, then pushed herself against me as hard as she could and then she screamed and my face was suddenly drenched in her juices.

Then I heard Selene sprinting towards us, screaming: “Alisha, are you alr—" I didn't see her but I could tell when she saw us, could almost see the expression on her face shifting from fear and worry to embarrassment and annoyance as she asked: “Really?"

I didn't know which of us she meant but Alisha certainly didn't help things when the elf told her: “You could join us if you want."

I didn't see Selene's reaction because I didn't dare turn around and still had an eyeful of Alisha's body, her skin still reddened from the slowly receding orgasm. She looked away from Selene and back to me and smiled, then started stroking my hair and said wistfully:

“So much for afterglow."

**

I was rather proud of myself when I realized that I was still able to look Selene in the eyes after what had happened and shocked when I caught her blushing a few times. Apparently we'd made quite an impression on her.

Eventually we found ourselves a nice little cave to overnight in. After making sure it wasn't occupied we set up a small campfire and made a stew with some of the boar meat, some wine and some cream as well as a few mushrooms we'd picked along the way. Between Alisha and me we were pretty good at identifying the edible ones and I counted it as a sign of growing trust that Selene ate them without hesitation. Dinner conversation jumped between hilarious and mortifying as Alisha tried to get Selene to talk about her sexual experiences or lack thereof and Selene less and less subtly stating that she didn't want to talk about it with me around. Was Alisha seriously trying to get Selene to join us in whatever it was we had? I did notice that Selene did a lot more blushing and a lot less refusing than I had been expecting.

Once we'd cleaned our dishes we decided on shifts again and I once again took the middle shift though this time it was Selene waking me up for my shift.

Everything went as expected until roughly halfway through my shift, when I could hear shuffling in the underbrush. I rummaged in my bag of holding and pulled out a monocle and a whistle made of glass, both minor magic items. The monocle allowed me to see in the dark as well as in bright daylight but with the caveat that looking at anything actually bright (like the campfire behind me) would be incredibly painful and the glass whistle let out a disproportionately loud sound when blown. The monocle revealed a group of bandits, five to be exact, sneaking towards the light of the fire, knives already drawn.

I had two options. One, deal with them and only use the whistle to wake Selene and Alisha when I needed help. Two, use the whistle now and wake them up immediately but also lose the element of surprise. As they might have already seen me illuminated by the fire I chose option two and whistled. The sound was brutal, like a kettle going off right next to your ear. I saw the bandits hesitate.

First mistake. I'd already drawn the cloak of invisibility over myself and vanished into the dark woods. They saw me vanishing and split their group in half, two searching for me and three advancing on the cave.

Second mistake. I ambushed one of the two who hadn't gone near the cave and knocked him out with the wooden sword I'd drawn. I had no scruples killing goblins and only a few scruples killing orcs under a Dark Lord's control but bandits were just people. I mean sure, if we handed them over to the authorities it was possibly the gallows for them, but still. I'd kill them if I had to but only then. The other guy searching for me stared down at his fallen companion.

Third mistake. He didn't even see me before he, too, got hit in the back of the head and dropped. I jogged back to the cave to find all three other bandits trying to stare down Selene. Alisha was hiding behind her, the butterfly wings folded behind her back and she was chanting a spell but I couldn't see what exactly she was doing. Selene was trying to argue with them and they were telling her what they were going to do once they'd knocked the girls out. Then, one of the bandits started wordlessly struggling, then fell down in a heap. Selene seemed a little surprised but schooled her face. The one who'd fallen had stood behind the other two and they hadn't even noticed. Then the next one started struggling and this time his buddy caught on but instead of going for the girls he stared at his partners.

Fourth mistake. When he reached for his weapon he too started struggling and choking. It was over. I made sure to make noise as I walked the rest of the way back and told them: “Good job. How'd you knock them out so quickly?"

Selene and I both looked to Alisha, who shrugged. “I pulled the air out of their lungs until they fainted. They'll be up soon. I didn't want to kill them if I didn't have to."

That... was terrifying. But also really useful to keep in mind. If we had someone in our group who could non-lethally disable people without even causing a sound we could subdue groups with minimal risk if we got the drop on them. We ended up tying them up with a magical rope from my bag of holding, enchanted so that only the one who tied the knots could untie them again, and used a tincture to keep them knocked them out so we could sleep soundly the rest of the night.

The next morning the bandits weren't all that happy with us until we explained to them in no uncertain terms what we could have done to them and what we would be doing instead, namely to hand them over to the nearest post of the royal guard we could find. They had a post in almost every village after all. The royal guard would then call for someone to take the bandits to the nearest city where they could be tried. Maybe they'd just serve long prison sentences if they were lucky. I stopped caring roughly an hour after we'd started marching them towards the nearest village when one of them kept telling us what he'd be doing to Alisha if he wasn't tied up.

I was just about to forget all my convictions when I felt Selene gently wrap a hand around my closed fist. “Relax," she told me quietly. "They can't do anything and this is just bluster. They're trying to get to you. Don't give them the satisfaction."

I exhaled, then stroked her arm and nodded my thanks.

Around noon we stopped for a bite and a drink and one of the bandits, namely the one who'd been sharing his fantasies about Alisha, asked whether they could have some water and I imagine Alisha got no small measure of satisfaction from drinking her fill and then emptying her canteen on the ground in front of him.

The rest of the journey to the village we'd picked out was uneventful, which was probably a good thing as the bandits would have made great decoys if we'd had to run away from anything. We arrived in the afternoon, which ended up annoying the royal guard members assigned to the village. As they explained it to us, the carriage to move the bandits would only arrive the day after, which meant they had to put the bandits up in their holding cell and feed them. But I had no sympathy to spare. I paid my tithe for precisely that reason. Though, to be fair, I did slip them a few mun for their trouble. It wasn't bribery if you were just thanking them in advance for what they were supposed to do anyway.

**

After getting rid of the bandits we decided to head straight for the inn, where we noticed a big obvious hole in the thatched roof, visible from a little elevated position on the way. As we entered the inn people immediately recognized Selene's outfit and what it meant and offered to get us settled in and to have us fed in the tavern when it was time for dinner. Smiling, Alisha made sure to tell the innkeeper we would only be needing two rooms and then gave me a sly smile that had me swallowing, which she apparently managed to pick up on if I interpreted her ear twitching correctly. After handing us the keys to our rooms he suggested we check out the village for a bit until it was time for dinner and we took him up on that. Before exiting I asked about the hole in the roof.

“Damnedest thing," he told us, shrugging. “Dead goblin fell from the sky and crashed straight through the roof last night. Scared the guests half to death."