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Chapter Text

Atene scratched Torrex’s chin. Standing in a courtyard of marble, they looked to the vast fields of grass beyond. It was still day, but the skies of Azyr were dark, and the heavenly bodies were as clear as if it were midnight. She smiled as he purred – the feeling was strong enough to travel the length of her arm – and she batted his tongue away when he tried to lick her cheek. Ever since they’d met, he’d been physical like that. He’d rub against her leg as they walked, nuzzle her neck when they slept, or curl around her waist as she prayed. It was easier when he was as small as a gryph-hound. But he was a Draconith – a six-limbed celestial dragon with scales as rich as the ocean’s blue – and now, twice the size of a horse. His neck alone was as long as Atene’s entire body. When he nudged her, she had to fight to stay standing, when they slept, he almost suffocated her, and when she kneeled in prayer, she could hardly see the stars above.

Though, she thought as he snuck past her hand and drew his slimy tongue from her chin up to an eye, his size made him a strong mount to ride, a warm body to sleep beside, and a welcome companion in times of solitude. And he wasn’t even finished growing – the oldest Draconith were as large as buildings . It took hundreds of years, of course, and Torrex was hardly in what could be considered his adult years. Whenever she remembered that, he seemed again as small as the day they met: so tiny she could hold him in her arms. 

He pushed his head into her chest and knocked her flat on her ass. She yelped as she fell and hissed after landing. “You’re very large. I can tell,” she said, pulling herself up by a strap on his saddle. If she were a mortal woman, the fall might have broken her tail bone. But she was a Stormcast: one of the mighty warriors of Sigmar’s divine host. Rescued from the moment before death by his celestial might, her body and soul were reforged in the image of a god – she was nearly seven feet tall and looked as if a sculptor had carved her from the polished marble they walked on. A divine rear-end she may have had, but that fall still hurt. 

She had a thought to chastise Torrex, but he was already nuzzling her side and looking up at her with amber eyes that shone like stars. His snout got caught on her robe, and it looked as if he had a beard of silk. She pushed him away with a laugh. 

A shadow raced overhead. Its trailing winds pulled her robe against her legs and back. Far too close – she knew he did it on purpose – Veros struck the courtyard like a bolt of thunder. He rode atop Aremis, his own Draconith mount, who posed proudly as he shook a mop of curls free from his helmet and made sure the light of Hysh framed his face. “You’re as elusive as ever,” he said in a voice that rang like a church bell. “But as I recall, the objective of the exercise was to unseat me, not run away.”

Atene said, “Aremis was too defensive. We couldn’t reach you.”

“So you fled?”

“We survived.” She cleared her throat. “Sir.” 

Veros was a Knight-Draconis, one of the higher ranking members of their order of the Stormdrake Guard – those elite few Stormcast who managed to bond with a Draconith. He slid from the saddle and swaggered toward her. His bronze armour – which he was almost never without – shone so brightly she had to cover her eyes. “I suppose someone will have to carry the legends of my valour back to the halls of this keep. Sigmar knows I’ll be too busy making new ones.”

“Of course. Sir.”

He went to put a hand on her shoulder, but Torrex rested his head there and scowled at him. Atene didn’t know why Torrex was always so grumpy around Veros. She wondered if he just hated that patch of scruffy hair on his chin. “There’s going to be a celebration tonight,” he said. “It’s for no occasion, but I think we’ve earned a little fun. I’m sure Erice would appreciate you being there.”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“Can I expect your appearance?”

“I’ll consider it, sir.”

He nodded, then patted her arm. Torrex growled. Veros looked at him like he was a petulant child. “You said mine was defensive?”

“He’ll warm up to you eventually,” Atena said.

“We’ll give it another century. Regardless, I don’t need him to like me. I have Aremis for that.” He snapped his fingers, and she snaked her neck around his chest. She purred as he drew circles under her chin, then nuzzled his face and licked at his jaw. “It looks like someone needs her scales polished.”

“Then I won’t keep you.”

“I don’t think she’d let you if you tried.” Aremis practically dragged Veros away. “Wretched thing,” he said, following her to the aviary in the mountains where all the Draconith roosted. All the Draconith except Torrex. He had stayed in Atene’s chambers ever since he learned she had her own – his child-like attachment was the butt of many jokes over their long years together and Atene had learned to play along with them. What she kept to herself was her appreciation for his company. She didn’t hate the other Stormcast. But she never felt as if she were one of them.

To be a Stormcast, one had to seek a death of valour and courage. Those who lived as champions would be saved by a bolt of divine thunder and brought to the forges of Azyr to be remade. Those who lived in mediocrity died in it. Atene had not lived as a hero. She could not remember how she died.

Most of her new existence was spent among warriors – as a warrior – yet the tales of heroism she heard, and what she had done so little of, left her feeling as if one day Sigmar himself would descend from the heavens and declare her entire existence a jest. A mere trick, put on for the amusement of all around her.

Torrex purred and leaned into her. Atene chuckled and pushed back with her shoulder. She wrapped her arms as far around his neck as she could reach and held him as they walked. By Sigmar’s grace she was reborn, but it was only when she found Torrex that Atene started to live again.

Towering above the courtyard was the Stormkeep – the local base of her Stormhost’s operations. It was made from white marble and rich bronze – a fortress of spires and columns, and a maze of winding streets filled with intricately carved buildings. Though it was also built above one, the Stormkeep was a city unto itself. The mortals who worked there quickly grew used to the sight of the demigod soldiers and their monstrous mounts, and Atene was thankful for how little attention they paid her. The other Stormcast were friendlier. She was given nods and salutations by most who saw her, and she returned them all, without ever looking another in the eyes.

The Stormdrake Guard were among the upper echelons of any Stormhost, and the privilege Atene was most thankful for were the private barracks. She was afforded an entire room to herself. It was an open, circular chamber with an inset floor. All her furnishings – the pile of pillows and blankets she called a bed, her book cases, weapon racks, and other accoutrements – were along the wall, and a bath was cut into the centre of the floor. Above it, there was no ceiling. The skies were open to her, and it was how Torrex most often came and went.

She shut the heavy bronze doors behind them. The clang echoed in the quiet room. Torrex slipped past her and lounged near the bath, basking in the last light of Hysh. It made the marble shine and the bronze burn like fire. 

Atene could have described the way Torrex sat as regal, if not for how clumsy she knew he could be. She smiled at the memory, sat next to him, and started to run her hand along his side. He purred and the entire chamber seemed to rumble with him. 

Atene sang. It was a quiet song she knew from her life before, but she could not remember where she learned it, or why it made her heart ache. Each reforging, from the first into perpetuity, saw the Stormcast lose a piece of themselves: a face they knew, the memory of home, or even their mortal name. Nothing was sacred beneath the hammer of a god. 

She and Torrex were alike in many ways. They were born into wars they did not start, could not finish, and would die in service of. Neither the first among their peers, nor the last, they found solace only in each other. They had no family. They would fight, they would die, and one day, if they were lucky, they might be remembered for their deeds, else be lost to eternity like a mortal’s soul.

Her hand slid lower, across his stomach, and he leaned into her touch. It didn’t have to be that way. Atene was confined to the immortal service of Sigmar’s war – true death for a Stormcast was merely delayed – and could live no life outside it, but Torrex was Draconith – a mighty creature, yet still a beast. Though his existence was bound by treaties signed before he had even hatched, he was not a soldier as she was. When the Draconith were not called upon, they could soar freely, mingle among themselves, and live their lives as they saw fit. So why did he stay with her?

She rubbed circles on his stomach and traced the line of his hips.

There was nothing stopping him from flying to the mountains. He could soar through their peaks among the other Draconith, find one who suited him and–

Atene stopped singing. A deep blush spread across her cheeks. Torrex looked at her and she had to look away.

There was certainly nothing stopping him from doing any of that . It was imperative that the Draconith breed a new generation. It was a morbid, embarrassing thought, but true. Pragmatism trumped baser ethics in times like these.

There was nothing stopping Atene from doing any of that, either. She blushed deeper. Stormcast were incapable of breeding – the reforging saw to that – but there was no edict decreeing they could not… enjoy the process of trying. Sigmar knows she had received her share of offers – from mortal and Stormcast alike.

Why she had turned them down, she could not say. Whenever it happened, she would blush and tell them they were very kind, then return to her chambers and stay there until Veros started knocking. She wasn’t against the thought. In fact, she had many thoughts about that thought – thoughts of mortal and Stormcast alike. But she enjoyed them in the privacy of her chamber, in the times when even Torrex was gone and she prayed Sigmar was not watching. But, she decided as the heat in her face and chest started to spread lower, that that line of thinking had gone quite far enough. 

She touched something wet.

Atene jerked her hand back and her head toward it. There was a slit between Torrex’s legs oozing a clear, viscous fluid. Then something slid out. It was the size of her fingertip, purple, and covered with a sheen of slime. It pulsed in-time with what could only be Torrex’s heart, and with each quickening beat, it grew further. She watched in a bewildered trance, her eyes locked on its length as what seemed like an endless amount of flesh slid out from between his legs. It lay against his thigh, then started to swell. Atene could see his pulse ripple along it as it grew longer, thicker, harder, until it stood rigid, erect, and pointed directly at her.

It was his… manhood, she finally realised. His cock .

It didn’t look like any cock she could remember. It was too thick, and purplish, with a tapered head and a dripping coat of clear fluid. Torrex grumbled in his deep baritone. The power of his voice carried through the floor and into Atene’s body, mingling with the growing tremble that took her limbs. Her hand hovered in the air above his member. He growled. Torrex thrusted his hips as if she already touched him and his cock flexed – a bead of his pre gathered on its tip then, at the base, it swelled out even further, and from the slit, two bulging knots of flesh slipped out. 

Atene gasped. The size of it was enough to surprise her – she had seen enough of her comrades to know that Sigmar never blessed his chosen with anything quite like this – but what she was taken most by was just how alien it looked. She leaned forward. It should be ugly. She should be disgusted. Indifferent, at the very least. 

So why did she lean even closer?

Torrex was watching her. His amber eyes bore into her own as his hot breaths filled the air and spilled over her body. Her own breath was heavy. She saw him only through the corner of her eyes, because they were locked on his cock.

How long had it been since she’d known the touch of a man? Never, since her rebirth. Before that, in her mortal life? She couldn’t even remember.

It was not that Torrex was a man, she reminded herself. He was Draconith. A beast. A magnificent one, to be sure, but a beast all the same. 

One with all the makings of a man.

His chest was broad. His entire body was well-muscled. He had a strong jaw and his entire form radiated power. There was his cock to consider, as well.

Sigmar knows she was considering it.

Atene looked to the open ceiling of their chamber and the vast expanse of the heavens above.

She hoped Sigmar didn’t know.

Torrex certainly did. His lips pulled back and a growl rumbled in his chest. She felt no threat from the gesture – he could be impatient, that was all. But what was he waiting for? What did he expect her to do?

She couldn’t lay with him. It was unthinkable. So why was she thinking it? Atene forced the thoughts aside. 

It would be cruel to leave him like this. After all, was she not the reason he’d felt this way? Had her touch not drawn this from him? Her thoughts? The deepest connection between a Stormcast and their mount transcended mundane boundaries – one could feel the other's thoughts like a whisper in their own. Had Torrex felt hers? Or had she felt his?

At that moment, it didn’t seem to matter, for what could she do?

Torrex watched her. She looked into his amber eyes. His head turned low and his eyes were lidded – almost sultry. His tongue, wet and long, slid past dagger-fangs and snaked through the air. He was tasting it. Her cheeks – already flushed – burned crimson when she smelled it. 

There was a heat in her core that ran lower. Down, between her legs. She rubbed her thighs together and felt the warm wetness of her sex. They looked into each other’s eyes as his cock flexed and her thighs ground together and the seeping warmth between them burned.

Atene sucked in a breath, then stood. She fought to steady her breathing and wrung the skirt of her robe. She turned, then looked over her shoulder but was unable to meet his gaze. “I’ll give you some space.”

She left the room with stiff, unsteady steps and knew that Torrex watched her the entire time.

–

Every flight ended the same – they retired to their chambers, Torrex bared himself, and Atene left. What she didn’t realise is that every time, she stayed a little longer, and her hand reached a little closer.

–

For the entirety of the exercise, Atene could focus on nothing except the feeling of him between her legs: the heat of his body, the smooth slide of his scales, his steady breathing, and the powerful drumbeat of his heart.

They raced beneath the stars faster than the comets between them. Not even Aremis could match Torrex in his flying. It was erratic and daring – harrowing yet thrilling manoeuvres that forced her to hold him close and press her body against his. Their flights had always been exhilarating, but when they landed, she knew it was not a lust for the skies that left her breath heavy and her heart quickened.

Not even waiting for Veros, she slid off the saddle and hastened to their chamber, daring not to look back. By the time she’d reached the centre of the room and started to calm herself, Torrex was still following with slow, casual steps.

She watched from over her shoulder as he curled on the floor and licked his paw. He rested on his side, his chest and belly out. It was not all she could see. Already, the slit between his legs widened. The head of his cock slipped through. Her breath caught when she saw that he was watching her, too. 

The fabric of her gown hung close to her body. Though it obscured her musculature, the trim curve of her waist and the swell of her hips seemed all-too apparent. 

Atene folded her arms across her chest, as if to cover it. Torrex never looked away, even as she did and, slowly, walked toward him. “I’ve known you since you were young. Nothing but a little drake, not even the length of my arm. Veros said you hatched the day I was first reforged.” She knelt and slid her hand across his chest. Then, down his stomach. He purred, a rumbling sound that went along her arm and into her breast. Atene sighed. “We have grown with each other – two halves of one whole. Sigmar’s champions. We are the lightning and the thunder. The calm and the storm.” His cock grew – a steady swelling as it already oozed from the tip. She circled his belly, tracing the definition of his musculature and the grooves on his hips that seemed to point her to his manhood. The heat of his body was matched only by that of her core. Her thighs rubbed together, involuntarily, and she snaked her fingers between them. “Yet we are human and beast. It would be perverse. Wrong.” 

He growled. It shook her entire body yet the sound ended pitifully, almost a whine. It was met by her own that slipped past her lips as her fingers slid through the ones between her legs. She rubbed the inside of his thighs. His cock flexed and a jet of clear, viscous fluid slapped across her lap. Its smell – like ozone – struck her and she groaned. Her fingers quickened and she rubbed at the skin around the bulge of his base. “But we are man and woman, also.” She looked into his amber eyes, glazed with want, hers lidded with shameful arousal. “Is it wrong that we become one?”

Atene slid her hand across the length of his cock, moaning in time with her exploration of it. It was hot. She could feel it even before she touched the flesh but as her fingers slid across its slick length, she half-expected steam to follow. Torrex’s head fell back. When she reached the tip, she wrapped her fingers around it. Her hand was already drenched with its fluids – it spilled between her fingers and ran down, past her wrist and arm as she twisted around the thin, tapered head. Torrex groaned, almost a roar. 

She stroked him in a frantic rhythm in tandem with her own pleasuring. His cock was as rigid as iron yet the flesh was supple beneath her soft touch. The longer she stroked him, the harder she gripped. Droplets of his arousal fell onto Atene, his own body, and the floor around them. The air was stained with their smell and filled with a wet, slapping sound.

“You’ve wanted this, haven’t you?”

Her pace quickened. Torrex thrusted into her hand. His tongue fell past his lips and he growled, constant and low.

“How long have you waited, watching? How long have you wanted me?”

Her hand was a blur and desperate, coiling pressure built in her core. Her fingers danced between her folds and teased at her clit. But she couldn’t take her eyes off his cock. Its length. The thickness. The smell filled her mind and she imagined the taste – the feeling of it inside her mouth – its texture on her tongue. She imagined him above her, his body blocking all light as he guided that cock between her legs and split her body on its girth – the pulsing thickness as it filled the aching emptiness in her core. What would it be like? To feel him thrusting into her? Taking all of her in a way no other had as she writhed beneath him, and that cock filled her and spilled its load across her chest, down her throat, between her legs, and–

“Sigmar help me, I want you too!”

Her thighs tensed, her breath hitched, her eyes screwed shut, and relief came like the roll of thunder across every quivering muscle in her body as sweat dripped down her brow, between her breasts and the world seemed to fade – all except her, the wracking pleasure she knew, and Torrex in her hand.

He roared, long and loud. His hips jerked and ropes of his release splattered onto his belly. Atene felt distant and numb, and she could do nothing but watch as his stomach flexed and heaved as his cock kept pulsing and more cum kept jetting out. The scales of his underbelly were pale before but now seemed as alabaster as the marble floor beneath him. It, too, was covered in his cum. 

She held him near his base. He grinded the knot against her hand. She had stopped touching herself after her release, but Torrex grumbled and the sound seemed so sweet to her, and as he writhed under her touch, he seemed again the little drake she met all those years ago.

The fingers between her sopping thighs started again. She teased her drenched lips and the swollen bud at their peak, trembling as fresh waves rolled across her quivering body. 

Torrex’s musk already filled the room like the Dark Prince’s perfume, but when his hips stopped moving and his cock finally seemed to still, she took her hand from it. She watched with lidded eyes as the sheer volume of his release fell from her fingers in thick, sticky streams, then brought them close and smelled his release as if it were a bouquet of Ghyran’s sweetest flowers.

It was pungent. Electric. Like the storm itself. It was unbearably masculine.

She came again.

When her mind settled, as if floating down on clouds, and her body stopped shaking, the first thing she noticed was the sound of her own panting. She held her cum-drenched hand too close. 

Her tongue was already past her lips.

Atene jerked back and forced her hand away, but it landed on her leg, staining her robes with another wet patch. His release seeped through the thin fabric and already, she felt some sliding down the sweat-slick skin of her inner thigh. She shook her head as she frantically wiped it off, but there was so much of Torrex on her that by the time her hand was clean – as clean as she could get it – it looked as if he had simply released on her chest and belly instead. The fabric was wet and stuck to her. She could see herself beneath it.

It seemed that Torrex could, too. His cock didn’t look much softer.

Atene forced herself to look away. She decided that she would burn these robes and take a very long, very private bath. She forced herself to stand. The wobble in her legs made her chest bounce and she knew Torrex was watching. Somehow, her face became even more flushed, and she turned away. “We can’t do this again.”

–

Her desperate panting was louder than his growls. She held him in both hands, stroking the entirety of his shaft as she ground herself against the smooth scales of his thigh – every rock of her hips and stroke of her arms made her chest sway and her hair fall into further disarray. 

Under her breath – stifled by husky moans – she cursed him for feeling so good beneath her. She damned Dracothian for siring such a child whose smell alone could send a burning heat across her cheeks and between her legs, whose smouldering eyes were enough to make her tremble, and for giving him mind enough to learn that growling in her ear and letting his hot breath spill across her neck – even in the presence of her comrades – was enough to make her knees buckle and tear a pathetic mewl from her lips. She had to tell Erice and Veros that she was just excited for the next training exercise as Torrex’s shadow blanketed her, his heat burned against her back, and streams of arousal already leaked down her leg.

When his eyes rolled back and his hips started to buck, she squeezed the bulge at his base and teased his head. His cock swelled. She pointed it at her naked chest. Arcs of cum smacked against sweaty skin, their impact strong enough to be heard. By the time he finished, it dribbled down her hands, a thick glaze covered Atene’s breasts, ran down her belly and pooled between her thighs. It mingled with her arousal. As Torrex’s head rolled back and he softened in her hands, she finished herself on his thigh, smearing her sex with his cum.

She damned herself for not being able to stop.

—

The protection of the mortal denizens of the realms was the impetus of Sigmar’s unending crusade. It was the bravest among them and Sigmar’s own Stormcast Eternals who fought these wars. The Stormdrake Guard ended them.

It was mere moments before Atene lost her will and kneeled before Torrex that Veros barged into her chamber, and before she had even finished fastening her armour, she was on Torrex’s back, flying toward the realmgate that would lead them to their next conquest.

“Sigmar’s mercy be upon you,” Atene said. She held her hand next to her head, and clenched her fist. Torrex roared so loudly the grass beneath him trembled, and a gout of electric blue fire spewed from his maw. Thunder danced across the smoke of its edges, and the flames enveloped the fallen warrior. His flesh burned with sizzling pops and his armour melted around him. He did not scream only because Atene had already cut out his throat.

Similar scenes played across the rest of the battlefield. Where the ground was not already burned, dragons – Draconith, Stardrake, and Dracoth alike – prowled the earth and clouded skies, rendering the realm around them, and what was left of the village they were sent to save, a charred husk of dirt and bone. The influence of the Dark Gods was as subtle as it was sinister. Though the inhabitants of the village had not appreciated the Stormcasts’ work, this was the only way to purge the taint that had taken root.

Atene dropped from Torrex’s saddle. A skull broke beneath her boot.

They went to a huddled group of survivors who clung tight to one another, shirking from the Stormcast who had already found them.

“Fear not, blessed children,” Veros said. He sat atop Aremis, who perched on the bleeding remains of a goat-headed monster with more legs than Atene could count. Her claws dug into the back of an already-dead champion with iron armour and almost comically large horns on his helm. “You alone have survived by Sigmar’s will. It is His plan that this hamlet be restored, and your people flourish. You may only see a field of ash, but I see fertile grounds on which a new, brighter legacy might be–”

Atene stopped listening. 

“It’s not just the ground that’s fertile,” someone said, nudging her shoulder. 

Atene had to look down to see her: Erice, another member of their Stormhost, stood beside her. She was the shortest Stormcast Atene knew – hardly taller than a mortal man – and had short blonde hair and a button nose. She was a Knight-Arcanum, one of the few among the Stormcast who could channel magic. She wore the same full-body plate as Veros and Atene, but in place of a scale skirt, she had one of fine silk, cut up one side all the way to her hips. Sleeves of the same fabric covered much of her arms. Traditionally, a Knight-Arcanum wore an ornamental plate that curved around the back of their head, but Erice eschewed it, once telling Atene that, “It got in the way.” What it got in the way of, she never said. 

“See the tits on that one?” Erice said, pointing at a woman in a green dress. “I don’t know why they bothered with farming. Looks like she could feed an entire Dawnbringer Crusade with those.” She nudged Atene again. 

Atene prayed silent thanks to Grungi – the Dwarf god of the forge – who had given the Stormcast helmets in which their faces could not be seen. It would be rude to walk away from anyone else – Atene might have still done it – but she knew Erice would just follow. “I don’t think she’s… producing,” Atene said in a doomed attempt to end that line of conversation.

“No?” Erice asked. “She will be soon. Someone’s been hammering her Anvil of Apotheosis, if you understand my meaning.”

Atene looked at the clouds.

“Breaching her Stormkeep, if you will.”

She tried listening to Veros’ speech, which seemed far from over.

“Traversing her Realmgate,” Erice said.

Atene wondered how quickly she could make it to Torrex, and whether he’d let Erice ride him, too.

Then, Erice pulled herself up by Atene’s pauldron, whispered into her ear, and Atene cursed Grungni for these helms as the words echoed inside it. “She got fucked raw .” 

Atene jumped in place and a shiver went down her spine. 

Erice giggled like a child who’d been caught stealing sweets. “I can feel the wind of life, and it’s coalescing in that bitch’s belly. In fact…” Erice brought her hand up. A green shimmer spread between her fingers. She snapped.

The woman in the green dress yelped. The other villagers must have been as bored of Veros’ speech as Atene, as they all turned to her. Her face was as red as the blood pooling in the dirt. She looked down. Everyone else did, too. Two dark patches stained the chest of her dress. Little droplets of white leaked out and ran down the heavy curve of her chest. She gave a panicked look to everyone around her, whimpered,  then slapped her hands over her breasts and ran to the nearest pile of smouldering wood to hide behind.

Veros cleared his throat. “I was going to say the next step would be rebuilding, then repopulating, but… I suppose I should applaud you all for being ahead of schedule. Well done.” The villagers dispersed, more men than likely necessary following the leaking woman, and Veros came beside them. “Was that necessary?” he asked Erice.

“It was a blessing,” she said.

“I’m sure she’ll be receiving plenty more blessings. I think I can hear some of them now.”

Atene tried to ignore how the wood pile started to shake.

“Atene,” Veros said.

“Sir?” 

“Your synchronicity with Torrex is commendable as ever, but your bladework was sloppy. You left one of them alive.”

“Where?”

“Right behind you.” 

The warrior wore polished plate stained with blood, molded in the shape of bare musculature. A deep gash tore into his shoulder, yet he hefted a jagged axe in the other hand. “Sigmarite whore!” He shouted. “I’ll fuck you till you bleed! Walking cunt! I’ll break you on my–” 

Erice flicked her wrist. A root erupted from the dirt, curled around his waist, and dragged him, screaming, into the earth.

Atene lowered her blade. “I could have taken him”.

“Oh, I’m sure you could,” Erice purred.

Atene gave all her thanks to Grungni for the helmet she wore.

“You didn’t account for the chance of his survival,” Veros said. “Remember that, next time. The only thing more important than a sharp blade–”

“Is a sharper mind,” she mumbled.

Veros nodded, and Aremis took off. They disappeared behind smoke and clouds.

“If there’s anything he’s not teaching you,” Erice wrapped her arms around Atene’s, “I’d be happy to give you some… private tutoring.” She batted her eyelashes. 

“I’m… busy.”

“Doing what?”

—

Atene squeezed her thighs tight around Torrex’s cock, squishing her sex against it. Her clit pressed into his knot, rubbing against every curve and vein, their combined arousal steaming in the cool air and turning their hips into a slick, sopping mess. Torrex thrusted – his member slid between Atene’s hands and stomach. Her fingers alone had never been enough. Not for either of them. 

After a day of such intense training that the sweat turned her robes sheer and stuck them to every curve of her body, Atene hadn’t even finished peeling them off before she was upon Torrex, forcing him to lay down. She rolled him onto his back and straddled his hips. She hadn’t noticed when their sexes first touched. But she felt a furnace heat against her apex and when she saw that she pleasured herself not on his thigh, but his rigid, pulsing girth, she groaned and came harder than she ever had before.

She had taken him like this ever since.

She looked between her tits at the tapered head of his cock as it slid past her fingers, almost to her chest.

It would never fit.

It would kill a mortal woman.

But she wasn’t mortal, was she?

She bit her lip and squeezed him harder. Torrex roared. His cum splattered against her, streaking the skin of her chest and collar. A spurt hit her jaw then rolled down her neck. The thick ropes jetted into the air before falling into her hair, against her shoulders and back, even reaching as far as her ass.

Atene could have laughed at the absurdity of it. She could have seen reason and run from her chamber to Sigmar’s throne and prostrated herself before him, so that he might deliver the punishment a debased creature such as herself deserved. But her body trembled in perverse delight. The last of his climax surged through the air and hit her face – it landed across her lips and nose, even reaching above her eye. It dribbled down, and she forced it shut. Atene sputtered and tried to clean herself with the back of her hand. It was a futile effort, she already knew, as she only smeared it over more skin. She shook her head and grimaced, leaving the pale streaks staining her face. Torrex grumbled. It sounded like he was laughing.

“I hope you’re enjoying this more than I am,” Atene said. As she spoke, some of his cum slipped past her lips and onto her tongue. She spat it out and made a show of looking disgusted but, to her surprise, she didn’t mind the taste.

Chapter Text

After three days of flying, Atene and Torrex were deep in the heartlands of Ghur. They did not travel alone: Veros was with them, and Erice came too. She was not a member of the Stormdrake Guard, and so had no Draconith of her own – she had to ride with Atene. That would have been strange enough, but, citing a terrible fear of heights she’d never mentioned before, Erice insisted on facing Atene, and for the entirety of their flight, she held her waist and rested her face on Atene’s armoured chest. As Hysh dipped low and long shadows fell across the wooded hills, they landed and made camp at the top of a rocky plateau with a small clearing in its centre.

Erice punched Veros' shoulder, but she had to reach very high to do it. “I thought it would take the Six Smiths to drag you out of that library.”

“This is work fit for the Freeguild. Sigmar knows why I agreed to come on.”

“Because you so enjoy spending time with me?” She batted her eyelashes. 

He rolled his eyes and unlatched his tent from Aremis' saddle. Erice pouted. 

None of them were there for any other. They were hunting. A roving herd of Beastmen had plundered a small town of its food, riches, and most importantly – according to the mayor – its women. The monsters had left them behind, but also a part of themselves inside them. Now their bellies were bigger, and – the mayor said, red-faced and screaming – there was already talk among the women about how they eagerly awaited the Beastmen’s next visit.

Erice had laughed and said she looked forward to finding them, but Veros quieted her and assured the mayor that the monsters would be found and exterminated with extreme prejudice. But the mayor kept talking, and he went into such detail that Atene almost ran from the room, her own face red for a very different reason.

“We need a way to find them,” Veros said. He nailed the final spike in place. The tents had frames of duardin design and only had to be unfolded and nailed down – springs and gears snapped it in place and held them firm. “I would say the practical choice is to have the Draconith burn this forest to ash, but it’s claimed by the Sylvaneth nearby.”

They’d have to find the Beastmen, and it would be a battle of steel and claw. Atene, after setting up her tent, petted Torrex’s neck. He purred and rubbed his face against hers. With him at her side, she had little worry about who would win that.

“Erice?” Veros asked. “Can you divine their whereabouts?”

“I’m a healer, not an oracle. Besides, I have a better idea.” She snapped her fingers. “Atene, come here.”

Torrex huffed when she pulled away. On stiff legs, she brought herself before Erice, whose face didn’t even clear her chest, and still struggled to look her in the eyes. Erice took a step too close. Atene kept herself locked in place. “What was your idea?” she mumbled.

“Well,” Erice said, looking over the entirety of her body, “We’re hunting Beastmen. Big, brutish, nasty Beastmen.” She put her hands around Atene’s face and stroked her cheeks. Erice’s skin was impossibly soft, and everywhere she touched, electric shivers followed. She traced Atene’s neck – a shudder ran the length of her spine – then the curves of her pauldrons. “I don’t think we have to find them. I think we can draw them out.” As she spoke, she ran her hands lower, down Atene’s sides, and to her hips. She quivered, stuck to the earth, and tried to look for Veros, but she could not take her eyes off Erice’s lips. “Do you remember what they were after? Not just the riches. Not just the food. They wanted the women. I think,” she said as she snuck beneath Atene’s scale skirt, “we have exactly what they want right here.” Athene jumped in place and her throat felt as dry as the sands of Aqshy. 

“I–I don’t understand.”

Erice tutted. “Well. We can get rid of these.” She pinched the dark leather trousers Atene wore beneath her armour, and the skin of her ass with it. Atene winced, but it wasn’t just pain she felt. “Then, we bend you over the nearest tree stump and wait. Every beast in Ghur will be lining up for a piece of this.” Erice groped her, kneading Atene’s ass like dough. The muscled flesh spilled between her fingers. Atene knew she heard a moan, but she didn’t know from whom. Erice spoke into the crook of Atene’s neck, “I’d say males, but I know there are some women who appreciate it.” She nipped at her skin. Atene gasped and pulled away.

Erice’s pale skin was flushed red and she bit her lip, looking at Atene as if she wore nothing at all.

Atene mouthed words that would not come. 

Veros banged a stick against a metal pot then started stirring a brownish liquid that filled the air with a meaty aroma. Both women turned to him. 

“It’s soup,” he said. “I’m hungry.”

Erice just laughed. It was a tittering, smug sound, and when she walked to the fire, it was with a sway in her hips from which Atene could not look away.

Erice was watching from over her shoulder. She blew a kiss.

Atene sputtered and turned on her heel. She grabbed Torrex by his saddle and dragged him into the woods. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Veros asked.

“We’re going to look for the Beastmen.”

Erice cupped a hand around her mouth. “Make sure your armour’s on tight!”

—

They did not find the Beastmen. It took hours of Atene and Torrex flying the skies and prowling the haunted woods before she mustered the courage to stand within a mile of Erice or Veros, and for the entirety of that time Torrex grew more and more restless. 

She knew what troubled him. It troubled her, too. Since they had started… She didn’t know what to call it, but whatever it was, they had done it almost every day since. They had not been together since the expedition began almost four days prior. Just his smell was enough to set the spark in her belly to a flame, and when they landed near the camp – yet far enough away that they would not be seen – she dismounted, held him close and, unashamedly and without inhibition, inhaled his scent as if it were the finest perfume. He did the same to her. She dragged her hands across his shoulders and along his neck, squeezing close as if trying to become one. Torrex grunted. He pushed against her and a salty tang mixed with his musk. She didn’t have to look to know he was erect.

“No,” she said, hating the words even as she spoke them. “Not now. We’re too close.” And the woods away were too dangerous, else she’d have taken him a dozen times already.

Torrex mewed. The sound pulled at Atene’s heart until it hurt. 

“A few days more,” she said, stroking his brow. “Not but a few days more.”

She led him back to the camp. Night had fallen and the only light in the sky was a distant purple slipping beyond the horizon – through dark leaves and twisted branches, a fire flickered. Hardly a dozen feet away, Atene stopped. Erice and Veros were speaking.

“You’ve never thought about it?” Erice asked.

“Not since I’ve truly known her,” Veros said.

“Why? Because she’s shy? I think it’s cute.”

“Because I think of her like a… like a strange little sister.”

Atene blushed. They were talking about her . But why? She crouched low and peaked between the leaves. They sat in fold-out chairs – of the same dwarfen design as their tents – drinking wine around the fire.

“And that’s enough to stop you?” Erice asked.

“It should be more than enough to stop you .”

“Do you really think that?”

Veros leaned back and sighed. “I don’t understand why you’re so fixated on the one member of our Stormhost who doesn’t want to fuck you.” Something changed in his eyes. “Is that it? Is Atene your latest challenge?”

Erice shrugged with a self-assured smile. “Why do you think I wanted her to come?”

“You’ve made it quite clear how much you want her to cum.”

Erice laughed. Atene steadied herself against a tree.

Her ? Erice wanted her ? She remembered how Erice’s hands felt on her face. She started to wonder how they’d feel between her legs. Atene bit her lip as a fire spread across her cheeks. Torrex leaned down next to her. He grumbled, but she shushed him.

Should she go back? She could walk into the camp right now, as if she hadn’t heard a thing. Erice and Veros would crack a joke, she’d try to laugh, and they’d all go to bed. 

But what if they thought she heard? What would they say if they saw how her face was flushed and her legs trembled? What would Veros think of her? What would Erice try to do? She would have to wait. Soon, they’d retire to their tents and Atene could sneak into her own, and by morning it would be forgotten by them all. She held on to Torrex’s shoulder. They were still talking.

“It’s been too long since she left,” Veros said. “I’m going to look for her.”

Erice waved him off. “The worst thing out here are the Beastmen. We both know what they do to pretty girls like her.”

“And you don’t want to help her?”

“Maybe it would help her. A cock between her legs might finally loosen them up.”

“You’d take her after a Beastman did?” Veros asked.

“I know how a bath works. Besides, a little reforging would fix any other consequences.”

“Consequences?” Veros asked.

Erice mimicked rubbing her belly. But her hands were almost a foot away, tracing it as if it were… Atene shuddered. The fire was far away, but she felt too hot, and panted as if sweating.

Veros laughed, boisterous and barking. “You, out of any of us, should know that Stormcast don’t have to worry about those consequences.”

“A shame, isn’t it?”

“Not at all, no.”

“You’re not considering the full picture,” Erice said. "Have you seen Atene without her armour? Sigmar be damned, I would suffer True Death between her tits with a smile on my face. Now imagine if they were even bigger." Her voice trailed off in a husky breath.

“You would suffer Sigmar himself watching you split yourself on a gryph-hound's cock if it meant you could feel something warm between your legs.”

"Are you calling me easy?"

"I'm not saying you're hard."

"No, but it looks like you are."

Atene pushed the branch down. The scale armour above Veros' groin was being pushed up. Each second she spied, it rose further. 

Veros shrugged. "These thoughts have their consequences."

Erice spoke in a mocking voice, "And are they thoughts of Atene, me, or the gryph-hound?"

Veros finished his wine. He tossed the cup aside. The fire glinted in his eyes. "Does it matter who, when you're the one who'll enjoy their consequences?"

Erice brushed her hair back and leaned forward. "Will I?"

He leaned back. With one hand – never taking his eyes off Erice as Atene never took her eyes off his crotch – he unclasped the belt securing the scale armour. It fell around his feet in a clattering pile that sparkled in the dimming firelight. The orange glow flickered on their armour, faces, and the dark, tenting leather that strained by the manhood beneath. Veros asked, "Won't you?"

Erice bit her lip. She stole glances around the camp and missed Atene only because she ducked further behind the tree. Erice stood. With a slow cat-walk, she made her way around the fire. She cast a heavy shadow over Veros.

"You're stealing my heat," he said.

Erice leaned down, cupped his chin, and, slowly, straddled him. She murmured against his lips, "I can keep you warm." 

They kissed and Atene heard every sound – that of their lips, the creaking of the chair, and every single moan – as if they were inches from her ear. Erice rolled her hips against him and her arousal on Veros' trousers sparkled in the firelight. Atene could almost feel herself in their place – that of Erice or Veros, she could not decide – and each rock of Erice’s hips sent a jolt from Atene’s mind directly between her legs. She whimpered, fumbling with her pants as her own arousal leaked into them. 

Torrex growled.

Atene clasped a hand over her mouth to stifle her grasp, but it seemed Veros and Erice didn't even hear. His hands traced the curves of her breastplate as hers held his face. He slipped lower, over her waist and the width of her gyrating hips, until he snuck beneath her skirt and started to squeeze.

Almost instantly, he stopped. He raised an eyebrow. Erice giggled like a little girl. Veros' hands had pushed the skirt aside and Atene saw that beneath it, Erice was entirely bare. Below her waist, she wore only her armour – the dark trousers beneath were already gone. "Someone was going to take them off eventually,” she said.

“I’m starting to think the worst thing out here is you .” Veros nipped at the skin of her neck and groped her backside. Atene caught glimpses of her sex, glittering like petals covered in morning dew. She bit her lip and stroked herself as Erice undid the ties for Veros' trousers.

Torrex pushed against Atene's shoulder. His sweltering breath washed over her. He was already erect and level with her face. With a shaking hand, she took hold of his member, stroking him in a rhythm with herself.

Erice sighed when Veros' member slid out. It was proportionate to a man his size, yet Erice was so small next to him, it looked gargantuan in her hand. Erice stroked it, her wrist twisting as she worked her way along his shaft. Atene remembered how impossibly smooth her fingers felt on her cheek and wondered what it must be like for Veros to have them on his manhood. Unconsciously, she started to mimic Erice's movements on Torrex. She hoped she felt as good for him.

Erice slid her sex along Veros' length. He hissed through clenched teeth. She brought her hips up, and in a single, smooth stroke of her hips, Veros' cock disappeared. 

Atene's hands moved faster. 

Veros held Erice's hips, guiding her in a slow rhythm but Atene grew more frantic each second she watched. Her breath was heavy and she leaned against Torrex for support as he dug into the dirt and rocked into her hand. His copious arousal lubricated her and the loud squelching was only drowned out by the crackling of the fire and the plap-whap of Erice's jiggling ass as she bounced on Veros’ lap.

"You know, I don't just do this with anyone," she said. “I–”

Veros stuck his thumb in her mouth. "You sound better moaning." 

She sucked his thumb like it was a tit and her girlish whines filled the camp. 

Veros slipped his other thumb between her legs. Erice moved faster and moaned louder. She arched her back and pushed her chest out. Her head fell back and her mouth fell open. Drool connected her lips to his thumb before he took her by the throat and started fucking up into her. 

Atene felt a familiar heat in her core. She tried to time her rise with Erice, but it couldn't have been seconds more before she broke on Veros' cock. She trembled and squealed, screwing her eyes shut with a toothy smile. Before she’d even finished climaxing, she took Veros' face in both hands and kissed him again. It was sloppy, wet, and sounded just like their sex.

"That was fast," Veros said with a crooked smirk.

Erice nipped at his ear and whispered into it. "We're not done."

She rose from his legs just high enough to slide down between them, then pulled her skirt aside and pushed her ass out far enough for Veros to see it over her head.  Atene could see everything between her legs.

Erice’s mouth was open and her tongue was out before she passed his waist and the instant she could, she closed her lips around his cock and started to suck. 

Atene watched with wide eyes. She noticed how close Torrex's cock was to her face. Her own climax had faltered, but he was only getting closer. His eyes bore into her and his hips moved in short, jerking thrusts. 

The sound of Veros' cock in Erice's throat – she'd already taken him halfway to his base – echoed in Atene's mind as Torrex's widening widening tip dominated her vision. 

Veros ran his hands through Erice's hair and massaged her scalp. "Am I going to have to keep you like this just to keep you off Atene?”

“Mmph!” Spit fell from her lips and hung on her chin.

“Maybe I’ll have you ride my lap on the hunt tomorrow,” he said between breaths. “Oh, I’m sure you’d like that. We’d give those Beastmen a scent to follow.”

Erice moaned again. Her sloppy sucking got even louder.

“Despite everything else about you–” He grunted. “–this little throat might make you," he forced her head further down and his cock deeper inside, "the perfect woman."

Atene abandoned her sex, crawled beneath Torrex, and took him in both hands. She twisted her wrists and matched the movement of his hips. 

He was going to cum, soon. The vestiges of her logical mind said that again, railing against the sounds and heavy smell of sex that muddled her thoughts. 

"Mlhk! Ghurrk–!" Erice was fucking her own throat on Veros' cock. She gagged when it hilted against her plush lips, gasped and sputtered when she came up for air, then dove back down even as her spittle sprayed and landed across her face.

Torrex was going to cum. On Atene? She could never clean it all.

Veros held Erice's head as he drove his hips against her face. His balls smacked against her chin and rivers of tears fell.

Torrex was going to cum. Atene felt his heartbeat through his cock. On the ground? The others would find it. What would she say, then?

Veros moaned. He tried to pull Erice away, but she forced herself back down until he was buried completely within her throat. His balls pulled taught and sticky strands of white dribbled past her lips.

Torrex was going to cum. 

Atene took him in her mouth. The second her lips wrapped around him and her tongue touched his tip, a jet of cum splashed against the back of her throat. She gagged and tried to pull away, but Torrex drove forward until his cock squished her tongue and she could do nothing but taste him and take him. It took everything she had to keep him from skewering her throat, and that did nothing to stop his cock from forcing her jaw wide and basting her mouth with cum. It was salty, bitter, and tasted like the air before the storm. Every splash of his release made her sputter and wince. It clung to her tongue, teeth, and the roof of her mouth. 

She held him by his knot, massaging his most sensitive flesh. With each squeeze,  he came more until the liquid heat filled her mouth and dribbled past her sex-drenched lips.

Atene took sharp breaths through her nose. All she could smell was Torrex – his musk and that which spilled from her lips. All she could see was Torrex – his cock before her and his body above. All she felt was Torrex – his heat suffusing her and his weight on her tongue. And by Sigmar, he was all she could taste . 

As much as she could move her tongue, she licked at the rigid underside of his cock. Another spurt filled her mouth. Too much fell past, and she opened her cheeks to take even more. It was mere seconds before each bulged like a woman’s belly that had been seeded with Beastman spawn.

She imagined Erice and Veros finding her like this, her lips wrapped around Torrex’s dick – Draconith cum filling her mouth and running down her chin. What would Veros say? Would he look at her with disgust? Or shame? Guilt couldn’t stop her from imagining Erice kneeling beside her, licking her face clean, then grabbing her head and forcing her upon Torrex's length until he was spearing her throat all the way down to her stomach.

Atene couldn't help herself. She swallowed. The sucking pressure pulled more from Torrex and he shot ropes of cum into her mouth as she let the rest slide down her throat. It was sticky, warm, and clung to her gullet – she felt it the entire way before its heavy weight settled in her core. Each time she swallowed, she pulled more from him, and each time he stained her tongue white, she sucked his cock and swallowed it down. By the time he was finished, when his release with nothing but a watery dribble, Atene felt as if she’d drunk an entire barrel of Vostarg mead.

She licked his tip and sucked again as she massaged his knot, but Torrex snarled and pulled out of her. Slowly, her head followed him and her tongue flicked at the space he used to fill. Thick strands of drool and cum linked her lips to his cock like chains. 

Atene held him by the knot and licked him clean, moaning the entire time.

She realised hers were the only sounds that could be heard. Atene pulled away. Her heart hammered. She waited, silent in the dark, for Erice and Veros to show that they had heard and seen every second of her debauched act.

She gave a fearful glance toward the camp. They sat by the fire, oblivious, as Veros enjoyed some time between Erice's thighs. There was an ache, still, between Atene's. Erice shuddered and moaned, and Atene reached down, but Veros pulled away. Erice wiped the hair from her face, wearing a dopey smile. 

"Atene!" Veros shouted.

Her heart stopped.

"Are you back yet? There's something you need to know!"

She fought a growing panic in her chest. She couldn't come back now. It would be too soon, and they'd know she saw them, and that she and Torrex were so close, and–

Torrex sauntered through the underbrush, back into the camp. Atene wished she had never been reborn.

"Oh, Torrex." Erice said, trying to cover herself. "Where's Atene?"

Torrex snorted. 

Atene licked her lips as clean as she could manage, wiped her face with the back of her hand, and stumbled past the trees. "We heard you shouting,” she said. “Is something wrong, sir?" She stood in the shadows so that the fire did not reflect on her drenched face, and hoped they'd see her panting as being from the exertion of rushing back.

"Not at all. Did you find anything out there?" Veros asked.

"No," Atene said, her voice clipped. Torrex rolled into his side and licked at the inside of his thigh. His cock had retracted. She hoped they didn't notice how wet his crotch was. 

"I hope you enjoyed yourself, at least. Time alone with a Draconith is like nothing else in all the realms," Veros said.

A bead of sweat ran down her face.

"It's exhilarating, isn't it?" he asked.

"W-what do you–?"

"The flying, I mean. Nothing better than one of those beasts between your legs and the wind in your hair."

"Nothing?" Erice asked.

He shrugged. "There may be a few things."

Atene's entire body felt like glass about to shatter. "What did you want to show me, sir?" she asked too quickly.

"Eh? Oh, yes. It's dinner. The soup is ready." He pointed to the bronze pot hanging over the fire.

Atene's shoulders slumped. She tried to hide her sigh and went to her tent. 

"Where are you going?" Erice asked. 

Atene held her stomach and swore she could feel the heavy warmth within through her armour. Her entire face blushed a burning red, and as she slipped under the flap, Atene said, "I'm… not hungry."

–

Stormcast needed little sleep. Atene did not get any. She tossed and turned, endlessly reliving the events of the day, wondering how they might have gone differently. She imagined if she hadn’t stopped Erice in the beginning. What might have transpired if her soft hands had touched more than her clothes? What would Veros have done if he saw them writhing in the dirt?

What if Erice had found her while she took Torrex in her mouth? What if Torrex had batted her face aside, bent her over, and taken her from behind? What if Erice found her like that ?

She bit her hand and mewled. Her fingers danced between her folds, as they had for what felt like hours, and still, relief would not come. She pressed harder, moved faster, grinded against herself, yet nothing pulled her over the brink – she stood on a precipice from which she could not bring herself down. Atene pressed her head into her pillow as her hips rose and her blanket fell away.

Something rustled outside.

She froze. She dared not move and listened for the faintest sounds. Thoughts again filled her mind. Thoughts of Beastmen – big, brutish, nasty Beastmen – and what they did to women like her. Her breath quickened. She imagined a bullish head peeking through her tent, its nostrils flaring as steaming breaths washed over her. She imagined it crawling over her, its shadow blanketing her like the darkest night as she saw, by the light of the moon, the swaying, swollen cock between its legs. She imagined it fucking her, wild and without abandon, as it pinned her arms above her head, split her on its girth and took an entire breast in its mouth, swirling it with its long, hot tongue. Damning the danger, her hand started to move. She bit her finger to stifle a moan. She could feel the ridges of its cock rubbing the insides of her walls as it started to pant. Its thrusts grew quicker, and it hilted itself in her womanhood, spilling tainted, vile – virile – seed inside her. She whined, and knew that anyone outside could hear her sopping pleasuring. She felt her belly swell, her tits grow, and warm streams of milk seep out. She guided Erice to a breast. Her lips locked around it and Atene gasped when she started to–

It was in her tent.

Atene pushed off the ground. She had her sword in hand and pointed at the intruder before she’d finished breathing in.

“Torrex?” she asked, her voice no more than a whisper.

His head lay on the floor of her tent. Moonlight glinted along his scales and his eyes shone like embers. Through the thin gap in the fabric, she could see the rest of  him slumped outside. He slid his head across the floor like a snake, his nostrils flaring as he breathed. He was smelling something. He was smelling her . 

“You have to go,” she said.

He kept sniffing, closer, and closer to her, until the tip of his snout was between her feet.

“They can’t see you here,” she hissed. She was utterly naked, her thighs already soaked, and if they saw Torrex sticking his nose there… “They’ll–”

He lifted his head and his long, sinuous, wet tongue licked from the cleft of her ass, through her folds, and across her clit in a single, agonizing stroke.

Atene dropped her sword and clamped her hands over her mouth. She tried to swat him away, but he licked again and her knees bent in as her thighs shook. He licked her again, and again . He was wet and hot against her and she was already soaked and sweltering – from her knees to her stomach, not an inch of skin was left untouched by his roving tongue. She bit her lip, and moved a hand to his snout. It was a fight just to stay standing. His tongue became more controlled – more deliberate – as he focused on her sex. He caught the drooling stands of her arousal and used them to further the slick attention he gave around, across, and between her drooling petal folds. More than a foot of flexing Draconith tongue dragged across her little clit and Atene knew nothing could ever match that sensation. The tip of his tongue flicked it. Her eyes went cross.

She only realised she had cum because when she came to, she was on the floor, her legs spread wide, with Torrex’s head fully between them. Every languid touch of his tongue stretched her climax further, pulling her apart by the very seams that held her being together. She bit hard enough that she thought she might draw blood, and still, a pathetic, pitched whine spilled past her fingers. 

His tongue slipped inside her. Her eyes shot open. She threw her head back. Atene arched her back and twisted her hips – she tried to pull away, but more tongue followed and filled her. Torrex wriggled inside her depths, sliding deeper with every second. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. Her mind went blank, trying to understand something it had never known. Her body knew well enough what to do.

Atene’s sex drenched itself with new arousal – it and Torrex’s spit filled her so much that it ran down her legs and puddled between them. She dug her heels into the floor and pushed against Torrex’s tongue. It plunged deeper. Atene twisted so far she fell onto her side, but Torrex’s head moved with her – his jaws opened wide and he moved so close he was almost swallowing her. Her thighs gripped the sides of his face and his fangs pressed into her stomach and back. Each hot, damp breath blanketed her body in a bath of his spit and her sweat.

Her walls clamped around him, a desperate attempt to hold him in place, but his tongue was too slick, too wet , and so she only felt him more intimately and drove herself to greater, more agonising heights.

“Torrex!” she gasped. “Torrex, please!”

Her legs tried to close, but his head held them apart. 

She wanted to pull away. She wanted to press against him. She wanted it to stop. She never wanted it to end. She wanted relief. She needed to cum.

Atene angled her hips, that each stroke and flick of his tongue inside her touched also the swollen bud at her peak, as desperate and dripping as the rest of her. She held onto Torrex’s snout. Her mind melted under the sweltering heat of his mouth and tongue and her body went as rigid as stone. Her jaw fell slack. Her eyes glazed over as her vision failed. The coiling spring in her stomach snapped and wracking waves of limb-spasming ecstasy ran through her body like the flood of a broken dam. But Torrex never stopped tasting her. The longer he had his tongue inside her, the longer her climax tortured her. It was as if she were a prisoner on a rack, and Torrex pulled her apart until nothing but her cunt, clasped tight around his tongue, remained. For those moments, she forgot herself – Sigmar, his war, and the Stormcast around them. All the realms and everything in them were nothing to Atene. All she knew was Torrex’s tongue.

She cried out into her pillow. Then – either a miracle or her damnation, she could not decide – Torrex pulled his tongue from her sex. The light began to fade from her eyes as her walls flexed around nothingness. The cold he left behind seemed more terrible than the wrath of the Dark Gods, and Atene would have given her soul to feel him again.

From the cleft of her ass to the bud at her peak, he drew his tongue across her in a single, slow stroke. Atene groaned. It was a throaty, animal sound that knew no shame. He licked her again. She held her pillow tight and bit into it, drool already leaking from her mouth like the juices from her sex. He licked her again. And again. As a predator cleaned blood from a bone, Torrex licked every inch of her sex. 

Atene rolled onto her back and swore she could see the stars. She tried to match his ministrations, so slow and caring, but every muscle felt to her like water, and so her only movements were the jerking of her chest and hips each time she gasped when his tongue slid across her clit. There were times it slipped lower, through her cheeks and across the tight ring between them, and Atene shuddered – she didn’t know if it was from fear or excitement.

She wasn’t sure if he made her cum again or if what she felt was but a cresting wave of the same climax before, but what she felt, she felt again, and again, deep into the night, as Torrex tasted her and she languished in ecstasy upon him.

—

The next day, the Beastmen found them . They fell upon the camp in a ravenous frenzy, and it was their recklessness that was their undoing – no mortal maidens were the Stormcast Eternals, to be taken and ravished without resistance, and the herd was slaughtered to the last beast. No one admitted aloud just how the Beastmen had found them so quickly, but Erice bemoaned that all the monsters were slain. It was only because they could have been interrogated to find more of their kind, she insisted, and Atene privately enjoyed the thoughts of what methods of persuasion Erice might have used.

Chapter Text

The skies of Azyr were filled with dragons. Stardrakes soared across the glittering dark and the Draconith followed behind them. They swooped and dove amongst themselves, flying in stunning arcs in perfect synchronicity. Pairs latched to one another, linking themselves by wing and claw, falling to the earth and splitting apart only seconds before fatal impact. Those who fell the furthest then clutched together quicker and flew higher, only to fall again. It was some kind of dance, Atene knew. An expression of trust. Every Draconith in the sky partook – all except Torrex. He flew alone. It was only by her insistence that he was flying at all. Before, he had been sitting in the courtyard with her, his head on her lap as he slept and she sang.

The pain she felt in her heart – seeing him alone among his own kin – was greater than the agony of any reforging. Atene saw the irony in her worry, as she sat apart from all the Stormcast in the courtyard, who trained and reveled together. On a bench surrounded by flowers, a Stormcast warrior lounged as a mortal man drew circles on her stomach – they looked at each other with hunger in their eyes.

It was wrong, what she and Torrex did. She knew it the first time they touched, and she knew it every time after. She told herself she did not care, but there was a gnawing guilt that nibbled at the back of her mind like a Skaven burrowing into her brain. Torrex deserved more than her. He needed more than she could give.

If she tried to push him away, he would return to her side. If she presented him with a true mate from his own kind, he would choose her instead. If she denied him…

Atene knew he would accept it. He would grumble and growl, and stalk about and snarl, but he would never force himself upon her. She knew that all she had to do was so no.

So why? Why didn’t he? Why couldn’t she?

Atene stood. Torrex would not see her leave. When he noticed she was gone, he would return to their chambers and wait for her. Atene forced herself to not look back, and went to the only place that might have the answers she sought.

–

Atene thumbed the tome, rubbing the pages between her fingers. 

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Veros said. When he wasn’t leading his knights to battle, Veros helped maintain the Stormkeep’s library. It wasn’t his official duty, but he’d told her more times than she could remember that the only thing more important than a sharp blade was a sharper mind.

She re-read the page. Regarding Draconith was the title of the tome – the combined knowledge of almost everything the Stormcast knew about their new allies, penned in part by Veros himself. Atene and Torrex had even participated in some of the research for it, but much of its information was gleaned from legends, older accounts, and even interviews with Krondys himself – the oldest and wisest of all the Draconith. 

It lacked, entirely, the information she sought.

“It seems cruel, doesn’t it?” she asked Veros.

“Your treatment of these books?”

“That we should throw them into battle before they’ve fully grown.”

“These are trying times. We all make sacrifices for Sigmar’s dream.”

“They cannot be remade as we are. When the Draconith fall, who stands to replace them? Their eggs were scarce when we started. How few remain?”

He folded his arms. “You only talk this much when you want something.”

She held up a finger. “Only an inquiry, sir. How long do we have to wait before they…” She tapped that finger against the book and tried to hide her blush. "Produce more?"

It was a roundabout way of getting to what she wanted to know, but she would not risk the slightest chance of Veros suspecting anything of her.

“Ah.” He rubbed his chin and the scruffy beard on it. “Every Draconith in our Stormhost is about the right age to mate, but we’ve had some issues trying to breed them.” Atene could hardly believe he would say that so casually. 

“Issues?” she whispered.

“The Draconith are intelligent. Remarkably so. Their minds rival our own. In fact, I believe there are areas where they exceed our intelligence. I’ve been speaking with the workers in the aviary and–” His voice picked up in pace, but he seemed to realise he was getting side-tracked. He cleared his throat. “Regardless. They’re intelligent. They’re also emotional. It’s no coincidence that it takes so long for them to bond with a Stormcast, and that’s only so they’ll let us ride them into battle. Imagine how long it would take for them to form a bond with another so that they’d be willing to mate ?”

“You can’t just…?”

“Do you remember when we tried with Aremis and Torrex? Not even reforging fixed some of the scars I got.”

She spoke into her hand. “Surely, some have bonded by now.”

“Yes, but that leads to the next problem. They form bonds as deep as any human or elf’s. Possibly deeper. We have one buck, a prime specimen, that we’ve tried mating with several others. But…”

“But?”

“He’s taken, so to speak. One of the other hatchlings in his brood was born sickly. He never left her side, and when they reached the proper age… Well, I’m sure you understand. But she died soon after. Now, he won’t have any other. It’s a small sample, but I have reason to believe the Draconith mate for life. They have to know their partner. They have to care for them. You might even call it love.”

Atene slammed the book shut. “I have to go.”

“You could show this library a little more respect!” Veros shouted as she hurried away.

—

She ignored every nod and salutation given as she hurried – almost running – through the halls of the Stormkeep to her quarters.

“Atene!” Erice said. “There you are, I–” 

Atene did not stop, and she did not hear what Erice said next. She went through dark halls lit by glowing stones in the ceiling and walls – the warm light glinted off marble, and through open windows she caught glimpses of the stars.

Atene stopped before a heavy bronze door. It was only when she saw there were no others around that she slowly pushed it open and slipped past, already knowing what she’d find inside.

Torrex lounged near the bath. The clang of the shutting door echoed. He turned to her.

“Torrex,” she said, slowly walking forward. She held a hand over her heart, wishing her robe did not hug her body so close. “I care for you more than any other. You know that, don’t you?”

She knelt in front of him. They looked into each other’s eyes. She held out her hand. He leaned into her touch. His nostrils flared, his baritone purr shook the floor, travelled along her arm, and settled in her chest. A soothing warmth filled the air around him. He nuzzled her palm. 

She sighed. “Of course you do. I think you care for me, too.” His tongue flicked across her arm and he started to stand. “Shhh,” she whispered, taking his head, almost as large as her torso, and guiding it to her chest. She held him there, petting his jaw and the fur across his neck. He rumbled against her. It shook her to her bones, and she shuddered, drinking in the heat of his body. Atene rested her cheek atop his head and spoke in hushed words. “Then you know we cannot be.” 

He growled and tried to pull away, but she held him close and the sound ended in a pitiable whine.

“I know ,” she said. “I know.” She kissed the scales of his brow, and when she found no words to speak, she kissed him again, and again as he nuzzled her closer and she rubbed her body against his face. “Do you think this is the life your ancestors envisioned for you? That Sigmar has planned? So long as we survive, we have a duty to our people. Yours is not here.” She stroked his cheek. Her eyes burned, and when she spoke, it was with a voice that quivered. “Not with me.”

He snarled, biting and sharp. He pulled his head away and Atene fell to her back. Her hair splayed behind her head and her breasts fell to the sides of her chest – she didn’t need to look to know what she’d see between them. She could already smell the electric tang. She remembered the taste.

Like the iron bars of a cage, his legs stood around her. His cock was rigid before her. He pushed it forward.

“No,” she said before it could reach her face.

He pushed it forward, throbbing with need, and she imagined him forcing it past her lips, but when he was inches away she said again, “ No .”

He stopped.

His cock flexed and already oozed out the tip. His entire body trembled. He must have been fighting every instinct he had, just to stand still.

Her tears fell, then, and she got back on her knees. Atene hugged his broad chest, even though she had no hope of reaching her arms around it. “Not with me,” she said again.

Torrex hissed. She could feel the heat of fear burning in his chest and his member throbbed with an ache she could feel in the dim reaches of her mind. Tears fell and ran through the divots between his scales and his manhood wept with arousal. Yet, he held himself as still as a statue, just as she had asked him.

Would she leave him like this? After everything he’d done for her?

When she found herself in a strange new life she could have never dreamt of, it was Torrex who came to her side, and had stayed there evermore.

In the horrors of battle, it was Torrex who stood, unflinching, at her side, and saved her from the pain of death and the agony of the reforging.

When she woke, screaming, from the terrors that haunted her dreams, it was Torrex who had comforted her. 

Torrex had filled a void in her body and soul that she hadn’t even known was empty.

And she thought to leave him like this?

Atene buried her face in his side and took him in – his searing warmth, like still-burning embers, the smooth slide of his scales along her cheek, his ozone-musk that clung in her nose, and the soothing, ever-present rumble in his chest that lulled her almost to sleep.

“I can’t give you what you want,” she said, her face still buried in his side. “What you need.” She breathed his air and kissed his scales. She ran her hands along his flank and pushed away, far enough to see the rigid length between his legs. It pulsed in time with the beat of his heart and a string of fluid fell from the tip, unbroken, to the floor. Their breaths were slow – measured. Already, her heart beat like a frantic drum. “You deserve so much more than I can give,” she said, crawling beneath him.

He always seemed so much bigger up close. Beneath his body, she could taste him on the air, and though she was out of his sight, she knew he was more focused on her than at any other time. His cock strained against him, as if it were trying to grow long enough to reach her. She had done this to him, hadn’t she? It would be wrong to leave him like this, wouldn’t it? It would be cruel. 

"But this could be worse," she said, taking him in her hands. The heat of his flesh was like that of the fire in his chest and it warmed her fingers that were so cold from being away. She traced the curve of his shaft, the taper of his head, and the pulsing knot at his base. "It isn't natural. It isn't right." She pleasured him with slow, twisting strokes. "You need someone who can take care of you," she said, running her thumb across the head and squeezing his base. "Someone who gives you everything you need." She ran her lips along his length, snaking her tongue out in quick flicks and inhaling his musk. She kissed his tip like it was a long-lost lover. She pulled away with a pop – drooling hoops of his arousal stuck to her lips and tongue. She whispered, "Everything you deserve." Atene took him in her mouth.

His pre already streamed out in a thin, never-ending ooze and she suckled it like sugar-sweet sap. The salty tang mingled with his smell as she took him further past her lips. One hand worked a quickening rhythm on his shaft, the other his knot, and her head bobbed and rocked as she sucked, licked, and ravished his cock. 

Torrex's entire body was stiff. She could feel his eyes on her ass, so she pulled her robe aside and spread her legs. His hips jerked and his cock flexed – the split-second action squished her tongue flat and speared his head against the back of her mouth. She sputtered and – only by instinct – pulled back. 

Atene smiled. It could have gone deeper. She knew he was trying so hard to hold back for her. She brushed her hair aside then swallowed his head to clean the mess she had made, fully-knowing she was going to make one far worse.

She had been with Torrex since he was hardly a child. She had practically raised him. She had been at his side for so long, and he had stayed at hers. She sucked his tip and pulled off. His cock spurted a line of pre across her lips. 

There was no one in all the realms or worlds beyond who would know him the way she did. No one else would know who was right for Torrex. Not even him. Atene licked her lips clean. "Why shouldn't it be me?"

She opened her jaw wide and speared herself on his cock.

It was slower going than she'd expected, with memories of Erice's rubber throat in her mind. By the time he reached the back of her tongue, she was already holding her eyes shut as tears started to fall. She gagged.

Atene massaged Torrex's bulge and pulled herself forward with it. She coughed and had to force herself to just stay in place. Every instinct told her to pull away – all except the one between her legs that begged her to go even further. She sucked a breath through her nose. Tears mingled with the spittle on her face. Torrex growled. The muscles in his stomach and legs shuddered as he fought a losing battle to hold himself still. Atene forced herself further down. She couldn't taste his pre anymore – it spilled behind her tongue, directly into the fluttering grip of her throat. His tip pressed against the entrance.

"Hlrk!" Atene's eyes shot open. 

She yanked herself off and doubled over, coughing and coughing even more as her drool and his arousal spilled from her lips and puddled between her fingers. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. 

Through the curtain of her hair she saw Torrex. He watched her, and she could feel his lascivious intent. His cock was stiff. Rigid. It must have been aching .

"I'm sorry," she said, crawling under him. "I'm sorry." She kissed along his cock, never letting her lips leave his flesh, even as she gave soft apologies with her words and tongue. 

She held him against her cheek as he thrusted. He whined, a wordless plea for release. But the way he took her wouldn't be enough. Not for either of them.

Atene remembered what Veros said when Erice took him in her throat – the promise of being the perfect woman. 

She slid fully beneath him. She sat on her knees and spread her legs until her ass touched the floor. She angled her body forward at her hips and let her head fall back and her jaw open. She brought his cock toward her mouth. For several seconds, she stayed like that, breathing in and onto his manhood as he dribbled onto her lips and teeth. Torrex was completely tense. He was utterly still. His cock flexed at the promise of the tight, wet hole before it, angled to take him as deep as he could plunge. He jerked into her hands. Atene swallowed what he had given her so far, already hungry for more, and said, "I can be perfect for you." She let go. 

Torrex roared. He drove his hips down and his cock into her mouth. The first thrust slammed into her throat, still so tight it refused his entry. She gagged and tried to yank herself away, but she had given herself nowhere to go. She held his hips. 

He pulled back not even half the length that stuffed her mouth, then thrusted again. Still, her throat denied him. So he tried again.

Once more, tears fell as he forced himself against her throat, and it, slowly, failed to stop his advance. It was a gradual thing. As inevitable as a ram battering a fortress gate, his cock speared her throat. Though, where a ram breaks through and all defenses fall, Atene's throat fought against him for every slick, clenching inch he took. First, it was just the tip. Then a little bit after that. Every time he pulled back, he left her throat and made her feel its violation each time he plunged into it. But, eventually, his tip never left the flexing entrance and soon entire inches of his length stayed there as he kept forcing himself further into her gullet.

Every flex, gag, and heave that tried to force him out only coaxed him deeper. Over her nose, she saw his knot and the vast length before it. Torrex could go much, much deeper.

"Ghhrk!" 

He shuddered, and she felt something splash inside her throat and slide all the way to her stomach. Her aching flesh stretched around him, the bulge of her neck as wide as if she had forced her own arm inside. Her jaw strained, and she feared it would dislocate.

"Mmph!"

He growled again, and the tremble traveled the entire length of his member, vibrating deeper inside her body. His rigid length plunged so deep that she could not turn her head – in that moment she was nothing but a pliant sleeve for his bulging cock.

"Hluhk!"

His knot pressed into her nose. She tried to focus on it, but her eyes went cross. She tried to move, but was held still on the rigid length of his member. Tears fell like rivers. 

She couldn't breathe.

Atene smacked his hips. Torrex stayed there, plunged deep in her throat, rocking his manhood like she was nothing but a hole, born to take him inside her throat. She smacked his side again. She tried to pull away. She had nowhere to go. She coughed and gagged and knew it only pleasured him. Dark rings filled the edge of her vision.

Torrex pulled back. It wasn't even half his length, but it was just enough for her to suck in a sloppy breath before he drove himself back inside. Atene tensed. Her entire body rippled.

He pulled back, and thrusted again. He started a rhythm – a slow exploration of her gullet – how it flexed, gripped, and teased at his cock – that, as he quickened and started to pant, became a full-force face-fucking that turned Atene into a slobbering, sputtering mess, fighting desperately for every short breath she could take as he rode her face like a Draconith mare’s cunt, and his knot slammed into her lips and nose. 

There was nothing she could have done to quiet the noise of what they did. If the smack of his hips into her face wasn't loud enough, she knew anyone who passed – even through the thick bronze doors – would have heard her choking gags. 

Torrex abused her throat. He treated it like it was – that he, on some primal level, must have understood her to be. A hole: wet, hot, and waiting for his cock to stretch it beyond its limit. She never had to wait long. 

She squeezed his knot, trying to draw out what must come next.

She felt him flex. He got even harder. Torrex pressed his knot into her face, grinded against her lips and nose, and when his cock was as deep as it had ever been – so much so that Atene swore she could feel it past her ribs – he came. It was a single, spraying stream that she felt through his entire length until it jetted directly into her stomach. She tried to groan. It spurred him on. He rocked into her face, smearing it more with their combined fluids, as her eyes rolled back and he came even more. 

The taste of his cock was more familiar to her than any food, but the unending stream that splashed and pooled in her belly was a sensation as alien as anything that prowled the dark between the stars. But she was starting to like it.

It was as if she drank from a tap of Draconith cum – never-ending and filling her stomach with a warmth like magma.

Atene hadn't felt this full since… the last time he came in her mouth. She'd swallowed every drop that had not fallen past her lips – his release was so great that there were many – but now? She had swallowed his cock itself, and had no choice but to take everything it gave her.

She slumped forward, resting against his bulge as her arms fell to her sides. He would be done with her when he was done with her. Who knew when that would be?

She mumbled something – it was already a meaningless sound, but came out as nothing but a gagged moan – then tried as best she could to suck him off. Any iota of pleasure she could provide him made all of this more than worth it. Her eyes rolled back.

Then, she was on the floor. Cum ran past her lips into a puddle that covered half her face. More still stuck to her hair and ran down the curve of her neck. She coughed, swallowed what was in her mouth, then coughed again.

Atene tried to push herself up, but a strange tremble numbed her limbs, and her head fell back into the warm puddle of spit and cum. She looked over her shoulder.

Torrex's head was between her legs. Her ass flexed and trembled as his tongue worked every inch of skin between her cheeks and thighs. The tremble took her again. "Oh," she said, with a distant, quiet voice. She was cumming. 

Atene grit her teeth and her hips, without any conscious thought from her, pushed into his tongue – she didn't know if he was in her cunt or ass, and at that moment she cared very little for such distinctions. Her release was upon her in gentle, lapping waves that rolled across every twitching limb and tired muscle. 

She sighed, then rested her drenched face in the crook of her elbow as he started licking her again. From the corner of her eye, she saw that her door was ajar, and some distant corner of her mind knew that should not be so, but Torrex’s tongue was a comforting distraction, and she did not notice it close, nor did she remember anything of it, focusing instead on the writhing, drooling muscle between her legs.

—

No matter how they started, where they were, or however long it took, when Atene and Torrex were together, he always finished deep inside her throat.

Chapter Text

The Stormkeep’s armoury rang with the striking of hammers and the clang of heavy metal. Erice clung to Atene’s arm like a mortal child clutches their mother. But she looked at her with eyes of another sort. She ran her hand across the armour of Atene’s bicep. “Do be careful, yes? You know Torrex would hate to lose your company.”

“Of course I do,” Atene said quietly. It was strange, letting Erice so close, knowing full-well what she wanted from her. In an odd sense, it was comforting – as if a veil had been pulled away and Atene truly understood her intention. Erice wanted to fuck her. Or, she wanted to watch a horde of Beastmen fuck her. Or did she want to watch, then fuck her after? Atene couldn’t remember if Erice wanted to fuck the Beastmen too, but she knew there would be some amount of fucking, and Erice would be involved. Would have been , she thought, correcting herself. It was all hypothetical, of course.

Regardless, she knew what Erice wanted from her, and that meant Atene, finally, understood her.

Erice cocked her head. “If a woman could carry Draconith eggs, should she?”

Atene, finally, had understood her. She didn’t speak. She didn’t even sputter. She froze in place, stuck as if a bar of sigmarite were forced down her spine and wedged into the floor. She might have felt abject terror at the thought of Erice having discovered her secret, yet the sheer, all-consuming confusion that such a question bore overwhelmed even those base, primal emotions. Atene’s jaw slowly fell open as her eyes narrowed and she turned to Erice, the features of her face lost behind a mask of bewilderment. “Sigmar’s balls, what kind of question is that?”

“I’ve never heard you swear before,” Erice said with a casual interest.

“I’ve never heard anything so inane!”

Erice’s face lit up and her eyes sparkled like a distant storm. “I’ve never heard you sound like that before.”

“Of course I’d–!” Atene stopped herself. Around them, the other Stormcast, even over the bustle of their preparations, must have heard some of what was said, and looked at the two women with curious eyes. When it was clear neither would speak more, they returned to their tasks. Atene said, whispering, “What kind of question is that?”

“A reasonable one.”

Of course she’d think that, Atene thought. “ Why would you ask something like that?”

“To hear your answer? Do you know how questions work?” There was still a glint in her eyes, beneath the nonchalance that Atene thought more and more to be a feint. Shock fell away the longer they spoke, and suspicion took its place – the dreaded, gnawing fear of being found out.

“I–” She shook her head. Avoiding the question would arouse curiosity. To give an answer… Atene felt a blush already spreading across her cheeks, and knew that her body would betray her words. “People only ask questions like that if there’s an answer they want to hear.”

Erice looked as if that had been something she truly did not expect Atene to say. That made Atene feel very proud. Veros would have liked to see that, she thought. Erice said, “Well, I saw you in the library talking to Veros. I asked him what you were doing, and he said you wanted to know about Draconith breeding.” 

Damn that man! Atene thought.

“I understand your worry,” Erice said. “In fact…” Her face flattened, and for what seemed like the first time since Atene had known her, the ever-present smirk Erice wore was gone. “I consider our current situation a personal failure of mine.” Erice looked about the room and to the other Stormcast, and though none now listened, she took Atene’s hand and led her out of the armoury into the darker, quieter halls. Atene followed without resistance. Curiosity drew her along just as much as Erice’s hand. “Before I became a Stormcast,” she continued, “I was a priestess of Alarielle, the Goddess of Life. My order was responsible for bringing life back into these war-torn realms, be it through healing, gardening, or… Well, I don’t think I have to tell you what else. But I was good at what I did – mind you, I wasn’t the one doing the…” To Atene’s continued shock, Erice actually looked embarrassed . “But I helped others along. Though I’m more a warrior than the healer I once was, I’ve never forgotten my duties, nor the oaths I swore in life. The plight of the Draconith is one which I am tailored to solve, and yet I have done nothing to help them.”

“Why?” Atene asked.

“My magic can persuade them to mate beyond whatever bonds they might think they need, but there is an imbalance among the sexes – not enough mares, and too many bucks. I’m sure you understand the solution I’m presenting.”

 “But,” Atene said as heat burned in her chest and she could not look Erice in the eyes, “A human woman? The Draconith are beasts. It wouldn’t… work .”

“Wouldn’t it? They have all the same parts.”

Sweat ran down Atene’s neck. She tried to keep her breathing measured. It wasn’t working.

“Is something the matter?” Erice asked, with a faint smile.

“You know it wouldn’t produce anything.”

“My magic can see to that, Atene.”

“They are animals, Erice. It isn’t right .”

“Some of them write poetry, Atene. Can an animal do that?”

“It isn’t moral,” she said, trying to believe her own words.

“How many morals have we sacrificed already? Our bodies, our souls – from the highest Lord-Commander to the lowliest mortal labourer – they’re nothing more than tools to build Sigmar’s empire. What’s one more use?” Idly, Erice traced the trim of Atene’s waist. It was as if she were measuring it.

Atene watched her through a haze of her own want. She imagined Erice’s hands travelling further out, in rounder, and rounder arcs as her armour was shaped around the new life in her belly. When she spoke, her voice was husky, almost a whisper. “What would I have to do?”

Erice ran a finger up her stomach, across the swell of her breastplate, then reached up to tap her nose. “Atene,” she said, with a glint like the blade of a dagger in her eyes, “I never said it would be you.”

Atene gasped and stepped away. She forced herself to swallow. The world seemed distant, yet sharpened into such clarity she could focus on no one thing, and she found no words to speak. 

No , was all she could think, over and over, like a cackling daemon had taken root in her mind.

Erice smiled. “The next time you go to battle, I won’t be able to join you. Sigmaron has called, and I’ll be helping to oversee the reforging for a while. Rest assured, should you fall in battle, I will be the one to help with your remaking.” Erice left her with a skip in her walk and Atene could do nothing but stare.

–

The next day, the Stormcast Eternals marched to war. Infernal duardin who had fallen to the dark powers of Chaos lay siege to one of Sigmar’s Free Cities. The garrison, overwhelmed, sent a desperate cry for aid that Atene’s Stormhost answered.

On dragon back and as bolts of thunder, they struck from the heavens in the midst of the duardin lines, destroying siege equipment and daemonic artillery with only their arrival – their staying saw the corrupted duardin cut down by the hundreds. 

The skies raged with warpflame and dragon fire. Amidst burning clouds, Atene rode Torrex, who spewed gouts of electric fire upon the duadrin lines – bolts of energy lept from warrior to warrior, cooking them alive within their own armour. The air stank of sulphur and the taste of ash was heavy on her tongue. Above the clang of swords and the screams of the dying, she heard her own heart, and felt Torrex’s beneath her. 

The scores of the duardin slain by Torrex’s breath and the flying daemon-things felled by Atene’s sword littered the ground behind them – ahead, was the army’s champion: a duardin with a crown of bone, who rode a great winged bull. He wove dark magics and shouted his commands with a voice that sounded like mountains grinding beneath the earth. 

She levelled her sword at his heart. Torrex knew her will. Faster than the screaming winds, they raced down from the clouds as a comet falls from the heavens. Torrex’s swooping wings caught the air, rank with the smell of battle carnage and death, and they were upon the beast and its dark master with the burning wrath of a thunderbolt. Blood sprayed and beasts snarled as warrior and wizard fought with the fury of their gods. Atene heard a trumpet call and Aremis’ cry – she knew Veros’ eyes were upon her, and through him, Sigmar himself. “Let him see me now!” she cried. 

Atene raised high her blade of heavenly steel, and through the smog-laden clouds, it caught the faintest glints of Hysh’s light – it erupted across the blade as an inferno rages across plains of grass, and when she brought her sword down, it was with the strength of aeons. The blade shattered the dark iron and smote the duardin’s flesh, breaking bones and splitting organs in a fountain of viscera and bubbling blood. He died with a hollow rasp and hate-filled eyes. Yet, upon his lips was a smile, as he looked over her shoulder.

Atene turned.

The last thing she saw was the barrel of a heavy gun held by a creature without name, and all she heard was Torrex’s wail as a storm of black powder and metal turned her body to a ruin of shredded flesh and thunder.

—

To be reforged was to know agony in the truest sense of the word. Rumours abounded among the mortal populace of the realms that the Stormcast were nothing but souls in animate armour – that all their physical flesh had been lost, and all its weaknesses with it. There were times when Atene wished that were true. But she, though no longer mortal, was a human still, wrought of blood and flesh. 

When a Stormcast Eternal died, their soul was whisked back to Azyr in a bolt of thunder – their body was lost in the spirit-stuff that carried them thither, and so it was, each and every time, remade from the smallest organ to every bone – every muscle and every single nerve recreated and pounded into place by six hammers held by six divine smiths who knew well the anguish they inflicted, and carried out their duty with solemn scowls.

She knew the weakness of the flesh, and she knew as intimately as a lover the misery of pain. For the entirety of her reforging – from her soul being shackled to the Anvil of Apotheosis, to every inch of flesh being reshaped, Atene was utterly conscious, and horrifically aware.

All she could do was scream.

—

It was Sigmar’s only mercy to the Stormcast that the pain of the reforging was so great that their newly reborn minds oft could not even remember it. Those who did feared death more than any mortal.

Atene considered herself one of the lucky ones. When she set foot off the anvil, naked, sweating, and her skin raw against the air, she held her head and screamed until the memories faded and all she knew was a pervasive, dull ache in every inch of her being. Stormcast of the Sacrosanct chamber – those who presided over the reforging – came to her with soft hands and gentle words, clothing her in smooth robes and guiding her from the room, out to Sigmaron where she would be returned to her keep and continue Sigmar’s war. Already, she could hear the soul-screams of the next Stormcast to be remade.

“Atene,” someone said. 

She turned, shaking.

A woman, short and with a button nose, ran to her and took her face in her hands. They were impossibly smooth.

“Erice,” Atene said.

She smiled. “You remember me.”

“I remember that I remember you.”

“More will come in time.” Her brows creased. “I hope. What of Veros? Our Stormkeep?” She hesitated for a moment, and spoke quieter, “Torrex?”

Atene looked to the stars above. “Yes. I remember them.”

Erice nodded. “Do you remember how you died?”

Images flashed of an iron weapon and burning skies. “How long has it been?”

Erice took her hand and guided her away, toward the realmgate that would lead her home. “Four years, as the Azyrites measure time.” 

The haze of pain cleared, and worry nested in its place. “That’s too long. Torrex can’t be alone. He hates being alone. That’s too long!” Atene’s voice rose as he steps quickened, but Erice held her and kept her body steady.

“Veros and Aremis have been with him. Please, Atene! Focus!”

But Atene walked faster, almost a run, and Erice could not stop her from stumbling and pushing past the other Stormcast that looked at her with pity and sadness, for all could tell from where she had come. 

Erice smacked her ass.

Atene yelped then spun about. Erice grabbed her hands and ran her thumbs across their backs, holding her in place as she blindly pulled away. “Where are you?” Erice asked.

“What?”

“Where are you, right now?”

“Sigmaron.”

“What is Sigmaron?”

“The capital of Sigmar’s empire.” 

“Who are you?”

“I know who I am.”

“Then what is your name?”

“Atene.”

“Good. Atene, why are you running?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Because you have forgotten. Tell me. Why are you running?”

Atene pursed her lips. She turned toward the nexus of realmgates, and knew that the time it took to return to the Stormkeep would be the time it took, regardless of how fast she ran. “Torrex doesn’t like to be alone,” she muttered.

“No. But he isn’t, remember?”

“That’s not the same.”

“Why isn’t it the same?”

Atene blushed. Even in her state, she wouldn’t answer that question so openly. “It’s not the same.”

Erice smirked, but something in her eyes seemed too genuine – too honest. “Alright. Do you think Torrex would feel better if he saw you like this?”

Atene looked at the polished stone of the bridge they stood on. “No.”

Erice nodded. “No. When you return to him, it must be as a warrior – as the strong, capable woman he knew. You’ll know what to do from there.”

What do you mean by that? Atene thought to ask, but Erice was already walking away with a sashay in her hips that Atene could not turn from. It was only when Erice looked over her shoulder and winked that Atene muttered her goodbyes and went again toward the realmgates. 

The journey back could not have been more than days, yet it felt to Atene as long as Torrex must have been waiting for her.

She returned to her Stormkeep through the haze of the realmgate, equipped with the weapons and armour that had returned with her to Azyr. 

The light faded. Veros was already waiting for her. “Atene,” he said, not even finishing the word before pulling her into a hug. “You do remember me, don’t you?”

“There are some things I would rather suffer True Death than forget,” she said, pulling him close.

“Don’t think I didn’t see what you did,” he said. “To slay a Sorcerer-Prophet in single combat is no easy feat. I know well the bond you share with Torrex.” Atene’s heart stopped at that, and she froze, unable to speak. “You’re as close as any Knight-Draconis. You’ve the strength of one, as well.” She let herself calm. Veros pulled away, but held her by her shoulders. “I’ve sent a petition to our Lord-Commander. I want to see you promoted.”

“Promoted, sir?” Atene asked.

“To a member of my temple. A fellow Knight. The Lord-Commander will doubtless approve. You need only accept when he gives the word. And you won't have to call me 'sir' anymore,” he added with a lop-sided smile.

“I…”

“The decision carries much weight, I know. Whatever choice you make, I will approve.” He smiled, and she felt something like the warmth of Hysh’s light in her chest. “Aremis misses you, if you can believe it. But I believe there’s someone you wish to see more.”

“Torrex.”

Veros’ face grew solemn. “He has not taken it well. He never did, but something about this time…” He shook his head. “He’s hardly left your chambers. Do you remember the way?”

Atene nodded, and Veros let her go alone.

She recognized few of the mortals she passed, and even some of the Stormcast, but regardless of whether she knew them, they seemed to know her, and Atene nodded each time she was nodded to, and saluted all who saluted her. The actions were almost entirely instinctual. Her mind – indeed, much of her body already – was occupied with memories of something – someone – else.

She walked the dark halls, lit only by glowing stones set in marble and the faint light of stars through slit windows, and came upon a set of heavy bronze doors. Her hands trembled as she set them against the cold metal. She pushed them open. A faint gust of wind poured out. The room beyond was dark. She set foot inside and closed the doors behind her with her heel. The ringing clang echoed, and then, the only source of light – save the stars above – made itself seen: two pricks of glowing amber in a sea of shadow. They stared at her, unblinking, and slowly rose to a height even greater than her own. The slow, measured clack of claw on marble filled the room as those amber eyes peered at her with the cold intensity of a ravening predator stalking helpless prey. Atene met them, unblinking, as she unlatched her armour and let it fall with echoing clangs. In what felt like hours, but could only have been minutes, she was garbed only in a black leather undersuit, and, finally, Torrex stepped out of the shadows, into the cool moonlight. 

Though his eyes stared with that same intensity as before, she could see in his face apprehension – something almost like fear.

Had he dreamed of this? Of her spectre, returned at last, only to fade with morning’s light? Atene could have wept at the thought. But she thought only of holding him close. 

“Torrex,” she said, her voice choking. “Torrex, I’m here.”

He mewled, and the sound was enough to make her sob. Torrex bounded toward her and Atene caught him in her arms and held her close against her chest. He nuzzled her, and pushed her into a wall, and she let him explore every inch of her flesh that he had missed since her passing. He drew his snout across her collar and neck, drinking deep her scent, and she whispered – close and kissing his snout – “I’m here. Torrex, I’m here.” Tears fell between his scales and she let them fall, unashamed and without inhibition. Here, alone, they could finally be as they wished they were, and Atene would have him no other way. She held him close. He pressed himself closer against her.

But his scent – his ozone musk – and the way he pressed his snout into her girded chest betrayed the deeper desires of his flesh, and her flesh desired him, too.

Atene sighed as his heavy breaths ran over her body and slipped beneath her leather garb. The hot, wet heat washed over cool skin, prickling with goosebumps and beading sweat, and what she wore was suddenly suffocating and far too tight. Every nuzzle of Torrex’s snout, every lick of his tongue, and wave of his breath only told her that she needed to feel it, and all of him, against her skin, and not the prison of leather she wore.

Atene panted as she peeled the top from her skin – already sticky – and tossed it to the floor. The instant her bare skin was revealed, Torrex’s tongue was upon it, cleaning it of her sweat and baptising her in his drooling want. He took each of her breasts in his maw, weighing the heavy things on his tongue and tasting every inch of bare flesh that prickled with goosebumps and flushed with need. His tongue crept lower. Across her ribs, her stomach and side, then to her crotch – between her legs and the mound at her core it roamed, leaving nothing untouched, without teasing, until she held him by his horns and ground her clothed sex against his rolling tongue.

But it wasn’t enough. Not for either of them.

He must have tasted her want already – the desperate, cloying stench of her arousal that stained the air and surely drove him to the breeding-heights of masculine need. His scent – the salty tang like ozone – and the desperate need that betrayed his every action, took her already, and she wished to take him as she never had. 

Atene pushed his snout away, already hating its absence, but relishing in the thoughts of what was to come, and shimmied the pants past her wide hips, and let Torrex see the stringing ooze of her arousal that connected her swollen sex to the dark leather that fell her ankles.

Atene leaned against the wall. She spread her knees wide. It was an invitation. Torrex’s eyes closed and his nostrils flared as he drank in the smell. His drooling maw fell open – his slavering tongue snaked through the air and in between her legs. There was a hollowness there that only it could fill. Her womanhood trembled at his closeness and the steaming heat of his tongue. Droplets of her arousal fell upon it before he’d even touched her. Torrex hissed and Atene thought it looked very much that he was smiling. There was a haze over his eyes, as if he were dreaming, and he licked at her thighs, her mound, and all the skin that was not her sex with long, aimless strokes, as if he were lost in the taste of her body, forgetting the needs of his own. Atene groaned and grabbed his snout. She drove her hips against his tongue. “You want this too,” she said, panting. She slipped her fingers between her glittering folds, and pulled them apart, baring to him all that she had. “Do it.” She said then in a whisper – a whine, “Please.”

Torrex snapped his jaws around her hips, taking her bottom into his maw. His teeth – sharper than any blade – pressed into her skin and his breath – hotter than forge-fire, washed over her in heavy waves. He drove his tongue into her. He did not tease. He did not wait for her body to accommodate him. His tongue struck at her sex like a biting snake, then slipped past her folds, through her entrance, and into the fluttering walls within. In one second, she felt nothing, then was stuffed with a twisting mass of drooling flesh that rubbed and pressed and squeezed into and around all her most sensitive, private places. It writhed within her in rolling waves that squished her mound and clit, ripping gasps and throaty moans out of her that still were not as loud as the wet squelching of her cunt.

Atene’s legs gave out. She slumped to the floor, holding up her hips by her elbows and toes. Torrex grew more fervent. He stomped his legs and he swung his tail – he beat his wings and growled, twisting his head and neck as his tongue worked her into a trembling climax, well before she thought she would cum.

“Wait,” she moaned, trying to ride the edge by matching her hips to his rhythm, but Torrex was impatient. Worst of all, he knew how to pleasure her, and took her climax with hungering greed. Atene trembled. It was over as quickly as it came, but before she could regret its passing, Torrex had already worked her to another. And then, one after that.

Atene gasped. Her limbs were weak already and when Torrex pulled out of her and drew his head back, she fell to the ground – her quivering limbs would not allow her the dignity of even sitting up. She wiped the sweat from her brow and tried to steady her breathing. 

Torrex loomed over her. His heat was like white-hot iron and his eyes locked with hers. He put a heavy paw over her chest. Dagger claws, each nearly the length of her forearms, pressed against her skin – not enough to break it, but with such force that she knew how easily he could. The weight on her chest was not crushing, but she knew it could be – he held her just firm enough that she knew she could not leave. He kneaded her breasts beneath and between his fingers, the smooth scales sliding across the smoother flesh and teasing at her rigid nipples. 

Torrex leaned in close. He just breathed – he was taking in her scent, and letting her feel his heat. His tongue snaked between his fangs and ran across her collar and up her neck, ending beneath her ear and flicking her cheek. 

Torrex looked down at her. Atene wriggled beneath his grip and bit her lip. She looked deep into his amber eyes. There was an ache in her core. Beyond conscious thought, she felt a terrible, desperate need. She saw between his thighs the rigid, drooling solution.

Atene spread her legs.

For the first time, she heard from him a sound that could be described as a moan – deep, throaty, coming from the depths of his chest and rumbling across his entire body. The paw on her chest shook, and she trembled with it. Atene could have spent an eternity beneath his weight, feeling his desperate need through that delicious sound – already, her mind turned to what it would feel like to have him vibrate like that between her legs – but when the haze of his arousal seemed to fade and he saw her wet and waiting beneath him, Torrex dragged her back until she was engulfed by the shadow of his body, then with a flick of his wrist, rolled her onto her stomach.

She tried to push herself onto her elbows, but his weight was upon her back. His breathing was heavy and uneven – slow, but only because he was holding himself back.

“Torrex?” she asked. “What are you–?”

His cock landed on her ass. It flopped between her cheeks and the small of her back. The tapered tip dibbled his arousal – it streamed out and ran along her spine, pooling between her shoulders. A shiver followed its path, and she shuddered at the thought of it pooling inside her.

Atene bit her lip so hard it hurt. Her toes curled, her fingers flexed, and she let out a breathy sigh. She arched her back, dragging his cock between the flexing cheeks of her ass, massaging it as she moved. Torrex began a slow grind, rubbing his girth against her. It hardened with every beat of his heart until his length was as rigid as a spear and her cunt – whose fluttering lips tried to grab at every turgid inch that smeared across them – was sopping with their arousals. Clear strands fell to the floor. The heavy ozone musk stained the air, mixing with her tang. Despite the goosebumps that prickled across her body, beads of sweat built on her skin – a symptom of the raging heat above her, and the thoughts of what was to come.

She could wait no longer. Atene reached back and blindly grabbed at his member. Torrex slowed only for a moment when her fingers brushed across the spongy flesh, but when he must have realised her intent, he grew more frantic – pressing harder and faster with erratic, uneven jerks and thrusts.

“Be still,” she said. “For a moment, be–” She grunted when his knot smacked her clit. The pleasure-shock arced up her spine and through her limbs. “Sigmar damn it all,” she growled, then started to push back against him. Her hand fumbled with his length and fought against her own animal-drive to rut and fuck without thought as her hips moved in wild abandon. “Please,” she muttered. His tip slid through her lips and his entire length ground against her clit. She shuddered and groaned. “Just…” His cock caught on the tight ring of her ass and she jerked away – it slid again through her sex, this time pressing into the quivering, soaking entrance, yet finding no purchase. “More!” she shouted. Torrex drew back, then rammed forward. The tapered head smashed her drooling folds, then caught against her entrance, which seemed almost as desperate as she to see him within – inches slipped through, but at such an angle that he could not take her fully, and he pressed into her wall. Atene whined and angled her hips.

His girth there was thinner, yet must have been nearly that of the thickest point of any Stormcast’s cock. Torrex hissed, growled, and pulled back again, until only the thinnest point of his tip remained inside her gripping cunt.

He sank himself inside her. She could not know how much of his cock filled her – her vision was blurred, and her face buried in her arms – but in a single stroke he’d taken almost half of her. He forced her lips wide and her walls stretched to accommodate him, but Torrex had more to give than even her divine form was ever built to take – he drew his hips back, and she sighed in relief, then, not even a second later, he drove into her and the air out of her lungs. 

Her cunt flexed in a panic, delighting in the dominating male presence within, yet trying also to force the unnatural girth out. Torrex’s cock filled Atene in a way she’d never thought possible – the tight, slick flesh around his member must have been as close to any heaven the Draconith knew, and he wasn’t even all the way inside her.

He wasn’t even all the way! she thought in elated hysteria. When Torrex drew back, Atene sucked in a breath to prepare, and when he brought his hips down, she forced hers up to meet him. He plunged even further within, forcing her sex to stretch around his length like a sleeve. She laughed, more of a breathless moan. She was fucking Torrex, Atene thought. That little drake hardly the size of her arm was mounting her like an animal and splitting her apart. 

Torrex growled, and Atene’s world shook. The tremble vibrated through every inch of her flesh and she relished in it. He drew back. She pushed herself onto her elbows. When he drove his hips down, she threw her ass back, and their hips met in a wet, echoing slap. His knot smacked her clit and that was enough. Atene shook and bit her lip. Her toes curled and she smiled like a whore, drunk on the pleasure Torrex inflicted.

By Sigmar, she thought, if this was not meant to be, then why did it feel so good ? If her body was not built for him, then she would break herself and be reborn around his cock. 

For several very long, and very enjoyable moments, they stayed like that – Torrex hilted so deep she swore she could feel his member past her ribs and reshaping how her organs sat inside her, while her womanhood spasmed around the sheer volume of cock stuffed inside – grinding against each other, smearing their most sensitive places with with the combined drool of their sexes, and rubbing her smooth ass against his warm, flexing stomach. With how his knot rubbed into her clit, she could have risen to another climax just like that, but Torrex, in his youthful impatience, drew back. Atene sighed – a mix of disappointment and relief. He bore into her like a spear through a warrior’s heart – her ass bounced and her sex was split all over again. He started a slow rhythm, drawing out til hardly his tip remained, then slamming into her so hard it nearly sent her back onto her stomach – each time hilting himself as deep as she could take him, which, she had learned, was very, very deep. 

Soon the room was filled with the sound of their hips meeting – wet and sopping – his growls, and Atene’s moans and gasps. Their pace quickened. The faster they went, the quicker their speed increased, and soon Torrex’s cock was a blur. It battered her and her cunt did not even have time to close around the empty air he left behind before he speared her depths again. Atene tried to breathe between panting grunts. The beads of sweat ran down her skin and fell around the floor. A viscous puddle pooled between her knees. The air itself was thick with the stench of their sex. She could taste it on every breath.

Atene could see her reflection in the polished marble floor: her eyes were lidded, and her jaw was slack. Her breasts swayed and smacked against each other, and ripples shot across her entire body with each thunder-strike of Torrex's hips driving into her ass. ‘Full’ could not describe how she felt. Torrex's cock was a spear – a battering ram – a bludgeon – that forced itself so completely inside her – so deep that she felt her stomach bulge – that the beaten walls of her sex ached and stretched around him, swollen and dripping with arousal and pain. 

His chest was upon her back and she felt his sweltering heat and every grumble and growl as he sank himself within her, and though she groaned and grit her teeth, she screwed her eyes shut, spread her legs wider, arched her back, and bounced her hips to meet his.

Atene drank deep the ozone-tang of their sweat and sex, and, almost lost in the cacophony of their coupling – every clap of their hips and breathy moan – bit her lip and said, "Harder."

Torrex roared. He drew back so far that only his tip kissed the edges of her lips but before Atene could groan at the emptiness in her belly, he drove himself down. Her mind went blank. She didn't even hear herself scream. She was on the floor. Her face, tits, tummy, and thighs were being smeared in her own fallen fluids, squeaking against the polished floor. Torrex pounded her as if she were again upon the Anvil of Apotheosis, and his cock was the hammer of a god. 

He had a very thick hammer.

Her limbs were splayed and his entire weight was upon her – the thunderous beat of his heart was outpaced only by the fluttering quickness of her own. And the speed of his cock, splitting her in half.

She screamed again, but it trailed off into a desperate, whining moan. It spurred him on and he drove himself faster, harder, deeper until her ass was pressed flat against his hips and the tapered tip of his cock struck at her innermost reaches, rubbing at a little nub she didn't even know she could feel. Atene's knowledge of a Stormcast's anatomy was tertiary. But she knew the women still had wombs. 

Each touch of his cock against her cervix seemed so gentle and so soft next to the way his shaft split and stretched her walls. Her entire sex screamed for relief yet begged for more of the delightful agony of Torrex's lust but the little nub in her deepest depths and the hollow ache of her womb yearned for something more – each time he plunged inside her, each time his bulging knot struck her clit, and each shuddering breath he gave was a promise of what was to come. Of who . Thoughts flooded Atene's mind of Torrex flooding her. She moaned, throaty and long. As best she could, she pushed her hips back in a rhythm with his own and flexed her cunt, begging for his return each time he left her.

His  muscled neck – so strong and powerful, like all the rest of him – craned around to look at her. She looked into his amber eyes. They were lidded with need. His tongue lolled out of his drooling maw as steaming breath filled the air. 

She knew his want. What Sigmar needed of him. But she could not give it. She decided then that she would give herself to Torrex – all of her for his every want and most desperate needs. He was hers, and she would be his. Theirs was a promise sealed by every painting breath, every wet smack of their hips, and Atene's words, "Cum inside me."

Torrex roared. He dug his claws into the floor. The tile split apart. Atene's ass was red and raw, yet he pounded it with greater fervour. Somehow, his pace quickened. Short, jerking, hard thrusts forced the breath from her lungs and his cock as deep as he could bury it. Droplets of their arousal splashed in the air as his knot battered her clit and folds. With every hammer-strike she gasped and saw white. Each blow built toward that roiling heat in her core. Hair stuck to her sweat-drenched skin. She fought to keep her face off the floor.

He pushed so fiercely into her that she feared her hips would snap and with a strength that split both her lips into an 'o', he forced his knot inside. Her voice failed. For a moment, all that could be heard was a single, squelching pop . 

Atene came.

She shuddered, quivered, gasped, and mewled beneath him as her battered walls fluttered around his swollen girth. He stretched and filled her beyond limit, yet her body still screamed for him to plunge deeper – to stretch and fill her more. So he did. 

The tip of his cock pressed into her cervix, and he came. Atene felt his release travel the length of his cock as it, somehow, swelled and hardened further. The force of his climax was like a cannon-shot. Cum struck her cervix so closely, and with such power, that she swore that some must have breached it and surged into her womb beyond. It should have been nauseating. But it tore a moan from deep in her chest and sent an electric shiver up her spine.

It happened again.

And again.

She wriggled, but that knot in her sex and his weight on her back held her down, in place, helpless and forced to feel every blast of cum that drenched her sex and clung to her walls like liquid fire as he rode her ass through his release. He released a lot.

She felt every spout and shudder – every rope that struck and stained her. It only took moments for her to be filled – for the few places not already stuffed with Draconith-cock to be soaked with his cum. The knot plugged her sex and all that cum stayed inside her. It was like magma: a thick, sticky heat that pooled in her core and spread across her body, so warm that it could have lulled her to sleep. Every limb twitched and shuddered. A tired smile spread across her face. She breathed out. But he kept cumming.

Torrex grumbled. Atene felt it through back and in her heart. He started to thrust again. They were tired, erratic movements that rocked his member inside her and pushed her tits and stomach back and forth across the slick floor. It was a futile effort to fuck his cum even deeper inside her, but there was nowhere else in her bloated sex for it to go. Yet, he had more to give.

His member sputtered. Cum flowed into her with every pulse of his still-hard cock and his bulging knot kept every drop inside. The pressure she felt was unlike anything before. Atene groaned and forced herself to breathe. For each breath she took, a jet of cum followed. Each breath out, more cum. 

She tried to visualise it – remember just how much he came when they were together before. When she took him with her hands and thighs, how much had stained her body, hair, and the floor around her? When he blasted his load down her throat and she could do nothing but swallow, how much did he pour into her stomach? 

She remembered the hours it took to clean – the little bits she'd find in her hair while among her comrades as Torrex looked at her with something that could only be smug pride. When she took him in her throat, Sigmar knew she didn't have to eat the next day.

How much must it have been? A gallon? More? 

Because this? What he forced inside her now? It was more. Much, much more. And it was all stuffed inside her cunt.

Atene gasped. Her eyes were wide and she grit her teeth. The bloating pressure almost turned into pain. As much as her trembling hands could move, she grabbed at his paws. Her back pressed against his stomach as hers pushed off the floor. 

She saw Torrex's face. His eyes were shut and his lips pulled back in a snarl. He kept thrusting into her and she could only take him. Her ass bounced with every dull smack of her hips, her tits still wobbled, and she realised he was trapped in this moment just as she was. What else could he do, stuck inside her sex that, still , gripped and pulled at him like a whore's hand? She could not help the fluttering flex of her walls anymore than he could the cum blasting out of his cock. They were slaves to their bodies and their secret desires. The instant they started this path, there was nowhere else it could have ended except here: Atene, prone and fucked beyond thought, and Torrex, who fucked her still. 

But she had promised him that, hadn't she? Even if his seed could not take root inside her, she would – for now, at least – certainly look as if it had. With every pulse and thrust of his cock, Torrex's face twisted, and Atene's tummy grew.

"Torrex," she said. "It's okay."

He kept cumming.

Atene gave up. 

She didn't know how long it took, but eventually she was on her knees again, her belly swollen so far out that she could take him no other way. And still, he took her. She could hear it: his cock inside her, sloshing in his own climax. She certainly felt it. With every thrust, she rocked forward, and her tits dragged across the floor. The smooth touch of the cold tile against her nipples and the boiling pressure inside her sex were a constant source of feeling – pain, pleasure, and something in between – that had held her on the precipice of her own release for so long that tears formed around the edges of her eyes. 

"Please," she kept saying, not knowing who she was speaking to.

The skin of her belly was red and taught. Her sex screamed. Torrex's cock flexed. Another rope of cum filled her, and finally, something seemed to give. 

A single stream of his release, no wider than the tip of her finger, slipped past his knot and through her folds. It was thin and dribbling, but when that liquid fire slid across her clit, Atene's mind turned in, she felt everything a thousand times again, and she came.

She moaned, a sad, whimpering sound. Her thighs shuddered and gave out, and their combined weight on her stomach forced Torrex's cock out with a wet pop. His cum followed. 

Atene lay there, Torrex atop her, as she felt the force of his orgasm again as his cum pulsed out of her with every weak flex of her cunt. She didn't know when her hand moved, but it was between her legs, stroking and rubbing at her battered lips and clit as cum flowed between them and her fingers in a pulsing stream. The smell hit her then and she revelled in it, their panting breaths, and the sopping squelch of her hand against her sex. 

The cum clung to her thighs and pooled between her legs. A taught pressure coiled in her core and all-to-soon unravelled as she groaned and came again.

For a time, they lay there. Torrex rolled onto his side, and Atene, too weak to even move her hand from between her cum-drenched legs, just stared at him through the veil of her hair. He looked at her with his amber eyes, then pulled her tight against his chest. Though he dragged her through the pool of their coupling, his release trailed behind her, and more still oozed from her sex and down her thigh, she pressed her cheek against his chest and knew only the heat of it and the heavy beat of his heart. It was like a drum – powerful, yet distant. 

Atene hugged him. Her arms were weak, and covered little of his broad chest, and her hands kneaded his musculature with little force, but she needed to feel him – as much of him as she could. She buried her face in his chest and breathed his air. His wing fell over her like a blanket. He brought his head next to hers and licked the sweat off her face. She smiled, exhausted and without thought, and leaned into his touch, knowing that he would not let her go. His rumbling purr was unending, like the breaking of waves against the shore on a quiet night and the sound of rolling thunder. 

Despite her state, a bath would take so long to prepare, and he was so, so warm, and she was so, so tired, and so she snuggled into him, nuzzled his chest, and mumbled the words he told her with that look in his eyes. "I love you."

Chapter Text

In the risk of being discovered, Atene found a thrill in staying hidden. Hers and Torrex’s amorous couplings were no longer limited to the depths of the wilds or behind the closed doors of her chamber, now Atene would take him almost as soon as others’ eyes turned away – in the secluded corner of a city after successful liberation, an empty meeting hall after the matters of war had been decided, and even the hidden places of their own Stormkeep. Despite Atene’s growing lust for the thrill of the act as much as the act itself, she was not a fool – if ever Torrex finished where there was a chance of his finishing being found, he finished inside her mouth, where she could swallow his lusts down, safe inside her belly, and continue on with her comrades as if her sex had not just been split apart by the beast she walked beside.

In the times Torrex could not finish – either because they had been interrupted (Atene found her greatest pleasures came when they were at the closest to being found out, and so she delayed their stopping for as long as they could, despite how close their discoverers might be) or because Atene found a simple joy in teasing Torrex. She’d whisper lascivious words into his ear and stroke his flank, with a whisper-touch of her fingers across his growing shaft as she pressed her chest into his side. When he took her and neared his release, she’d say that they, “Really must wait,” until they’d reached the privacy of her chamber, then sneak him there, stiff and oozing, until he could relieve his wants as thoroughly as he desired.

That, too, was not without risk. In a time before, Atene and Torrex snuck through the winding streets of the Stormkeep under cover of night after she had teased him with her mouth for the better part of an hour. They turned a corner and came face-to-face with Dysseos Realmstrider – the Lord-Commander and chiefest officer of their Stormhost – and the entirety of his honour guard, almost twenty strong.

Atene had already wiped her lips clean and could only hope no one noticed the wet patch on the hem of her robes, but Torrex was as stiff as the shaft of Ghal Maraz, and it was plain to all who saw them.

The cursory greetings and respects didn’t last the first few words as a hushed silence fell over the group, and Atene’s voice trailed off in a quiet wheeze. Someone coughed.

Briefly, Atene considered the logistics of stealing the Lord-Commander’s hammer and shattering her own skull.

“Difficulties at the aviary?” the Lord-Commander asked.

“Eh?” Atene choked out.

“I’ve heard of the Guard’s troubles. Pitiable thing.” He nodded at Torrex. “We in Sigmar’s host all set duty before our own desires, or… ‘need for a bond,’ however Veros put it.” He gave a disapproving look to Torrex. “You are bound by the Pax Draconis as much as your rider. Don’t forget that.”

Torrex looked away with shame and embarrassment in his eyes. Even a dragon, it seemed, could be cowed by stern words and a firm gaze.

“Veros has spoken to me of his proposal for you,” the Lord-Commander said to Atene. She snapped to attention and tried to ignore the dripping cock in the corner of her vision. “I’ve put thought into it, and I’d like a meeting between the three of us before I deliberate further. I’ll send word when I’m ready to see you.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

He nodded, and Atene said, “Sir,” again, when she really didn’t need to, and a quiet string of chuckles echoed through the honour guard. Atene’s blush was as red as ripened fruit and her face felt as if she’d held it in a bed of coals.

The Lord-Commander and his host had only just turned the corner when Torrex bit her robe and dragged her into the nearest alley, mounting her while she was still in a daze, and finished inside her before she could tell him what a fool he was being. He pulled out with a pop, a torrent of cum followed, then he licked her chin and flew off, leaving her alone, standing in a puddle of their sex as his release streamed down her thighs. He had torn her robe, too, she noticed through the dim shock. She had to hold it across her chest – she could do nothing to cover her bare ass – and had hurried back to her chambers, dribbling a trail of pearly white all over the streets, that glittered in the warm light of the coming dawn.

Now, after riding Torrex while he lay on his back and kissing him as intimately as lovers do, she squatted in the bath in the centre of her room, letting his copious release fall where it could simply be washed away as she cleaned the rest of herself. That would have to wait until what was left of his arousal had vacated her insides. It took a very, very long time for that to happen. She had quickly learned that it had a tendency to stick around after she’d thought it all gone, then dribble down her leg at less-than-opportune moments – examples of which she preferred not to remember.

“It’s far more convenient when you finish in my mouth,” she said.

Torrex looked at her hips, the streaks of white that stained them, and what still dripped out of her. He seemed far too satisfied with himself. 

Atene rested her chin in her hand and sighed. He was right, though. In the moment of their climax – their minds were so attuned they almost always finished as one – when he bore down into her and her legs wrapped as far around his hips as she could reach, Atene never wanted him to finish anywhere except as far inside her cunt as his cock could reach. The little voice in the back of her mind that each day grew stronger than the guilt, cooed and moaned with her as he plunged deep and released all his want, whispering that there was no other way to take him, nor for he to take her, as if trying to seed her like a Draconith mare. That voice grew strangely silent afterwards, and Atene was left alone to clean up the mess.

Despite the aftermath, the times they could throw away inhibition and take one another as their bodies truly desired were always the most satisfying, and it was how Atene decided to calm her mind – today was to be her meeting with Veros and the Lord-Commander. She turned on the bath and began to scrub the drying cum from her legs and stomach. It would be decided if she was to become a Knight-Draconis: the highest ranking members of the Stormdrake Guard. 

Guilt, as always, returned, as difficult to keep down as the unquiet dead. Could she call herself a member of the Guard, even, with what she did? She could never consider herself worthy of a promotion . Yet what kind of honest servant of Sigmar would refuse? It would only arouse suspicion. The thrill of being found out was an idea Atene was keen on keeping a fantasy, and what honour did she have left to besmirch? She could not delude herself into thinking she was already anything but a degenerate among heroes. What shame would a new title bring that she had not already brought on herself?

Atene rose from the bath, shining with water that pitter-pattered on the marble floor. Torrex drank in the sight of her body, yet seemed to feel her discontent. He nuzzled his head against her and purred. She petted along his brow and horns. His nostrils flared and ran his snout across her stomach, flicking at it with his tongue as his breaths warmed her cold skin. His tongue crept lower, between her legs, and she pushed him away. “Later,” she said, wishing she didn’t have to. Time was already against her. She dried herself and slipped on her black leather undergarbs – she’d have to meet Veros in his chamber for her armour. Atene frowned. She twisted her body. The shirt felt too tight, and rode up over her belly. She pulled it down, yet could not cover all her skin.

“I didn’t know these could shrink,” she muttered.

–

Veros helped her don her plate armour while Torrex lounged in the corner of his chamber. It had the same layout as Atene’s, yet the walls were lined tapestries of Veros’ exploits and conquests throughout his centuries of service in Sigmar’s war, the polished skulls of the monsters and champions he’d slain, and dozens of bookcases, with the many tomes that could not fit upon them piled on the floor. Torrex sniffed the air near Veros’ bed.

“Aremis isn’t here?” Atene asked.

“Oh, she comes and goes,” Veros said. “Not all our Draconith like us as much as yours, you know.”

“Of course,” Atene said, turning away. “Was she here earlier?” Torrex slinked toward Veros’ bed and started rummaging through the sheets.

He almost dropped her vambrace before sliding it over her forearm. “She left just before you arrived. Must have gotten bored when I mentioned a meeting.”

“She must have.”

“Regardless,” Veros said, holding a two-piece set of plates that latched around her stomach, held up by two straps that sat over her shoulders. They were sculpted in the shape of sharp, abdominal musculature. “Up,” Veros said, motioning for her to raise her arms so that he could fit the armour over her. “Your shirt has shrunk.” He nodded to the sliver of bare skin before closing the armour in place. “I didn’t know that could happen.”

“Neither did I.”

Veros fiddled with the latches. He pulled the armour tighter, but Atene grimaced and stopped him. Veros frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Atene asked.

“It’s not uncommon for armour to be refitted after a Stormcast is reforged.” Veros spoke in that voice he had when he was thinking aloud, not listening to those around him. “With Erice presiding over things, who knows what she could have done? But if she was going to make anything bigger, I’m surprised it wasn’t your–” He stood back and pulled at the scruff on his chin. “It’s been months. I’ve seen you in your armour since then. I’ve fitted it myself.”

A little voice in the back of Atene’s mind started to whisper. 

“Our metabolism and bodies are perfected. Eating and training wouldn’t change your weight. The only thing that could would be... But… Stormcast can’t–” Veros looked at the sliver of skin peeking past the hem of her garb, and Atene, for the first time, noticed a little bump in her belly. A shiver went down her spine as a cold shudder seeped through her flesh. “Erice,” Veros said, his voice between a whisper and a hiss. “That bitch .”

Atene set a trembling hand on her stomach. She ran across it, tracing the subtle swell and the curve as it met her hips. Her mind felt distant. As if she were watching herself from somewhere else, and she saw the world as if she were underwater.

Veros grabbed her shoulders, his grip gentle but firm. “What did she do to you?”

“I don’t know,” Atene said, her voice numb.

“Did she touch you?”

“She doesn’t have the parts for this,” Atene mumbled.

“Sigmar’s balls, she doesn’t need the parts ! With her magic she could have snapped her fingers, and–” He growled and spun around, clenching at the air. Torrex was right in front of him. “Good,” Veros said. “Torrex, you and I will show that witch what for. After what she did I’d like to see what you’d do to her.”

But Torrex glowered, and Atene said, “It wasn’t her fault.”

“By the Comet, whose fault could it be?”

“She didn’t– She might have done something to– But she didn’t do this, she just… let it happen.” She spoke before she could shut herself up, and instantly, she knew she said too much.

“Then who did?” Veros asked.

“I don’t think that’s any of your concern,” she muttered.

“I think it is. Atene, I respect you. Truly, I do. But I know who you are. I know... How you act around certain subjects. With all the respect I have for you – which is a great deal, else we would not be standing here – and as someone who would like to call himself your friend, I have to ask…” He grimaced, and spoke through clenched teeth. “Did someone force themself on you?”

“By Sigmar, no! It was my choice! And… his, also, but mine first! Even if I didn’t expect the… consequences.”

“Then Erice is still to blame,” he said, his arms folded.

“Not…” Atene wrung her hands and clutched at the hem of her garb. “...Entirely.”

“What do you mean?”

Atene looked away but knew she could not hide the inferno of pink that raged across her face.

“Atene, what do you mean by that?”

“Erice had an idea,” she forced herself to sputter out. Every logical corner of her mind told Atene to lie – to lay the blame upon Erice and fall into Veros’ arms as the hapless victim: a poor maiden taken advantage of and forced to carry that which she never wanted. But that wasn’t true, was it? Not entirely. Sigmar was an honest god. His detractors would say to a fault. When he chose the souls for his blessed host, those lucky few who would be reborn in his image, he chose honest souls. Atene might lie to protect another – for who else was she protecting by hiding her affair if not Torrex? – but a lie that would harm someone? Someone who didn’t deserve it? Not entirely, that little voice kept saying. She would not stand for it. “Erice had an idea,” she had to say again before she could continue. “I might have propositioned myself for it.”

“Might have?” Veros said, incredulous.

“I didn’t realise she wasn’t talking about me. I think I wanted her to be talking about me.”

“Talking about what ?” Veros asked, wide-eyed as he grabbed her by the shoulders. Torrex snarled and his baritone growl reverberated through the floor, but Veros gave him no attention.

Atene could not look him in the eyes. She spoke, staring at the space between their feet, “There was an issue she thought I– A woman could fix. And now… I suppose I’m… fixing it.” It was then that the realisation struck. The true realisation. Not just of what was happening to her, but of who had done it.

Atene looked up. Not at Veros, but the beast behind him. She met Torrex’s amber eyes and though they seemed so warm, she felt the chill of uncertainty and the bitter cold of fear. Again, she ran her hand over her stomach, taking to memory every goosebump and the soft swell of its curve. 

Veros looked back and forth between them. Atene could not bring herself to meet his eyes. She didn’t have to see his face to know the shame – the disgust – that must have played across it. “You fucked the dragon?” It was hardly a question – more an expression of raw shock.

Atene looked at the floor again. The floor did not judge her.

“You fucked the dragon ?” he said again. Torrex growled, but Veros pointed at him and said, in a voice much like a parent scolding a child, “Don’t you bare your fangs at me. You’re as much to blame here. You should have known better than to fuck her. Though I could say the same to you, Atene.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just… You fucked the dragon.”

“I fucked the dragon,” she whispered. Her face felt so hot it simply went numb. Atene wouldn’t have been surprised if she saw reddish glint on the marble floor. “I fucked the dragon,” she said, louder.

She met Veros’ eyes, and he nodded at her belly. “Yes, I noticed.”

That little voice in her head started speaking again, and Atene knew it really was just her – the part of her that wasn’t afraid to say what she wanted, and how much she wanted it. It started speaking, and Atene let it speak through her. “I fucked him a lot . In my chambers, in the field, after a battle, or whenever I fancied. I pleasured him with my hands, my thighs – even my tits. I sucked him off and let him cum in my mouth and swallowed it all like a starving whore, and when that wasn’t enough for either of us, I let him bend me over and breed me like a mare in heat. And he did breed me. That wasn’t Erice. She might have let this happen,” she said, running her hands over her stomach, “but everything else? Every time I took him between my legs and moaned his name? That was me. It was always me.” The longer she spoke, the more hurried her words and more flushed her face became, until she was panting them out and grinding her legs as she spoke, a budding moisture building between them. It was suicide, what she said. She knew it. She loved it. Atene drank in the growing shock on Veros’ face – the disbelief in his eyes, and the way he kept having to pull his gaze off her belly and shirk from Torrex’s shadow behind him. Let him know, she thought. Let him know every little detail – every sordid account of what his ‘strange little sister’ really did when no eyes were watching. Let him know exactly who – what – she really was: a debased, debauched, wanton little whore for Draconith– 

“Thank Sigmar, I’m not the only one.”

“What?”

Veros ran a hand through his curly mop of hair and sighed. “Aremis shadowed me for months before making proper contact. It was only after I’d single-handedly slain an entire nest of Skaven, with most of my armour broken off and ruined, that she swooped down, whisked me away to the nearest mountain top, and tore off the rest.” He leaned against a bookcase – carefully moving a tome so as to not damage its cover – then looked to the distance with wistful nostalgia. “I’ll tell you something: the only thing more thrilling than riding the skies with a Draconith between your legs is being ridden into the dirt between theirs.”

For some moments, Atene could only stare. Even Torrex seemed surprised. She managed at length to say, “You fucked your dragon?”

“Well, she fucked me. After that?” He cocked his head and smirked in that way that always seemed to catch a glint of Hysh’s light in his teeth. “I fucked her a lot .”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You’ll have to forgive me for assuming it was a safe topic for discussion. A moment ago you seemed quite passionate about it.”

“Yes, well…” She looked back at the floor, realised she’d been doing that too often, tried to look at Veros, and settled on Torrex. He’d calmed down somewhat, but still gave Veros a wary, confused look. The ‘passion’ of her earlier rant had gone, and now Atene was left with shy embarrassment and lingering regret. Her hands fell upon her stomach, and despite what had just happened, she was still surprised to find the taught ridges of hardened musculature replaced with a soft, smooth curve.

“Yes. There’s still the matter of… that.” Veros held his chin. “Are you going to… keep it?” Torrex snarled, but Veros shushed him with a finger.

“Of course I am,” Atene said, unsure. “Whatever… moral considerations there might be, this is too valuable of an opportunity to waste.”

“And that’s your only reason? Pragmatism?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your earlier enthusiasm makes me wonder if you’d have done this for the pleasure of it.”

“What difference does it make?” she asked, looking away and blushing furiously.

“A very large difference.” Veros folded his arms. “If circumstances allowed, I would have taken you both on a discrete mission of the utmost privacy. One that would have taken several months, far, far away from anyone who could have seen you… progress through this.” He waved at her stomach, and Atene felt a fresh wave of perverse shivers, knowing Veros was looking at her, thinking about what she’d done – what would happen to her. “We’d return, having miraculously found a lost Draconith egg in a secret cache. ‘What providence!’ I’d say before teaching you two about the concept of birth control.” He rubbed his temples. “But you’re due for a promotion, and a meeting with the Lord-Commander and the entirety of our Stormdrake Guard. Which we are now late for.”

“I didn’t ask for you to recommend me,” Atene mumbled.

“And I didn’t think you were fucking the dragon!”

“You fucked yours!”

“And I never got her pregnant!”

“Then what do we do?” Atene asked.

Veros tapped his foot and rubbed the back of his neck. “We tell them about Erice. Make her take responsibility for what she did.”

“She didn’t make me do it. I decided to. I wanted to.”

“Not if we argue that you were under the influence of her magic.”

“What about the times before?”

“They don’t need to know about that.”

“That’s not the truth.”

“But it isn’t a lie.”

“I won’t,” Atene said. Veros glared at her, but she held his gaze. “Whatever she did… she’ll stand accountable for it. But it’s my responsibility now. This,” she pointed to her stomach, “and whatever the Guard decides. I won’t make her take the blame for my actions.”

Veros held his mouth in a thin line. A scowl flitted across his features, but it fell away as quickly as it came. “You wouldn’t, would you?” he asked. He looked at her with worried eyes, yet he bore the beginnings of a smile, and something else in his expression. Was that pride? Atene wondered. “Of course you wouldn’t,” he said again before pulling her into a hug. Torrex growled, but Veros said, “Quiet, you big oaf,” before pulling him in.

Atene held them close. “You’re right, though,” she said.

“Of course I am.”

“Yes, well, we still need a plan.” They pulled out of the hug, but Torrex curled around them like a very large cat.

Veros pulled at the hairs on his chin. “I think I have an idea.”

–

The chamber hall was an amphitheatre in shape, with rings of seating around the main floor, where the speaker stood behind a raised podium – those he spoke to stood below him. Around the four of them – Atene, Torrex, Veros, and the Lord-Commander – was the entirety of their Stormhost’s Stormdrake Guard: the most elite of the elite, among a warrior class of mankind’s strongest soldiers. Each of them was bonded to a Draconith of their own. They judged all behind inscrutable masks of bronze.

Veros finished his account, saying, “She sacrificed her body and dignity for the sake of our Draconith allies. It is my belief that this bold new strategy may be exactly what it takes in order to create a future for the Draconith species, and foster stronger, lasting bonds between a Draconith and their rider.”

Atene stood tall, but tried to hide the shivers that their baleful eyes sent down her spine. She wore as much of her armour as could fit, but the armour around her stomach only drew attention to where there was none. The bump in her belly would have been less apparent if she stood utterly naked. Though she could not see their eyes behind their masks, she knew they were upon her – a very specific part of her – and utterly naked was how she felt, regardless. 

The chamber was silent. Dark. Someone coughed.

Lord-Commander Dysseos Realmstrider leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “You… fucked the dragon?”

“Sir,” Atene said. Her voice faltered. He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, sir,” Atene stuttered out. She nodded. “Sir.”

He tapped his finger on the podium and said, “I’ve heard enough.” His voice was level, but echoed in the vast hall. “I think I speak for everyone when I say the behaviour exhibited here is abhorrent, shocking, and vile. You, Atene, are fit only for immediate dissolution. Veros, that you could have recommended someone like her for promotion annihilates the foundations of any faith I had in your character. The only reason I’m not destroying you is that you were clearly unaware of this before, and started this entire scheme in an effort to save someone you care for. Admirable, I’ll admit, but pointless.” He waved the Stormdrake Guard forward. “Kill the woman. The hammers of the Six Smiths will see to it that nothing of this deviant behaviour remains to stain her soul.”

“You can’t!” Veros shouted.

“I can, and I will.”

“Then you’ll have to kill me.”

“Why, in all the realms, would I do that?”

“Because I fuck my dragon too!”

The Lord-Commander held his temples and sighed. “Kill them both.” But none of the Guard moved. They stood silent, staring amongst one another. The Lord-Commander glared. “Do your helms render you deaf? You have your orders. Carry them out!”

They did not move, and not a single weapon was drawn. Torrex still curled around Atene, baring his fangs as electric fire crackled in his maw.

One of the Guard removed their helmet. She was a woman with stark white hair and dark skin. She stepped forward and all eyes turned to her. Atene could see the fear on her face, yet she squared her shoulders, stood tall and said, “If you kill them, you’ll have to kill me, too!”

The Lord-Commander glared at her. “And why is that?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Because I fuck my dragon!”

“By Sigmar, the rest of you, begone with these degenerate–!”

Another voice, a man’s, rang out. “I fuck my dragon!”

Another voice, in a squeaky falsetto shouted, “I fuck my dragon!”

Then, another. “I fuck my dragon!”

“ I fuck my dragon!”

And more after that. Warriors by the dozen stepped forward to declare their Draconith-loving tendencies, and with each one, the Lord-Commander grew more horrified, then dismayed.

“I fuck my dragon!”

“I make love to my dragon!”

“Does it count if it was just a handjob?”

“I fuck my dragon!”

“I fucked that guy’s dragon!”

“You bastard!”

“Silence!” the Lord-Commander shouted. He stood. “Silence!” When none obeyed, he raised his hammer high, then brought it down upon the plinth, shattering the stone with a booming crack that ushered a wave of quiet upon the hall. He growled, his jaw strained and eyes wide as he looked over the entirety of the Stormdrake Guard. “Is there anyone here,” he grumbled through grinding teeth, “who doesn’t fuck their dragon?” 

A single woman raised her hand. “I’m asexual,” she said.

The Lord-Commander nodded with a faint smile. “Admittedly, that makes it less impressive, but I thank you for your decency and applaud your bravery for coming out at such a difficult time.”

“I just let him fuck me while I do something else,” she said.

“Sigmar’s balls,” the Lord-Commander muttered. He slumped into his chair and held his head. “Perverts. All of you are degenerate perverts. You’re a disgrace to the Guard, and the idea of the Stormcast as a whole. Why Sigmar chose any of you…”

“Technically,” Veros said, slowly stepping forward and speaking with measured words, “the Pax Draconis doesn’t prohibit dragon-fucking.”

“I think it’s implied,” Atene whispered, but Veros shushed her.

“And, as you said, Sigmar chose us. He works in mysterious ways. Perhaps, in his infinite, unending wisdom, he knew that those who were inclined to… love more freely would find stronger bonds with their mounts? Even if some of them were the ones being mounted?”

The Lord-Commander looked to the open ceiling and the vast swathe of stars above. “The only reason I’m not calling down the wrath of the Heldenhammer itself is because I don’t want to deal with cleaning up the mess it would leave behind.” His voice was tired. His eyes held only exhaustion. “I truly loathe you all. This Stormhost cannot survive without its strongest soldiers, and so I cannot punish you collectively. Yet another crime has been committed.” He looked at Atene’s stomach. “The interference of the sacred reforging. I’ll be having a talk with Erice. Do not follow me.” He strode from his shattered plinth, his head held high as the Stormdrake Guard watched him leave. He gripped his hammer with enough force to shatter bones.

“I can’t believe it,” Atene said.

“That we’re still alive?” Veros asked.

“That every single person here has been fucking their dragon, and none of us knew.”

“Remarkable coincidence.”

“Or truly Sigmar’s will.”

The first woman to declare herself alongside Atene and Veros called out from above. “So we have an orgy now, right?” She was met only with silence. She nodded and sat back down.

Chapter Text

The last thing Erice remembered was the Lord-Commander bringing his hammer down. After the most painful – and shortest – headache of her life, there was a patch of darkness in her memory that, as she tried to focus on it, brought to mind nothing but soul-searing pain. A reforging, then. The question was not longer what had happened, but why . Almost immediately after – it did not take her very long to make a good guess – the question became, “Where in Sigmar’s name am I?” Her voice was hoarse, and her eyes were closed. She forced them open and blinked away the harshness of the light.

“You don’t recognize it?” a familiar voice asked. “I thought you’d be well-acquainted with our chambers. I can’t imagine your little tryst with Veros was the only time you’ve enjoyed one of the Stormdrake Guard.”

“Atene?” Erice asked. It was true, what she said. The room, like all the others, had the same circular design, with an open ceiling above an inset bath in the centre of the floor. But her tryst with Veros? “You know about that?” she asked.

“I saw everything.”

Erice smirked. “I didn’t take you for a voyeur, Atene. But I can’t see you. Where…?” She tried to look about – to turn her head or body – but she could not move. Something held her neck in place. She tried to reach for it – a collar? – but it held her arms, too. She wriggled. Why was she on her knees?

Atene put a cool hand on her back, calloused fingers brushing across smooth, bare skin. “Don’t struggle, dear.” 

Dear ? Erice shivered. It was a combination of the word, her hand, and the chill breeze that washed over her body. Her naked body.

Erice, bound and naked in Atene’s chambers while she rubbed her back and called her dear . Erice shivered again and couldn’t help a toothy smile born from most unclean thoughts. “Atene, if this is how you wanted me, you needn’t have sent the Lord-Commander.”

“Oh, this was his idea, not mine.”

“What?”

“‘Let the punishment fit the crime,’ he said. ‘We’ll see how she enjoys it.’ I don’t think he realised who he spoke of.” 

“I don’t understand.”

“How long did you think it would take before anyone found out what you did? It’s a miracle you managed to sneak it past the Six Smiths, but surely you realised I’d start showing signs eventually.”

“Showing… signs?” Erice asked, her breath already heavy. “Showing signs of… You mean you… You’re…?”

Erice heard Atene stand. “It hasn’t been as easy as you made it seem, but yes. I hope you’re proud of yourself.” Atene kneeled in front of her. Erice groaned. Atene had always been a large woman – broad at the shoulders, even broader at the hips. In Erice’s private thoughts – and several public musings – her body was likened to the finely sculpted statues of Azyrite heroes of old: noble features and trim musculature. In Atene’s case, ‘Blessed by Alarielle,’ in some regards. Alarielle, being a fertility goddess, meant the proverbial blessing was a very large set of breasts. Now, they were enormous. Shapely still, they hung heavy on her chest and Erice’s eyes lidded with want as she watched them move as Atene kneeled. They were moving around something. Something very round. “Oh, fuck,” Erice said. Her voice was husky, and her words sounded more like a growl.

Atene was gravid. Fertile. Fecund. Erice couldn’t think of any other words because she was too focused on the taut skin of Atene’s stomach – she sat on her knees, and her belly swelled out almost half the length of her thighs. By the gods above and below, Erice thought, she was almost close enough to lick it.

“I thought you’d enjoy this.” Atene grunted and popped her back, pushing her chest and stomach out. Erice’s neck strained forward. Was she drooling? She didn’t care. “Makes up for my discomfort, I suppose.”

“You really did it?” Erice asked. “You and Torrex? You…?”

“Fucked him? Yes. Very often.”

“How… How far along?” Erice swallowed. She wriggled in place and the room felt so stifling– so hot . It wasn’t enough to see her. She needed to touch Atene, to taste her, to– “ Fuck ,” she whispered.

Atene ran her hand across the swell of her stomach, cupping it at the bottom as if holding the heavy weight. “This one is about five months along.”

“This one?”

Atene smiled. Despite her position over Erice, it was still a shy thing, and a little bit of that closed off woman Erice remembered crept back in with the blush across her cheeks. She looked over her shoulder. Against the wall at the far end of the room was a messy pile of blankets and pillows. Piled high in the centre, shimmering with the light of Hysh and each the size of Erice’s head, were three scaled eggs. 

“You…? Yours…? You laid…? Eggs ?!” Erice asked, looking back and forth between them and Atene.

“It was only going to be the one,” she said. “At first. I could blame Torrex for losing control, but he always listens. I’d finish him on my chest, or down my throat, but it feels so good when he’s inside me… I don’t think I can help myself.” She laughed, quiet, and demure. It made Erice’s pulse throb. She grit her teeth at the thought of Atene and Torrex together. Everything they must have done – everything she hadn’t seen. “It still feels so perverse to say those things aloud. But it’s thrilling, in its own way. Especially with you.”

Erice drank in the sound of her voice and the sight of her body like a woman dying of thirst. Beads of sweat gathered on her temple and her sex ached with a terrible, empty need. Her mind felt numb – overstuffed with thoughts of pretty girls being stuffed with bulging, Draconith cocks and their insides washed with boiling, virile cum. “Broodmare. Breeding stock. Cow!”

“Are those compliments?”

“Atene, whatever I’ve said before – anything I’ve done. If ever I have done anything to wrong you, I am sorry. But I want you. I need you. You can’t just–” She pulled against her bindings, and though the shackles were cushioned and soft, they held her with the strength of steel. “No torment of the Dark Gods could ever be so cruel as you baring yourself to me and leaving me without your touch. Leaving you without mine. I need to feel you. Taste you. Atene, please, I need to fuck you!”

“Erice,” Atene said. Her hand hesitated for a moment, but she reached forward and cupped her cheek. Erice whined, leaning into whatever touch she could steal from Atene, who bit her lip, watching. “You’re not going to fuck anyone.”

She shook her head. “You can’t leave me like this.”

“I can. But Torrex won’t.”

“Huh?” There was a sound behind her – the shifting of heavy weight, rustling wings, and dagger-claws clicking on marble floors. A shadow fell upon her and a broiling heat came with it. Two paws planted themselves over her shoulders. A thick, serpentine neck snaked down, and Torrex rested his head against Atene’s stomach. He purred. Erice could feel it through the floor. Even the air was shaking. “He’s so much bigger up close.”

Atene just smiled.

Something landed on Erice’s ass. She yelped and tried to pull away, but her ankles and wrists were bound – the structure that held her kept her knees bent, her head down, and her ass high up in the air. Her attempts to escape just teased Torrex – dragging the smooth, round cheeks of her ass across the thick, wet, turgid length of his… his… 

“Sigmar help me,” Erice gasped. “That’s a dragon dick.”

Atene nodded. “A big one. And you’re such a little girl.”

Erice whined. Torrex started humping her, dragging his cock over her ass, drenching it in his thick arousal. It ran like warm honey across her cheeks and over her sex, slipping between her folds and mingling with what she already started to drool.

“You remember our original problem? Draconith are monogamous creatures by nature. It took the order of the Lord-Commander and days of my reassurance before he agreed to this.” Torrex nuzzled her, and Atene whispered something in his ear that made him wrench his eyes shut and pick up his pace, rocking Erice back and forth over the long, long expanse of his manhood. She would have killed to hear those words whispered to her – that she was experiencing their side-effects firsthand was only a small consolation. “Still,” Atene continued, “he’s such a faithful thing. He won’t do it without me here. And just to make sure he finishes, I teased him for hours – until he was ready to fuck the nearest wet hole, whether or not it was mine. And,” she gave a mock smile of sympathy, “the nearest wet hole happens to be you.”

Erice was panting. As much as she could move them, she ground her hips against Torrex. She felt every vein and rigid inch – every beat of his heart and the puddle of his arousal that pooled on her back and ran down her sides. She said, through husky breaths, “It won’t fit. There’s no way. It would break me.”

“You were a priestess of Alarielle, remember? I’m sure you helped plenty of women in your position. Just try to remember what you told them.”

“But that was for… They were going to be…” Erice struggled against her bonds. The entire structure was a single piece of furniture, well-cushioned and built for the comfort of its occupier. It kept her ass high and her legs spread, as if she was going to be– “By Sigmar!” Erice gasped both as realisation and Torrex’s knot struck her. “You can’t mean that?” she asked Atene, looking between the woman and the pile of eggs behind her. The nest .

“You seemed quite eager to help me along.”

“But I–! I never–! I helped other women, I was never the one getting–! It wouldn’t even work!” She moaned as Torrex’s knot hit her apex, striking the little bud at the peak of her folds and blinding her with a shock of pleasure.

“You don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?” she whined.

“You agreed to this. The Lord-Commander told you. You guided your own reforging, even as it happened. I think a part of you has always wanted this, even if you didn’t realise it.”

“I can’t. I’ve never… I don’t know how to be a mother .” She shook her head, yet pushed against Torrex and sucked in a breath every time he completed his slow, driving thrusts between her folds.

Atene held Erice’s face and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “I’ll take care of all that. There’s plenty of space in our little brood. You just have to bear him for a little while and carry what comes next.”

"You can't just make me fuck a dragon , I don't…" Want it? Erice thought, biting her lip and trying to look over her shoulder to see how Torrex's dripping cock split her asscheeks. How many people had she 'helped' in her current position? How many people had she made carry the children of another? There was always an excuse: duty, a lone woman seeking an heir to maintain a noble bloodline; honour, a man who needed to sire a child with a woman whose maidenhood he'd taken; or, the simple breeding of two animals for the survival of their species. Despite reluctance, shame, or fear, she had been there to ease them along with a whispered word, languid touch, or, failing all else, coercing magic that overwhelmed the mind with base, primal needs that set their bodies aflame with desire – some vestiges of their higher thoughts may have remained reluctant, but their bodies knew well what to do. The trappings of modern civilised ways so quickly fell to the power of older, stronger instincts that had always – Erice would tell herself – longed to break free. All she'd done was weaken the chains. It didn't matter that, sometimes, they hadn't asked for her help. Erice told herself there was beauty in it – seeing two (or even more) beings lose themselves to their need and making new life despite all that stood in its way. A part of her knew she just liked to see the looks on the women's faces when they realised the man wasn't going to pull out, or the way the men would grunt and fuck even harder when the woman locked her legs tight around him.

Even more, she loved seeing them in the months after. Whether or not the man had stayed, he left a part of himself behind, and the women were all the more beautiful for it. They had a glow about them, despite whatever glowering thoughts they might have had, and she could taste the wind of life about them just as richly as the milk leaking from their chests, or the juices that streamed from their cunts as they spasmed on her tongue. Someone, she reasoned, would have to keep their beds warm. And even if the man had stayed, who would complain about it being a little warmer?

But it had never been her. She was not the one to take their seed and foster a baby in her belly. It was the cruellest trick of her divine mistress – a test , the elder priests had said with mock sympathy hiding their bitter disappointment and disgust – that Erice could not bear children. No matter how often she prayed, no matter what magics she weaved, and matter how many, many others she helped, Erice herself remained barren.

And then, she was reborn. An immortal demigod – a warrior of perfected flesh and bone: humanity at its peak. And still.

In Sigmar's endless war, she did not have time to dwell on bitterness and disappointment. And so, the thought of the reforging and what it could really do had never occurred to her until she met Atene – dear, sweet, shy Atene, and Erice longed – above all others she had known, even herself – to see that woman with a baby in her belly. She thought it would have been Veros to finally do her in. Atene hung around him, always looking with eyes full of need for approval, and Erice assumed, the need for something else. 

But then, there was Torrex. And it was curious. She coddled the drake like a mother, yet clung to his neck like he was her lover. Erice’s surprise could not be overstated when, seeking only to ask if Atene had any interest in learning a sword technique Erice had seen on her last excursion – and it really was an innocent question without any innuendo – she had found Atene’s chamber door ajar, and a familiar sound coming from within.

Despite everything Erice had done and the sordid rumours that surrounded her – and she had done many strange, illicit things, and she thought many of her alleged deeds quite quaint – Erice had never fucked a dragon .

She grunted after Torrex gave a particularly rough thrust, and tried to push back even harder. 

'Had' really was the key word there, wasn't it?

“Don’t worry,” Atene said, brushing the hair out of Erice’s eyes and wiping away the worried look on her face with the gentle touch of her thumbs. “He’s a little pent up, so this shouldn’t take very long. Torrex? You can fuck her now.”

He grumbled deep in his chest. Erice felt his warm scales against the naked skin of her back, and the entire world seemed to shake. He drew his cock over her ass and nestled the tapered tip between her damp, petal folds. Erice gasped. She panted. Her chest heaved and her little tits bounced as she wriggled and writhed and could do nothing but wait – it was torture of an indescribable kind, and her mouth opened and closed, her lips fluttering as if she meant to beg – for him to stop or keep going, not even she knew.

He pushed inside. Her sex was open and waiting, yet such was his girth that she felt herself stretch around him – her body being moulded into a wet sleeve for the pillar of flesh that he forced inside her. She didn’t have to see to know that her stomach bulged. Erice wondered how clearly the outline of his cock showed through her belly. She felt a maddening need to see him taking her – to watch every second of his stiff cock as it sank slowly, inch by inch, into her cunt. He took her in a single, agonising thrust that filled her unlike anything she’d ever taken between her legs. There could not have been a single spot within her sex left untouched by his cock, and as his oozing tip rubbed over a little mound in her deepest, most hidden reaches, he left streams of his arousal across it. His burning heat seeped through her core, her walls clenched and grabbed at his length, needing to feel him even more intimately – he growled, and she felt its trembling vibrations through every inch of her sex. She came. Erice’s head dropped and deep, trembling shudders wracked her body as her spine and toes curled, and her eyes wrenched shut. She bit her lip and gasped. She tried to push against him, but there was nowhere else for his cock to go. He had taken her. All that she had was upon him, and he still had more to give. 

“It was a struggle for me,” Atene said. “I’m surprised you managed so much. Almost half-way.”

“Almost?” Erice asked through lidded eyes.

“This can be fixed the next time you’re reforged,” Atene said, tracing the bulge in her belly. Her breasts were so close Erice could see little else, and when she stuck out her tongue, she could almost taste them on the air. “Oh?” Atene asked. “Yes, I suppose you would.” She leaned back – Erice tried to follow – then cupped her tit and ran a thumb over the nipple. It stiffened, and little beads of white budded across it. Before Erice had the chance to beg, Atene brought herself forward, and put her breast on Erice’s waiting tongue.

Instantly, Erice’s lips locked around her and she licked, sucked, and tasted. Warm streams of rich, alabaster cream streamed into her mouth and both women started to moan. 

Torrex drew back. It was just as slow as his entrance. The horrible, empty ache he left behind was soothed only by the tit in her mouth. Erice pushed her hips back to meet Torrex as he sank himself back inside her, keeping the slow, steady pace as Atene ran her fingers through Erice’s hair and cooed each time she flicked her nipple and a fresh arc of her milk streamed out. Torrex did not take her as an eager, younger man might – the kind who’d spill themselves on her thighs at the first touch of her fingers (though she found immense enjoyment in coaxing them back with her magic and the skill of her tongue), his was a slow, determined pace – one of someone, Erice thought, already on the edge and determined to outlast their partner, however futile the effort may be. And though her little bud was left completely untouched and she had cum already, Erice knew it would not be long before another climax took her. Atene’s fingers over her scalp and through her hair, and her soft words and quiet shushes might have been enough on their own, but the tit in her mouth, the milk she swallowed, and the iron-hard cock stuffing her cunt certainly made things easier.

Erice was rocked back and forth in her cushioned prison and all she could hear was the creaking of the wood, the shlick-shlack of her sex, and Atene’s quiet, husky voice. Her climax fell upon her like a shroud. It was a slow, trembling thing that washed over her body and left goosebumps on her skin and a dull warmth in her core.

Atene pulled her breast away. Thin streams of milk dribbled down Erice’s chin, and she tried to lick at what covered her plump lips, but her tongue was as wrung-out as the rest of her. She must have looked like a drunkard, or some addict to strange spices and powders in the throes of their influence, and already wanting for more. Atene was more than willing to provide. She brought her other breast to Erice’s lips, and sighed.

Torrex’s breath grew heavy. His pace quickened. 

Atene said, “It was humiliating, at first. There was no point trying to hide it, but do you know how it feels to have every pair of eyes on you? Everyone knew what I did. I could hear them whisper. I saw the way they pointed. I couldn’t wear my armour. Even the robes were too tight. By the time I was coming to term, I only wore a skirt and wrappings around my chest. That couldn’t stop the leakage.” 

Erice flicked her tongue and ran it in circles over Atene’s nipple, then sucked at it even harder.

Atene moaned and pressed her chest into Erice’s face. “Humiliating. Thrilling. Do you know what it’s like to have everyone watch you and know what you did, and enjoy it? It became intoxicating. Torrex was always close before, but after, he would never leave my side. We didn’t even try to hide what we were. What would be the point?” She bit her lip and slipped a hand between her thighs as the other massaged Erice’s head. “One time, we meant to return here and enjoy ourselves, but we couldn’t wait. He took me from behind in a garden. Some of the caretakers found us. But we didn’t stop.” She moaned. “We let them watch.”

Erice breathed quickly through her nose – no force in all the realms could have taken her off Atene’s tit. Her hands groped at the air, desperate to feel their heavy weight. Ripples ran over her svelte body as Torrex quickened. His head hung low, nuzzling Atene's other breast. He and Erice made eye contact. She thought she saw the flash of an understanding between them, and they both looked to Atene. Her eyes were closed and her head was bowed as her fingers worked between her thighs and her hips slowly rocked with them. She bit her lip. Torrex became stiff, his thrusting was erratic, and then he sank as deep as he could inside her, spearing Erice on all the Draconith-cock she could take, pushing her forward and smothering her in Atene's chest.

She could not hope to control her magic at a time like that, and it radiated from her in an invisible, raw force that bound the three of them in an ever-tightening thread pulled so taut it threatened to snap at even the slightest of sensations.

No heaven could ever compare, Erice thought. Atene ran her hand through Erice’s hair, she felt as if an invisible hand tickled down her spine, and they came.

Erice went numb. She let her climax take her in an unending wave – she saw herself as if watching from the side, as her slack limbs and spine trembled, and she felt a warm tingle dance across every inch of her naked skin, prickling it with goosebumps. Atene laboured for each breath. Torrex purred. Deep in Erice’s core, she felt a warm wetness splashing against her walls. Her sex tried to clamp around Torrex’s member, but was so full it could not close any tighter around him. In the scarce few places the heat pooled within her, Erice felt through the haze as clearly as a branding iron – the rest poured out of her, dripping between and running down her thighs, pooling on the floor below. Torrex’s cock flexed in a steady rhythm, like the beat of a great, pounding heart. She felt the quickness of his own on her back, and the warmth of his scales as he leaned onto her.

He pulled out as slowly as he had fucked her. With each inch he drew back, more of his release spurted out to fill the emptiness he left behind. The last ropes he left as shining streaks of white across her ass and back. A few even reached her hair. A single, sticky glob ran down her forehead and between her eyes. 

Atene pulled her chest away with a sigh. Erice would have protested if she had the mind enough to speak. Instead, she sat there, strapped down and slowly panting as warm white drooled out of both her lips. Milk ran down her chin in thin streams. A thick flood of cum stuck between her folds. Even more stayed within her, pooling in her core with nowhere else to go except toward her waiting, empty womb.

It’s happening! she thought. It’s actually going to happen! She could not tell if her excitement came from fear, joy, or something of a mix of the two, but it felt like a distant thing, deep beneath the fog of her waning arousal. Atene undid the latches holding her firm. She tried to help Erice off the stock, but she shook her head and lay still. “Give it more time,” she mumbled. Torrex curled around them. He grumbled something that almost sounded annoyed, but Atene shushed him and pet Erice’s head.

“Of course,” she said.

Erice leaned into her touch. She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, her scalp tingling beneath Atene’s touch, her ass held high and her womanhood bred and stuffed full with steaming seed – after a while, she felt something. It was slight. Imperceptible to all but those who were attuned to the wind of life. It was like a little flash – a spark of light in the deepest point in her core.

Erice, with weak hands, grabbed Atene’s shoulders and pulled herself off the breeding stock. Atene caught her before she could fall. A river of Torrex’s seed poured out between her legs and ran over Atene’s thigh. Erice hugged her. She rubbed her naked body against Atene’s bare skin, revelling in the chance to finally feel her as close as lovers could be. Their chests pressed together, and she felt something warm and wet spilling between them. “Even more?” she asked.

Atene blushed. “More than there should be. I know that was your doing.”

“Of course it was,” she said, kissing along her neck and jaw, drinking in the sound of her shuddering gasps as she finally reached Atene’s lips, then held her face and kissed her truly – wet, sloppy, and with as much tongue as she could fit in the other woman’s mouth. She studied every clumsy movement Atene made, taking to heart the dance of their tongues and delighting in seeing just how inexperienced Atene was. Was Erice her first kiss? Among humans, surely. Who knows what she’d done with Torrex? 

She ran her hands over her sides, the heavy swell of her chest, the vastness of her hips, and then, almost reverently, the heavy curve of her stomach. She committed every inch of her skin to mind – Erice did not know if she would ever have this opportunity again. She would not waste it.

When Atene pulled away, Erice held her bottom lip between her teeth and then let go with a giggle. “It seems a shame,” she said, “how little you were paid attention to.”

“I feel satisfied,” Atene said.

“And I can make you feel so much more.” Erice was already on Atene’s chest as she spoke. She cupped both breasts just to feel how heavy they were. Atene said nothing as Erice’s lips closed again on her nipple. She just sighed as Erice drained the rest from her. As she latched around the other, she met Torrex’s eyes. Was that jealousy she saw? Erice grinned as she put her tongue to work. Atene moaned. Let him see what a real lover can do, she thought as the last of Atene’s milk dripped into her mouth. She drank it down, and before she’d even finished swallowing, she was kissing Atene’s stomach, running her hands across it and massaging her hips, before ducking beneath it and between her thighs. She spent more time than was necessary there, she knew. She did not care. Atene’s bitter tang was like the sweetest wine, and Erice tasted her folds like a flower from Alarielle’s garden. She had more experience between a woman’s legs than she did on the field of battle, and she exercised that skill to a point that almost seemed cruel – drawing Atene so quickly toward her edge, and keeping her there, her tongue moving as if in a dance – a single, soft finger, tickling and teasing the nub at her peak as if it were the string of the finest instrument in all the realms. Atene’s moans were a symphony, and Erice its conductor.

She kept Atene on the edge for as long as she could manage, but it was Erice’s own impatience that saw her through – Erice’s own need to hear Atene cry out in pleasure inflicted by her, and feel her shudder and squirm on her fingers and tongue.

And it was all Erice had hoped for. She let distance break the strings of arousal that connected her mouth to Atene’s sex. She had to stop herself from licking the sweat off Atene’s body as she crawled back up into her arms.

Torrex curled around them tighter, wrapping them in the blanket of his smooth, warm scales. His purr was a gentle, calming thing.

Erice cupped Atene’s face, running her thumbs over her soft cheeks and staring at her with a simple-minded smile. “Atene,” she said, and said a second time, delighting in the taste of her name and arousal on her tongue. 

“What?” she said, smiling but confused.

Erice kissed her again, in the closest way to being chaste she could manage, then nuzzled her face and nestled her lips in the crook of her neck. She kissed her there – Atene quivered – and said, whispering, “It’s going to be twins.”

–

{EPILOGUE}

Veros had only just left. For ‘a riding exercise with Aremis,’ he’d told Atene, as if his innuendo hid anything. She watched Erice from across the courtyard. Two little drakes curled around her arms, nuzzling her chest and drinking from the warmth that poured out as she sang for them. Her breasts were larger now – not anything close to Atene’s, she thought in a factual sense without any sort of pride, but still. They were much larger. Her stomach was huge. She still carried Torrex’s spawn from their – insofar – first session, and the hatchlings she nursed were Atene’s. One blue, the other green, both with the same amber eyes of their father.

Atene was just glad to give her own chest a day of reprieve. “She’s settling in nicely,” she said to Torrex, who sat beside her. He grumbled something like an agreement. She leaned into his side and petted his leg. She ran her other hand over her own stomach – flat for the first time in months, though far softer than she ever remembered it. 

Erice’s situation was, officially, a punishment of extreme severity. Indeed, after her time in the breeding stock, the Lord-Commander had come by to see her – expecting, no doubt, tears and pleas for deliverance. He found her crying. But when Erice grabbed his hand, made her feel her stomach, and started blabbering about her ‘little drakes,’ Dysseos Realmstrider shook his head, sighed, and left the chamber. He hadn’t bothered them since.

Atene’s duty as one of the Stormdrake Guard had not changed and though her union with Torrex was not technically sanctioned, what she bore because of it meant that neither would be deployed in battle for fear of losing the offspring. The other Guard remained fighting soldiers regardless of their own private relationships. She and Erice remained the only ones to deal with the consequences of those relationships. “For now,” Erice had said before with a too-sly grin.

“She’ll want more, you know,” Atene said to Torrex.

“I’ve handled one woman well enough,” he said in a deep, baritone voice.

Atene chuckled. “You’ve not seen Erice at her worst.” She rested her head against his shoulder. 

Her eyes shot open. She pulled away so fast she almost fell over. “ You –?!” she gasped, more breath than a word.

Torrex’s brow cocked up.

“You talked!” Atene whisper-shouted.

“I am aware,” Torrex said, matter-of-factly.

“You can talk!”

“It’s of little surprise to me, dear.”

“Don’t you ‘dear’ me! You’ve never said a word before! I didn’t even know you could!”

He chuckled. The sound was deep. Very deep. It was like warm honey and the growl of distant thunder. Atene liked the sound very much. She didn’t like what he said next. “Did you think I was just an animal?”

She swallowed, then looked at the stars. She was always interested in looking at stars when she was talking to Torrex. It was a very old, unspoken tradition between them and had nothing to do with what he just said. To think otherwise would be absurd.

Torrex leaned in – his lips split in a thin, reptile-grin and fangs like swords filled the edge of her vision. “You thought I was an animal?” Torrex asked. “And you wanted me anyway?”

“You didn’t give me reason to think otherwise,” she mumbled.

“And you still fucked me?”

“You’re the one who bore yourself to me! And I raised you. I’m practically your mother.”

“That reflects more poorly on you, I’d think.”

“You still wanted me.”

“Can you blame me?” His tongue snaked out over her chest and his thick drool spilled through the thin fabric of her robe. She shuddered, but did not pull away.

Atene ran her hand over her poor, empty stomach and cast a sidelong glance toward Erice and the little drakes nuzzling her chest. Torrex grumbled. She knew that look in his eyes. 

Perhaps the Lord-Commander was right, she thought. Atene scoffed. Damn him, regardless.

She tugged at the hem of her robe. She looked to Torrex from the corner of her eyes, and said in a quiet, breathy voice, “I want another baby.”