Metal Mage 10 Read online

  Chapter 5

  I could hear my women still giggling to each other when Bobbie came to a stop in the clearing beside the house. Haragh and I stood with our arms crossed and our backs against the steel for a few minutes, but he eventually glanced over and nudged me with his elbow once he realized I wasn’t about to move.

  “If ye’ want, I’ll sit in that damn kitchen all week,” he muttered under his breath. “I’ve got time.”

  I snorted. “That’s alright, but thanks for the sentiment. Like I said, I’m just gonna let this one lie.”

  “If you say so,” Haragh sighed. “I’m gonna go see how my own woman’s doing then.”

  I grinned as the half-ogre proudly adjusted his tattered vest, and while he lumbered off toward the northern woods, I took a steadying breath and sparked my metal magic to carry King Balmier’s gift along with me. Then I strolled up to the house like it was any other day, and when I entered, I saw my women gathered in the kitchen.

  Deya and Shoshanne were perched on the counter giggling at the moment, and Cayla was just emptying the last of a pitcher into everyone’s cups when Aurora’s eyes met mine over the healer’s shoulder.

  Then the half-elf sent me a glittering smile, and I let the chest drift to the workshop table without me.

  “There you are,” Aurora chuckled. “We were beginning to think you ran away from home.”

  I forced a chuckle of my own as I came over to join my women, but I kept half an eye on their cups the whole time. Whatever they were drinking was a dark purplish red that stained their lips, and when no one offered me a cup, I realized I was gonna be shit at letting this lie.

  “You all look like you’re feeling better,” I tried.

  “Yes, Shoshanne saved us from the Rosh,” Aurora laughed.

  “And Deya’s been telling us about her afternoon,” Cayla added between sips. “She transmuted with the green dragon scale you got for her.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “It was amazing,” Deya sighed as she slid her cup away. “Mason, I ate a griffin!”

  I dragged my eyes away from the discarded cup. “You what?”

  “Ate it,” she said with a devilish grin. “I’ve never tasted anything like it, Mason. Even the bones were good! They snapped apart like nothing in my teeth, and it was such a rush to hunt him down like that. I could smell his fear as I overtook him, and I’m beginning to understand Ruela so much better now.”

  “I want to be a dragon,” Aurora groaned. “You get to have all the fun.”

  “But you get to light things on fire,” Deya pointed out.

  “So do you if it’s a firebreather,” the half-elf snorted. “I don’t get to hunt griffins while I light things on fire. You get to smell their fear, Deya. That’s twice as awesome.”

  “She has a point,” Cayla agreed. “I only get to see their fear in the split second before I shoot them. It’s nice, but smelling it would be so sexy.”

  “Okay, but should you be eating whole, raw griffins?” I asked as I cocked a brow at the elf. “What if you ingest some sort of parasite or bowel disease or something?”

  Deya shrugged. “I feel fantastic.”

  “I wonder if your dragon form can sustain your elven one,” Shoshanne said thoughtfully. “Could you waste away if you transmute too long and miss meals in this form?”

  “Or is it like our magery?” Aurora asked. “Does the connection physically exhaust you after a while?”

  “Not at all,” Deya told them, and my hand discretely closed around the handle of her discarded mug. “I’m not hungry anymore, either. I was starving before I began transmuting, though, so maybe my own appetite carries over when I change forms.”

  I nodded along while Cayla wondered whether Deya’s connection to the creatures was something the dragons around her noticed, but my arm froze before I could get the mug to my lips on account of Aurora’s next question.

  “Have you ever transmuted with a pregnant dragon before?”

  “Yes!” Deya said with immediate excitement, and her hands slid to rub her belly affectionately. “The purple dragon I used to kill the Terra Mage in Jagruel hadn’t laid her eggs yet, and I could feel them inside of me. I felt like they were my own babies, too. My connection to the mother dragon gave me this overwhelming sense of … I don’t know how to describe it. Completeness, I suppose. I felt protective and warm all over, and my mate refused to let me leave the nest at first. He kept bringing me his kills to eat, and he burnt two dragons to a crisp just for coming near me. I’ve never felt so important. Like I was the center of his entire world.”

  “Aww!” Aurora moaned, and her own hands cupped her honed belly. “That sounds so lovely!”

  “It was,” Deya sighed.

  My brows shot up as I glanced between the two women and their wistful smiles, and when I looked down, the sight of their hands petting their abdomens made something in my gut shift. They looked like gorgeous, doting pregnant chicks while they giggled at one another, and I was still sizing the two of them up when the mug suddenly left my hand.

  “That’s mine,” Deya informed me with narrowed eyes.

  “I’m thirsty,” I said like a fucking robot, but Shoshanne shook her head.

  “You wouldn’t like it. It’s too sweet for your taste.”

  I furrowed my brows. “It smells kind of like wine.”

  “Does it?” Cayla asked lightly, but before I could respond, all four women drained their cups.

  “It makes me miss home,” Deya sighed.

  “You know, it is kind of like that juice you guys drink,” Aurora agreed.

  “I think so too,” Shoshanne said with a nod, “but much less alcoholic.”

  “That’s good, at least,” I muttered.

  Cayla cocked a brow. “Why?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why is it good if there’s less alcohol in it?” the princess asked, and all four women looked at me.

  I hadn’t meant to say what I’d been thinking out loud, and as I considered the looks on their faces, I realized making a speech about alcohol consumption and pregnancy five minutes after getting home would be the opposite of letting it lie.

  “If this is about the Rosh, you’re being a hypocrite,” Aurora informed me. “You acted like a maniac in Jagruel, so don’t get judgy.”

  I nodded. “Totally, I just … figured you’d all be tired of drinking for a bit after the Rosh yesterday and the hangover this morning. That’s all I meant.”

  “I am over it,” Deya groaned. “I never want to get that drunk again.”

  “Then don’t,” I said with a shrug I hoped was casual. “Nothing wrong with just hanging out and avoiding alcohol for a few months, am I right?”

  “But Deya’s so cute when she drinks Rosh,” Shoshanne countered before her brows furrowed. “At least I think she was cute … I don’t really remember.”

  “Mason, was she cute?” Cayla asked. “You seem to remember last night better than us.”

  “Yeah, she was cute. You all were.”

  “You never told us if we were ridiculous, though,” Aurora laughed as she propped her elbows on the counter. “Be honest. How embarrassing was it?”

  “Yeah, I hope we didn’t upset you at all,” Shoshanne added as she eyed me cautiously.

  “I mean, you were a little ridiculous,” I admitted, “but not embarrassingly so. Nothing I’d object to, anyway. You were all just kind of … talkative. Said a lot. Did a lot.”

  “Oh, I know I did a lot,” Cayla chuckled. “I still have your seed seeping out of me. This has to be the most you’ve ever poured into me.”

  “Me too!” Deya giggled. “Mason must have been insatiable again.”

  I gaped as the women looked at me with accusing smirks, and I tried not to let the assumption it was all my doing get to me. I very clearly remembered being instructed to cum in them as much as I could physically manage, but when Aurora had the audacity to roll her eyes, I finally grabbed one of the empty mugs.


  “Was this the tea?” I demanded.

  “Mason!” Cayla scoffed. “Why are you still talking about the tea?”

  Aurora crossed her arms. “Yeah, is disrespecting our privacy going to be a regular thing with you now?”

  “Wha--?”

  I rifled my hair and turned for the atrium rather than respond, and I ground my teeth when I heard Deya giggle at my back. Then I dropped onto my stool at the worktable, and I briefly considered whether I felt like making a huge and stupid scene about last night that would probably end with me looking like a jack ass and embarrassing my women.

  Then Shoshanne walked in. “Are you feeling alright?”

  “I’m fine,” I muttered, and I grabbed the closest piece of steel. “Just have a lot of work to do. Guns, automatons, the Oculus, not losing my damn mind … you know, the usual.”

  “Well, here,” the healer said as she slid a glass of water my way. “You said you were thirsty.”

  “Tell us how we can help,” Cayla offered as she sidled in, and I felt her hands massaging my shoulders a few seconds later.

  Then I glanced at the glass of water and the healer, and I couldn’t even hold onto a scrap of irritation.

  Shoshanne smiled sweetly as she sat on my lap and curled her fingers around my leather vest, and my palms slid along her silky thighs to settle on her ass as she began kissing me. Cayla’s lips were slowly working their way up my neck now, too, and then Deya nipped lightly at my ear on the other side.

  “If you need me, I’ll be practicing with my scales,” the elf purred, and I nodded while Shoshanne’s tongue tangled with my own.

  I let the two women ease my tension while they stroked my shoulders and laid kisses anywhere they could, and by the time Shoshanne’s lips finally left mine, I’d decided huge scenes were useless, and no one ever said having four women would be a no stress situation.

  “Thank you, by the way,” the healer said softly.

  “For what?”

  Shoshanne shrugged. “Taking care of us.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Cayla agreed, and she left one last kiss on my neck. “We love you, Mason.”

  Their words caught me off guard a bit, but as I considered the sparkle in Shoshanne’s brown eyes, I couldn’t help grinning. Warmth spread across my chest and caused my heart to pound a little heavier than usual, and I felt a sudden surge of determination to do everything I could for my women, no matter what happened.

  “I love you, too,” I assured them as I tucked a copper curl behind Shoshanne’s ear, and she blushed lightly.

  “Then tell us what we can do to help,” Cayla murmured in my ear.

  “You wanna help me with an automaton?”

  “You wouldn’t mind?” the princess asked as she clutched eagerly at my shoulders. “I’ve been so curious what you’ll be sending to Jagruel.”

  “Not at all, you can help me design it if you want.”

  “I wish I could help, too,” Shoshanne sighed with disappointment. “I love watching you work, but I’m sure the snatcher will be back soon, and I should get the infirmary ready for the next batch of patients.”

  “That reminds me,” I said, “I met the healers from the Oculus today, and they’d like to help you here. Since you’ve been tied to the infirmary for days now, I took them up on their offer. Figured you could use a break, and I could use seeing your face around way more often.”

  “Really?” she asked, and I could tell how relieved she was.

  “Hell yeah,” I replied. “They’re getting their equipment together, and then they’ll be on their way over. There’s six of them, and if you show them how to handle the procedure, they’ll get right to work. Then you only need to oversee their progress once in a while.”

  “And we get our healer back,” Cayla added as she squeezed Shoshanne’s arm, and the healer smiled happily.

  “That sounds so wonderful. I love my work, but removing runes all day isn’t my favorite thing I’ve ever done as a healer. To be honest, the whole process is starting to make me nauseous, but I didn’t want to complain since it’s so important that we get the work done.”

  “Well, thank you for taking it all on despite how gross it is,” I said as I pulled her a little closer. “I’m proud of you. You’ve single handedly saved nearly two hundred mages and reunited them with their families, and because of you, Sebastian gets to be a father, too. I wish you could have seen how grateful he was last night. Him and that redhead owe a lot of their future happiness to you.”

  “That does make up for the flesh peeling part,” Shoshanne giggled. “I’m a big fan of babies being born into families with strong fathers and adorably curly haired mothers.”

  “Me too,” Cayla agreed.

  Then Shoshanne stroked my cheek before she hopped down from my lap, and I furrowed my brow as I watched her head for the door. Something about the warmth in her gaze just now sent my mind into a tailspin all over again, and I began to wonder if my other women had told her about our conversation at the fountain this morning.

  I was still staring at the wooden carvings on the door when I heard Shoshanne’s heels clicking their way into the infirmary, but then Cayla cleared her throat and sat on the stool beside me.

  “So, where do we start?”

  “Um,” was all I came up with.

  A hazy smirk just refused to leave my face all of a sudden, and when I looked over at Cayla, she was smiling, too.

  “What is it?” she laughed.

  “Nothing,” I chuckled as my grin grew a bit more. “Let’s uh … let’s start with that chest over there. It’s a gift from your father.”

  Cayla gasped in surprise and hopped up, and when she opened the chest I’d brought back from Temin’s castle, her blue eyes went wide. Then she let out a soft moan as she slid her hands inside the chest to pull out two heaping fistfuls of diamonds, and my jaw dropped.

  “Is that entire thing filled with fucking diamonds?” I asked.

  “Of course, it is,” the princess sighed happily.

  “Holy shit,” I mused. “That’s a hell of a gift.”

  “Will you make us all kinds of beautiful things with them?” Cayla asked as she continued digging through the gems like she couldn’t help herself. “I know you’re busy, and you don’t have to do it right away or anything, but just sometimes? If you’re not too busy.”

  “Glady,” I chuckled, and I pulled my stack of sketches over. “Although, I could probably do it tomorrow if you want to show off at the castle a bit.”

  “We’re going to the castle?” Aurora asked, and I turned to see her bringing in a platter of food for me.

  The half-elf set it down on the table and winked before placing a kiss on my cheek, and the smell of roasted pheasant had me instantly salivating. She’d even toasted the slices of bread with her powers as well, and the melting butter on top practically sang to me as I realized I hadn’t eaten since yesterday.

  So, I swiftly shoved a whole piece of bread into my mouth and groaned with relief, and Aurora snorted as she joined Cayla to admire the diamonds.

  “We’re going to the castle because Temin’s gathering the nobility to discuss the tariffs against Orebane,” I mumbled through another lump of bread. “The Elders are here.”

  “The Elders of Aurum?” Cayla clarified. “That’s not possible. The dwarven Elders have never visited the southern kingdoms. What would bring them to Serin?”

  I swallowed a salty lump of pheasant. “Seriously? Never?”

  “Yes,” the princess assured me. “They notoriously snub us regardless of circumstance. The kingdoms here finally gave up extending any invitations.”

  “Oh,” I said with a slow nod. “Well, they’re here now. Not by invitation, though. They came to see me.”

  A telltale glint came to Cayla’s eyes, and Aurora burst out laughing when the princess abruptly abandoned the diamonds to come my way.

  “The Elders of Aurum left Orebane to see you?” The hark-haired beauty purred. “I’m so turned on righ
t now.”

  “I can tell,” I cleared my throat.

  “Tell me everything,” Cayla demanded, and she hitched her leg over my lap to straddle me.

  “Okay,” I chuckled. “Dorinick didn’t bother telling them about the possessed ogres, and Elder Foreg said they thought it would be prudent to discuss the fortress with me directly. So, they came down here, insulted Temin, and sat in his throne. Then they bowed to me and told me it was an honor to see me again.”

  Cayla let out a moan as she rolled against my groin.

  “Keep talking, Mason,” Aurora giggled. “She likes it.”

  “Well, that’s where the good news ends, unfortunately,” I admitted, but I kept kneading Cayla’s ass in my palms for a bit since she couldn’t seem to stop grinding up on me. “They also closed the borders of Orebane, and if I can’t convince the nobility to lower the tariffs by tomorrow, then they’re backing out of the trade agreement.”

  “What?” Cayla gasped, and she froze. “But they gave you their word.”

  “I know, but it’s nothing personal, Illaria’s just not holding up their end of the bargain,” I told her. “Luckily, most of the nobility could probably be convinced to change their tune. The Elders agreed to stay for the meeting, so Temin’s trying to dress it all up to their standards. Now, I’ve gotta have all our wine from the pub sent over because he’s out.”

  “The Elders came all the way to Serin, and Temin doesn’t have dwarven wine?” Cayla exclaimed with wide blue eyes.

  “Yeah, they were pretty disappointed,” I chuckled, “but I promised I’d rectify the situation for them. That seemed to undo some of the damage, at least.”

  Cayla’s eyes darted to Aurora, and the half elf immediately headed for the door.

  “I’ll get the Mustang loaded and bring it over,” Aurora decided.

  “I can do it,” I offered.

  “You have enough to take care of,” Aurora called back on her way out the door, “and if the Elders of Aurum seriously bowed to you, I’ll get that wine there in ten minutes flat.”