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Kai huffed a breath and looked in a different direction yet again, crossing his arms with frustration.
There would be no “welcome” in that quarter. Perhaps if he expended some effort coaxing the maid, she would acquiesce. He always brought his partners pleasure, even after the initial discomfort of taking him. But he didn’t have the patience to deal with it this night. His own hands would have to do.
Decided, he ducked out of the longhouse without a word to the others, and took care of his bodily needs against a gnarled oak tree in the back.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
Did he just disappear outside to wank off?
Why yes, yes, he did.
Unbelievable.
Ere listened with only one ear as the farmer gabbed on, telling him and Sorin how his homestead was attacked, what they’d been doing that evening before the barbarians came upon them.
Then, he shifted topic to his wife’s famousskause, boasting that travelers from far and wide who partook praised it as the best they’d ever tasted. Simmered elk meat, freshly killed, cabbages and beans, spiced with her secret sauce. They would have smoked herring on the side with freshly made sourdough bread enriched with buttermilk.
Ere heard enough for his stomach to rumble with impatience and anticipation. He didn’t know how long it had been since he last ate, certainly before Cloud came to retrieve him and Sorin for the Jade Emperor’s quest.
It felt like a bloody long time. Especially since Ere had been wounded in the skirmish just now. Though he’d not lifted a single finger to fight, somehow he felt exhausted and drained.
It took a lot of energy to be a ham-fisted brute’s punching bag.
Leaving Sorin to engage the profusely thankful farmer with his occasional grunts and murmurs, Ere looked after Kai’s broad, muscular back as he removed himself from the house.
He couldn’t figure the male out. He’d never known this side of Kai. The human side.
The only consistent trait between the dragon and the man was that he lived to fight. Well, and to eat.
Kai had always had an insatiable appetite. He relished in tearing his defeated foes limb from limb and gorging on their carcasses after battle. (And sometimes even during battle).
As far as Ere recalled, Kai the dragon had never rutted with any being. Didn’t even know what sex was.
That wasn’t surprising. Given dragons were larger than any other magical creature (which made logistics challenging). And, during their time, there had only been three of them in the beginning, all males.
Not that that stopped Ere, when he was Rai, from falling in love with an eagle prince. So, their gender had nothing to do with sexual attraction. Nor did it matter in the union of souls. When Rai’s love for Sol transformed from the innocent, hero-worshipping kind to the mating kind, the change in his feelings triggered his ability to take humanoid form.
As for Kai, Ere couldn’t recall that he’d ever taken human form during the Age of the Gods. Did this mean that he’d never known love?
Now that Ere knew it himself, this unfathomable, immeasurable, unconquerable feeling, this completeness and rightness and indescribable bliss, he wanted Kai to know it too.
What was existence without love? The love of family and friends at a minimum. But the best love of all was the love of a mate.
“Evening next, I shall take you to our Jarl’s hall,” the farmer was saying now.
“He will have the answers you seek, or else point you in the right direction.”
Ere perked up at that, reinserting himself into the conversation.
“Answers, you say?”
The farmer nodded.
Now that the excitement had passed, the women and slaves bustled about preparing their food, seeing to the animals, and cleaning the planks for the nightly respite to come.
“Your…” the farmer surveyed Sorin’s figure for a moment, then looked back at Ere.
“…partner mentioned that you are looking for the ‘edge of worlds’ where monsters dwell. I myself have never traveled very far. Only the villages nearby and the sea for fishing. But I have never yearned to sail farther than the waters that hug our lands. However, our Jarl, Olaf the Witch-Breaker, has traveled far and wide. If anyone knows where monsters dwell, it will be Olaf.”
