A flicker. Just a flicker. Straining, focused on the whispers of insight or…no. I squeezed my eyes closed more tightly, reaching out into the dark with my free hand as if I could push my gift along like a ball.
“Hell you doing down here, Chirp?” Asdren’s voice, with the clap of his hand on my shoulder, startled me badly. I spun on my knee, torch up, and nearly set his beard aflame with the sputtering light. “Watch that fire, lad!”
He danced back, his head dusting the top of the tunnel, as he was bowed slightly. Not as deeply as I had been but enough.
“Apologies, I…you surprised me.” My heart thundered in my chest.
“Woke up to take my turn at watch and you were gone,” he said, easing closer as I lowered the torch, my sight moving from him to the darkness behind me. “Found your footsteps in the dirt and followed them. So you just decided to take a stroll in an abandoned mine?”
“No, I…” I brought my sight back to him, resting still on one knee, our sight nearly aligned. “There is a presence down here, far off, a beast. Alive, but…not.” I rubbed at my brow as the torch burned down to a small flame that threw off dark smoke.
“Probably crawlers.” He knelt down as well, his knee coming down on the skeletal remains of some small creature. “They prowl the tunnels looking for rats. Not sure they got much in the way of brainpower, but that could be what you’re sensing.”
“Mm, perhaps.” I looked back down the passage, the steady pulse tickling my mind. “What are they, the crawlers? Spiders?”
“Nah, worms with pincers on their arse. They move fast for worms though. Got a hole for a mouth with sharp teeth. Nasty fuckers. Easy to kill, thankfully, but they got numbers.” He continued to watch me, his hair rattier than normal.
“I have no skills with insects,” I mumbled, easing down to sit cross-legged, wishing I could pick up a stronger thrum. “This must be a beast of some sort. It is…odd,” I whispered, placing the torch on the ground as I turned my attention to the darkness of this lonely shaft. “It seems almost as if it is sleeping but deeper. No, not sleep,” I huffed. “I do not know what it is, but it is a beast, and it is alive…of a sort. I think I need to find it.”
His exhalation nearly blew out the weak torch. “Chirp,” he said then blinked when I snapped my sight back to him. “Lad, we can’t go larking off down shafts on a druidic whim. We got a job to do from your king. Aelir was pretty firm in that he wanted us to move our arses.”
“If I do not find it, the beast may die.” I reached for the torch. He grabbed my wrist. My sight flew from the light to him.
“Then it dies.” I shook my arm to free it, but he held tight.
“I cannot abide that.” His face was tight now, masked with irritation.
“Then we got ourselves a stalemate because I ain’t going to let you crawl around these fucking tunnels like a rat. You got no clue where they go. You could slide into a lava pit, be eaten by a troll, or tumble skinny arse over tea kettle into a nest of crawlers.”
“Then we will find the beast as a unit.” I gave my arm another shake. He hung tight. Much like the badger I likened him to before.
“No, we will not. I’m the head of this expedition. Yeah, I know you think you’re top cheese, but that’s where you’re mistaken, boy-o,” he replied as his fingers held me tight.
“Stop calling me a boy! I am an elf grown. I know how to track things, for I have done it all my life without a puckered-up dwarf crashing about fudging things up. We have shared a bed!”
“You’re right,” he conceded, his voice soft but firm, making my cock twitch. “You are an elf grown, a prickly one for sure, but an elf grown. I’ll not call you that again. Now we got that settled, we’re going to move on to—”
“Who is in charge?” I slid in as his thumb began to press ever so gently on my pulse point.
“Oh, Chirp, that’s me. You might take the lead from time to time when it’s wise, but I amalwaysin charge.”
I glanced down at where he held me then back to his face. The tunnel was growing darker by the moment, the torch nearly burned to fine ash, but I could see his eyes. Brilliant blue, they rested on my mouth. “If you got issue with that, tough titties. This is my world, my troupe, and my reputation on the line.” I wet my lips. He made a sound in the back of his throat. “Youagree?” I nodded. He leaned in closer, his mustache tickling my cheek, his lips beside my ear. My prick was hard now, leaking in my breeches. “Say it. Say you want me in charge.”
“I want you in charge while in the mines,” I whispered through a cloud of lust that was making it hard to think clearly. He chuckled and nipped at the tip of my ear, pulling it into his mouth to suckle on it. I gasped and whined. “And when we are like this…”
“You mean on our knees in a shitty tunnel filled with bones and rat pellets,” he replied, his tongue dipping into my ear before he licked a line down the side of my throat. “You got a neck like a snow swan, Vol’ka Dor.”
A shudder ran through me. That name. That name made me hard, eager, and desperate. I longed for him to call me that over and over again.
“Yes, when it is us alone and you…you hold me tight. When you want me,” I gasped, writhing about to press my mouth to his as the torch flared up and then out. Blackness enveloped us as his tongue slid into my mouth, claiming it, claiming me. We fell to the gritty floor, me beneath him. I stretched upward. He moved upward, rubbing his hard, fat cock into my belly to secure my hands above my head. My balls drew up. “Close…”
“Close already? Easy now, love, easy.” He rubbed his cheek against mine as he nibbled his way to my mouth, licking in, grinding down as his tongue tangled with mine. Lover again. My anger with him had fizzled like the torch at our side. For now. He was an irksome dwarf. I found that appealing and irritating all at once. “Mm, you taste like wild berries and nuts.”
“My spend is nutty,” I mumbled into his ear.
“Yeah, I recall. Mm, I think I want more of you on my tongue.” He kissed me passionately and began to move downward, hiking my shirt up to my chin to pluck and suck at my nipples. I bowed upward, mad with want, as he slithereddown. He freed my cock from my breeches. My fingers dove into his wild hair, fisting it, steering him to my prick. Not that he needed my guidance. He fell on my shaft with a grunt, taking the whole of me down his throat. I yelped out in shock then pleasure, lifting my arse from the tunnel floor. With a strong hand, he pressed down on my stomach, holding me to the ground. Dirt, rocks, and crushed bone dug into my bare back as he began sucking me. My cries echoed down the shaft. I tugged at his hair. He cupped my bollocks. A flare of white-hot pleasure sparked off at the base of my spine as my cock swelled and spewed. Asdren moaned in pleasure, swallowing greedily, my balls in his rough hand.
Fuzzy dots appeared behind my lids, like dandelion tufts, as I jerked and spasmed.
