Framework of the Frontier, Sain Artwell [read me a book .TXT] 📗

this is it. Breathing grew hard. William managed to groan out one more word: “Ember.”

“She’s alive,” said Nevija.

“I will take the human to appease the leviathan. They are a vanishingly rare delicacy,” said Aggoloth. “The rest, and their possessions are yours to do with as you please.”

Raia frowned. “But I wanted—”

“That sounds like a perfect deal. Pleasure doing business with you.” Nevija cut her off.

“And it will be a pleasure going forward, so long as this gift is enough to appease him…”

“Bleh. I guess we won’t be playing together after all.” Raia frowned down at William and took the bronze star, flinging it into the lake bottom before she began to go through his pockets. “Sorry mister Ranger, I was looking forward to doing lotsa things with you.”

“As was I,” agreed Nevija. She rummaged through Rajza’s things. “A shame how the good Ranger’s keep disappearing. Either they wander into some nameless dungeon or get eaten by the beasties of the wilderness.”

“Such a shame… Are we keeping the faun or selling her?”

“Interrogate for secrets first and sell after.” Nevija answered. She gave the unconscious Rajza a sorry look. “Sorry big boy, but there’s no room for you on the wagon and even less use.”

She left him with his weapons, returning to the wagon to produce some rope and manacles. “Best put the Ranger in the antimagic chest too. He can buff others and himself with his magic.”

“Do as you deem best. Slave, take care of your companion,” Aggoleth said, kneeling next to Rulu. She began speaking in their otherworldly whale-songy language.

The triton helped his friend, while Nevija and Raija turned William on his stomach and began to pull his pants off.

“Unfortunate, mister Ranger,” Nevija spanked something, but William was numb and couldn’t feel shit. “He had such a nice ass too.”

“He does…” Nevija put her grabby hands on it too.

It was hard to feel what they did to him, with sensations of his muscles blurring into one warm porridgy mess, but by the end William figured he was securely wrapped up. The triton and Nevija walked him to the kitties’ little wagon where they had already gathered all the ‘loot’ in a haphazard pile around the chest. Ember slept on top of it as tied as the rest of them were. The chest itself contained one helpless Rulu.

“In you go.” Nevija pushed William forward.

Being folded into a box against a slippery and disgruntled aboleth girl, William felt like a misshapen puzzle-piece. The lid shut them in and clipped down with what sounded like locks. Darkness, however, was short lived as Rulu’s bioluminescence washed their prison box with a faint verdant luminance.

She shifted, trying to wrestle out from under his weight. Slick limbs and soft shapes rubbed against William. When Rulu’s huffs finally settled to a rest, William’s eyes focused on a glowing bulb.

It was a tiny nub followed by a narrow smooth slit between two dark squishy… Thighs. Those were her thighs, and that was her sex. Had he not been in mortal peril and numbed to partial paralysis, William was certain that he would have reacted.

No. Nope. There it was, the stiffening.

Fucking hell. This is not the place. Maybe it was the poison relaxing his body. Yep. It’s the poison. Definitely the poison. No way would he be thinking about sex after witnessing betrayal, extortion, and ending up kidnapped by a cannibal jellyfish. Not when he already had Ember. Thank God, the cats had left him with underpants or he’d have slapped Rulu’s face and completed the circle of humiliation.

The wagon tugged into motion.

Her soft cheek jerked into his groin, while William smacked nose first into the source of the sweet fresh lettuce scent which saturated the air of their dark prison. The contact drew out a girly moan from her and caused the thighs over his head to squirm. Dribbles of her womanly dew trickled in through the corners of William’s gag, suffusing his tongue with a crisp, slightly acidic salty taste. To his straight up ear-burning shame, a taste was enough to turn his half-chubby rock solid, causing more whimpering from the girl whose face pressed against it.

Rulu groaned out a frustrated complaint.

William grumbled a sorry. He tried to move to find a less compromising pose, but his muscles felt like lead, though slightly less so than before.

He was recovering from the poison. Sensations returned to his extremities over a short, but undefined period, of wagon rattling along on an uneven road. His wits grew with them, waking William from some kind of half-haze.

I’m not dying here.

He still had two blessings and an ally. Like hell he was going to end up becoming someone’s dinner and leave Ember stranded helpless with the miarii. William craned his head to look at the aboleth and called for a meeting.

Rulu’s luminescent patterns flickered as she mumbled against the knot of rope. He couldn’t make out the words, but recognized in an instant the will to fight in her tone.

William grunted, suggesting an escape.

Rulu agreed.

When he tried to break the ropes, Rulu made disapproving noises. She had another plan it seemed. William nodded, urging her on. The aboleth began to squirm furiously, moving in small determined jerks, bending and folding in unnatural ways. The rear side of her butt visited his field of view. William noted that the tailhole beneath her thick tail was not glowing. Small slender fingers brushed against his stubble, tugging furiously at the knots until his gag rolled off of William’s mouth.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

Rulu started moving again and after a while he was met with a black rag tied over her eyes and a big rope knot wedged between her red drooling lips. She made a demanding sound, tilting her head to expose the rope on the side of her pale neck.

“Right, this may take