Villahr placed a gentle kiss on the elder faelna’s hand and smiled brightly up at her as he lifted his head back up from a deep bow.
“Am I proud?” he repeated her words, his tongue darting out to wet his lips briefly. “Immensely!” Kayya grinned, her eyes crinkling as she did, and rested her hand on her son’s forearm.
Kayya was no stranger to these events, nor the sparkling plaques and crisply pressed certificates that came with them, but she did an excellent job of playing the part of the modest surgeon. Clearly this was a trait not passed to Karolinna, who speaking of which was still nowhere to be seen.
For most of the event so far, Villahr was working hard to mingle with anyone and everyone. Making small talk with the guests as well as doing all he could to distract from the fact that the guest of honour’s only daughter was not amount the esteemed visitors.
He was dragged this way and that about the dining hall, which was even more grand now that all the chairs and other furnishings were pushed off to the side. Though it was meant to be Kayya’s big night, and Villahr was just their for support, he was feeling more like the prized stallion than anything else.
Taking a hold of the hand still lain on his arm, he folded his own atop it to get Kayya’s attention without verbally injecting himself into the conversation she was currently having with Danah and another male dressed in a navy suit.
Curving his digits and pressing the first two fingers against his thumb to make an ‘O’ shape, Villahr hinted at his thirst by tilting his hand to his lips. Kayya nodded. After bowing towards the couple that stood next to his mother —who was now watching him as if he’d just dropped a tray of empty glasses and warranted the attention of the whole room — Villahr turned from them and headed off toward the refreshments.
A man dressed in black from head-to-toe stood behind the counter, watching Villahr through olive eyes, with an almost mechanical grin on his face. His wavy mop of hair flopped awkwardly over his eyes when he turned on a dime at first notice of the pale one’s presence. His smile did not falter in the slightest.
He flipped the layers of chestnut from his sight and his smile grew even wider still when he caught a good eyeful of the god leaning effortlessly against the drink surface.
Villahr cast a quick glance up from his hand where he was examining a deep scratch he had just made with his nail to see the younger male giving him the once over. When he brought his attention back to his palm the flesh was unmarked, but a small pool of greyish liquid remained in the dip of his palm. Yanking a small, cream kerchief from his pocket, the elna balled it up in his bloodied hand before locking eyes with the man before him.
“You’ll be getting no tip from me, so you can forget about that prospect right now, and—” Villahr’s remark broke off harshly as his eyes surveyed the odd familiarity of the other male of their own accord. They found a tell-tale scar on the side of his neck that his collar didn’t quite cover, and he smirked with slight amusement.
“Not tonight,” he finished his sentence, though the words were not the ones originally intended upon completing it.
Those were teeth marks on the brunette’s neck, and Villahr distinctly remembered now the exact evening he himself had put them there. His days of promiscuity weren’t exactly over, just few and far between.
‘Tyler’, as his name-tag read, near immediately lost all extra gusto as the thought that he might once more bag the bosses son shrivelled up and died, like a fly falling head-first into a mug of steaming coffee. He pulled at the opening of his shirt to release the sudden tightness he felt and the heat creeping up his throat, and tried to direct his focus back to the task he had been hired for.
“Can I get you any—”
“Vodka,” Villahr in erupted, his head now turned to face the cluttered room where he could see Kayya pushing through the crowd to get to him. “Lot’s of vodka. Now!”
Tyler got busy behind him and the distracted vici could hear the clinking of bottles under the bar. As soon as the glass hit the counter-top, Villahr turned at lightning speed and the liquid that filled his cup went down his gullet just as fast. To say this would be a long night was an understatement.
Night had fallen on the no longer hustling estate by the time Villahr was freed from the clutches of eloquent faelna and their majorly uptight counterparts.
Though both of the latter were worn in years, their faces did not tell the same story, which left the hired help most shocked at the revelation that many of the guests exceeded their ages even combined and tripled. The house staff, having been used to such a marvel for many years, now simply smiled and followed along with the newbie’s dismay whilst helping to usher the visitants out the door.
A great number of the guests had already gone, long before the sun had — just to be safe — though a small smattering remained, fortunately grabbing hold of Kayya’s attention and giving Villahr an out. He loved her dearly, but she could be real corrosive on the brain if you let her words sit long enough.
Still busied in conversation in the dining area, smiles and laughter like a bellowing storm. Showing no signs of stilling, it’s reign upon the unsuspecting villages and towns-folk below was resolute. Villahr watched his mother from the bar, taking occasional sips from a glass of Chilla held in his right hand. Kayya and company kept the service on their toes with constant demands for sweets and shots of hard liquor, knocking the small vessels back like they were filled with naught but water.
Villahr shook his head lightly, his cheeks diveting as his merriment gave way on his face with a small grin. Like mother like daughter, he thought as yet another tray of alcohol was brought out. It had hardly been there two minutes before Kayya already was helping herself to a third shot.
Seeing this as an opportunity to escape, Villahr finished his own drink and set it down on the counter. Getting off his chair he grabbed his suit jacket from where it was lain over the seat next to him and threw it over his arm.
“Tyler, darlin’. I’m heading upstairs,” he spoke softly, as though if he were to raise the volume any louder, Kayya’s ears would perk up and in immediate realization of his intended absence, pull him back into conversation.
“If my mother wishes to know where I’ve gone?” Villahr raised an eyebrow expectantly.
“I didn’t ask, ma’am,” Tyler recited, as if Villahr had told him exactly what to say and Kayya was standing before him right then. In that moment, Villahr touched on the reconsideration of taking the other male up on his offer, recalling another evening they had shared not long ago, but he shook it from mind before it could take hold.
“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” he said with a smile, then dashed out the room with jacket in hand.
Ducking through secret passageways carved into the walls for easy escape, and paying off any help he was unfortunate enough to cross, with the notes and coins that littered the bottoms of his pockets, Villahr finally found himself away from the main entry and clingy relatives.
Slinking down the back and least travelled corridors of the next floor, Villahr kept mostly to the shadows and on path to Karolinna’s quarters. The fact that she made no effort at showing support was not surprising in the slightest, but passing up an opportunity to strut about in barely there garments and flashy jewellery, was.
As Villahr closed in on his destination, he could hear muffled sounds of weak protest, which immediately brought up images of the leggy blonde throwing herself through an open window she’d left unlocked for a convenient re-entry. He didn’t doubt for a moment that that was exactly what was happening.
Purposely shuffling his feet to both announce his presence and buy Karolinna time before her inevitable discovery, Villahr took slow, even steps to the door before raising his hand to it’s back. He could hear his friend’s voice much clearer now but made no effort to hone in on the words she spoke so it came off as more of a high quality drone; jumbled sounds and muffled utterances.
One, two, three knocks. Villahr counted them out in his head leisurely, leaving a big pause in between each one.
“What do you want, Lahr?” Karolinna’s voice came through now just as limpid as a pane less window and she sounded agitated and perhaps even a little winded.
Though breathing was not a necessity, it didn’t mean it was not at times pertinent. Villahr figured its usage now was simply for propulsion of stamina, and to be a little spent after no doubtably sprinting all the way home would not be unheard of.
Villahr was tempted to forgo etiquette altogether and push his way in the room without another word, but decided against it.
“Mother asked if I might check on you,” answered the elna, “she expected something must be wrong to result in your truancy this evening.”
“Nice try. I know for a fact she did not send you up here. I could be on fire and the first person to come running would be you.” That wasn’t true at all, and deep down Villahr was certain Karolinna did too. She certainly was a troublesome handful, on her good days, but that did not negate Kayya’s love for her daughter in the slightest. Villahr frowned at the thought of his mother’s distressing reaction were she to of heard such an assertion.
Looking down at his feet, the elna’s lids dropped and he rubbed at his eyes hastily through them. When he next opened his mouth to speak, Karolinna beat him to the punch.
“What’s the real reason you’re here?” she said.
Rolling his eyes, Villahr tightened his grip on the handle. Before he even made any movement to move it Karolinna’s shriek of dissent hit his eardrums and a loud thud followed like a shadow. The reverberation and sudden stress on the door told Villahr that the young female had just thrown herself against it. A chuckle pushed past the elder vici’s lips.
Karolinna’s behaviour was far from abnormal, as getting into trouble was pretty second nature for her, but at least this time her suspicious actions were much easier to read. Now that Villahr had figured out the purpose to her sudden late night rendezvous, it wasn’t difficult to create a scene in his head.
Glancing across the hall, he watched as a young woman with long black braids and music way too loud pumping from her ear-buds, pulled the thick, charcoal curtains over one of the windows. The moon would make it’s appearance within the hour. Villahr breathed a short sigh of relieve that Karolinna would not be among those crawling about the night to witness the sight first hand.
The pressure on the door felt almost as though Karolinna were trying to escape the confines behind it rather than keep Villahr from getting in, and Villahr could picture the female pushing on it with all her strength whilst trying to remove her night-wear at the same time.
“Is there any reason why we’re having this discussion through a sculpted tree trunk?” Villahr traced the beautiful detailing on the stocky barrier’s panelling.
“Is there any reason you’re being so exceptionally dickish?” Karolinna spat back. If her rhetoric were venomous it would be eating right through the solid wood.
“Do you really want to play this game, sisienta?” Karolinna’s persistence to turn him away was almost laughable, as if she really thought her words to be believable, but Villahr half in his amusement with the back of his hand. The smile on his face that the faelna could not see stood the only proof of his gratification.
A response came to him in the form of a loud clicking sound, and the weight on the door was then gone. Villahr let go of the handle he had almost forgotten he was gripping and rubbed his hands together in preparation. To think he would just give up would be idiotic, but surely Karolinna knew that.
The only reason Villahr put up with the nonsense with the door was because he had some decency — a characteristic he surely inherited from his Bohrhir, rather than the father who abandoned him and otherwise showed no sigh of this human-like attribute.
Four beats went by as fluidly as a humming bird’s wings flapping through the air, and Villahr’s perspective soon changed. Shaking off the somewhat uncomfortable, itchy pinch he felt and dusting at his arm with his hands as if there were some magical residue cloning there, Villahr allowed his body to adjust.
He no longer stood like a puppy locked out in the cold clambering to get in. Looking to both sides he took in the familiar sights of Karolinna’s room. The television was on but set to a channel comprised entirely of snowy-white speckles and noise, and there was something moving on the bed just barely within reach of his peripheral.
“What did I tell you?” said the falena standing in front of him. She was wearing nothing but the breath-taking ensemble the great Divine saw fit to bless her with on the day of her birth, and her arms were folded over her chest; however they folded over his chew they were certainly not there to protect her modesty.
“No sense of boundaries.”
Villahr gave Karolinna a quick sweep with his eyes, determining she was completely in tact. Her skin was so white this night it was almost glowing and assuredly hadn’t even seen sunlight this day let alone the moons harsh rays.
“Well… now that you’ve rudely graced us with your unwanted presence,” Karolinna began, moving an arm to grip her chin with the index and thumb of the hand ending it, “Care to meet tonight’s entertainment?” The other arm still conveniently placed across her front gripped her ribs lightly on the other side. Villahr ignored the ample swells of her breasts showing where Karolinna’s arm did not cover, as best he could, and turned on his heel towards the bed where his companion was now gesturing with her finger.
The ability of using her own limbs taken from her, both hands knotted tightly enough to change the colour of the flesh beneath but not cut off circulation, a woman with similar fashion taste to Karolinna, sat captive on the ruffled sheets. Her cheeks were just as red as her wrists, but mores from embarrassment rather than pain. Her state of dress — or more appropriately, lack there of — was on display for anyone to see.
With a soft voice, just about as small as he currently felt, the mortal spoke hesitantly as if unsure whether or not she should.
“Uh… hi,” she said.
Jairessa’s words were broken and jumbled when they next dropped from her lips. She took laboured breaths as deep as her body would allow, but all the while trying to hide her exhausted so Karolinna would not be made aware of her actual lack of practice in such thriving carnal activity. It wasn’t working. Karolinna was very much conscious of the brisk rise and wall of the other’s chest, but kept the knowledge from tongue and appearance for the time being.
Her bust hardly moving at all, and her body completely still and serene, you would never known Karolinna was even in the same race. She only just past the finish line by a mere fraction of a second before the other woman but from how she presented herself now it looked as though she had had days of recuperation time.
Lying on her side, the pale blonde watched with diverging eyes. One leg was draped over the other, covering everything below the bellybutton and above the mid-thigh mark, with ease. She reminded Jairessa briefly of a delicate and particularly placed model. Her looks certainly fit the bill.
“Need a minute?” Karolinna asked, to which the mortal immediately smiled and nodded her head. Rolling over on her back she pulled herself up on her pillow with her elbow. Her entire body surged with phantom energy at the idea of another bout, but she would need to rest a while longer. Passing out during sex is none too ideal, not to mention a huge kick to the ego of your partner.
How Karolinna could possibly be up and ready to go a third round was unfathomable. The human waved her hand fleetingly over her face to gather some air and a cool breeze. While the vici was bouncing about in the middle of the ring, Jairessa was still working on airing out her sweaty boxing gloves and icing down sore muscles.
Jairessa knew Karolinna’s gaze was upon her, and so she kept her own straight ahead for as long as she cold manage without feeling awkward for so long staring at the headboard.When her breathing finally regulated enough to speak she gathered in careful words her mouth. She hoped they might divert attention from her naked body — which in this moment, even hidden in the shadows that the candlelight could not reach, felt extremely exposed and less than satisfactory in comparison.
“That man earlier,” she said, folding her arms over the pillow beneath her head and dropping her chin to rest on her wrist.
“Who was he?”
Jairessa thought back to the man unexpectedly examine her with what almost looked like hunger in his eyes; kind of like what was in Karolinna’s lilac peppers right now. He was extremely handsome, lean, and even next to Karolinna he seemed to stand a tower. At first though, Jairessa figured they must be ancestrally connected in some way, but kept it to herself to avoid sound like an idiot if she was wrong.
“Are you two …”
“Related?” answer Karolinna, lifting her hand from where it was toying with a tassel on the edge of her pillow case and moved to support her head. It wasn’t what Jairessa was going to say, but it was what she wanted to, so she nodded.
“I thought you two might be siblings,” the brunette’s eyes followed down the line of muscle splitting the middle of Karolinna’s body, starting from just below her ribcage and perfect bosom and reaching to where her belly button marked her taut stomach.
“I could see the family res—”
“Impossible, love.” Karolinna’s hands found the messy hair around Jairessa’s face and she twisted a strand around her finger. “He’s adopted.”
Even though they were true, the words sounded a lie coming out of the falena’s mouth. Villahr had been around as long as she could remember, and in fact was in every memory of her growth that she had. Apart from the somewhat inappropriate sexual attraction to him, it was hard to believe for Karolinna herself that they weren’t of the same blood.
Her proved to be inaccurate statement made Jairessa turn somewhat pink again and she made an apprehensive circle with her open mouth before shutting it after realizing no sound had come out.
When the resonance of knuckles first rapped sharply on the door, Karolinna’s expression wasn’t that of someone mortified or surprised, but expectant.
Jairessa remembered the ghost of a smile crossing the maiden’s face before the pair of vici began their agitated exchange. Karolinna’s reaction was strange, as if she knew he was coming and revelled in that fact. Only now was it clear to the brunette that Karolinna’s disconcertion was likely a mock-up.
“You wanted him to come here, didn’t you?”
Jairessa watched the other female’s face for confirmation or denial, but for several seconds it remained as flawless and untracked as marble. Karolinna stared uncomfortably stone-faced at the dark-haired one for one pause, then another, and another. By the fourth, Jairessa had to look down a moment to break the connection. When she raised her eyes again, she expected anything but what she saw. Anger. Disappointment perhaps, from an accidentally snapped chord; however their was an unforeseen smile there instead.
In several quick and effortless movements, Jairessa found herself again on her back, looking up at a triumphant Karolinna. Though unsure whether it was present events of pinning her to the mattress or earlier ones that had the immortal so pleased with herself, Jairessa didn’t really care.
Absolute elation was present, exuding from ever pore on Karolinna’s face; her hair sex-tousled yet still oddly stylish, framing her rounded face.
“I did,” she replied, before going their lips momentarily in a victory kiss, like an excitable jock might plant on his girlfriend after a winning touchdown. Karolinna’s mouth was shining with ever so slight traces of gloss and saliva when they next broke apart, then curled up into a gleeful smile.
“In fact. I was counting on it.”