Lich, p.3
Lich, page 3
… And raised the glowing blade to her neck…
Taking a deep breath. King Lorian felt strange. It was like awakening from a long nap in the middle of the day. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but Dhika at his side was always a comfort. Shifting slightly, he expected her to move, only to frown as her body flopped uselessly at his side. Opening his eyes, King Lorian frowned into the darkness. He could still make out shapes and figures, but it was clearly pitch black. He was also… Not in his bed.
Turning his head, he looked at his favourite kobold and froze. The youthful kobold who had snuck into his bed and heart, looked aged. Her scales, weren’t flat and shiny. Her curvy figure was thin like she had starved herself. Clutched in her hand was an odd knife that pulsed with soft red light. And worst of all, she wasn’t breathing.
“Dhika?” King Lorian called softly.
Rolling her onto the stone base of… He looked around, as the memories hit him. Having sex with Mitigo. The knife in his chest. And now, this was the unmistakable, interior of a tomb. But not the one with his father. This was something else, and here…
“Dhika…” King Lorian trembled as he cupped her face.
He saw his hand for the first time now. It was aged. Or… Dried? It didn’t look natural, but he could still feel the wetness that clung to his skin as he touched Dhika. Pulling his hand away, he rubbed the liquid between his fingers and inhaled the scent.
“No…” He trembled. “Dhika, what have you done?”
He sobbed as he pulled her close. Her tiny form was cold to the touch, and he clung to her desperately. He held her close and cried for the loss of his lover. He felt a small piece of him break away as his heart ached. And that’s when he saw it. A small glowing light. It was tattered, broken and he could see flashes within it. Memories of his kobold.
The day he saw her for the first time. She scampered, terrified from the room, only to return moments later begging for forgiveness. How he held her as she sobbed, the cut in her hand from the broken glass had gone right under one of her scales. How he kissed the top of her head to distract her as the healer dug out the broken shards. And as she lowered herself onto his cock that evening, while he kissed her freshly healed hand.
Not all his memories of her were sexual. Sure, there was a lot of sex. But there was more. They laughed together at dumb jokes he made when they were alone. Watching her adorable blush, as she ate a piece of fried drake off his fork during a meal. She had never tried drake before and King Lorian ensured whenever it was served, to have a little extra put aside for her. He remembered her crying in sheer joy, as she spotted the familiar tassel from the bookmark she had made for him, out of her own shed scales. And how she cried, in the pretty red dress he had made for the anniversary of her employment to the crown.
Reaching out, King Lorian snatched at the light. He felt it try to resist his grasp. It pushed against his fingers, not wanting him to touch it. But he could feel it now. It wasn’t just a memory. It was a soul. Dhika’s soul. He felt the gap in his heart closing over the spot it occupied just before.
“No!” King Lorian growled.
If holding onto the soul was difficult. Physically moving it was something else entirely. It was like dragging an anchor through mud. It was like it didn’t want to react with the world around it.
“I’M NOT LETTING YOU GO!”
Pushing his all, King Lorian grunted, and groaned as he wrestled with the soul. It fought against his every move. It tried to do the very opposite of everything he did. Going left, made it push right, up made down and so on. But King Lorian refused to give up. This was Dhika’s soul. His perfect little kobold didn’t deserve to die in the way she had. He wanted her to grow old, have lots of eggs. To have a chance at genuine happiness and… Pushing his thoughts into the soul, he felt it throb.
All at once, he relaxed as the sensation of its refusal diminished. With a prod of his thoughts, the little glowing light moved. Only this time, it didn’t fight him. Or… It didn’t respond physically. He slowly released it, as the soul bobbed slowly in the air in front of his eyes. In it, he could see Dhika smiling at him. That wide, open smile she did when she was truly delighted by something.
With a prod of his thoughts, and a gentle push with his hand, King Lorian pushed the soul down towards the kobold. He kept an even pressure on the back of it and felt a small resistance as it reached Dhika’s chest.
“Come back to me, Dhika?”
With a firm push, and forceful thought, the soul slid beneath her scales. He waited for a moment to see what had happened to it. There was always the chance it had popped out the other side and was-
GASP!
King Lorian’s eyes went wide as Dhika inhaled sharply. Her face twisted, before she let out a hacking, dry cough. She blinked, showing off a pair of unearthly, glowing green eyes. But Lorian didn’t care as he touched her. Her body was cold, but her eyes snapped open to lock on his.
“You’re alive?” King Lorian smiled.
“It worked?”
King Lorian grinned and kissed her hard. His favourite kobold flinched at the contact, making him pause. But in an instant, her mouth crushed into his own. He pulled her close, and he ran his hand over her body. She was still the kobold he loved, but she differed from what he remembered. Thinner, firmer and not as smooth. Pulling away from the kiss, King Lorian frowned at the open wounds on her neck and shoulder.
“What happened to you?” He demanded.
Dhika grimaced and touched the wound. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“All the same, what happened?”
The kobold trembled and King Lorian tightened his grip. She crooned as she nuzzled into his chest. Glancing up, King Lorian released her with one arm and grasped the edge of the lid. It was heavy, but he had only a little trouble shoving it completely off, where it crashed into the floor with a solid boom. Before the echoes had stopped, King Lorian sat up, pulling Dhika along with him. He pulled her into his lap, where she pressed herself against him, while he looked around.
His vision was odd. He could see the outline of everything, but in the darkness, there was no colour. The murals on the walls were beautiful, elegant and while he could see the gemstones and precious metals, he couldn’t determine their colour. What he could also see was the remains of two corpses. One was at the base of the sarcophagus, where he had bled out from a wound under one arm. The other was now a partially squashed smear on the stone floor, after the stone lid slid down the dais and over his legs.
“Dhika, did these men harm you?”
“My lord-”
“Dhika…”
“I hired them,” she admitted. “They were wicked men, and I knew they would try to kill me, anyway. I told them I wanted to rob your tomb, but I planned to sacrifice them to bring you back.”
King Lorian let out a breath of air, before shaking his head. “And how on earth did you get caught up with them?”
She whimpered softly as she rubbed herself on his front. King Lorian was confused, and worried. But he wasn’t about to tell her off. Clearly this line of questioning was causing her some distress. Reaching up, he stroked the top of her head, feeling her ear shift beneath his hand… ear… Taking her cheek, he pulled her face around, and gaped.
“Your ear?!”
“It’s okay,” she begged. “It’s okay, I didn’t let them hurt me!”
“Hurt you?” King Lorian raged as he stared at the stump. “TELL ME WHO DID THIS TO YOU!?”
King Lorian froze, as Dhika clung to him in terror. There were green bands of energy floating around him. Those green bands looked like tethers. Some were solid, shooting out like straight lines towards points in the distance. Others were fractured and drifted around to several nearby places. These, whisked around, blinking in and out of existence. He followed the closest, finding it led to the corpse beside the sarcophagus. And as he lowered his eyes to look, he spotted the brightest tether of all. Connecting him to Dhika. The tether glowed, brighter as he concentrated on it.
Pushing with a thought, Dhika gasped and trembled. He watched, worried, as she clung to him. The wound in her neck closed before his eyes, followed by the one in her shoulder. King Lorian began to feel weak, as Dhika made soft, pleasurable moans on his lap. He could feel as his power was draining into her and looked around the room for help.
Settling on the partially destroyed corpse, King Lorian tugged on the tether that swirled out towards it. The tether snapped taught and glowed for just a moment, before a ball, not unlike Dhika’s soul pulled free. But unlike before, around it, formed the shape of the man.
“WHAT IS THIS?!” He shouted as the tether pulled him closer. His eyes went wide, seeing what was around him and when he saw his friend, his cries rose in pitch.
With a thought, King Lorian swirled a tether around the man’s neck, strangling his cry to a soft choking sound, punctuated by broken sobbing.
“Dhika?”
“He didn’t hurt me,” she admitted, staring up into her lord’s eyes with reverence.
Loosening the tether, Jendan coughed, before glaring at the two of them. “She hired us intending to kill us!”
King Lorian looked at his soul, and mentally drew him closer. He lashed out with a foot, before freezing in horror as it passed through the king like a mirage.
“What is this?” He wailed.
King Lorian gestured again, binding his throat as he examined the core of his soul. Like Dhika’s, it showed his memories. Him growing in the small village. Then famine, after tax, after famine, drove the people to new lengths. Suddenly travellers weren’t welcome. Bandits roamed the land. He found an easy life, preying on younger-
“Bastard!” King Lorian growled.
The man’s eyes went wide as the furious king ripped his soul apart, sucking the energy into himself. It felt like a pulse ran through him, invigorating his body, making him feel alive. He turned his attention back to his awestruck kobold and kissed her hard. As she moaned, he pushed the energy into her, while holding her close. Her body thrummed beneath him, moulding to the memory he had of her. The years wound back, smoothing and polishing her scales. Her missing claw from treading on a snare, grew back, as did her missing ear. Even the small kink from her improperly healed, broken tail straightened out. Finally, after several long minutes, Dhika sat on her lord’s lap feeling better than she could remember.
She leaned back and patted herself down. Without a thought, she lifted what remained of her cloak free and tossed it aside. Lorian knew she could see herself the same way he could in the pitch-black environment. She was as perfect as the day he saw her last, and her breath hitched in her throat.
“It’s been thirty years, my King,” she whispered, clawing at his tunic. “Twenty of those, I have dedicated to this moment,” she exposed his cock.
King Lorian, in the presence of his favourite kobold, couldn’t help the natural reaction as she exposed herself to him. With his cock straining between them, the beautiful kobold rose on her digitigrade legs into a crouch. Fitting his cock to her opening, that already drooled for him, she whimpered as his arms wrapped around her.
He admired her for a moment. She was a shapely little thing. Despite her kind not having mammalian breasts, they still retained what a human would call a feminine figure. She smiled, before lowering herself. As his cock speared into her, Dhika felt something and paused. But King Lorian, not realising, continued to pull her down, forcing himself deep inside her. The action caused her to yelp, and he froze as Dhika clung to him.
“It was you this time,” she whimpered.
“Me?” King Lorian frowned, holding her still as he tried to work out what just happened.
Dhika nodded. “You, my king. You made me like new and…”
King Lorian’s eyes went wide as he caught her implication. He tried pulling away, but the kobold in his lap dug in her claws.
“Please, my king?”
Truth be told, King Lorian was already on the edge. He was an accomplished lover, but something about this moment was so very intense for him. It felt more, like this wasn’t just sex, but like they were forming some kind of binding. And as the tether between them pulsed, he realised it was far more likely he was renewing one.
“I don’t know what I am, any more,” King Lorian whispered. “But I know one thing.”
“Yes, my king?”
“You,” King Lorian rocked her hips, making her gasp. “You, my dear kobold, belong to me, forevermore.”
He wasn’t sure why he said that. But he didn’t care. Dhika trembled in that familiar way before she started to cum. He stared into her eyes, right into her very soul as he thrust up into her. Dhika’s body responded with embarrassment from the depth of his gaze. But she knew he liked to see her pleasure, so she refused to hide it. Her body thrummed with each push of his cock into her too-small depths. It was a fantastic ache she had missed for decades, and now he declared her his property.
Just thinking about being owned by him, made her tremble and quake. Her tail frantically wagged from side to side, and she felt his hand take her chin, holding her steady.
“Cum for me, little kobold,” he hissed.
With a long, gasping wail, Dhika began to throb. Her core tensed as her pussy clenched around the tool being forced into her. It felt just like their first time together, only now, she knew without a doubt he loved her too.
King Lorian felt his end and hugged Dhika tightly to him. She was beautiful as she came. Her body throbbed, milking his cock even as he pushed it into her. And after a particularly powerful throb, he kissed her hard. Dhika whimpered as he claimed her mouth. When his cock pulsed inside her though, she let out a brief scream, before he once again claimed her wonderful lips.
After all these years, Dhika finally had her king back.
The voice told the truth.
3
“Here, Dhika,” Lorian leaned down.
The small kobold froze with a smile on her face as her lord, and master attended to her. The old king plucked the loose ends of the cuts in her cloak. When he had enough loose strands, he tied them together. It wasn’t perfect, but it held the large holes back together, covering her modesty.
For the first time in decades, Dhika actually cared about that. Being homeless and starving, she got used to the idea of doing whatever she needed for survival. And while she had sworn herself never to sell her body. Fights, bathing and other events had all but destroyed her modesty. But now, with her lord and master, if not living and breathing, but whole and conscious. She was his, and it warmed her heart to think that he was looking after her. Thirty years of loneliness. And he made it all go away in just a matter of hours.
“You’re staring,” Lorian commented.
“I’ve missed you, my lord.”
With a satisfied nod at his handiwork, Lorian stood up and cupped his kobold’s chin with the palm of his hand. She nuzzled against it like he remembered her doing. But there were so many differences now. Least of all their physical appearances. She was still the same lovely green she always was. But so were eyes. Like a pair of glowing emeralds, she blinked slowly.
“You’re staring, my lord.”
Lorian chuckled, “I’ve missed you, my kobold.”
She beamed brilliantly, showing her pointed teeth. But that didn’t stop the tears rolling down her cheeks. Lorian brushed them away, before they heard a disturbance by the hole in the floor. A shambling figure appeared moments later. He was dishevelled, filthy and stared at the king with the same glowing green eyes as Dhika. Unlike her glowing emeralds though, his were dull, just a faint glow.
“Please?” the man whispered.
“It is done?” Lorian asked, activating his second sight.
The green tethers lit up all around him. Again, the strongest and brightest went from the centre of Lorian’s chest, to Dhika, still staring up at him with adoration. But it provided other things too. Like a direct line into Reccec’s mind, where thoughts of fear and loathing rolled endlessly.
“Yes, lord,” he nodded. “As much as I can.”
“There were a few rocks, my lord,” Dhika chirped. “As long as the worst bits were widened, we should be able to get out.”
“Fine,” Lorian nodded, seeing no deceit in Reccec’s mind.
“Then you’ll release me?” He asked with an air of hope.
Lorian smiled and yanked his soul free of his corpse once again. The man struggled and cried like a helpless child. From Dhika’s change in expression, she could see him too. Lorian examined all that made up Reccec. His life. His skills, his memories, his very being. The man was a wretch. Born innocent like all, he was pushed into an awful life as a child. But he was a man when he truly embraced his own monstrosities. He and Jendan were quite the pair.
With a snarl, Lorian tore his soul to shreds. Recess screamed, unable to pass out, unable to move on. Unable to truly die as his soul came apart. Lorian consumed it all. He was careful, taking in parts of the man he deemed useful. But as his soul degraded into pure energy, all that remained of Reccec was a corpse that would never be found, and a decent map of the area they were in.
Lorian frowned as his body felt slightly invigorated. And that wasn’t right, he didn’t feel tired to begin with. He glanced down at his hand. It was still wrinkled, though not quite as much as it was before. He still felt stiff, and his mouth was dry. It was like he was thirsty for something, and yet, he had no desire to drink.
“Dhika, what did you do to me?” She trembled at his side, but Lorian shook his head as he tsk’d and kissed her. “I’m not mad,” he reassured her. “Never mad at you. I just need to understand.”
Dhika bit the edge of her lip and nodded her head. She explained about the voice, and the trip into the desert. Then she explained the years she spent digging. She could only dig for a few months of the year in the frozen ground for the first decade. After that, she could dig longer as the cold didn’t penetrate so far. Until finally she realised, she was close and found help for the last step.
