Chapter 100: Before the Capital +18

Chapter 100: Chapter 100: Before the Capital +18

They were leaving at dawn, and Evelyn didn’t come to dinner.

Donald found her on the roof of the TIG tower after midnight. She was sitting on the edge of the landing pad with her legs hanging over the drop, looking north at the dark shape of the Glass Field past the city wall. The blue light of the Aegis Wards lay across the sky above her.

He sat down beside her.

"You’re still angry," he said.

"I’m not angry," Evelyn said. "I’m worried. It looks the same on me."

"I’ll be careful."

"You’ll be in the Capital, in a room with Royal Guild Masters, while two women you care about crawl through a vault full of Council wards under their feet." She didn’t look at him. "Careful isn’t the word, Donald."

He didn’t argue. She was right.

After a while, she leaned her head on his shoulder.

"Sylvia told me she kissed you," Evelyn said.

"She said she asked you first."

"She did. She was so nervous she was shaking." Evelyn let out a short laugh. "She asked me like she was asking permission to marry you. I told her I’m not your owner. You’re not a sword."

"You threatened to throw her off this roof."

"I threatened to throw both of you off this roof. That’s different." She turned her head and looked up at him. "I meant what I said, though. I don’t mind. I never wanted you to be only mine. I wanted you to be someone who would come back."

"I’ll come back," Donald said.

"Prove it," she said, and kissed him.

---

They didn’t make it back to her room.

The door to the roof stairwell had a small maintenance landing behind it with a steel bench and a single light. Evelyn pulled him onto it, kicked the door shut behind them, and pushed him down onto the bench. She was strong enough that he didn’t have a choice, and he didn’t want one.

She climbed into his lap, still kissing him, her tongue sliding against his. Her hands went under his shirt and dragged it up over his head, then ran over his chest and shoulders like she was checking he was real. His went to the zip of her combat jacket and pulled it down. She shrugged it off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor.

She wore nothing under it but a thin black sports top. He pulled it up and off, and her heavy breasts fell free, full and warm against his chest. He took them in both hands and squeezed, thumbs brushing her nipples until they tightened. She let out a low sound against his mouth and rocked her hips against him.

"Your arm," she said, breathing hard.

"It’s fine."

"It had better be."

She stood up long enough to push her cargo pants and underwear down her legs and step out of them. The single light caught the soft curve of her stomach, the strength in her thighs, the dark curls between them. Then she undid his belt and pulled his pants and underwear down to his knees. His cock was already hard, flushed and thick. She wrapped her hand around it and stroked him twice, slowly, watching his face, her thumb sliding over the head and smearing the wetness there.

"Evelyn—"

"Shut up," she said, but her voice was rough. She climbed back onto him, knees on either side of his hips on the bench, and reached between them to line him up. Then she sank down, taking him inside her in one long, slow push.

They both stopped moving for a second. She was tight and very hot around him, gripping him deep. She rested her forehead against his and breathed, her cunt fluttering around his cock as she adjusted.

"Don’t let go," she said.

He didn’t. His hands settled on her waist, then slid lower to grip her ass.

She rode him slowly at first, rolling her hips, taking him all the way in each time until he bottomed out. He held her by the waist and kissed her neck, her collarbone, her breasts, taking one nipple into his mouth and sucking until she gasped and moved faster. Every time she rose he felt the drag of her around him; every time she dropped he felt her heat swallow him whole.

Their cores linked the moment their skin met. He felt it, the familiar warmth of [Dual-Cultivation Synergy] running between them. Her mana pulsed with every move she made, and he felt every one of them in his own chest—sharp little spikes of pleasure that weren’t only his.

Evelyn put her hands on his shoulders and moved harder. The steel bench creaked under them. Her breasts bounced against his face, and he gripped her ass with both hands, pulling her down onto him as he pushed up into her. The wet sound of it filled the small landing. She was soaked, sliding easy and tight, and every thrust made her moan against his mouth.

"Harder," she said. "Break me!"

He stood up with her still wrapped around him. She locked her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. He turned and pressed her back against the concrete wall of the landing and fucked her there, hard and deep, holding her up by her thighs. The angle drove him deeper. She held onto his neck and moaned his name against his ear, over and over, her voice breaking every time he bottomed out.

"Fuck—Donald—"

He could feel her getting close. Her thighs tightened around him, her nails dug into his shoulders, and the synergy between them flared hotter. He drove into her harder, the concrete rough against her back, his cock sliding in and out of her slick heat until she cried out and clenched around him.

When she came, she bit down on his shoulder to stay quiet. Her whole body shook and clenched around him in tight, pulsing waves, her cunt milking him as she trembled. That pushed him over too. He pressed her into the wall, buried himself inside her as deep as he could go, and came hard, groaning into her hair, cock throbbing as he spilled into her in thick pulses.

For a long time, neither of them moved. He stayed inside her, both of them shaking, her legs still locked around him, his face buried in her neck. Sweat cooled on their skin. Her heartbeat thudded against his chest, and through the synergy he could feel the aftershocks still rolling through her.

Then he carried her back to the bench and sat down with her still in his lap, his softening cock still inside her. She laid her head on his shoulder. Both of them were breathing hard and covered in sweat.

A golden window opened in his vision.

[Dual-Cultivation Synergy: Deep Bond Threshold Reached.]

[New Feature Unlocked: Core Tether.]

[Core Tether: The Investor and Primary Asset ’Evelyn Vance’ can sense each other’s location, health and mana level at any distance.]

Donald closed it and held her tighter.

"I can feel you," Evelyn said quietly, a minute later. She sounded surprised. "Your core. It’s like a warm spot right here." She touched the middle of her chest. "That’s new."

"Synergy," Donald said. "I think it got stronger."

"Good." She closed her eyes. "Then if you get hurt in Aldmere, I’ll know. And I’ll come."

"I know you will."

---

The Ashford Holdings airship landed in Aldmere at noon the next day.

From the window, the Capital looked the way it had the first time: towers of white marble and glass, hard-light bridges glowing between them, and air so clean it felt wrong after Genesis City. In the middle of it all, on a hill above Council Square, stood the Council Hall. It was a wide, low building of pale stone with seven towers along its front, one for each seat.

One of the towers was dark. Dragonheart’s.

The Kingsgate Hotel had given them a suite on the top floor with a view of the Square. Aris went through the rooms with a small handheld scanner and found two listening devices behind the paintings. She crushed both of them without a word.

Sylvia rose out of the closet shadow with Helena beside her. Helena sat down on the bed at once and put her head between her knees.

"Twelve hours," Helena said into her lap. "Twelve hours in a shadow, inside the cargo hold. Never again."

"It’s the only way to get you into the city without your name on a passenger list," Sylvia said. She didn’t look very fresh either.

Damian came in through the door like a normal guest, with a hotel key. He’d flown in on a different airship, on a different name.

"Hale is on shift at the Archive door until the Ceremony," he reported. "I saw him go in this morning. The clerk who’ll open Dragonheart’s lock is a man called Peter Lowe. Thirty years a clerk. Married. Two daughters." He paused. "He’s very afraid of everything."

Donald walked to the window and looked down at Council Square. Tomorrow at the third bell after noon, six Guild Masters and a frightened clerk would walk through those doors. Sylvia and Helena would be in the clerk’s shadow when they did.

[Dimensional Core Resonance: 66.0%]

[Days to Ceremony of Seals: 1.]

There was a knock at the door.

Everyone in the room went still. Sylvia sank into the floor, taking Helena with her. Damian stepped back against the wall beside the door.

Aris opened it.

A hotel porter in a white uniform stood in the corridor, holding a silver tray. On the tray was a single envelope of heavy cream paper, sealed in gold wax.

"For the Investor," the porter said. "From the Council Hall."

Aris took it and closed the door. She turned the envelope over. The gold wax was stamped with a crown above a single number.

The number one.

"The First Seat," Damian said quietly.

Aris broke the seal and read the card inside. Her face went pale.

"He’s inviting you to dinner," she said. "Tonight. At the Council Hall."

She held out the card. Donald took it and read the last line twice.

Do come, Investor. I would very much like to know what you are worth.