Category Archives: Part 1: The Beginning

Part 1: The Beginning, The Dragon's Tower

Chapter 7: From the West

Only a couple of days later, another group appeared heading towards the tower. However, Ada did not notice them until they were quite close because they were coming from the West.

The West: from which no interloper or traveler had come for decades, the very reason this tower was built, the direction of the nearest ocean, the mysterious and captivating West.

She did not usually check in that direction, but she was glad she had. She arranged herself at the biggest window in the tower, which had been built for this exact purpose, and she watched them. Too eager and nervous to wait for them to get much closer, Ada scurried around for her spyglass which she’d left near one of the southern windows but knocked aside in a lust-addled trip downstairs, and finally returned to the western window for a closer look.

It had looked like they were wearing strange armor, but as Ada lifted the spyglass, she realized that they weren’t wearing anything at all.

There were five of them, each riding a horse, each completely shirtless, though they did wear trousers.

One had a broad chest and narrow waist, another was thicker throughout, two had breasts and ample curves, and the last had a lanky, athletic build.

She watched, unable to do anything else, as they grew closer and closer and came more clearly into view.

They were all ochre and bronze like they spent long days in the sun, some with darker hair and some with lighter, each with bold black tattoos ringing their arms. The two broad-chested ones had beards and long hair, the other three had clean faces. Two of those had long hair, but one of the ones with breasts kept theirs short. Two men and three women?

Their horses weren’t entirely normal either. What had at first appeared to be ornate saddle blankets were actually scales, tealish and running down the fronts of the horses’ faces and across their backs. One of Ada’s books on the ocean had hinted at this — these were a cross-breed of horse and hippocampus!

As intrigued as she was by everything about this group, her eyes kept drifting back to the man at the front. He was smaller than the other man but still surely taller and broader than Ada. He had a medium-length beard and his long, black hair was tied up at the crown of his head and flowed behind him like a midnight waterfall. Even from this distance, Ada could clearly see the muscles of his chest and arms, which rippled like ocean waves.

She was just about ready to swoon. Her arousal was rising to meet the beautiful, mysterious visitors. Ada fought to keep focused.

So, these were folks from the sea? Were they descendents of the legendary marauders? Or had the western politics changed in the intervening years?

Ada sputtered around the tower. What to do? Make them dinner? Pretend to be asleep? Pretend to be tied up? What should she say when they asked about the dragon? Would they even know about the dragon? Why were they here?

Ada had plenty of plans for how to deal with people – but none of them involved actually talking to them.

They were nearly at the bottom of the tower.

Ada looked down. She was still totally naked. Well, if nothing else, she was going to get dressed. Her sex ached for attention, as if the very fact that she knew that it was not the right time to be touching herself was exactly what made her want to touch herself. But she couldn’t exactly greet these visitors as a dragon, could she? Or should she?

Ada’s thoughts started to melt into a lecherous haze and her hand crept towards her aching desire as she thought that maybe it was bet to be a dragon after all, given that the visitors could be dangerous…

A firm knock at the front door interrupted her thoughts and made the decision for her.

“Um. Coming!” she yelled. She wished that she were coming, but instead she hastily threw on her frock, neglecting any undergarments, scurried down the stairs, and clumsily unbolted the door. 

And there they were, the five sea folk standing in front of her, shirtless, all wearing black trousers, their scaled horses standing loyally behind, sniffing at the grass.

“Hello,” Ada said. She gulped.

She tried to look evenly across them but her eyes were pulled irresistibly to the man at the front. What she had not been able to see from the spyglass was that he had kind grey eyes that crinkled as he smiled at her. Ada thought the floor might have dropped out from under her because she felt like she was falling. 

“Hello,” he said. “I… heard you have a dragon problem?” His voice was rich and warm, a slight lilting accent that sent quivers down Ada’s spine.

“Um, yes,” was all she could say.

“I have to, um, ask, since it’s important tactically — is there really a dragon?” He glanced around the space inside, eyes casting up towards the staircase behind her.

Ada flushed bright red. She squeaked something resembling a “yes”.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to doubt you,” he said quickly, truly apologizing. “It’s just, I was shocked to not see it on the way in. The dragons where I come from make themselves known, with no prejudice. I know this land can be fond of their fairy tales, so I wanted to be sure.”

“Yes, indeed, usually Iiiiiiiii, it does that, but, um, it’s asleep. And you have miraculous timing, good, um, well, how would you be called?” She wanted to hear his name, to burn it into her memory, to write it on her skin. Gods, when did she become such a helpless romantic?

“I’m ser Pasco. This is ser Forte,” the larger one, “Mam Missa,” the long-haired curvy one, “Mam Teoda,” the short-haired curvy one, “and Mam Sendia,” the slender one with long hair. She had no breasts to speak of, but a feminine face and a perky step.

“And I’m mam Ada,” Ada said.

“Nice to meet you, Ada,” Pasco said.

The way he said her name. Ada. Not ‘Your Majesty’. Not ‘Your Royal Highness’. Just, Ada. He turned her name into a song.

“N-nice to meet all of you,” she stammered as she realized their eyes were all on her. She’d forgotten all their names, except for his. Pasco. But, looking to them instead of him hardly solved her problem. The other man was thick, viscerally masculine. The two curvier women looked quite different from each other and were both a bit taller than Ada so that their large breasts were at her eye level and gods she just wanted to touch them. And the slender woman with the flat chest had such a pretty face, Ada just wanted to kiss her.

“May… we rescue you now?” Pasco said. “If our timing has indeed been miraculous then I would hate to press our luck.”

I can think of something else to press, Ada thought, imaging her hand on his trousers, his thigh between her legs.

Oh this is bad. She was a total mess. She was sweating, her heart was pounding, her arousal was aching. But what would they do if she turned into a dragon in front of them?! Well, she could probably escape, but she wanted very much to go wherever they were going, to see wherever it was that they had come from, to learn why ever it was that people from the West, of all places, had come to her tower.

“Rescue sounds… good,” she said. “Let me just… um, grab some things real quick. You can come right in.” She wanted to grab his dick and have him come right in her. Ada was hearing innuendo in her own words. What a mess. And she turned to see that the tower, too, was a total mess. The chairs were shredded, there was a streak of dragon slick on the floor that had not entirely dried from the day prior, and shed scales, and clumps of mud, and claw marks.

If they noticed the disarray, they didn’t say anything. Perhaps they assumed that the dragon had prowled into the tower after her and that it might be a frightening topic for her.

“Is there time?” Pasco asked as he and the other four stepped inside.

“Y-yes, the dragon… sleeps in a cave. It should be… quiet for a bit.” It wasn’t actually a lie if you permitted the metaphor that Ada’s quivering sex was the cave. The dragon surely did lie in wait, right inside.

Ada jogged up to her room and gathered her favorite books. She was sorely tempted to rub one out — well, rub two out in rapid succession — to provide herself some relief before she descended again, but she dare not risk the apparent arrival of the dragon. 

She was sure that Pasco would charge up and spear her, though her logic wasn’t quite right because her scales were impenetrable. Her expectation of penetration was likely more about the penis-in-vagina variety.

With her dearest books stacked in her arms, Ada took a moment to evaluate the small room where she had slept for these past six months. She felt more fondly towards the bare little space than she ever had to any of her lavish chambers or plush beds.

Loathe as she was to leave all the other books behind, she knew that they would want her to go out and have the kind of adventure that their pages described.

Ada took a deep breath, clutched her books to her chest, steeled her will, and stepped outside.

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Part 1: The Beginning, The Dragon's Tower

Chapter 6: Snake in the Grass

Ada had discovered and then confirmed and confirmed and yet again reaffirmed exactly how her little ‘curse’ worked.

In the end, it was simple. If she orgasmed as a human, she became a dragon. If she orgasmed as a dragon, she became a human again. 

In her glee, she had not been particularly careful about flying around in the daytime. Within a couple weeks of the witch’s death, her father had sent a messenger.

Ada had seen him from afar, when he was still nearly a day’s travel away. He was an uncertain youth on a chestnut horse. 

She watched as he approached, staying out of sight. 

Even though she had expected it, the sound of his fist thudding against the bolted door startled her. 

She called out to him to say that she was alright, that the witch was with her, but that she had learned her lesson and was not allowed any visitors.

He had insisted upon seeing her and she had waved at him out of an upper window, and he had reluctantly set off again.

Two weeks after that, a band of knights had appeared. Based off their declarations at the front door, they had come to rescue her.

It all seemed a bit cute to her, now. 

There was no way Ada could go back to the castle, even if she wanted to. She was far from a hideous beast, but her father would likely order her killed on the spot if he learned the truth of her curse.

And, helpfully, the idea of turning into a dragon and scaring off all the knights had really turned Ada on, so she did just that.

This encounter had lent total validity to the rumors of the dragon. Another band of knights came, then another and another. Not just from Ada’s kingdom, but from neighbors as well. There were even a few banners that she had never seen before.

Ada thought the whole thing was brilliantly ironic in a number of ways. Her father had shipped her off to the tower to force her to be chaste, and now he was intentionally sending eligible young men her way? Ridiculous! Though apparently, these men actually wanted to marry her, just because they thought she’d been trapped by a dragon.

What bizarre people.

Ada, for her part, thought it was great fun to finally show those people just what she thought of them, as she sent them screaming and pissing themselves and scurrying back home.

Early summer turned to late summer, and late summer into fall, and in one of the last golden days of autumn, Ada sat in an upper window of the tower, looking out towards the eastern road. Sure enough, a band of knights were making their way towards her.

She leaned out and waved a red cloth at them, which she had learned encouraged them to hurry to her all the faster.

They were still far enough off that all they could see would be the red flag, and so they could not also see that she sat in the window, leaning out into the sun, totally naked. She spent most of her days naked now. This was partly because her draconic transformation shredded her clothes and partly because she just enjoyed being naked.

If only those proper little knights knew that they had spurred their horses to full gallop towards a salaciously naked woman, and that before they arrived she would become the very dragon they intended to face, and she would leave them all fleeing in fear.

Gods, all of it got her so worked up. As she tucked the red cloth into the edge of the window and settled back onto the sun-warmed stone, her mind wandered. She thought about really showing them, not just these knights, but the whole kingdom. She could let them ‘rescue’ her, take her back to their castle. At whatever overly self-aggrandizing feast that they threw, she’d show them just what she thought about them. She’d cut them all down a notch or ten.

Oh, they wanted to complain at the sharpness of her tongue? She would show them just how sharp a tongue could be.

Ada’s arousal throbbed in her hips and legs, but she didn’t touch herself yet. She liked to let it build. But also, she’d learned the last time that if she started masturbating in the window she had a hard time stopping, and she’d actually gotten stuck with her front half outside of the window and her back half inside. She’d had to rub herself on the stairs to transform back.

So, this time, Ada drifted down the abused staircase and draped herself sideways across one of the tattered fireside chairs.

As she sunk down into the chair, her mind sunk back down into her fantasy. Yes, she’d tell them just what she thought and then she’d show them just what she was. She’d crush all their cakes between her claws and then she’d swipe at them, sending the cakes tumbling left and right. Those ‘polite’ folk would be in such a dilemma whether to scream about their near-death or complain that they had frosting on them.

Ada finally let her hand drift over her labia, and she was already wet and swollen.

Oh yes, today would be a good day. She dragged her fingers up between her labia, teasing, slow. That made her shiver and moan.

She didn’t have to be quiet here.

She nestled into the chair and found a rhythm with her hand, her other thumb brushing over her bare nipple, which had grown stiff at her arousal and the cooler air within the tower.

Ada panted and whimpered as her anticipation grew.

Yes, she would destroy their party and then make her way to the castle, folks running in her wake. Maybe a trembling guard would try to stand in her way but he’d show his true loyalty when she’d roar in his face and the force of it would send him trembling to his knees.

Then she’d rip the throne room’s doors off its hinges and she would march up to that throne. The castle staff would gather in hushed anxiety at the open doors, too curious to run all the way away.

And she would take that throne for herself. She would fuck herself, right on that throne, right in front of them all. Rub the scales of her dragon’s sex on it, leaking her thick wetness all over it.

“See?” she would say, her first words of the night. They’d all suddenly realize that she was not some feral beast, but that she knew exactly what she was doing. “See, this is what I think of your throne. To me, it’s a goddamn sex toy.”

In her mind, Ada climaxed humping the throne and in her body, she climaxed groping a breast with her back arched and her hand running circles across her labia and clit.

As Ada’s pleasure blossomed, she screamed so loudly she knew the knights would hear. When they heard her they would no doubt quicken their pace, racing towards their fate, and that pleased her all the more.

Ada took in a long, long gasp, as if drawing all the air in the whole tower inside of her. The heat spread fast to her head, her fingertips, her toes. Then it echoed in waves that turned her vision black and she lost awareness of her body. Finally, her dizziness settled and she found balance on four feet.

Ada, now a dragon, threw open the front doors of the tower and poured out onto the road like a ribbon of molten black glass.

She spread her black wings and took to the sky, roaring with glee. The band of knights was just around the bend. Two of the horses spooked immediately, throwing their riders and galloping off.

There was a knight in golden armor with a gaudy feather that stuck out three feet from his helmet, and she was sure this was her suitor. She laughed, which sounded like a chuffing, grumbling roar.

The suitor and two other knights were on war horses, which were not so easily spooked.

Ada took a deep breath and tightened her throat, then breathed out in a smooth exhale. As a human, all that could accomplish was fogging up a mirror. As a dragon, a gout of fire burst from between her fangs, pouring out over the road and licking towards the horses’ feet.

The horses knickered and jumped, though they did not yet spook.

One of the knights had looped around to the side, and Ada saw just a glint in the sunlight as he loosed a spear at her.

It bounced harmlessly off of the outside of her thigh. The legends about dragon’s indestructibility had proved true. 

The suitor shouted something and the knights retreated a ways, then regrouped.

Ada grinned a fang-filled smile at them. She’d have some fun with them, then.

They pulled out bows and arrows and these too bounced harmlessly off of her hide. A few sliced through the thin membranes of her wings, but though that was painful, it was not serious. Like a paper cut, they stung but would quickly heal. It was worth it, to see the look of dread coming over the knights.

They shot their quivers empty and they worked their horses to a lather, but still they had made no notable traction in defeating the dragon. And still, the dragon spewed gout after gout of flame at their feet.

These knights had a few clever tricks, like a miniature ballista loaded with a net of rope. They had fired this at Ada and it had successfully grounded her, but it had taken only one tug for her to snap the ropes. She swept low over the gold-armored knight and dropped the mangled net over him and his horse, which finally caused them some trouble. 

She watched with amusement as his helmet came off in the ensuing confusion, revealing his sweaty, red face.

Ada roared, then, and his horse’s resolve finally broke and it set out suddenly from under him. He tumbled off the saddle but the net was still tangled around both him and the horse, and it dragged him off at a full gallop.

Oops.

Ada tried not to cause any permanent injuries, but there was only so much she could do for those that didn’t respect her strength.

The rest of knights fled as well, leaving Ada alone in her expanse of fields once more.

Especially as a dragon, she got a distinct pleasure from evicting interlopers from her territory. She’d ended up a mile or two away from the tower, and she headed back. At that particular moment she couldn’t fly, and for the same reason she could hardly walk either. She made it a small distance before she started limping. And panting. 

Not for any injury. But because her sex ached.

If she even walked normally, she was sure to climax, and then it would be a very long walk back to the tower. 

Ada slowed and whimpered. Maybe if she stopped and took a break, she could…

Within moments, she was rolling in the grass, knuckles of her back feet curled up and rubbing at herself. 

She lost all sense, all direction, other than tending to the fire that was building within her. 

She rolled around and found a boulder and wrapped around it, rubbing her scales against the hard rock.

This was like the sensation of the bones of her knuckles but significantly more intense, more effective. The grinding vibrations surged through her in waves of quivering heat. 

Ada panted, forked tongue lolling out, rubbing herself senseless on this rock in the middle of a field.

And goddamn did it feel good.

She bellowed as she climaxed and the sound carried for miles, surely spurring the knights to hasten their departure.

Ada, now human and naked again, was sprawled on the boulder which was larger than her in every dimension and slick with dragon juices.

She sighed. It was going to be a long walk.

Ada pushed herself up, hands now covered in slippery, thick wetness.

Unless…

She stroked her hips, her thighs, and loved the slickness of it, loved the feeling of her soft flesh under her hands. She was out here, in the middle of a field, completely exposed. A warm summer wind tousled the grass and her hair.

She stroked her labia, still thick with arousal, and gasped at the sensitivity.

The sky was broad up above, the rock warm from her prior embrace, the grasses gently rustling, possibly hiding watchers…

Let them see, let the birds and the rabbits see, a woman find her pleasure.

Ada let her mind wander yet again, and this time she imagined a voyeur in the grass. An accidental one, one of the more reserved knights, coming back to search for his horse. He’d seen the dragon coming and hid, then had seen the dragon coming and watched. It aroused his sex and his guilt — what a perverse sight! But he had to hide for his life!

But if he had to hide for his life, then why was he so aroused by this dragon? But then the dragon had turned into this beautiful, naked princess, and his dilemma wasn’t the only thing that grew.

The dragon had been a woman, so that had to make this less guilty, right? But now he was watching a woman pleasure herself, and he was hiding in the grass.

What was he to do? Say something? But he had hid for his life and could not be faulted for that.

His dick pressed achingly against the inside of his trousers. The woman moaned and another bolt of arousal struck him. He felt lightheaded.

His erection throbbed and swelled more, now painfully bound.

He had to hide, had to watch, for his life. Now, he had to be vigilant. And this painful containment would be distracting. So, he had better undo his trousers, but he would do no more. His dick sprung free to a cool touch of air. Now, it bounced and swelled to its full hardness. Then harder. Had it ever felt this hard?

He grasped it to see if the shaft felt any harder in his hand, but that was a mistake. Pleasure shot up through him and tried to moan from his throat but he kept silent.

He had to keep absolutely silent, lest the dragon discover and devour him. 

He tried to keep his hand still, but the woman rolled to her side, seeking a new position, and giving him a full view of her ample ass. It bounced and quivered as she trembled and rubbed herself.

He whimpered. His hand began to stroke.

Maybe, maybe if he got it over with very quickly, then that was the most respectable thing to do. The most respectful. Just, um, business. Get it over with and hide in a non-aroused way.

He started stroking himself at at a pace that would carry him there quickly.

This, also, was a mistake. Very soon, he realized that this was no ordinary arousal. It was a kind that made him want to moan and growl. If this was just his arousal, how loud would his climax be?

He had to stop. He had to make sure that he did not come but he had already edged himself so very close.

The woman gasped and moaned and it was such a delicious sound that it pulled an audible whimper from him. But she hadn’t noticed. She was louder than him, and focused on her own business.

This, this could work.

And it did work, but it was torment. He did his best to time his own rushes of pleasure to her unpredictable vocalizations. He would get right up to the edge time and time again but then she would abruptly fall silent, and he had to freeze. 

His balls ached, they had never felt so full. Again, he edged himself right up to her silence. He clamped down hard on his base, just barely catching himself as his balls spasmed, only the pressure of his hand on his shaft halting his ejaculation. 

Moments later she moaned again, but this one was different. Sharper, higher. A spark of hope glimmered in him. Then another, forceful, loud. And another —

Yes, oh fuck, yes, she was coming, he was coming, she was coming!

He growled and gasped, safely covered by her literal screams of pleasure, as he pumped rope after rope of cum into the grass, and just utterly emptied.

He slumped to all fours. A shadow fell over him. The dragon!

He froze. Didn’t dare move a muscle. He stared at the puddle of cum in front of him until long after the dragon had spread its wings and flown away towards the tower.

The woman was gone.

Ada thanked her imaginary voyeur for his inspiration as she returned to the tower and draped herself around the top, nestling her chin on the sun-warmed stone. Sated, she watched the sun set, once again dreaming that the quivering light on the western horizon was the ocean.

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Part 1: The Beginning, The Dragon's Tower

Chapter 5: The Sky

The sky was so blue and so very, very wide. Each and every scale was alight with sensation. Not only did she bask in the warmth of the sun and the caress of the breeze, she could also sense the shifts in the air where it was thicker or thinner, the direction of a wind current even before she reached it. Her instincts carried her over updrafts and higher and higher into the sky.

Soon, she was so high that the tower looked as small as one of the doll houses she’d had as a child! 

And she could see so clearly, so far — rabbits in the grass, individual pebbles in the stream, a doe leaping into a copse of trees.

These fields had looked like so much blank parchment. Now she was a ribbon of living ink ready to throw herself across them all.

It was a dream, the sudden rush of freedom, of power. Of hot arousal, filling her from tail to snout.

Ada was unsure if it was just the dragon or herself. When she could ignore the arousal no longer, she coasted to the top of a nearby hill.

As a human, Ada had needed a mirror to first see her full anatomy.

As a dragon, her body was configured more like something between a snake and a cat, so she found that she could easily curl around to see just what part of her was aching so deliciously.

Everything was, more or less, where she expected it to be. There was a lengthwise seam in her scales between her hind legs and behind that was her anus. 

Everything also felt more or less like how she expected it to feel, especially as the throbbing arousal overcame her and she sank to her stomach and wriggled in the low grass.

She habitually lowered a foreleg towards her vulva, but hesitated. Her claws were like massive fish hooks. This was not going to work.

She had, as a human, once climaxed simply by pressing her legs together and grinding against her chair (at a dinner party, without anyone else knowing, much to her illicit delight) and she thought something similar might work here.

Ada writhed in the grass, searching for sensation, and it felt much like learning to masturbate for the first time. It was a bit frustrating, but also exciting. She was a dragon, after all!

A really, really horny dragon.

Eventually, Ada figured out that if she curled up her back feet and ran the knuckles of them over the scales at the edge of the seam, which were analogous to outer labia, it felt amazing. She had no idea how scales so firm could be so sensitive, but she wasn’t about to complain.

Her ministrations were effective. As her arousal grew, she noticed that she had inner labia as well. They were smooth and black and now visible as they swelled and forced her outer labia apart.

Her impending orgasm felt familiar too, that delicious heat and panting urgency. Ada reached and reached and reached for it. 

Finally, she crested. For a long moment she was weightless. Then sighing, sighing down.

Ada stirred in the hazy afterglow, picking her cheek up off the ground. The blades of grass waved above her head now. She was a human again, and totally naked.

The grass around her was trampled, long gouges turning up fresh earth, all glazed with a clear and viscous fluid. 

Was that it? Did it only work once? There was only one way to find out…

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Part 1: The Beginning, The Dragon's Tower

Chapter 4: The Curse

Five minutes later, a giant creature burst from Ada’s room. Mortar dust bloomed into a cloud and the heavy wooden door creaked on a single hinge. The creature was a dragon, seven feet tall at the shoulder and over twenty feet long, with batlike wings tucked to their spine and two slender horns curling back from their brow. Their black scales glinted every color in the trembling firelight. 

The dragon half-tumbled down the stairs, wobbling like a newborn fawn until they pooled at the bottom.

The witch stared, wide-eyed and frozen, candle wax and herbs still scattered across the table.

The dragon made a rumbling noise. After a few moments of odd intonation, it finally managed to form human words. 

“You must be very bad at magic,” the dragon said, “because I am beautiful.”

Ada had indeed transformed as she’d climaxed, but there was nothing hideous about her at all. She felt powerful. Strong. She could see more clearly, colors were more brilliant, and good gods she could hear and smell absolutely everything. Even the fluttering sound of the witch’s racing heart.

The witch suddenly darted towards the front door.

A predatory instinct pulled Ada to follow, lunging after her with a her mouthful of fangs.

The witch fell to the ground as Ada’s jaws closed towards her, but Ada got a hold of herself again. She did not actually want to eat the witch.

But even as Ada withdrew, the witch clutched at her chest and gasped.

Had Ada been human, she would have dashed for the smelling salts or attempted chest compressions. But she was not and she could not. 

The witch’s bitter old heart fell silent. 

Ada was finally, totally, alone.

Ada was not quite sure what to do. She considered her situation for a long moment and then made up her mind.

She carefully unbolted the front door, which was fortunately oversized and allowed her to just barely squeeze out. Carefully, she lifted the witch’s body in her claws. It was oddly like handling the dead rabbits, just earlier that day. But Ada knew sure as anything that she was not going to eat the witch, not even as a dragon.

So, she set the witch’s body in the grass and started digging at the base of the tower. It was a task that would have taken hours for Ada and a spade, but with her strong legs and hooked claws she dug a suitable grave in minutes.

Ada laid the witch to rest and filled the grave back in. 

She hesitated for only a moment before all her heart and body pulled her, yearning, towards the sky.

Ada’s instincts knew what to do and as soon as she spread her wings her body carried her through one, two, powerful downbeats and then she was flying.

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Part 1: The Beginning, The Dragon's Tower

Chapter 3: Ensnared

The next morning, Ada sulked down the stairs, a bit later than usual. She had hardly slept. Though, she had regained some small margin of confidence when she had discovered a loose stone in the tower wall and hidden her most important books there.

The witch was not in her usual place by the fire. She stood smirking at the bottom of the stairs, hands on her hips. “Well?”

“Yes?” Ada required no theater to sound weary.

“Aren’t you going to get started on dinner, or are you going to laze about all day?”

Ada slunk the rest of the way down the stairs and lifted a potato from the basket by the stove.

The witch tsked. “No no. Go fetch some more rabbits.”

‘Fetch’ some more rabbits, as if they were just at some market, waiting for them. As if Ada hadn’t taught herself, only from a book, how to trap and kill and clean and cook them.

“I thought that wasn’t ladylike?” Ada whispered, but there was no fight in her voice.

“It’s what a lady like you is going to do today,” the witch snipped.

Ada set down the potato, fetched a spindle of twine from its place on the mantle, and stepped outside.

It was a fine day in early summer. Once she was outside and setting to work, she could not remain upset for long. She determined that she would catch a few extra rabbits and try to salt-cure the meat. The thrill of planning her escape brought her quickly back to her usual disposition.

After she finished setting the last snare at the edge of a copse of trees, she took a moment to survey the field behind her and decide what she might do until it was time to check the traps. 

The gurgle of the stream caught her ear and she started down towards the place where she usually bathed.

She realized with a laugh that if her father had seen her then, he would have thought she was some kind of urchin. Her calves were dusty where the dirt of the field had stuck to her sweat and there was still dried blood on her knees.

Ada stripped off her frock even before she had reached the stream, grateful once again that the surrounding area was so utterly empty. The sun gazed down on her lovingly and the gentle breeze caressed her.

She almost didn’t see the doe that had stooped to drink at the edge of the stream. It froze and swiveled its ears at her, then bounded off into the swaying grasses. There were a few bows tucked away in the tower’s modest armory. She’d have to start practicing.

That was for later, though. For now, she’d take a bath.

The water of the stream was sweetly cool. It came only up to her calves, so she lay flat on the rounded pebbles of the stream bed and submerged herself.

The dirt and her anxieties washed away. It took a bit more effort to get the blood off her knees, but soon that too was gone.

Her mind drifted to an imagined future. 

She was a clever hunter and had lived a long, lone while in the forest. 

He was riding through the forest on a decorated horse, his tailcoats navy velvet with gold trim, his wavy hair flowing down over his shoulders, and his face handsome and carefree. He was her mark, her prey.

She stalked him through the forest, preparing. She was swift, silent. She waited until he paused to let his horse drink at a stream, and that was when she struck.

Water splashed, the horse whinnied and spooked, there was a gasping tussle, and then he kneeled on the ground in front of her, her knife at his throat.

But then she saw the lovely curve of his collarbone, his brilliant blue eyes pleading up at her and the true innocence in his face. She realized that he was not guilty of the crimes that had put the price on his head.

Ada’s mind skipped through the next bits, a few plot advancements and shifts in relationship, rebalances in the power dynamic, until via some literary contrivance she and he were back at the same stream again.

She shoved him down into the soft peat and pounced.

His erection rose to meet her. 

She fucked him against the bank as the stream gurgled its support. His hair flowed out around him and his blue eyes pleaded up at her for release.

But she would not give it to him. Not until she’d had her fill. Grinding against him, she worked herself to orgasm once, twice, three times. His desperate arousal grew more and more frantic each time.

Finally, she shifted her hips so that her movements would stimulate him in the way that he so desperately desired. His face melted into a vision of sheer angelic bliss as he finally came, blessing her with all his seed, and she climaxed again.

As Ada lay in the stream she did indeed finish her fourth climax, her panting and gasping mingling with the babbling water. More time had passed than she realized and the sun was now dipping low in the sky. She walked quickly through the field and found that three out of her five traps had caught small rabbits. She called upon her imaginary hunter for resolve and wrung their necks, then headed back to the tower.

Her heart glowed just as brightly as the setting sun, and she only barely remembered to put on a frown as she entered the tower.

She must have been convincing enough, because the witch just looked at her smugly as Ada set about cleaning the rabbits and preparing the night’s meal.

They ate in silence and only after Ada had washed the dishes and returned to the fireside to sew did the witch finally say, “Ada, we need to have a talk.” She leaned back in her chair across from Ada and looked down her long nose.

“What about?” Ada steeled herself. She just needed to acquiesce and barter for time.

“Your… perverse activities.”

“You mean my masturbating?” The quip was out of her mouth before she could think better of it. So much for her resolve. Ada was truly terrible at pretending to be in a bad mood.

“You can’t — ack — ugh! See, this cavalier attitude is completely unacceptable!”

“I still don’t understand why.”

“You aren’t supposed to understand why.”

“Well… why not?” It was a genuine question. It always had been.

The witch’s smirk faded and she leaned forward slightly, sighing and pressing her fingertips to her temples. “Look. You don’t get to understand why. You just need to do what you’re told. And you need to stop those activities. I know what you did today.”

Had the witch spied on Ada from the top of the tower? Scandalous. “You don’t have to watch if you—”

“I knew it! You little… little… cretin!” The witch’s volume escalated, her nostrils flaring. “And outside! How shameful!”

“I thought you said you knew—”

“I suspected and you’ve just confirmed it. And here I thought you were turning a corner. Hah! Of course I should have known that you’d be incorrigible!”

The witch turned into a flurry of skirts and anger as she fumed over to a shelf and returned with a book. Ada was concerned that she would see another of her treasures turned to ash, but she didn’t recognize the cover. It was made of leather and branded with arcane symbols.

The witch shook the book at Ada. “I’m going to teach you a lesson. You seem to be lacking for… self control. But this is why you get a witch to guard your tower, hm? Because witches know a trick or two, far more clever than fetching rabbits!”

Ada was unsure of how to respond. Anything she said would surely just goad the witch further. Perhaps if Ada just let her finish her rant, she’d make a few threats and then send Ada away.

“This, oh this will teach you your lesson!” the witch continued, flipping through her book and pressing it open on the table, snatching a burning candle from the table and a fistful of herbs from her pocket. 

Ada had seen something similar before. She’d been doused with healing water in rings of ten candles on more than one occasion, back when the queen had been convinced that Ada’s penchant for pleasure was due to a demonic possession.

A flicker of snark danced on her tongue, a challenge like ‘so are you going to grind a poultice at me?’, but this time Ada did not let it escape.

The witch looked purposeful and confident as she poured candle wax onto the table in a pentagram.

The light flickered oddly in the hollows of her face and she turned back to Ada with wild eyes. Had she finally smoked too many herbs? “I am going to curse you so that at the peak of your pleasure you turn into a hideous beast! You’ll have to choose! Behave or lose everything! Nobody will tend a hideous beast, no one will defer, no one will respect you or woo you with favors.”

“You really seem to be speaking from personal experience here.” Shit. She’d meant it in an empathetic, ‘who hurt you’ kind of way, but as soon as it was out of her mouth she knew exactly how it sounded.

The witch shrieked with a fury beyond words. She started chanting, spittle flicking from her mouth. She withdrew several hempen pouches from her pocket and threw them in the fire. As the contents burned, the flames licked up purple and green.

The spell was not a short one. Rather than sit and watch the witch chant for minutes on end, Ada stood from her chair. “I’m… going to bed.”

And honestly, the witch’s episode was unsettling. Was she really so delusional to think she could work the old magic? What in the world was she trying to call down on Ada?

The witch continued her coarse chanting, face twisted with satisfaction.

Ada started up the stairs. Before she left earshot, the witch had finished chanting.

“Remember!” she screamed. “A HIDEOUS BEAST!”

The racing of her heart had started as wariness. But as she closed the door of her room and sank into her bed, once again surrounded by her books, it morphed into the heat of arousal.

Could the witch have accomplished some magic after all?

Just the thought that the witch’s spell could have backfired in such a way was a bellows on the growing flame. She was sure then that the arousal had been in her imagination all along.

But, it was a fun idea. The witch picking the wrong spell, it simply making Ada thirstier instead of doing anything at all about the ‘problem’… Ada liked that idea so much that she didn’t even bother to undress before she pulled up her frock and started touching herself.

She was already plenty wet from her extended activities by the stream, and her fingers against her felt so good. Though she was tired from the day and wanted to sleep, she’d hardly be able to with her heart pounding like this. Rubbing another one out seemed like a fine lullaby.

And she couldn’t deny, she had a sort of morbid curiosity. She liked the idea of so quickly opening her door and declaring, ‘your spell didn’t work at all!’. Then, as the witch raged, perhaps Ada would just pick her up, deposit her outside and bar the door. Ada was surprised she hadn’t thought of it sooner. She was not yet accustomed to her newfound strength. 

Her boldness turned to unfettered lust as Ada worked herself gleefully towards climax.

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Part 1: The Beginning, The Dragon's Tower

Chapter 2: The Tower

The stone tower was perched on the western border of the kingdom. The king’s father’s father’s father had erected it to watch for seafaring invaders from the West. It had been staffed up until about ten years prior and had been empty since then. The powers of the West had determined that kingdoms suited them better than conquests and the border had not been challenged in nearly a century.

The tower rose abruptly from an broad stretch of rocky fields, like a knife staked through a piece of paper. The road back to the kingdom tore jaggedly down to the South and East. The North was smudged with dark copses of trees. 

Even from the very top of the tower’s conical roof, the tawny fields touched every horizon, a blank page waiting for a pen.

Ada felt a certain eager wonder from that perch. The sunset was most spectacular at all, as if the edge of the paper had been dipped in red wine.

She sometimes imagined that the wavering light on the western horizon was the edge of the ocean. She would stay up there for hours, dreaming of the expanse that she had only ever read about. Supposedly there were gulls and whales and ships and krakens, lavish merchants and pirate women, chests of gold and coves of pleasure. 

Had Ada been alone in the tower, she might have been truly content.

But, she was not. Her hours of revelry were ended by a screeching whine all too eager to remind Ada that she was not supposed to be enjoying herself.

The king, ever the traditionalist, had hired a witch to supervise Ada. The witches of old had wrought great magics, truly capable of single-handedly defending a tower like this even from a full army.

The witch that the king had chosen was capable of single-handedly smoking an entire pound of herbs in an evening.

Witches had become like that, in the recent years. They said that the ether was growing weaker. Ada did not think it was the ether that was fading, but rather their ambitions. If not for the legends and traditions, the king may have been able to see the truth. He had not hired a witch, so much as a shriveled old woman as bitter as the poultices that she ground with her pestle. 

Ada had tried to be friendly at first, but she just couldn’t crack the witch. It was as if the woman had been given a list of all the worst traits of both of Ada’s parents and had been instructed to be sure to use all of them in how she treated Ada. In fact, Ada wouldn’t put it past her mother to have done just that.

The witch told her she was ‘too fat’ (apparently any fat meant ‘too fat’) and rationed her dinner. So, Ada would sneak down to the kitchen and see how much she remembered of the recipes she’d learned from the chef’s apprentice. 

Then, the witch lectured her on the ‘rules of polite society’ and so Ada asked the witch genuine questions until the witch contradicted herself. Then the witch would become mad at Ada, somehow, because her own rules didn’t make sense. Not so polite after all.

Especially, the witch lectured her that she needed to stop her ‘perverted activities’, and since the witch utterly refused to use the word ‘masturbation’, Ada just sunnily replied that she wasn’t doing anything perverted at all. This usually lead to another lecture about rules, which lead to the witch contradicting herself again, which made the witch angriest of all. 

Ironically, she would get so upset that she would banish Ada out of her sight “lest I turn you into a newt and make your father angry with me,” affording Ada some alone time for her so called ‘perverse activities’.

All in all, the witch left Ada mostly alone except for her daily quota of nagging. 

Ada couldn’t complain too much. It was the most freedom that she’d ever had. And that freedom was made all the sweeter because whichever poor lad or lass had last been stuck out here on watch duty had been a reader. One of the tower’s rooms was lined on every wall with books. 

And these were not the manners manuals or cautionary tales of Ada’s youth. 

There were practical volumes about the many varieties of edible berries, the most effective medicinal herbs, the best techniques for field dressing.

There were also academic books on the histories of the kingdoms, which took extra special care to describe just who was having affairs with whom. Ada smiled smugly at that, very sure that she had been acting very much ‘like a princess’ after all. 

But best of all, there were stories. There was adventure and romance, tragedy and heartbreak, cunning plots, evil deeds, noble sacrifices, the triumphs of good, swashbuckling heroes and blushing heroines. 

These inspired Ada’s fantasies in her times of pleasure. She imaged herself as the hero, sweeping in to save a blushing prince or buxom princess from some dastardly foe. In her imaginings, they revered her still. But, not for her heritage. For her deeds. For herself. 

And even aside from her fantasies, Ada felt more accomplished after a moon in the tower than she ever had in the castle. The witch had been supposed to do all the chores, lest Ada’s hands or back toughen and she become a less desirable future wife.

In yet another of her ironies, the witch had shirked that part of her duty, preferring to sit in front of the fireplace in a haze of herb smoke and delegate the work to Ada.

So, Ada had learned to do the washing and the cleaning. She brushed her own hair. She bathed herself in the stream and carried back pails of water. She hunted for mushrooms and dug up potatoes. 

Her hands and back did indeed toughen. Her arms became firm. A book on rehabilitation exercises for injured soldiers offered ample exercises for building strength. Ada practiced these enthusiastically. 

She took great pride in imagining herself not as a princess, but as the watch tower’s new guardian. Imagining the witch as her infirm charge made the old woman’s behavior slightly more tolerable.

The only downside was that she was lonely. But, she wasn’t any more lonely than she had been in the castle.

And, in fact, if the witch had even the smallest willingness to be friendly, it might have been quite a nice life. Instead, the witch ramped up her nagging, seemingly intent on breaking Ada’s spirit. Her commentary became more cruel and insistent, her retaliations more petty.

It was nothing that Ada wasn’t used to, so she just kept on.

She learned how to create snares with saplings and twine. After a couple of days of failure, she’d successfully caught two rabbits. She killed them and cleaned them by the stream. As the rabbits roasted with fresh chives that she’d gathered from the field, the tower’s main room smelled almost as good as the castle’s kitchen had. Those nights of stolen pastries seemed so distant, though it had only been two moons.

It was only as Ada pulled the rabbits out of the oven that the witch stirred from her smoky haze.

Ada handed her a platter where she sat by the fire. She uttered no thanks — she never did — and grumbled that catching game was violent behavior unbecoming of a princess. Such misgivings did not stop her from greedily devouring the meal. 

The witch ate by the fire and Ada ate in the kitchen. As she savored the first bite, she couldn’t remember ever having tasted anything so incredible. Ada wasn’t sure if it was just that she hadn’t had any meat since they arrived at the tower or if she truly had made something nearly as good as the castle staff, but she was proud of herself all the same.

Ada cleaned her plate, fetched her favorite book, and sunk into her own chair by the fire. She was exhausted and the crackling warmth was welcome.

The witch’s platter was on the floor next to her chair, almost totally clean. It was as much a compliment as Ada would get from the prune of a woman.

As Ada settled in, the witch glowered at her.

Ada paid her no mind. Her book fell open in her lap, eager for her fingers between its pages, wooing her with the smell of old paper and a story about an assassin who fell in love with his mark. The edges of the pages were tattered, a few pages spattered with old wine and tea. 

She was not the only one who had loved this book. As she imagined the swift assassin and the wary beauty, she also imagined the hands that had touched the pages just where she did now. It was the most dear connection that Ada had ever felt with another human.

“Don’t get lazy now,” the witch snapped, kicking the edge of her platter.

“I’ll wash it before bed.” Ada didn’t look up, but she knew the witch was still glaring.

This was a particularly foul mood. Ada had naively hoped that a proper meal might at least temporarily abate the witch’s grousing. It seemed to have had the opposite effect. 

The king must have been very clear that Ada was to be miserable. Ada just didn’t understand why the witch felt the need to listen to him. It wasn’t as if he was really checking on them, anyway. 

Ada had tried to say as much before. It only made the witch angrier, probably because she realized that Ada was right. So, Ada stayed quiet and flipped to the next page of her book.

The witch stood and loomed over her. She did this from time to time, apparently believing that it would make Ada uncomfortable. Ada continued to ignore her, like a parent might ignore a pestering child.

“Look at me!” The witch snatched the book out of Ada’s hands.

Ada sighed. “What do you want? I said I’ll finish washing before bed.”

The witch turned the book around and skimmed the pages, then scoffed. “Your father would burn me at the stake if he caught you reading this filth!”

Then, without any further ceremony or warning, she threw the book into the fire.

Ada lunged after it, skinning her knees on the rough stone of the hearth. It was too late, the pages already halfway to ash before her shaking hands found the iron tongs that hung next to the fireplace. All she could do was watch the story turn to flame, the cover melting slowly into embers.

The witch looked down at Ada with folded arms. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you read those common books. They rot the mind. I should have burned the whole lot as soon as we arrived.”

Thoughts finally emerged from Ada’s shock. She was happy to permit the witch her nagging, but this was something else entirely. This was cruel.

She wanted to be angry. Instead, she was afraid. Would she really be locked in this tower forever, denied even the barest thread of human connection?

No, of course not. She would leave.

Plans danced in the flames in front of her.

She had already learned much of what she’d need to survive in the wilderness. Chief among those lessons was that only death awaited the ill-prepared.

She would need suitable clothes and enough rations to last until she found a place to forage. She would need to sew a pack and carefully choose which books to bring with her. She would need to search the tower for any tools that might prove useful, without alerting the witch to her plan.

She would need time.

Though the witch was cruel, she was not clever. Ada would feign misery, let the witch feel like she’d won.

At that moment, feigning misery was easy. Mostly because she did not have to feign at all. 

Ada clenched her skirts in her hands and sobbed by the fire.

The witch settled back into her chair, lit another pipe of herbs, and smiled.

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Part 1: The Beginning, Stories, The Dragon's Tower

Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time

The castle pantry was warm and dark. Ada leaned back against a wall, him in the folds of her skirt, his tongue in the folds of her sex. She bit her lip to stifle a moan.

It was good to be a princess.

He was the chef’s apprentice and he had arrived at the castle sometime in the past year. She had first caught sight of him through a crack in the kitchen door, when it had been propped open to let out some of the heat. A warm current that smelled of buttery meat and roasting vegetables had washed over her. She had peeked inside. He had been standing over a trussed turkey, knife in hand, curly hair tied back from his face, eyes narrow with focus and tongue sticking out between his full lips.

That tongue had proved to be one of his most talented assets, both when he was cooking and when he was… eating. 

She’d found excuses to linger by the kitchen, to request pastries or sliced fruit. The chef herself had long stopped humoring Ada’s requests for late night snacks but the apprentice obliged. The chef allowed this because she had been less concerned about depriving Ada and more so about deferring the queen’s ire; the queen had come to personally scold the chef for allowing Ada to become ‘too thick’. 

Ada had rolled her eyes and scoffed. If her mother wanted to be willowy, that was fine for her. But, Ada liked the way that her breasts filled her hands, that her ass jiggled when she shook it at one of her lust-eyed lovers and that her thighs brushed each other just below her sex. 

Ada knew her mother’s other motivation was to keep her away from just this kind of late night kitchen flirting. But Ada would not be contained, not by a corset and not by the queen’s disapproval.

The chef’s apprentice, for his part, was all too happy to offer her chocolate squares, strawberry tarts and apple slices. She had further requested sausages and turkey legs and he had obliged with a gulp. She had eaten them lingeringly, with ample moaning and licking of her fingers. Ada loved the way that his face first flushed red and then drained pale as the blood traveled elsewhere. 

Glimpses of his erection in the front of his trousers had been her favorite late night treat in those early days when she was wooing him. 

Finally, she had asked to cook with him and he had nearly fainted with excitement. He had taken her into the pantry, which was lined with shelf after shelf of foodstuffs. Jars of pickles and bags of flour, boxes of sugar and barrels of oil and wine. In the night it was quiet and dark and close, a labyrinth that provided ample hidden corners. 

She had placed her fingers on the base of his neck and whispered her proposal in his ear. “Would you like to eat something sweet I’ve made?”

“Y-yes, please, Your Majesty!”

She had found a suitable barrel and sat back, lifting her layered skirts just enough for him to slip beneath. He had needed no further instructions.

As a chef he knew how to please the tongue, and as a lover he knew how to please with the tongue. 

For the past two months, she’d been coming to the pantry nearly every night, as much as she could get away with. She’d lost count of how many times now. There had been a trip to a neighboring kingdom that had denied her for several days, but the hunger only made the taste that much more delicious.

Ada had offered to attend to him also, but he had stutteringly refused. Perhaps he was embarrassed or perhaps he felt it was above his station, or both. That was the one part that disappointed her. 

It was fun to be Her Majesty, to play the character of the demanding and entitled royalty. It was the closest she ever got to acting ‘like a princess’ as her parents were always telling her to, and it was the way that made them most furious of all. The malicious compliance especially aroused her. 

And yet, it was lonely that nobody knew her as herself. Not ‘Her Majesty’, just ‘Ada’. Ada loved to give pleasure as much as she loved to receive it. With the chef’s apprentice, Ada longed to make good on everything she’d implied sucking on sausages in front of him. 

Alas, he had declined. And she wouldn’t pressure him any further. She had made that mistake before, not realizing that her playful insistence still held the weight of ‘Her Majesty’.

So, she was more careful now. She couldn’t imagine how he managed. It wasn’t that the experience didn’t arouse him. She saw his erection clearly through his trousers both as she arrived and left. He’d taken to wearing an apron even when he wasn’t actually cooking, which meant that these troubles plagued him even outside their rendezvous. 

One night, after his talented palate brought her to another height of quivering pleasure, she had asked him. 

“You prefer I don’t help relieve you,” she had said. 

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

“But you might understand that I only ask because I care for you… however do you manage?”

His face had reddened. “It’s nothing I can’t handle myself, Your Majesty.”

Ada had grinned like she had just bit into one of his sweet strawberry tarts. “You handle yourself?”

He had hesitated. But, perhaps emboldened by her positive reaction, he’d nodded slightly. 

“Here, in the pantry?” She had been gripped with the thrill.

He had nodded. 

“How often?” She had hoped it was all the time. 

He’d turned his eyes down towards the bags of flour next to them. “O-often…”

She had imagined it immediately. Him sneaking away from the kitchen, his hands still slick with butter. Him carefully undoing his trousers and then melting into a sweet release that relaxed all the focus out of his face, that left him blissy-eyed, that left his perfect tongue hanging out of his mouth. Him hearing a noise and shifting back into his expression of focus and forcing himself to stay silent, bringing himself to climax and completion just in time to holler back that he’d had trouble finding the pickled eggs, but he had them now. 

Was ‘often’ daily? Multiple times a day? Did the kitchen think he was terrible at finding ingredients? Had he ever run out of time and forced himself to stop just before the brink of relief and dragged himself back to work? 

Did he think of her all day? Did he handle himself before their visits? Was that the only reason he could keep his composure so well? Because he had vigorously, secretly masturbated to her earlier?

Her heart had raced, her arousal rekindling as she thought of all the possibilities. 

“Would you show me?” She had breathed. Might he finally?

He’d shaken his head frantically. “I musn’t, Your Majesty!”

“That’s alright,” she’d said, suddenly feeling guilty, hoping to sound as assuring as possible. 

“I fear I… I fear I might make you upset!” He’d looked up at her with wide, brown eyes. 

“You haven’t!” She had regretted saying anything and had cupped his face in her hand. It had still been wet with her. “The only thing that could make me upset is if you agree to do something with me that you don’t actually want to do, alright?”

He’d nodded. 

“Promise me you won’t.”

“I promise, your majesty.”

“Alright, then.” She had stood and arranged her skirts. “I’ll leave you to… handle yourself.” She’d winked at him, put her fingers to her mouth and licked them off long and slow. 

That time, she’d seen his erection even through his apron. 

Ada had wound back out through the labyrinthine shelves of the pantry but lingered before leaving. 

The sound of his panting was just audible, almost mistakable for a mouse rummaging in a bag of wheat. Then, then a poorly stifled moan had reached her ears like the delicious smell of chocolate cake wafting down a hallway. 

It had taken all her willpower to leave then and not indulge her voyeuristic desires. Though, that had hardly stopped her from imagining. She fantasized about him panting there, thinking of her, masturbating over and over and over again, until he was totally spent.

Though that’s actually what she had done — masturbated to the thought of him — quietly under her covers, over and over again, until her arm was too tired to lift and she was totally spent.

She indulged in that memory now. Imagination was the kind of magic that allowed a person to be in two places at once. In fantasy he masturbated next to her while in actuality his talented tongue pressed up even more deeply inside of her. He hummed with pleasure, as if he had just tasted a particularly delicious strawberry.

In the past few weeks, she’d gotten bolder. Lately, she hadn’t been able to force herself to wait until the middle of the night, so she had started to sneak to the kitchen between meals or in the early morning. This day, it was the quiet lull between lunch and tea time.

She stroked her fingers through his curly brown hair. He allowed her at least this gesture of appreciation.

He was far from the first or the only lover she’d had. She’d been with her ladies in waiting, scribes, knights, squires, even another princess. If they were too much older than her it got a bit awkward, and she was swift to decline anyone who seemed too much a child. But, beyond that there were few limits to her attractions.

The queen could not make up her mind whether Ada had so many affairs because she was not yet married, or that she was not yet married because she had so many affairs. The queen had become convinced in recent years that Ada would die alone, even though she was only twenty and three. Apparently, that made her an old maid by princess’ standards. And yet, her lovers seemed to find her plenty hearty and hale.

“You’re my favorite,” she whispered to the chef’s apprentice. He had been for at least two moons now, that was something impressive. Her affections usually did not linger this long, but he was something special.

He moaned in appreciation and the earnestness of it started to tilt her over the edge. Her chest heaved, her heart raced, her blood tingled, her eyes started to roll back. It was like the feeling of pure honey on her tongue, or a ripe berry between her lips, or the smell of herbs on roasted meat — abject pleasure. 

“Fuck, yes… yes… Aaaah!~”

Her fingers in his hair clenched and pulled hard. She couldn’t help it, not when she had to hold in a scream of pleasure, which fought to escape her chest.

He buried deeper and still licked her even as she shuddered through her climax, even as her legs clamped around his head.

Finally, she relented. He stilled, then stood from under her skirts. His face was wet with her and bright with a grin. She smoothed his curls down, stroking him gently, and he purred in her hands.

“Sorry for pulling,” she said.

“I don’t mind at all,” he said. In fact, it sounded like he rather enjoyed it.

There was a creak of footsteps in the hall.

“Aw, fuck,” she said. “Off you go!”

He glanced at the pantry door and nodded, dashing into a dark corner between shelves of pickled vegetables.

The door slammed open and cast a bright wedge of light on Ada. The king loomed in a red cloak and a halo of righteous fury.

Mercifully, Ada’s skirts had never compromised her ‘modesty’. She smoothed them and her hair, trying to look nonchalant.

“What are you doing in here?” the king demanded.

Ada shrugged, examining her fingernails. She doubted she was going to get away with it this time, but it was worth a try. “You know I like the dark. It helps me think.”

The king’s nostrils flared. “I know what I heard. I know what I smell. That’s it! I’m sending you to a tower!”

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