EVERGREEN FOREST, CHAPTER 07
Cicuta’s eyes slowly opened, revealing to her the verdant clearing she and her enslaved cousin and niece called home. The voluptuous green-haired nymph of the Evergreen blinked. “Ah. Shit.”
She tried to get to her feet, but the dart in her neck had other ideas. She shuddered, her head pounding with the frenzy of a warrior’s drum. Venom of a daddy long-legs: the one way to really take a nymph down. Also, extraordinarily hard to come by. Only Yilra, the local would-be warden of the Central Evergreen, could be to blame for this. “Oh, goddesses...” she muttered. “I hate rangers. Hatehatehatehate—”
>The prisoner. As the thought occurred to her, Cicuta looked around—slowly, so as not to upset her head further. Her long green tresses swung right, then left.
Alrek—or “Snatch”, as the thief liked to be called—had escaped. No doubt Anna had, too. Cicuta pouted.
The losses struck her hard. Anna had been a very, very special gift, and Cicuta and her nymph toys had really enjoyed playing with her. There would be hell to pay for this loss, no doubt. And it had taken her two weeks to break the boy. More toxins than she knew the names of, too. She giggled. I really better start writing those down. Not safe to use poisons like succubi’s folly without knowing the antidote.
The green-haired temptress again tried to stand up, to no avail. That venom had really done a number on her.
“Lisura!” she called. “Esca!” Her nymph relatives may have been brainwashed sluts, but she was the one who’d brainwashed them. Trapped in the fey vines or not, surely an order from their mistress would be impossible to ignore.
She heard Esca giggle. “Cicuta?”
“Esca, darling!” Cicuta smirked. Esca was always easy to control. Great tongue, bouncy breasts, bouncy brain. “Be a dear and get over here, Esca. Quick as a bunny.”
“Ooh! Oooh... uh, yeah, Cicky. In a, uh, moment.”
Cicuta’s eyes narrowed. “Did you just call me—” She stopped, forcing her tone back down. She would punish Esca later, of course, but Cicuta had learned long ago that a delicate touch worked best on her dimwitted niece.
That went double in Esca’s current state, too—in hypnotic trance, and being double-penetrated by vines, she needed to be addressed at her own level. Cicuta made her tone bubbly and sweet. “Esca, my love, I need your help real bad. Some nasty spider’s settled down and pwicked my poor wittle finger!”
There was a pause. “Wait, really? I thought we had a treaty with Llithy and Writhy.”
Cicuta snorted, but kept the tone. “Those cuties know their place—it’s not a literal spider, Esca. Look, I’m awfully stuck an’ all.”
“Uh... really?”
The slight increase in arousal in Esca’s tone was not lost on Cicuta. Rolling her eyes, she let her voice turn silky. “Why, yes, dearest. I’m utterly helpless.”
“Ooh...” Esca’s voice came out as a gasp, as the two vines no doubt surged back inside her. “... really?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Hee! Okay, I’ll just, uh... I’ll, um...” There was a long pause. When Esca started speaking again, her voice had gone quiet—almost too quiet for Cicuta to hear. “Ooh. Oh, Cicky, this is... ama-a-a-azin’. It’s... oh, goddess...”
“Esca.” Cicuta scowled. “Forget those mean old plants and help your darling Cicky out. My tongue’s ten times as good as any vine.”
“No... not vines...” Esca’s voice was taking on a dreamy quality. “Vines gone, Cicky... vines allll gone...”
“You’re not making sense, Esca.” Cicuta was losing patience fast. She knew her cousin was a ditz, but that slutty body was hiding a pretty instinctually canny mind. Cicuta was clearly being toyed with. “Pull a vine out before you answer again. Ass or pussy, I don’t care. Both at once are clearly too much for you to handle.”
“Oh, no, Cicky... Cicky, they all gone now...” Esca’s voice turned high-pitched. “It’s all gone...”
Cicuta’s blood ran cold. Her mind raced with fresh understanding. “Oh. Oh no. Not them. No, no, fuck no...”
“Ooh... so nice.”
“Don’t!” Cicuta shouted. “Esca, you brainless whore, resist it! We’re nymphs, not mortal fucktoys!”
But it was no use. Cicuta had hypnotized her pet again and again, layering trigger upon trigger upon trigger, wearing away Esca’s innate immunities, and Esca was no match for what she now faced.
And, Cicuta thought, her heart pounding, neither was Cicuta. The programming had severely taxed her own willpower, and now... She felt her pussy grow moist at just the thought of her helpless state.
“Nah, Cicky, it’s so—oh, yes—so nice—oh gods oh yes Cicky I need it CickeeEEEEEE!” Esca’s words gave way to wordless squeals. To Cicuta’s horror, they seemed to be getting fainter and fainter. They had Esca now. Lisura was no doubt already done for.
Cicuta started to crawl. “No. No, please no. We have a deal.” Voice raising, she repeated, “We have a deal, you gray bitches!”
She had to move faster. Faster! “You can’t take me,” she whispered. “I’m better! I’m better than that!” Hot tears were streaming down her cheeks now. “We had a deal!”
A giggle sounded in her ear. The sound made Cicuta’s eyes roll back into her head with pleasure.
“Deal’s gone now.”
The Gray Wraiths had arrived.
A soft, feminine laugh echoed throughout the Central Evergreen. A short ways east of the nymphs’ glade, three human travelers looked around for the source of the sound.
“Well, they found the nymphs.” Yilra bit her lip. “All bets are off.”
“Sure you can keep up?” Snatch asked. He eyed the ranger skeptically—Yil happened to be missing two extremities that were somewhat relevant to the current crisis.
Yil glared. The redheaded ranger swung one of her crutches. On the other end, an immense gnarled talon grasped the log she was moving over. “My crutches’re longer than your oh-so-shapely legs, ‘Snatch.’ I’ll manage. If I was you, I’d keep an eye on Anna instead.”
Snatch glanced back, reluctantly remembering the third member of their party. Anna had been a slave to the nymphs quite a bit longer than he had, and while constant ‘exercise’ had kept her fit, she obviously hadn’t run in while a while. Also, there was the fact that she was naked and traumatized.
Groaning, Snatch slowed down a tad so Anna could catch up. The attractive blonde ran alongside him, dead silent.
Snatch gritted his teeth. Even with the most feared creatures of the Evergreen potentially ready to swoop in at any moment to erase their existance, this was unbelievably awkward. Under the effects of the fey vines’ slime, Anna had hypnotized a drugged Snatch, raped him repeatedly, and, worst of all, utterly humiliated him.
Also, Snatch had repeatedly tried to doom her to serving eternally as the nymphs’ living sex toy to save his own ass.
Despite himself, he felt his cock harden a little looking at her. He quickly looked away. “Running alright?”
Anna nodded.
“Not gonna fall down?”
Anna shook her head.
“Good. That’s good.”
Snatch grimaced. No, it wasn’t ‘good’ at all. He’d come to the Evergreen to escape from his old ‘friends’. Since then, he’d made three very demanding new ‘friends’ with very funny senses of humor. After being subjected to their ‘friendship’ for who-knew-how-long, he’d had to be rescued. Knowing his luck, Yilra and Anna were probably going to want to ‘befriend’ him, too, sooner or later.
Or, worse yet, they’d try to literally befriend him.
Snatch hated friendship. The last true friend he’d had had fared quite poorly indeed.
Anna swallowed. She hugged her chest, but it was nearly impossible to hide her large breasts while running. They kept... bouncing.
Esca in particular had loved to suckle on her breasts, Anna recalled. She shuddered, remembering the feeling of Esca’s luscious lips on her sensitive skin, her eager smile—
No! The young woman’s spirit quailed from the lusty urges. That wasn’t her. She was free now. Right?
Of course she wasn’t. She’d eaten out the nymphs many, many times, and nymph juices stuck with a person. Perhaps she would return to the city only to quickly seek employment at a common whorehouse. If she even remembered how to get home. Everything before the nymphs was strangely foggy. Hopefully, it would get clearer in time. Hopefully.
Hot tears stung her eyes, making it hard to see where she was running. Instinctively, she moved a bit closer to Alrek. Strangely, the knowledge that he was almost as miserable about the whole experience as she was was a bit comforting.
Though it did rankle. He’d been a captive for fifteen nights. She’d been a captive for fifteen months. What right had he to act a martyr?
“Hold here!” Her head bolted up. She realized too late that Yilra had stopped running. The ranger glanced back, and her eyes widened. “Anna, I said hold h—”
Before she could come to a complete stop, Anna barreled into the legless ranger, and they went tumbling over the edge of a steep sandy slope.
Anna cried out, screwing her eyes shut. She heard Yilra swearing, and gasped as she felt herself smack into a small tree. Reflexively, she lunged out and wrapped her fingers around the small, pitch-covered trunk. Her descent came to a sudden, violent halt, and she yelped again.
The arm she’d used to grab hold felt like it had been ripped off her shoulder. Worse, her ankle was suddenly in a great deal of pain.
After a moment, Anna opened her eyes and looked around. She swallowed, completely bewildered by what she saw.
They had fallen into some strange sort of cone shaped pit. Aside from the tree she had grabbed, the pit was completely uniform. It was as though someone had pressed a giant rice hat into the sand.
Still dazed, Anna ran her free hand through the sand. It was smooth—almost not wholly there. Lightning sand mixed with common silt. Solid, but not remotely possible to climb in.
“Oh, dragonshit.” She looked up. Snatch was leaning over the edge about fifteen feet above, carefully gripping a nearby branch for support. “That’s a spot. It’s a spritelion.”
“A sprite?” Anna looked down, realizing that one of Yilra’s taloncrutches had wrapped itself painfully around her ankle. Yilra was hanging from the crutch, a few meters from the conical pit’s center. The ranger looked pissed. “Sprites don’t have the brains to work with lightning sand. Dumb as ducks, that lot.”
Snatch grimaced. “I mean, it depends, but—look, I didn’t say sprite. I said spritelion. Laziest bitches in the Lands, but canny as anything. I’m surprised one had the brass to try and hold a trap here, though. Seems like other fey wouldn’t stand for it.”
“A-and...” Anna realized she was trembling slightly. She forced herself to stop. “What do they do to th-those they trap?”
“Well...” Snatch stepped away from the edge, looking around. “Ever heard of an antlion? Sorta an ugly termite-looking thing. They dig pits, hide at the bottom, and let ants and the sort fall in.”
“So... a spritelion...”
“They drug the fey, fuck them, eat them. Usually they go for sprites—fleece sprites, lust sprites... uh, holstaurs and stuff, I guess... y’know, the fey that aren’t quite as clever or good at recognizing patterns. Smarter fey can see the trap.” There was almost an unspoken insult in how he worded the last remark. Anna bit her lip.
“And humans?” Anna was amazed to hear Yil still speaking calmly. Her thief cant-like accent seemed to have faded, too. Yilra was cool. She might as well have been discussing the habits of, well, actual insects.
Snatch screwed up his face. “Spritelions like to trade with other fey for most of their possessions. Like I said, lazy bitches.”
“And we’re high-quality merchandise.”
“One of you is.” Snatch tactlessly eyed Yilra’s two stumps.
The ranger’s glare intensified. “I’m sure Anna will fetch a higher price, being all pre-trained and pre-unwrapped, but this is gonna suck for both of us. Get us out.”
Snatch raised an eyebrow. The weathered thief unstrapped his scythe from his back. “Well, lucky for you both, I still need a ranger to get me out of this forest. The lioness will take a while to wake, and she won’t want to have to climb up. Outside the sand, they’re as weak as catgirls on kittenfolly. She’ll use little tricks to bring you down. It’ll probably be pretty hard to resist.”
He turned to walk away.
“Wait!” Anna cried. “Where are you doing?”
“Lost my rope a while back, Mistre—Anna.” Snatch sounded flustered for a moment. Anna felt her face heating up at the slip. “We’re... gonna need a way to get you two out risk-free. I gotta get some vines or something. If you fall into the center, that’s my swan plucked.” He started walking again.
“How do you know so much about fey, anyways?” Yilra called after him. “You’re no ranger.
Anna barely made out his next muttered words. “Let’s just say I had a friend who kept me educated.”
He vanished into the dark woods.
“Hm.” Anna glanced down. Yil looked skeptical. “What do you suppose that means?”
“What?”
“A ‘friend’.” Yil seemed to consider it. “You know, I think I’ve heard of this ‘Snatch’. Last I heard, he was on a mission to investigate some ghoul problems in Carriope. Surprised he’s back so soon.”
“Ghouls?”
“Aye. He and a druid were—” Yil froze. “Anna, hear that?”
Anna swallowed. She not only heard the rustling, she saw its source.
The spritelion had awoken.
Alrek, she thought, biting her lip, please do hurry.
Snatch rushed through the Evergreen. He had to hurry—for all he knew, the Gray Wraiths were still hunting for fresh prey. They scared him in a way even Cicuta didn’t. Hadn’t. He needed to get the ranger out of the pit and run for the cabin.
Vine... He looked around, scowling. Vine... damn it, where’s a vine? They’re always there when you want the druidess to keep her senses, but the one time you want a vine to show up—
“You need rope?”
He spun around, swearing under his breath. He wasn’t normally so easy to sneak up on.
Three beautiful young women stood before him.They had long bright crimson hair, pale skin, and almond-shaped black eyes—like cartoonish parodies of women from the Wild East. They all wore long black skirts and revealing white blouses.
They were not remotely human. Their particularly impressive endowments already had him suspicious, but it was sealed by the tiny little horns on their heads. Like unicorns, except definitely not.
He turned back as three more emerged from where he’d been headed. He was surrounded.
“Fuck.”
“You need fuck?” another woman piped up. They tittered amongst each other.
“We give fuck,” another murmured, reaching over to stroke the breasts of the one next to her.
“We like fuck,” the target of these affections murmured back, leaning in to fully appreciate them.
He searched his memories. These were so, so familiar. Something about the mannerisms...
“We fuck good,” another said, giggling. “You enjoy; yes, yes, you will.”
The horns! Of course! “You’re lust sprites,” he muttered. “Oh, fuck m...” He trailed off. The last thing these despicable creatures needed was permission.
He’d encountered these creatures once or twice, thouh never of this particular “kink”. Larya had personally dealt with a whole pack once. She’d been a wreck when Snatch had found her. Lust sprites were hiveminded fey born and mutated from demonic influence. As if fey weren’t horny enough already. They specialized in sex and pleasure, simple and sweet, and were constantly wandering in search of new prey. Judging by their accents and appearance, it appeared this pack had come from the Wild East.
If these were what the spritelion was hunting, that didn’t bode well for what the spritelion itself would be like. When it came to fey, lust sprites weren’t usually prey. They tended to occupy the top of the “food” chain, in fact—an average dryad or nymph who tried to master them would quickly find herself overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
Snatch gritted his teeth. These creatures were technically harmless, if one could resist the urge to stay with them forever. They were good at feeding and watering their captives, but the constant pleasure would inevitably wear away a host’s sanity. Especially in great numbers. The more the sprites, the harder the fight, and the quicker the mind would erode.
And now he was surrounded by six of them. Snatch swore in the vilest speech he could muster.
“Oh...” A sprite put a finger to her bee-stung lips in an expression of concern. “No be sad.”
“We have rope,” said another from right behind him. He turned, realizing they were closing in. She held up a coil of rope, giving the dirtiest look imaginable.
He was fine, technically. Lust sprites were bound by tight fey laws, according to Larya. They would need permission to initiate anything. He looked around. Killing them was known to be dreadfully bad luck, but they’d already offered the rope as an implicit trade. If he took it peacefully, that might count as permission.
The sprite with the rope started slipping one end in and out of her vagina, as casual as if she was twiddling her thumbs.
He could steal it, perhaps. Knock her unconscious. But he’d have to trick her, because they would expect such a ploy. Strangulation, perhaps... no, they might see that as an embrace. Permission. It was easy for lust sprites to cheat, dumb as they were.
He could just flee. But how? That was how the lust sprites had caught Larya. If he tried to dive between the shrinking circle, they would catch him. Maybe even that would count.
And if they got permission, he was doomed. They would quiet him first, so he couldn’t withdraw his acceptance. Then they would start pounding him with lust waves, so he wouldn’t want to. Strong will or not, against six of these things, it would just be too much.
“I’m screwed,” he muttered.
As one, the lust sprites grinned.
Oops.