Chapter 3: Morning Ride
The first grey light of dawn seeped through the cracks in the shutters, painting stripes of pale illumination across the lumpy mattress. Jake stirred, his consciousness returning in a warm, sticky wave. He was pressed against Luna’s back, his morning erection a hard, insistent line between the soft cheeks of her ass. He grunted, still mostly asleep, and nudged her with his hips.
“Ride me,” he mumbled into the nape of her neck, the words slurred and thick.
Luna’s body, already attuned to his slightest movement, awoke instantly. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t ask if he was sure, didn’t wait for a kiss or a caress. She simply rolled over, the thin sheet falling away. In the dim light, her full breasts swung heavily as she moved to straddle his narrow hips. Her tail, a sleek, dark brush of fur, twitched once and then lay still across his thigh.
She reached between her own legs, guiding him. The head of his cock bumped against her wetness, and then she sank down, taking him inside in one smooth, deep slide. Jake groaned, a low, gratified sound that vibrated into his pillow. His eyes remained closed.
Her hips began to move, not with frantic passion, but with a slow, practiced undulation. She rose until he was almost out of her, then sank back down, taking him deep, grinding against his pubic bone with a circular roll that made his toes curl. Her breasts swayed with the rhythm, the large, dark nipples brushing against his thin chest. Jake’s hands came up, not to hold her, but to grope. His fingers dug into the soft, generous flesh of her tits, kneading them roughly, pinching her nipples until she gasped.
“Yeah, like that,” he muttered, his eyes fluttering open to watch her. Her face was a mask of concentrated effort, her kind eyes half-lidded, her lips parted. She was working for him. The thought was incredibly hot. He thrust upward, meeting her downward grind, driving himself deeper. “Fuck, you’re so wet. Always so fucking ready.”
“For you,” she breathed, the words barely audible. Her pace increased, the wet, rhythmic slap of their joining filling the small room. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on either side of his head, her breasts hanging tantalizingly close to his face. He turned his head and took a nipple into his mouth, sucking greedily, biting down just enough to make her cry out. The sound spurred him on. His hips pistoned upward, fucking up into her from below, his grip on her hips turning possessive, almost bruising.
“Gonna come,” he announced, his voice tight. “Take it. Take all of it.”
Luna clenched around him, her internal muscles fluttering, her own quiet climax a trembling aftershock to his command. He groaned, his body arching off the mattress as he spilled into her, a series of pulsing jets that left him twitching and breathless beneath her weight.
He went limp. After a moment, he patted her flank. “Off. You’re heavy.”
She lifted herself off him, wincing slightly at the soreness between her legs, and settled beside him. The familiar, bitter-salt smell of sex hung in the air. Jake lay still for a few minutes, catching his breath, then swung his legs out of bed.
“Tub today,” he declared, scratching his stomach.
The project consumed him. He spent the morning in the small yard behind the cottage, a zone of churned mud and stacked timber. With focused, precise gestures and muttered incantations, he shaped the green wood. He didn’t carve or sand; he persuaded it. The fibers tightened, warped sections straightened, and rough planks fused seamlessly together under the gentle, relentless pressure of his magic. By afternoon, a large, deep tub sat proudly near the back door, its staves held together by nothing but his will and a hardening charm.
He filled it with buckets of well-water, then heated it with a sustained, low-grade fire rune etched onto the bottom. Steam rose in inviting curls.
“First bath,” he announced to Luna, who was weeding a small herb patch. He stripped right there in the yard, his clothes falling in a heap on the damp grass. He climbed in with a sigh of profound satisfaction, sinking into the hot water up to his chin.
Luna continued her work, stealing glances at the steam-wreathed figure of her young master. His soft, freckled face was tilted back, eyes closed. He looked like a boy. He was a boy. The ache in her core from the morning, and from every morning before it, was a constant, dull companion.
Weeks blurred into months marked by routine. Hunt. Sell. Fuck. Build.
Jake’s reputation at the apothecary became a known, unspoken transaction. He would arrive with his sacks of cores or bundles of rare fungi. Eliza would tally the goods, her posture increasingly stiff, her eyes avoiding his until the moment the shop was empty. Then, with a wordless understanding that shamed her more each time, she would lead him to the backroom. She stopped talking, stopped offering her whispered confessions. She simply bent over the same crate, or braced herself against the shelf with the cracked porcelain doll, and let him use her. He took her from behind, every time. He fucked her with the same energetic, impersonal efficiency he used to strip dungeon monsters of their parts. He came inside her, every time. He commented, sometimes. “Elves are tight,” or “You clench up nice when you come.” He paid for the cores, and left.
One afternoon in the backroom, as he was pulling up his trousers, Eliza remained slumped against the crate, her dress still rucked around her waist. A wave of nausea had washed over her so strongly she saw spots. The metallic smell of the potions seemed to claw at her throat.
“You okay?” Jake asked, not out of concern, but because her stillness was an irregularity in the process.
“Fine,” she managed, the word tasting like ash. She knew. The moon-blood that had come like clockwork for centuries was now two weeks late. The nausea in the mornings was a grim confirmation. A half-elf child was growing in her womb, seeded by this oblivious human boy during one of their blunt, joyless couplings. Terror and a strange, hollow despair settled in her bones. She said nothing.
Jake simply shrugged and left, the bell jingling.
At the cottage, his improvements continued. He built shelves that didn’t sag. He reinforced the door with bands of force-hardened ironwood. He fucked Luna most nights, and every morning when he woke up hard. His approach was utilitarian. He took what he needed from her body, praised her wetness or the bounce of her tits, came, and then turned his mind to the next spell, the next dungeon, the next household project.
He also, quite casually, expanded his experiences.
There was Marta, the stout, cheerful human baker’s daughter who delivered bread. He groped her ample backside in her father’s flour-dusted storeroom one afternoon, her giggles turning into sharp gasps as he lifted her onto a sack of grain, pushed her skirts up, and fucked her right there. She was loud and enthusiastic, wrapping her thick legs around him. He came inside her, too. It seemed easiest.
There was Kira, a young catgirl from a nearby clan, who came to trade for some of Luna’s herbs. She had a playful glint in her eye and a tail that lashed with interest. Jake, fascinated by the differences between her and Luna—Kira was slimmer, her fur patterns different—invited her to see his magic tub. She stayed for two hours. Luna weeded the garden the entire time, listening to the sounds of splashing water and high-pitched, eager mewls from the yard. Jake discovered Kira was incredibly flexible.
He lost count of the weeks. The seasons began to hint at a turn. Luna watched him, her heart a stone in her chest. He was her boy, her helpless, brilliant, beautiful boy. He was also a force of nature, as carelessly spreading as dandelion seeds. She cleaned his clothes, mended his minor wounds, cooked his meals, and opened her body to him whenever he desired it. She loved him with a ferocity that frightened her, a love that had nowhere to go but deeper into servitude.
One evening, after he’d returned from a trip to the dungeon and had taken Kira in the woods on the way back, he sat by the fire. He looked at Luna, who was mending a tear in his tunic.
“My magic’s getting way better,” he said, apropos of nothing. “That last dungeon boss? A crystal hydra. Nasty. I used a sonic resonance spell on the central core. Shattered it like glass.” He demonstrated with a flick of his wrist, a faint harmonic hum filling the air for a second.
“That’s wonderful, Jake,” she said softly, her needle moving steadily.
“But you know what’s boring?” he continued, staring into the flames. “Sex.”
The needle slipped, pricking her finger. A single bead of crimson welled up. She put it to her mouth without a word.
“I mean, it feels good. Obviously. But it’s all the same. Put my dick in, move it around, come. They all make the same noises after a while.” He sighed, a teenager’s sigh of profound ennui. “Even the different… you know, species. It’s just a slightly different shaped hole. Gets repetitive.”
Luna felt the words like physical blows. Her hole. One of many.
“Maybe you need a rest,” she offered, her voice barely a whisper.
“Maybe,” he agreed. He stood up, stretched, and walked to the bed. “Come on. I’m tired.”
She joined him. He took her that night with a detached, almost experimental air, trying different angles as if searching for a lost sensation. He finished, rolled off, and fell asleep facing the wall.
The next day, a stranger arrived at the cottage.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, with the same tawny, spotted fur as Luna, though his was crisscrossed with the thin, pale scars of combat. He carried a well-worn travel pack and a sword at his hip. His eyes, a vivid green, held a tired wisdom. When Luna opened the door, her bowl of washing water dropped from her hands and shattered on the step.
“Mother,” the catman said, a warm, deep smile breaking across his handsome face.
“Lucas,” Luna breathed, and then she was in his arms, weeping.
Jake, who had been sketching rune diagrams in the dirt by his tub, looked up. He watched the reunion with interest, noting the man’s strong build, the easy way he held his mother, the confident set of his shoulders. An adventurer. A real one.
Lucas looked over his mother’s head, his green eyes meeting Jake’s. The gaze was assessing, but not unkind. It traveled from Jake’s messy hair and freckled face down his thin frame, then back up. Something in that look was different from the way women looked at him. It wasn’t maternal, or hungry, or resigned. It was curious. Intrigued. A slow, knowing smile touched Lucas’s lips.
A slow, knowing smile touched Lucas’s lips. He released his mother, his hands lingering on her shoulders as he looked her over properly. The journey-worn warmth in his eyes shifted, then sharpened into sudden, stunned calculation. His gaze dropped, and stuck.
Luna’s simple dress, a loose cotton smock she’d taken to wearing, did little to hide the pronounced, firm curve of her abdomen. The bump was undeniable, a clear swell that pushed against the fabric. She was at least six months along.
“Mother,” Lucas said again, his voice softer, the word layered with a hundred unasked questions.
Jake wandered over, wiping dirt from his hands onto his trousers. He followed Lucas’s stare. “Oh, yeah,” he said, as if noticing the weather. “She’s pregnant.”
Lucas’s green eyes flicked from his mother’s stomach to Jake’s face, then back. The pieces connected with silent, brutal clarity. The young human living alone with his mother. The proprietary air. The way Luna had immediately moved to stand slightly behind Jake, a servant’s posture. “Is it…?” he began, his voice dangerously calm.
“Yeah, it’s mine,” Jake confirmed with a shrug, utterly missing the tension. He scratched the back of his neck. “I mean, who else’s would it be? We fuck all the time. She’s like… I don’t know. She takes care of stuff. Makes food. It’s comfortable.” He finally looked at Luna, his expression one of casual, unthinking honesty. “She’s kind of like a mom, you know? But one I have sex with. Don’t get the wrong idea, though. It’s not like… a marriage thing. It’s just how it is.”
Luna’s kind face, which had been glowing with the joy of reunion, visibly fell. Her ears drooped, and her tail curled tightly around her leg. The quiet hope she’d nurtured—that the child might change something, might root him to her—shattered under the bald, unvarnished truth. She wrapped her arms around her bump, a protective, subconscious gesture. “Jake’s feelings are his own,” she said, her voice thick but steady. “He has been… very generous to let me stay. This is his home.”
Lucas stared at his mother, then at Jake. He didn’t explode. He didn’t reach for his sword. Instead, he let out a short, incredulous puff of air that was almost a laugh. “Well, fuck me,” he said, a wry grin spreading across his face. He extended a calloused hand to Jake. “I’m Lucas. Seems you’ve been keeping my mother… occupied.”
Jake shook the hand, a genuine, unguarded smile breaking across his own face. The reaction was so different from the emotional landmines women represented. There was no crying, no silent treatment, no complex subtext. It was just a guy, dealing with a fucked-up situation with a joke. It was like talking to his old guildmate back home after a weird game glitch.
“Jake,” he said. “Yeah, I guess so. She’s great. Really knows her way around a stew.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You just get back? The roads shitty?”
“Bandits like gnats up near the pass,” Lucas said, his posture relaxing into an easy lean. “More annoying than dangerous. Your hydra trick’s clever, by the way. Sonic resonance on a crystal core. Would’ve saved me a week of chipping at one with a pickaxe a few years back.”
Jake’s eyes lit up. “You fought one? What level was it? Did it have the tri-laser breath, or was it just the acid sprays?”
The next hour dissolved into a rapid-fire exchange of dungeon mechanics, monster vulnerabilities, and spell-sword synergy. Jake talked with his hands, his earlier boredom completely forgotten. Lucas listened, interjected with practical field insights, and asked sharp questions about mana-channeling techniques. It was a conversation, a real one, bouncing ideas back and forth. Jake hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this—the uncomplicated camaraderie of shared interests, free of the exhausting dance of sexual negotiation and emotional management.
“Your place is a lot bigger than it used to be,” Lucas noted, glancing at the sturdy, expanded cottage. “Mother’s letters made it sound like a shack.”
“I got bored,” Jake said, puffing his chest out slightly. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
He led Lucas inside, not to the single cramped room Lucas remembered, but into a proper home. A spacious living area held two large, cushioned sofas facing a wide hearth. A long dining table sat near a well-organized kitchen space with actual cabinets. A hallway led to several doors. “Four bedrooms,” Jake announced proudly. “That one’s mine, that one’s Luna’s, those two are empty. And a bathroom with a tub I made. No more bucket baths.”
Lucas whistled, impressed. “You did this with magic?”
“Mostly. The shaping charms are a bitch to get right on load-bearing beams, but once you figure the vectors out, it’s just repetitive casting.”
Lucas looked around, then back at Jake’s eager, open face. This kid had impregnated his mother, spoke about her like a useful appliance, and had built a small manor with his mind. He was an oblivious, amoral force of nature. And he was looking at Lucas not with lust or calculation, but with the excited curiosity of a kid showing off his favorite game.
“You should stay,” Jake blurted out, the invitation tumbling forth before he could think. “I mean, you just got back. There’s plenty of room. You can tell me about the Glacier Tombs. I’ve only read about the frost wyrms in bestiaries.”
Lucas raised a brow, a slow smile returning. “Yeah? Free room and board for old stories?”
“And you can help test some of my tactical spell arrays,” Jake said, as if it were the most obvious trade. “I’ve been working on a localized gravity well, but the containment radius keeps collapsing after three seconds.”
Lucas laughed, a rich, genuine sound. “Deal. But let me catch up with my mother first. Six years is a long time.”
“Sure, sure,” Jake said, already mentally rearranging the spare room. He practically bounced into the living room, grabbing a thick volume of manga from a neat shelf and a plate of dried fruit and nuts Luna had left out. He sank into a sofa, his legs tucked under him, and was instantly absorbed in the inked pages, the crunch of an apple slice loud in his contentment.
In the kitchen, Lucas embraced his mother again, this time gently, his hands careful around her swollen middle. He rested his forehead against hers, their twin tails intertwining for a moment. “Are you alright?” he murmured, the joking mask gone.
Luna’s eyes glistened, but she smiled. “I am. Truly. He is… he is not cruel, Lucas. He just doesn’t see.”
“I see that,” Lucas said, glancing at the living room where Jake was now laughing at something in his book, a carefree sound. “He sees a companion in me. Not a servant. Not a hole to fuck.”
“Language,” Luna chided softly, without heat.
“He’s going to be a father,” Lucas stated, the reality settling between them.
“He is the father,” Luna corrected, her hand resting on her belly. “He will not be a dad. There is a difference.” She looked toward the living room, her expression a complex map of love and resignation. “Let him have his friend. He has been lonely in a way he doesn’t even understand.”
Lucas followed her gaze. Jake had shoved a whole handful of nuts into his mouth, crumbs dusting his shirt, utterly engrossed in his fantasy world within a fantasy world. A strange, protective fondness stirred in Lucas’s chest, alongside something darker and more possessive. He had seen the way Jake looked at him—not with desire, but with an intellectual hunger. Lucas knew how to work with hunger. He could be patient.
“We have much to talk about, Mother,” Lucas said, pulling out a chair for her. “But first, tell me everything.”