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“How long has it been since you got to spend a night here?” Vax asks.
“Weeks. As soon as Bell’s Hells got back with the antidote for whatever that poison was, and I was feeling better, I’ve been back and forth between Vasselheim and Whitestone almost exclusively.”
“Antidote? Poison?”
“The night you got trapped in the orb,” she says with a sigh. I got back here, I’m still not sure how, and my mom and several others from the village stayed with me while we sent a group to the Grey Valley to find a flower that may be able to help, because Otohan had used some kind of toxin that made my wounds unable to heal.”
“Otohan, that’s the woman that was about to…”
Keyleth nods. “A member of Bell’s Hells gave his own life to end hers weeks later.”
“Oh,” he says. “That’s the young ones, with the halfling from Zephrah, right?”
She nods once more. “It is. Um, he was an automaton, but according to Pike he had a soul, so he was not a normal automaton, and I guess from what Orym said afterwards, he basically detonated his own arcane core to cause an explosion that destroyed both him and Otohan and saved the rest of his friends.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “I don’t know if it was the same toxin that they’d used during the original assassination attempt or not. The one that caused us to be unable to resurrect the fallen, but whatever it was meant my wounds couldn’t heal, at all, and I was left in that grievously injured state until we could get the antidote. The party that we initially sent hadn’t returned, so Bell’s Hells went out to both find them and the flowers we needed, which they did. They brought our people home and the flowers that the herbalists were able to use to create the antidote. It took another day for the full effects to sink in, but by morning I was back to normal, so I left for Vasselheim immediately, and this is the first I’ve been back since.”
“Oh,” he says. “I’m glad they were able to get those flowers and all, but I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”
“Thank you for coming at all,” she says. “I’m sorry it ended the way it did for you.”
“Worth it,” he says with a little smirk. “You’re still alive and now I’m here, which likely wouldn’t be true if I hadn’t gotten stuck in that stupid orb.”
“Fair,” she agrees. “It’s still hard to believe you’re actually here.”
“I know. I spent so long away from you… from all of you, that I still feel like I’m catching up in some ways, but I’m here, and I’m so grateful that she’s given me the opportunity to catch up at all. I willingly went with her, and voluntarily served her. I still will, but it’s nice to be able to do that from here again. I was tempted to come back so many times, but I never did, because I was afraid it would mean her going back on her end of the deal we made in the first place, especially after I went back after the first time I came to protect you.”
“What did she do? You said she punished you, but what did she actually do?”
He half smiles. “She didn’t really do anything per say. She just kept assigning me the most difficult souls to escort for the next several months, and while I used to be able to look in on Exandria every once in a while, and at least see the threads of those I cared about as they wove into the fabric of fate, she took that away. She was mortal once, too, and I tried to get her to understand why I did what I did, but she didn’t care. She never talks much about her mortal years, but I get the feeling she didn’t have anyone she cared about as much as I care about you, or even as much as I care about Vex. There was no one she would risk anything, let alone everything, to save, which is just sad in a lot of ways.”
“It is; no wonder she decided to become the god of death if she didn’t have anyone to care about when she was a mortal.”
Vax nods slightly. “But, enough about that. What’s passed is past and what’s done is done. We’re here now, and we’re together. That’s what matters.”
Keyleth smiles at him for a moment. “Yeah,” she agrees, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his.
Vax’s arms wrap around her lower back as he kisses her. It’s only a few seconds before those hands are moving to undo the back of her armor instead and only a few more minutes after that, they find themselves fully unclothed and lying on the bed, limbs tangled together, and lips still pressed together. “You are so beautiful,” Vax whispers, pulling his lips from hers.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true. The most beautiful sight my eyes have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of beautiful people and things, but none compare to you.”
Keyleth shakes her head slightly and is considering arguing with him about that, but she is very quickly rendered unable to speak by the tongue that slides between the folds between her legs. “Oh,” she gasps, and she can almost feel the smirk on his lips as his thumbs slide in to pull her apart and give his mouth better access to its intended target. His tongue sweeps across again and then there’s suction from his lips instead and holy fuck. She wonders how she went thirty years without this; without even thinking about this, because she wouldn’t trade this moment for anything right now. Her fingers thread through his hair as his lips and tongue work against her. “Oh fuck,” she moans a minute later. “Fuck, that feels so good.” She swears she hears his laugh from down there, but only for an instant, because then she’s not hearing anything at all as his tongue flicks back and forth across her clit, over and over, and over again until she spills right over the edge of ecstasy. He doesn’t stop though and at first it’s a little much if she’s being honest, but then he shift down further, away from the overstimulated ball of nerves and instead his tongue encircles and then slides into her opening. She still wonders how he figured all this out, how to make her feel like this, but she can’t wonder for long, because soon his mouth moves back to her clit and his fingers are sliding into her instead, curling in just the right way to touch just the right spot that makes it nearly impossible to hold herself still. Her hips lift off the mattress slightly, but he doesn’t mind and he doesn’t stop, not until she’s coming down from the crest of a second orgasm within two minutes.
He lifts his face away from her to look toward her face and smile. “I love you.”
She almost laughs. “I sort of got that impression, yeah,” she agrees. “I love you, too.”
He crawls back up over her body, placing kisses to her skin as he goes, pausing on each of her nipples for a few seconds before finally making his way back to her lips. She can taste herself on his mouth, but she doesn’t care; in fact, that might make this better. Still kissing her but somehow also maneuvering his body into a proper position, he slips his cock inside her. Her mouth drops open with a guttural moan. He smirks a little before going back to kissing her as he presses further inside her. He pushes forward until his skin is flush against hers and then he stops, his full length buried inside her. He’s still kissing her though, and it’s a struggle to not move his hips against hers, but he wants this to last. Not like the past two nights where he finished so quickly he felt like he barely had time to appreciate her body before him.
She starts lifting her hips into his after a few minutes. “Vax,” she whines. “Please.”
“What do you want?” he asks, teasingly pulling away from their kisses.
“You know what I want,” she groans.
“Hmm,” he says. “But I do also like hearing you say it.”
She rolls her eyes at him and groans, lifting her hips again. “Move. Gods, Vax. Not that I don’t enjoy the feeling of being completely full of your dick while we’re making out, but…”
He chuckles under his breath and smirks at her. “That seems fair,” he agrees. “I just wanted to make sure I had more time with you tonight, since we don’t have plans in the morning finally.”
She smiles at him. “I didn’t tell you to cum. Just move,” she points out.
“Ah, but when I move it means the cumming is going to happen sooner.”
“You don’t have to move fast, just a little bit. Please?”
He chuckles under his breath again and leans down to press his lips to hers once more. “I have an idea.”
“Does it involve you moving?”
“Yes and no.”
She groans. “Please?”
He doesn’t actually explain his plan before putting it into action though. He slides his hands under her back, to hold her close to his chest before rolling both of their bodies so he’s now laying on his back with her on top of him. “Now,” he says with a wink. “You can make your own decisions.”
She almost laughs before kissing him once and then sitting up on her knees, one on either side of his hips as she sits with his cock still inside her. It takes her a minute to remember how this one works; it was never one of their go-to choices, and well, it’s been thirty years, so forgive her. She grinds her hips against his at first and then moves up and down slightly before giving up and leaning back down over him to kiss him while moving her hips against his without any specific rhyme or reason other than finding what feels good.
“Okay, my turn,” Vax decides eventually, before quickly rolling both of their bodies over once again so that Keyleth is lying on her back below him once more. She gasps in surprise at the movement, but as soon as he starts moving his hips against hers that gasp turns into a moan of pure joy. His thumb makes its way to her clit as he fucks her, bringing her over yet another climax before his own starts drawing nearer.
Once his cum has again streaked across her torso and then been wiped away, they settle into the bed that is now theirs instead of just hers (even if he doesn’t need to sleep). She snuggles close against his chest again reiterating that he doesn’t have to just lay there all night. “But I want to,” he promises. “Plus, I know you sleep better when I’m holding you.”
She can’t deny the truth in that statement even if she wanted to, so she drops her nightly concern once more and presses her lips to the exposed skin of his chest and closes her eyes. Vax holds her in his arms, fingers slowly tracing patterns over her back as she falls asleep. Their days in Zephrah pass with a lot of things that need doing, but even more things that want doing. Have a home where no one will bother them if they only come out for a couple hours each day is maybe their favorite part of being here. Keyleth’s parents of course insist on having them over nearly every day for dinner or just chatting, so they oblige. Keyleth shows Vax around the newer parts of the village and introduces him to the members of the elder council and a few other villagers, but their nights always end the same, and while he doesn’t know how long this is going to continue to be their pattern, for right now it’s kind of perfect in a making up for lost time sort of way, but also in a holy fuck is he in love with this woman sort of way, too.