Free Web NovelChapter 19: Stay down
Stefan’s POV
Well, Zinnia didn’t say no. That was the headline. Everything else was just details.
"What if I said no?" She had asked. I blinked. She peered at me as if expecting defiance then she would do something to prove something... I didn’t know.
I stayed quiet because I was genuinely speechless. Then she continued;
"You shall stay in my tent," she said, her voice coming out flatly like she was reading off a grocery list. "You shall enjoy whatever you wish. You shall not be disturbed until your energy has been restored."
That was a big yes, of course.
"Okay," I said, nodding slowly, playing it cool like a man who hadn’t just dodged a beheading by the skin of his teeth. "That works. I’ll take that. That’s a win."
She didn’t look impressed by her own generosity. She didn’t look like she cared either way. She just turned and barked something at a slave hovering by the tent flap in that half-growl language I still couldn’t make heads or tails of, then walked off like she had bigger problems than babysitting an alien with a magic touch and a mouth that never shut up.
I stood there a second, alone, letting it sink in.
No punishment tent. No chains. No General threatening to feed my dick to anybody. Just a tent, a woman who apparently found me tolerable enough to house, and three days on the clock before she’d expect results.
"My guy, we caught a break. Don’t waste it." My lips curved into a small smile.
~~~~~~~~
Within the hour, slaves had turned a whole corner of Zinnia’s tent into something that almost resembled comfort.
Layers of fluffy animal skin stacked on top of each other into a proper bed, thick enough that I sank into it when I tested it with my palm. A length of woven cloth hung down to section the corner off from the rest of the tent, giving me something close to privacy for the first time since I’d landed in this godforsaken place.
I sat on the edge of the bed and pressed both hands into the fur.
"Not bad."
Yeah, it wasn’t my penthouse back on Earth, no thousand-thread-count sheets, no memory foam. But not bad for a con man who’d been sleeping on dirt and getting used as a training log two nights ago.
Food came next, and it came in force. Roasted bush meat stacked on a wide flat stone like a buffet, more of it than one man could put away in a week. Fresh fruit, cut open and glistening, some kind of extract poured into a carved wooden cup that smelled sweet and dangerous at the same time, like it would either heal me or knock me flat on my back.
One slave stayed behind after the others left, meant to walk me through what everything was. Except the whole time he talked, he kept stealing glances at me like I’d grown a second head.
"Say what’s on your mind, bro," I told him, leaning back on my palms. "I can see you thinking hard over there."
He hesitated, hands still around the cup. Then, weak-voiced, like the question itself might get him whipped for asking it:
"What manner of alien are you?"
A laugh rumbled from my belly, the kind I hadn’t managed since I woke up dead.
"I’m not an alien, man. I’m just built different." I said after laughing for a second.
He stared at me longer, clearly not buying a word of it, but he didn’t push. Smart man. I decided this was the moment to remind him of his actual job.
"Feed me," I said, gesturing at the meat with two fingers, settling deeper into the fur like a king holding court.
"Come on. My arm’s tired just from sitting here looking this good." I said and heaved a tired sigh.
He didn’t refuse. He didn’t even blink twice, just picked up a piece of meat and held it to my mouth while I chewed and thought about how, back on Earth, I used to have house help doing this exact same thing while I lounged by some rich woman’s pool, working the long con on her marriage.
Different planet. Same lifestyle, if I squinted. Yeah, dude, the debt was worth it.
That thought hadn’t even finished forming in my head before the tent flap moved and she walked in.
The revived one. The warrior I’d burned through 2,400 AP to bring back from the actual brink of death with a Life Ember I couldn’t even afford, on a payment plan that would probably end with my head on a spike if I missed it.
She stood just inside the entrance, spine straight, hands folded in front of her like she was reporting for duty, and spoke in that same stiff, formal way all these women talked. No contractions. No slang. Like they’d all been raised by the same strict grandmother.
"You may call on me whenever you have need of anything."
I smirked, filed that one away fast. That’s not gratitude talking. That’s a blank check with her signature already on it.
"Noted," I said, chewing.
She turned to leave. I called her back before she got two steps toward the flap.
"Wait. What’s your name?"
She paused, glanced back over her shoulder like the question caught her off guard then she turned around and as she said sharply, I could catch the hint of pride in her tone;
"Shield-Second Lily."
The System chimed, quiet and clinical as always.
[WARRIOR IDENTITY CONFIRMED: Lily.]
I nodded, satisfied, like I’d just closed a deal on a used car and gotten the guy to throw in the floor mats.
Lily walked out without another word, and I went back to letting the slave feed me piece by piece, my brain doing absolutely nothing for the first time since I’d woken up dead and naked in beast-kingdom dirt.
"Enjoy it while it lasts. Tomorrow the debt clock starts screaming again." One part of my mind said to me inwardly but I cared less.
~~~~~~~~
A few hours later, night had fallen outside, the sky gone that deep bruised purple I still hadn’t gotten used to, and somewhere out past the tent walls I could hear drums, slow and steady, probably some ritual I wasn’t invited to and honestly didn’t want to be.
Inside Zinnia’s tent, a single candle burned low, some kind of colored wax that threw a faint blue tint against the hide walls.
I was in the bathhouse section, sunk into the biggest tub I’d seen since I got here - mud-built, clearly meant for someone with rank, because it was deep enough to actually stretch out in.
I’d had a couple slaves put water until it filled up proper, and now I was lying back in it like a man with zero problems.
Suspiciously comfortable, for something made out of dirt.
I closed my eyes. Enough chaos for one day. Debt, missions, dying twice in forty-eight hours. All of that could wait until morning. Tonight I was just going to relax like a man who hadn’t been flattened by a van in a different universe two days ago.
"I should definitely get laid tomorrow..." I muttered inwardly as I saw my cock rearing its big head under the water.
That’s when I heard her.
Zinnia, walking into the tent. She hadn’t stopped moving when I heard the soft rustle of fabric hitting the ground, one layer at a time, unhurried, like she wasn’t thinking twice about the fact that I was sitting ten feet away. Then bare footsteps, moving toward the bathhouse.
She walked in naked.
My brain short-circuited. Full system failure, no backup generator. I stared, and I could not stop staring, every curve of her lit gold by that one candle, skin already gleaming like she’d oiled herself before she even got here.
My cock - traitor that it is, no loyalty whatsoever - shot straight up like it had gotten a personal invitation nobody else in the room received.
Zinnia didn’t look shocked. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t cover herself, didn’t do a single one of the things a woman back on Earth would do walking in on a naked man in her own bathtub. She just stood there and looked at me, long and steady, unreadable, like she was deciding what to make of me.
My eyes weren’t half as disciplined as hers. They dropped straight to her breasts, heavy and full, then lower, and I swear I could taste her from here.
"Would you not step out of the bathwell," she said, gentle, almost polite, like she was asking me to pass the salt, "and allow me to clean myself?"
"Yeah," I said, way too fast, voice cracking halfway through the word. "Yeah. Of course. My bad."
I stood up out of the water on legs that didn’t want to cooperate, one hand immediately dropping to wrap around my own throbbing cock, holding it down like I could reason with the damn thing.
"Stay down, bro. I am begging you right now. This is not the moment."
Well, he never listened to me. He did not stay down.
