I stood frozen in place, one hand on the doorknob and the other hovering awkwardly in front of me. Lea had rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with every loud, drawn-out sob.

“I’m so sorry Orion,” she choked out, her voice muffled and shaky. “You weren’t, I mean, I didn’t, I…I…” her voice faded into indistinct mumbles completely drowned out by her tears.

Lea needed someone right now. Someone to hold her and tell her that everything would be alright. Without Miranda here, that role somehow fell to me.

I hesitantly took a few steps forward and sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. “It's okay Lea,” I told her, quietly. “It's alright. Everything is going to be alright. I’m here.”

I didn’t know what was wrong, but I wasn’t lying. Not to Lea, as much as I could help it at least. Whatever the problem was, I’d take care of it. She deserved that much and more after all the things life had thrown at her.

I very gently brushed some hair away from her face, then set a hand down on her bare shoulder. Lea’s soft, smooth skin felt almost feverishly hot to the touch and her face and shoulders were both flushed red and blotchy from crying.

“It’s okay, Lea. You’re going to be okay. I’m here. Don’t you worry, I’ll take care of everything.”

My hand moved over and I began to rub small circles on her back. With each circle I continued to whisper assurances to her, doing my best to keep my voice soft and soothing.

At first, it didn’t seem to be helping. In fact, Lea’s sobs increased in volume and she curled into herself. Slowly however, her tears began to run dry, her shoulders settled, and her sobs turned into hiccups and quiet whimpers.

“There, there, Lea. Just breathe. In…and out. Just like that. There’s no need to cry. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll take care of everything, Lea. No one will ever hurt you again as long as I’m with you.”

Lea turned onto her side and looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. Her hands, wet with salty tears, squeezed my leg and there was a fearful, desperate expression on her face. “Then why––” she hiccuped loudly, “why do I have to leave?”

I tilted my head to the side, not quite sure what to make of that statement. “What do you mean?” I asked softly, my hand continuing to move slowly along her back.

Lea’s words were muffled and choked. “Miranda…she told me she was going to go find somewhere for me to live. But…but you’re not going to be here for long. A month, a few months maybe…and then…and then you’re going to be gone, and I’m…I’m going to be alone again.”

That…she did have a point, I realized. I hadn’t really been thinking that far in advance, but that had been the plan. But what was the alternative? I didn’t much like the idea of needing to find somewhere for her every time Avalon moved, and there was a lot of risk associated with having to move Lea in and out of the Academy over and over. I’d gotten her into Miranda’s room safely, but that had been a very stressful experience and not one I wanted to repeat dozens of times over the next few years.

“You’re…probably right,” I said softly, hating the way that my words made Lea curl in on herself. “But what other choice is there? I’ll come visit when I can, and when I figure out teleportation in a few years I’ll always be just a spell away, but until then…” I trailed off as Lea buried her face in my pant leg and began to cry again.

“Why do I have to go?” Lea asked pleadingly, “I’ll…I can be useful. I can…I can…I don’t know…something? Anything! Anything you want. Just…just…”

“Lea,” I whispered, “Lea, look at me.” I slipped my free hand down to cradle her cheek in my palm and gently pushed upward until she lifted her face away from the rather-wet leg of my pans and and her eyes met mine. “Lea, I’m not sending you away because I don’t want you here or because I don’t care about you. You’re one of, no, you’re the most important person in my life. You’re the only family I have left and I can’t believe I was lucky enough to find you again.”

“Then why do I have to leave?” she asked again, her usually soft and melodious voice slightly hoarse from crying.

“Because I want you to be happy, Lea. More than anything, you deserve to be safe, happy, and loved. After everything you’ve been through, I don’t want you to feel trapped ever again. I don’t want to be like them. You deserve more than a cold stone box deep underground.”

Just thinking about everything Lea had been through made my mana bubble unpleasantly and left me seeing red. I’d already vowed to kill Seatamer for what he’d done to my family, but now I knew that just death would be too good for him. Someday I would show him just a taste of what he’d put my Lea through and he would know the depths of my hatred before he was finally allowed the mercy of eternal rest.

Then there was Brenda and those men…Brenda would get what was coming to her. I couldn’t hurt her too much, but soon enough she’d have her whole life ahead of her to try and earn Lea’s forgiveness. The men she’d hired were already taken care of, and Brenda’s days of freedom were rapidly running out.

And the Earthshadows…I’d trusted them, my Lea had trusted them, and they had utterly betrayed that trust. From the very first moment that I’d decided to bring Lea to them for healing, I’d been plagued by doubts whether or not I’d made the right choice. Everything had looked so wonderful for so long, but in fact it was all just them playing me for a fool.

Well. Their days were numbered. Adonia had slithered her way into Lea’s good graces and then stabbed my Lea in the heart. Adonia thought it was funny to lock up a vulnerable, hurting girl after everything that had happened to her? Well, I looked forward to her learning intimately what it felt like, and then she could spend the rest of her wretched, miserable life begging for forgiveness.

“I’ll be happy, I promise! I’ll be good, and I’ll be happy, as long as I’m with you. I won’t be any trouble, I can…I can clean, and I can cook, or…or…I’m pretty! Everyone always––” she hiccuped loudly and continued in a whisper, “everyone tells me I’m pretty and I…I…”

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Lea…” I whispered softly. I was somewhere between furious and heartbroken, and just generally lost for words.

She pulled herself upright using my outer jacket like a ladder and then latched onto me like a limpet. “Please don’t make me leave. Please Orion, I don’t want to go. I don’t want you to go. I don’t care. I don’t care about being happy, I don’t care if I’m stuck in a box or…or…or…I just…I just want to feel safe. I don’t remember the last time I felt safe before you came back. I just…just…” her words devolved into incoherent mumbling and she shifted from side to side, rubbing her face and nose into the side of my chest.

I loosely wrapped my arms around her shoulders, feeling the feverish heat of her skin beneath my hands. She looked tiny like this, her feet tangled in the bedsheets and her sheer dress bunched up around her waist leaving her chest, rear, and legs fully exposed to the cold air. She looked so terribly vulnerable and weak, a perception only amplified by the weak wobble I could sense from her slightly-strained core.

I remembered my first time entering her bedroom in the small apartment above the store she’d shared with her ‘uncles’. At the time, I could remember being struck speechless how much it reminded me of her childhood bedroom––the sheets were the same, the curtains were the same, even the way everything had been arranged and the scattered charcoal drawings on the walls were the same.

In hindsight, that had probably been a bad sign, one that I had missed in the excitement of seeing Lea again. She had hated those curtains. I could still vaguely remember a fight between her and her mother about how she didn’t like the way pink fabric dyed the morning sunlight as it shone through the window. And yet, when she finally had a chance to change things, she instead stuck to what she remembered from before.

I turned my body and leaned down slightly. “Don’t cry Lea,” I whispered, “It's going to be okay. You’re with me now. Everything is going to be okay. I’ll keep you safe.”

“...and you won’t make me go?” she asked hopefully.

The logistics of that were going to be…cumbersome, but if Lea wanted to stay, I wasn’t going to stop her. I’d just need to start brewing double-batches of the potion I was feeding Rea to compensate for her not getting enough sunlight or exercise. “Not if you don’t want to. You have a home with me for as long as I can provide you with one.”

“Does that mean I can move in with you soon? I promise I’ll be good.”

I bit my lip. That…I’d been half-expecting the question, but I didn’t have a good response for her. Letting her live with me was––well, there were a lot of potential problems with that idea. Like Rea. And the Shieldlight girl, who Lea would definitely recognize. Not to mention the cows and all the equipment I had set up.

Lea didn’t take my silence very well. She looked up at me, her eyes wide and her face covered in tear steaks. “Please Orion? I’ll be good. I’ll practice my magic and keep your room tidy and I won’t touch anything you tell me not to touch and I won’t ask questions and I––” her voice began to grow increasingly frantic with every word.

“It’s not that,” I interrupted, “it's just…”

“Is it because I’m used goods?” she asked suddenly. “Adonia…Adonia wouldn’t touch me after…after…” she choked on her words and I could only stare down at her, my own eyes just as wide as hers, as she soldier onward. “I can still be useful! The healer said she put everything back together and…and if you don’t want that, I know how to use my hands and my mouth and my breasts they only ever touched my cunt but Ma––Lord Seatamer always said that I had a wonderful bu––I mean, I can…I can still be, I can still…”

“Lea. Lea!” I tried to interrupt her, but she was lost inside her own head and wasn’t listening to me.

“I’ll show you! I’m a good girl. You’ll keep me safe and I’ll take care of you!” She pulled herself upright and began to scrabble at my belt.

“Lea!” I said sharply, and she finally looked up at me. She flinched back as our eyes met and my hand, which had been reaching for her wrist, froze in mid air. “Lea,” I said, more softly this time. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. You don’t have to do anything. I’ll keep you safe for as long as you’re with me, one way or another.”

Lea’s hands froze, each one holding a different side of my unbuckled belt. They were shaking slightly, and the tips of her long, pointed nails were digging into her palms. “Maybe I don’t have to,” she whispered, “but what if I want to, Orion? I don’t want to be just another piece of clutter taking up space.”

“You’ll never be just another anything to me, Lea.”

Lea slid off the bed and onto the floor, her bare feet landing silently on the hard stone. Then she knelt down in front of me and looked up into my eyes. There was a tiny, hopeful smile on her face, and my words caught in my throat before I could say anything.

“You’ve done so much for me, Orion. Let me do something for you.” She leaned back slightly, her knees spread wide and her hips and chest thrust up towards me. “Am I too ugly for you?”

I’d never fully considered just how pretty my Lea was. Even as a child she’d been considered very cute, with her pale hair and blue eyes making her and her mother stand out amidst the dark-haired and dark-eyes people of our village. In the years since, she had blossomed into the sort of young woman that turned heads wherever she went.

She was tall and slender, with lustrous blonde hair and sparkling crystal-blue eyes that shone like gemstones. Her skin was pale and nearly flawless, the tiny imperfections only adding to her beauty instead of detracting from it. With her dress bunched up around her waist, her breasts were left completely bare, showing off her bountiful chest crowned with rosy nipples.

Between elves, succubi like Miranda, other supernaturally-beautiful races, and even just vain mages, there were far too many utterly perfect beauties. It took something more than that to really stand out, and Lea had it. Even with tears staining her face, her nose and eyes swollen, and her face and shoulders covered in red blotches from crying, she still looked utterly breathtaking.

Lea’s eyes remained fixed on mine as her hands began to move again. She pushed my belt aside and one by one unbuttoned the metal fasteners holding my pants together, then slipped a hand through the resulting hole and into my underclothes.

Her soft, slender fingers wrapped around my shaft and, with a gentle tug, she pulled it out of my pants and into the open air. Without the fabric to contain it, my cock sprang to attention, throbbing as Lea gently stroked her fingers down my length.

“Lea?” I asked one last time.

“I love you, Orion.” She’d said the words before, but this time there was something else in her voice. In a moment of clarity, I remembered something that Miranda had told me just a few short weeks ago. About how Lea slept with one of my shirts balled up against her face and the ideas Miranda had had for helping Lea get settled. This was certainly not how I had planned for things to go, but maybe it was for the best?

She wrapped her other hand around the base of my cock, the tips of her thumb and forefinger just barely touching around my girth. “Even when I thought you were dead, there were days when I dreamed that you would come rescue me. And then you did. You saved me, and then you saved me, and then you saved me again. Let me show you just how thankful I am.”

And then she leaned forward and kissed the tip of my shaft, our eyes never breaking contact. I had to brace myself with my arms against the bed behind me as she languidly leaned in and then licked all the way up from the base of my cock to the very tip.

Lea took a huge, shuddering breath through her nose, her cheeks dyed red from more than just crying, and then she winked and, in a single smooth motion, swallowed a full half of my cock.

“Gods, Lea!” I exclaimed.

Despite the rather sizable length of hot, throbbing meat stretching her jaw open, Lea grinned up at me, her eyes shining with joy. There was something heartbreaking about how this was the happiest I’d seen her look in months. Then, I suddenly had not nearly enough brain capacity to consider the implications of what that meant.