I Spied on the Apprentice from My Hideout in the Tower
Resentment is a stubborn ember. It can seem extinguished, covered in ash for years, but all it takes is a draft for it to flare back up with fury. Mine had been burning for fifteen years, fanned by every door slammed in my face, every compliment I never received, every commission that ended up in other hands. And always, without exception, because of Maeris.
She was our old master’s favorite. Brilliant, immaculate, incapable of making a mistake. Praise surrounded her as if it were her birthright, while I wasted away in her shadow and watched her rise until even the elven lords themselves begged her to teach their children. And me? I was left to rot in obscurity.
But the scales were about to tip. After all this time, I had found a way to settle the score, and the central piece was Nzarroth’s forbidden grimoire. Getting it cost me things I would rather not remember. Leaving it in the heart of her study would be only the first move.
It wasn’t difficult. I waited patiently for the sorceress to go down to the market, as she did every other morning, and slipped into her tower with the ease of someone who knew the terrain well. What had once been impassable spells were now echoes of her old skill: the same enchantments the master had taught us, not a single improvement in fifteen years. With every step, I grew more confident. I left the grimoire right in the center of the room, where I knew she would see it first, and withdrew into the shadows, behind one of the curtains, to wait for the game to begin.
The screech of the door startled me and left me frozen in my hiding place. But it wasn’t Maeris who appeared, as I had expected, but a younger figure wrapped in a dark gray robe. She moved with the caution of someone afraid of being heard, her steps light, almost imperceptible on the stone. She shut the door with a quick gesture, and then I understood: it had to be her elven apprentice. There was no other explanation. My plan had not accounted for her, and that complicated things.
She was barely one meter sixty tall and looked little more than twenty years old. Several strands of blond, slightly wavy hair fell over her chest, outlining a soft swell in the fabric at bust level. When she turned and yanked her hood back, I saw that her eyes were hazel with golden glints, rare among her race, and that a thin ash branch served as her wand.
—Master Maeris? —she asked in a high, melodic voice—. Is anyone there?
She scanned the room, her full lips barely curling in a wary grimace, and for a moment I feared she had discovered me behind the curtain. I crouched lower, going over in my mind the concealment spells I knew, while she scrutinized every corner with unsettling precision. At last she stepped to the door, pressed her ear to it for a moment, and turned the key with a dry click before leaving it in the lock. Then, still uncertain, she took the wand from her belt and cast a simple sealing spell.
Convinced she was alone now, she headed for the grimoire.
For a second I was almost about to come out of my corner. It was not my intention to attack, much less to hurt an apprentice who seemed defenseless, but the fear of being discovered outweighed the impulse. I drew in a deep breath and gripped my own staff tightly. If things went wrong, I would be ready to act; though even I didn’t know whether as an ally or just to save my skin.
The elf approached the book and bent her knees to see it better. Slowly, she brought her index finger to the rough cover, dragged it along one of the edges, and finally opened it wide.
One of Nzarroth’s tentacles appeared between the pages. Long, dark, blind, probing the air with serpentine movements in search of prey to devour.
If the girl did not close the grimoire soon, in a matter of seconds everything would get much worse. She leaped back, straightened in surprise, and with astonishing speed raised her wand, ready to cast another spell. The erratic whip of a second tentacle struck the back of her hand and forced her to drop the weapon. Even so, she reacted quickly: she slipped her hand inside her robe, where I assumed she kept a potion or whatever Maeris had given her for defense.
But I was the one left dumbfounded when I saw that, in front of the tentacles bursting one after another from the book, what the elf did was let her clothes fall to the floor.
A white linen blouse, shorter than the robe, clung to her like a second skin because of the sweat. I pressed my lips together. From where I stood I could almost make out her nipples pressing against the taut fabric over those firm breasts. I swallowed, trying to control my own arousal.
The elf caught one of the tentacles with her hand, opened her mouth fully, and took it to her lips. She began to lick the tip in circles, with just enough force to make the entire limb shudder to the rhythm of her tongue.
The demon trapped in that arcane volume had finally found its prize. The tentacles, more and more numerous, moved as one toward the young figure. One of them slid beneath her arm, wrapped around her shoulder, and dragged her light body closer to the book. She held her ground and, without letting go of the one in her hand, let out a mocking whisper of “no, no…” that did nothing to hide her amusement. Another tentacle seized her opposite shoulder, eager to devour that body, impeding her grip without accomplishing anything. The elf brought the tentacle even closer to her lips and took it into her mouth with a sucking sound.
From my corner I could see perfectly how the young woman’s cheeks puffed with the jolts of that appendage inside her mouth, and the moans she began to let out confirmed that her tongue was still working away in there. She narrowed her eyes as her free hand pawed the air, searching for another tentacle outside her field of vision. The moans, growing louder and louder, mingled with a gurgle in her throat. She did not loosen her hold in the slightest, keeping the end in her mouth and licking it with increasing eagerness.
The blouse tore at the shoulder and exposed her cleavage. Both the robe and the undergarment trapped breasts much larger than they had seemed at first glance. Unable to stop myself, my hand moved down to my trousers while the fabric yielded with every unconscious movement of the girl, until it revealed large pink nipples that were quickly covered by the tentacles.
Those appendages began to slow her movements, coiling over her breasts until they almost hid them completely, stopping at the tips mere millimeters from the nipples. The hardness of those buds had not escaped them.
The young sorceress was beginning to bend the demon to her desires. The hand that had been searching the air finally caught a new tentacle and guided it toward her belly; the few scraps of white clothing left on her fell to the floor when she forced it to travel over her body, leaving her completely naked. When it reached her navel, the tentacle pressed against it, trying to enter, and the elf expelled the air in a gasp at the thrust. But she had a better plan.
She kept guiding it, tracing a pubis covered in very short, curly blond hair, until she reached her sex. Far from surrendering control, she was the one who pushed it inside. Her mouth opened in a long moan in which excitement and surprise mingled as she felt that supple creature sinking into her depths far more than she had calculated. The rest of the tentacles took advantage of the moment to slip between her fingers.
Nzarroth seemed to come alive anew.
They lifted her by the shoulders while the tentacles in her mouth and sex slammed into her with force. Two meters off the floor, they were penetrating her with such momentum that for a moment she seemed to be riding an invisible stallion. The ones wrapped around her breasts squeezed them while continuing to fondle the nipples, circling them, sinking into the skin. Three more joined the frenzy, forcing their way in with difficulty. Others began to scour the study, knocking over vials and books with the risk of sending the whole place up in flames.
The sight of that body being penetrated while saliva poured from her mouth defeated me. My hand took care of my erection, and I came inside my trousers. For a few seconds, her gaze seemed to point toward my hiding place, and I feared I had given myself away.
If she noticed my presence, the tentacles gave her no time to react: several clamped onto her legs, enough to force her to bend forward. She was left almost on all fours, and it was no longer only her cheeks that were swelling; in her belly the movements of those appendages could be made out, as if she had something alive inside her. Her eyes filled with tears, but her face, far from showing pain, seemed to be in full ecstasy.
A muffled sound escaped her lips, perhaps an attempt at a spell.
I was almost about to intervene. I didn’t. I brought my hand down again, trying to harden myself once more, imagining that spectacle was for my pleasure alone.
Suddenly, from somewhere on the floor covered by an amorphous mass of tentacles, one of them rose, holding something. I barely made out the sorceress’s wand before it turned into a blur that lashed the elf’s buttocks with rapid strikes. The girl screamed in pain beneath the blows, which left reddish marks wherever they landed again and again. They drove her on, urged her to keep riding. Slowly, as if the creature itself were tiring, the rhythm slackened until it became a caress that traced the cleft of her ass with barely enough force to part it.
At last, the wand thrust itself between them in a horizontal motion, drilling into her anus. The demon knew what it was doing. It pressed firmly, advancing centimeter by centimeter with that slender ash branch while twirling it in circles to dilate the hole as much as possible. Once it had reached nearly the full length of the weapon, it began to pull it out in a jerk and push it back in slowly, repeating the motion with deliberate cruelty.
An immediate spasm rippled through the elf. She came despite the impassivity of that creature, which kept pumping, squeezing, probing her insides. The gallop lost speed, but the sorceress held tightly to both the wand in her ass and the bundle filling her from the front.
—More! —she wanted to say, but only a choked sound came out as she pushed inward with both hands, taking charge herself and making sure they kept fucking her.
For an instant, seeing the distorted belly and the trembling of that body, I feared it might cause her real harm. But the elf seemed to govern every movement of the demon to her liking. Her eyes nearly rolled back, her body shaken from side to side, she arched again as she reached another orgasm. She parted her own lips to make the task easier and took the appendages back in whenever they seemed about to withdraw. At one point she ended up face down, flailing in search of more tentacles while she came for the third time. Her moans and the viscous friction of that being were all that could be heard in the room now, all the vials shattered and the heavy objects thrown to the floor.
I had to brace myself against the glass door to catch my breath.
One by one, Nzarroth’s tentacles followed the sorceress’s orders… in their own way. They began to coil around her slender body, first her belly, then her neck, sliding along her entire trunk. She barely managed to lift her head and spit out a few unintelligible words before being almost swallowed by them. Only a few blond locks stuck out from the shapeless mass she had become, wrapped in hundreds of demonic appendages. Slowly, she was dragged toward the book’s open pages, where she would be devoured.
My chivalrous streak finally emerged. And perhaps also the chance to join the game.
I jumped out of my hiding place, staff in hand, staggering with every step. I pointed at the creature and conjured a blaze that exploded in an orange flare. The fire devoured several tentacles, which writhed and shrank with a hiss, like fat in a frying pan.
The floor trembled when another tentacle lunged at me in response. I barely managed to raise a wall of energy that fell apart at the first touch, and I had to roll back toward the glass door.
—Back off! —I growled, launching another burst of fire straight at the book.
For a moment, smoke and ash filled the room. With some satisfaction I saw the last three living tentacles, still wet with the young woman’s fluids, fall back in retreat.
The elf remained kneeling, hands on the floor and legs spread, gasping, leaving me only a view of her blond mane and her reddened shoulders slick with sweat.
—Are you all right? —I asked, advancing cautiously toward the book and closing it with the tip of my staff—. I was passing by the tower when I heard your screams…
Even I didn’t believe that improvised excuse. The sorceress lifted her head and fixed her hazel eyes on me through the waterfall of gold that was her hair. She got to her feet, swaying, nearly losing her balance more than once. She bent down again, gathered up the rags her underwear had become, and balled them in her fist.
—How dare you spy in this sanctuary?! —Despite her enraged tone, her face flushed with arousal and the smile she was trying to hide gave her away—. Abi hinc!
The spell struck me full force and hurled me against the window. The glass exploded in my wake and, before I could react, the air wrapped around me. I fell from the top of the tower, the wind roaring in my ears and the ground rushing up too fast.
I woke two days later in a room at an inn, my body numb and my head pounding like a drum. The light made me squint, and it was then that, from the corner of my eye, I caught a fleeting shadow. I turned my head just in time to see someone disappear through the window with feline agility. I sat up as best I could and looked out, but among the passersby I couldn’t make out anyone who fit. Even so, I knew it in my heart: it had been her, the elf.