The Greyman Saga

Author's Note: Keeping it brief! Thanks for still reading, and supporting. I'm still looking for more feedback on whether reader's want those revised chapters released (Thank you to those who have commented!), so I'm holding off taking down the old chapters and replacing them for now. Chapters will continue to release weekly! I'm also aiming to have chapters be on the longer side (5000-7000 words.)

Also: the story is really going to start ramping up after this chapter! The stage is set, the pieces are moving, and the heat is about to let loose!

PS. PLEASE please favorite, rate and comment if you enjoyed the chapters and/or the series. You guys are what keep me writing! Thank you again!

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Chapter 14:

The Choice to Give

"Mmm."

I glanced over, watching as Miramae's eyes flickered open in the dim light of the van. It had been nearly four hours since we had left Brew Crew, and she had slept soundly through the entire drive.

For the most part, I'd kept my eyes on the road. There were more than a few reasons for that choice, but mostly, I was enjoying the quiet. I did check on her occasionally. Not long looks, just fleeting glances to assure myself she wasn't suffering unexpected side effects from her healing hands.

Her wounds were still mending much slower than they should have been, but the rise and fall of her chest had steadied. She'd donned her gray sweater before leaving the cafe, but it wasn't exactly difficult to see the cadence of her breathing with the way her large, unrealistically perfect breasts lifted and fell with each inhale and exhale.

"Mnnggh." Miramae shook her head, blinking a few times as she groaned.

It was a few seconds before she found her bearings, and her nose twitched as she seemed to catch some passing smell drifting by. Her gaze shifted, and she turned tentatively towards me. I gave her a quick glance, raising my eyebrows.

"Morning," I half-teased.

Her warm golden eyes fluttered, and she glanced out the front window at the setting sun, her lips pulling into a slight frown before she shifted her attention back to me. Her pupils dilated swiftly and I felt like I might fall into them if I stared for any extended sum of time.

I adjusted my focus, looking at the rest of her. Her skin had lost some of that ethereal glossiness it usually carried, and I could see a litany of small scars across her face, neck, and upper chest. The fight with the two dreads, and the efforts she'd extolled to heal Shane had taken a good deal out of her, that much was clear. Sleep wasn't going to fix everything.

"Morning," Miramae grumbled in response, tucking her balled hands under her arms. She shifted a moment later, a heavy grouse on her lips as she glared down at the gray sweater she wore.

'Jesus. She sounds good even when she's bitching.'

I watched her fidget, half amused, half aggravated by her rustling. After nearly a full minute of her squirming and low-toned cursing, I'd reached my limit.

"Just take the damn thing off. Christ's sake..." I was watching the quad-lane ahead and the distant orange sun as it descended on the horizon, yet, somehow, I felt her eyes widen with excitement at my words.

"How much of it?"

"The sweater, Miramae. The fucking sweater."

I heard her make a small pouting sound, but it was a minimal complaint. She removed the sweater a moment later. In spite of myself, I felt my gaze flash to her. The white motorcycle embossed tee was thoroughly shredded, exposing a great deal of her perfect flesh to the open air.

"Bones, grab that bag to your right, will you?" I called over my shoulder.

A soft 'wooof' of affirmation followed and the sound of shuffling paws filled the quiet van. Shortly after, Bones dropped the clothing bag that Vermyr had assembled of herself on the middle console.

"Th-thanks." Miramae swallowed loudly, eyeing the hound with nervous eyes.

Bones let out a sharp snort, shaking the long fur around her neck. She then gave the Vermyr a squinted stare before turning back to her seat. I saw her lithe form curl once more into a ball as I checked the rear view. Miramae shot the moody pup another glance, looking more than a little shaky.

"Relax. She's just mad you took her spot. She normally rides shotgun." I smirked, shaking my head.

Miramae blinked, then turned back towards the hound. "I can move," she volunteered.

Bones's ears perked and she lifted her head with clear excitement.

"It's fine." I shot Bones a sharp eyebrow over my shoulder and the pup let out an annoyed yawn before settling back in place.

Grabbing the freshly delivered bag, Miramae unzipped its top and began to rifle through it. Not long after, she had pulled out a large, dark red zip-up hoodie with white striping down the seams. Some random youth's soccer team had its logo plastered on the left breast and across the back. It looked like a soccer ball with big red eyes and an open mouth, followed by a trail of flame. The words above it read 'The Burnin' Ballers'. I tried not to grimace when I realized she had no plans to acquire an undershirt.

She paired the hoodie with a pair black track shorts that had some word I didn't manage to see properly scrawled in hot pink across the back of them. At that point, I accepted that the Vermyr was actually just a bratty, teen movie-star at heart and I made my peace, reluctantly, with her absurd style choices. There wasn't much else I could really do.

"Peeking," Miramae called softly and I flashed her a reflexive look in a confused reply. It was a mistake.

My eyes trailed over pale skin, toned and taut abdominal muscles, and the swell of perfect, pink nipples abreast the crests of her criminally large tits.

I inhaled slowly, forcefully turning my head forward as my body practically began to heat up. My jaw flexed as I pressed my teeth together, continuing to breathe through my nose.

"Did you just..." I began, stopped, then smiled a dry, humorless smile before continuing, "I believe the phrase is NO peeking, Miramae." I didn't dare look at her reaction. For all I knew she was pushing those lovely breasts together with an apologetic pout, waiting for me to look again.

"Mmm, nope. I'm fairly certain I said exactly what I meant," she chirped happily, but I heard the cathartic sound of her sweater's zipper being pulled up.

"No peeking now." She filled her words with heavy sorrow and, in spite of myself, I rolled my eyes and snorted out a laugh.

A few minutes of comfortable quiet passed after that. It wasn't due to any lack of things to address. We just both seemed to need some time to figure out where to start. I was quite surprised when I found myself asking the first question.

"How are you feeling?" I flicked my turn-signal on, then merged left while I pushed my cruising speed to the upper seventies. A sign for a city called Tucumcari passed by.

"Better," she said lightly, but not with much conviction. She seemed to realize as much and tried again. "Fine, really. Great, actually!" She applied too much effort this time around.

A small cackling yawn of amusement sounded from behind me. I looked back at Bones. The hound was pretending to sleep again, but I could see a wolffish smile pulling at her mouth.

"Quiet you," I snapped dryly. Bones opened one of her golden eyes and let out a sharp burst of air through her nose in response.

I turned my attention back to Miramae, casting her a look as well that I hoped said, "uh-huh."

She was staring out at the road, her lips curled down at the corners, so I don't think she noticed my disbelieving expression. I was glad to see she was fully dressed at this point, but she had left her over-sized hoodie more than half open. I could see a frankly absurd amount of cleavage at this particular angle, and I had to resist the urge to reach across the middle console and lift her zipper to a more appropriate position.

I tapped the steering wheel, not feeling any further questions rising to my lips. Miramae, however, seemed to have decided on her first topic.

"So..." she began.

"So?" I replied when nearly ten seconds passed without her saying more.

"You're not gonna ask about...the thing? About Shane?" She fidgeted her fingers anxiously, and my eyes were drawn once more to the series of little scars littered across her face and neck.

"Wasn't planning on it." I shrugged, then clarified further, "Not yet, at least. If you're volunteering info, I'm not gonna turn you down."

I heard her shift a bit. It sounded like she'd pulled her feet up onto the seat in front of her. She took a few moments to, I assumed, gather her thoughts. When she did speak, her voice was quiet.

"I've never done anything like that before, but I've been training to. In theory, that is." She made a small noise that sounded like a click of her tongue. "The Maiir are all...castrated, or something similar. I couldn't exactly harvest Sura to practice and it probably wouldn't have been a good idea either way."

"Sura?" I interjected, with genuine interest. I didn't know the term.

"Yeah. Life energy. Opposite of Ennem. It's what Vermyr actually feed off of."

I mulled over the information, watching as a cherry red sports car ripped by us and continued to zigzag down the highway.

'Sura...so that means she used my...' I blinked, putting two and two together.

"Huh. That's...I guess I'm not sure how I feel about you healing people with my...release," I muttered, trying to wrap my head around the idea.

Miramae let out a real, echoing laugh and I chuckled too. I also pushed down the desperate need to abandon the steering wheel, pull her lips to mine, and do my utmost to inhale that laugh into my lungs. It was like music; the kind of joy-inducing symphony I would happily take as a replacement for oxygen. My grip tightened on the wheel as I kept myself in check.

"That's not--I mean, it's not exactly like that. I ate *that* part. It was delicious by the way. Ten out of ten, would come again," she teased, pouring sincerity into those last few words.

"Moving on." I cleared my throat.

"Right." She bobbed her head in concession and focused back on the subject at hand, "So, I have this...space. Here," she gestured to a section of her upper stomach, just below her solar plexus. "When I gather Sura, unlike Ennem, it gets stored here. It's like a pocket of functional heat. Kind of like...a battery? Before you--before I harvested your life energy, it was a lot smaller. Like, penny-sized. Now it's like," she curled her fingers into an 'O', "yay big."

She turned my direction, her pupils flooding outward as they often seemed to when she was looking at me. "It was so full, too. I had so much power, Joran. *So* much. I could've destroyed that little icicle with an arm tied behind my back. Maybe both arms. But...using it to heal was harder. It felt less natural. Having to push the Sura out of my body was way different than just letting it fuel me. It took everything I had in me just to heal one person."

I nodded, absorbing and stowing her explanation. I could see she was shivering out of the corner of my eye, small ripples running up through her throat as she tried to calm herself. I was suddenly reminded of the sensation of tons of little tongues coating my flesh. My cock stiffened uncomfortably and had to take a few seconds to pull myself back together, focusing on those last few sentences.

"So...you're empty now? You depleted yourself to save a human." It wasn't a question really. More of an observation, and one that spiked the inside of my chest uncomfortably.

lt felt like I was peeling off a heavy scab; one that had just started to grow back over my heart during the last few hours. I was seeing the humanity in her, once again, and it was grating against everything I felt that I knew. Everything I thought I was sure of; both about myself and about the Dreads.

She looked at me for a moment, then turned away. "Yeah, I guess. It was my fault anyway--"

"No. No it wasn't. Don't do that," I snapped, that defensive instinct surging in me before I could stop it.

"Why not? You're the only one that gets to blame yourself? Why? Why is that, Joran!" She hissed fiercely, letting some of that angst she kept, deep and typically bottled, out.

It made me pause. Really *pause* and think. I let my retort fade, trying to organize a response that wasn't dismissive or placative.

"We...fuck--we both did what we could, alright? I split my attention and acted too slowly, and, yeah, those Dreads were there looking for you. We can't change that. It happened, and people got hurt, but you healed Shane. You *helped* Miramae, and you gave up a lot to do it." I tapped the steering wheel again. "So, I'll ask again: how are you really doing? How badly do you need...another meal?"

It was eerily quiet in the wake of the question. Just the sound of Bones's snoring and the hum of passing wind.

"I...I'm fine. I can go for a bit."

"Miramae."

I heard her hiss. It was sharp. Frustrated.

"I can sustain myself off Dreads if we find any. Absorb their Ennem, and reinforce my own health. I am FINE. But...I'll still be hungry," she grumbled tiredly. "It's just so much worse here--on earth. Back in Sellaris it was never like this; I had some level of balance. But now..." I could practically feel her looking at me accusingly as her voice trailed.

"Yeah. *Now*." I rocked my head from side to side, pressing forward while she was being more forthright. "So how bad is the pain?"

She tried to smile; failed miserably, then visibly deflated.

"It's...not good. A lot worse than before. My stomach is starting to do more than just ache. It's moving. Trying to reach what it needs...to reach you," she whispered.

I flexed my fingers over the wheel. My body had gone somewhat tense, but I felt more relaxed than I probably should've. It was what I had expected to hear, more or less.

'You can't be thinking of doing it again. Joran, you can't. That's--'

"Did it help last time?" I asked, ignoring the voice in my head that was practically screaming at me.

She looked briefly confused as I turned my gaze toward her. I saw understanding bloom across her features shortly after. Her irises practically pulsed a bright yellow. A tremor ran through her lips, and warm red heat rose in her pale cheeks. She didn't respond as she wrestled with her clear interest.

"I'm trusting you to be honest, Miramae." I cast her a sharp stare, waiting.

"I..." She licked her lips anxiously, "I've never slept so soundly in my entire life. Not here, not in Sellaris. I felt warm and peaceful, and...full. So incredibly, wonderfully full."

I kept my eyes ahead, the gentle purr of her perfect words filling my head with soft, erotic echoes. I couldn't look. Her voice, the sincerity of her need, and the raw hunger in her admission: it was just too much. I couldn't see those eyes as well.

'Joran. Think about this. She's a Dread. A Dread! Your mind isn't even totally yours when you're with her. Don't--'

"We'll find a hotel to stay in once it's dark. Somewhere to rest. I don't feel like driving through the night again, and the van is small. Probably better to sleep with some more space." I kept my intentions vague while speaking, but my brain continued to berate me. It knew exactly what I was thinking about doing. What I was *planning* on doing.

"O...kay," Miramae agreed in a stuttered manner, clearly thrown by the shift of topic. Whether it was confusion, excitement, or disappointment, I wasn't sure.

I let her mull. I was having my own mental sparring match anyway. I didn't really have the wherewithal to help her with whatever storm she was trying to tame. So the van fell back into a deep quiet.

Not long after five, Miramae decided that she'd reached the limit of time she could spend in such close proximity to me. She crawled over the middle section, making sure not to let her body graze me, then sat next to the moor hound with a nervous expression.

"You can have the front. Sorry I took it," she mumbled, and Bones perked up immediately. The pup practically shot across her seat, bouncing off the divider and landing deftly in her normal spot by my side. She let out a content sigh and curled back into a ball.

I checked the rear mirror just long enough to see Miramae almost mimicking the hound; tucking her knees to her chest and curling into the seat as she turned away. I gazed back at the road. It was going to be a hell of a night, one way or another. I could use the time alone before any decisions i chose to make couldn't be taken back.

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A flick of my wrist killed the engine once I pulled the van into the closest parking spot I could find on the street. My body had gone stiff from the chunk of time stuck sitting, and I pushed open the door with a soft groan. The night air was both dry and warm as I lifted my arms and stretched gratefully; I wasn't surprised by the weather, this was Texas, after all.

I glanced around the area as I limbered up my tensed muscles. It was nearly midnight, and the city of Amarillo was fairly quiet. I had managed to find a place to park not far off from the hotel I'd chosen, but it would still be a block-or-two walk to get there. I had been tempted to use the valet service, but I didn't want to deal with any of the potential chaos that might come from them interacting with Miramae.

Turning, I looked up at the tall building we'd be staying in. The Barfield was at least ten stories of worn brick and lit windows, sitting resolutely in Amarillo's downtown. The reviews had been solid, and I preferred to stay in nicer places while travelling if I had the choice. Life as a Greymen wasn't easy, but it wasn't without perks. There was no need to penny pinch.

I didn't get much time to pursue hobbies or do much but work, but I did have bouts of downtime at the ends of most of my days and during flights. I sometimes watched shows to pass the time, and there'd been one series I'd watched a few years ago that had really made me think about how terrible being a monster hunter could be if you didn't have backing.

'Or a family black card.'

The show had been about two brothers who travelled around in a cool car, hunting the supernatural. They had lived mostly out of shitty back-door hotels, and sustained themselves on an exorbitant amount of credit card fraud. They also...died a lot. Given their limited resources, it wasn't all that surprising, but they usually managed to come back to life somehow.

I'd watched the show mostly out of amusement, but, for all its creative liberties in regard to my profession, I'd quite enjoyed it. I also felt quite bad for the hunters in the show, not because of the horrors they dealt with, but because they didn't really ever get paid.

Risking life and limb was one thing; doing it without any sort of consistent payment was another. Even the freshly anointed members of the Grey Ward got stipends and weekly checks for their work around Damoria. Small mercies for what would undeniably be a hard life, and probably a short one.

The sound of a van door sliding open pulled at my ears and I turned back to the vehicle. A small shadow with golden eyes and silver-tuffed ears leapt out of the confines, only to vanish into the nether as she reached the edge of my shadow. A groggy, yet still unfairly beautiful, Vermyr stumbled out after the moor hound.

It had been almost two hours since Miramae and I had last spoken. After she crawled to the middle seats and turned away, we'd maintained a shared reticence throughout what remained of the drive. I think she had eventually fallen asleep.

"Oh, wow..." Miramae blinked several times, her eyes falling on the large outline of the Barfield. "That's where we're staying?" She looked surprised, her dark lips slightly parted as she looked up at the building.