Chapter 11
I don't remember the last time I slept so well in my life. I woke up in exactly the same position as I fell asleep in, with my arms wrapped around this gorgeous woman naked in my arms. I felt a sense of joy that I had never experienced before in my life. This beautiful woman was here with me. Not only that, she chose to bond with me and that bond represented a level of vulnerability I couldn't put into words. It required a level of trust in me that I would not take advantage of her, it was a huge responsibility. I knew that I would protect this woman with my life if needed.
Of course, my nerves were still around. I feared that I had changed in some fundamental way possibly. Just yesterday, I balked at being called 'master,' yet now Isadora called me this ever since we bonded and I found it normal. Well, maybe not 'normal,' but there was this part of me that felt aroused when she said it. Was I changing too? I started thinking about the other day when Aurora called me this and I still felt uncomfortable in that context.
And what if I managed to impregnate her already? It's not like we used protection. She could be carrying our baby right now. Shouldn't that scare me? Strangely, it didn't and I knew that if she was pregnent, I'd love and protect that child. That led me to think about our situation. Would she have to go back to her homeworkd? Would our bond be broken? Would I even see my first born child? Anxiety over losing not only her, but also my unborn child began to overwhelm me.
"What are you thinking about?" Isadora asked, waking with a yawn as she looked up at me.
"I-" I didn't know how to verbalize this sudden mixture of emotions into coherent sentences. She was from this other world and she needed to go back pregnant because her world's whole existence relied on women travelling to different worlds to re-populate. Things started spiraling in my head and I couldn't deal with it just yet.
"Nothing, just thinking of how beautiful you look sleeping," I smiled, reaching up and pushing a lock of hair from her face, hoping she couldn't sense my spiraling emotions. "How did you sleep?"
"I don't think I've ever slept deeper in my life!" she smiled excitedly.
"Same," I looked around at the clock. It was already early afternoon. "How about we get cleaned up and get something to eat? Want to go first?"
We still needed to figure out our problem with The Order. Instead of handling these emotions now, I'd do what I knew how to do best. Bury these feelings and put my energy into figuring out this problem. We were all in danger, including my potential unborn child.
Isadora stretched, her perfectly toned body and ample chest on full display. "Sounds good," she hopped out of bed, bending over to pick up her discarded dress and giving me the perfect view of her ass. She turned her head, catching me staring, "See something you like?" She said teasingly with a wink before sashaying into the bathroom.
I groaned. My penis was going to be in a perpetually hardened state with her constant teasing. I slid out of bed after my erection subsided and threw some clothes on before looking for something to eat. I had some fruits and yogurt, which I set up on the small table. Hopefully, that would be enough for now. We'd need to go to the grocery store soon.
As I sat there waiting for Isadora, something sparkled out of the corner of my eye. I looked over to see the knife that Celeste dropped yesterday on the floor next to me. As soon as it caught my eye, I was drawn to it like a magnet. Similar markings from my bracer were on the hilt and blade of the knife. I reached down to pick it up and instantly felt a shock that ran up my arm.
Flashes and images filled my mind, none of them making sense and most of them flying by too fast for me to comprehend. The only thing I could make out was a wave of red that blurred across my vision briefly. I blacked out shortly afterward just as someone screamed "No!". When I opened my eyes, the dagger was gone, but the bracer on my wrist felt more substantial, a glow subsiding from it as I looked down.
"Fuck, what was that?" I said to myself.
"What?" Isadora said as she came from the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel and dressed in my long T-shirt again, which definitely looked better on her.
"The dagger," I pointed to the empty floor. "I picked it up and I got these... images in my head. Then I heard someone screaming."
She came rushing over with this concerned look on her face, "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, I think so, but the dagger just... disappeared," I rubbed the bracer on my arm instinctively. "Does this look different to you?" I asked.
She sat in my lap, grabbing my arm and pulling it around her slender waist as she settled into me. "Hmmmm... " she stared at it for a few minutes, twisting my arm back and forth to make out the symbols. "It definitely changed. I can make out a few more words, but still, something seems to be missing."
She idly ate some of the fruits I laid out as she continued to examine the writing for a while longer. Unfortunately, nothing more could be deciphered, "Maybe more will reveal itself over time. There just seems to be something incomplete about it."
"It's okay, we'll figure it out. We've got more pressing matters anyway," I said.
"You mean The Order?" she asked.
I nodded, "Maybe we can at least try to find something online about them. Figure out what we are up against. I know Celeste will be here later this evening to tell us where and when she'll be meeting her handler, but I don't like just sitting around and leaving everything up to her."
Strangely, after mentioning Celeste, I almost felt like I could sense her somewhere in my consciousness as if I could just reach out and touch her. Mentally, I attempted to do just that and was surprised when I had this sensation of running in a park. I couldn't figure out where though, although it felt like it was somewhere to the northeast not too far away. She also seemed to be a bit flustered or agitated, but I couldn't tell what that was about.
I mentally disconnected from Celeste and brought my attention back to Isadora in front of me.
"Sounds great! It'll give me the chance to set up the laptop too," Isadora said excitedly.
We ate quickly and cleaned up the kitchen. Isadora decided to sit in bed with her laptop and I sat at my desk. She quickly became absorbed in her world as she explored the computer in front of her.
I left her to her work as I turned back to my desk. I decided to check on the test results on the mysterious phone. Apparently, everything checked out. I was a little weary of the mystery gift, but I needed a phone so I removed it from the black box and booted it up.
I had a couple of messages that came through since I lost my phone the other night. One was from my mom asking how I was doing. I had a message from my sister asking how the presentation went. The last one surprised me as it was a photo from April of Isadora and me in the park kissing. There was no text to the message, I guess she saw us and decided to snap a picture.
I quickly replied to my mother and sister with brief responses so they wouldn't get worried. I wasn't really sure what to say to April as most of our messages back and forth tend to be pretty formal about scheduling, so I decided to leave it for now. I did save the photo though since it was our first kiss and it was actually a really nice picture.
I logged into my computer and began searching for The Order. Unfortunately, after about an hour or two of searching and getting nowhere, I decided to take a break.
"Have you found anything?" I turned to Isadora. She had been fairly quiet during her search as well.
"No, I even created a bot program to scrub through search results hoping to find something, but nothing is coming up. I started expanding on terms looking for different disappearances, conspiracy theories, cults, and nothing about The Order of Ebon," she said. Obviously, she'd been busy.
I was wondering if I could use some of my technologies to help me in my search as well. Of course, Aurora came to mind. She seemed to be able to find things incredibly fast.
"Same, if they have some sort of presence here, you would expect them to have some kind of footprint on the Internet," I said.
"Maybe they're just good at covering their tracks. Sometimes we need to erase the presence of a girl who jumps into a certain universe when she comes back home because of an incident that could reveal information about us. Maybe they are utilizing something like that to hide," Isadora said.
