Cultural Exchange Ch. 05

Here we go again, after such a long time.

First and foremost, I want to apologize to all of my readers for the time it's taken. I've been promising the release of this chapter, and I ended up delaying it for one reason or another. That feeling of guilt, shame and a little sadness has been nagging at the back of my mind all this time. I sincerely apologize.

Next, I want to thank my previous editor SexyGeek for everything he has taught me up to this point. We started this project together and he'll always be a part of it, something that motivates me to bring it to its end.

I want to welcome warmly my new editor, Raiguy, and thank him for his help in shaping up this chapter. You too are one of this baby's fathers.

To end this rant and let you enjoy (I hope) this chapter, I want to thank personally each and every one of those of you who have supported me all this time. This work wouldn't have made it this far without your support; so, please, let me lean on you for a while longer.

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In the deep of the night I noticed Ralya moving closer to me and letting me feel the shape and the heat of her body. Her head was close to mine, her warm breath on my neck, when a low purring sound came from the bottom of her throat. Those were signs I had come to identify unmistakably since the day of our wedding. Without preamble, I moved my hand between her thighs and caressed her slowly all the way up to her most intimate place to find it hot and moistened. The purr in her throat intensified to a low growl when she opened her mouth to nibble hungrily at my neck at the same time one of her hands went down from my chest to my manhood, grazing my skin lightly with the tip of her nails.

I changed my position to lay on my side and grab one of her breasts while my other hand increased the rhythm from a mere caress to masturbate her through her low waist panties. Ralya moaned and grabbed my hair with her free hand to deep-kiss me and bite my lips while her other hand entered my underwear and started stroking me, with her thumb caressing the wet tip of my girth. I untied one of the knots that kept her panties in place and touched her secret garden directly, feeling her wet pubic hair when I spread her lower lips with the tip of two fingers to pay special attention to her hard and throbbing nub.

I reveled in the taste of her mouth and her lustful moans of pleasure. All the while, my other hand had not forgotten my wife's breasts, alternatively caressing and rubbing both of them through the thin, silky cloth that covered them. Her hard nipples were perfectly noticeable every time the palm of my hand or the tip of my fingers passed over them.

Without further ado, Ralya straddled me while untying the loop that kept the front of her black negligee closed, her full breasts bouncing slightly from being suddenly freed. I raised my hips a little, almost unknowingly, looking for our union while she gently pulled my face to her breasts with a caressing hand at the back of my head. We moaned in unison when both sensations came at the same time; one of her hard nipples pressing my lips and the tip of my hard manhood pressing her lower lips, as if we were going to penetrate each other.

Looking up, I enjoyed the view of my wife biting her lip with her eyes closed while she lowered her hips slowly to extend as much as possible the pleasure of the moment of the penetration. I didn't move this time, delighted with her facial expression and that erotic, purring sound she makes when she's trying not to scream in pleasure. Once her moist labia touched the base of my penis, my woman let out growling sigh and kissed me fiercely again, moaning and tightening her inner walls in pleasure the moment I grabbed her ass with both hands and the tips of my fingers dug lightly in the soft and toned flesh.

With a light push upwards from my hips, Ralya understood the message and started to slide her hips up until only the tip was inside her, only to come back down. She started moving up slowly to fall down in sudden moves, something that she knew made me go crazy. In this position, Ralya had a hand by my head on the pillow and the other grabbing my shoulder, moving only her hips with her head turned back. I took advantage of the pose to launch a surprise attack and bit one of her nipples. The effect was immediate: she raised her head to let out a scream of pleasure and increased the speed of her hip moves.

From that point on, discretion flew out the window and my wife stopped trying to contain her moans of pleasure, increasing her pace even more. Grabbing her ass even more firmly, I started moving my hips as well, making Ralya grit her teeth before letting out a lustful scream of pleasure. With our lust-crazed pace, I could feel Ralya's hand tightening her grip on my shoulder and her hips hitting mine with the lewd sound of sweaty skin.

"Pour it all inside me, Nue'He," she said in my ear with a hoarse whisper when she felt through our link that I was about to come. I let myself go and the rhythmic contractions of her inner walls gave me the last push towards orgasm, releasing my seed inside her. "So hot..." moaned Ralya with her face turned upwards, her whole body trembling with her own orgasm as her nails grazing my shoulder... before suddenly leaning down to bite my shoulder, letting out muffled groans of pleasure against my skin.

Several minutes later, when our breathing came back to normal, Ralya mumbled a few words and the discomfort in my shoulder disappeared. "I have hurt you again, my love. I'm so sorry." She said with a sense of guilt in her voice.

"You don't have to worry so much, Baby." I kissed her forehead as she rested on my chest. "You're passionate when we make love, and I really like that. I can be pretty insecure sometimes so if you weren't so expressive I could end up feeling that you just do it to please me, and that would make me feel guilty." Feeling suddenly naughty, I added with a laughing tone, "Furthermore, if you didn't bite and scratch, I wouldn't have a reason to call you 'my lioness'."

"Idiot." She answered in a mockingly angry tone while giving me a playful slap in the arm. The light caress I felt on my chest informed me that she had lowered her ears. My experience convinced me that at that moment, she must have been blushing with a satisfied smile.

Not long after that, my wife moved slightly to get into a comfortable pose to sleep and I moved as well so that our bodies fit together.

"You should get in contact with her family soon, there isn't so much time before the next full moon," came the quiet voice of my wife, letting me know she had only moved to see if I was asleep or not. I had waited for a few days after the wedding to confess to Ralya that I had had a conversation with Silna about her feeling the Impetus about me and how I had promised her to approach her family in order to get their permission to have her as the first of my Seconds. No matter how much she tried to hide it, I knew Ralya wasn't really pleased with the situation, but she was the first to admit that it was necessary.

"Are you sure that this is the conversation you want have right after making love?" I asked her while caressing her hair.

After a silence, she answered in a warning tone, "We can't delay things much more. We are going to discuss this tomorrow no matter what." After pecking a kiss on my lips and mumbling a "good night" both of us fell asleep in the next few minutes. We needed to rest, for tomorrow was to be an eventful day. At least Ralya would say so, if we were surrounded by more people.

We woke up at the break of dawn and went down to the dining hall of Ralya's house inside the city walls. I know, I should call it "my" house now, but there are so many things to get used to here that I constantly forget about small details. Both my wife and I had chosen comfortable clothes, as we had a two-hour trip by carriage ahead of us. Finally I was going to make my first visit at Ralya's manor properties in the valley outside the city. Again, my properties.

While I was reviewing some of the reports that I had been studying the last few days, Merita entered the room to serve breakfast. As I was leaving aside the note books to start eating, the maid turned to look at my wife and me from her post by the door to the kitchen and coughed to call our attention. "Master, Mistress, if you forgive my being blunt... I know you two are young and have been married for just two weeks, but could you please lower your tone at night?" she lowered her ears and covered her blushing cheeks with her hands. "Last night your passion was enough to get this old maiden all warm and flustered, hu-hu." Then she turned towards the kitchen and disappeared before Ralya could regain enough of her composure to answer.

Still blushing, with her ears lowered and frowning, Ralya said, "You should make clear to her the lines she can't cross no matter what. That maid is becoming bolder with the passing of days."

"Merita risked her life to save mine when I was just a temporary guest at the house she used to manage. Her behavior shows that she's just a cheerful person. "She must have been lonely, working at that house for years, waiting for someone who would end up staying, only to leave after a few days." I answered, trying to put to rest the importance to the matter so my wife wouldn't get so upset.

Even with that, she pressed the matter. "I can understand that, but even with all that there are boundaries she mustn't cross. It's your responsibility as her master to tell her so."

"I prefer a friendly relationship with my employees over having personnel that only know how to act on orders. We're not perfect, and sometimes we need someone to point out our mistakes." I had hardened my tone slightly without noticing, but Ralya's attitude was starting to annoy me. This sounded like "class consciousness" talk to me.

Her eyes widened before she lowered her head to use the napkin after having finished her breakfast. With a monotone voice I hadn't hear her use before, Ralya answered, "As you wish, House Head."

That answer got my hair stand on its ends at first, but after thinking a little, I tried to get my wife to reason. "Do you really dislike her that much? Or is it just that you're jealous? I told you that we just get along. Also, you must know that I couldn't see her the way you may be thinking, I see in her something motherly that prevents me from seeing her as a woman. One of the purposes of the ring I gave you is to calm your mind when you have thoughts like this."

We stood up to go out and board the carriage that awaited us, and I could see Ralya's face rife with indignation. "It's not something as petty as jealousy, I find it extremely annoying that that woman shows a level of closeness with you that I don't have, even though I'm your wife."

Maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation if we had gone on a honeymoon just like any other newlywed couple of the Earth. At least, that's what I wanted to answer, but I opted to stay silent and not press the argument any further, trying to make it look as if I was thinking deeply about what she had just said.

The day after the wedding, over lunch, I had to explain to Ralya and Merita the custom we call honeymoon, and both women found it something unpractical, not to say useless or just plain stupid. From Merita's view point, that of a commoner, going on a trip right after the wedding was a highly unnecessary expense. On the other side, a noble like Ralya thought it was a waste to spend days idly while she could be reinforcing the position of her Household. It doesn't matter if days here had more hours than in my world, they didn't seem enough for everything I had to do and learn. It was almost a miracle that I found the stamina to make love with my wife at night.

Because of these two different lines of thought, instead of spending some days of relax with my new wife, my schedule had become even more packed. Together with physical and magical training, my lessons of general knowledge of this world had increased with lessons in economy, politics and a variety of the skills I needed to know to lead something as big as a Household of the nobility. If all the previous subjects weren't enough, I also had to study a heavy quantity of record books accounting the state of affairs regarding the properties I had acquired through my marriage with Ralya. Now I owned crop fields, a windmill and a farm where Gengas were raised for meat, eggs and feathers.

Along with the economical resources and political position, every Household had its own limited military force, as Ralya had told me before. Namely, my House counted with seven hundred swordsmen and four hundred archers. In the books I had been forced to memorize, it had been included a list of the units, their equipment and their company leaders. It was a little discouraging to know that all of them were poorly equipped. All of them had inadequate light armor, the swordsmen had common iron swords and reinforced wooden shields, while the archers only had their bows and short swords to protect themselves in close combat. I had learned that the number of soldiers and their equipment depended solely on the economical power of the Household they fought for. Being the Hierarch's daughter didn't mean Ralya could be an exception, again because of the possible accusations of favoritism. If I wanted better gear for them my only chances right now were either reducing the number of soldiers or increasing my income.

That was one of the reasons it was so important to approach Silna's family as soon as possible. While the carriage went down the road to the valley rattling, with Merita leading the horses and Turak cackling happily as he flew over us, I asked Ralya, "I suppose a direct approach would be seen as a lack of courtesy or something like that, so, how do you think we should make it?"

After several seconds thinking with her lips pursed, Ralya answered, "Silna's lands are less than one hour by horse from mine. We can use a welcoming event for the new landlord as an excuse to invite the neighbors, Silna and her parents among them. Then we'll have an excuse to approach them during the party and invite them to 'have a tea and chat'."

I smiled and nodded in agreement. "I think that's a perfect plan, we'll go along with it. Will you work it out?"

She smiled back at me and answered, "No, you're the head of the House now, so it is your prerogative to issue orders. Letting me do so when you are right there could undermine your authority in front of the servants later."

With a sigh, I stood from my seat to go sit by my wife and bring her close to me, surrounding her shoulders with my arm. "We still haven't talked about your feelings in this matter. I'd bet an arm and a leg that you would prefer to have me all for yourself a little longer." I said before giving her a long and soft kiss in the cheek.

She rubbed that same cheek against mine before answering with a chuckle, "Then you'd have extra limbs, something I don't want to imagine." She got a little serious before answering, "But this is the way of life here, we can't lose sight of the things we have to do because of the things we want to do. If I could, I would monopolize you for all of our lives, but that would make us ridiculously weak in a Household war. I would lose you and many things more in my attempt to keep you mine and mine alone."

I was trying to say something to lighten the mood when I felt pain through my link with Turak. I used my ability to see through his eyes to discover that he was fighting a farmer. The pain had come when the Stormcrow had tried to steal the shiny bolts in the wheel of a cart and crashed against it. I saw myself forced to make use of the power of Authority to make him come back and stay close to our carriage.

"Why did you stop me, Boss? I could have slapped him upside his head and taken those shiny bolts." Protested Turak telepathically.

"You don't have the right to do anything of that sort, Turak. If you behave the rest of the travel I'll ask for one of the maids to find you a crystal marble when we arrive." Answered Ralya.

The Stormcrow cawed when he heard that. "You see, Boss? That's a good mate right there, she understands the needs of a man. You could learn from her." Both Ralya and I laughed at his response. Since the moment we were bound by the powers of the wedding spell, Ralya had been able to interact with my Familiar without any additional help. After this we just stayed silent the rest of the trip, enjoying our mutual company and happy to be able to be in the arms of each other.

Upon arriving at my lands, I discovered that the mansion had been built in a very different style from the houses of the city. The walls were made of fine gray stone bricks instead of the crude blocks used inside the city, with a roof of black tiles shaped as fish scales. Also, the entrance porch with its thick columns that supported an ornately railed balcony and the ornaments encasing the frame of the windows were made in the same cream-colored marble.

When we got out of the carriage, there was nothing as fancy as a red carpet waiting for us, but it seems that the people in charge of the service had come to receive us, because there were seven maids, seven butlers and one more man, dressed differently, who I supposed was something like the head butler.

Thinking that the man in question was going to be the one I had to approach when I needed something, I took a minute study him, according to my habit of remembering faces in case I forget the names of people.

He wasn't as tall as the other Mountain Elves I had met, and it also looked like he was more slight of frame in comparison. Given that Elves aged at a different pace than humans, it was hard to know his real age, and in this case it was even harder because he could look like a man in his mid-forties but his dark brown hair showed no sign of white. His eyes were of a glacial blue color, and when he bowed to greet me neither his eyes nor his facial expression gave a hint of his real feelings or thoughts.

"Welcome home, Master, Mistress!" I was startled at the sudden greeting when fifteen people bowed and raised their voices in unison.

I tried to keep my composure and act according to the lessons I had received, so I raised my voice and said, trying to put a tone of command, "You may raise your heads."

As we walked between the lines of servants, the man in charge came from the main door to meet with us. With his right hand clad in a white glove over his chest, he bowed briefly before presenting himself. "My Lord, allow me to introduce myself as Alerick, Administrator of this land. My duties up to this day have consisted of managing the daily financial aspects of Yuan'Ralya's properties so she only has to bother herself with the most urgent emergencies." I guess he's just used the honorific "Yuan" due to Ralya being the Hierarch's daughter.

"Thanks for the welcome, Sol'Alerick, you can send everyone to their usual jobs for now. Furthermore, you can tell them that I trust my wife's judgment completely and that I don't plan on changing or removing anyone from their actual position. That includes you." I told him trying to be friendly without losing my dignified pose.

"You have heard the Master, go back to your duties." Said Alerick to the maids and butlers, clapping his hands twice.

I called Merita with a gesture of my hand to introduce her briefly to Alerick before sending her with the maids that went to the interior of the house so she could be instructed in their common protocols. She bowed her head and joined a group led by a woman with red hair tied in a tight bun. It wasn't long before the snickers could be heard.