CHAPTER 133: POOR RAE

"They are circling around the boulder."

Melissa continued, crouching deeper. Her hunter’s gaze was sharp, every twitch of the goblins’ muscles reflected in her irises.

"If we time it right, we can enter without bloodshed."

She tracked them with precision—how long each grunt took to scratch his ass, the rhythm of their heavy boots stomping into dirt, even the moments they paused to spit out some snot and grunt-laugh about it.

Every detail, catalogued. Her body moved like a coiled bowstring ready to snap.

Rae, however, was staring at the cloak like it was cursed with all seven venereal plagues.

"...That thing stinks, Madame. Like dead dog rolled in old beer. Are we sure this is not a trap? A fashion trap?"

Melissa ignored him obviously.

"Come on, let’s go!"

Melissa hissed, her voice sharp, urgent.

The goblins had shuffled off to the other side of the boulder, leaving a blessed little window where they could dash unseen.

Perfect timing. That was the logical reason to move now. At least, that’s what Melissa told herself.

The real reason? Her skin was crawling every time Rae’s breath brushed her ear. It wasn’t just crawling—it was burning.

Like someone had replaced her blood with hot wine and told her to deal with it. His every touch sent little shocks through her, alive and maddening.

This had never been a problem before. She’d hugged him in sleep plenty of times, wrapped around him like a pillow to stave off the cold nights. Nothing.

But now? Every brush of his arm, every brush of his chest against her back—it wasn’t just contact. It was invasion. Awareness.

A full-body alert screaming: He’s touching you. He’s touching you. He’s touching you.

What she didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that Rae had already popped his favorite little ability: Hands of Eros.

Which meant, of course, she was going to feel everything. Every brush, every graze, every accidental rub of his body on hers was amplified, made ten times more sinful than it had any right to be.

Melissa gritted her teeth, forcing herself back into hunter mode. She pulled the ragged cloak tighter around her shoulders.

"Remember, when I give you the signal, hide under the cloak. Got it?"

"Yes, ma’am!"

Rae saluted, deadly serious, well, his eyes were serious. The grin on his face was deranged. The salute looked less like obedience and more like he was pledging loyalty to a cult of boobs.

Melissa didn’t even have time to scold him. The goblins turned, their backs fully exposed, their guttural chatter echoing away.

"Now!"

She shot forward, cloak flaring behind her. Silent, fast, every step placed with deadly precision.

Rae, of course, followed like a lunatic with a hard-on for chaos. His breathless whisper carried behind her:

"Hehehe... cloak chase... Madame running so hot... Rae running hotter..."

Melissa almost tripped. Almost.

She was crouch-running like a shadow on adrenaline, Rae matching her step for step behind. The boulder was right there, salvation within arm’s reach—

—but then, shit.

Two goblins waddled back into view from the other side, drooling and snorting like ugly watchdogs.

Melissa froze instantly, hand flashing up in a sharp signal.

"Stop. Don’t breathe. Don’t move."

Rae slammed on his invisible brakes so hard his knees nearly cracked, then without hesitation yanked the cloak up from the hem, like a magician’s trick curtain and dived under it with her.

"Hmmm..." he let out, like he’d just slipped into the world’s filthiest spa.

Now they were mashed together in darkness.

Rae was squashed chest-first into her back, cocooned in the stink of the ragged cloak, but all he noticed was her heat, the way her body molded against him like she’d been carved for it.

His nose filled with her scent, sweat and skin and something he swore was sweeter than honey.

Melissa, however, was not enjoying the arrangement. Not with the furnace currently stabbing into her lower back.

Her face turned beet red, not from embarrassment but because the thing pressing into her spine felt like someone had shoved a heated metal rod there.

Long, thick, throbbing—no, there was no mistaking what it was.

’Gods above, is that... for real?’

She wanted to curse, to shove him away, but she couldn’t. Not with goblin voices echoing so close. Not with Rae breathing into her neck like a mad dog on heat.

And worse—her hunter’s mind betrayed her for a split second.

’How in all hells does something that size even fit inside a body that small? He’s barely bigger than a twig with arms. That’s not proportional.’

Rae, meanwhile, wasn’t even fully processing the situation the way she was. His eyes bulged in the dark as his mind screamed:

’Why the hell did she stop running?! We had the path! The cave was right there! Did Madame just decide to play freeze tag with goblins? Is this part of her hunter training? Or maybe...’

His lips curved into a grin that she couldn’t see.

’Or maybe Madame just likes pressing Rae’s fire dragon against her back. Hehehe...’

He was now in full goblin mode.

But Rae didn’t have to think much further, because goblin voices came crawling through the air, rough and ugly like frogs gargling gravel.

"Man, I feel like something’s about to happen."

One of the guards muttered like a constipated philosopher.

"Might be because of those stupid heroes running around. We should’ve just ended them sooner. What’s our new king even doing."

The other one hissed, shaking his head like an old drunk uncle at a funeral.

"Yeah, you’re right. We had the perfect opportunity to end it all that day our king defeated them. We could’ve ended this war, taken the human kingdom, made ourselves at home instead of hiding in this shitty forest."

The first guard raised his spear and banged it against the dirt like he was trying to scare ants.

"Maybe the king has a plan. Maybe he’s doing it for a reason."

"Man, I miss the old goblin king. When’s he even gonna wake up."

Their footsteps shuffled away, voices fading into the dark.

Meanwhile Rae’s jaw hung wide open the entire time, not because of their stupid goblin gossip, but because of the stupid ugly cloak.

As soon as the goblins marched to the front, the black all around them shifted.

The ugly cloak wasn’t ugly anymore, it was magic ugly. The darkness turned see-through like glass smeared with soot.

Rae could suddenly see the forest all around him, trees and stones clear as day.

Of course, his face was still smashed flat against Melissa’s back since she had crouched down, so his sightseeing was limited to the view of her spine and the heat radiating through her clothes.

Still, it was a wonder.

’So the cloak is an invisibility cloak. Nice. Very nice. Not that I doubted it in the first place. Ahem. I never doubted Melissa. Nope. Not once.’

The goblins muttered their way out of sight. Melissa’s hand went up like a signal flag, and she straightened her crouch, and stood up.

Since Rae was now inside the cloak, she could just dash forward together and stop together when the goblins comes around.

Of course, everything wasn’t smooth for Rae.

"Madame, Rae squeezed like juice here. Imma go deeper."

Melissa froze.

"Wait, don’t do that!"

Too late.

Since his face had been jammed against her mid-back, Rae simply lowered himself with the grace of a man squatting to steal fruit.

His nose lined up perfectly with her roundest weapon. And then he fulfilled his promise. He went deeper.

Just like that, his face disappeared into her bouncy backside, swallowed by leather and sinful curves.

His long nose dug into the seam of her pants, pressing against her crack like a stubborn explorer trying to discover a lost kingdom.

Melissa’s teeth almost shattered from clenching. Her whole body jolted.

Rae’s muffled voice vibrated against her deepest star.

’Heaven feels soft and squishy. I could suffocate here and die a happy man. Who needs air when you have Melissa’s leather-wrapped peaches.’

The cloak kept them invisible. The forest was silent.

But inside that cloak, it was pure sin.

"Go Madame!"

His muffled groans buzzed right out of her cheeks, vibrating like a trapped phone stuck on silent. Rae sounded like he was cheering from inside a cave, and unfortunately, the cave was her ass.

Melissa on the other hand was flushed so deep she looked like wine poured into human form.

Every step, every dash, every shift of muscle rubbed him against her in the most indecent way possible. She could feel everything. His nose dragging, his breath leaking, his lips pressing. Too much. Far too much.

’Just there. I just have to go there and that’s it. Boulder. Door. Safe space. Inside. Breathe. Done.’

She repeated it like a prayer. The boulder was salvation, the door was heaven’s gate.

She just had to make it there without falling apart in front of goblins and without shaking Rae off like a dog with fleas.

Her thighs trembled. Her chest heaved. The cloak clung to her, heavy with the scent of sweat and the heat of her shame.

’Why is my body betraying me. Is it because it’s been so long since I felt the warmth of a man pressing against me. Poor Rae, he doesn’t even know what he’s doing.’

Poor Rae, huh.