Summoned to Another World to Impregnate Elves - Chapter 1

 The Summoning

The light came first — a tearing, white-gold light that split the dark of Jayson's apartment like a wound. He had one second to register the smell of ozone and rain on stone, and then the floor was gone and there was nothing beneath his feet but falling.

He hit moss. Soft, springy moss, and the breath went out of him in a grunt. He lay there a moment, staring up at a canopy of silver leaves so high above that the sky was only a rumor of blue between them. The air was thick and green and smelled of flowers he had no name for.

"By the old gods," a voice said, hushed and reverent. "It worked."

Jayson pushed himself up onto his elbows. He was in the center of a circle of standing stones, each one carved with symbols that seemed to shift when he looked directly at them. Ringing the stones were women. Dozens of them, all tall, all pale, all staring at him with a hunger and a wonder that made his skin prickle.

The one in the center stepped forward. She was the tallest of them, silver-haired, with eyes the pale green of early spring. A crown of woven silver rested on her brow. She wore robes of deep emerald that did nothing to hide the long, elegant line of her — the full breasts, the narrow waist, the hips that flared like a vessel meant for carrying.

"Human," she said. Her voice was low and musical, and it carried the weight of absolute command. "You are in the kingdom of Aeloria. I am Selene, its Queen. You have been brought here for a purpose."

Jayson got to his feet slowly. His head was still ringing. "Brought here," he repeated. "Like a package."

"Like a salvation," the Queen said. "If you will accept the task."

He looked around at the circle of women. They were all beautiful — every single one of them, in a way that seemed almost unfair. Tall and slender and full-figured, with sharp cheekbones and lips that looked soft. They watched him the way a starving woman watches bread.

"What task?" he asked.

The Queen's composure cracked, just for an instant. Something raw moved behind those green eyes. "Our men are dead," she said. "All of them. A plague took them years ago, and spared only the women. We have not had a single birth in a decade. Our people are walking to their end, and we have one chance to turn aside from it."

She took a step closer. The smell of her — jasmine and cold water — reached him.

"You are that chance. You are a fertile male. You have been summoned to lie with us — with me, with my daughters, with our nobles and our knights and our commoners — and to give us children. To repopulate our kingdom." She paused. "I will not force you. But I will ask you, as a man, to consider what we offer in return."

Jayson stared at her. Then he let out a breath that was almost a laugh.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "You want me to have sex with a whole kingdom of tall, beautiful, desperate women. To get them pregnant. To save your entire race."

The Queen's chin lifted. "Yes."

"And I'm the only man here."

"Yes."

Jayson looked around the circle once more. Every pair of eyes was on him. He could feel the weight of their hope like a physical thing, pressing down on his shoulders.

"Well," he said finally. "I'm not going to pretend to think about it."

The Queen's eyes widened. "You accept?"

"Ma'am, I'm a man. You're asking me to sleep with an entire nation of gorgeous women and call it a sacred duty." He shrugged. "A man who'd refuse that is either a liar or an idiot. And I'm neither."

A murmur ran through the circle of women. Some of them laughed — bright, relieved sounds. Others looked at him with a new, speculative interest. The Queen herself let something soften in her face.

"Then welcome to Aeloria," she said. "And may the old gods bless what we are about to do."

She turned and gestured, and the circle parted. Beyond the stones, the city rose in the boughs of a colossal tree — lights in the green dusk, bridges of living wood, the sound of water falling somewhere close.

"Come," the Queen said. "There is much to arrange. And you will need your strength."

Jayson followed her out of the circle. Behind him, the women of Aeloria began to talk in low, excited voices — and he caught, in the middle of it, a phrase he did not yet understand.

But he would learn. He had a feeling he would learn very quickly indeed.

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