by Aaron Crash
Steven grinned. Her skin was velvet soft against his body. Again, he inhaled her scent. It was getting hard to think. And he’d already been excited when she first came in.
“I want to change things,” he said. “How old are you anyway?” He remembered Mouse’s jailbait joke.
“I’m twenty. The same as you.” Then she got mad. “I know you want me. I can feel it. I can smell it. Why do you think I came in? Your scent changed. You want sex. Don’t you dare deny it. I’m awake, and I want to do it.” She was almost growling, sounding very similar to a bear.
“But, Zoey…”
The big girl grabbed him and threw him down on his back. She was remarkably strong. She swept off the covers. Muscles flexing, she cast off her shirt. Naked, she straddled him.
She snarled, “I’m wet. I want this. And I feel you getting hard. You want this.”
And then he was inside her. There went all thoughts of morality. She was tight around him, warm, wet, and wonderful. His breath came out in gasps.
She rode him, working her hips. The moon showed him the ridges of her abdominal muscles. He touched them and traced his fingers up her skin to her nipples, thick and large on her little breasts.
And then it was his turn to growl. He pulled her down, kissing her, tasting her for the first time, even as he slipped in and out of her core. He gripped her hips and pounded into her, but he wanted to be more in control.
He rolled her over onto her back. She might be strong, but he was stronger.
“Yes,” she yelped, spreading her legs wide. “Like that, Steven, yes. Take me. Love me. Own me.”
Tessa would have definite ideas about both her word choice and Steven’s actions, but it was too late to turn back. He’d tried to delay their lovemaking, but Zoey had made the choice for them. Steven could’ve said no and stopped it. But he hadn’t. Fuck it all, this felt right.
The second he’d seen her blue-green eyes he’d loved her.
Both were overcome by the passion. Before he knew it, he was orgasming, licking at her neck, feeling the miles of skin and muscle under him. She was bigger than him, and there seemed to be a whole continent of lovely, sweating Zoey that he could spend a lifetime exploring.
She held him to her, silently clinging to him. “I wanted this, Steven. I’ve been lost and alone and aimless for years now. But now I have my purpose. I have you.”
It was a lot to take in.
They shifted around until Steven was lying on his back while she rested her head on his chest. Soon both were fast asleep.
Steven dreamed. He was back in the Grand Lake chamber, in the pool, surrounded by the three dragon men. He looked down, thinking he’d see water, but instead, a black ichor filled the basin. He felt the claws scratch at him, but he had armor protecting his legs.
Shadows of talon and teeth. The Zothoric. But then three figures rose from the pool. Black fluid flowed down their scales. Three Homo Draconi, faces full of fangs, claws ready to rend him. But the three were connected by their tails. Their bodies had merged. Dragonsouls. These three were dragons.
Steven heard his father’s voice echo through the cavern, repeating the same three words. The sound, bouncing off the walls in the chamber, grew louder and louder until Steven felt cleansed in the cacophony.
“Gather an Escort! Gather an Escort! Gather an Escort!”
Those three deafening words jerked him out of his sleep. The sun was blinding. A new day. Zoey slept on, her wild hair covering her face.
And for the first time in a while, Steven had complete clarity. He knew exactly what needed to be done, and he knew that another road trip was calling him.
Corn Nuts and Donettes were in his future.
ELEVEN
Events fell in line quickly. Tessa and Pretty took Zoey into town to buy her a new wardrobe and anything else she needed. The three were gone for most of the day.
Bud was doing a different kind of shopping. He finally decided on a private jet, the Gulfstream G500. Skylar approved. They had a video conference with their consigliere and some Gulfstream executives.
With the jet issue settled, Steven asked to see Skylar, Mouse, and Liam out in the north garden. They all wore coats to protect them from the chill wind. It was cold, but Steven liked being out in the winter, surrounded by the hearty Wyoming plants. Those grasses and sage could survive long dry winters and fifty-degree temperature changes. He planned on being just as tough.
Mouse grumbled. “Why am I even out here for this super-secret meeting? I’m the kick-ass swordswoman. If you need me to fight, I’ll fight, but I hate these Dragonsoul politics.”
She didn’t bring it up, but Mouse had given him a strange look when she realized that Zoey had shared his bed the night before. That troubled him. The inevitable conversation with Tessa worried him more. However, Zoey was finally engaging with the other women in his Escort. Pretty McGillicuddy was currently trying to tame Zoey’s wild mane along with Tessa. Those three together were the cutest thing ever.
“You’ll see in a minute, Mouse,” Steven said. “So, last night, I realized we need to split. Liam, I want you and the Five Widows to take our new jet to Australia. You’ll be my official representatives in the Queensland Primacy. At this stage, I need a presence there. An attack is coming. I’m surprised none of the other Primes haven’t moved on us already.”
Skylar spoke first. “It’s because they’re scared. You killed Jaxon Wenck, an old, unpleasant worm to be sure, but a powerful one. They were watching to see what you’d do next. And since no one can scry you, they might’ve thought you were already in Australia.”
Liam was strangely quiet.
“I’m not going to fucking Australia,” Mouse snapped. “There’s no fucking way. I will not be sent away.” She seemed close to tears.
“No, Mouse,” Steven said. “You’re going to stay with me. We’re going to Texas, to investigate what the red rings might mean.” He and Tessa had shown them the map using the topaz pen.
“Also,” he added, “we’re going to find and kill whoever is sending those assassins. Might be Carlo Bart Baxter. Might not be. We’re going to find out.”
She gave him a furtive glance and nodded. “Texas? Good. Good, it’s just, I don’t know, they have all those snakes and spiders in Australia. And Foster’s Lager. I used to drink a lot of that piss from the land down under.”
Steven knew the real reason why she’d gotten upset. Mouse was afraid she’d be dropped. Of course, that would never happen, no matter how massive his Escort became.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re staying with me.”
Mouse scrunched up her face. “Then why in the fuck am I out here in the cold?”
Liam sighed, and his nostrils steamed. The wind blew the mist of his breath away a second later. “You might reconsider going after he tells you why, Mouse. At least, I think I know why Steven wanted you here.”
Steven inhaled sharply, catching the scent of the sage. This was going to get dicey. “Yes. Mouse, with Liam gone, you’ll need to take over Sabina’s Dragonskin rituals.”
Mouse paled. Her nose was already red from the cold, and her eyes lost their twinkle for a minute. Worse yet, she was speechless.
The breeze mussed Liam’s hair. “He’s right. She can’t do it alone. And depending on how long I’m gone, you’ll need to start the burning.”
Mouse closed her eyes. “Do you have Elftears?”
“I do,” the Yellow Ronin replied. “I’ll give them to you.”
“Then I guess I’ll be torturing a blind woman. That’s just great.” Mouse turned and walked back inside.
Skylar shook her head. “I’ve helped with the Dragonskin rituals before. Mouse is right to be upset. It is awful hurting someone like that. Why is Sabina doing this?”
Liam walked out to a low retaining wall. He turned. “This won’t be the first time Sabina’s been tortured. First, she had her eyes burned out of her head. Rhaegen Mulk thought she was blind and useless, so he gave
her to his Magician to cut her, to feed on her Animus. She was left for dead. I think those experiences have put a deep fear in her. She felt so powerless. And now she thinks with more power she’ll be safe.”
Steven was struck by the Yellow Ronin’s wisdom.
If only they could talk Sabina out of it, but he knew she wouldn’t relent. Her mind was set, and she was a strong woman, one of the strongest in his Escort. But then, so was Mouse. She might complain endlessly, but the petite blonde would do her duty, no matter how awful.
Liam wasn’t finished speaking. “Steven, sending me and the Five Widows to Australia might be a mistake, not only when it comes to Sabina, but because I might not be the right person. I serve you, yes, and I am proud to be your vassal, but I don’t have your power. And I so wanted to leave the world of Dragonsoul politics behind me.”
The Yellow Ronin wasn’t saying no, but he wasn’t enthusiastic about going. Steven wasn’t sure what to say. He could order Liam to go, and the Ronin would obey because he was loyal, but that didn’t feel right.
“I need you to go,” Steven said after a bit.
Skylar jumped in. “I can do most of the work, Liam. We need you there because you are a male Dragonsoul, big and strong. Also, you’re the Yellow Ronin. People have heard of you. We can use that fame. You won’t have to say two words. And if we find ourselves in a fight, we can make sure you get the first kill to give you the Animus.”
Steven was finding that he loved Skylar Blacke. She was a natural leader and knew just the right thing to say. Nothing like a confident, mature woman to ease a situation.
Liam smiled. “But I will miss my home, my art, my piano. I was never much for travel, not even in my younger days.”
Skylar smirked, but only for a second. She quickly turned it into a smile. “I’m certain there’s at least one piano in Australia you can play. And me and the other widows will try not to tempt you too much.”
“If only you could,” Liam said sadly. And then he gazed out at the horizon where the sea of cold brown met the faded blue sky.
He was thinking of his lost Escort. Someday, Steven hoped to hear the full story; fifty years later, the Yellow Ronin still grieved.
This was the first of two difficult conversations. The second would be with Tessa about Zoey. Steven wasn’t looking forward to it. However, he was curious to hear Tessa’s thoughts on the werebear. Zoey was a mystery. In some ways, she was an open book. In others? A complete enigma.
“What’s a sounder?” Steven asked abruptly.
“A sounder of swine,” Liam replied. “It’s like a pack of wolves or a murder of crows. It’s a collection of pigs.”
Zoey’s words came back to him. The Sounder. The me is the we. He shivered.
۞۞۞
The next morning Steven woke up alone. Zoey had said she planned on waking up early to go for a run. He wasn’t sure if she went jogging as a human or something else.
The day had come in gray. A fierce wind shook the entire house like it was trying to scrape it off the ground. Steven met Tessa in the kitchen, since she was up and making the first rounds of coffee in their three-thousand-dollar espresso maker with the automatic grinder. The thing was even tied into the water lines of the house, filtered, though the water they were pulling from the well was the best Steven had ever tasted.
They’d spent the prior day packing and coordinating. Liam and the Five Widows would drive down to the Denver International Airport to pick up the new jet, which Skylar would fly to Brisbane. Eventually, they would keep it in a hangar at the Jerry Olson Field, Cheyenne’s regional airport.
As for Steven, Aria, Tessa, Mouse, Sabina, and Zoey, they would drive to Texas. Not only was it to accommodate the humans, but it was safer if they were together. Also, dragon-flight sucked. Road trips had bonded them together, and those long hours in the car would help welcome Zoey into the Escort. Along the way, they planned on finding a tattoo artist to give her the hurricane circle so no one could scry the werebear
They’d lock up the Infinity Ranch tight. It had been built to be a fortress after all. Steven and Tessa agreed, in a quick meeting, that they would take the three volumes of the Drokharis Grimoire as well as a few scrolls and their few magic items. That meant Samael’s Lash, the topaz pen, and the topaz dagger, which they had started calling the Angel Knife after Nikki Angel, one of Cassius Pine’s wives who’d tried to stand against Rahaab. She’d been slain for her rebellion, but then Rahaab had resurrected her using the dagger. Tessa had started calling it the Angel Knife, and the name stuck.
Steven walked purposefully into the kitchen.
Tessa knew where Zoey had slept the last two nights, and she of course knew what the two had been doing. While Steven had thought he’d go slow with the big girl, Zoey had had other ideas and the muscle to carry them out. Every time he tried to talk to her, he’d wind up on his back until the lust hit him. And Zoey loved it.
But what did the barista think about the situation?
Since only the two were up and moving in the cold dawn, Steven asked her. “Tessa, I wanted to talk with you about Zoey.”
He stood leaning against the marble island. Through the windows, the grasses shivered in the windstorm. The house creaked and cracked with every blast of the relentless gales.
The barista swirled the metal cup of milk around the steamer in a whoosh. She then snapped out the portafilter and banged out the grounds. She did it all with such practiced ease. It brought back a million memories of watching her work at the Coffee Clutch while he’d crushed on her, hard. She’d seemed forever beyond his reach. And here he was, not just with her, but with Aria Khat as well. He had to shake his head at himself. Back when they first started their adventures, he’d thought a threesome was just some fantasy. Now? He’d had foursomes and moresomes.
She tamped down another batch of grounds and jacked it into the machine. He realized she was as smooth with the espresso maker as she was on the battlefield with her Peacekeepers. She really had gone from a barista to a gunslinger.
“What about Zoey?” Tessa asked. “Other than the fact that she’s as sweet as Pretty McGillicuddy and as smoking hot as Abby Free. And about as wild.” Tessa smiled at him. “We can hear you out in the widow houses. Lucky Mouse sleeps so deep and Aria is happy you’re getting your Animus needs taken care of. We’re all fine with it.”
Steven was taken aback. The barista swiveled and gave him a cup of perfectly black espresso, three shots.
Tessa liked her coffee full of milk and a variety of flavored syrups. Occasionally, she’d swear off dairy and use soy, almond, or coconut milk and cut out the sugar. But she’d slowly creep back into her old habits. After nine months together, he knew Tessa Ross so well.
Steven didn’t sip his coffee. He was too shocked. “But… I mean… she was so hurt and traumatized. And then she jumps into bed with me. And she told me she wants me to own her. I’m thinking this isn’t very healthy.”
Tessa leaned against the counter, holding her coffee to her chest. She was wearing an old Pat Benatar T-shirt, no bra, and faded green Colorado State University sweatpants. Go Rams! She rolled her eyes. “Please, Steven. This whole healthy thing. When it comes to sex, healthy looks like a lot of different things. America was partly founded by Puritans, right? I mean, other people too, but they were a big part of it, and we were raised with that so it’s hard to see, sometimes. Of course, the Puritans would say that you should wait six months to a year before even holding hands, let alone fucking.”
Steven raised his eyebrows. “This was not the reaction I thought you’d have. What if I’m hurting her? What if I’m stopping her from healing from whatever situation we rescued her from?”
“Maybe the sex will heal her. What if she’s working out her own issues and you just happen to be the hard cock she needs right now?” Tessa asked.
“So I’m being used?” Steven laughed a little.
Tessa set her coffee down and went to him. She held him tight. He caught t
he faint smell of Pretty’s perfume on her mixed with coffee and her own sleepy smell.
“You’ll survive it,” Tessa said. “And Steven, we aren’t just talking about different cultures here. We’re talking about a different species. From what I gather, she was born into a Morphling family. Her mother was a shifter, trained to serve a Prime. Don’t know which one. And her father was as well. She was raised from birth and taught how to use her Animus to change shape. She was literally a cub, a puppy, and even a shoat.”
A shoat was a baby pig. A sounder of swine. The Sounder. The me is the we.
“The point is,” Tess continued, “you and I are strangers to this society. We were raised as humans with human ideas of monogamy. What’s healthy for a Morphling? We have no way of knowing. And you aren’t planning on leaving Zoey, are you?”
“Not at all,” Steven said. “My father’s ghost, or his spirit, or whatever, made it very clear from my dream that this is exactly what I should be doing, gathering an Escort. I have my Hoard, and yeah, I have Aeries coming out my ass. But what about Zoey’s thing about me ‘owning’ her?”
Tessa smiled. “Could be just sexy talk. I hear Michaela Montes likes to get vocal. Or it could be that Zoey has been looking for someone strong to hold her, protect her, and give her life a purpose. She sees that as ownership. Again, she’s not exactly human.”
Steven let out a shaky breath. “I hate that I have this power to draw women to me. Maybe she can’t help herself because I’m a Dragonsoul. I want women to be with me because they want to be, not because they have to be.”
“It does muddy the waters,” Tessa agreed. “And if you were an asshole, you could really take advantage of it. But you don’t. You aren’t immediately marrying us. If you were a narcissistic prick, you’d demand that we become your wives with that fucking ring thing. Now that shit is evil, and wickedly powerful. I’ve read up on the marriage ceremonies. Once you put on that ring, everything changes.” She then grinned. “And come on, you don’t hate your seductive powers all that much.”