by Eric Vall
A Defender behind Urn nodded whole-heartedly, and even Urn struggled against a grin as he stubbornly furrowed his brow another measure.
“Well … he’s dead anyways,” Urn said gruffly as he adjusted his belt and gestured to Hulsan. “At least he didn’t take the whole damn city down with him.”
“We’ll rebuild it,” I assured him. “It could have been a lot worse.”
“That dome won’t be easy to recreate,” one of the Defenders muttered, and as everyone turned toward the library that had somehow survived the attack, my heart nearly stopped.
“Shit!” I yelped, and I broke into an all-out sprint across the city.
I didn’t slow down for a second until I’d skidded across the entire glassy floor of the library entrance and nearly face planted at the bottom of the cellar stairs, and then I barreled down the dimly lit halls and smashed into the door of Wyresus’ study.
Barnik glared up at me from his seat in the corner, and he had his arms firmly crossed while Wyresus clung to his waist like a frightened child.
Relief flooded my numb legs that neither of the men had been found during the attack, but Barnik’s green eyes flashed dangerously like he was on the verge of skinning Wyresus alive.
“Ale,” he demanded. “Now.”
I laughed through my gasping breaths, and Wyresus finally opened his eyes just a sliver.
“D-Defender Flynt!” he whimpered. “Th-There’s been an attack on the Oculus, and I could have been killed!”
“Aye,” Barnik growled. “If ye’ don’t let go of me in the next ten seconds, you’ll certainly be dead.”
“Ale,” I quickly agreed with a harried nod, “I’ll get you more ale. Or Rosh! Do you like Rosh?”
The gruff Aer Mage’s expression immediately cleared. “Ye’ve got Rosh?”
“So much Rosh.”
“You get me some Rosh, and I’ll sing him a lullaby before bed,” Barnik said with a grin.
“I’ll have it here within the hour,” I assured the man, and I left him looking much less scowly with Wyresus still clinging to his waist. “Gods, that guy’s one mug away from murdering the head of the Order.”
I rifled my sooty hair as I slipped over shattered multi-colored glass on my way out of the library, but the fact they were both unharmed and still guarding the Elven scrolls eased my mind by several degrees.
In the distance, I could see the Defenders already working to restore the damage Hulsan had caused, but I didn’t join them. I turned down a side street instead, and as I began working my way through the alleys next, I scanned everywhere for Pindor.
The stark look of the Baroness’ two-toned eyes when they’d vanished was burned into my mind, but I could hear a nervous heartbeat somewhere close by now, and it was zigzagging down alleyways just like me, which I took as a good sign.
Then I finally ran into Pindor between two half destroyed buildings, and the kid went bug eyed and nearly collapsed when he saw me.
“You’re alive!” he croaked as he stumbled over. “I thought you were dead when all that lightning took off, wh-what was that? Was it that crazy guy?”
“Nah, it’s just a weapon I’m working on,” I muttered. “Are you okay?”
“Y-Yeah,” he stammered with a frantic nod.
“Where’s the Baroness?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and he glanced nervously over his shoulder. “She ditched me in an alley after the lightning stopped.”
“Did she say anything?”
“No,” he replied, and I furrowed my brow.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I sighed, and Pindor managed half a smirk of agreement. “What were you doing in here, anyway? Defender Urn told everyone to go to Falmount. You could have been killed.”
“Well, not really, the Baroness snatched me up and made me invisible once that crazy guy went after you,” Pindor said with a shrug, “but you stayed, and then your women left without you, so I figured something pretty fucking bad was about to happen, and you might need help.”
I raised my brows. “Damn. You’re almost as stupid as me.”
“At least I show up,” he snorted. “If you’d have been here days ago--”
“I told you I was in Jagruel,” I sighed as I rifled my hair. “I’m gonna have a word with Jenik, though, if he’s my squire he’s gotta cut the shit. More importantly, how the hell did you know about this attack? And why didn’t you tell anyone else?”
“The Baroness told me,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do, I thought she caught on to what I was doing and might be messing with me, and everyone hates me already, so if I made a huge deal and nothing happened, I’d never hear the end of it.”
“The Baroness knew this would happen days ago?” I clarified, and an uneasy feeling began to creep across my chest
“Yeah, that’s why I sent you the note,” Pindor explained as he kneaded his broken arm. “I was talking to her, you know, doing what you told me to do, but she doesn’t answer anything! I couldn’t even get her to tell me her mom’s name. She’s impossible, and she’ll only talk about you, which is honestly getting so irritating and--”
The kid’s eyes went wide as he suddenly reached out to grab me, and when sheer panic overtook his expression, I caught his flailing arm to steady him.
“What’s--”
“I can’t see,” Pindor gasped as his blind eyes practically bulged from his head. “I … I can’t hear. She’s gonna kill me, isn’t she? She’s here, and she’s gonna fucking kill me. Shit! I knew she was gonna kill one of us!”
I locked my hold on the kid’s arm as I shifted to shield him behind my back, and as I turned toward the darkened end of the alley, I heard a familiar chuckle drift out from the shadows.
Chapter 21
The Baroness sauntered down the alley with her long black dress flowing loosely around her, and I tried not to notice the way her nipples urgently pressed against the sheer fabric. She had an amused little smirk on her ebony lips as she came to a stop in front of me, and her two-toned eyes held mine without blinking.
Then Pindor let out a nervous squeak behind me as he dug his nails into my arm, and I furrowed my brow.
“You don’t have to incapacitate the kid,” I informed her. “He knows you well enough.”
“He tends to ramble,” the Baroness said flatly. “He’s a bit of an imbecile. You could thank me for babysitting him for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“That’s right,” she said with a low chuckle. “You asked him to look after me. My mistake. I forgive you, by the way. He looks like you, so I didn’t mind him stumbling around with his crude attempts to flirt and spy.”
“He does not look like me,” I informed her a little too quickly. “He stole my haircut, that’s it.”
The Baroness’ eyes glinted as she flashed her stark white teeth, and I ground my jaw while I tried to remember what the hell I wanted to say to her. It was nearly impossible to focus with her all black eye boring into mine, and the ghostly white one was so distracting, it was difficult not to stare at it.
I cleared my throat. “How did you know about this attack?”
“I make it my business to know many things others don’t,” the Baroness replied as she came a step closer. “I have a talent for keeping secrets.”
“Clearly,” I snorted. “You could have prevented this attack, but you decided to tell no one. Why?”
Her smirk fell into a stern line. “I told Pindor.”
“He’s sixteen,” I scoffed. “It’s not his job to protect the entire Oculus. You, on the other hand, had every ability to ensure this didn’t happen. All of this trouble could have been avoided. Now, it’s a mess for me to handle, but that’s not a concern to you, is it?”
The Baroness’ gaze darkened as she grinned and shook her head.
I took a steadying breath since my irritation was only building, and then I managed a tense nod. “I’m guessing that dear friend of yours put you up to it, then?�
�
“My dear friend doesn’t bother worrying about which side I’m helping or hurting,” she said with a light shrug.
“Sounds like a dangerous line to walk.”
“It is, but I have my secrets to keep me safe,” the Baroness informed me, and I couldn’t help noticing her gaze drifted to my lips. “Besides, I happen to enjoy impending doom. It’s incredibly lucrative.”
“And how lucrative am I?” I asked, and her eyes shot back to mine.
I waited her out as she stood there with a stone-cold expression, but then Pindor began muttering to himself behind my back.
“She’s gonna fucking kill me,” he squeaked. “Any second. This is it. She’s gonna--”
I elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up a bit, and the kid’s grip on my arm became painfully tight as he went back to quietly hyperventilating instead.
Then the Baroness’ lips curled into a coy grin. “You have as many enemies as you do allies, Mason Flynt. Naturally, wherever you go, secrets tend to fetch a better price.”
“So, you’ve got some pretty high bidders waiting for you to deliver everything you can find out about me,” I guessed, and the woman arched an ebony brow.
“Do you think so little of me?”
“No,” I admitted, “but I’m not an idiot. You make it your job to collect everyone’s secrets, and it sure as hell sounds like you’ve been after all of mine lately.”
“But that doesn’t bother you very much, does it?” the Baroness purred, and she took another step forward so her perfect breasts brushed against my chest. Her scent was heady and intoxicating in a way that reminded me of the jungles, and she tilted her chin to bring her lips only inches from mine.
I tried to remind myself I was pissed at her, and that it didn’t matter her ebony skin looked as soft as velvet, or that her lips were plush and moist, or that her nipples were hard against me. She let the Master’s mages terrorize the entire Oculus and still strolled around with a careless grin, and the fact she was the type to fill her pockets with secrets at who knew what price meant no one was safe near her.
Especially me.
Still, the way she looked up at me now made her ghostly eye suddenly seem sweet and searching, and the coal black of the other made my blood burn as her thick lashes fluttered ever so slightly.
I swallowed hard. “How did those mages get in here?”
“I do not know,” she murmured softly. “Would you like me to find out for you?”
My heart pounded heavy in my chest as the exotic scent of her began to overwhelm my senses, but then her brows furrowed, and I got the sense she was studying me.
So, I backed away.
“Something’s different about you,” the Baroness said skeptically. “You’ve been runed, haven’t you?”
It was impossible she could have figured that out just by looking at me, and for a second, I figured she must have found out from following me around Nalnora. Her countenance was unguarded as she considered me, though, and I could tell she wasn’t expecting to notice this.
So, I kept my expression unreadable, and I didn’t respond because she was the last woman in the world I needed to know more about me.
Then the Baroness raised her slender fingers toward my face, and my hand instinctively went to my 1911.
“You will thank me,” she assured me in a low voice, and she gently pressed her fingertips to my temple as I tightened my grip on the pistol.
I could feel her spark her Tenebrae Magic, and at first, I thought the kid had been right, and we were finally about to die, but then everything went quiet.
Not the sound of Pindor panicking behind me, but the constant muttering in the back of my mind. Suddenly, my head was clear, and a sweet silence I didn’t even know I missed this bad was restored. My shoulders relaxed immediately as I realized I’d been bracing myself for weeks against the noise of the runes, and I couldn’t help taking a few deep breaths while the sheer bliss of having my mind clear washed over me.
Then the Baroness’ lip curled once more as she pulled her hand from my temple, and to my surprise, the silence remained even without her touching me.
“You will have this peace for a few hours,” she told me, and then she turned to stroll back toward the shadows as I stared at the silhouette of her ebony ass beneath her sheer black dress.
Half of me knew I should stop her and ask her the dozens of questions I still had, but the heady smell of her was still drifting around me while the silence she’d instilled in my mind left me rooted in a blissful state of relief. All I could do was watch her hips sway methodically behind her long black hair, and even Pindor’s whimpering couldn’t distract me from the sultry chuckle the woman let out as she glanced over her shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Mason Flynt,” the Baroness purred. “Your secrets are safe with me.”
Then the Baroness faded into the shadows as a chill prickled at the back of my neck, and Pindor gasped the moment his vision and hearing were restored again.
“Wh-What’d she do?” he stuttered as he whipped his head around to look for the Baroness. “Where’d she go? Did she blind you, too? I can’t believe we’re alive.”
I furrowed my brow, and as I considered the silence in my mind, I realized the shadowy woman could have just tricked me.
“Pindor, cut my arm open,” I said at once and pulled a dagger from my belt.
“What?” he scoffed.
“Never mind,” I muttered, and I sliced my skin open right across the crook of my arm. My runes didn’t begin chanting in retaliation, though, and my heart nearly stopped as I thought the Baroness had somehow blocked my healing powers.
But then I recognized a leaden sensation in my limbs, and in another fifteen seconds, my bloodied arm had healed itself.
“Thank the gods,” I sighed as I rifled my hair. “I thought she got me.”
“I’m not spying on that woman anymore,” Pindor informed me with a shudder. “I know I’m your squire, but I won’t do it. She’s too fucking scary. Really sexy, but too scary. Just not worth it.”
I nodded as I returned my dagger to my belt, and I gestured back to the streets. “You’re not spying on her any more. Come on, let’s get back to Falmount.”
Defender Urn looked furious when he saw Pindor walking beside me, but I assured him the kid would follow orders from now on to spare Pindor the wrath of the burly Terra Mage. The entire front quarter of the Oculus was already fully restored, and I could tell Urn had taken on the bulk of the work by the strained lines around his eyes. The rest of the Defenders were still battered from the fight as they worked to clear the streets and reroute the flooding, and I knew we’d need the help of our other mages if we were going to fully restore the Oculus to its original glory.
“We’ll start on the rest of the repairs tomorrow,” I chuckled as I clapped Urn on the shoulder. “I think all the Defenders have done enough for one day, and I hear there’s a celebration going on in Falmount.”
“I hear those ogres gave you a shipment of Rosh,” Urn grunted. “That true?”
“Rosh?” Kurna asked as he perked up, and I couldn’t believe this one word seemed to turn everyone’s mood around so easily.
“Yeah, the ruler of the ogres was grateful for our assistance,” I explained. “He said he’d keep up a steady supply of Rosh for both Flynt’s Pubs.”
Kurna immediately headed for the stone gates of the Oculus, and it took the other Defenders all of ten seconds to follow suit.
I shook my head as Pindor and I followed the troop out of the magical city and through the tunnel entrance, and by the time I made it to the courtyard, they were all surrounded by the members of the king’s court.
The barons and their wives had clearly been informed about the attack already, and they praised the Defenders for their bravery and resilience in protecting the members of the Order of the Elementa.
Urn stood stoically silent as three charming duchesses fanned themselves and fretted over the gash in his neck, an
d Kurna sent one of the baron’s daughters into a giggling frenzy with a single grin.
I didn’t even have time to respond to the many thanks coming my way, though, because four beautiful women were shoving right through the ritzy crowd to get at me, and their weaponry alone was enough to keep anyone from trying to block their way.
Then Cayla locked my vest in her grip to pull me into a heated kiss, but seconds later, Aurora shoved her aside, and I found myself being passed between the four women like I was the last bottle of Rosh in the kingdom.
I laughed as they all struggled to get at me with their hugs and kisses, and Deya finally just settled for leaping on my back since she didn’t weigh a damn thing anyway.
Then I stumbled forward to pin the other three against the side of the Mustang, and they all let out little moans as they hungrily delved their tongues into my mouth and clutched at my neck and shirt. Before any of them were done with me, another would roughly drag me over for her turn, and I just let them do as they pleased as I kneaded their supple hips and occasionally slid my palm to their asses for a squeeze.
Then someone abruptly cleared their throat, and I peeled Shoshanne’s lips from mine as I looked over my shoulder.
“Hey, Temin,” I chuckled awkwardly.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” the king said with a smirk, “I’d like a word with you, Defender Flynt, seeing as my Oculus appears to be in shambles.”
“Yeah, sure,” I laughed, and the king turned to head toward the castle steps.
My women locked their arms around mine, though, and I could tell none of them were about to stay behind this time. So, I just shrugged while Deya giggled from my back, and I followed the king through the crowd of nobility.
The guards had the doors of the castle already parted for us, and the king offered them a curt nod as he led us into the marble halls.
“I should be used to having you sav--”
Temin came to a startled stop as he looked back and noticed the women glued to me, and he chuckled when Cayla cocked her brow and tightened her hold on my arm.
“Ladies.” The king bowed politely and gestured ahead. “Why don’t you join us in the throne room?”