by Dante King
“We were there, too,” Christina agreed with a giggle. “We’d never let anything happen to Maddie’s cute little behind—”
“Enough of this,” Judyth growled, dismissing my harem with a wave of her hand. “I come bearing terms for peace, Luke Bell. Let’s end this senseless violence before the battlefield is littered with the corpses of our friends.”
I looked at Judyth sideways. Her words made sense—but I trusted the Headmistress of the Celestial Academy about as far as I could throw Aztomund and Bryan put together. Even without stepping close to her and flaring my nostrils, I could smell the trap.
Still, I had to give it a shot. “I’m willing to listen to reason,” I said, confirming my stance with a glance over at Lilith. “Speak.”
Oh. Judyth did not like her former rival standing by my side.
Not one little bit.
The angel’s face twisted with pure hatred as she swallowed down her pride to say sweetly: “Lay down your arms and surrender. The Seelie Fae will be allowed to live—all save for the leader of their little revolution, Siobhan. She must die, but the rest of you will be able to remain on your side of the Fae Realm.”
“That’s no peace at all,” I growled, fire surging in my chest. “That’s surrender!”
Judyth shrugged as if the difference were academic to her.
“You and your little troupe of sluts will be given safe passage back to the Infernal Realm,” Judyth continued blandly. “You’re welcome to do whatever you want there—with the understanding that you will remain at the Academy from now on, and not cause any trouble there.” An acid smile spread across Judyth’s face. “Of course, given the Headmistress of that institution has stooped to sleeping with a student, I doubt you’d be able to stay out of trouble in any case.”
Before I could say a word, Lilith snickered in that way only a being as old and powerful as her could snicker.
“You would have taken the same deal, slut,” the demoness laughed, putting a casual hand on my shoulder. “You’re just angry that he offered it to me and not you. Because, as always, I am just so much hotter than you are.”
“Enough of this!” Judyth stalked away, throwing her hands in the air. “It’s clear you’ve gone beyond the capacity to listen to reason. It’s to be war, then?”
I glanced back at my harem. What the fuck were we doing with an army if it wasn’t to be war?
“Uh, yeah,” I said with a shrug. “Let’s do this!”
Judyth sighed. Next to her, her lieutenants tensed up, including Miles Featherfinger. I should have seen the trap right then and there, but I was enjoying Lilith and Judyth’s little catfight too much to keep my eyes on my surroundings.
“Very well then,” Judyth said.
She clapped her hands—and the entire front line of Angels disappeared. A flash of light covered the battlefield, and when it faded, Judyth and her heavy hitters floated behind the main mass of angels and Fae, looks of grim determination on their faces.
Each of them slowly spread their hands. As they did, a line of lightning stretched between them.
“Fuck!” Lilith growled, shoving me to the ground. “Everyone get out of the way—”
Too late.
It was the battlefield equivalent of a sucker punch. Having lured myself and my harem to the front lines in order to parlay, Judyth had tricked us into sending all of our most valuable troops right to the front of the line—clustered in one spot. Their teleport trick allowed them to shell us from afar with holy lightning!
Sure, the front line would collapse. But as I hit the deck, I saw that they’d planned for this as well. If I’d been looking, I would’ve seen that the troops directly behind Judyth were bedraggled Unseelie Fae, the absolute dregs of Queen Titania’s army. Nobody who’d be missed.
Cannon fodder.
Lilith’s body covered mine, her wings beating to pin me to the earth and keep me from rising.
All around I heard screams as lightning blasts struck the front line, ripping huge gashes in the earth. My ears rung; dirt rained down like a fucking hailstorm as both our front line and the enemy’s collapsed. Chaos reigned.
I pushed Lilith to her feet as the salvo ended.
What had been a flat field now looked like something out of World War I. The sky itself had darkened from the lightning strikes, deep furrows gashed along both sides of the battlefield from the energy that had just been unleashed.
Bodies lay along both sides, roasted to a crisp.
In a panic, I scanned the corpses.
None of my girls, I thought, seeing no faces I recognized in the initial casualties. Please, none of my girls…
Then I remembered my power. With mental fingers, I reached out and gently pushed, searching for each member of my harem.
The awareness hit me like a ton of bricks. I gasped with pain, feeling all of my harem’s wounds at once as if they were my own. It took mental effort to separate them out, to be able to flip from one girl to the next like someone spectating in a team video game. In fact, that’s exactly what it felt like—when I concentrated on one girl, I could sense the space around them.
They’d scattered to the four winds when Judyth and her line attacked. None of them were seriously hurt, but each of them had sustained at least a little damage.
I’d tiptoed around this mental connection up until now. Now, on the battlefield, I decided to make the most of it.
“You’re all officially promoted to general,” I said directly into their minds. “Grab your forces and attack! Don’t hold back a goddamn thing! Open a path to Titania so I can walk through, and I’ll bring that bitch down!”
I could feel their surprise to hear me speaking inside of their minds. But within most of them came also a feeling of relief. It was far from the first time I’d used this ability, and it confirmed they were neither crazy nor under attack by outside forces—it had been me all along. Their King.
“Luke, did you just give me a telepathic command!?” Lilith asked.
“I gave all of you telepathic commands,” I grunted, charging into the broken front line of the angelic assault. “And if you don’t fight like a fucking hellcat, I’ll telepathically command you to walk naked around the Infernal Academy for a week! Stay with me, and watch each other’s backs…”
I didn’t really need to tell Lilith that, but it felt good to say. The two of us charged into the front line, meeting the advance of the angels and Fae with pitchfork and claw. All around us, the chaos of combat enveloped the battlefield.
My pitchfork moved like it had a mind of its own. Three Unseelie Fae who looked like they’d known their fate was sealed when they got their rank assignments did their best to come at me, but a single horizontal blow severed the heads from their bodies. An elf at my left took one look at the carnage and ran, disappearing into the main mass just in time for another one of those lightning bolts to strike the front line.
This time Lilith was ready. The demoness snapped her fingers, and a wall of flame erupted from her in a spiral. It whipped through the battlefield, singing the air and creating a shield that blocked our little patch of the battle from lightning strikes.
“That should withstand a hit or two,” the Headmistress growled, breaking the neck of an elf with a silver sword before tossing the dying man’s weapon through the chest of a second attacker. “I’ll recast it when we get closer, Master. But we really need to take Judyth and her angels out soon, or they’ll kill too many of our forces for the front to hold.”
“Agreed,” I said, already thinking of a plan. “Hey—that’s the first time you’ve called me Master.”
I hadn’t known a creature as old and shameless as Lilith could blush. “Well, you are,” she blurted. Two Fae with the bodies of rabbits and the heads of tigers rushed the Headmistress from either side, only to collapse into smoking heaps as she snapped her fingers. “No use in denying it!”
Another salvo of lightning bolts hit the battlefield. This time, Judyth was smart enough not to
bother aiming at me or Lilith—she directed her people to try and bring down the rest of my harem instead. The explosions sent men and Fae flying through the air, and caused more dirt to rain down on the battlefield. Through the bond connecting me to my harem, I knew no one had been wounded—but their collective anxiety was running high.
Unfortunately for Judyth, she’d also given me an advantage. In the pattern of lightning bolts, I could now figure out which of my harem girls was where. One of the bolts had struck far, far closer to the back of the combined Angel and Fae forces than the others—which meant someone in my harem was diving deep into the enemy. Close enough to bring Judyth down if they had a little help?
No time to think about it. Judyth and her cadre were already charging up their next set of bolts—if left to their own devices, they’d pick us off like Zeus sending his thunderbolts down from Mount Olympus.
And Titania hadn’t even taken the field. I got the distinct impression the Dark Queen of the Fae wouldn’t even bother making an appearance until we disposed of Judyth.
This is a risk, I thought, watching Lilith twirl like a dancer as she disposed of a half-dozen Fae soldiers. But hell, what’s life without a little risk.
“I need you to cover me,” I told Lilith.
The demoness covered the distance to me in a single bound, landing smoothly. “Of course, Master. Shall we take to the sky?”
I shook my head. I’d already begun concentrating, feeling my entire harem through the bond. “I’m staying right here. Just keep those fucking Fae off me!”
“What, Master!?” Lilith asked, completely confused. But I was already gone.
The world shimmered around me: and suddenly I was seeing through another person’s eyes.
“How can you doubt me now!?” a feminine voice roared with very unfeminine anger. “You traitors! You worms! None of you were ever worthy to share the same space as me! I’m a Queen of Hell!”
It was Raquelle, of course. The black-and-white winged angel had looted a halberd from the Pride Market’s inventory, a twisted obsidian thing that gave her the appearance of some kind of medieval monster. She’d wandered into a cluster of angels, outside of the normal battlefield.
I could feel her pulse, her thoughts. I could sense the arousal and triumph coursing through her. Little Raquelle was having the time of her life.
Don’t waste time, I reminded myself. Is she the one? Is she close to Judyth?
I rotated the view like a director picking a different camera angle. Raquelle was outnumbered six to one by a pack of angels—but it was they who looked frightened, not her. Four of them outright cowered behind their fellows, each waiting for someone else to try and land a killing blow.
With a haughty laugh, Raquelle cut through the gut of a blonde-headed angel. “Mean girl,” Raquelle snickered, twisting the halberd before tossing the dying soldier behind her like so much chaff. “Always mocking me behind my back—but you never could beat me at Solomon’s Choice, could you? Could you!?”
Now that I shared Raquelle’s senses, I longed to stay within her. I could smell the blood, taste the triumph. But distantly, like a poorly tuned radio, I could also hear the sounds of Lilith watching my back.
Change the channel, I told myself, relinquishing my hold on the red-headed angel. So I did.
As I shifted, I wondered if Raquelle was even aware of my presence within her mind. If she was—or if she could be made to feel it—that opened up some impressive possibilities in the bedroom. I tried to imagine her feeling me feeling her pleasure, a feedback loop that wouldn’t end until both of us were having multiple orgasms all over each other…
Later, I told myself, blinking. I knew this wasn’t it instantly—from the shifting position of the sun, I’d moved further away from Judyth, not closer. This was Eiko—but damn. What a fighter!
I wouldn’t have thought the Divination tutor possessed powerful combat skills, but she blew me away. Eiko flowed like water through the battlefield, her tails grabbing weapons and deflecting blows as if she had six hands rather than two.
The soldiers aren’t attacking her, I thought, on the verge of letting her go. Why?
Then I saw.
An angel landed in front of Eiko, sweat beading on his forehead. It was Gordon, and despite the chaos of the situation I felt a pang of guilt at the notion that the guy could actually die here on this battlefield. His flaming sword swung in a series of vertical cuts almost too fast to see, closing the distance between himself and Eiko.
It was a duel. The other soldiers had cleared a space for them. As I watched, Eiko effortlessly caught Gordon up in her tails and twisted his wrist, causing him to drop his sword.
Shit, I thought. This is it.
No killing blow came. Instead, the Divination tutor pivoted away, dancing out of Gordon’s reach. I was confused as hell—why not kill him and be done with it? Was there some sort of trap here I didn’t see?
It wasn’t until a few moments later when Gordon was on the offensive that I realized. The big jock angel pulled his swing at the last second, his golden sword passing Eiko’s cheek by a matter of inches. With a grunt, the two of them separated, then resumed fighting once more.
Neither of them have the heart to do it, I realized. They won’t land the killing blow out of mutual respect.
Under normal circumstances, I would’ve been furious—but these weren’t normal circumstances. And Gordon wasn’t a normal enemy. Secure in the knowledge that I’d hopefully be losing neither friend that day, I let go of Eiko’s consciousness and shifted yet again. There had to be someone close enough to Judyth—someone I could push in the right direction—
Christina and Mareth were no help. The two were a tag team on the front lines, raining down death and destruction with the help of Bryan and Aztomund. It was an absolute slaughterhouse—they’d waded into the thickest part of the Unseelie Fae forces, and the untrained troops who’d been used by Judyth as little more than a distraction came face to face with some of the most powerful demons in the universe. Noting the insane level of attraction and arousal between Christina and Mareth (oh, would that I could be there), I flipped again, groaning with frustration.
“I can’t hold them back much longer!” Lilith’s voice was like a whisper in my ear. “There’s too many, Luke—they’ve noticed you’re not moving! They know something’s wrong…”
But suddenly I wasn’t listening. Because I’d found who I was looking for.
It was Maddie. Of course it was. Myles Featherfinger had insulted her to her face, told her she wasn’t worthy of the halo she’d spent so much time and effort trying to achieve. Of course she fought her way through the ranks of the Unseelie Fae, heading like a bullet toward Judyth’s back line.
Of course she was completely alone.
As my awareness filled her mind, words rose to the surface of her thoughts. “Luke? Is that you?”
Oh shit—she could hear me!
“Hang tight for one second,” I thought to her, whirling my mental camera around to get her exact position on the battlefield. “You’re all alone out there, baby. There’s no reinforcements that far back to keep you safe—”
“I don’t need anyone to keep me safe,” Maddie thought proudly. “I have you, Luke.”
My camera turned—and I saw Judyth notice the renegade angel in her midst.
I cut the connection like a screen door slamming shut, resuming the present moment. An elf died inches away from my face, his sword frozen in mid-swing. Lilith’s nails protruded from the Fae’s throat, blood pouring down his armor as the elf collapsed. He’d been moments away from striking me.
Lilith panted as she turned to face her next attacker—then realized I was staring back at her.
“Are you back?” she asked, sounding exhausted. “What the hell was that, Luke?”
There was little time to explain. I pointed at a spot near the front of the battlefield, marking the location where I’d last seen Maddie. “Maddie’s going after Myles,” I said.
“Right there.”
I saw Lilith take in the spot I indicated, then do the math on how far she was from Judyth’s back line. “Fuck,” the demoness grunted. “She’s dead, then. Judyth will tear her apart—”
“Not if we tear her apart first!” I cried.
Flames coursed up and down the length of my pitchfork as I reached for the fire within, freeing the Beast.
“Come on, Lilith,” I said. “Show me how you unleash Hell!”
The Headmistress of the Infernal Academy grinned at me, as if to say I’m gonna fuck the shit out of you later.
Then, together, we took to the air.
I knew I was more powerful thanks to what had happened to me in the Fae Realm. But I didn’t realize how much more powerful I’d become until I hit the front rank of angels.
A wall of them stretched across the battlefield, adding golden arrows to the bolts of lightning Judyth used to try and break the combined Infernal/Seelie front line.
I pointed at it with my pitchfork and screamed, channeling with all my might. A bolt of molten lava erupted from the pitchfork’s tines, slamming into the wall of angels and ripping it apart.
Heavenly beings screamed as they melted before me, their wings catching fire an instant before their bodies. Angels plummeted to the ground like meteors, setting everything around them aflame as they hit the ground.
Lilith was no less fierce. She jumped from angel to angel, ripping out throats and snapping necks as she carved a path to Maddie. Every time I blew open a hole, the Headmistress soared right through to mop up the survivors.
Between the two of us, we covered the battlefield in death.
One Seraphim braver than the rest tried to engage me in hand-to-hand combat, swinging a curved sword at my head as he dove past. I dropped like a stone, thrust my pitchfork upward through his chest, then channeled fire, shooting him across the battlefield like a cannonball. He collided with a floating Fae and exploded.