by D. R. Rosier
She smiled as she finished that comment for Emily, “Never really loved me. Not really. They worshipped me in their insanity, and then because I healed them. Then because I kept them safe. But… you, they only ever saw you as a woman to love.”
Emily didn’t agree or disagree, but she knew she was right, she saw it in Emily’s eyes. Not only did they make good girlfriends for Emily, a healthier and more natural relationship than she’d ever shared with them, but they’d be better off moving on from her now that they were truly recovering.
She didn’t want to be alone, but she was strong, and she’d serve her goddess. That was true, and there was a comfort in that, but it didn’t stop the tears gathering in her eyes from running down her cheeks. She truly did love Emily, but not enough to turn her back on what was best for her service to the goddess, just like Emily would do the same for her goddess in leaving her. It was what it was, even if it made her heart feel empty and coldly brittle in that moment.
She was still young, just eighteen, and recovering. She had her whole life ahead of her, a wonderful life of service to her dark goddess. She even knew she’d move on and maybe find that good hard fucking in the future. Or as Emily called it, a good man to cherish and love her, but in that moment, she couldn’t really see that far ahead. It was nebulous, and far away, and her heart ached with the coming loss.
“I’m sorry, Emily. You were right, I can’t follow where you’re going.”
Emily’s eyes were misty too, and they kissed softly, almost desperately in that moment to share the love they had… that ultimately wasn’t enough. Life was a balance, and the other half of their lives were pulling them in different directions. It was that simple, and that heartbreaking.
She tasted their bitter tears, as they mixed on each other’s lips, and she saw so much love in Emily’s eyes when the kiss broke. No anger or recriminations, just a sadness that their time was coming to an end.
But it wasn’t ended yet, they had tomorrow, and quite likely tomorrow night, before Emily left. And possibly longer if things didn’t go to plan, but to wish for the war to last longer for her own selfish desires was something she couldn’t do.
She shivered, in a good way, as Emily’s warm hand teased the underside of her breast, and Emily’s thumb grazed her nipple lightly.
Emily started to kiss her way back down Lori’s body, and she threw herself into it as they made love one more time that night, pulling her lover around so they could sixty-nine. She loved her Emily sweetly, and long, as they brought each other to bliss time and time again. Neither of them wanted to ever stop, just in case it was the last time in each other’s arms. But all good things came to an end, and it was a bitter-sweet moment as they snuggled together and sought sleep, more sated than she’d ever felt in her life, and the worst part?
She’d never felt more love for her Emily before that moment, and it still wasn’t enough. Her heart was breaking as she finally found sleep.
Chapter Twelve
The sky was just a light pink to the east when they finished up breakfast the next morning. Both Cassie and Kim gave him a lingering kiss as they headed for the garage. He wouldn’t see them again until they were loading up the truck, but of course he could still talk to them with his mind, or they could call out to him if there was trouble. Of course, not for normal chatting, his Cassie would be a bit focused on her work and distracting her with mind speech would be a bad idea.
He, Mara, Lin, Lori, Emily and Sy’lia headed outside. They didn’t have to wait long before Katie and Bria showed up in a flash of magic.
Katie looked fantastic in a pair of skintight blue jeans and casual red blouse with flower designs on it. She was five foot five with very light and straight silky brown hair and warm hazel eyes. She was quite beautiful with soft high cheekbones and a girl next-door fresh-faced beauty. Her body was athletic and a perfect hourglass with generous breasts and a lovely thin and curvy waist.
Bria was a five foot four curvaceous bombshell with a body built for sin, and her face had an ageless beauty to it, not to mention the long shimmering silver hair and yellow eyes which gave her a slightly exotic bent. She was a dragon of course, and much larger in her other form.
He smiled, “Thanks for coming.”
Katie smiled, “We owed you one. I can’t afford to get dragged into wars, but a little fetch and carry shouldn’t be too harmful,” she nodded at Lori, “Good to see you all doing well.”
He stepped forward and handed her a small loop with the medallions, it looked like a big key chain. He also handed one medallion to her.
He said, “That one will get the stuff to Devil’s Lake, the rest of them are the villages that agreed to build steel basketballs. I put the ones that reported having two at the front of the line. That way if we can’t get them all we’ll have as much as possible. I’m hoping we’ll have a lot left over actually.”
Bria waved at Lin, and Lin hefted the large bag off the ground and put it over her shoulder.
Lin said, “Payment. Small gold bars.”
He nodded, “I’ll get them back of course, once I send zombies into the city on a steel reclamation mission. We just needed it fast.”
Katie said, “Let’s get started.”
She activated the first amulet which took them to Aurora right outside the town center. It was almost eerily quiet right before dawn, most sane people no doubt still asleep in their beds. They walked over to the blacksmith’s shop which had two of his local protection zombies standing guard. The blacksmith wasn’t even there yet, but the two steel balls were behind the zombies.
Lin walked over and picked two small gold bars out of her sack and set them on the ground. Then the lithe and helpless looking woman scooped up the two balls which must’ve weighed hundreds of pounds each like they really were basketballs before stepping back inside the group.
The two guards would stay there and guard the gold until the blacksmith claimed it, and Katie activated the medallion for Devil’s Lake. They moved in a flash of magic, and Lin moved away about fifteen feet to set the balls down. They didn’t want the pile of steel balls to be too far away, but of course they couldn’t have them right where they’d be teleporting in.
It’d taken just about five minutes all told, which meant after an hour they’d hit twenty villages the first fifteen of which had two steel balls for them, for a total of thirty-five. It also meant Katie had activated forty medallions for forty teleports.
Katie shook her head, and then said, “I’m already at the halfway mark, we won’t even get half the villages. I think we need to change tactics. These medallions can pull in enough power to teleport at least ten of those balls, which means we should be doing them in groups. If we do it that way, we’ll get close to sixty of the villages before I have to call it quits. We just need a small wagon… or wheelbarrow maybe.”
That actually made sense, if they teleport to ten towns before dropping off then it would just be eleven teleports instead of twenty. He should’ve thought about it earlier. He checked with his zombies and one of them ran off to borrow a wheelbarrow from a farm. It’d be easily returned since they were in Devil’s lake at the moment. Even getting twice as many villages for their trouble, that was only sixty out of a hundred, but that was still seventy-five molten meteors. If they needed more than that to do the job, they’d be in trouble. They could always collect the last forty against a future similar threat.
“Good idea, we should have a wheelbarrow in a few moments.”
Katie nodded, “It might also help if there were less people with us, less overall mass means another ball or two before I have to come back here to drop them off.”
Kim gave him a look that told him to forget any ideas about staying behind where she couldn’t watch him. He also wasn’t sanguine about leaving Mara, Lori, Sy’lia, and Emily alone here at their chosen staging point.
Mara seemed to read his reluctance, “We’ll be fine. The ten local zombies will be here, and we’re hardly helpless.�
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That was true enough, and according to his birds the enemy was still sitting tight on the beach in a small defensive formation. There’d been no activity yet, but it still felt like a race to him. They weren’t ready yet either. Still, point was that they could be back here in moments if things went south. It wasn’t lost on him that Lin failed to see that logic when it came to his safety though.
“Alright, just Lin and I, you two, and the wheelbarrow.”
Katie grinned, “Good. We might even be able to take eleven or twelve, I’ll be able to tell when we hit the limit of how much magic it can suck in.”
“So, how’ve you been?”
Katie shrugged, “Good. Studying. There’s been no balance issues for a while. John hasn’t done anything stupid either, last I checked he was staying in Oklahoma, joined a community. Bria beats me up whenever I get too upset.”
Bria grinned, “It’s called training, Katie. Training.”
Katie giggled, “My mistake.”
The zombie got back with the wheelbarrow, and they got moving on things again. It turned out they could only teleport up to seven balls in the wheelbarrow. The medallions would take in as much magic as required to teleport something, but it had an upper limit, and they’d reached it. That was eight teleports per run, so only five more runs for thirty-five more balls, which gave them seventy.
It also meant they’d only hit fifty-five communities in total. They’d have to get the other forty-five over the next week or so. If only so the blacksmiths wouldn’t get pissed about the work, and possibly ignore him the next time their leader called on them. Still, fifty-five was a lot better than forty, and seventy balls was a lot better than just fifty-five. He’d also returned the wheelbarrow. They had their own to use when they got the rest of it in a week or so.
Katie and Bria both gave him a hug that he probably enjoyed a little too much, before heading home to rest. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any balance issues for her to deal with in the next forty-eight hours, or other dangers.
It was still early, maybe close to nine in the morning, and they were just waiting on Cassie to finish up her part of the job. Kim had been giving him updates. The four magical engine batteries were finished, but Cassie was still working on the weapon.
He walked over to a bench in front of the government building while the five ladies gossiped during the wait. He had most of his attention on his birds anyway, and sometimes there was a little too much estrogen around and he needed a moment.
He never imagined he’d be here, defending the west coast from an invasion from China, when the world was breaking down and he was stuck and starving in his old apartment. He’d come a long way from that time.
Lori walked over to join him, and he smiled up at her warm brown eyes as she took a seat next to him. She looked fantastic in tight black leather pants, and a halter top. He had no doubt it was Lin original so to speak, it looked tailored to her body.
“Hey, Sean, care to answer another private question?” she asked in almost flirty tone. Her cold seductive voice could be rather warm now, especially when she had a smile on her face.
He said, “You can always ask.”
She tilted her head a little, and said in her usual sultry tones, “How do you deal with the temptation of it? I mean, when you’re sucking the life out of someone. I have… similar issues. Not always, but when I use my goddess’s magic to control and kill it’s a huge rush. A… sensuous one. My whole-body tingles, and I get wet and excited. It feels like if I just touched myself, I’d cum harder than I ever have in my life. It gives me dark thoughts, imagining lying with my lovers while torturing and taking the life around me, while writhing in non-stop pleasure.
“I have a theory it’s a test, or a price. So far I haven’t given into it, obviously, but I thought you might have some insights into it since you’ve been dealing with it for five years.”
Gods. It was so wrong, but he was so hard after her little sultry description of the effects of her magic, that he doubted he could stand up in that moment without betraying his aroused state. Her eyes had gotten a little wide and she looked a little breathy just describing what it felt like, which he could relate too. The temptation wasn’t something he dwelled on either, for just that reason.
It was also rather bold to talk about it in such detail. The shadow priestess wasn’t exactly a shy person at all, now that she was recovering. He imagined she never had been, around other women at least.
“You feel the sick enjoyment, but the revulsion as well?”
She blushed, “Yes. Not so much when I went around the bend and tortured those men that deserved it. I kind of reveled in it, but the idea of doing it to an innocent, just to feel it, yes.”
He nodded, “I don’t know how wise I am, but I usually focus on my loved ones, their life force. The revulsion is much stronger, when I imagine sucking out the life of those I love. My whole-body flinches back from it, whereas if I focused on the life forces of innocents that I don’t really know, and only care about out of decency, it’d be much harder to resist.”
She nodded, “I can see that.”
He cleared his throat, “I also have help. My mates, although Lin, Kim, and even Mara are recent developments they’re more than willing to help out too. I’ve been with Cassie from the beginning. She umm, well she insists on me using her to destress. Dumping that sexual tension and stress out of my body usually drains the temptation right out as well, and she watches me and even takes care of it without me asking. She knows me well, you know.”
Lori smirked, “So, you’re suggesting I rub it out right after battle?”
He blushed, “You asked, I’m just…”
She shocked him by reaching out and covering his lips, “Sorry, Sean. I was just teasing you, and I did ask.”
He nodded, “There’s always your lovers too, which was the real point. I’m not sure rubbing one out would really work the same. I think love and affection, even devotion being part of the act, makes a difference as well. It’s as much psychological as physical. I felt those same temptations as you, still do, before I met Cassie. The idea of stroking my cock once or twice to finish myself off always revolted me, because I knew I’d be imagining sucking the life out of people while I finished.
“Whereas, looking down into loving eyes tends to shift the lust’s focus in a major way.”
The whole conversation felt a little crazy and more than a bit surreal. He knew and liked Lori well enough as a budding friend, but them discussing masturbation and sex because of their tempting powers just felt far too personal. The warm heated look in her beautiful eyes, and the thoughtful expression on her stunning face was mesmerizing. She was as exotically beautiful as his Eurasian and Eastern beauties, if in a different way.
Her dusky skin, severe and high cheekbones, and her pouty lips gave her a model’s face. He suspected she was as mixed as his Mara to have such stunning beauty, but one of her ancestors had come from south of the border. If not a parent, then a grandparent. She also wasn’t his, and he could’ve sworn he saw a satisfied smirk out of the corner of his eyes as he tore his eyes away from hers before he stared too long.
He blamed his lapse on his new sex life. It’d always been rich with Cassie, who was and always had been a bit of a kinky nymphomaniac who wanted him to use her for pleasure, whenever he needed. But the last month adding Mara, then Kim and Lin last night, it seemed like his inflamed libido was making his eyes wander in a way they never had before.
It was like, the more women Cassie seduced into their bed and love life, the more he wanted, which had never been his thing before. Both Lori and Sy’lia had been quite distracting for him this morning, with their beautifully exotic faces and very similar lithe dancer’s bodies. Then there were those hugs he’d enjoyed way too much from Katie and Bria, who were also really hot. The only one he wasn’t really perving on was Emily, and that was because she had zero interest in men.
Not that he’d act on any of it, but it was som
ething he needed to get a handle on. He didn’t like what it said about him. He wasn’t a shallow asshole and wasn’t about to turn into one, but obviously something was shifting and he needed to figure out what drove that. He loved Cassie, Mara, Kim, and Lin to death, and would never betray their commitments or bed, but his libido was getting out of control.
His thoughts too, he’d have to get a handle on that. He couldn’t help but imagine what her plump and alluring lips would feel like wrapped around him. She truly was the most beautiful women he knew around the face, and the allure of him looking up at him from her knees hit him hard. Not just a random thought, but a full-blown visual fantasy of it came to mind. Not one that he lingered on all that long, but long enough to fully visualize it.
Of course, he wasn’t totally blaming himself for the intense attraction to Lori he had in that moment, since it was her that’d brought up their whacky magic and sex. In a teasingly sultry voice no less, that made him think she was messing with him a bit.
Hmm. Maybe the cause of his recently inflamed libido was all the life magic he was using to keep his dick from getting chafed, and to load his balls so to speak. That was the only real change, his need to lean on his magic a bit to keep four women sated, when he hadn’t really needed it at all when it was just Cassie and Mara. That actually made a lot of sense, the longer he thought it over.
She finally replied, “I can see that, where taking care of it myself could make it worse. That could be a problem…” she trailed off, “Never mind. You certainly gave me something to think about.”
She patted his leg as she got up and sauntered off. He most certainly didn’t watch her gently swaying long dark brown hair, her gentle curves, or her tight little ass swish at the top of her deliciously long dancer’s legs as she walked away.
At least not directly, that’s what peripheral vision was for. She was one hell of a terrifying, powerful, and incredible sexy woman. He was still a bit taken back by her boldness in her description of what it was like for her, which was very similar to his own. No, Lori wasn’t a shy woman at all, not now that she was truly recovering.