by Nick Harrow
All I wanted was for that moment to go on forever. Ayo’s trembling tongue lashed around mine, her teeth pressed against my lips. She tasted like lightning.
The corrupted energy began to break down inside us, the purified shio into Ayo, the rin into me. It wasn’t much, yet, but it was enough to revive the spirit and pull her back from the brink of death.
“Aja,” she gasped, and pushed me away. Tears stained her cheeks, and I didn’t know if they came from grief or joy. “Aja.”
The tainted senjin within me had ignited a primal survival instinct that wouldn’t be denied. I hungered for the spirits’ touch, I needed their flesh to join with mine and purify us all.
With a guttural sigh, I let Ayo push me toward the other spirit. My tongue dipped between the redhead’s lips, rousing her from her stupor with a taste of the power that raged inside me.
Aja latched onto my shoulders with both hands. She pulled my mouth against hers and bit my lips and tongue, the sharp nips sending tingles of pleasure and pain coursing through my body. She turned under me, sudden strength twisting her around until her hips were beneath mine and her legs hooked around my back. Her hand darted through the gap between our bodies to rip aside her leather skirt and reveal the crimson thatch of curls at the juncture of her thighs.
A need rose inside me, hot and fierce and undeniable. I couldn’t resist the scent of Aja’s lust, raw and wild as the hunt itself. I buried myself inside her with a single, savage thrust that lifted her hips off the floor. We cried out in unison, the contact so intensely pleasurable I was lost in its warm and sticky depths for long breaths.
The nearness of death pushed our lust to new heights. Aja screamed beneath me, her nails raking my sides as I plowed into her with relentless strokes that drove us closer and closer to the edge of ecstasy. Ayo pressed herself tight against my side, her mouth hot on my throat, her hands guiding the fingers of my left hand to her dripping cleft.
Aja bucked against me, ankles digging into my hips and urging me deeper, harder, faster. She bit my lip, then my shoulder. She gasped into my skin, her breath hitching in her lungs as the wet walls of her sex spasmed around my rigid length. Pulses of sacred energy passed between us, setting our nerves on fire and urging us on. Aja’s body trembled, shaking as her pleasure peaked, then peaked again
“Me,” Ayo whimpered. She licked the side of my neck and swirled the hot tip of her tongue around the edge of my ear. Her hands roamed over my body as if she couldn’t decide what she wanted—no, needed—to touch most. “Please.”
Aja slithered out from under me, a wide smile on her full lips. She reached between us as she slid off me, her fingers lightly scraping the underside of my aching cock. The tingle of pleasure at her touch raced up my spine like a spark on a fuse, almost enough to detonate the pent-up need that burned inside me.
I rose onto my knees and grabbed Ayo’s hips. She yelped in surprise as I pulled her over in front of me, then moaned and shoved her hips back against mine. My prick, still slick with Aja’s juices, slid along the crack of the spirit’s ass before a quick tilt of her hips guided me into her.
Ayo howled, and the strength of her wild desire tugged at the crimson bear’s attention. Mielyssi was there, inside me, inside Ayo, binding us together with unbridled animal lust. The bear’s essence surrounded us, a crimson whirlwind that urged us to lose ourselves in one another.
I couldn’t get enough of Ayo. With every thrust my hands explored her body, stroking the smooth ridges of her ribs, cupping her breasts and squeezing them, greedy for the feel of their springy softness under my palms, the taut nubs of her erect nipples between my fingers. Every touch sparked an electric tingle that drew a panting groan from us both.
The spirit’s head sagged between her shoulders, hair dragging on the floor, and her hips rose to meet me. We crashed together, again and again, pushing one another faster and faster toward the light that burned just out of reach. Her fingers slid to her groin, working in furious circles as the end charged toward us with a wolf’s howl.
A wave of unfathomable pleasure crested, and then crashed down. Ayo unleashed a visceral groan as her muscles tensed and relaxed, milking thick sprays of cum from me.
The strength of that moment ripped every thought out of my mind. I was lost in the sensation, spent by our efforts, and blinded with pleasure. I pulled Ayo onto me and held on, unwilling to let this end. Outside of that instant, the world was a dark and shitty place. Inside the spirit, I was safe. Nothing could touch us if I just held on.
Let go.
Mielyssi’s voice rang in my ears and eased me back from the darkness that I’d retreated into. My muscles were weak and throbbed with power at the same time. My nodes were filled with rin, but it wasn’t pure. It was tinged with a dark and feral strength, an aspect of the crimson bear who’d joined us in our final moments together. I didn’t even know how that was possible.
“Ayo,” Aja’s voice, trembling with fear, roused me instantly.
“What’s wrong?” My muscles tensed, and the wild rin in my core urged me to activate my techniques and prepare for battle.
“She’s gone,” Ayo responded, her eyes locked on the bloody stain that was all that remained of their mistress. “After all we did, she’s gone.”
“Surely you know better than that,” a woman’s voice, stern but not cruel, rose from the center of the nexus.
Startled, I scrambled across the floor and grabbed my war club, ready to knock the shit out of whoever had intruded on this place.
“Be at peace, shaman,” the woman said. “You’ve done me a great service by returning my familiars. And an even greater service by reviving me.”
I raised my club high overhead and peered into the ring of shadows that surrounded us. A faint shadow slithered beyond the edges of the light, and a sound like snake scales on cold stone rasped in my ears.
“Mistress?” Ayo said, the word almost a sob. She stood and rushed toward the edge of my light.
“Come no closer, child,” the voice continued. “I am no longer ruined, but neither am I well. I would rather not be seen in this delicate state.”
“You took the purified senjin from us,” Aja said. “That’s what healed you.”
“Only a sip,” the woman confirmed. “Enough to help me undo the worst of what was done to me. But there is still much healing ahead of me.”
“Tell us what we can do,” Ayo pleaded. “Whatever you need, Kyr can help—”
“That man has more pressing concerns than an old woman’s aches and pains,” the woman chuckled. “ I am grateful for your service, honored shaman.”
Her formality made me nervous, and I shuffled my feet, unsure of how to respond.
“It’s nothing,” I said at last, realizing just how dismissive I sounded after her show of respect for me. “I mean, ah, it’s nothing, honored witch goddess.”
“You are too kind, shaman. I am but a simple witch. Few know or care about the goddess part of my title, now.” The woman’s voice was heavy with sorrow. “I owe you a great debt. Sadly, the Midnight Emperor’s treachery has laid me low. I don’t know how his Jade Seekers found me, or what foul magic he used to turn them into the monster they became in their attempt to destroy me. I fear I am not so certain I can aid you in the next step of your journey.”
My heart sank. I’d come all this way because the crimson bear had been so sure I’d save the world. I’d escorted the spirits to this shitty island in the middle of this motherfucking lake, and now the one person who could give me a little bit of goddamned help was telling me I was already fucked.
“You have to at least try,” I said. “Tell me what I can do to help you help me.”
“There is a ritual—”
“We’re out of time,” Yata called out in a raucous voice as it descended the spiral staircase in a thunder of black wings. “The bad guys are on the doorstep and they don’t look like they plan to knock politely.”
As usual, there wasn’t time to figure an
ything out before I had to act. I still had no idea what the hell this woman wanted, or how she thought I’d save the world. What I did know was that if I didn’t get topside and deal with an army of White Tigers, we were all going to die in the next few minutes.
“Whatever the ritual is,” I said to the shadowy woman, “fucking do it.”
“It will take time,” she said. “I am very weak, and the senjin here is corrupted. I have no idea how long I will require to purify enough power to fuel the ritual—”
“I’ll buy you time,” I snarled. The threat of battle ignited the rin in my nodes, churning its animal fervor into a battle frenzy. My core was full, and I was so pissed I’d have gladly chewed through a whole flotilla of barges and the soldiers on them. “Get it done.”
Before anyone could say another word, I hurled myself toward the staircase, Yata chasing after me.
“They’re coming hard,” Yata croaked. “Twenty barges, at least. They’ve got swords and crossbows. Even fucking horses, not that those will do them a damned bit of good.”
“How far out are they?” I bounded up the stairs three at a time, my long legs carrying me toward the surface one effortless step after another.
“Close,” Yata crowed. “Five minutes.”
“Plenty of fucking time.”
My heart thundered in my ears, adrenaline pushing it hard. The fight was hopeless, I knew that. I couldn’t beat ten well-armed men, much less five hundred.
That wouldn’t stop me from trying.
Make them pay.
“In blood,” I howled, hurtling through the sanctum and out the temple’s doorway. The crimson rays of the rising sun flashed over my enemies, and I roared a challenge as they neared my beach.
Claws burst from my fingertips and dense red hair sprouted across my shoulders and down my chest. The crimson bear was with me.
These assholes wanted a fight?
I’d give them a slaughter.
Chapter Twenty-Six
BEFORE THE BOATS COULD reach the shore, I slammed a node’s worth of rin into the nearest pyramid. The barrier instantly sprang to life, a blazing red field of power that burned through the mist with a violent hissing. The sacred energy that flowed through the barrier writhed in strange swirls of crimson that turned on themselves like snakes eating their tails.
The power I’d unleashed was different than the rin I’d channeled before. It was more concentrated and potent than anything I’d experienced before. It seethed with a vibrant anger that would not be denied. I didn’t know if it was because the enormous amount of corruption on this island left an imprint that even the spirits couldn’t purify, if the crimson bear’s rage had fused with it, or if I was just so pissed at these motherfuckers that I’d transformed the rin.
“You think that’s going to hold them?” Yata asked.
“We’re about to find out.” The first boat was mere yards away, its cargo of soldiers eager to rush the shoreline. The white tigers on their banners flapped in the moist breeze, and their armor gleamed like sharpened knives. In their minds, they’d already won this battle.
The boat’s hull scraped across the island’s shore, and the first wave of soldiers burst over its gunwale in a crashing wave of armor and weapons. Their boots kicked up wet gravel and gritty sand, gouging an angry trail across the shoreline. The commander shouted from the rear, urging his soldiers forward, sword raised overhead, voice booming like thunder.
I couldn’t tell if the soldiers didn’t see the barrier, or just didn’t care it was there. To be fair, it was only meant to stop sacred energy. I wasn’t sure what effect it would have on charging troops. Maybe their leader knew it would be utterly ineffective. Or maybe he didn’t care whether his men slammed headlong into a wall of sparking rin.
I held my breath, and Yata remained still as a stone on my shoulder. I hefted my war club, ready, waiting.
The first wave of soldiers rammed into the barrier. Their suits of armor rang like struck bells, and the scripts engraved on the protective plates erupted in coruscating crimson patterns. For a moment, it looked as if they’d push through the formation, and I willed the barrier to hold them back.
Miraculously, it did.
The soldiers who’d slammed into the wall were hurled backward against their charging companions. Their metal-clad bodies smashed into the troops behind them, turning the charge into a chaotic avalanche of falling soldiers. Most of them lost their weapons as they tumbled over one another, and the soldiers bringing up the rear were too slow to react and tripped over their fellows. In a handful of seconds, the first boatload of warriors was down on the beach, struggling to right themselves under the weight of their armor.
My spirit sight flashed over my enemies, taking in the details quickly so I could formulate the next phase of my plan. The scripts on their armor helped reduce the suits’ weight and increase their flexibility. When they’d struck my barrier, the sacred energy held in those scripts had been disrupted and violently repelled. Without that power, the armor was too ponderous for the soldiers to manage on their own. They’d either have to recharge their scripts, which would take time, or ditch their armor, which would leave them defenseless.
Of course, even defenseless men could overwhelm me if they had the numbers, and these assholes definitely had enough bodies to throw into the fray. More boats were already piling up on the shore. The commanders disembarked to discuss their next steps while the other soldiers helped the fallen men to their feet.
That impact hadn’t used up the entire node of rin energy that I’d fed into the barrier, but it had taken a good chunk out of the power. The pyramids were only half lit, and I’d have to watch carefully to know when to refill them. Too soon, and I’d waste some of my limited reserves of power; too late, and soldiers would take down the formation and be on top of me before I knew it. Once they started beating me about the head and neck with their swords, it would be all but impossible to get the barrier back up. I’d be overrun and hacked to bits in the space of a few heartbeats.
Fortunately, the army gathered on the shore was dithering about trying to decide what to do next. Their eyes burned into mine, but they didn’t approach the barrier again. Several of the men who’d been knocked back were still down, arranged on their backs in neat ranks above the waterline, their swords laid across their chests.
Good. If I’d killed a few of the fuckers maybe they’d think twice about running into my barrier again.
In the meantime, I probed the dream meridians that converged on the island. My core hungered for more power, a craving I’d never experienced before. The empty node inside me wanted to be filled, and it wanted to be filled right that goddamned second.
I shook my head and pushed back against the desire to cycle more senjin into my core. If I gave in to it, even for a second, the tainted power would poison me and tear my core apart. I knew that.
Knowing that did not reduce my desire for power. Not even a little bit.
Thankfully, the White Tigers distracted me from the gnawing ache in my empty node by charging the Wall of Sanctity again.
They’d formed themselves into a long line that stretched halfway around the island. On their officers’ commands, they sheathed their weapons and hurled their bodies at the crimson wall that stood between us. In the instant before impact they dropped their shoulders and put all their weight behind their heavy pauldrons.
It was a good plan, and it scared the shit out of me. By hitting the barrier across a wide front all at the same time, the soldiers put the maximum possible strain on its ability to push them back. They also wouldn’t have to worry about being tossed back into their own troops and trampled into the sandy gravel if they didn’t make it through.
I watched the nearest pylon with an intense focus. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake. Time seemed to slow as the crash of boots became an endless, terrifying roar.
The soldiers slammed into the barrier almost simultaneously. The formation blazed blood red and spat curls of
sacred energy into the scripts emblazoned across their armor. The fire of my violent rin against the stable senjin trapped in those engravings ignited a lightning flash that dazzled my spirit sight and drew surprised shouts from the charging warriors.
The pylon nearest me went dark.
I slammed another node’s worth of rin into it, terrified I’d been too slow. If any of those soldiers got through, even one, I was deader than shit.
In the split second before any of the troops could spill through the faltering formation, my power kicked it back to life. The soldiers were thrown back from the formation’s perimeter, feet off the ground, arms flailing. Several of them tumbled through the air, landing on their heads, necks twisted at impossible angles. Others staggered back and landed hard on their asses, their armor smoking, their helmets blown free by the power that had repelled them. Still others slid across the beach on their backs, leaving trails of churned gravel to mark their passing.
I’d beaten the warriors again.
Though not without suffering for the win. My energy didn’t just power the formation, it bound the wall to my core. Every impact was a bruising blow that left my spirit a little more tired and a little weaker. While the White Tigers lost men with every assault, they also whittled away my reserves of strength and stamina. Even if they didn’t exhaust my rin, their relentless attacks could still beat me down.
The commanders stared at me from beyond the formation, their eyes narrowed with rage.
I straightened my shoulders and stiffened my spine. Never let the assholes see you sweat.
“You might as well turn your toy boats around and get the fuck out of here,” I shouted. “I can keep this up all day. You’ll run out of men long before you get through my defenses.”
“The Midnight Emperor has declared you a heretic,” one of the commanders shouted back. His helmet must’ve had some sort of script woven into it, because his voice cracked through the air between us at an impossible volume. “We won’t leave without your head.”