by Eric Vall
I raised my eyebrows, but it seemed wiser not to respond just in case this was a trap.
“Also,” Aurora added, “I’m flattered you take your role so seriously with regards to us. It’s both sexy and honorable, and I’d be lying if I said I’m not extremely turned on by it. However, killing people with you turns me on, too, and it’s important to me that we keep that fire alive in our relationship.”
“I see, so you’re sorry for being mad, but you still stand by what you said,” I clarified. “That I’m not supposed to be protecting you or my unborn children in battle.”
“Precisely,” Cayla replied.
“Although, I don’t feel as strongly as the others about this,” Shoshanne added, and the other women pursed their lips. “I love you and if you feel like protecting me, then I feel very fortunate.”
“Me, too,” Deya said with a sweet smile.
“But … ” Aurora led.
“But I do wish you wouldn’t focus on that so much,” Shoshanne admitted, and Deya nodded. “You have a lot to take care of, Mason, and I don’t think all of us need to be at the top of the list, given we’re more than capable of defending ourselves.”
“So, she does agree with us,” Cayla clarified. “We all agree.”
“Is there anything you’d like to say?” Aurora asked.
Haragh sent me a stern look over my women’s heads, and I swallowed hard while I shuffled the first thing I wanted to say to the back of my mind.
“I’m sorry, too,” I eventually replied. “I know you all like killing things and that battles are fun for you. I might have gotten a little overprotective back there. It … won’t happen again. Apparently.”
My women all smiled in unison as they instantly curled up in my arms, and I exchanged a completely blank look with Haragh while Dragir shook his head at me in disapproval.
Then the elf shoved past us and headed for the woods to blow off some steam, and Cayla let out a contented sigh as she looked up at me.
“I take back what I said about forbidding you, too,” the princess said. “You’re not forbidden. Just make sure it never happens again, okay?”
Haragh shook his head vigorously when he saw the muscles in my jaw twitch, and I had to take a long, steadying breath as I calmly removed my women from me.
“Get in our bed,” I managed in a somewhat normal tone.
“Okay!” Deya giggled, and Cayla blushed as a sultry grin curled at the corners of her lips.
Then the women promptly obeyed, and I remained on the bridge with Haragh until the mansion door shut behind them, at which point I finally unclenched my jaw.
“Could you do me a favor?”
“Name it,” the half-ogre replied.
“Find Kurna and Urn and let them know we need to be prepared to move out by tomorrow morning,” I instructed. “If the Master’s sending both mages and elves through these portals, the citizens need protecting fast, and we can’t afford to wait three days. I’ll start distributing the new firearms by this evening, so the promotions need to be finalized by then.”
“I’ll handle it,” Haragh said with a firm nod. “Ye’ want me to pick a fight with that elf to keep him busy for a bit?”
“That would be so fantastic,” I replied. “It’s gonna take me a while to fuck my way through this.”
Haragh smirked. “I believe in ye’. Just remember, it’s for the best.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled half-heartedly.
Then I turned toward the mansion with one goal in mind: to have so much sex I couldn’t think straight enough to follow my most basic instincts where my women were concerned.
Chapter 6
Two hours later, I headed down the stairwell, and even though I didn’t have a bounce in my step anymore, I was feeling much better about the ordeal with my women. I’d left them all strewn about on my bed wherever they landed when I finished cumming in each of them, and after seeing the kitteny looks in their eyes as they reluctantly let me leave, I was singing a different tune now.
Granted, I still had no idea how to rein in this newfound daddy demon of mine, but I figured I had until the next battle to figure it out. What mattered most was my women survived the elven onslaught, and listening to them moan for me to put babies in them for the last couple hours really put things into perspective.
Despite how high the stakes were getting, I had a ridiculously good life in this realm, and whether or not I understood my women’s stance on the matter, I loved them more than anything. I’d also learned by now to trust in their judgement, even when it went against every inclination in my body.
So, I’d shoved my concerns to the back of my mind while I worked my way through each of them, and now that all my tension was relieved, it was back to figuring out how to prepare our troops to move out in less than a day.
Godsdamnit.
The pistols Dragir had engraved for me before the battle were piled up in the corner when I got to my shop, and after inspecting the elf’s work, I saw he’d engraved the trigger rune on all of them for me as well. The rune he’d used to make them inoperable in the wrong hands was placed on the side of each grip, and it took nine elements and six cohesion lines to manage it.
I let out a low whistle as I studied the intricacy of each tiny rune, and I decided I had to up my rune game soon. Conquering the lightning rune was my greatest feat yet where rune magic was concerned, but if Dragir and the Master could whip out such elaborate runes, there was no reason I couldn’t get there as well.
Dragir was nowhere to be heard at the moment, though, which meant Haragh must have done a damned good job of distracting the elf for me.
So, I decided to get all of my troops’ pistols finished before I did any more work on the metal dragon. I wanted the mages to gain some familiarity with the new weapon before they headed out, and since I had more than enough 1911s finished for the training fields, I formed a few iron crates and loaded them up along with all the spare magazines in my cabinet.
Then I had Alfred send for some mages to haul the crates to the training fields, and I asked him to get the women out of bed so they could give a few demonstrations.
Once I was sure the women were on their way, I finally stationed myself at the worktable and shifted to my metal guru state, and I decided I’d bomb through as many pistols as I could before anyone interrupted me.
While I worked, I scanned Falmount to check in on how the recovery was going after the battle against the Master’s elves, but it sounded like everything was already cleaned up. Mages were training, merchants were working, and I found a significant number of male Defenders dogging around the spice shop yet again.
Several others were diligently coordinating the preparations for our departure, though, and Urn and Kurna had chosen to handle the promotions at Flynt’s Pub of all places. I focused more closely on the ruckus taking place there to see how it was going, and there seemed to be an interesting balance of conversations going on.
Dozens of new Defenders guzzled their ale while they whimpered about how royally screwed they were, but a decent number of others were already drunk as they belligerently rambled about pulling some epic move in battle and saving Illaria all on their own. From the sound of it, they expected to then be carried aloft on their comrades’ shoulders while the king showered them in gold coins, and according to a couple men in one group, this idea called for the phrase “Flynt Style'” to be thrown around quite a lot.
I could only shake my head in disagreement.
If anything, Flynt Style was blindly deciding to do whatever it took, almost dying, limping my way back to bed, and having enough sex to feel like this was a win. Then gold coins showed up in large wooden chests. But whatever.
I smirked when I heard Mina and Pindor’s voices among the rowdy crowd, though. Mina sounded severely torn between ecstatic and panicked, and Pindor was trying to calm her down while also congratulating her on her promotion. The sweet Ignis Mage was convinced Pindor would get stationed at a different post th
an her and end up being a slutty shit head again, and Pindor was equally worried Mina would do the same. This led to them having the weirdest argument with both yelling about how they’d never do that to each other, and around the time I heard the slurping of tongues, I promptly zoned back out and left them to it.
Their timing couldn’t have been better, though, because I caught the tail end of a scuffle between Haragh and Dragir in the western woods, and while the elf huffed and stormed his way toward the mansion, the half-ogre shuffled up behind him and smacked him on the head.
Then the sound of boots scuffing on dirt followed as the two men grappled, and Dragir cursed Haragh’s entire race while the half-ogre just chuckled and took the elf’s hits like a champ.
I was laughing so hard listening to them that I had to break my connection with my metal magic, and after the two men went at it like this for several minutes, Dragir finally managed to make it to my bridge.
Haragh still delivered a last kick before he bolted down the lane, though, and when I opened the door, Dragir was red in the face and looked ready to skin every mage in town.
“Move,” the elf growled.
“There you are,” I chuckled as I followed him to the shop. “I was wondering what was taking you so--”
“What is wrong with that mongrel of yours?” the elf demanded. “Not a moment of peace! He is following me around and saying nothing, and then when I am tired of this, he is deliberately trying to make me kill him. The ground is disappearing out from under my feet, and I should have killed him!”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” I countered. “If you killed Haragh, I’d have to kill you, and then your House would try to kill me, and I’d have to kill all of them, and things would get messy.”
Dragir let out a tense breath as he dropped onto a stool. “Yes, I know, I thought the same thing, which is why I did not kill him. But I should have. Filthy brute.”
“Where are your looted daggers?” I asked while I tried so hard not to laugh.
“I lost them trying to shake that animal off my trail!” Dragir huffed. “Now, I must go find them all over again. As if we do not have enough to take care of.”
I smirked as I summoned my metal magic, and I scanned the western woods until I found a trail of silver-hilted Halcyan daggers ranging all over the foothills and scattered amongst the leaves.
Then I brought them all back to the mansion, and the elf grinned as he watched them pile up on the table in front of him.
“Now, there’s one less thing to do,” I chuckled. “Plus, I finished another two hundred pistols while you were out.”
“Already?” Dragir asked as he raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah, we’re working double time for the next few hours,” I informed him. “If the Master’s sending his elves out, we can’t spare three more days of prep. My troops are getting ready to move out tomorrow morning, so we need to finish the weaponry and the metal dragon tonight. Then there’s the ammunition, too, but I can hopefully get some of that handled on the train. Still, I’d like to have a few thousand magazines completed before we head out just in case.”
Dragir nodded as he slid his daggers aside, and he pulled his engraving tool out to get straight to work.
“Did you finish the runes on the dragon?” I asked as I dug around in my cabinet for the gem I needed.
“Yes, but I am coming with you if you are working on it now,” the elf decided.
“No, it only takes one person to wake up a dragon,” I countered. “I need these pistols finished yesterday.”
“But … ”
“Finish the pistols, and then you can play with the dragon,” I sighed. “Final offer.”
Dragir muttered something under his breath that sounded like the elven equivalent of “asshole,” but I ignored him as I grabbed a large spool of copper wiring and headed for the door.
“Can I at least have some Rosh?” the elf called after me.
“Pistols first!” I hollered back, and I chuckled at the next string of Elvish curses as I left the house.
Then I eyed the large amber stone I’d grabbed.
I’d been saving this bad boy ever since I found it buried forty feet beneath Mors Pass, and I felt in my gut that it was finally time I put it to good use. I was so entranced by the potency of its magic radiating in my palm, I almost ran right into a perilous spike on my metal dragon’s forearm, and I looked up at my metal beastie’s skull looming twenty feet above my head. The treetops had turned golden in the late afternoon light, and when I scanned the clearing, the lanes were mostly deserted now since everyone was training or preparing to leave in the morning. Even my eels were more subdued than usual while they slowly slipped through the water of my moat, and as I turned to admire my massive creation, my heart began to pound with excitement at the realization of what I’d made.
My mad scientist score was definitely way off the charts with this one.
From the serrated jaw to the death machete tail, my metal dragon looked like a force to be reckoned with, and the jagged outline of its frame against the vibrant gold leaves above left me staring in awe for several minutes.
He was just so fucking scary, and even though this notion made my fist clench around the channeling gem, it only amped me up more. The Master could never craft a machine of this magnitude, and I decided right then and there that this beastie would be at the frontlines when I finally stormed the Master’s fortress. With any luck, the Master would shit himself the second he saw us coming.
I didn’t rein in my grin at the thought, either, even though I knew I probably looked deranged as hell.
I just pocketed the gem and strolled toward my giant metal creation, and I calmly worked on securing the copper wiring throughout his frame so the gem’s powers could transfer at full strength to every portion of the dragon. I even ran the wiring straight down to every taloned toe, and once I finished at the tip of its machete rigged tail, a greedy chuckle escaped me as I ran back around to the sternum.
“Here we go,” I muttered as I summoned my powers once more, and I took a last steadying breath before I mounted the gem in the central wiring hub.
My heart raced in my chest as I stepped back and stared at the pulsing amber glow of the gem, and I could feel the follicles on my head beginning to prickle with anticipation while I waited for the creature to come to life.
Then the eyes ignited with a vibrant orange, and the air left my lungs in silent wonder.
The energy emanating from the gem was sublime in a completely terrifying way, and as he turned his giant skull side to side, a tuft of greenish smoke plumed from his nostrils.
“Damn,” I sighed, but then the dragon’s gaze snapped down to me, and I nearly leapt out of my skin.
He remained in a predatory posture while I tried not to vaporize from fear, and after we considered one another like this for a minute, I was about to address him when he suddenly threw his head up toward the sky.
The screech the dragon let out grated like steel on stone as I dropped to my knees and covered my ears, but the bone chilling sound reverberated across all of Falmount as the ground shuddered beneath me.
Then I looked up in time to see his amber eyes locked on me again, and his fangs parted as a deep green glow built in his chest.
“No,” I gasped and shot to my feet. “Hold on! I built you!”
It was too late, though.
I tore the ground up to shield myself as another metallic screech pierced my eardrums, and all I saw was a flash of green before I sealed my stone shield around me. The air in my small hovel was like an oven within seconds, and I could hear a frenzied crackling sound through the walls as the ground trembled with the beast’s footsteps.
“Shit, shit, fuck!” I yelped, and when the crackling grew louder, I realized my shield was melting.
Then I swiftly summoned my powers and connected with the dragon’s gem, and I gritted my teeth while every ounce of my focus went toward channeling my intentions into it. I was so desperat
e not to get killed by my own invention that I gave it everything I had, and by the time I was done, the dragon probably knew how much I loved my mother and that her strawberry shortcake was my favorite thing on Earth.
I channeled my entire past, my present, and even my hopes for the futures of my hypothetical kids into that dragon, and then I focused on my women right down to the tiniest detail to keep from losing my shit completely. I shared their quirks, their senses of humor, and everything that made me love them so much, and I didn’t censor my feelings about their asses, legs, or breasts either. I made it explicitly clear how much I worshiped every inch of those women, and I’d just finished pondering whether Shoshanne was my galactic soulmate and if we’d ever met in other lifetimes when I realized the crackling had ended.
So, I finally opened my eyes again, and after a few more seconds of panting under my half molten shield, I slowly lowered it and looked around.
My clearing was a field of black ash, and the stonework on this side of my mansion was mottled and half melted from the beast’s fire. There were no flames in sight, though.
Just me and my giant metal dragon who was now crouched nose down and ass up as he inched toward me.
The closer he got, the lower he dropped his chin until he was snuffling across the ash, and when he reached me, he gently nudged his metal snout against my leg. The second he did, I sensed deep in my chest how much this dragon understood me, and the notion turned my insides to mush.
This guy really knew me, like … more than he probably should, but so much that looking into his amber eyes kind of felt like coming home, and my brows pinched together as I collapsed forward.
Then I hugged the dragon’s giant skull without a second thought, and I let the strange connection we’d formed fill me up while the dragon remained perfectly still.
That’s when I knew without a doubt this was my new big fiery best friend.
I sensed his loyalty and the fierceness of his power, but I also sensed how complex his personality was, and even though he was supposed to go off to Mors Pass and kill my enemies now, I wanted to keep him here with me forever.