by Cooke, CJ
“Sure,” I said, and we all trailed out of the house heading back to where we had originally come through the portal. “So, who is this Aubron guy?” I asked him.
“He’s my younger brother,” Virion told me with a visible cringe.
“Wait, is your brother having a tantrum because you won’t share your latest toy with him?” I laughed.
“If by toy you mean you and share you mean fuck,” I heard Tasar mumble in front of me.
When I barked out a laugh, he turned around with the reddest cheeks I’d ever seen. “I apologise, my lady, I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Although call me ‘my lady’ again and you and I are going to come to blows.”
All of the guys around me laughed and, thankfully, Virion looked a little more comfortable.
“Unfortunately, your assessment of Aubron is probably correct. We have a vast amount of males without mates. I’ve argued with my father extensively about opening the gate to try and solve our problem and allow people to seek mates from outside, but he has refused,” Virion explained.
“That wouldn’t solve your problem,” Kyle pointed out from upfront. “In shifter communities, we have a lack of females. And it’s pretty much the same in all of the species, apart from maybe the witches but they frequently mate with the mage population which is very male-heavy, so it probably evens it out,” Kyle said with his adorable scrunched up thinking face on.
“Has it always been like that?” I asked them.
“I don’t think so. What’s it like in the human realm?” Liam replied.
“The statistics everyone quotes is that females make up 51% of the population,” I told them.
“Lucky bastards,” Sykes grumbled, and I playfully shoved him.
“It wasn’t always like that for the Fae, before the war we had a large female population as well. They were some of our finest warriors. In fact, we had more females in our army than we did males. Unlike now,” Tasar told us.
“You say that like you were there,” Sykes laughed.
“I was there,” Tasar said.
It went quiet for a moment as we all digested the information that someone among us had fought in the last war and witnessed the near destruction of the Fae race. “Wait a minute. How old does that make you?” Sykes asked.
“I am one hundred and forty-seven,” he told us.
I looked at Virion in alarm. “How old are you?” I squeaked, almost dreading the answer.
Virion just laughed. “Don’t worry. I didn’t fight in the last war. I’m only ninety-three.”
I didn’t even have an answer to that. He was over four times my age! Was that weird? It felt like it should be weird.
“Aria,” Virion said, coming to a stop and putting his arm on my shoulder to stop me walking. “Is that a problem for you?”
“I don’t know. Should it be? I feel like it should, but I don’t think I care,” I said cocking my head to one side.
Sykes sighed and threw an arm around each of us and started us walking again. “Dude, you’ve got to stop with the revelations, or you’re going to break her brain.”
Just then, we all stopped in front of the portal, and I sighed, “I fucking hate portals,” before Sykes laughed and shoved me through. Of course, when Sykes himself stepped through I did the grown-up thing and made sure I tripped him up. It was all fun and light-hearted until Virion turned to Tasar to say goodbye.
“I will miss you, old friend,” Virion told Tasar before they man hugged.
“I’ll send word back to you when we get through to Valhalla,” Virion sighed and looked around him suspiciously. “I need a favour. I need you to work on my father. If he decides to close the gate, he needs to open it once all of this is over with.” Tasar nodded stoically. It seemed like this guy just about never cracked a smile.
“Assuming we win,” I added. “Otherwise you’re going to want to keep that bad boy sealed tight.” They all looked at me with various degrees of shock on their face. “What?”
“Just … straight to the point there.” Kyle laughed.
“No, straight to the point would be pointing out if we did lose there would be no point in keeping the gate closed, the demons will work their way through eventually and will be coming for you next. You can’t think they’ll forgive or forget you were the ones to give them the smackdown last time,” I pointed out.
Virion and Tasar just looked at me for a moment. Then Virion turned to his friend. “No,” Tasar said. “No matter how you lay it out to your father, he will not join the Fae into this fight.”
Virion just sighed and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “I’ll be seeing you soon,” he simply said.
Tasar gave him a nod and then turned and stepped back through the portal. Virion watched him go, staring at the portal. I could feel the sadness radiating off him. I glanced at Liam, who was standing beside me, and he nudged me towards Virion with his shoulder.
“If you want to go back, I wouldn’t blame you,” I told him gently. “This must be hard for you.” There was probably a better way to put that, but fuck me if I knew what it was. Life was a lot easier for me when I was alone and didn’t have to deal with people and emotions and just … you know … life in general.
“No, my place will always be by your side,” Virion told me, turning away from the portal and pulling me close to him. He leaned in, and just before he kissed me, he whispered. “And hopefully, eventually, in your bed.” He pressed his lips to mine, and I melted into his arms. If there was one thing that could be said for my mates, they could kiss me senseless. When he pulled away from me, I sighed dreamily and then mentally slapped myself.
“It could have been in the shower as well,” I said raising an eyebrow at him and then skipping away when his mouth just dropped open.
Sykes came up behind me and placed a gentle kiss against my neck. It made me feel better they were making sure to reassure me they were okay with all of this. I suppose, if Liam was right, I was going to need to get okay with this as well, especially if there was going to be another mate for me out there somewhere.
“We should camp here until the morning,” Virion told us. “The gateway to Valhalla is high up Yggdrasil.”
“Wait, we have to climb that fucking enormous tree?” Sykes said, tipping his head back and trying to see up to the top of the tree. It was impossible; it just disappeared into the clouds. I was pretty sure that bad boy sprouted up into space.
“Not climb exactly, we’ll need to hitch a ride,” Virion said evasively.
“Hitch a ride?” I repeated. “Why are you saying that all suspicious like?” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
“There are several creatures that live on Yggdrasil. We’ll have to see which comes to us. Some are not as friendly as others. But being where we are, I’m sure it will be Ratatosk’s clan who happens upon us first,” he told us as he knelt and started to fiddle about with his pack.
“You realise I’m going to make you give us more details than that, right?” I asked him.
Virion peered up at me through his eyelashes. “I’ll have to get used to people challenging me,” he laughed.
“And also, people pressing you until you’ve answered their questions,” I sarcastically laughed with him.
Virion looked over at Kyle, who just raised his hands and took a step back. “Oh no, don’t expect me to get in the middle of you both.”
“Very well,” Virion sighed, standing up and striding over to me. “There are three animal clans that rule over Yggdrasil. The great eagles reside at the top, little is known about them. They don’t like to become embroiled in the pettiness of the other clans. At the bottom, within the roots, lies Nighug’s clan. The great dragons. It is said they suck out the blood of the dead as they descend to Hel,” Virion grinned wickedly at me. “And in between the two runs Ratatosk’s clan, the squirrels. Causing mischief where ever they go.”
“Well, I definitely prefer the id
ea of a squirrel over a blood-sucking dragon,” I calmly reasoned. “How do you know so much about this?”
“After the war, my father bartered with the gods to allow us to create our realm and open a gate in the great tree. They allowed us access to the edge of the Iron Woods to shelter in. All of the Fae learn about Yggdrasil because she is our home,” he explained.
We made our camp and Liam set out to fetch us some dinner. Whilst we’d refreshed our supplies in Galvinae, we didn’t know what was to come, and it made sense to hunt while we knew we could. He returned with a haunch of venison, and he and Sykes set about making a spit to roast it over our campfire. It was nice, sitting around the fire like we didn’t have a care in the world. It almost felt like we were getting to have a night off.
Virion fit in well with the other guys. It was like they’d known each other forever. He didn’t seem much like I would have thought a Fae prince would be. He just felt like one of the guys. Maybe this was that ‘pack’ feeling the others went on about.
I sat back, watching our dinner cook and tuned out the guys giving each other a hard time. The forest was lovely, especially when the sun was setting and the night was closing in. It was so peaceful. There wasn’t a sound to be heard apart from the racquet coming from us. As soon as I thought that, I sat forward and listened again. There wasn’t any sound at all. Typically there were at least birds or something. I got to my feet and slowly turned in a circle. I closed my eyes and cocked my head to the side to try and hear better, for anything. There was nothing. Something wasn’t right.
“What are you doing?” Sykes asked, and I could hear the light-hearted laugh in his voice.
My wings tore from my back, and I shifted, pulling my swords from their scabbards at my back. I was instantly on alert. Something was wrong; something wasn’t right here. I could feel it now. The guys leapt to their feet and pulled their weapons, instantly coming to alert.
“Aria, explain, we need to know what is happening,” Kyle told me in a quiet voice.
I continued to look around me trying to peer into the twilight and the shadows between the trees. What had once seemed so beautiful, now just seemed sinister. I crouched, ready to attack instantly.
“Something isn’t right,” I murmured. “It’s too quiet.”
There was the sharp snap of a branch off to the side and the guys all span towards the sound. I wasn’t going to be fooled by that though, and I kept my position. Surveying our surroundings, looking for any movement. I saw the first shadow move off to my left, out of the corner of my eye. I held my position. I didn’t want to give anything away just yet. Something else moved off to my right, nearly outside of my eye line. Whatever it was, it seemed more than likely they surrounded us. My wings pulled in tight against my back, this was going to be a ground fight, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t come in handy.
It only took a few more moments before the first demon sprung from the treeline. It dived in towards our group, aiming for Liam. I held my position. I knew where there were at least two others. I couldn’t turn my back on them no matter how much it was killing me that one of my mates was in danger.
Liam ducked under the first sweep of the demon’s claws and parried the second one with his sword, taking a chunk from the demon’s arm in the process. It roared in pain as it tried to lunge again. Sykes closed in on its back while Liam kept it occupied from the front. As it moved to take its third swipe, Sykes removed its head with one clean swing of his sword.
Sykes moved back to his position in the loose circle we had formed, and Liam stepped back from the demon’s fallen body. That was when they descended. Seven more demons burst from the treeline, including the two I’d been keeping in my eye line.
I had no option but to take my eye off my mates and concentrate on the fight in front of me. My magic burst forward like a wildfire flowing through my veins, singing in joy at the chance to fight. My swords felt like an extension of me as I engaged the three demons that moved towards me.
At least with three of them coming at me, that left one for each of the guys. All three demons threw themselves at me at the same time. This was different from how they’d fought before.
I ducked beneath one demon’s swipe and parried the second’s. I turned to keep them all in front of me. The last thing I wanted was to be pinned between them. I didn’t want to stay on the defensive; I needed to put these three down quickly to help the others.
While their tactics may have changed, they were still slow and clumsy. I stepped toward the first demon and threw the hardest front kick I could. It stumbled back several steps, and I swept the legs out from under another. Taking my chance, I closed in on the third demon while they were distracted.
It swiped its claws towards me to try and get its own hit in, but without the other demons distracting me, I sliced off the offending arm with one of my swords and spun away from it, cutting through its neck with my second sword. As it fell dead and headless to the ground, one of the other demons had already come back to its senses, and it charged towards me with a roar.
I held my ground, the demon pulled its left arm back readying its strike and just before it reached me, I spun to the side. I slammed my elbow into the side of the demon’s head as hard as I could. It stumbled and shook its head disorientated, giving me the opening I needed to slice its head clean from its neck.
As it fell to the ground dead, I turned to find the third demon hesitate. That was new. They always just blindly attacked usually. While it seemed conflicted, I spread my wings, and one hard flap gained me the height I needed to crash back down on top of it. My sword bit through its shoulder at the juncture with its neck and sliced down into its chest. I pulled it free, and the demon fell to the ground, screeching in pain, flailing its one good arm around.
I took pity on it and shoved my sword straight through one of its eyes, and it sagged dead against the ground.
I quickly turned to check on the progress of my mates. Two of the other demons were already dead. Kyle and Virion were fighting one demon, and Sykes and Liam had teamed up to take on the other. They didn’t need my help as they both dealt a killing blow before I could decide where to go next.
We all looked around at the seven dead demons on the ground. I cast my eyes around the tree line, but I was fairly confident there weren’t any others waiting out there for us.
“We need to move to a different site for the night,” I told my mates. When I turned back around, they were all still standing staring at me.
“You’re magnificent,” Virion breathed. “But standing back while you fought those demons alone was possibly the worst experience of my life.”
Sykes clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, you have to try and get used to that but it fucking sucks, every single time.”
Kyle strode up to me and ran his fingers into my hair, he wrapped one arm around my waist and pulled me in for a scorching kiss. When he pulled back, he placed both hands on my cheeks and leant his forehead against mine. “We need to finish this, and we need to finish it soon. I can’t keep doing this.”
I nodded, and after a moment, Kyle let me go. Liam and Sykes both came over and held and kissed me. When I looked over at Virion, he was hanging back. This was his first demon attack. We gathered up our things and hiked for another hour around the tree's base before we saw a section where the roots created a natural cave. We set up camp again, but this time we didn’t bother with the fire. No one wanted to eat right now. As the guys were setting out the sleeping bags, I pulled Virion to one side.
“Are you doing okay?” I asked him.
He sighed and leant against the tree's massive exposed roots where they flowed out of the base. “I’ve never been in a situation like that before. Watching someone I care about fight for their life and not being able to get to them; it’s the worst form of torture.”
“I know. I’ve had extensive experience in this recently. And the other guys, they’ve had to struggle through this as well. It doesn’t get easier, and
I’m afraid we have a long way to go yet,” I sighed and slumped down beside him. I looked over at the others to check they weren’t paying us any attention before I quietly told him. “I don’t know if I can do this.” It was like the weight on my chest suddenly became ten times heavy as I finally acknowledged the nagging doubt I was feeling.
Virion raised his arm, and I scooted over and snuggled against him. “I wish I could tell you I know you can and that we will get it done together. I’ve extensively studied the first war. It was bloody, it was brutal, and very few survived. We can’t expect to just do the same thing and get the same result.”
“Something is different this time. Someone is helping them,” I told him.
He nodded in thought. “It won’t change the end result, though. It will still come down to one army against the other. The Fae were barely enough last time.”
“So, we need a bigger and better army than the Fae army?”
“No, we need a fucking miracle,” he said.
I laughed. “It’s a good job you’ve got me then.”
He laughed, and we wandered back over to where the others had set up the beds and got settled for the evening. Tomorrow we were apparently going to wrangle some squirrels or something, so we’d probably need a lot of sleep. This shit just kept getting crazier.
Chapter 24
Sykes
Everyone else seemed to be asleep, but I could hear Liam shuffling around beside me. I couldn’t get the fight out of my head. Watching Aria take three demons on by herself was torture. Liam gave a huff and rolled over to face me, as he did, he caught my open eyes and sighed.
“You can’t sleep either?” he whispered so as not to wake the others.
“No, so much has happened. It’s hard to stop it all running through my head,” I sighed. It was a lot easier to fall asleep last night after Aria had worn us all out. The image of her above me with my cock deep inside her and Kyle fucking her mouth was enough to make me instantly hard. Now I was the one shuffling uncomfortably about.