When I sucked down on the tiny nub, and slipped a finger into her pussy, I rubbed the tip in a downward motion, putting pressure on her and, simultaneously, feeling Matt up. That wasn’t my intention, but when she blew up, when her cunt clamped down on my finger and she cascaded into another orgasm, I grinned and leaped upright, then stuck my dick straight into her core. The muscles protested my invasion, but fuck, it felt so good to force my way inside her, especially as she clung to me, needing everything I had to give her.
When she was stuck between us, her body one pulsing mass of sensation, Matt and I fucked her between us. We were sticking together, our bodies one big pile of sweaty muscle, and I loved it. Loved every fucking moment of it.
I came to the pressure of her climaxing once more, and to the sound of Matt grunting out his own pleasure as well.
As we came down from the high, I sank into the tree, and Matt and Riel did too. After a while, she began to giggle, and I felt the vibrations around my shaft.
Lips twitching, I asked, “My pride is offended, Riel. A woman shouldn’t giggle after she’s been so thoroughly fucked.”
“I’m laughing because the world is changing around us, and all I can think about is the next time you’re inside me.” She sighed, but as she pressed a kiss to my chest, I felt her smile.
“That will have to suffice for the moment,” Matthew rasped, his tone dark and husky, redolent with pleasure.
“You’re mean,” she lamented, and I could hear her pout.
“I’m practical,” he retorted, but I heard his amusement now. “We need to get back to the Assembly.”
She sighed. “They’re going to be pedantic. And that’s why I told them we’d be there in the morning. So we could play tonight.”
At her pout, and deciding to ignore her other comment because I wanted nothing more than that but knew the timing wasn’t right, I just said, “Pedantic is what politicians do best. Trust me, I know. Anyway, you need to return the battalion back to them at some point. What better moment than now?”
“What of the new status quo?” Dan inquired, shuffling over to us and helping us lower Riel to the ground when she wiggled between Matt and me.
“What about it?” she grumbled. “If they can’t figure it out themselves—”
“I think you’re supposed to at least tell them what’s going on, Riel,” Matt chided.
“How can I? I don’t know myself.”
I chucked her under the chin. “What happened back there, Riel? You collapsed. Again.”
“You heard what Trude said. The Goddess talks to me, only, when she does, it makes me feel like my ears are about to bleed.” Any softness about her that had come after her climaxes disappeared at my mention of that, and she tensed up. “Look, I’ll return the battalion and the damn meteor to them, but there’s only so much I can do.
“You and I both know that they won’t believe me anyway! I’m just some hybrid they don’t trust.”
“She has a point,” Dan conceded grumpily. “Might be best if you tell that particular tale.”
And, a few hours later, that was exactly what I did.
In front of my father and the other Assemblymen, I shared the exact details of everything that had happened to us in the past twenty-four hours.
Not unsurprisingly, they weren’t pleased at our involvement, and I couldn’t exactly blame them. Not while we were learning of the ramifications of our actions.
“You mean to tell me that you facilitated this?” my father ground out, his hands taut fists at his sides as he clambered to his feet to stare down at me.
They’d taken over the local town hall in Birmingham, but it was definitely more human than Fae, even though they were seated on some pretty ornate chairs on a dais that put them at a different height to us.
“They had no choice,” Riel interjected coolly, her lack of respect and the fact she had zero fear for the Assembly’s might resonating through each and every word.
When she’d done what she had, with the power she possessed at her fingertips, she had every right to speak as though she owned the room but it certainly wasn’t easing our conversation.
“Everyone has a choice,” my father spat.
Her lips curved. “Of course, and most of us make the wrong decisions.” Her eyes flashed. “As my grandmother would attest to.”
He staggered back and slumped in his chair before running a hand over his face, unable to deny her words. Especially considering the miserable existence he’d endured without his Virgo.
I’d taken point on this, while Matt, Dan, and Riel stood behind me, so I was at the tip of our triangle, but I shuffled back, allowing Riel to reign over the proceedings now that she’d found her voice.
I wasn’t at all surprised that she hadn’t said a word since we’d arrived, but now? I knew we’d have a hard time shutting her up.
“How dare you speak to an Assemblyman like that!” Jarvic burst out, one of the youngest on the Assembly. My father often griped about his attitude. It was far too traditional for Noa’s taste, so what that said about Jarvic, I had no idea.
“I speak like that,” she retorted with a bite, “because I can. You, my dear Assemblymen, have no power here. You forget yourselves and your current position.”
“Y-You, you terrorist!” Humphreys shrieked at her, a politician who my father called an idiot on the best of days.
She twisted around to grace us with her smile. “I may be a terrorist to you, but to the witches, I’m not, am I?” She raised her hand, let it hover palm down, then swept it from left to right. The instant she made that motion, the guards around the room jerked to attention, and the Assembly simmered down in fright.
When the bodies of the battalion she’d taken down made an appearance, shocked gasps rang around the hall.
“What has the witch done to them?”
“What’s going on here?”
“What in Sol’s name has she—”
“How did she do that?”
The variations were many, but the theme stayed the same. Riel twisted around and sliced her hand in front of her again. This time, the guards that were protecting the exits froze in place, genuine icicles dripping from their noses as she encased them in ice.
There were no gasps now, only quiet. A simmering, seething quiet that existed because these, the most powerful Fae in North America, knew they were powerless, knew they were at her mercy. I eyed the Assembly, saw just how deeply they were stunned into silence, and watched as Riel took control of the room once more.
“Your days in power are over,” she declared, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Whether you like it or not, the state of play has changed.
“Your fancy architecture, your powerhouses. The entire construct of your lives was fabricated out of magic. Something you stole from the witches, taking and taking without ever giving them anything in return.
“This situation is down to you. I acted on Sol’s and Gaia’s will. They wished to redress the balance, not me. I only did as they wanted. Apparently, they wished to see you on your knees.” She smirked, then walked to the end of the line where the first of the bodies that were mummified in the silvery metal lay. Dipping down into a crouch, she murmured, “The witches have always worked against you, but with no success. The AFata were a thorn in your crown, but they were acting in witchkind’s best interest—”
Humphreys’ spluttered, “Trust you to side with an extreme organization—”
She shrugged. “I side with no one. I side with the truth. With equality. You’re not without magic of your own, and yet you waste ours. Use it as a currency.” Another shrug. “Well, no more. You’re going to have to learn how to adapt… only the strongest survive, after all.”
Riel leaned forward and touched the toe of the warrior. In an instant, the wave of metal retracted, leaving behind the flesh and blood male of before.
Perhaps it was fated that my brother’s face would be the first to make an appearance. My father staggere
d to his feet. “Is he ill?”
“He’ll recover. None of them were harmed… I hurt no one, but they’d have hurt me. In a flash.” She clicked her fingers, and a wind shifted into the room. It swept the chairs the Assembly were seated on into a tight corner, pushing them together in a way that was most undignified. Then, she smiled and where they’d been seated, the meteor that had started it all suddenly popped into being. “I’ll give you your warriors back, leave you with your meteor, and give you some time to think about what must be done. Noa knows how to get in touch with me… I’ll be waiting.”
“You’ll wait a lifetime before we get in touch with you,” Jarvic ground out.
She smirked. “Oh, really? Just think about the brave, new world you’re stepping into, and consider this… which side of things would you prefer me to be on?”
My father frowned. “I think you’ve made your allegiance quite clear, Gabriella.”
“It does seem that way, doesn’t it? But I owe neither witch nor Fae any favors. My Virgo are all Fae, and technically, I belong to a troupe—unconfirmed by trial or not.” She hitched a shoulder. “The witches have enough power of their own. You, on the other hand, have nothing. When you figure that out, and try to pull any remnants of a magic that doesn’t belong to you from the meteor, finally hitting rock bottom, as I said, you know where to come.”
And with that, she drifted down the line of petrified warriors and returned them to their original state.
Only as she headed toward us, pushing us forward toward the exit, did we hear groans as the warriors awoke. When we stepped out and into the bustling human town hall, the ice locking the guards in place began to crack as it ruptured open.
“Was that wise? Baiting them like that?” Matt asked in a low voice as we headed down the busy corridor and toward the external exit.
“Maybe not, but nobody ever said I had to be wise, did they?”
Sixteen
Riel
With my cell phone in hand, I hurried out of the doors that led to the newly constructed Eight Wings Academy, and grunted at the sight of a few thousand warriors in the courtyard where, all those months ago I’d been dropped off, and saw they were, to a one, ready to attack.
Weary with boredom at their inability to add two and two together to get four, I stared at them, well aware that they weren’t here to defend me. If anything, they were prepared to hurt me to access my power, and I knew that Matthew would forgive me my broken promise.
In the aftermath of the meteor shower, when daylight had fallen once more, a full twenty-four hours after our visit to the volcano Heklugjá, we’d begun to realize how difficult it was for them to function without magic, and Matthew had had me promise that I wouldn’t abuse my powers against my Virgo’s kind.
Of course, he hadn’t expected the Assembly to send a few thousand troupes my way, had he?
I, on the other hand, had.
I knew they wouldn’t take things lying down. They were so accustomed to the belief that ‘might was right’ that they couldn’t possibly understand that Gaia and Sol had worked together to combat their might, and had used me to do so, had used me to make things right.
Two months on, I was as unhappy about my situation, as I had been at the very start, but some things you just had to suck up. I had a role to play now, a role I didn’t want, but it was important nonetheless.
Someone had to teach these fools how to live without magic, someone had to act as an intermediary between the Conclave and the Fae, and that someone was actually someones. Daniel, as well as a lot of the admin caste, had been hauled into Eight Wings, not only to instruct the warrior and instructor castes as to how to use their blood magic, but my other Virgo were helping the cause too. Helping in a field that definitely wasn’t their expertise.
Eight Wings had reared warriors, made fighters into an army. But what use was an army without a power base? As it stood, even though they outnumbered the witches, the witches could decimate them in an instant. Without magic to shield them, they knew they were at an immediate disadvantage, so my mates had hauled in more admin caste, and were assigning a kind of triage to the Fae people—discerning who needed to be taught first at the Academy—while also creating satellite schools with Fae who’d never thought they’d have to teach males and females who they’d always considered their betters how to use their magic.
It was a complicated time, boring too. Every night, I craved my drafting board, craved my design tools. Sol, I missed my sewing machine so badly that I’d almost willed one into being last night, but only knowing we could be free once all this shit was in place had stopped me.
The Fae and the witches needed me at this moment.
The Fae to help guide them into a new future, and the witches to help steer them in the right direction.
In the aftermath of that day, a day the Conclave was starting to call the Day of Redemption—I had no doubt the Fae would grant it a far less polite title—Fae society had crumbled.
The magic they had stored, what they used as currency, had reverted to the simple metal that had facilitated their tyranny—gold. They were cash-rich, but that was of no use to them. Money meant nothing to the Fae… at least, it hadn’t until recently.
Now, with no magic, and the witches magic-rich, there was a new business opportunity for witches. Which, to my mind, was how it should have always been.
A fair exchange.
Nothing about the Fae’s earlier actions had been fair. But that was how they rolled. Until now. When things would definitely be changing.
Eight Wings was crafted out of witch magic this time, not Fae illusion, and it had cost the Assembly a pretty penny to build. But by that point, they’d been desperate. The richest, the most powerful of their kind, had been useless without magic, while the poorest and the most ‘menial’ of Fae hadn’t felt the pinch thanks to their blood magic.
Swiftly, they’d seen why the Academy needed to be reopened with a different curriculum, and the Conclave, now filled with AFata, had strong-armed the Assembly into letting me be the principal—along with my mates—by promising to build them an Assembly House that made the White House look shoddy.
Still, even though things were starting to work out, that didn’t mean people were happy about it. Case in point, the Fae standing in front of me with war and blood on their mind.
A smile creased my lips at the thought and, calling on the wind, I yelled out, “All these warriors for little old me?” Fire sparkled in my eyes. “I consider it a compliment.” And with that, I let my magic loose.
I had no intention of harming them, even though their intent had been the opposite, but I instantly felled half by sending torrents of water at them. The floods formed into a single flow that had them drifting downhill away from me. I had no doubt they’d return, so I made sure to send ice down that flow to keep them in place.
Next, I captured a good many of those who were flying in the wind. I’d learned from the AFata who’d attempted to capture me and used dozens of twisters to tear hundreds from the sky, letting the storms toss them out and away from my sight.
In a matter of minutes, I’d done away with over two-thirds, and the warriors who remained downed their swords to gape at me.
When I saw a dozen of the Assemblymen standing at the back of the warriors, I tutted under my breath. “You shouldn’t fight me, boys. Not when it’s a battle you can’t and won’t ever be able to win.”
I surged upward, flying away from them, not even bothering to look back to see if anyone was following. They could follow me, but they’d rue the consequences.
Eight Wings wasn’t as big as it used to be, but it was plenty big enough. One side of the ‘U’ shaped campus was for admin, the other was used as dorms, and in the middle was where they held all the classes.
I didn’t get involved in that stuff. Mostly, my Virgo dealt with that because I didn’t have the patience. My major role was acting as a go-between. Dealing with the Conclave, who was still coming to terms
with their sudden strength as well as a shuffle at the top to weed out those witches who were in the Assembly’s pocket, took up the largest part of the day. Why? Because I had to make sure certain rules were implemented.
Without me, the witches would take advantage of the Fae’s situation. Just as the Fae had the witches’. If I wasn’t careful, in five hundred years, it would be the Fae who’d need a Redeemer to save them from witchkind’s tyranny.
The AFata I’d come across did have their uses however. Those strong witches were willing to protect the Conclave from Fae attacks as, dumbasses that they were, they carried on trying to use their might to overpower us…
Like they could.
I wasn’t sure how long it would take for them to finally figure shit out, but until then, we’d all have to be on our guard. Only yesterday, I’d read a report of a young witch who’d been kidnapped by a group of Fae males. I knew those situations were going to surge into being more and more often as the Fae tried to redress the balance in their own favor, but until they understood that there was no favor, just equality, we were going to be bashing our heads against a brick wall for a long time to come.
As I soared through the wind, enjoying the moment of freedom, I dove down sharply as I made it to the residential wing. My descent was too fast, but I loved the feel of the wind in my face, and I kept it a little too close for comfort as I braked to a halt within inches of smashing into the balcony outside our quarters.
The second I heard voices inside, I groaned. I’d wanted to fuck my mates, not deal with family shit, but before I could even think about retreating, the doors to the patio opened and Matthew was there.
He looked hot. As always. And his eyebrow was cocked as he ran his gaze over me. “Been in the wars?”
I peered down at myself, grimacing when I saw how windswept I looked. “You could say that. The Assembly tried to attack again.”
Matt frowned, but it was Dan who rushed forward to grab me and haul me into a hug. “Are you okay?” he demanded, peering down into my eyes with a face that was loaded with concern.
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