by Bethan Johns
“You did it?” I asked incredulously.
He nodded.
“Were all the commanders there?”
He caught his breath and shook his head “No. I missed the meeting, it was only Reves and his second … Whatshisname?”
“Eris.” I told him patiently. Waiting for him to continue.
“Reves and Eris, and Sierade Gwaynten. She was with a beefy Howelltie male who I thought was her lover, but apparently he is her second in command.”
I sat up. “You met her?”
He threw himself down at the foot of my bed. “I did. Are you jealous?”
I was jealous, I had been wanting to meet the famous Fae female who had managed to tame the Howelltie mercenaries for many years.
Shaking my head “No Elliot, I am not jealous. What did Reves say?”
He gave me a knowing look but let it slide. “Reves was a bore as always, especially when I told him we were out getting drunk to sooth my aching shame that my mother was a madwoman and a petulant child.”
I snorted. “You didn’t”
“I did.” He said proudly.
“I like the Fae female though.” He rolled over onto his stomach his bare feet kicking into the air above him.
I laughed when I realised he must have rifted there in his bare feet. I wished I had joined him, but the Crown Prince showing up drunk at a commanders meeting was one thing, his high commander and captain of the guard was another thing altogether.
“You know she is actually very beautiful. I thought she would look rough and tumble. Her scars make her look exotic like a tiger.” He clawed his fingers at me.
I groaned at him “Go to bed Elliot.”
His face turned serious.
“You know she is right now on her way to say goodbye to her lover of the past three centuries because they will be fighting opposite sides of the war?” He said soberly
I shook my head “Sylek fights for the Howelltie then.”
He nodded. “She said they would battle should they meet upon the killing field.”
I touched his hair lightly and he leaned into it, nearly purring. “Howelltie are strange beasties.” He grumbled.
I laughed softly as he drifted off to sleep.
✽✽✽
Sylek
Siera and I had spent the last few days in bed. I knew it was I who had chosen this path, but I still remembered the last time I had lost her and how badly it had hurt.
This time was different, and our paths had simply taken different directions.
“You know, I think one of the reasons I love you most is that you, like me, understand that we are two individuals, we are immortal. Our paths are not always going to flow in the same direction. That does not mean; however, that we love each other any less.”
She was twirling my hair in her fingertips as she spoke. She lay across my chest her tan skin looking very dark next to my far paler complexion.
I did not respond. She knew how I felt.
I merely watched her chest rise and fall as she breathed, evenly, relaxed. We were laying in the bed in my room at the keep at the base of the Ekertsy Mountain range on the main Howelltie plane.
She sighed lightly, tracing her finger across my abdomen. “I am going to miss you dearly though.”
I wrapped my arms around her holding her tightly.
We lay for a long time before I spoke. “Bathe in blood for me”
I felt her laughter through my body. “For you my love, I shall swim in it.”
I kissed her lightly. She sat up suddenly. After a moment she said, “I have to go now.”
She dressed, then she stood at the side of my bed looking down at me, drinking in the image. She met eyes with me, winked, and was gone.
I sat up and put my head in my hands. I felt fingers gently pulling my wrists away and looked up into her silver eyes. They were shining. She had come back for me.
“Bathe in it my love” she whispered onto my lips, kissed me feverishly and was gone again.
I sighed deeply. I would bathe in it before this battle was done. I knew it. I also knew she would as well.
I was surprised to find I was even scared in a small way of what she could be capable of, if this war lasted, if it was drawn out the way many were.
I shook the ominous feeling from my shoulders and lay down to sleep.
Chapter 8 – the different kinds of battle
Year 10,326 AC
Sierade
Walking through the corridors of the keep of the Nephilim, the keep I was now so familiar with, I looked out the windows down at my mercenaries as I passed.
The war was starting to pick up its pace now. There was a sense of excitement in the air at the Rustlavayne camp.
Working my way to the drawing room, a large room full of armchairs and billiards tables and books, I sighed. My mercs had been sent out on many smaller missions but the largest so far had still only been three thousand.
There were sure to be larger battles waged I assured myself.
We were only twenty-odd years into this battle and I knew that wars among the immortals could last hundreds.
Walking into the drawing room I saw only two people in here. I had been expecting more. It was only Eris and Reves; as I strode towards them Eris nodded and took his leave.
“What is going on Reves?” I asked, turning to watch Eris close the door behind him.
He sat back in an armchair and motioned for me to do the same in front of him.
“I have news for you; in two days time, eight thousand of your troops have been requested to battle alongside Prince Castor’s. You will be working with eight thousand of his troops. You will also be working alongside the Prince and his Commander Gaelen.”
I smiled wickedly. “That is fantastic news.” I said.
He returned my expression, “Now, I know it has been many years, but I am going to warn you that the Prince is not always so shimmering and magical as the time you met him before. He does command a certain amount of respect.”
I nodded. “So do I Reves,” I responded noncommittally.
He sighed. “You will do as you will, no matter what I say. Eris will be communicating the details of the location for your troops. Gaelen has offered the services of some of his Fae to help you rift your troops.”
I shook my head. “Please decline the offer.”
He cocked his head at me. “How are you to transfer eight thousand troops so quickly?”
I smiled “Via rift”
He frowned. “Yourself?”
I merely nodded.
He continued “How many trips would that take you? Would you not be drained going into battle?”
I laughed then. “One and no.”
One of his eyebrows raised high. “I am excited to see such a feat, there are not even many ancient Fae who can make such a claim.”
I inspected my nails. “Reves, I am not here to pass examinations. If I tell you that I can single handidly rift the entirety of my legions in one go without even beginning to touch my stores – which is the truth by the way – I would request that you simply trust me.”
A moment passed before I raised my eyes to him, challenging, and he burst out in surprised laughter.
“You know Si. You are a gift, I have known you decades and yet still you surprise me on an ongoing basis.”
I leaned back in my chair letting my legs sprawl on the floor in front of us. He watched me carefully.
“Which leads me to my next point of discussion.”
I waited, sprawled across my chair.
“I have come to note that over the past twenty-five years, you have not to my knowledge taken a new lover.”
It was my turn for my eyebrows to raise and my mouth to quirk up to the side. I waved at him to continue.
“I also have been, bored, as of late. I tire of those who live to please. I would have a strong, independent female, who wants me of their own accord. Not just because I command the Nephilim legions, or to use me for advancement.”
>
I watched him for a moment before drawing myself back up into my chair.
“And you think that I would want you in this way?” I asked him softly.
He moved quickly. He was suddenly kneeling in front of me with his hands on my knees teasingly pushing them slowly apart.
My breath quickened, and his eyes flicked to my chest catching the movement.
“Yes. I have seen you watch me. You know I watch you. I do not see any reason why we cannot fulfill each other’s’ needs.”
His fingers trailed their way higher up my legs and I leaned back in the chair to let his hands find their way to my hips. He gripped me and dragged me to the edge of the chair, my knees moving around the sides of his body now. The heat from his heaving chest as he took in my body was enough to burn.
He was molten gold. A fine specimen, but this could mean trouble.
I liked trouble.
I smiled then “Just sex?” I asked.
His glowing eyes raised to mine. “Just sex.” He confirmed.
His lips crashed into mine as I pushed him to the floor in front of me. I gripped his smooth black shirt and tore it from his body. Leaning back, I straddled his hips to admire the golden glow of his skin.
I snapped my fingers and his shirt was gone fully, revealing the beautiful set to his shoulders and the solid veined skin of his biceps and strong forearms as he gripped my hips with his hands and rocked me back and forth on his body, grinding himself into me. I groaned loudly and let my head tilt back with the sensation.
I gouged my nails down his chest and falling forward I licked my way up it. He growled and flung me from him, falling atop me. My breathing hitched as he flipped me onto my front, snapped his own fingers and my clothing disappeared.
With one hand he held my breast flicking my nipple lightly. With the other he dragged my hips in the air as he entered me. He started gently, increasing the tempo of our dance as we moved together
It had been a long time since I had a lover, it was as he said. I treasured the feel of him inside me, giving me a gift I had forgotten I needed.
I did not want his love nor passion. I needed no commitment. We were base animals and that is all that mattered.
I felt him growing heavy inside me, I felt myself tunneling towards release.
He leaned down and bit the back of my neck and it tipped me over the edge screaming my release, he bellowed his a few moments after.
We lay on the floor each catching our breath for a few minutes.
We sat up and I looked him over where I had bruised and cut him. He looked over my body as well.
“Well done Commander Reves, I think we have an agreement.” I said huskily.
He moved to lean over me “That was just a taste to entice you, I want to make you shake on it.” He whispered onto my lips.
I reached down and felt he was indeed ready to do as he claimed.
“It would be my pleasure.” I growled.
...
It was time, I had prepared my legions with as much information I could feed them.
I would rift into the area where we were to wage battle and ensure that I had the correct dimensions before rifting my soldiers there. It would do no good to rift eight thousand mercs on top of the prince’s troops.
I walked into my tent, dressed in the burgundy armour that Reves had made. It showed off my scars skillfully and I think selfishly on his part clung to my body in just the right places to make my small frame a touch curvier.
I wore my hair braided back from my face, but otherwise loose down my back. My ears were adorned with silver earrings. They could be removed and wielded as razor sharp rings if need be.
I touched the curved scepter at my back, and the whip at my waist.
“Ready?” I asked Faust.
He nodded at me.
We rifted directly into the prince’s base tent at the edge of the battlefield. His back was to us initially and he was wearing beautiful scale mail armour of shining black with gold embellishments.
I saw that his hair was swept back from his face in a comparable manner to mine as he turned to face us. Dressed for war like this somehow he still looked nothing but beautiful.
I inclined my head to him “Elliot.”
Faust did the same but said nothing.
Elliot’s brows rose. I knew I was supposed to bow and initially call him ‘Your majesty’.
That was not going to happen.
“Sierade. Where are your troops?”
“One moment.” I said, catching eyes with a guard with chocolate brown eyes and hair, I stepped out of the tent and felt Elliot following.
I looked out into the field and took note of some soldiers and their locations.
The cliff on one side and the water on the other was exactly as it had been relayed to me.
“Give me two minutes”
I rifted away.
Back at the Nephilim keep I walked up to the psychic at the head of my eight thousand. I had set them up in formation earlier and they each had a hand upon the next soldier’s shoulder. Connected. Hulion, the lead psychic nodded to me that all was prepared. I took a few more notes and grabbed his hand.
I let my creation magic tunnel down into the ground, deep down. It sometimes took a minute longer to siphon Tundra when not in Faery, but I always found it, and we never had any problems. I had now known about this connection for over two centuries and was able to control it to near-perfection.
I touched Tundra. I had spoken to it earlier, warned it I would be coming today. I felt the power touch each and every one of those soldiers. I sucked in a breath quickly, I blew it out and my entire army was standing, in formation, on the battlefield.
They were solid. The only motion was each of them dropping their arms from the others’ shoulders in near-perfect unison. I loved my mercenaries. They had a flair for the dramatic nearly large enough to match mine.
I savoured the sound of the collective gasp from Elliot’s army. They suddenly looked a lot more disorganized than we did. Their forces were still rifting in and out, moving places.
I rifted back to the tent where Elliot, the guard, and Faust stood.
I let go of the Tundra, I felt the silver aura of my power drawing back into myself and the shine to my eyes dimming a small amount.
Elliot looked mildly surprised.
I felt a new figure rift behind us. Before I could look though, Faust laughed outright.
“Good aim Si.”
“Thank you, Faust” I said, genuinely pleased. No matter how simple I had made the act seem to Reves, rifting eight thousand troops in one jump was a hell of a feat.
“What the hell was that?” A voice from behind us said.
I turned to see a tall male, his skin had a dark tan, his eyes were brown with golden flakes shimmering in them, his hair was black, thick and curling to his shoulders and he had large, feathered, black wings. He had to be either the most beautiful male I had ever seen, or the most interesting.
It was as though my mind couldn’t decide whether to balk at his otherness or throw myself at him and rip his clothing off. I forced myself to concentrate.
I couldn’t think of a time when a male had affected me in this fashion upon first meeting. However, I was also master of burying my emotions after growing up an emotional Fae among the far cooler Howelltie. I channelled that energy now.
Elliot sighed “Gaelen, meet Sierade Gwaynten. I believe that was her rifting her army here.”
I stood staring him down. He looked me up and down.
“I was told you declined my offer for help with the rift.” He said at last.
“I didn’t need it and adding new and unnecessary facets to our operation at this stage seemed redundant.” I said.
“So you have other Fae already working with your legions then?” he asked as we started moving into the tent.
“No.” I replied.
“I certainly hope you did not just drain your power to rift your entire army here in a
show of power.” He said haughtily.
I turned to him. His eyes had darkened to near black, apparently changing according to his mood. “You need not be concerned with that. I am the Commander of my legions for a reason, I have dealt with males judging me for centuries. I do not need your approval when I have earned the approval of tens of thousands.”