Reaver of Souls

by Stephanie Burke

  “Terror?”

  “We have got to be near the place.” Terror whispered as he stumbled and a heartfelt sigh left his chest. “Oh yeah, this has got to be the place.”

  “And you know this because?” the Healer asked as he stared at Terror in some concern.

  “Because I think he just got laid.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah. And this time, he enjoyed the feeling! A lot!”

  Behind them, a low growl erupted from the assistant, barely heard over the talking of the two men.

  “Oh, yeah,” Terror chuckled, a very masculine chuckle as he peered over at his healer. “He is not faking it this time.”

  He didn’t hear the indignant squeak behind him.

  “Oh! There goes another one,” he gasped as his knees began to wobble. “You know, I love the feeling of this bond between us, but I sure as hell hope that it ends soon. I kind of feel funny experiencing my son’s orgasms! But at least there seems to be plenty of them. I am glad that he found someone for release. If he had mated that cold bitch Zultha, he never would have experienced this.”

  The Healer nodded in agreement as the party moved on.

  Falling behind, the assistant stomped her feet and mumbled under her breath, the anger pouring off of her in palpable waves.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Lift, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight! Push, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!”

  “Wrong song, Jill.”

  “Push-ups and sit-ups, bending and stretching, ahhh, feels good!”

  “Not much better.” Jack sighed as they made their way through the dark streets and towards their complex.

  This trip had been…interesting so far, to say the least.

  First, they had to drop off Jase at his apartment, and convincing the other man to go had not been easy. But with promises of picking him up the next day, they had accomplished their goal and were now driving down deserted streets that seemed to fascinate the trio in back…when they were not turning green in the face from the drive.

  In the backseat, the three intrepid warriors were disgusted at being ordered away by their charge.

  “Terror is not going to like this,” Joz said sadly as he watched as the other two were jostled around in the “van”. “And what of Torn?”

  “He will do what he must,” Mace replied as he tried to hold in his last meal. These people were insane, traveling at these speeds in these magical carts.

  He turned to look out of the window, blanching, as the scenery seemed to fly by.

  The trees seemed to blur and the ground was no more than a dark haze. He could hardly make out the forms of Terror, the Healer and his assistant as they sped past.

  “Terror?”

  At his words, Mace and Del turned towards the direction he was pointing.

  Jack fought to steady the wheel as the three men in the back suddenly leapt to their feet, clanging their heads on the ceiling of the van, then began to shout in that strange language.

  As the van swerved on the thankfully empty road, Jack rapidly gained control only to have the side doors explode as the tall one and the muscular one forced them open.

  “What the fuck?” Jack bellowed as the three men leapt to the ground and took off running back towards Jase’s apartment.

  “Damn it!” Jill gasped, one hand on the front “Oh-Shit-Bar”, the other over his heart. “They’ve gone AWOL!”

  “Not on my shift,” Jack growled as he shut down the engine and pocketed the keys. “You coming?” he asked, shooting a look over his shoulder as he stared at his partner.

  “For this, I better be coming later, man!”

  Then they were both off, chasing after the rapidly retreating forms of the three men they were supposed to keep out of trouble.

  * * * * *

  Mace, Del, and Joz sprinted at half-speed to the spot where they had passed Terror and his party. They needed to get in contact with their leader to inform him of the goings-on in this place.

  So intent were they on their quarry that they never noticed the small cloaked figure that seemed to suddenly appear out of nowhere!

  It was quite a shock when she let out a small scream, as they were inches from plowing her over, then found themselves suspended a full foot off of the ground.

  The cloaked woman stood there, dark hair flying from around her hooded cloak, her eyes spitting violet fury as she suspended the warriors easily. One hand was extended and the other clutched a long dagger that glowed eerily with her power.

  “Nello!” Mace gasped out, halting his struggles against that magical barrier that held him aloft.

  “Mace?” Nello gasped, then quickly lowered her hand, dropping the men gently to their feet. “Where? Where is my son?”

  “Back there!” Mace pointed in the direction they were running. “We saw Terror and were trying to intercept him to inform him about the redheaded woman.”

  “I know all about the redheaded woman,” Nello snarled. “And the witch will be dead by my hand before this realm’s sun rises for the day!”

  Then she took a good look around her, noting a few parked metal wagons and the lack of patrols wandering the streets.

  “Do they have day here?” she asked, hesitant to use any more of her magic in this strange place.

  “I have no idea!” Mace answered as he and his men looked sheepishly around. “But they do have water that flows from the sky.”

  “Water? From the sky? What madness is that?”

  “I wish I knew,” Del added with a laugh. “But it is cold and quite disconcerting.”

  “I can imagine,” Nello sighed as she again turned to survey the area around her, and then froze as her eyes narrowed in anger.

  “They rush us!” she snarled, and again that hand was raised, this time, catching Jack and Jill completely unawares as they were lifted a foot off the ground.

  “Saints preserve us!” Jill gasped as he was suddenly caught in an immovable force and his feet left the ground.

  “Shit!” was Jack’s eloquent contribution as he floated beside his partner.

  “Nello,” Mace called out. “They are friends.”

  “Friends?” she asked as she began to lower her guard, then blinked twice, her eyes riveted to the two strange men.

  “They have been touched by Torn!”

  “Reaved?” Mace asked, shock on his face. He could feel no taint in the two, but then what magical gifts he possessed were small and inconsequential.

  “No, not reaved as there is no dark residue, but…he has…lightened them.”

  “Put me down, you insane hussy!” Jill took the opportunity to bellow as his stomach threatened to turn itself inside out. “This is why I was never into birds, Jack!” he added, turning to his mate. “Too damn hormonal!”

  “Knart?” What? Nello and company asked en masse.

  “My God, she is one of them,” Jill stated, and he began to let go of his worry. “She must know Torn!”

  “Torn?” Nello asked, smiling as she lowered her hand and let the men drop to their feet.

  These men were strange, she decided as she stepped closer to get a good look. They were plenty big enough to be of the warrior caste, but they were just so short! If this was an example of the masculinity in this realm, then Torn must really feel at home, she decided as she examined the two carefully. Their words were strange, but she had the cure for that.

  Jack and Jill stared as the woman who they assumed hefted them up into the air without breaking a sweat, tossed back the hood of her cloak and faced them clearly.

  “My God!” Jack gasped. “You look like Torn!”

  And she did, from her long curling purple hair to the glittering violet eyes. This was a female version of their fey friend.

  Jill just gaped.

  But then the woman stepped close to him. Raising one delicate hand, she gently caressed the side of Jill’s face.

  Jill smiled as he felt a flash of warm heat flow through his body,
searching his mind, then it gently withdrew.

  “Where is my son?” she asked in perfect but slightly accented English.

  “How did you…?”

  “Forgive the intrusion, but I pulled the knowledge from your mind. I would have asked permission, but we haven’t the time. Where is my son?”

  “Torn is your son? But you don’t look old enough to have kids!”

  At that, Nello blinked twice and smiled, but turned the conversation back to important matters.

  “My son? He is in danger and I must help him as he has helped you in some way.”

  “Danger?” Jack growled as he turned to look at the three men. “Can you make them understand?”

  Nodding, Nello turned and shot a pale white bolt into the bodies of the three guardsmen.

  Joz, Mace, and Del gasped as the magic entered their bodies, then turned to Nello in shock.

  First she started speaking this strange language, and then she touched them with her magic! To what purpose?

  “They understand,” Nello said as she turned to Jack. “My son?”

  “Is she in danger?” Jack asked, eyes flat as he stared at the woman. Magical or no, if they endangered Sable…

  “Who? The redheaded bitch who tried to murder my child?” Nello growled as her eyes narrowed at Jack. Maybe she was wrong! Maybe these men were the instruments of evil! “You protect Zultha?”

  “Who?”

  Nello’s anger eased as quickly as it rose as she turned toward her men for conformation.

  “Has Zultha reached my son?”

  “Not since we were ordered away, My Lady,” Mace said. “I believe he refers to the red-haired witch who Torn is enamored of.”

  “Red-haired…”

  “Sable!” Jack growled. “Is Sable in danger?”

  “Two of them?” Nello asked. “Two red-haired women?”

  “Damn it, is my friend in danger?”

  At Jill’s outburst, they all turned towards the shorter, bristling man. “And I know you can understand me because she,” he growled pointing to Nello, “did that voodoo thing!”

  “Sable is the wench that Torn fancies,” Mace explained.

  “If she is with Torn, then yes she is in danger.”

  “I refuse to believe that Torn would—” Jack began, only to be cut off by Nello.

  “It is good you defend my son, but the danger does not lie with him, but with the one who sent him here.”

  “Wait!” Jill interrupted. “He was sent here?”

  “Why, do you think he would abandon his family on a whim?”

  “Never mind that!” Jack interrupted. “What danger to Sable?”

  “Ah, we have no time for this!” Nello narrowed her eyes as she glared at the two men. “I need to get to my son!”

  “You can protect Sable?”

  “Yes!”

  “We’ll take you there.”

  Nodding, Jack grabbed Jill by the arm and turned back towards the van. He wanted his girl safe.

  “I guess they aren’t faeries after all,” Jill sighed as they swiftly moved toward the van, Nello and the three henchmen following.

  “I don’t care what they are,” Jack said as they approached the van. “I just want Sable safe.”

  “And Torn,” Jill added. “Sable will never be happy without Torn.”

  “I know,” Jack sighed as he turned towards his partner. “And that’s what scares me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “This must be the place,” Terror decided as he followed the feelings of giddiness back to this dwelling. “Curious, these people’s dwellings.”

  “They are short and not very defendable, are they?” The Healer may be a healer, but he was still a warrior at heart.

  His assistant said nothing.

  “I suppose we should go right in,” Terror added, looking at the not too stout door. “I don’t think we should bother with announcing ourselves.”

  “How true.”

  Shrugging off the unsettling feeling of his son’s orgasms—there went another one— he braced himself before charging the door. Two swift kicks and the wood splintered like so many practice boards in his arena, easy and now without much effort.

  Before anyone dwelling inside could investigate, Terror rushed the entranceway, wary of magical traps and skilled warriors, but only found a neat sitting area, a small fireplace, and one screaming, red-haired woman holding a round wooden…staff?

  “Get the fuck out!” Sable screamed as she lunged through the room and attacked the home invaders.

  She was on her way to the kitchen for a drink when she heard the telltale sounds and leapt into action.

  She had heard about stuff like this, these invasion robberies, and she was going to protect her own! Especially with Torn near comatose with pleasure, after their last romp. It just wasn’t fair!

  Instinctively, Terror leapt back, sliding into a defensive position, but before they could blink, a dark streak shot through the room, grabbing the red-haired wench, pushing her behind it, and took up a defensive position before her.

  It all happened so quickly that Terror didn’t have time to react or even blink.

  When the blur settled, there stood the partially nude figure of his son in perfect positioning to launch an attack.

  “Torn?” he gasped, easing himself to a standing position, not sure that the quick moving raven was actually his son.

  “Father?” he asked in his strange lilting language, his violet eyes confused, but slowly clearing as he beheld a sight he thought he would never see again. “Father!”

  Technically he knew that his father was coming, Mace, Joz and Del had told him so. But to actually see him, knowing all the things that had happened, leading up to this event, it was slightly overwhelming.

  “Torn!”

  Then Terror was racing across the room, pulling his son into his arms, holding on to him like he would never let him go!

  “Oh, my son,” Terror breathed as he embraced his lost child. “I thought I would never hold you. I thought I would never get the chance to tell you how much I love you.”

  Torn was too choked up to speak as a few stray tears made silvery tracks down his face.

  Then Terror was pulling back, his large hands framing his son’s face as he rested his forehead against forehead, and stared deeply in his son’s eyes.

  “I am never letting you go again!”

  Then he was pulling his son to his chest again, lost to the world around them as he vowed again to protect his offspring with his very life.

  A voice clearing behind him caused him to pull away slightly to stare at the redheaded wench who attempted to attack him earlier.

  “Torn, who is this?” he asked, pulling himself back from the emotional reunion, to stare at the one obviously responsible for his son being half-naked and smelling of sex.

  Smelling strongly of sex, he decided as his other senses engaged and he peeled himself away from his son’s sticky, sweaty body.

  “Sable,” he replied as he took a step back, turning to face his chosen and offered up a hand to her.

  “Torn, I take it you know these guys?”

  Her voice was wary, and who could blame her. These oversized warrior…people just kicked in her door and invaded her house. And even worse than that, they destroyed the good lethargic sexual afterglow that she and Torn had just entered into.

  They took her by surprise and she really hated surprises of the destructive nature.

  Still, she trusted Torn, so she placed her hand in his and allowed him to draw her close.

  Then she started feeling self-conscious, dressed as she was, in only the large T-shirt she’d dragged on before she grabbed her baseball bat and reacted. It only came to mid-thigh, but when you were defending yourself and property, decorum rarely came into play. When she discovered that all eyes were on her, the man who hugged Torn, the tall silver-haired man who accompanied them, even the eyes of the hooded person who huddled behind them in the door, sh
e tugged at the hem, wishing she had a long paper bag to hide in.

  “Father,” he said in his lyrical language, “this is Sable.”

  Then turning to his chosen, he smiled and said in his accented English, “Sable, this is Father.”

  “Father?”

  She stared from Torn’s slowly grinning face, to Terror’s curious one, and back again.

  “I don’t see much of a resemblance.”

  But then maybe there was! Though Torn was several inches shorter—okay, about a foot shorter—than the man he acknowledged as his father, they had the same strong sturdy build. As he stepped closer to her, for a better look, she assumed, she decided that they both moved with the same languid grace.

  “Torn,” Terror said as he watched her catalog the similarities and differences between father and son, “she is small.”

  “Well, so am I,” Torn chuckled, drawing Sable to his side and wrapping one large arm around her, pulling her close.

  “What did he say?” Sable asked, looking puzzled at the amused expression on both father and son’s faces.

  “He commented on your tiny stature,” he answered with a grin.

  Then he pointed to the door.

  “Father, why did you not knock?”

  “Knock?”

  Terror felt a blush stain his cheeks as he looked a little bit shamefaced.

  “It was in the way of what I wanted,” he answered finally. Turning back to glare at his healer and dare him to say anything.

  But Fal intelligently kept his mouth shut and his snickers to a minimum.

  “Somebody is going to fix my door,” Sable growled as a draft blew through the house and sent goose bumps running up her legs.

  Then she realized that she was angry about that invasion, something she forgot in meeting these people.

  “My damn good English oak door that cost me a pretty penny!” More than angry, she realized. She was enraged!

  “Haven’t these people ever heard of a phone call? Or knocking? You don’t just barge into someone’s home without asking permission! And to destroy my property? Just who do you think you are?”

  Even Terror took a small step back at her sudden and unexpected anger, not understanding what she was saying, but knowing that she was not happy.