I lunged forward, and brought Grinder down on its knee. The demon’s flesh was tough as stone and its bones were even harder, but the blow penetrated halfway through before my blade stuck.
A flailing paw backhanded me across the enclosure, and I bounced off the containment dome. Lighting seared my back, and my cloak caught fire. But I was only stunned for a moment.
A snatch of chanted Greek and a flash of golden light announced Avilla’s entry into the fray. The oppressive pressure of the temple wards vanished.
“Odin’s merciless gaze,” Holger breathed. “Quickly brothers, bring the fifth vessel!”
I sprang back to my feet, reaching with force magic, and Grinder’s hilt smacked into my palm. Cerise was back on the ground, frantically dodging around the demon as it stumbled awkwardly in circles trying to get a grip on her. She dived over its tail and rolled gracefully under a clawed hand, her knives leaving thin trails of blood on the monster’s hide as she moved.
I raised my weapon, and sent a jet of violet plasma into its face.
It roared. Two misshapen hands rose to cover its eyes, too late to save them from the flames. I rushed in and brought Grinder down on its damaged knee again, and this time the blade sheered clear through.
The demon toppled forward, nearly crushing Cerise as it crashed to the ground. She darted out from under it and jumped onto its back as it fell. Her gleaming daggers plunged into its hide where a man would have kept his kidneys.
I brought Grinder down again, this time on the demon’s neck. Bone, flesh and the stone floor beneath were all gouged away in an instant. The demon’s head rolled across the floor, and its body gave one final convulsion and went still.
But the priests had been busy, carrying a heavy iron vessel across the room and raising it to press the mouth of the container against the side of the dome. As the first demon fell the vessel’s lead stopper fell off, and a foul-smelling black mist poured into the space where we were trapped.
Cerise’s eyes narrowed. “No body? Fuck. Corruption demon. How kill?”
I frowned. “Fire, maybe?”
Avilla stepped up beside me. “A dirt monster?” She asked, amused. “I think I can handle this one. Με την ευλογία της Εστίας, θα σας καθαρίσω!”
A golden glow lit the room, and the demon disintegrated with a shriek like an overheated tea kettle.
Cerise gazed at her admiringly. “Mine!”
“Yeah, good job Avilla,” I said with a smile. But if the demon could get in that way…
I put a blast of plasma into the mouth of the iron vessel. It burned through the last remnants of the demon and filled the metal container, heating it cherry-red in seconds. The priests holding it screamed and stumbled back, dropping it in the process. Sadly the vessel rolled away, and the opening in the containment field closed almost instantly.
Holger was staring at us, all traces of his former blasé demeanor gone.
“Who are you people?” He demanded. “No mortal wizard has such strength, but no familiar or bound spirit could enter the circle. Where are you getting all this power?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seriously think I’m going to explain, do you? Step back, girls, this is going to be messy.”
I strode to the edge of the barrier, and brought Grinder down on the floor.
The enchanted stone offered no more resistance than the body of the demon I’d just hacked apart. Grinder had no point, but it could cut anything. Down, across and around in a wide arc, coming up under the carved symbols of the circle.
I could hear Holger chanting something, but I ignored it. This was working. My blade came up through the floor, chewing the complex symbols of the diagram to bits in a storm of broken stone. The magic of the circle wavered, and collapsed in a shower of sparks. Excellent. I looked up triumphantly just as Holger leveled his spear, and a bolt of lightning leaped from the tip to slam into my chest.
Being electrocuted was really starting to get old.
A second bolt struck me before I could recover, and then a third. There was shouting and screaming, and a smell of bacon and burnt hair filled the room. Wait, was that me? Faces loomed over me, spears frantically stabbing, but physical blows couldn’t reach me.
Enough awareness returned for me to sit up.
A confused melee filled the basement. Cerise dodged through the crowd of priests and soldiers, stabbing with her knives while her tail and hair tripped and strangled her opponents. Avilla was hiding in a corner, behind a dazed-looking soldier who was clumsily trying to defend her from a pair of priests. Two more priests were chanting over their spears and trying to stab me, and not having much luck. Their blows damaged the fabric of my shield spell, draining off huge gouts of magic with every hit, but even together they were barely outpacing my amulet’s recharge rate. If they’d had a few hours to work at it they might have gotten through, but that wasn’t going to happen.
I’d lost Grinder again, but a simple force blade cut them both in half.
“The wizard lives!” Someone shouted. “Run for your lives!”
“No!” Holger called. “Have faith, broth-urk!”
Cerise carved his throat out. The men around her all stepped back in shock, and she paused to lick the blood off the blade.
“Murdered by my hand, darkness claim your soul,” she crooned. “Tasty priest. Next?”
They ran.
Cerise cut down one more fleeing priest, and then pulled back and turned towards Avilla just in time to see her behead her former guardian with her enchanted butcher knife. I threw a couple of force blades into the remaining priests, but let the soldiers go.
Avilla released her spell, and the wards pressed down on us again. But they were noticeably weaker than before. Maybe the deaths of most of the priests had eroded them?
Avilla was weaker too. She’d burned through a lot of the power I’d given her, but a glance reassured me she wasn’t in any danger. I was a bit beat up, but I’d be healed in an hour. Cerise, however…
She tangled her hand in Avilla’s hair, and kissed her thoroughly. Avilla sagged bonelessly into her arms, surrendering instantly to the moment. They were both so beautiful I couldn’t help but stare.
Cerise was draining Avilla’s energy.
I shook my head, and brushed away the strands of glamor that were trying to enthrall me. Cerise was more demon than human now, and they’d both been worried about her self-control even before this happened. She might not be able to stop.
Avilla certainly wasn’t going to muster the will to stop her. The curvaceous blonde moaned raggedly into the kiss when Cerise’s tail probed up under her skirt. A moment later I heard cloth ripping, and a scrap of fabric fluttered to the floor.
I stepped closer, and put my hands on their shoulders.
“Cerise?” I said. “I hate to interrupt, but there’s an army of frost giants we have to escape from.”
She broke the kiss, and looked up at me dazedly.
“Daniel?”
Her eyes found mine, hugely dilated and full of hunger. I lost myself in their depths. She pressed her sleek curves against me, her firm breasts pressed against my chest. The scent of her desire made my head spin. What was I doing?
“Daniel,” she purred. Her arms rose to twine about my neck, and she pulled me down to meet her lips.
Chapter 15
I was lost in an embrace I had no desire to escape. Thrusting endlessly into her slick heat. Trapped by the inhuman strength of the smooth, sleek limbs wrapped around me. My life force poured out of me like a river, an endless banquet that my lover eagerly devoured.
I vaguely remembered being on the bottom at first. A helpless victim, unable to do anything but thrust and give and explode in one climax after another. But that had been a long time ago. As she’d drained me her hunger had gradually become less frantic, her control dissolving into rapturous bliss. At some point her ruthless plundering of my energy had become my equally ruthless conquest of her eager
young body.
There was a hand on my back. A female voice, chanting words I couldn’t understand. I wiped the sweat from my brow, and slowed.
“Avilla?”
“Daniel! Goodness, I was starting to wonder if you were coming back. My counterspell is working, then?”
Cerise ground herself against me. Her hot core milked at me, what felt like a dozen silken fingers stroking and squeezing my length. I groaned, and found myself thrusting harder again. Fuck, I was about to…
I erupted inside her, for what felt like the hundredth time. She matched me with a delighted wail, and I nearly lost myself again. She was so beautiful. Her dizzying scent, her breathy moans, the play of smooth muscle under silken skin as she writhed against me. Her face, so expressive and so utterly lost in the ecstasy of our shared pleasure. She was intoxicating.
“Bind her quickly, Daniel,” Avilla breathed in my ear. Her magnificent breasts pressed into my back, and only the fact that she was still clothed let me resist the fantasy that immediately presented itself.
Bind Cerise?
The fog cleared a little, and I really looked at my lover. Yes, she was beautiful, but there was precious little humanity left in her. The cute little horns that had sprouted from her forehead were much bigger now, curling around her temples before rising into vertical points. Her eyes were pools of absolute darkness, windows into a soul overflowing with demonic power. Her skin was a flawless expanse of ivory that glowed with a hypnotic inner light, and her parted lips revealed prominent fangs amid a mouth full of disturbingly sharp teeth.
I had vague memories of her biting me, drinking my blood, ripping a chunk of flesh from my shoulder and devouring it while she held me down and savagely fucked me. No, she had long since lost any semblance of self-control.
Was there even anything left of Cerise in there? Or was this beauty just a mindless amalgamation of the demons she’d drained?
Her eyes drifted open, and she looked up at me adoringly.
“Fuck me more, Daniel,” she purred. “Fuck me forever.”
Something shifted inside her, and then what felt like dozens of slick tongues were slithering around my organ. I tried to pull away, but her strong legs drew me easily back in.
“Focus, Daniel!” Avilla insisted.
Cerise’s gaze drifted past me, and her eyes lit up with delight. “Honeydew!”
Cerise reached up to grasp her arms, trapping her in her position pressed against my back, and Avilla squeaked in surprise. Then she moaned raggedly into my ear.
“Oh, goddess! Her tail! I can’t… no, not there! Hurry, Daniel! She… she knows all my spots…”
Avilla shuddered, and bit my shoulder. Cerise gave me a smug look. “My Honeydew.”
I nodded. “Your Honeydew.”
I thrust, and lit up every pleasure sensor in her finely tuned body with my flesh magic.
Her whole body clenched convulsively. Her eyes rolled back, and I could feel the instant orgasm that shattered her thoughts.
But the way Avilla writhed against my back made it clear that her tail was running on autopilot, and I wasn’t getting any more help from that quarter. The buxom witch was so easy Cerise could reduce her to dazed incoherence with her fingers in moments, and that was without seductive demonic sex powers. I was on my own now.
Only one option, then. I spun a binding around her, my meta-magical sorcery easily translating the theory I’d read into practice.
“My Cerise,” I growled in her ear.
“Yes!” She agreed instantly, any thought of resistance long since dissolved by the pleasures we’d shared. She was more lost than I’d been. Was it even possible to bring her back?
“My brave, clever, loyal Cerise,” I murmured in her ear, punctuating each statement with a thrust of my hips and another flash of blinding pleasure.
“Yes, yes, yes!” She wailed, climaxing again with each thrust. Her magic embraced mine eagerly, happily accepting the compulsion. The huge mass of stolen power she’d absorbed from me churned and shifted in response, still almost as much mine as it was hers.
“Demanding and playful,” I went on. “Beautiful and deadly. A mighty witch, always in command of your stolen power.”
She gasped, staring sightlessly up into space as her skin beaded with sudden sweat. She balanced trembling on the verge of another titanic orgasm as conflicting forces battled within her. I could see the moment when some part of her realized what was happening, and threw what will she could still muster into the balance.
“Yes!” She gasped.
The deadlock broke. All the power she’d taken from me flowed easily into a new pattern, and crashed down upon the tangled knots of half-absorbed darkness. Shadows chased each other across her skin, and for a moment her hair lashed out in a blind attempt to strangle me.
Then it fell limp. Cerise lay there panting for a moment, as the magic that filled her settled into its new configuration. When she finally opened her eyes the unnatural darkness was gone.
“You bound me to be myself?” She murmured.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Do you need anything else, before I seal it?”
A crooked smile stole across her lips. “Let’s go with: ‘But all my sexy powers are yours to command when you want.’ So I can relax and let go sometimes without having to worry about what I’ll do.”
I chuckled. “Done.”
She squirmed against me as the final binding settled over her. “That’s so hot. Make me agree, Daniel.”
“Naughty wench.”
I started thrusting again, but this time I didn’t hit her quite so hard with the flesh magic. She gasped, thrashed, her claws digging into the shredded remains of my shirt as her tight channel began to work my tool again.
“Say it!” I ordered roughly.
Her eyes screwed shut, and her head thrashed from side to side. She was almost there, but I wasn’t letting her reach her peak.
“Ah! Fuck! S-sneaky bastard! I… y-yes! Fuck, yes! Make me your bitch, Daniel.”
I let her find her release, and found myself abruptly driven over the edge as well by the impossible sensations emanating from her hot core. I collapsed on top of her, panting for breath.
“Agreed, and sealed till we both recant,” I gasped, completing the weave that would make the binding self-sustaining. “Fuck, you’re a handful.”
She snuggled into me with a smug grin. “Damn right I am, and don’t you forget it.”
A soft whimper reminded me that we weren’t alone.
“Can someone… please… finish me?” Avilla pleaded from somewhere behind me.
Our eyes met, and we both laughed. I moved aside, and Cerise rolled onto hands and knees.
“Come here, Honeydew,” she said, her affectionate tone completely at odds with her still rather demonic appearance. “Kitten has a new toy for you. I’m sure Daniel can give us a few minutes.”
“Yeah, I think if I come one more time my brain’s going to melt and run out my ears,” I admitted.
“Same here,” Cerise agreed, to my surprise. “But I can’t leave my girl hanging.” She pounced on the curvy blonde, and began kissing her thoroughly.
I turned away with a smile. I wanted to tell them not to take too long, but I didn’t quite have the heart to interrupt their reunion.
The bodies on the floor brought me back to reality. Seven men and a demon had left huge pools of blood spreading across most of the floor, but it had long since dried. The remains of my clothes were caked with dried blood, and so were my hands. How long had we spent mindlessly rutting among the bodies?
A glance showed that Cerise was spotless. Either blood didn’t stick to her anymore, or… well, best not to go there for now.
I busied myself examining the books and arcane materials spread about the room. I found Grinder on the floor under a worktable, and Avilla’s giant recipe book occupied a high stone podium. A lot of the other books seemed to be religious in nature, but not all of them.
There was a
lso a scholarly survey of major spellcasting styles, which looked like interesting reading. One shelf held several books on summoning and binding rituals, along with a catalog of magical creatures and the realms they were believed to hail from. One of the larger tomes looked like a book on air magic and weather control, which could certainly be useful.
I’d just cut the chain off that one and stacked it with the rest when the girls joined me. Cerise was looking quite pleased with herself, and Avilla was adorably mussed. I hugged them both.
“Think we can get away with stealing that priest’s bed until morning?” Cerise asked hopefully.
Avilla giggled. “I wish. But we have to go.”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Too many monsters gathering. The town may not be here come dawn. Speaking of which, either of you know what time it is?”
They both shook their heads.
“Damn. Then we’d better not waste time. We need clothes, and I suppose we can spare a few minutes to loot this place if there’s anything else you want. Cerise, we’re supposed to be meeting Oskar’s militia and the people you and Avilla had recruited over at the granary by the harbor, which is where what’s left of the 5th Margold is set up.”
“Those bastards?” She protested. “They didn’t lift a finger when we needed them. Don’t tell me we’re hooking up with them.”
“They were in service to the Baron,” I pointed out. “Captain Rain takes that seriously, but now that the Baron’s dead he wants to sign on with me instead. Considering how much loyalty he was willing to give that idiot in the name of a contract, I think it’s a good deal.”
“I guess. Wait, the Baron’s dead?” She pouted. “Aww. I wanted to kill him. No one gets to paw my girl like that and get away with it.”
“I took care of it,” Avilla told her. “Daniel pinned him to a wall for me so I could take my time.”
“Oh. Well, as long as you’re satisfied. That’s the important thing.”
I interrupted before the heated look they were sharing could lead to another makeout session. “Cerise, are you stuck like that or can you make yourself look a little more human?”
Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) Page 24