Her human face returned. Her eyes still smoldered, but not from rage. “Come, my love. You have yet to be properly raped. Let us show these whores how it is done.”
My inner dragon spoke up. Fine with me.
My cock chimed in. Can’t argue with that.
I sighed, knowing that arguing with an insane goddess wasn’t going to get me very far. “Well, if you must…”
A tendril approached. Selene stepped onto a black leaf the size of a motor launch. The tendril lifted, carrying the leaf—and us—higher at a rapid pace. We had our own version of an escalator sliding us heavenward, toward the thorn-wrapped moon. Everything dwindled.
Izumi and Chrys’ came around the rock formations, two forms barely discernable in a ball of shadow. The girls looked up at us as we escaped.
I felt like yelling: Help, help, someone save me! Manfully, I resisted the impulse.
The pink stars were brighter, the size of mountains, but nothing like the stars of the Milky Way. Still, if the girls waited much longer to escape this pocket dimension, they wouldn’t make it.
The shadow-sphere wobbled and blurred, coming after Selene and me. Escape wasn’t on their mind.
A shower of pink trails plunged past us. A chain of thunder went off like firecrackers, only loud enough to shatter a world. Chunks of rock, dust, and pulverized thorn-wood made a miasma that hid the pulverized ground. Heat washed up like a wall.
Selene turned me away, jostling me in her arms. Her exposed breasts flounced in my face. “Don’t look, my love. There is nothing below to interest us anymore.”
To—ahem—balance myself, I reached out and squeezed a firm tit, taking the nipple of the other one in my teeth. Selene moaned. Getting her engine revving wasn’t my main concern. She needed to be distracted because I was reasonably sure Chrys and Izumi were still alive. Their combined magic would have cleared them from the danger zone, protecting them. By now, having ridden out the shockwaves, they’d be in hot pursuit.
I licked the nipple I’d bitten, then suckled with bruising force. I sure hope the girls appreciate the sacrifice I’m making for them here.
The middle of the leaf bucked up and reshaped itself into a padded throne with a low back. Selene swayed back, sitting. She’d gone weak in the knees, but the strength in her arms never wavered. Like me, she had much of the power of her dragon-self while still in human form. She twirled me like a baton, holding me upside-down. My legs extended over her shoulders. Her mouth enveloped my cock. The soft, wet warmth had me groaning.
Perched on the edge of the seat, she tucked my face into her crotch. I had no trouble figuring out what she wanted. Her scent overpowered, reminding me of the sushi I’d never gotten. Anchored in place by her hold on my legs, I had my hands free. I parted her sweet, pink folds and let my tongue go a-wandering.
She pulled off of my iron cock. “Oh, God!” She gasped, rocking her vagina against my mouth, which actually made what I was doing much more difficult. She said, “Yes, keep doing that.”
My cock yelled: Hey, what about me?
I pulled my head back so I could speak. “This would be a lot easier in a bed.”
“Who told you to stop?” She slapped my ass with what felt like her tongue. This had turned into the freakiest 69 I’d ever been part of. Her mouth swallowed my cock again, yet I still felt her tongue slithering around my balls. How long did she grow that sucker? I had to wonder what other perversions of the Kama Sutra lay ahead.
Her prehensile tongue caressed my ass, then located my sphincter. Her tongue tip flicked gently. I had a dark suspicion that she was about to pop my anal-cherry—while still deep-throating me.
Talk about setting all-new standards.
“Uh, Selene, honey, what the hell are you—”
I’d lost track of our ascent—for some reason—not noticing when gravity took hold from above. Our conveyor belt leaf chair spun, reorienting. We settled in a field of thorns with crimson lunar dust showing through the breaks, landing on the red moon.
Selene stood and disgorged my freshly cleaned cock. She spun me from the hips so we stared eye-to-eye. My toes barely touched the leaf we were on. I watched her hyper-extended tongue slither back into her mouth, returning to normal proportions. I was going to have to develop that ability myself; it would be all the rage at my next orgy.
“If it is a bed you want, my love, it is a bed you shall have. Come, the fortress isn’t far.” She slung me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, prepared to carry me there; probably so I couldn’t run off from the threat of impending fatherhood. She stepped off of the leaf, onto a vine the size of a country road. It undulated, a raised hump swept us over the hidden face of the red moon.
“I can walk,” I suggested, but my heart wasn’t in it; I thoroughly enjoyed the view of her rounded ass. So soft…such sweetness. I wanted to take a bite. I did.
She swatted my ass with her hand. “That hurt!”
“Bite her again!” It was Chrys’ voice. “Make the thieving bitch suffer. No means no!”
I pushed off of Selene’s lower back so I could raise my head and see behind us. The shadow-sphere had bloomed open like a black rose. It even looked like one. Ridding in the middle, Chrys and Izumi had closed the distance, just a dozen feet behind.
I made a last stab at peace. “Can’t we all just sleep together? There’s enough of me to go around.”
“Not if you keep that up,” Selene warned. “Whose side you are you on, anyway?”
I’d thought that was obvious from the beginning. “My own.”
That answer got me another smack on the ass.
Izumi yelled in cold fury. “You’re bruising him! Stop it.”
“This is getting ridiculous,” Selene said.
Getting?
Shooting up from gaps in the groundcover, geysers of crimson dust exploded in a random pattern that never slowed us down. Izumi and Chrys had a harder time of it as the red moon fought for its mistress. Their shadow rose was slammed from underneath, rocked, spun on its axis. Tugging on reins of darkness, Chrys battled to stabilize her ride and keep it on track as red dust thickened the air. For a moment, the dust cloud around the shadow rose solidified into a dragon’s claw.
The claw slashed.
The shadow-rose shredded, pieces falling away.
Izumi shielded herself with a shell of ice. She and Chrys fell from sight, too choked on dust to properly scream.
Selene laughed. And laughed. “Let’s see them follow us now.”
“At least you left them alive,” I said.
“How can I rub their faces in their failure otherwise?”
I sighed. “Your graciousness awes me.”
The undulating tendril we rode grounded itself. Selene dropped me onto my feet. We stood in a courtyard with mother-of-pearl flagstones that stretched to a flight of red marble stairs. There were bleached bones on the steps, trespassers that hadn’t made it inside. Above the steps was the porch of a soaring, black-iron fortress with crimson stained-glass windows. They’d used to be rectangular. Now they were heart-shaped. The whole structure looked like a love chapel stolen from hell.
Bestial gargoyles haunted the roof. They glowered down with vermillion eyes, aiming cocks toward the ground. I remembered that Selene was fond of automaton sentinels that pissed acid, one of her favorite defenses.
“You’ve been redecorating,” I said.
She smiled. “Wait until you see the master bedroom. The golden trapeze will absolutely inspire you.” Taking my hand, she tugged me up the steps toward the Bordello of Doom. The white bone fragment were human and other. They crunched and broke under our feet.
SEVENTEEN
“Give a woman what she wants,
and you’ll have to do it again.”
—Caine Deathwalker
The air smelled of singed sheets. The curtain around the bed had ignited and burned away. I barely remembered that. Ages had passed, at least it felt that way. On the red moon, time didn’t flow at th
e same rate as on Earth. That might be a problem by the time I got back. Or not; Selene could return me to the exact moment I’d left, if I asked nicely. It wasn’t like she didn’t owe me. I hurt. My cock was sore and ready to swear off sex—until the next time.
Selene cuddled against me, deeply sated, asleep, her hair a wild tangle between us. Her breathing was slow and deep. That didn’t mean that some part of her wasn’t taking everything in. I didn’t know a lot about what she’d put herself through to evolve her original dragon nature into a cosmic force. She’d spent thousands of years playing a Goddess until it took. There were secrets on the red moon I could never guess at, and others—genetic experiments like the gargoyles—I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.
She’d mentioned a reserve somewhere on the red moon where monsters prowled and ate one another during horrific battles. It was a place, she’d said, where even dragons wouldn’t last long.
Her version of a petting zoo.
To put her at ease about me leaving the room, to keep her from making the door go away, I murmured an explanation. “I’m starving. I’m going to the kitchen.”
Still asleep, she murmured back. “Try to leave the building and I will be very, very miffed.”
“Yes, dear.” I rolled away from her, onto my back, and reached up to grab the trapeze. It was solid gold with chains that stretched up to the high, vaulted ceiling. If I thought I could get away with stealing it, I’d have taken it with me. My inner dragon drooled as I pulled myself up, swinging my legs toward the edge of the bed. I let go of the trapeze, bounced, and landed on my feet. There should have been applause, but I guess Selene didn’t think of it.
On tripods, a couple of iron braisers sent up fans of red light on opposing walls. I walked between them, across a rug that might have come from a sabretooth tiger—if they had lime and yellow striped fur. The cat’s head was still attached to the rug, giving the universe a silent, eternal snarl. I didn’t have a robe, and it would likely be cold outside the room, unfortunately, the fur rug was too large to wear and would have dragged the floor.
Halfway to the door, I left the rug. Fuzzy blue slippers appeared on my feet. They matched the robe that faded in from nowhere, belting itself around my waist. I called back, “Thanks love.”
“No, thank you. I think that last time did it.”
She’d know. I stopped, a hand on the iron latch of one of the bedroom’s double doors.
Wait a second. Does that mean I’ve knocked her up? A kid’s on the way? If so, Izumi is going to give me hell about this. Actually, what happened to her and Chrys? Maybe they’re still sneaking around the fortress, looking for a way past the gargoyles.
The girls could have made it inside. I’d kept Selene rather occupied; we’d literally burned up the sheet, until exhaustion won out.
Better keep an eye out for company.
I opened the right-hand door. Despite its ten-by-eight-foot mass, the panel moved easily, soundless on massive, oiled hinges. The air in the hallway was colder, sterile. I didn’t smell anything but a faint scent of lemon-scented furniture polish. The hallway floor was black tiled. A crimson runner streaked the aisle. I followed the runner left, having a vague memory of the kitchen lying that way, a few levels down.
I found a staircase: black iron, spiral supports with red-painted wedges. Two floors down, I entered a foyer. It brought me to a belled space paneled with almond wood, lined with china cabinets and serving stations. A marble statue with upraised wings occupied a corner pedestal. The angel’s face was Selene’s. The eyes stared at me and followed me as I passed. I waved. The statue waved back. The middle of the dining room held a behemoth of a table made from purply yellow heartwood. A red runner striped it, pinned down by four golden candelabra designed to look like stag horns. The table was set for a dozen dinners with plates, wineglasses, and silverware.
I moved past the table and throne-like chairs to a back wall. A door led into a professional chef’s kitchen with prep table and stools, stoves, fridges, and racks of pots, pans, kettles, and baking sheets. The copper-bottom pots seemed to be preferred. I was surprised Selene didn’t keep Gordon Ramsey handy to make her grilled cheese sandwiches.
As I approached the closest fridge, I heard steps behind me, clomping shoes, not heels. No attempt at stealth. Maybe Gordon Ramsey was here after all. I opened the fridge and scanned the options. Without looking back, I asked, “Want something while I’m in here?”
A young boy answered. “I got pizza. Grab the soda in there.”
I saw two cans, grabbed them, and closed the fridge. Turning, I saw a kid, about nine years old, wearing a black hoodie with rolled up sleeves. The chest had a white, stylized skull on it, the Punisher logo. He wore black denim jeans and wore Sketchers with neon green shoelaces.
He slid a pizza box onto the prep table and pulled out a stool for himself. His bristling hair was almost pure black with highlights of midnight-red. His eyes were red-copper, a not quite human tint.
I walked over, set down the cans, and pulled out a stool for myself so there was a table corner between us. He lifted the lid of the pizza box and I saw a double pepperoni pizza with mushrooms and black olives. He grabbed a slice and pointed it at his mouth. I caught the falling lid and pushed it back up, getting a slice of my own. Still warm, it smelled delicious.
“So, who and what are you?” I asked.
Chewing, he didn’t answer at first, but he did look at me—carefully, with great interest, like he didn’t get out much. He swallowed. “I’m not supposed to tell you. I promised.”
“Really? Who did you promise?”
“Everybody, so don’t tell anyone I was here.” He took another bite.
“Does Selene know you’re here?” I took a bite out of my own slice, savoring the flavors.
As he chewed, he snagged a can of cola and popped the tab. Putting down my nibbled slice, I copied him, taking a sip. Once he cleared his mouth, he said, “Selene?”
“This is her place,” I said.
He nodded to himself, staring off into space. “Yeah, that’s right. They call her the Red Lady, too.”
“You didn’t have any problems with the gargoyles? They usually keep visitors out.”
“No. They like me. I help them kill the pigeons.”
I pushed for a little more information. “You can’t even tell me your name?”
He frowned at the half-slice of pizza he still held. “I’d really like to, but I was told not to destabilize the temporal multi-verse. He lowered his voice, confiding a secret. “That could really get bad.”
“Really?”
“Really.” His expression brightened. “Hey, you could just give me a name. A special name, just for us to use.”
“Okay, what about Mysterious-Kid-Who-Gives-Me-Pizza?”
“Kinda long.”
I nodded. “I see your point.”
“How about Colt.”
“You like horses?”
He tossed me a sly grin. “Mustangs. Grandpa says there isn’t anything you love more.”
I thought of my car collection in Malibu. “Whoever your grandfather is, he’s probably right.”
“I want a Mustang, too. A red one with gold flames down the sides and maybe a rocket launcher built in.”
Someone was sure raising this kid right.
“So, what are you doing here? Looking for something to steal?” I attacked my pizza slice, leaving him to fill in a few blanks for me.
“I came looking for you. I heard all the stories. I wanted to know if you were really as cool as Auntie Izumi said, back before you conquered the Dragon World. She says after that, you started acting more responsible.” His eyes got big. He slapped a hand over his mouth and spoke through his fingers. “Fuck! I wasn’t supposed to tell you anything about your future.”
“You’re probably too young to be allowed to say fuck. Izumi’s is your aunt? Funny, she never mentioned having a sister with a kid.”
“She’s not really family. I
just call her that. Along with Auntie Vivian, Auntie Chrys, Auntie Imari, and Auntie Gloria.”
“You’ve got a lot of honorary aunts,” I said.
And they’re all people I know.
His hand dropped. His eyes rolled back in his head. “Tell me about it. Did I mention that the pizza is a dollar a slice?”
“You’re out of luck. My wallet, clothes, and Glock are all missing in action. This robe and my watch are all I’ve got.”
Colt dug into the front pocket of his hoodie. His hand came out with my Glock, and then my wallet. He put them on the counter and slid them over. “Here you go. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’.”
“Thanks.” I took—and stashed—my stuff in my robe pockets, and looked at his hoodie pocket. “Do you have a wardrobe in there, too? I could use an Armani suit.”
“Sorry. If I’d known…”
“Yeah, I knew it was a long shot.” I drained my can of soda. “While you were sneaking around, did you see, uh, Auntie Izumi and Auntie Chrys? They followed me here. I’d like to make sure they’re okay.”
He grew still, staring into space. “They got in, but sprung one of the automatic defenses. They’re in one of the dungeon’s holding pens. The dungeon master needs to change his pants. He’s whimpering, begging for his life. Oh, too late. Auntie Chrys blowed him up. What a mess! I’m not going to clean that up.”
What he described lay beyond my range of perceptions. The kid had some serious chops. His distracted stare went away. He looked at me. “You want me to bring them here? It will cost you a dollar. A silver dollar.”
“Can I owe you? I’m good for it.”
His eyes narrowed. “If you want credit, it will cost you another silver dollar.”
“Fine. I can always kill you later and take them off your cold, dead body.” I smiled so he’d think I was joking.
“Your eyes aren’t smiling. Mom says never trust someone with dead eyes.”
“Your mom is a wise woman.” A chill went up my spine. “By any chance, is she someone I might once have slept with?” The kid was damn familiar, though I knew I’d never met him before.
07- Black Blood Brother Page 13