If She's Wicked

by Amelia Hutchins

  Chapter 42

  “I had watched you since the first moment you entered our court. A court I’d fought to get into and be accepted, right before it began to fall to yet another war. I had many skills, none of which you even noticed. I slaughtered thousands of men at your side, and not once did those pretty eyes ever turn to me and see the man who stood beside you. I was your match in every way, born for war, to wage it, to win it. I was a fucking king that stood beside you and abandoned my crown in order to do so. I watched you ruin lives, bring down the strongest kingdoms to their knees, and you flourished with every new kingdom you destroyed.

  “I fell in love with you, and you never even looked my way. So I waited and watched as you fell for him. Night after night, I stood outside your door, listening to the noises you made for him, praying that someday you’d make them for me too. You knew I was there, knew I listened as you fucked yourself in front of him, but you never admitted it. So, I bid my time, waiting years, and years as you sent me to hunt down his family so that you could slaughter them. It was your right, and I got it, you would look weak if you hadn’t sought them out and destroyed them. Even with how long it took with your half-assed effort to find them, your men started to snicker behind your back.”

  His hand cupped my chin as he took in the bruises that covered my flesh. His eyes smiled darkly as he lifted them, noting the fear in my own. “You heal, you’re immortal. That cunt has taken a lot more than that, Erie. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The men started to lose faith in their queen, sure that, when she’d begun riding a monster’s cock, she’d lost her focus. So, I struck a deal with the beasts, to join and become one in order to have you, and protect you if your own people turned against you. He’d allow me into him so that I could have you.

  “That’s neither here nor there. We lost you, and while we were fighting to bring you back, I fell in love with another. I had taken her to heal the pain of your loss, as it had taken over two hundred years to bring you back to us. I had a child with her, even though I’d never stopped craving you or mourning your loss. Then you returned, and you destroyed me without even knowing why you did it. You took everything from us, everything we loved because that is what you do. You crave warriors, and you have this need to take everything away from them so that you are protected from them hurting you. I was happy with my wife, settled into my new world and happy without you, or so I tried to convince myself. But I still wanted you, because you were the love of my life, and I had lost you to a war I hadn’t even known we were waging.”

  I pulled my legs up against my chest, letting my hair shield my body as the beast sat behind me, pulling me to him as Callaghan let his hand skim down my thigh.

  “Do you know why you are the cure for the Templars? Because you are the reason they are cursed in the first place, so we thought it’s only fitting that you be the way it ends,” he said as he knelt between my legs, pushing them open as he stared at me.

  “No,” I uttered as I stared at him. “That’s impossible, I wasn’t even born yet.”

  “Mmm, but you were. You found me when I’d discovered a new God to serve. I was a warrior of the Holy Knights, bound to serve the one God that wasn’t filled with trickery or hatred of the mortals. He loved them, and I found a new purpose among them. I found a purpose for our people, Goddess. I have been King of your people since the day of your first death. The day you died, he hid within me and allowed them to think he had abandoned them in his grief, and I ruled over your people. The problem was that we couldn’t separate, and we both craved you. So, we started searching for a way to bring you back because you didn’t get to leave us after what we’d gone through to have you.

  “Call it an obsession if you want, but we were monsters who couldn’t let you go because the type of love we had isn’t ending, it’s a beginning that continues long after worlds have been destroyed or died out. I remember the moment you returned to us, newly born and yet fully formed, your first rebirth into an entirely new world. You found me on the battlefield, searching for your home. You offered yourself to me, sensing that which slumbered in my soul. You felt him within me, and even though you didn’t recognize me, you did him. I fucked you in that place of death, unable to deny the lure of your untouched flesh as you offered it to me.

  “Hours, I fucked you for hours until the beast stirred once more, sensing your return. You wanted me, but you knew I was taken. So, you started what you’re best at war; driving pieces into place so that you can take what you want without repercussions or the chance of losing them to lesser beings,” he said hoarsely as his knuckles dragged over my silken flesh. “You were the sweetest temptation, and like a fly to a web, I was snared. I knew your game because I’d watched you play it many times before. Of course, you had no idea who I was, or that I’d once served you. I knew the moment you found out that I had a family that I cared for, one I cherished above all else, you’d seek to destroy them. I left you that day on the field to return to them, and you couldn’t stand it. You raged that you were no man’s plaything and that you would not be ignored or abandoned. You craved me, what was inside of me. I had to protect them against you, though I didn’t count on how dirty you fought when you were angry.

  “You tried to murder my wife, Carolina. You tried so fucking hard until you realized she carried my unborn son. I knew the moment she had him; you’d begin hunting her anew. It was one thing the beast and I had agreed on: protect my wife and our unborn child at any cost, even if that cost was your life. We knew we could bring you back again, of course. No matter how hard we tried to stay away from you, that devilish addiction to you and what you made us feel with you brought us right back every time. It wasn’t something you could ignore, the way you fucked, the way you loved; it was an addiction that no man could ignore. You were created to be wanted, to lure men to their deaths, and no matter how hard we tried, not even we were immune to what you offered us so freely.

  “I thought that if I spent enough time with you, that you’d understand that I loved you more than I could ever love Carolina, but when she birthed my son, I fell in love with him. He was the one thing that made me able to withstand the lure of you. I knew that if I stayed with him too long, you’d want his life as well. So I distanced myself from them, but I’d already caught your attention in my absence. You couldn’t stand to think that I may love them too, but then you weren’t created as we were. A Goddess of War couldn’t understand love could be given to more than just one person. You were cold, unloved, and unaccepted by even your own people. They feared you, feared you and your sisters would destroy them all considering what you brought with you in your nearness to anyone or anything. Chaos and war weren’t welcomed around the Gods for fear they would wage war against one another, so you were abandoned. That meant anytime you felt the threat of abandonment, you destroyed everything that could make it happen to avoid it. I thought I could love you enough and that you’d leave my family alone, but I was wrong.

  “You wanted everything I could give you, to know what it felt like to be wanted again. I’d spent enough time with you that you tasted the love you craved, and when you felt it strongly enough, you fought to keep it. The moment I fell in love with you, I signed the death warrant for your people, Erie. You didn’t know it though, because you didn’t recognize me yet. You didn’t sense your people because you weren’t looking for them; you were following your path home, to him, the beast within me. You didn’t know who I was, or why you were drawn to me.” His eyes searched my face, studying it as he swallowed past the lump in his throat. “All you saw was a proud warrior, an immortal among men who you wanted as much as you wanted him. So you did what you do best, you went to war on innocent people, your people, to take everything that stood between us away. You cursed us, Erie. You set the demons upon the witches, knowing what they’d do in their desperation to survive. You knew they wouldn’t be able to resist the Princes of Hell infiltrating them, and so you captured the generals of Hell’
s army, forcing them to do as you bid.

  “The witches never even fucking did what they were accused of; they just took the blame for a slight they had done to you in the past. That was all it took for you to wage war against an entire coven of this world’s strongest, oldest witches. Once the demons had inhabited the witches’ bodies and slaughtered entire villages of innocent people, the witches came crawling to us for help, to save them, which you had known they would do. When I refused them help, knowing it would bring all eyes down upon us, they cursed us as we watched them burn, a curse you knew would be placed because you’d given it to them in their darkest hour of need under the guise of one of their own. You sent the demons to them, which sent them to us, they sent the demons to us, and that started everything. You cursed your own people to get the one thing you wanted: me.

  “The King, he wouldn’t have done what he had unless you’d started the rumors yourself. You and your selfish needs created the chaos that you craved. Once you’d finished with the king, you moved on to the Pope. You knew that both would come after us, knew that it would end in the death of the Templar Knights, which would leave me without a cause in which to fight. I watched you. I watched you as you stood in the crowd while my brothers were burned alive for crimes they didn’t commit. You had no idea that I was the new King of your people, or that in cursing the Order, you’d cursed us all to death. You were young, selfish, and couldn’t understand why you wanted me. It was never me you craved, in the beginning, but we loved each other, Erie. I didn’t even like the woman you had come back as in that life, but the longer I held you, the more I learned that I’d never stopped loving you, even in death. You loved me too, but I fell more in love with you than I ever had with any other woman. I had been obsessed with you before, but that time, I loved you, and you loved me because the beast allowed me to have you in that lifetime, alone. You loved me enough that you cursed our people to get me. It’s only fitting that you would be the cure to the mess you created, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not her,” I whimpered, and the beast pinched my nipple, punishing me for my sudden outburst; Callaghan’s eyes turned ocean blue, silver hair seemed to grow to brush against his shoulders. Black runes seemingly danced over his flesh as he gazed at me, noting my reaction to his change. He was otherworldly, his body built for war as it darkened until the runes glowed with an eerily blue hue. “I don’t remember any of this,” I whispered as tears slid from my eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for whatever you think I did, but it wasn’t me.” But it was, I felt it to the depths of my soul, and even worse, I heard the truth of their words, these monstrous tales. I wasn’t the victim; I was their monster.

  “I don’t care if you remember or not. I made a promise to you before I went to war on your behalf. I promised to protect our people the moment I took my crown at your side, wife. I promised you that I would guard them with my life, even from you if it came to that,” the beast growled. “Even if they didn’t know it, I kept my promise.”

  “This time, Erie, you will care what is at stake when you go to war against us. Why do you think you carry our son in your womb?” Callaghan asked as he leaned over, sucking my nipple between his teeth, then his eyes lifted, locking with mine. “I lost my son, as the beast lost his, but you will give us another one, and you will love him too. You will be his mother, and God help anyone who tries to touch War’s son.”

  “This isn’t happening,” I uttered huskily as I felt the beast growing again, his silken flesh pulsing against my back.

  “Oh, it is happening, Erie. You started this, and while you may be a genius strategist, we’ve been planning this since the moment we pushed your corpse into that fucking cauldron and joined two souls to bring you back to us. You just chose two men who were willing to go to war against you to bring you back to us. We’ve planned this out perfectly, knowing you would never just fall into line if we told you to do. We allowed you the freedom to come back to us, and when your life was placed in danger, we moved up the timeline. There were also other things to consider after your death occurred while we were at war. The world had changed, and beasts could no longer walk among men. Monsters were no longer welcome in this new land, nor were our people, who have pointed ears and tend to glow when you’re near them. We hid them in plain sight, and without you close to them, it worked, because their glamour could conceal subtle those things. We’d planned on you remaining with us in your second life, to allow you time to get to know us, but you fucked that up with your petty jealousy. Do you know how you died the second time? I took your life.

  “I murdered you outside the Templar Stronghold, where you summoned me, demanding I listen to your madness. You were enraged because my wife was protected, and I’d taken away my son’s death from you. We knew you came to take me, to lure me into your fucking web, but that didn’t happen. Instead, we set a trap for you. It was the first time we fucked you. I ate your pussy…like this,” he uttered as he lowered his head, sucking my clit. “And then he fucked you; we made you come until you knew nothing else and wanted nothing else. We took turns ruining you, weakening you without you knowing what was happening. For an entire year, you were ours to share. Helpless, strung up by your own enchanted chains inside the cave that drained you and your Goddess powers until you were nearly mortal. You were so wild with need, unable to do anything but take what we gave you. I fucked my grief out on you, Erie. I wanted to hate you, to strangle you as I fucked this needy cunt, but even being drained, you were too powerful to die. One year, that was how long it took to drain every ounce of power you held, and when you were drained, we fucked you as the life faded from you. You see, you had to die to come back weaker as the cure. You create war with your presence, and to weaken that part of you, you have to be drained and weakened to the point of being a mere mortal. We planned everything together, stealing away the deaths of my family from you, planting you into the cauldron to be the child that was born druid and Templar. You are a battle Goddess who gets off on ruining men. I have watched you ruin men since the moment I first started to infiltrate the Tuatha Dé Danann.” Callaghan lifted his head, allowing his demon-like form to shift as he returned to human.

  “I am the Fomorian King, and you, you murderous beautiful bitch, you are my Queen and my soulmate. I’ve planned your downfall since before the land ever stood, long before the stars were ever created in the heavens. You think you can plan a war? You can’t even imagine how much we’ve planned for you together. Instead of fighting each other, we became two entities with a singular purpose who shared one body,” Callaghan growled.

  “Claiming you, destroying you, and the one thing that has never stopped since the moment you loved us back, loving you. No matter how hard it is or how much you put us through, we still love you,” the beast snapped. “Some things are just too ingrained in us that no matter how many times we come back, they remain,” he growled as he leaned his dark head over, kissing my ribcage. “You still taste like sin and magic, my Queen,” he uttered, lifting his head and watching my face.

  “Your sister felt you were being reborn when she came to me on that cliff and begged me to protect you, but she didn’t recognize me there, either,” Callaghan continued, his hand slowly playing with the swollen flesh between my legs. “I felt her; we felt her as she appeared in the disguise of a seer. What she didn’t sense was that we’d buried you so deep inside an innocent soul, that you were hidden from everyone but us. So she came, and then she left there, uncertain if it was really you, or if your sweet soul had finally passed on to another vessel to be reborn mortal. You were hidden in the druid’s compound because they alone could shield your presence. The one thing that burned the most was that I cared when you were abused. I shouldn’t fucking care, but I did. I saved the bitch that cost my son his life, and now, now you will give him back to me.”

  “I’m not her; why won’t you listen to me!” I screamed as the orgasm ripped through me, contorting my body as the magic assaulted me
all at once.

  “Ask us if we care? You have her face, her flesh, her black fucking soul inside of you, so everything else is irrelevant. You may not remember who you are today, or tomorrow, but you will come back. You always do. You’ve never cared who you hurt when you took their lives. You found warriors you craved, and then you took everything from us. You ruined lives, ruined worlds, and never cared who paid the price for it, but this time, this time it is you who will pay the cost. Buckle up, sweet Erie, it’s about to get really rough for you.”

  Chapter 43

  Mórrígan

  I was watching him from across the field as men died, impaled on spears while my people fought ruthlessly around me. Not a single drop of blood marred the white skirt I wore or the exposed flesh that they craved to touch so much that they fell at my feet. Such a fucking bore, and yet the scent of blood and the scene of utter chaos soothed my soul. Fomorians, heathens from the sea, had thought to attack the race I’d taken over when Danu had created her perfect fucking race in Faery, leaving me to deal with her mess. If they hadn’t craved blood and chaos as much as I had, I’d have slaughtered them all and called it a day.