Courts and Cabals 2

by G. S. D'Moore

  It made me realize that despite being a superpowered succubus, and probably one of the sexiest people in the world, she was still an eighteen-year-old teenager. She had insecurities, and apparently, one of them was her man thinking other people were attractive.

  “I accept your apology,” I took the highroad, and meant it. “Now let’s just get the hell out of here.”

  Everyone went to their separate rooms, and I took the Fae with me. Evelyn was crystal clear she was my responsibility. I laid her out on the foot of the king-sized bed, like a cat, and tried to get some sleep. I gave up after a few hours; where every creaking floorboard, and shout from the party, had me sitting upright in a cold sweat. Through it all, the little Fae never stirred. I envied her.

  Dawn came, and a black SUV with dark window tint waited exactly where Evelyn promised it would. It was unlocked, and the keys were in the ignition. Xamira, still dealing with the death of her twin brother in the bleeding grounds, got behind the wheel. Lilith took the copilot’s seat, and Dani stretched out in the first row. She threw her arms behind her head and closed her eyes, but I saw through the charade.

  The Fae and I took the very back row, and Dani was acting as a security buffer. We still didn’t know who or what she was, and she could very well be an assassin aimed at me or Lilith. I knew that wasn’t the case, but Dani didn’t, and Dani wasn’t keen on taking my advice. In her defense, I didn’t have a great track record.

  We set out at daybreak, and missed most of the traffic as we headed south on the I-580. We stopped for breakfast sandwiches and coffee outside Carson City – the state capitol – before continuing our journey south in silence.

  I’d never been to Nevada before, and I took in the natural beauty that was the complete opposite of Upstate New York. For one, there was no snow. It was rare there wasn’t any snow this close to Christmas in New England, but out here, the only white was on the snow-capped peaks in the distance.

  “Holy shit it’s almost Christmas!” I had the revelation somewhere around Mono Lake.

  Yule had been the twenty-first, and despite all the shit that had happened, that was yesterday. It was the morning of the twenty-second, which meant I still had a few days to buy gifts. I’d need one for Lilith, Dani, Xamira, it would be polite to get one for Aden; and a condolence gift for the loss of Xander. I should get something for Lilith’s mother, as she was kind of the boss. It would probably be nice to get one for the girl sitting next to me, the one staring at me with fascination.

  From what I knew, most Fae tried to keep their glamour humanish to blend in. Whoever she was, she’d missed the mark a little. Despite what I thought I saw at first, there were no faerie wings that I could see. Her face was young, with a set of too-big eyes the color of the harvest moon. She had an extremely slender build, almost to the point of looking starved. If it wasn’t for the link between us, I wouldn’t have been able to tell she was female. She had no curves that I could see. Still, the too big eyes, and youthful face screamed cute the same way a puppy or kitten did.

  “Gods!” I jumped under her penetrating, amber gaze.

  Dani sat up with a hunting knife in her hand, and the small girl recoiled away from the cold iron blade. Xamira didn’t even bother to take her eyes off the road, and Lilith calmly turned to regard the Fae.

  “Master, you survived,” the Fae exhaled with joy. “I feared I wasn’t strong enough. I gave you all my strength,” she blabbered.

  “Yeah . . . right, I’m still kickin’,” I replied, and her face lit up with a smile so genuine and pure that it warmed my often-cold heart.

  “Welcome,” Lilith greeted formally. “Be known to Dani Underwood of the Dwarfs, Xamira Venitas, Imp of the Venetian Cabal, and . . .”

  “Lady Lilith,” the Fae bowed her head low and averted her eyes. “My master’s master.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that,” I countered, but the Fae didn’t look up until Lilith made a rise motion with her hand.

  “I am Fern Morningpuff, bound to the power of Master Cameron Dupree,” she shot me a look out of the corner of her eye, like she was looking for my approval.

  I gave her a thumbs up, but turned to Lilith and made sure my eyes conveyed that I had no fucking idea what was going on. “What do I do?” I mouthed.

  “You serve Cam’s power?” Dani squinted. “What does that mean?”

  “I was bound to the noble and strong Ser Fredrick of the Winter Court. When you defeated him in ritual combat, I became yours. I apologize, I did not come to your side sooner. My gifts are meager compared to great ones like you.”

  “Ha!” I couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped my throat. No one had ever called me a great one.

  “Morningpuff?” Lilith chewed on the name for a moment. “That’s a pixie clan.”

  “Yes, Lady Lilith, we Morningpuff’s are known for our loyalty,” the little Fae’s non-existent chest puffed out with pride.

  “Pixies are a race of lower Fae,” Lilith filled me in. “There are a lot of them, but they’re not particularly powerful,” she gave Fern an apologetic look, but it didn’t seem to bother the pixie. “What are your gifts, Fern?”

  “I have the gift of force. I can enter the place between the realms, but my time in-between is limited. I was told by my master that I am talented with glamour,” she replied meekly.

  “Telekinesis,” that part I knew from her throwing Marcella off me. “Fern being able to go to the cold world would take some strain off you,” I thought of the possibilities if Lilith had to lead another escape like the one we’d just been through. “As for glamour . . .”

  “Pixies are known for stealth, and are excellent at gathering information,” Lilith explained. “Their glamour isn’t powerful enough to outfit entire pocket dimensions like Aveena’s, but you shouldn’t overlook the finer manipulation of glamour. It can be very effective.”

  Lilith would know. Her own gift of glamour was paltry compared to a noble Fae’s. She’d probably learned all kinds of little tricks. With Fern, I had those little tricks at my disposal. The thought made me feel powerful and sick at the same time. Powerful, because for the first time in my life, there was someone weaker that I could command; and sick, because I knew what the bond between us really was. Aveena had offered me the same opportunity to end my blood feud. Fern was effectively my slave; bound to me by blood and power, as she was to the troll knight before me. The only way she would get free of me was my death, and then, she would pass into the service of another. It would go on and on like that.

  “Fern, how old are you?” she might look like an adorable child, but Fae were immortal.

  “I served Ser Fredrick for sixteen mortal years,” she replied.

  “That’s not bad,” I thought with relief.

  “But I served his father for seven hundred and twenty-three mortal years before that. My family has served the trolls of the Winter Court back to the beginning.”

  My eyes bulged as I tried to do the math. You’d have to add up the age of everyone in the car and multiply by ten to even get near the small pixie’s age.

  “I’m sure you served the troll well,” Lilith’s voice was soft. “You will find Cam to be a different kind of master than one you are used to.” A flicker of hope, and fear, flashed across Fern’s face.

  “What did you do for Ser Fredrick?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

  “I gifted him power to maintain his sword and armor. It kept the blade sharp and the armor strong. I cleaned his barracks, cooked his meals, and serviced his person,” she checked items off her task list with a smile.

  “Serviced his person,” my face paled. That could only mean one thing. I looked at Fern, and compared that to the big, swinging dick I’d seen on the troll. At a foot and a half, his cock had been a third of the pixie’s size. I winced just thinking about it.

  “What would you like me to do for you?” she asked, her eyes looking up at me with complete devotion.

  It was unsettling. “Why
don’t you take the rest of the drive to . . .” I waved at her face and body, “. . . figure out who you want to be.”

  She just looked at me in confusion. “Do I not please you?” from her tone, you’d think I’d slapped her.

  “No . . . I mean . . .” I scowled as Dani laughed at my stammering. “I want you to look the way you want to look, not the way you think that I want you to look,” I clarified.

  “How I want?” she couldn’t even fathom the idea, and I got a ringside seat at what eight centuries of obedience could do to a person.

  “Take some time and think about it,” I suggested.

  “Here,” Dani handed a tablet over the seat. “Google people and see if you like how anyone looks, then go with it.”

  Fern hesitantly accepted the tablet like it was worth its weight in diamonds. “Is this what you want, master?”

  “It’s not what I . . .” I gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, it’s what I want.” I had to gradually ease her into freewill, or she was never going to get it.

  “Okay,” she brightened up, turned on the tablet, and started surfing the web like she’d been doing it since the dawn of the internet.

  “Maybe she has,” I didn’t know.

  I spent the next few hours in quiet contemplation; trying to figure out what the hell I’d gotten myself into. I had enough trouble taking care of myself. How was I going to manage a Fae who’d been around since before the Renaissance?

  A couple hours from our destination, I tried to break the silence and make conversation. “You found me fast,” I meant it as a compliment.

  Fern immediately put down the tablet and gave me her undivided attention. Being a teenager myself, I don’t think I’d ever seen someone stop looking at their phone when someone else was talking to them. It was refreshing.

  “Almost not fast enough,” she lowered her eyes. “I traveled as far as I could between the realms before my power gave out, and I had to spend the last few hours traveling by mortal means. Thankfully, my last bit of strength emerged near a truck stop. A driver was more than happy to give me a ride on generous terms.”

  I looked down at her hobo clothes and distinctly recognized dry semen on her collar. Anger bubbled up inside me, and I swore to the gods if I ever found some trucker bragging about how he made a Fae bob on his knob, I was going to bash that fucker’s face in.

  “I’ve upset you,” she wrapped her arms protectively around herself and hunched her shoulders.

  “No, not you,” I almost reached out to comfort her, but thought twice about it. “Sometimes, humans can be assholes,” I said it with the conviction that I was now only tenuously linked to the species. Gods only knew what I really was.

  “You know, you shouldn’t just have sex with anyone in exchange for something,” it was a really awkward thing to say, but knowing what I’d learned about pixies, it had to be said.

  “Except master,” if it was possible, she looked even sadder at me telling her not to pleasure random people.

  “Fae culture is so fucking weird,” I said this knowing full well I had a little bit of Fae in me. “Thanks a lot, troll.”

  She thought I was pushing her away; telling her she was worthless. For a creature that had spent centuries in servitude to others, and been stockholmed like a motherfucker, it was the insult of all insults.

  I knew I’d need to take it slow with her. “Except master,” I agreed with a sigh, and rubbed my eyes as Dani chuckled.

  “Look who’s building his own harem now,” she ducked when I threw my breakfast sandwich wrapper at her.

  “And don’t call me master,” I said, still trying to take things slow. “My name is Cam.”

  “Okay, Master Cam,” Fern replied with a straight face, that set Dani off in another fit of laughter. Judging by her surprised and confused look, Fern didn’t understand the joke. That was the last time I tried to make conversation on the way to Vegas.

  I knew we were getting close when we passed Nellis Air Force Base. I thought they flew a lot of the drones out of there, but if they did, the runways were too far back from the perimeter fence for me to see. I made sure not to look out the window for too long. Even with the tint, it probably wouldn’t be good for my health if the US government identified me on facial recognition software right now.

  I’d just spotted the casinos on the Las Vegas strip, glittering in the mid-afternoon sunlight, when I first noticed the rumble. It was like thunder in the distance, but there were no rain clouds in the sky, and it never stopped. It got closer and closer, until it crested a hill and descended down the highway to catch us. At least fifty, black Harley Davidson motorcycles roared like a pride of lions as they surrounded us. Hard-looking men and women in jeans and leather vests peaked through the windows as they slowed us down and brought us off to the side of the road. Cars veered around us and quickly sped up. I wished one or two were calling the cops before I remembered I was a fugitive, and then I prayed the gods ignored my previous wish.

  I’d spent a good chunk of my freshman year working my way through Sons of Anarchy; so, I knew a motorcycle gang when I saw one. I also saw plenty of weapons, not all of them concealed, military insignias, and one-percenter patches. These people weren’t weekend hobbyists on a joyride. These were drug-dealing, arms-running killers. Or at least that’s what Hollywood wanted me to believe.

  A monster of a man with graying hair, ripped jeans, and arms that looked like he could wrestle a tank, and win, flicked down his kickstand and got off his bike. A salt-and-pepper beard hung a third of the way down his leather-bound chest, where there was a patch that said President in bold white letters. I looked at the back of another person’s vest and saw that this was the Fang and Claw motorcycle gang, Las Vegas chapter.

  I gulped as the man sauntered up to Xamira’s window and tapped on the glass. The SUV we were in was easily seven feet tall, and he had to bend down to look in the window. Surprisingly, Xamira started rolling it down.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I hissed, but it was too late.

  “Howdy,” the man had a southern accent that was a lot more handsome than his face. He looked like he’d gone one to many rounds with a heavy-weight boxer over his lifetime. That, or he just came out of his momma ugly as sin.

  “Dameon,” Lilith smiled at the hulking man. “It’s been a while.”

  “Miss Lilith,” he tipped an imaginary hat to the succubus. “And who else do we have here?”

  “I haven’t seen you in years. How can it be that you still wear that stank ass cologne?” Dani leaned through the gap in the front seats with a big toothy grin.

  “What you smell is the open road, darlin’,” Dameon played it off like he was hurt, but the glint in his eyes told a different story. “How the hell are you, Dani?”

  “Better now that you’re here,” she reached across Xamira, and gave his cheeks a good squeeze. She looked like a grandma with no respect for personal boundaries, because she was too old to give a shit.

  “Um . . .” my cough caught the man’s attention as he swatted to ward Dani off. The dwarf just laughed.

  “And you must be Mr. Dupree. The one who all the hubbub is about,” he extended a hand.

  His big, meaty paw completely engulfed mine, and the strength of his squeeze told me he was some sort of shifter. With a club name like Fang and Claw, I bet everyone here was a shifter.

  “The Boss sent us to escort you in,” Dameon continued when he finished taking a measure of me as a man, or as a threat. “Po-po is out in force looking for you, and she doesn’t want any misunderstandings. Follow us in, and we’ll get you home.”

  Xamira nodded, but didn’t say a word. She just rolled up the window, and we followed the rolling thunder the rest of the way into Vegas. It was one hell of an entrance: encircled by a small army of motorcycle shifters that even the cops stayed clear of. Short of an armored battalion, there was nothing that was going to stand in our way.

  Chapter 7

  Aveena took the next few
hours to seriously prepare for the task in front of her. With a mental flick of the switch, she disassociated herself from the Aveena Foxbelle of the last four years. Things had been fun and carefree at the mortal academy. Her focuses were school and the occasional boy; although, none seemed to rise to the occasion, so she was forced to settle for half-blood changelings with their small dicks and weak fortitude. She was a woman with needs she couldn’t ignore, and she preferred not to play with herself when there was someone willing and able to attend to her needs. Self-pleasure was beneath her dignity.

  She closed her eyes in the picturesque, snow-covered field, and when she opened them, she had changed. She was no longer a pretty princess at the top of the social ladder. She was the descendent of those who’d conquered the wild tundra. Her bloodline bested the vicious race of malks: large creatures that looked like the bastard offspring of foxes and sabretooth tigers. They’d made grizzly bears look like neutered puppies. The remains of their ancient foes decorated her mother’s throne. She was an amazon warrior, daughter of a literal goddess, and would one day wield the Coldstone; an artifact of great power.

  Her glamour shimmered and shifted with her attitude. Instead of white ski gear more at home on a snow bunny, she was wearing hunter’s camouflage. She found the part of herself from when she was younger; when she walked the battlefields of the Faerie Realm and took the lives of weaker Fae in the name of Winter. If anyone looked, they would see the shift in her eyes. They’d always been a cool silver, but there was now a fire in them that gave her chosen glamour a fierce appearance. This wasn’t the #fierce that some pampered mortal tween could post on Twitter because they managed to get out of bed in the morning. Aveena was here to kill whoever got in her way. This was a fierceness born in war.

  To win the coming battle, she needed to prepare. Proper preparation was the first step to victory, and for that, she needed to develop a plan. The mission was clear; she needed to retrieve Cameron Dupree from the hands of her whore, half-sister’s cabal and deliver him to her mother. If she did not, her mother would remove Aveena from the line of succession. There was no doubt in Aveena’s mind that if that occurred the little brat festering in her mother’s womb would have Aveena killed at the first opportunity. That was the Fae way, and the reason most powerful families only had one heir. A lot of people died in the House civil wars that occasionally plagued her race.