“You not getting sucked off by the boss is great and all, but we’re still going to be late,” Dani stood over where I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Shit,” now I remembered what she was talking about.
Training with Peter had been scheduled this morning; partly, I’m sure, because he knew I was having dinner with Venus and wanted to fuck with me. I had training scheduled all day, starting with the other First to assess my abilities, and later with Lark. The Fae was going to try and instruct me on the new gifts I possessed. If I did well enough, I’d be able to go to the porn expo where Dani and Lilith had bought me a VIP pass.
I felt like if I had a solid month, I could learn just about anything after what Dani, Xamira, and I had gone through leading up to the fight with the troll knight. This time, I only had a week, and that was pushing it. Sure, I was motivated; who wouldn’t be if they had a backstage pass to titty and ass central station? I was still an eighteen-year-old, red-blooded, American man; even if my definition of “man” might have slightly changed.
“This is gonna suck,” I groaned, but bucked myself up. Worst case scenario, I unleashed a projectile vomit attack on Peter. The Pegasus might just let me go back to sleep after that.
“Master, what shall I do?” Fern just stood in the middle of the room as Dani and I headed for the door. I’d passed out in shorts and a t-shirt, and that was good enough to fight in.
“Why don’t you clean up,” my mouth answered before my brain caught up.
My face paled, and I turned to apologize. I didn’t want Fern scraping my dried vomit off the bathroom wall. Talk about demeaning, but she was standing there with a big smile on her face. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought she’d just been given a raise and the day off.
“Yes, Master!” she beamed and practically skipped to the bed to strip it and run a laundry load.
“That girl is weird,” I tried not to think too much about it. I had other things to concentrate on.
We rode the elevator down to the subterranean levels. Unlike the magically-enhanced penthouse space, these floors were done the old-fashioned way; dug out of the earth, reinforced with steel, concrete, and shoved full of everything a supernatural, paramilitary force needed to train. The workout section was fucking huge. It followed an open concept design, and despite it being early, there were dozens of people present.
There was a uniform vibe from the young men and women sparring on the mats, engaging in some yoga, tai chi, or Pilates, and lifting in the weights section. Hell, the hyperdense metals used in supernatural workout equipment weighed a few hundred pounds a plate, and some of the stronger-looking fellas were lifting a solid half-ton. It was pretty clear everyone here was an imp. They were the backbone of the cabal; working in everything from VIP protection to cyber security. There was a grace, speed, and strength to them that spoke to their half-supernatural bloodline.
Most ignored Dani and me as we passed them, but a familiar mocha-skinned woman with two full tattoo sleeves gave us a smile, wave, and walked over to intercept us.
“You look better,” I gave Xamira a smile.
She did. There was a bit of a glow back to her features, and her eyes weren’t puffy and red. She’d had time to mourn her dead brother, and while she hadn’t moved on, there was acceptance in her stance.
“And you look like shit,” she raised an eyebrow at Dani.
“Looks like her whit is all better too,” I shook my head and smiled. Over the past few days, I’d missed the imp who’d trained me how to fight dirty.
“You know you’re representing me this morning,” Xamira frowned as she looked me over. “Did you have to go on a binger last night?”
“I will have you know . . .” I started to defend myself, but was drawing a big blank. I didn’t remember getting plastered, but most people didn’t when they got black-out drunk. “. . . yeah, I guess I did,” I sighed dramatically. “But don’t worry, that’s not on you.”
“You do remember I’m the one that taught you to fight,” Xamira’s face hardened by the second. “The critique Peter gives you will be a reflection of me and my skills.”
My temper wasn’t exactly cool this morning since Dani tossed me on the floor as casually as she took her morning dump. “What the fuck does it matter?” I snapped. “You helped me beat a fucking troll. From what I understand, a bunch of the imps here probably couldn’t have done that; so, everyone can suck a dick for all I care.” I huffed, I puffed, and I deflated under the weight of my own anger.
“Seems like someone isn’t getting enough on the regular,” Dani stated. “I’ll talk with Lilith.”
“Ugh!” I growled, but it did nothing to intimidate the ladies. It was tough when they had already seen my O-face.
“Dupree!” a voice boomed across the space, and the other imps stopped what they were doing for a moment to watch. “Front and center.”
“I’m not some fucking soldier . . . front and center my ass . . .” I mumbled under my breath as I left the dwarf and imp to plan on who would milk my balls later.
“Reporting as ordered, sir,” I snapped off a shitty salute, and Peter frowned at me.
He didn’t mention my scruffy appearance, ratty clothes, or the cologne of day-old wine and stomach acid that wafted off me. He stood tall and strong, his overly-muscled chest bare, a black belt around his waist, and loose white pants that looked like something Ralph Macchio would wear. He looked ready to train, and I looked like shit.
“I’m here to evaluate your skill level,” he began. “I understand you’ve had a few months of cabal training, and I will determine how much more you’ll need.” It was clear he didn’t think I was up to the cabal’s standard. “It is important that you can not only defend yourself, but the harem as well. As the First, you are the last line of defense for Lilith, but you are also a potential weakness. Someone may use you as a way to hurt Lilith, and you need to be able to take care of yourself.”
“You’re speaking to the choir, buddy,” I kept the remark to myself.
That’s what the entire last few weeks of my life had been. Sure, Aveena was pissed at me fucking up her Fae banging ceremony, but it all started to go downhill when Lilith stepped in. When I tried to make peace, Aveena even said she wanted to hurt her half-sister. Peter didn’t need to tell me about people using me to get to Lilith, I’d already lived that.
“Prepare yourself. We will begin in five minutes,” Peter ended his little speech, and I started to stretch. I didn’t want to pull my groin or any other important part of me. After all, Dani and Xamira were planning on someone fucking me later, and if I was being honest with myself, I needed a good release.
Five minutes came and went, and I faced off against Peter. Xamira acted as the referee, and waved us into action. I didn’t hesitate. I’d been playing defense for so long, I just wanted to be the first to hit somebody. I sprang forward and lashed out in a combination just like the imp taught me. I was quick and controlled, I didn’t overextend and set myself up to be dismantled, and I did my damned best to hit the Pegasus in his perfect, Ken-doll face.
Of course, I couldn’t. He was a twenty-five-hundred-year-old, rare shifter, from a begotten age of magic, who could fly and had a fucking horn that grew out of his head. He evaded my strikes while using the least amount of energy possible. It was infuriating because that meant I was missing him by inches. I could feel the almost-sensation of our skin touching every time my fist flashed by his face. He backed up as I continued to drive forward, and I knew he was looking for an opening. Just like with Ser Fredrick, I knew one hit from Peter and I’d be down, and in a real fight, dead.
Good thing I had some tricks up my own sleeve. I fell into the zone sometime around my third combination and my sight flared to life. I knew I was safe on the attack until it flared a warning. I threw myself to the side an instant before Peter struck. He would have knocked my head off if he hit me, but I executed a textbook combat roll and came back up on the balls of my feet to p
ress the attack again.
“So, it’s true,” he wasn’t even breathing hard as he moved around my strikes like a stream around a rock. “I wasn’t sure I believed the reports Xamira was sending.”
I heard a scoff from our referee just before another warning flared in my mind. This time, it was accompanied by the aura of what was to come. Now, I was on the defensive. I knew Peter was pulling his punches; still, he made Muhammed Ali look slow and clumsy. Getting hit would hurt way more than a bee sting. I managed a solid defense; falling into a rhythm that felt second nature. I hadn’t fought in what felt like an eternity, but the death of the troll wasn’t even a week ago. If anything, I was more rested and confident than before.
If I was a proper supernatural, that might have been my undoing, but I’d spent too much time as a vanilla human. When us mundanes got overconfident, someone always brought us down to size. I don’t know how long Peter and I tangoed, but eventually, I saw an opening. I dodged under his blow and wrapped up his legs. I could have sworn a look of surprise flashed across his face as he went down. I followed him, and executed about the only ground move I knew. Xamira hadn’t spent much time on my ground game. The one time she’d gotten me down, I bit her on the inside of her leg, and she hit me with a full dose of sex magic.
I couldn’t think about eating her out, her riding my cock like some cowgirl, or Lilith breaking her spine in retribution. I focused on trying to get the shifter’s arm in a lock. I succeeded in getting my legs across his chest, keeping him pinned, getting his arm secured, and torquing it back. It was textbook, and I grinned as I waited to hear him tap out. Instead, he laughed.
I promised not to be overconfident, but I still forgot one thing. This wasn’t me and Xamira. Xamira could make this move work. I couldn’t. Still laughing, Peter lifted me up off the ground, and I hung from his arm like a cat clutching a telephone line. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, I should have let go. Instead, I held on as he turned over and smashed me face first into the padded ground. The was a crack and I felt warm blood on my chin.
“You broke my fucking nose!” I roared as I struggled to my feet.
Peter was still chuckling as he stood up casually. “Not bad, Dupree, but . . .” I didn’t let him finish.
I felt the ball of molten heat and light in my chest and I grabbed it. I cocked back my fist and launched it towards Peter’s smug, fucking face. My hand blurred, flashed out of existence for a second, before a much louder crack echoed through the training enter. The imps who’d gone back to their workouts froze. Not just because of the crack, but because my punch picked Peter up off the ground and launched him across the room.
I launched myself right after him. I pushed off with one leg, and the power coursed through me. I covered the distance just as Peter was righting himself. I clenched my fists together, brought them over my head, and intended to bring them down on Peter’s skull, but the Pegasus rolled away. I missed him, but the floor wasn’t so lucky. The whole room shook as I cratered the ground for several feet around me. For a moment, I was shocked, and then Peter’s foot smashed into my side.
I shot across the room, skipping across the ground like a stone on the surface of a lake. I rolled the last ten feet, and ended up in a heap.
“Stand down, Dupree,” Peter stalked toward me, his face serious.
I shook my head out. I was dizzy from the roll, but I wasn’t hurt. My side throbbed for a few seconds, but then I was good. I jumped to my feet and faced the shifter. I met his eyes, saw his surprise, gave him a savage grin, and launched myself back into the fray.
Shockwave’s blasted the room as we danced. It reminded me of Dani and Chloe’s fight in the bathroom, except this time it had the imps running for safety. I caught Peter across the jaw again and sent him staggering, just for me to take a blow to the gut that launched me into the ceiling. Debris rained down around me, but I caught myself on the fall, and was able to avoid the roundhouse kick that might have taken my head off. I turned the dodge into a tackle when I hit the ground, and smashed into his muscled chest. He rained down blows onto my back and I rained them into his sides. I barely even felt it as we stampeded through the weight equipment, until I noticed there was a bar in my hand, and I was swinging it toward Peter’s head. It made contact with a gong and launched the shifter back across the room. I dropped the bar, barely even registering that it weighed several hundred pounds, and shot after him.
I was almost on top of him, when an uppercut slammed into my chin. I saw stars as I shot away from Peter. The ceiling wasn’t enough to stop my momentum, and I dug an angled gash for a dozen feet, before physics won out, and I fell back to the floor.
“I should have seen that coming,” I let the anger that fueled this fight subside, and took stock. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure my limited precognition was gone.
Sure, I could hit like a fucking tank, and take equal punishment in return, but I didn’t see where those shots were coming from. It left me vulnerable.
“Stop,” I held out my hand to Peter who looked like he was about to pounce on me. His lip was bloody and there was a fire in his eyes that made me believe he was the ancient creature of myth.
Despite the urge to do battle, my word brought him up short. “You back with me, Dupree?” With that statement, I felt, that despite everything, he had still pulled his punches. I might have been trying to wreck him, but he was trying not to wreck me or the training room.
“Yeah,” I rubbed my jaw, but the pain was already fading. As I took a few deep breaths, the great ball of fire in me winked out. Exhaustion hit every inch of my body, and I wobbled on my feet.
Xamira came out of nowhere and caught me before I fell. She eased me down onto my ass with a mix of worry and wonder written all over her face. “Gods, Cam,” she wiped the blood off my lips. My nose had healed during the fight, but the blood was still spread across my lower face like warpaint. “That was hot,” she gave me a smile that said we could have some fun later.
“Xamira, you’re shift begins in ten minutes. Get going.” Peter was there, standing over us, and giving her a warning look. We both knew what would happen if my penis found its way between Xamira’s legs.
She quickly left, and then it was just the two of us. He loomed over me; primal power, muscles, and a fat cock that even his loose pants couldn’t disguise.
“Fucking shifters.”
After a few seconds, he extended a hand and pulled me to my feet.
“Sorry,” it hurt nearly as much as the ache in my bones to apologize to the man. Afterall, he was the one who broke my nose and started this.
“Don’t apologize,” he replied. “You break it, you buy it. I’ll get with the contractor and have him send you the bill.”
Just when I was starting to tolerate him, he went and said something like that. I took a good look around at the ruined mats, the battered floor, the large chunks of ceiling missing, and the mangled heaps of metal that had been workout equipment.
“So much for the hundred grand I made last night,” I groaned.
“You still need more training,” Peter continued his impressive ability to continue to piss me off. “Not as much as I thought, but still some. You need to learn to control your strength. Imagine if Lilith was ambushed on a street full of people. If you fought like you did today, there would be dozens of dead humans. You don’t want that on your conscience, and the cabal doesn’t want the attention.”
“Damn it,” I hated when he was right.
“We’ll build on what Xamira taught you, and teach you our style of combat. You’ll have many teachers,” the smile he gave me said that if we did fisticuffs every day, I’d be penniless in a week. “Speaking of which. . .” the elevator dinged and a creature stepped out.
“Looks like I missed all the fun,” it said in Lark’s voice.
For whatever reason, the Fae had decided to shed his glamour. He wasn’t overly tall, only about six feet from his two hooves to the top of his head. His bottom half wa
s goat legs covered in brown fur. Despite the drawings of satyrs with a loin cloth, or armor, Lark was naked, and his furry cock swung back and forth as he stomped towards us. He had to duck under a pull-up rack that had been tossed in his path by the fight. Despite the metal contraption being closer to eight feet tall, the satyr had to duck so his horns didn’t get caught in the metal.
They were a couple feet tall, big, black, curled, and reminded me of when Hellboy went full devil; not the new one with the guy from Stranger Things, but the OG Hellboy with Ron Pearlman. They curled around and up to make a quasi-crown on his head. I could almost see the little flaming crown from the movie resting between them. Lark’s face was humanoid, but blockier, with a neatly trimmed beard the same color as the rest of his fur. He seemed much more solid in his true form than in his glamour. I was pretty confident he’d been the god Pan at one point, but as I studied him closer, I could see the outline of other deities in his features. If Morgan’s comments were to be believed, and he had a naughty streak, I could see him being the inspiration for Baphomet. He looked a lot like that statue in the Sabrina Netflix show.
“Yes, you missed quite an evaluation,” Peter gave a heavy sigh. “It looks like our time is up,” he turned back to me. “I’ll get you a training schedule that works for everyone.” With a nod, that had a surprising amount of respect in it, he strode past Lark to the elevator.
It dinged, but before he entered, he turned back to the Fae. “Be on your best behavior.”
“I cross my heart and hope to die,” the Fae smiled, showing serrated teeth that would be right at home on some predator gnawing on the bone of some helpless creature; trying to get to the juicy marrow at the center of the Tootsie Pop.
It made me shiver, and I suddenly missed Peter’s presence. Lark noticed.
“It’s my form,” he explained. “Humans have been conditioned to be wary of me for millennia. Us ancient ones all have one tale or another told about us. Mine are particularly interesting and have stood the test of time.”
Courts and Cabals 2 Page 18