by Hondo Jinx
Brawley laughed, enjoying the look of surprise on Remi’s beautiful face almost as much as the abrupt absence of pain.
He loved that face. It was the face of Remi, his woman. She was his and his alone and would be forever. He would do anything and everything to keep her safe.
Remi arched her back and squeezed her perfect breasts. “Oh, Brawley,” she groaned, and her eyes slammed shut in a grimace of impending orgasm.
Her ecstasy was his ecstasy, and Brawley growled as the supernatural energy pulsed brightly, rushed up through their bodies, and exploded into their skulls.
“Coming,” Remi gasped, and Brawley’s broken body jerked with release as the beautiful woman atop cried out in orgasm, her lovely flesh throbbing with otherworldly pleasure.
Brawley’s mind cracked open. A firework show of pink light burst within their heads, blasted from their skulls, and met in an arching river of bright force, a gushing psionic flood that bonded their minds and bodies and power.
Brawley gritted his teeth and squeezed her flexed ass. His mind whirled and kicked like a champion bucking bull.
For several seconds, they disappeared into mutual pleasure, skewered upon a throbbing ring of incredible psionic power. Their bodies flapped like sheets blown sideways by gales of rapture, and their voices melded in a chorus of guttural delight that was the apex of euphoria, a profession of boundless affection, and an oath of eternal commitment.
A bright limb of pink power peeled away, shot upward, and disappeared into the ceiling above them. An instant later, a buzzing pole of red and yellow lightning bolt of force pounded down from above, joining the pink arch.
Instantly, the three strands twisted together in a supercharged braid of power, and Brawley could feel not only Remi but also Nina and Sage, his beautiful wives somewhere out there waiting for him, transfixed with Remi and him as joy and strength and lust coursed through the foursome, binding them as one.
“Yes… oh fuck… yes, yes, yes!” Remi cried, cumming hard, and Brawley could feel Nina and Sage, wherever they were, crying out in mutual orgasm.
The braided river flashed brightly, and Brawley’s mind went full supernova.
Remi whimpered and writhed, soaking him with her sweet juices, and his body, whole again and surging with power, flooded her sex with waves of hot seed.
When their epic climax finally spun away like a raging tornado spiraling off into a swirling sky, the ring of power split apart at its peak, uncoupled at the pulsing union of their glowing loins, and rushed back into each individual even as the red and yellow strands whipped away toward his other women.
Power like Brawley had never felt electrified his core and exploded in his skull before crushing down and burrowing into his supercharged mind.
“Holy shit, handsome,” Remi panted. “That was epic.”
“Sure was, hon,” he said, lifting her off him. “Now, let’s get out of this jackpot so we can do it again.”
27
Brawley stood and glanced down at his healed body, which coursed with insane strength. The dominant primordial beast within him snorted a blast of piping rage, swelling once more within him.
Down the hall, the door squealed, twisting loose, and Colton Finn bellowed thunderous laughter.
“You still alive, cowboy?” the psychopathic Carnal shouted. “I hope so, because I have a show for you. Gonna make you watch as I fuck that biker whore to death.”
Remi picked up the pistol and whispered, “We still cloaked?”
Brawley nodded.
In a fraction of a second, he took her measure, loving the courage he felt burning within her.
Remi knew the odds. She was certain that they didn’t stand a chance against Colton and his bloodthirsty gang, who were loudly searching the rooms, calling out gleefully like a pack of grade school bullies hunting a pair of terrified weaklings.
But Remi rejected their certain doom. The odds could go fuck themselves, her spirit proclaimed. If Death was coming for them, she would go down with her thumbs jammed deep into his eye sockets. And Brawley adored her for that.
He closed his eyes and plunged into his own mind.
Three strands glowed brightly in the darkness, ready to serve.
Moving decisively, he latched onto the red strand.
This sociopathic son of a bitch Colton was strong as hell. Not to mention the crew of assholes running with him.
Brawley would only have one shot.
Trying to take out these bastards with a single arm’s worth of force would be like trying to stop a charging grizzly with a bb gun. So Brawley hauled back with all the strength of his towering will and gathered every last sizzling point of telekinetic energy into a supernova of scarlet power.
When he opened his eyes, the lights of the room were on, and Colton Finn stood before him wearing only gladiator boots and blood. Colton grinned like a demon as he scanned the space, unable to see them behind the cloak Brawley had woven. Behind the hulking psycho, half a dozen musclebound assholes crowded into the room, hooting with laughter.
Remi fired the .45, emptying the magazine with superhuman speed.
Brawley watched with detached wonderment as the blond Carnal’s head jerked with impact, red divots opening in a tight pattern at the center of his forehead. Squashed hollow-point rounds ricocheted away, unable to penetrate the supernaturally durable skull of a Carnal who’d killed his way to a psi score of 237.
“Yeah!” Colton roared, eyes shining with murderous glee as the wounds vanished and he saw through their cloak. “This is gonna be fun.”
Remi fell into a fighting stance, determined to scrap her way to the grave.
Brawley grinned at her, said, “Hold my beer, darlin,” and fired all his power at once.
There was a blinding flash of red light, and time seemed to freeze for an instant, as if Brawley were a camera instead of a power mage.
In that frozen instant, Brawley was aware of Remi beside him, sneering and ready to fight; of Colton, whose leap had already carried him halfway across the room; and of the other Carnals leaning forward, ready to join the slaughter.
Then Brawley’s head jerked with all the recoil of a lightweight .44 Magnum with a tiny grip.
The world flashed again, black this time, the shutter snapping closed. Then everything reopened not with a click but with the loudest damned explosion Brawley had ever heard.
He was down on his ass, buzzing like a rung bell. Remi sat beside him, a look of all-consuming shock writ large upon her pretty face.
Before them, everything had changed.
There was no Colton, no Carnals, no wall across the hallway.
Where Colton’s buddies had stood remained only a dozen feet, some in sandals, some in sneakers, some naked as the day they had been birthed by mothers who could never have dreamed the monsters their offspring would become or the undignified deaths they would meet when they decided to fuck with the wrong cowboy.
Those feet remained planted on the floor. Everything from mid-ankle up was gone, sheared cleanly away by a wave of unbelievable power.
That was it. No blood, no bodies, nothing. Just a gaping hole in the wall, the nighttime world beyond the warehouse, and a cloud of powdered destruction lifting away into the moonlit sky like a parcel of fleeing phantoms.
“Come on, darlin,” Brawley said, rising to his feet and offering Remi a hand. Her fingertips came lightly into his outstretched hand, but she rose on her own power, eyeing him with unfettered awe. “Let’s find the girls and get out of Dodge.”
Hand in hand, they ran into the night. Brawley’s head spun and throbbed from the tremendous blast of force he had released, but he had no trouble keeping his balance or thinking clearly. He was getting stronger.
His body thrummed with power. Energy suffused him from head to toe. Incredible vitality crackled in every muscle, every organ, every vessel, every cell. His body urged him to run, to jump, to grab the world by the throat and bend it to his will.
Checking his p
si score, he grinned.
199.
Killing assholes and bonding with beautiful women paid off. And not just in terms of boosting his power.
Beside him sprinted Remi, naked and lovely and fierce.
Suddenly, he wanted her with a savage and animalistic desire.
Remi’s eyes flashed in his direction, and he knew that she knew what he was thinking and furthermore knew that she wanted this, too, wanted to hit the ground in a tumbling embrace and fuck like their lives depended on it, pushing their superhuman bodies to the limit.
“Later!” Remi snarled, and they raced around the building to the formerly deserted parking lot, which was now far from empty.
Hundreds of half-naked, half-costumed Carnals shouted angrily, all but drowning out the man who stood atop one of the ten or fifteen black vans parked in the street, ass ends pointing toward the lot, rear doors thrown wide.
“Please remain calm!” the man atop the van shouted into his bullhorn.
Down on the ground, his colleagues looked far from calm, despite their riot gear and tactical shotguns.
“Cloak us,” Remi said as they drew nearer.
“Good call,” Brawley said. He’d been so drunk on power he had nearly forgotten that walking out there uncloaked would be pretty much suicidal at this point.
He grabbed her wrist, loving the feel of the firm muscle and the bone beneath, and once again wanted to throw her down and bang it out.
Instead, he stuck to the plan, dipped into his mind, drew a generous charge of Seeker force, and created a rock-solid cloak around them. If anyone looked in their direction, they would see only a pair of feral dogs trotting along the street.
He pointed out the RV sitting at the back of the lot.
At first, Remi could only see the faded mural of graffiti into which Sage had made the vehicle disappear.
But Brawley told her to look again. “It’s there. Expect to see it, and you will.”
Remi squinted, frowning.
Meanwhile, the Carnals were getting hyped up, shouting for the FPI to get the fuck off their property.
Remi chuckled. “There. I see the RV. Neat trick.”
“Sage is awesome,” he said, and nodded to the far side of the FPI line.
“We want the outsider,” the FPI agent with the bullhorn shouted. “The one you call a power mage.”
Carnals roared curses and waved middle fingers. Flesh mages near the front inched forward, striking aggressive postures, menacing the men on the ground, who nervously stood their ground, shotguns at the ready.
Interesting, Brawley thought. The FPI had clearly known that the Carnals existed. In fact, from some of the stuff the indignant Carnals were shouting, it sounded like they and the FPI had previously arranged some kind of truce that the fuggle force was now violating. Interesting, indeed.
He and Remi slipped into the street and ran behind the FPI ranks. As expected, none of the tense-ass agents spared them more than a fleeting glance, even when the pair curved back around, entering the far end of the lot beyond the mass of shouting Carnals.
“Everyone on the ground!” the guy with the bullhorn shouted. “You have three seconds to comply, or—”
And his head snapped back in an explosion of blood and glass, struck by a beer bottle traveling faster than a major league fastball.
Then all hell broke loose.
28
Before the dead man could even topple to the ground, the FPI opened fire.
The lot erupted into a nightmare of chaos and carnage. Shotguns boomed. Sparking flames blossomed from within the vans, filling the night with a buzzing rattle that sounded like a dozen jackhammers hard at work.
Agents raked miniguns back and forth, mowing down flesh mages, each of their formidable weapons firing fifty rounds per second.
And yet Carnals broke through, tearing into their enemies with all the speed and viciousness of velociraptors.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Brawley and Remi ran onboard the RV, where they were embraced by Nina and Sage. Wide-eyed Callie couldn’t seem to peel her horrified gaze from the hellish slaughter outside.
Then lightning cracked, and Brawley thought for a second that the FPI had used some terrible weapon of last resort. But when he looked through the windshield, he saw a shimmering purple ring hanging several feet above the ground, floating between the FPI lines and the Carnal casualties.
A loud roar shook the night. The primal sound echoed back to the dawn of man and beyond. Brawley felt the roar in his bone marrow, where it tweaked a primordial loathing passed down through the generations from a time before walls and roofs and hearths. The hairs rose to attention along his arms and the nape of his neck.
But there was more than atavistic dread at play in his visceral response. He had heard that terrible predatory roar before.
His father had turned bravely toward that same sound the night Brawley’s parents were murdered.
A huge figure leaped from the glowing wormhole. His purple cloak fluttering behind him. He landed on the ground, where the conflict had lurched to an amazed halt.
The newcomer was easily ten feet tall. From the neck down, his body was humanoid but stacked with enough muscle to make a Carnal look scrawny. Above the throat, where his flowing purple cloak was fastened by a golden clasp, sat the massive and terrible head of a gigantic tiger.
But not an orange and black tiger.
No.
This man-beast’s fur was pure white latticed in dark stripes.
Beware the albino tiger, Brawley thought.
“Enough!” the tiger bellowed, his voice impossibly loud, as if amplified through a hundred bullhorns. “Bring me the power mage!”
Fuggles and Carnals alike dropped to the ground in supplication. Others turned and sprinted away, too afraid to even look upon this frightful predator.
“Halt!” the tiger shouted, and for a second, the night was noonday bright and suffused with crackling purple light. Streams of lightning arced from his massive hands, splitting and forking, spidering out to strike dozens at once, frying them on contact.
The lightning cut off, leaving smoking corpses in its wake.
“Last chance,” the tiger bellowed. “Where is the power mage?”
“We don’t know!” someone shouted.
“Honest!” another chimed in.
“We really don’t!”
“Please!”
The tiger shook his head woefully. Then he snapped to his full height, robes billowing, and threw his arms wide.
Again, lightning leapt from his hands, only this time the flash was blinding. Brawley and the girls shielded their eyes and turned away.
A second later, the buzzing died, and the bright light dimmed away.
Brawley glanced out at a scene of total devastation. The vans burned, blacker than ever, their tires reduced to so many pools of melted rubber. FPI agents and Carnals alike had been reduced to charred lumps and smoldered now like campfire logs at the end of the night. Beyond them, the warehouse was burning.
The humongous tiger strode among the dead, swiveling his massive head side to side, scanning the lot and sniffing the air. Back and forth he prowled, scanning and sniffing, scanning and sniffing.
At last, he reached their side of the lot. His eyes passed slowly over them, and Brawley took in the color of those eyes with a fresh wave of unease.
They were gray.
The gray eyes in the sky. The eyes hunting him in dreams and prophecies had come for him.
The tiger’s eyes momentarily lost focus, and his mouth fell open in a flehmen display like a house cat that had caught the faintest hint of a perplexing odor.
Had he smelled them?
Empty of telekinetic force, Brawley shifted his gaze to the AK-47s leaning against the wall.
He had a feeling those bullets wouldn’t even damage this bastard. Besides, if Brawley took one step toward the rifles, this hulking predator would hear the movement, see through the cloak, and fry them with
purple lightning.
Sirens wailed, coming this way. And for once, Brawley felt thankful for the sound that had, of late, become the soundtrack to his life.
The tiger turned to squint in the direction of the wailing. The gray eyes narrowed, then turned in the other direction, where additional sirens joined the chorus.
“I know you can hear me, power mage,” the tiger boomed. “Surrender yourself, and I will let your women live.”
Brawley barely had time to register the ultimatum before hands grabbed him from both sides.
Nina, Sage, and Remi all glared at him. Their voices were unified in the silence: Don’t you dare.
Brawley nodded and kept his mouth shut.
“Last chance,” the tiger growled. “No? So be it, coward. Have it your way. Now I’ll kill the women, too. Even if you come to me on hands and knees, sacrificing your pitiful life… which you will.”
And then he whipped away, disappearing into the purple wormhole, which snapped shut with a sizzling pop.
“Is he gone?” Callie whispered, and Brawley realized the young cat girl was crying.
He raised a finger to his lips, quieting her, and held her question in his mind while releasing a measure of Seeker juice.
Yes, his gut responded. The tiger was gone. For now.
“Sage,” he said, “let’s double down on that cloak, all right? I’ll follow your lead. We have to get out of here before the cops arrive, or we’ll be stuck here all night.”
The girls started talking at once, asking questions over each other, badly rattled.
Brawley kept his voice calm, knowing they needed that from him now. “We covered that bull to the buzzer.” He looked around, making eye contact with each woman. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Remi touched his arm. “Where are we going, handsome?”
“God’s country,” Brawley said. “The great state of Texas.”