by Sam Ryder
I noticed someone watching me, though she’d arrived so quietly I hadn’t heard her soft footfalls. Eve. I wondered how long she’d been sitting there on a nearby rock, her dark dress riding high up her thighs. “I have to leave again,” she said when my eyes flicked toward her.
“I know,” I said. “Bring us more Warriors.”
“I will. We will train them your way. Together.”
I liked the way she said that. “Yes. All of us.”
She shook her head. “The others can help, but they will be your responsibility now.”
“What?” I said, frowning. What was she implying?
She stood and sauntered over, her lips parting slightly. One of her hands was hidden behind her back.
Gods, she was beautiful. “Kiss me,” she said, leaning over the bath.
Her request was so unexpected I couldn’t find the words. But I wanted to. Kiss her, that is. So I lifted my head and rose to meet her lips, breathing in her intoxicating scent.
With a flash, she grabbed my chin and brought her hidden hand over my face, squeezing one of those glowing white fruits, dribbling the bittersweet liquid onto my tongue. I gagged for a second as the liquid tried to breach my throat but then it ran down, warm and relaxing. Eve released me and I sank into the ooze, the sky spinning overhead. “Relax,” she said. “I’ll take good care of you.”
The last thing I saw was Eve unspooling the web-like material in her hands.
She was making a cocoon. For me.
Which meant only one thing:
Level up.
~~~
Protector.
Protector.
You have been chosen.
Arise.
Protector.
The words spiraled through my mind as if spoken from a dream world, whisper soft, the caress of a gentle wind in my ears.
Just before I opened my eyes I remembered resting in an ooze bath. I remembered my lips pushing toward Eve’s, like they’d done back in my apartment what felt like twenty lifetimes ago. I remembered my realization before I drifted away.
Level up.
“Protector. You have been chosen. Arise.”
This time the words were not in my head but spoken aloud by a familiar voice as sultry as a summer’s breeze. “Min?” I said, cracking my eyelids.
Everything was dim and blurry at first, but then I lifted my hand and wiped away the ooze film that covered me. Everything clarified.
Minertha was there, hovering over me, her rich, brown eyes full of something akin to amusement, her playful pink lips parted just enough to be utterly enticing.
“Min?” another familiar voice said. Persepheus. “I didn’t realize you were on such familiar terms with our Protector, sister.”
“Jealous?” Min said, winking at me but not looking away.
Protector. Can it really be true? Have I been chosen by the Three?
I bit my lip as I realized Lace wasn’t going to take it well. My concerns were washed away, however, when Min leaned down and planted a kiss on my cheek. Her lips brushed against my ear. “The ritual is almost complete,” she said, sending tendrils of pleasure down my spine. What ritual? The whole emerging from the cocoon thing? I wondered if I looked any different, like I did the last time I leveled up. Am I a giant now?
To my surprise, Min slid her lips down to my throat, painting it with hot kisses, her tongue trailing.
This was different than before, when the horny goddess was distraught and looking to use me as a distraction from her sorrow. This time I could sense it:
She wants me as badly as I want her.
But that wasn’t all.
Persepheus appeared behind her sister, her blue-green skin rippling as it changed colors. Her smooth, slender skin was perfection given form. “Our rituals are important,” she said.
“This is a tradition?” I asked, my throat tight.
“Do you not like it?” Persepheus said, stepping closer.
“No. I mean, yes,” I said, stumbling over my words as I tried to understand the right answer to the question. “What if the Protector was a woman?” I asked, a dozen random thoughts rattling around in my man-brain.
“We don’t discriminate,” Minertha purred, looking up and running a perfectly smooth stone hand down my chest.
“No, we don’t,” Persepheus agreed. And then she leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth, her tongue finding its way between my lips, teasing playfully at my own. I groaned, lifting my head to kiss her back, her lips warm and beautiful against mine.
I tried to comprehend what was happening, but everything in my mind was obliterated as Min’s lips moved lower, down my chest, playing with my nipples. Lower still…
Persepheus’s lips tugged at my bottom lip and then she moved higher, dragging one of my hands to her breasts, where I could feel her hard nipples.
I was undone.
I rose up to kiss her breasts while my hands roamed further south, trailing sparks along her skin. I half-expected to find her mermaid tail, but at the moment her form was entirely, deliciously human, her ass round and taut.
She ground against me as her sister kissed my abdomen.
If not for my twice leveled-up body, I wouldn’t have lasted long.
Instead, the stirring moved wonderfully slowly, each touch igniting a new nerve ending.
That wasn’t all.
There was one more surprise.
As I continued to breathe in the goddess that was Persepheus, she pulled back and away, leaving me gasping. “She comes,” she said, which might’ve been bedroom speak if not for the way she glanced backward. “Nice of you to join us, sister.”
“I’ve been gathering my strength for this moment,” a new voice said. If Min’s voice was sultry and raspy and Persepheus’s as sharp as a knife one moment and as smooth as silk the next, the newcomer’s tone was a gentle wind, airy and dramatic.
Min’s lips hadn’t stopped working on my skin, hungry now, devouring me, and it was all I could do to force my attention to the approach of the enigmatic third of the Three. Airiel. Goddess of the sky. Her hair was as blond as sunshine, draped to either side of her porcelain white face, her lips painted cherry red. Her eyes were the color of an Earth sky in summer, cerulean. She wore a shimmery white shift that was just see-through enough for me to see her round nipples in the center of each of her perfect breasts. Her legs went on forever.
And, oh goddesses, she had wings.
They rose above either shoulder, fairylike, the opposite halves of a gossamer heart.
The wings fluttered and she lifted slightly off the ground, moving overhead, until she was looking down upon me. “Our Protector,” she said. “My sisters told me what you’ve done for us. How you’ve sacrificed. Consider this an act of gratitude.”
Persepheus shifted position slightly to give her sister space to descend. Her wings continued to beat as her soft body pressed against mine. I didn’t know her like I knew the other two, but this was a temptation I had no hope of resisting, not when Min’s mouth had moved even further down, tracing circles on my thigh with her tongue.
Airiel kissed me, and it truly was like tasting the wind, gentle and warm and breathy.
One of my hands settled on the strap of her barely-there shift, teasing it away from her shoulder. It dropped away easily, her breasts emerging like twin peaks. My lips found them and for the next few minutes I alternated between Airiel and Persepheus, relishing the soft sounds of pleasure they made at my touch.
Min was tasting my erection now, her tongue hot and hungry, licking every inch.
I couldn’t believe I wasn’t spent yet. This new body…was awesome.
I didn’t want this to be all about me. I already knew the Three could enjoy pleasure the same way humans could—Min was evidence of that—so I made damn sure I took care of each of them. They rode me one at a time, their lithe bodies as different as the earth from the sea from the air. Each perfect in their own ways.
And when we were fini
shed, we collapsed in a heap of skin and hair and beating hearts.
Except I was the only one with a beating heart, because theirs had been stolen, sucking the life from them day by day.
I was their Protector now. And I knew I would do everything in my power to protect them.
No, I thought. I will do more than that, more than the Protectors who came before me. I will save them.
I will save them or die trying.
TWENTY-SEVEN
GROWTH
Eighteen eyes watched the single, leathery egg as it pulsed in the dark. Each of the Morgoss was acutely aware that they had been lucky. The true purpose of the dark spell they’d conjured had not been discovered by the human Warrior and his comrades.
The spell that had extended the Black had been a ruse. Yes, turning this world to a never ending Black night was the ultimate goal, but the Morgoss were as patient as spiders, just like they’d been when they originally overthrew the Three and ripped out their hearts. Above the egg the hearts rested, beating slowly.
They couldn’t be destroyed—the Morgoss had tried—but enough time outside of the bodies of the goddesses would eventually stop them.
Hence, the egg. The spawn of darkness. The monster of monsters. When it hatched, everything would change. The cracked ward shields that had now been breached would finally fall completely, along with the pitiful band of Warriors.
The Morgoss were not so delusional as to believe it would be easy. No. They knew the human male would be the key. Take him down and the rest would fall like scattered stones.
Inside the egg, the black dragon grew rapidly, its claws and teeth beginning to form. Soon it would be ready to hatch.
All that was left was to find it a rider.
Luckily, one had stumbled right into their lair.
Her name was Vrill, and she was stubborn and headstrong. Even trapped in the dark world behind Annakor, the Morgoss’s original home, she refused to go quietly. No, she fought like a wildcat, her blade spinning as it hacked off the heads and limbs of the many monsters that sought to bind her.
She had been a thorn in their side for too long.
Now she will be our champion, the Morgoss said as one.
She would fall eventually.
First her body. Then her mind.
We’re coming.
~~~***~~~
Greetings reader! Thank you for reading the debut novel of my Men’s Adventure Fiction penname, I hope you enjoyed it. My real name (and my primary author name) is David Estes, author of the #1 Amazon bestselling series, The Fatemarked Epic. So if you enjoy epic fantasy sagas with detailed worldbuilding, mythical creatures and races, and, yes, dragons, check it out today. You can get started for the price of a Starbucks coffee or for free via Kindle Unlimited. The entire series is available, so no waiting for sequels! Keep reading for a sneak peek.
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As for the sequel to Warrior…Protector is already out!
GET PROTECTOR HERE
Keep reading for a sneak peek. So if you enjoyed Sam Ryder’s journey from unemployed, geeky gamer to goddess-bedding, monster-slaying warrior, get ready for another action-packed adventure.
"The best new fantasy I've read in the last decade." - Book-Absorbed Reviews
They are the fatemarked. Misunderstood. Worshipped. Hated. Murdered at birth. Their time to step into the light has come.
An ancient prophecy foretold their coming, the chosen few who will bring peace to a land embroiled in a century of mistrust and war. When kings start dying, that hope and belief swiftly turns to fear. Roan Loren is one of the fatemarked, but has hidden his mark of power his entire life, fearing the damage it might cause to those around him.
A great evil is coming. He can't hide anymore.
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Prologue
The Northern Kingdom, Silent Mountain (circa 518)
The newborn babe awoke in an empty cave, lit by a swathe of green moonlight. The weather was cool, but dry, and a warm blanket swaddled his arms and legs. For a moment he did nothing but stare at the point of a stalactite overhead, which stared right back at him. He was hungry, but he did not cry.
Heavy footfalls echoed from an indeterminate distance.
The cave mouth was soon filled by a mountain of a man, near as wide as he was tall, which was saying something considering his eight-foot-tall stature. He’d been called many names in his life, and none of them out of kindness: troll, ogre, beast, monster. I am all of those things, he thought.
To his friends, who were few, he was known simply as Bear Blackboots, his birth name lost decades ago, squashed under his thunderous trod and what he had become after his mother had been murdered.
Bear stood over the child, and his long brown beard tickled the nose of the swaddled babe, but the infant didn’t smile nor fuss.
In one hand, Bear held a book, its brown leather cover worn, its pages yellow and brittle. In the other he held a torch, which he waved over the child’s hairless scalp.
In a blaze of light that sent the shadows running, a mark burst into being, like a single glowing ember in the midst of a dying fire. The mark was a perfect circle, pierced in eight points by four fiery arrows that split the symbol into eight equal portions, like silver scars from an octagonal mace.
The enormous man yanked the torch away from the babe with a gasp, and the mark vanished in an instant, leaving the child’s head pale and smooth once more.
So it’s true, Bear thought. After over a century of searching, his life extended well beyond that of most mortals, he’d finally found his true purpose, the one his mother had foretold the day before she died.
Because of you, child, the Four Kingdoms shall suffer, Bear thought. Unless I slit your throat now.
He raised a meaty hand, thick and strong enough to crush small boulders. The edge of a knife glinted.
After a moment’s hesitation, he dropped his hand with a sigh, letting the blade fall from his fingers. “What shall be, shall be,” he murmured, his voice grainy and rough from years of disuse.
Who am I to destroy one with such a destiny, and only an infant who will never know his mother’s breast? Mother? Are you proud of me? Of course, no one answered. She hadn’t answered him for many years.
From one of the many pockets inside his worn leather overcoat, he extracted a milk jug, capped by a drip cloth. “Eat,” he said.
The child ate, and for fourteen long years he thrived under the mountain man’s surprisingly gentle care. Bear only referred to the boy by one name as he grew:
Bane.
One
Fourteen years later (circa 532)
The Southern Empire, Calyp
Roan
“Out of the way, cretin!” the horse master shouted as the royal train galloped past, charging for the trio of pyramids in the distance.
Roan barely managed to fall backwards without getting trampled, his lungs filling with fine dust kicked up under dozens of hooves. As he coughed, he used a hand to cover his mouth with the collar of his filthy shirt. The tattered cloth was brown (though at one time it had been white, its true color eternally lost under layers of Calypsian dust) and as stiff as a leather jerkin.
Royals, Roan thought, slumping against the side of the sandstone hut he’d crashed into when he fell. He’d been living on the streets of the City of the Rising Sun ever since he’d run away from his guardian, a large, gruff Dreadnoughter by the name of Markin Swansea, six years earlier. Three years ago, Markin had been murdered. As far as Roan knew, his guardian had gone to his grave still protecting his secrets, something he remembered every day of his life.
“Are you injured?” someone asked, drawing Roan’s attention away from the passing cavalcade.
“I’m no worse for wear,” Roan grunted, trying to see past the shadows of the stranger’s gray hood, which hid his face from the fiery Southron sun. It wasn’t unusual garb for a Calypsian, their long cloaks designed to protect against both sun and dust.
The hooded stranger extended a gloved hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, Roan took it, allowing the newcomer to pull him to his feet. “Thank you, …”
“No one. I am no one,” the stranger said, his voice of a timbre that reminded Roan of sand being gritted between teeth.
“Well, No One, thank you all the same. I’m Roan.” He was genuinely appreciative—in Calypso acts of goodwill were rare and far between. In a gesture that was automatic, if pointless, Roan shook as much of the loose dirt off his clothing as possible. Stubbornly, his shirt remained brown and filthy.
“You can see me?” the stranger asked.
Roan eyed him warily, wondering whether the odd man had been chewing shadeleaf, which was known to cloud the mind. “Yes,” he said. “I can see you.”
The royal procession continued to thunder past while Roan and the stranger watched it without expression. Throngs of dark-skinned Calypsians lined the streets. Though the plague—a strange flesh-eating disease transmitted by touch—had been running rampart through the city for years, the city dwellers obviously weren’t letting it affect their day to day lives. They wore colorful cloaks that stood out against the beige sandstone huts. Some cheered their leaders, but most remained silent. Perhaps they were weighed down by the heat.
Amongst the horses in the cavalcade were several guanik, long, reptilian creatures armored with black scales. As they impressively kept stride with the horses, their pink, snake-like tongues flicked between rows of dagger-like teeth. Their riders were the guanero, the royal guardians of Calypso.