by Eric Vall
“Are you ready to come for me, Princess?” I growled into her ear as I bottomed out in her tunnel.
“Yessssss! Pleaseeeee! Evannnnn!” She moaned with pleasure.
“Take all of my seed,” I moaned as I shoved my arousal deep inside her tight walls and unloaded my dragon seed into her pussy.
“Ohhh! It’s so warm and… so muchhhh!” Alyona bucked back against me, and our bodies stayed frozen together as one while she accepted the endless spray of my sperm into her divine womb.
“Fucccck,” I groaned as I finally pulled out of her. Then I rolled to the side with a sweaty plop, and I relaxed on the bed as I crossed my arms behind my head.
“That was fantastic,” Alyona murmured as she nestled against me.
“Mmmhm,” Miraya agreed with a hum. “I also love watching the both of you take pleasure in each other. It makes me so happy. Our bond has strengthened again. Can you feel it?”
“Yeah,” I muttered as I felt the magic that bonded the two women to my soul. “It’s great. Feels like I possess both of you.”
“And we love being yours,” Alyona sighed.
Within minutes, both women were asleep, and Alyona’s soft snoring was the only sound in the room.
I sighed as I tried to fall asleep, but the nagging thought from earlier kept tugging at my brain. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d missed something important.
Then I sat straight up in bed as the realization hit me.
Byron had said Sila told him “they” wanted the Sundex to sell to the highest bidder. Byron hadn’t known who “they” was, which wasn’t exactly the Green Glass Sect’s M.O. Plus, the thieves didn’t bear the green leaf tattoo. Could this mean the Green Glass Sect wasn’t in on this problem? They always seemed to be pulling the strings when something went wrong, but if they weren’t the ones who told Sila to steal it, who was?
As I tried to grasp the idea that there were more thieves involved, I looked out the window at the pink shades of light that signaled sunrise.
Then a crack of thunder split the sky, and a torrent of black rain fell down from the heavens.
Chapter 7
The rain poured from the sky without warning, and I could hear the thick, black droplets as they splashed onto the sand below.
I rolled out of the bed and rubbed my eyes, and I walked across the room, opened the window, and peered outside. The black rain flowed all over the city like spilled ink. I looked out across the buildings and saw that most of them already had black puddles on their roofs, and some of the sand on the sides appeared to have onyx-colored rivers that flowed down the sides.
Was I dreaming?
Then I reached my hand out the open window and let a droplet land on my skin. The oily black liquid landed on my palm with a plop and trickled down, and I turned my hand over and watched the droplet travel across my skin at a crawling pace.
Definitely not a dream.
And whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t normal rain.
I walked back to the bed and gently shook Alyona and Miraya awake.
“Hey, come look at this,” I said as their eyes slowly opened, and I returned to the window to show them.
The women yawned and rose from the bed to shuffle over to the window. Then I watched as their eyes widened with surprise.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I can’t say for certain,” Alyona mumbled. “There are many spells that can look something like this.”
“We need to wake everyone up and figure this out,” I decided. “You two get dressed, and I’ll go get the others.”
They nodded as I turned and jogged out to the hallway, and I knocked on the dryads’ door and then Aaliyah and Ravi’s door. Before I could knock on Laika’s, though, Aaliyah poked a sleepy head out into the hall.
The lioness’ long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she wore a crimson and gold nightgown that clung to her athletic form. She rubbed at her eyes with a clawed hand and then yawned.
“What’s happening?” she muttered. “Is everything okay?”
Polina opened her door and stuck her head out just as I answered.
“Well, there’s some kind of black rain pouring outside, so I’d say no,” I replied as I rapped on Laika’s door. “We need to get downstairs.”
Polina gasped and ran back inside for her sisters.
Meanwhile, Aaliyah straightened up and dipped her head before she returned to the room to rouse Ravi and get dressed.
“What is it, my lord?” Laika asked as she opened her door, and she gazed at me with her alert smoky gray eyes and put her hands on her hips. The wolf-warrior wore nothing but a long blue tunic that ended at her mid-thigh, and her gray hair fell around her shoulders in big curls.
“Black rain,” I said as I moved on to Nike’s door. “We have to figure out what to do.”
“I’ll be ready in two minutes,” Laika replied and went back into her room.
I knocked on Nike’s door, and the noble pulled it open almost immediately. I was a little surprised to see he was already dressed and looked like he’d had a morning coffee. He stared at me with silver eyes, and he could tell something was going on.
“We need to get downstairs, now,” I said.
Nike nodded and stepped out into the hallway with me, and within a few minutes, all of my women were dressed, and they followed Nike and me down to the dining hall.
“Lord Evan?” Abel’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as he set his mug down on the table. “What’s going on?”
“You need to get Lord Vallen and Lady Naomi in here immediately,” I ordered. “We have a situation.”
“Of course, my lord,” the lizard guard said as he rose from the table and dropped into a quick bow.
Then Abel took off at a sprint toward their chambers while the rest of us gathered at the table. I didn’t want to sit down, so I stood at the end of the table and leaned against it as we tried to figure out what exactly was going on.
“So, what the hell could be causing black rain?” I asked. “It’s thick, too, not like regular water.”
“How can you tell?” Nike’s silver eyes widened. “Did you touch it?”
“Well, I stuck my hand out the window,” I replied with a shrug. “I figured if it was acid or something, I’d heal myself, but it didn’t hurt at all. I’m really not sure what it is.”
“Could it be a nexus spell?” Ravi asked as she twisted her fiery orange hair into a braid behind her head.
“If it isn’t damaging anything, I doubt it,” Alyona replied and tapped her fingers on the table. “They’re designed for destruction.”
“And this storm seems different,” I added. “It’s more like what the thieves like to do. This seems more intended to scare people.”
“The people are probably terrified of anything out of the ordinary after the crops,” Trina pointed out.
“Especially if they don’t know the curse wasn’t poisonous,” Marina added.
“We have to help them!” Polina cried out.
“We will,” I assured the sisters. “We just need to figure out what we’re dealing with, first.”
“Lord Evan, what’s going on?” Lord Vallen asked as he scurried into the room and finished pulling his turban onto his head.
The lizard leader wore a long black robe that pooled at his feet, and he frowned as he took in all of our worried faces.
Naomi followed closely behind him, and then I saw she wore the large black robe she’d been wearing when we fought outside the gate. She was certainly more ready for a fight than her brother.
“There’s some kind of black rain falling outside,” I explained. “That’s not normal, right?”
“What?” Naomi blinked. “No, we don’t normally have black rain.”
“Well, you do right now,” I snorted. “And we aren’t sure what it is.”
“Obviously, it’s some kind of spell,” the lady mage scoffed with a roll of her amber eyes. “So, let’s just do what we did w
ith the crops.”
“It’s not the same spell,” Alyona replied. “You can’t use one reversal spell for everything. We have to figure out what the spell for the rain is, especially if it’s another unique one like Sila’s version of the Blanche Curse.”
“But Sila’s dead,” Aaliyah pointed out, and the lioness cocked her golden head to the side. “How could it be another one of her spells?”
“I realized something about that,” I interjected. “Byron said Sila had ordered the attack because they wanted the Sundex. So, there is someone else involved in this bandit group. Maybe several others.”
“More bad guys to destroy,” Trina said with a devilish giggle.
“We needed some practice,” Polina declared.
“Yes, it’s been too quiet the last couple days,” Marina agreed.
“Do you think there could be another mage in the group?” Alyona gasped.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I replied with a shrug. “But I don’t really know. I think the Sundex was more about money than magic for her.”
“Maybe so,” Miraya mused, and a frown marred her beautiful face. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t guarantee anything about potential buyers. They could have sold it directly to a member of the Green Glass Sect without us ever knowing, and then we would be in even more trouble.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “So, we need to go handle this weird ass storm and handle whoever is causing it.”
“We could look at Sila’s journal,” Ravi suggested. “She might have this spell in there, even if someone else is using it.”
“Good idea,” I said before I turned to my fiancée. “Alyona, do you still have it?”
“Yes,” the princess answered and reached into her spatial storage to pull out the journal. The small brown book was already worn, but it seemed Alyona had been trying to take care of it as she gently placed it on the table in front of herself.
Then she thumbed through the pages while the rest of us waited anxiously for what to do next.
“Anything?” I asked after a few minutes.
“Not so far,” Alyona sighed.
“I feel like we’re running out of time,” I said.
“Do you think it felt heavy like tallow?” she finally asked.
“Yeah, definitely thicker than water,” I confirmed.
“I think I found it,” Alyona said as she pointed to a page in the book. “It sounds like her version of an Oleum spell, but it sounds like it can only be cast from a place where you can see the whole sky.”
“So, a roof?” I asked.
“Or one of the towers?” Laika suggested as her gray wolf ears flickered back and forth.
“Basically, they could be anywhere outside,” Naomi huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “How do we stop it?”
“It looks like the only way to stop it is to kill the mage who is casting it,” Alyona read with a frown. “The spell thrives off his or her energy.”
“We’ve had to kill bad guys before, princess,” I soothed her. “We can do this. We just have to find them first, but the use of one of Sila’s spells seems to confirm that the same bandit group is behind this. I don’t think the Green Glass Sect is involved. At least not yet.”
“I agree,” Nike said with a nod. “It seems these people simply want to take advantage of the unrest in the kingdom with the Breach open.”
“Okay, so we know we’re up against greedy bastards with magical abilities,” I murmured. “Now, we have to find them and take them down.”
“I’ll get my men to help you look,” Vallen offered. “Abel!”
The young lizard Demi-Human rushed in through the door as though he’d been standing just outside the dining hall.
“Yes, my lord?” Abel asked with a bow.
“Round up the guards,” Vallen ordered. “We have to search the city.”
“Of course, sir,” his warrior replied. “Several men are already here. They came when they saw the rain.”
“Get everyone into the great hall,” I said. “We’ll come give everyone their instructions in a few minutes.”
Abel dipped his head and then ran out of the room.
“I don’t want them to actually go after the mage,” I told Vallen. “If they find him or her before I do, they need to report it to me.”
“My guards are skilled warriors!” Vallen insisted as he puffed out his chest. “They can handle some bandits. We’ve had them come to the city before.”
“Which is why I put up the mirage,” Naomi added, and then she scowled and grumbled. “I should have put it back up after I let you in.”
“It’s okay, I think they were coming regardless,” I assured her. “But for this situation, you need to let us handle it.”
“We’ve lived many years without a powerful dragon to keep us safe.” Naomi smirked. “The guards and I have handled everything that has come our way before.”
“I understand that, but without magic, we’d only be putting them into danger,” I argued. “Are any of them mages?”
“Well, no,” Vallen admitted. “Only Naomi.”
“Then it’s settled,” I declared and ignored Naomi’s huff of frustration. “Do you have a map of the city on hand?”
“In the great hall,” the lizard leader replied.
“Let’s go,” I said, and I led the group into the great hall, where a dozen lizard Demi-Human warriors stood with spears and bows. The other guards wore the creamy layers of robes like Abel, and most of them wore the same dark-colored turbans to cover their scaly heads.
“My lord, what can we do to stop this dark magic?” one of the warriors asked as concern wrinkled his face.
“Lord Evan is going to tell you what you need to do,” Vallen replied with a dismissive wave before he opened a cabinet to pull out the map.
He laid the map out onto the table, and Nike and I leaned over it to make a plan. The city stretched out about three miles north to south and two miles east and west. The fields were marked on the south end, and small Xs marked wells in various places across the city and throughout the housing additions. The castle was the largest building in Kana, and it took up about an eighth of the map.
“The city is much smaller than Tikal’s jungle, so we shouldn’t need as many people,” Nike said as he scanned the parchment. “It is bigger than Colaruma, though. I think maybe six groups of four or five would suffice. You and Ravi can fly overhead and tell us when you see someone. It would probably save us quite a bit of time.”
“Ah, yeah,” I agreed. “Then if we split the groups into sections, at least one group can be close enough to respond within a few minutes when one of us sees them. Then no one would need to face the mage or thieves or whoever alone.”
“Exactly,” the noble said and nodded. “But it doesn’t make sense to try to climb up every building and check the roofs, so we need to make sure we find a location in each sector to post the group to wait for the signal.”
“Okay,” I announced as we turned back to the others. “We will divide into six groups. Alyona and Laika, you two stay together. Polina and Miraya, you stay together, and Trina and Marina, you’ll be together as well. Aaliyah, Nike, and Naomi will each be in their own groups, and two of the guards will be in every group.”
“What about me?” Vallen squeaked.
“You stay here,” I said. “You don’t need to be put into any danger for this. We can handle it.”
“Oh, if you insist,” the lizard leader sighed as color flooded back to his cheeks.
The idea of Lord Vallen in the middle of a magical fight was almost comical. He had already shown his true colors when the rambrooks came out of the crops.
“Ravi and I will fly overhead,” I continued. “When we see whoever is casting the Oleum spell, we’ll call for the closest group. You’ll be divided into territories of the city, so we can make sure to get a quick response. Everyone else can catch up as soon as they hear the signal as well, but we need to make sure at least a few people are close e
nough to help in case they see Ravi or me in the air, which is pretty likely considering she’s bright orange and I’m huge.”
“So, if I understand you correctly,” Naomi cut in, “you expect us to wait around and do nothing while you and the phoenix girl go do all the searching?”
“I expect you to be smart and not waste your energy.” I smirked. “Why run around like a chicken with its head cut off when you have people able to fly above and see everything?”
“Well, I, uh--” Naomi stuttered a response.
“It’s fine,” I cut her off. “Just trust me.”
“Plus, he needs us to go kick ass as soon as they find the bastards,” Polina pointed out.
“So, we really aren’t doing nothing,” Marina chirped.
“And Lord Evan knows what he’s doing,” Trina scolded Naomi. “He’s the dragon lord after all.”
“Okay, okay,” the lady mage huffed with her hands raised. “I get it. Lord Evan knows everything.”
“Exactly!” the three dryads said in unison.
“Well, not everything,” I chuckled. “But Lord Nikolaus and I are pretty good with strategy. Now, here are the sections we need to have covered.”
Nike and I pointed out each group’s territory on the map to give us the best coverage. It put at least one group within a minute’s run of any part of their section, and the sections were just small enough any of the Demi-Humans should be able to hear when one of us signaled that we’d found the culprits.
“So, we should fly east and west patterns then?” Ravi asked after I finished.
“Yes,” I agreed. “You’ll take the northern half, and I’ll take the southern. We should find these guys in no time. The sun has almost completely risen now, so they should be easy to spot.”
It was hard to believe that only about twenty minutes had passed since I’d seen the rain outside my window. We didn’t need to give them any more time, though. It was time to go take care of business and get these bastards out of this city for good.
“Let’s kick some ass!” Aaliyah growled and flexed her long feline claws.