“How are you feeling?” This from Bethany, sipping from a small porcelain cup of coffee, her brilliant fiery mass of curls already tied up in a pilot’s bun, wearing a one-piece battle-mech suit secured with a complex-looking affair of straps and zippers. Though free of ornamentation, the skin-tight suit only served to accent her strikingly lush, beautiful figure.
The young Highlord’s pink lips widened as her emerald eyes crinkled in a smile, catching Val’s regard. “I’m glad you approve of your third-wife. Angels above knows she approves of you.”
Val rubbed his eyes. “I’m feeling exhausted. Which is strange, since I also feel like I could run a dozen miles at a sprint, my muscles almost itching to do just that. And I just slept what I’m guessing was a full night and day.” He hissed, suddenly recalling why he had jerked awake. “Julia...”
The girls peered at him solemnly. “We sensed you two had a fight,” Bethany said.
Angelica nodded. “Your mind tasted of bitterness and regret, behind the fierce resolve that had blazed so brightly when you spent an entire day bonding thousands to your will.” Her violet eyes lit with inner fire. She shook her head in awe. “It was incredible. The awkward boy who had saved my life, killed my uncle, and stole my heart looked as fierce and ruthless as any Justicar, and the minute one of your supplicants stumbled in his oath… no mercy. The flesh tore from his bones in a spray of blood, and he died for your pleasure.” She shook her head, though her gaze was one of rapt admiration. “It was incredible, my husband, to see you so fierce and proud, as all those who would betray or hurt us were made to pay for their crimes before they could strike a single blow.”
Even Bethany, so often favoring him with a gentle adoration that warmed his heart, was nodding in rapt agreement. “No serpents allowed to strike within our midst. And no wife could ask for more in a husband than one as noble and fierce as you, Valor. And no Justicar I’ve ever heard of could bind more than a few score in a day. What you accomplished? I’d only expect from a living legend, or one who dared the Path of Kings.”
Val flushed and lowered his head. “And still, over a dozen people died who wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t been so exhausted by the end, too locked in the zone to flex and warp the weave before the oath sensed their attempts at deception and just, well...”
“Tore them apart?” said Angelica, strutting towards him and handing him a chocolate-covered pastry as she kissed his cheek. “My champion is fierce, deadly, and shows his enemies no mercy.” Then she caught his gaze and swallowed, lowering her head. “Except for the mercy you showed me and my father both, in a world where we have no right to expect anything save ruthless savagery from all quarters. For that alone...” She squeezed his hand, so much said with her gaze.
Val smiled. “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
Her cheeks flushed. She angrily wiped her cheek. “Don’t you dare make me cry for you, Valor Hunter,” she whispered, gazing down at his naked form. “Not when Bethany and I had to resist you all night.”
Val smiled, vivid images of the one passion-filled morning they had shared days ago flashing between both of them before Angelica could look away, but he didn’t hesitate to put on the silver satin clothes a laughing Bethany tossed his way.
“I’m surprised I didn’t wake up to find myself in even more hot water than I already am,” he teased. “Why did you hold back?”
Angelica arched her exquisitely sculpted brow. “Because we’re trying to win Julia over, Val. Why do you think? If she were as any other Highlord, we would be waking up in each other’s arms this very moment, filled with love and passion’s languor, sensing each other’s thoughts, savoring the sweet vulnerability of being entwined with the few souls we cherish, savoring the exquisite happiness of a pride fulfilled.”
Bethany nodded. “It’s something we’ve both dreamed of, beneath the fierce, ruthless exteriors life demanded of us.” She smiled sadly as she stood beside Angelica, wrapping her arms about the other girl’s waist, grinning as Angelica sighed and arched back, crimson-dyed fingertips caressing Bethany’s throat.
Bethany kissed the nape of Angelica’s neck, savoring her sigh. “Ever since her gaze first struck my heart, I had dreamed of forging a pride with this girl in my arms.”
Angelica nodded with a dreamy smile. “It cut me as bitterly as the blow that cleaved off two of my fingers when the tides of fortune and folly declared our fathers enemies, and bitter words I should never have spoken cost me the girl I loved.” She chuckled ruefully. “Thank you for not killing me, by the way. The look in your eyes, though… only then did I realize what a fool I had been.”
Bethany squeezed Angelica tight. “When I heard you cry out with the blow that tore through your hand, when I saw your blood, I felt such a fury, wanting to strike down whoever had so hurt you. Then I was overwhelmed with horror, knowing that monster was myself.” Val could see the tears streaming from Bethany’s eyes. “Never had I been so ashamed as when I hurt you. And when I found myself in chains only months later… part of me almost felt like I deserved it.”
“Neither of you deserved the horrors you endured,” Val whispered fiercely. “You deserve to be happy and free, without ever having to fear the depredations of monsters ever again!”
Both of the girls smiled at those words.
“And that is why we are both happy to be a part of your pride,” Angelica whispered.
“And that is also why we tried so damn hard to behave ourselves last night,” Bethany said with a rueful smile. “With luck, we will savor happiness together for centuries. We’d be fools to risk it all right now, when you and your first wife are still at such bitter odds, and she barely accepting us as friends, for all that we’d love to be so much more.”
Angelica nodded. “It’s obvious that she hungers for us.” Her smile was almost apologetic. “Forgive me, Valor, but as much of a triumph as her deadly Psionic Shout is, her defenses are still as brittle as glass. So as much as she tries to hide it...”
Bethany’s musical laughter sent shivers racing down Val’s spine. “She insists on training with both of us, with battle-mech and Psionics both, and no matter how brooding her demeanor during waking hours, she has ravished both of us quite thoroughly in our dreams.”
Angelica smiled. “She has the cutest blush when she wakes up, somehow forgetting to protest us all sleeping in the same bed, as her mother insists. And really, considering her dam is Christine Highblood, her natural inclinations are no surprise.”
Val raised a brow. “Really.”
Bethany let loose a throaty chuckle. “Her mother had quite the reputation, once upon a time. Before falling in love with the most notorious Dauda that Overlord Tytus ever had in his arsenal and absconding off for...” Her eyes widened and she blushed. “I’m a fool,” she said, lowering her gaze.
Val quirked a grin. “You’re figuring it out just now? Really?”
A single glance shared between Bethany and Angelica was all that was needed. Angelica gazed at Val in a new awed light, shaking her head ruefully. “Who would have thought… and it makes so much sense! Why you’re so damn gifted, why you’re in alliance with the Highbloods…”
Val’s smile widened. “We all bonded pretty fierce and fast, but we kinda skipped the background part, didn’t we?”
Angelica had the grace to blush. “That we did, Valor Hunter. That we did.” Her gaze turned hungry, and part of Val wanted nothing more than to kiss the girl gazing at him so intently, knowing she would forgive him anything, that she would never judge the stains upon his soul.
Then Angelica froze as Bethany—soft, sensual, incredibly strong Bethany—squeezed her arm and slowly shook her head. “Not until Julia accepts us. Not until we’re a happy pride without the bitterness that almost killed both of us.”
Angelica winced and nodded, stepping back ruefully before pinning Val with her sultry gaze. “if Christine and I didn’t have so much on our plate with five thousand new additions to our forces to contend with, I w
ouldn’t let you out of my sight, Valor Hunter. And you can expect my father and your mother-in-law to send for you soon. While you’ve been off doing god knows what, our enemies have been preparing themselves for war.”
Bethany carefully arranged Angelica’s jade pins to exquisite perfection before nearly undoing all her work with a passionate, lingering kiss. A softly panting Angelica spun around, facing Val once more.
“Now go make up with your first wife, Valor. You have no idea how much I want you right now, and that’s not happening until that silly git admits she finds us as fetching in real life as she does in her dreams.” The sensual girl flashed a teasing smile before hurrying for the command center as fast as her silken slippers could take her.
“Angelica has taken on the role of Christine’s second marvelously well,” Bethany explained. “Her skills as a Blackenthorp serve her in good stead in arranging for the care and feeding of our troops and the maintenance of this territory and the routes we are using to assure a steady stream of supplies.”
Val smiled. “She sounds like the perfect administrator.”
Bethany nodded. “Once your reign is secured from hostile forces inside and out, proper administration is everything when it comes to running a territory efficiently. Assuring that everyone’s needs are met, and unhappiness is kept to a minimum. And Angelica is one of the best. With a million citizens under Blackenthorp stewardship…” She sighed. “No matter how she enjoyed playing the ruthless tart, she has always cared for her people like they were her own children.” She flashed a fond smile. “She’ll be a marvelous queen one day, helping you tend to the needs of all your citizens,,, once you claim the throne, Valor.”
She flushed under Val’s regard, biting her lip. “I thought about what you told me, that night, when you could have claimed me effortlessly, utterly, and I would have been so grateful just for the grace and mercy you had shown me and my sisters.” She swallowed, lowering her gaze. “Giving me utter control, making it so damn clear you would demand nothing of me, for all that I felt the desire burning through you like fire when you tried to sleep so chastely beside me…”
Golden fingernails brushed across a breathless Val’s cheek. He couldn’t move, captivated by Bethany’s incredible beauty.
If he had thought her lush figure arousing in her battle-mech suit, he was left breathless when she slowly slipped it off, now utterly naked before him, her generous pink areolas standing at pert attention atop voluptuous breasts. An hourglass shape and sensual curves hid the powerful build of a highly skilled mech-warrior, though he saw the coiled potency whenever a luscious leg flexed, muscles rippling like cords of steel beneath skin soft as silk to his touch. She was like a living work of art. Inhumanly strong, indescribably beautiful, and utterly, entirely real.
Val’s heart was pounding under her hungry gaze.
“Never have I wanted you more than I do right now, Valor. You already stole my heart.” Her beautiful smile pierced his soul. “Now claim the rest of me.”
Willpower check made! Barely, Val!
It was everything he could do to close his eyes.
A soft gasp and rueful laughter, cherry-flavored lips tasting his own for just a heartbeat before darting away.
When Val dared to look once more, he saw a furiously blushing Bethany touching up her eye makeup with brushes that looked exactly what girls used on Earth. Her skin was flawless and her lips a naturally rich shade of red. Yet she had a definite fondness for mixing and blending her eye shadows, perfectly complementing eyes that sparkled like gems in truth.
To his relief and regret, she was suited up once more.
“I’m going to be assisting Axel and Caden with our newest pilots. Make sure they can use those battle-mechs, follow orders, shoot straight, fight in formation, and keep themselves alive, come the next engagement,” she breathlessly declared, all but dashing for the entrance before turning about, pinning him with her haunting gaze.
“Make up with your first wife, Valor. Had Angelica not been there last night...” She flushed and smiled. “I hear that strange voice in your mind, sometimes, when you hunger for me. I so want to spend the day by your side and hear all about your adventures, how you saved yourself from that Highlord’s doom, and how you got those beautiful tattoos. But let’s just say my own willpower check is doomed to fail, the next time I meet your gaze and taste how much you want me.”
Val blinked, Bethany dashing out before he could say a thing.
“Julia?”
Mindlink successfully used in ways never intended, halfway across the world! 200 Mana expended per second!
His cry resonated through the ether, yet was soft as a whisper. Just the faintest scratch upon the door of his girl’s awareness. His guts clenched at the prickly sense of fear and regret he tasted from her psyche, the barest whiff of a mind reached by channels normally impossible. Val quickly pulling away as even his impressive mana reserves plummeted, just needing to know that she was okay.
He glared at his own reflection, both awed and repulsed by the changes in his appearance. Gone were looks utterly perfect in their symmetry, boyish innocence replaced by features forged in the crucible of magics primal and potent, beauteous and terrible, where power and intent could decide the outcome of worlds. He would not shirk from his own haunted gaze, or deny the sense of power radiating from scarred features somehow still handsome, glittering with the shimmering silver hue of runes running across his forehead.
The screams of tormented dwarves still echoed through his soul, salved as it was by the blood of all those monsters to die by his blade. Sacrificed so that a clan pushed to the edge of extinction might have a second chance at existence. A grove restored that could breathe life into a new golden age, where before its dying demands would have doomed the dwarves within days.
And if such a sacrifice had required him to embrace Phoebe’s agony, raw and primal, no matter how it had exposed his mind to the final dying assaults of Highlords or the horror of a girl he loved who now feared the terrible fire in his soul, so be it.
He would mourn the loss of his Julia with the solace that at least that tiny dwarven tribe had a chance of survival, protected by eldritch magics no Dominion tech could endure, extending for miles in all directions. Best of all, the Haunting Luminescence would disorient any hostile force within minutes. It was an aura that he knew would endure long after he crumbled to dust.
He would accept whatever trials he must endure for the sake of Phoebe’s people.
Phoebe’s people, and his own.
Yet as precious as sparing those dwarves and keeping them out of the cruel grip of avaricious Highlords had been, even that paled in comparison to protecting the pristine city nestled deep within the bowels of the earth, and the ten thousand dwarves hidden within.
And one of those dwarves was his own.
The thought of his beautiful daughter suffering at the hands of inquisitorial monsters filled Val with a sudden choking fury.
Willpower check made!
“I am here for you, my dark love. Say the word, and we will destroy our enemies together.” Angelica’s words caressed Val’s soul. He tasted the memory of their passion together. Knowing at that moment how eager she was to fight and kill by his side, to feel bliss and absolution in his arms.
“Valor, are you alright? Do you need me there? I sense your pain. I should be in your arms right now.” Bethany’s concerned psyche reaching out to his own, somehow meshing with Angelica’s own, both having sensed the terrible wrath he struggled to control.
“Say the word, husband, and we will leave in a heartbeat with you by our side.”
Val shuddered. He could feel how much they cared for him, knowing at that moment that, should he say the word, both would leave all dreams of conquest and commitments behind and never look back, trading the bitter burdens of their lives for battle-mechs and hover-blade roaring for the horizon, all three of them fierce and free, happily leaving all regrets behind.
And it was ev
erything he could do to pull himself back, knowing all too well what was at stake if he dared surrender the resolve that kept him going.
It was only cold discipline and following through with his plan that would give his daughter’s people the chance they needed to flourish once more. To flourish, and one day claim the skies, never to fall under the heels of Dominion Overlords ever again.
Val wasted no time, not even touching the delicate table covered in silver plates filled with delectable-looking pastries and the Jordian equivalent of fine china cups brimming with coffee and hot chocolate both.
Dimensional Rift Accessed. Greater Artifice skillcheck: Success! You have achieved Mastery at aligning the Altersian-Valorium matrix of all Psiblades!
Covered in Shadowcloak and dwarven armaments the color of smoke between one heartbeat and the next, ancient and quickly realigned Psiblade at his hip once more, Val made his way to where he sensed Christine waiting for him even now.
A council of war could wait. He had an ancient dwarven ruin he needed to claim before it was too late.
32
Christine’s golden eyes widened, soft lips curving in a smile. Dressed in silken attire somewhat similar to a Japanese kimono, the pink shade perfectly complemented her luxurious golden locks done up with jade pins identical to those being worn by Angelica. Even her silken slippers were in matching shades of rose. Of course the Psiblade and shield at her hip and the massive computers blinking in the background created a jarring juxtaposition that Val had learned to take in stride since first stepping foot upon this world.
Christine nodded her graceful neck in approval.
“I am glad to see you arriving before any summons needed to be made. It’s a wise Overlord that takes the time to consult with his chief advisers, both when tending to his territories and when planning for war. Though I must admit that I can’t wait for the tale of how you came by such striking tattoos. Your eyes bear the weight of someone who has endured the crucible of trials and emerged all the stronger for it, though not unmarked.”
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