At some point, I randomly reached down and palmed the head of one of the imps. I applied pressure and pulled her up. It was Ariana, and she had drool and precum dripping off her chin and onto her tits. Ivanna didn’t miss a beat as I spun the brunette imp face down on the hood of the car next to me. Ariana read my mind and yanked her pants down around her knees. Ivanna moved with me as I lined myself up behind Ariana, positioning herself so she could lick my balls as I fucked her sister doggystyle.
I worked my tip up and down the imp’s wet slit. She moaned and tried to back up into me, but I held her hips steady. She gave a groan of complaint, and looked over her shoulder at me; biting her lower lip. My own lips spread in a wide grin as I started to push into her.
“What the fuck is going on here?” a voice roared, and a wave of power battered against the spell we were under
My head snapped to the side, and a snarl escaped my lips. I sensed another predator, but this was my kill, my fuck, my food, and I wouldn’t let him take it from me. Ivanna crawled out from between me and Ariana, shaking her head and stumbling like a drunken Vegas showgirl. Ariana tried to move, but I held her firmly in place. She didn’t seem to mind. I was partially inside her.
“Dupree, snap out of it,” Thomas’s eyes zeroed in on me, and I felt his power pushing at the edge of my mind.
“Get your shit together man,” a voice that had been silent for the last little bit came back full force. “You don’t bring your cock to a gunfight. You’re going to get your dick shot off if you stay out here any longer, and then there will be no more fucking succubus hotties.” I shook my head. My desire to claim what was mine warring with rational thought.
“Ariana,” Thomas focused on his daughter. “He is your Aunt’s First. Get ahold of yourself. Take one of the clients if you need the strength, but otherwise, get your head out of your ass.”
“I’ll put something else in her ass,” I snickered, and came back to myself. The fire and lightning faded as I exhaled.
I lifted my hand off Ariana’s back, and we both looked at each other to convey we had no idea what the fuck had just happened, but we still really wanted to bone.
“Rain check,” she looked down to where my tip was still inside her.
“Yes,” I pulled out of her, and prepared for the worst case of blue balls known to mankind.
The problem with thinking something was about to be the worst was that it gave the universe the chance to prove you wrong. Something wet and thick hit the side of my face a full second before I heard the retort of a big gun. Ivanna was already falling by the time I turned my head. Her eyes were wide with shock as she looked down at the big hole in her chest.
“Move!” Thomas yelled, as he blurred to make himself a moving target.
“Ivanna!” Ariana screamed as she pulled up her pants and lunged for her sister.
I did the first thing that came to mind. With my Aesir gifts gone, I pulled on my Fae powers and wove a glamour of fog to block us from sight. It had worked before, so hopefully it would work . . .
A big-ass bullet missed my head by an inch and drilled a hole through the car I’d just had Ariana bent over. “It won’t do me any good if I’m still standing here,” I scolded myself and moved.
Ariana had just scooped Ivanna up, so I scooped her up. As we ran for the door, each pump of the blonde imp’s heart sent more blood cascading onto us. No more rounds chased us into the gym. They didn’t need to. They’d already hit something important, and I had no idea if she was going to make it.
Twenty seconds ago, she’d been fondling my balls, and now, Ivanna was fighting for her life. Life is just a big bag of dicks sometimes.
***
Dani sat with her feet hanging over the front grill. Three beat-up minivans were lined up in a forgotten lot just on the Mexican side of the boarder. Border patrol was probably watching them like hawks, so she gave them the one-finger salute and laughed.
The strike team had snuck across the border during the night, and the cars had been waiting for them courtesy of a local contact. No one would question the mid-90s models rolling through the streets. The people inside were a different story.
Dani was dressed from head to toe in black tactical gear: combat boots, pants, turtleneck with a vest on over it. At first glance, the small, solidly-built dwarf looked like easy prey. One look at the vest, and the local thugs turned on their heels and beat feet to rough up someone else. She had enough ammunition to occupy Paris, including two belts of shotgun shells making a big X across her body. The compact shotgun’s stock stuck up above her right shoulder; ready to draw like she was in some old-timey western.
That was just the icing on the cake that was a dwarf armed for war. She had a MP5 sitting on the hood next to her, another half-dozen magazines in pouches on the vest, just as many grenades in multiple varieties, and a small knife. On her right hip was a Glock, and on her left, a scabbard with a familiar roman short sword. She’d given the sword to Cam before he vanished off the face of the realm. When she found him, she’d give it back.
That was a hell of a lot for a normal soldier to carry around, much less one that barely topped five feet; and that didn’t even take into account her latest and greatest creation.
“Hang in there, baby,” she looked at the large case leaning up against the rear, driver-side door. She could practically hear her creation singing to her through her magic, and it would continue to do so until it tasted blood. All dwarven weapons were like that; most people just didn’t realize it.
“Shouldn’t be long now. Knowing Cam, something is going to go tits up.”
“Should we just be sitting here in the open, Ser Dani?” Fern fluttered her wings and rose from the ground to sit beside her.
The petite pixie had glamoured up a similar outfit, minus all the firepower. She still looked like Tinker Bell had gone dark side; including legit warpaint in black and dark gray across her face. She’d also begun referring to Dani as a knight; which the dwarf thought was kind of cool. Her people didn’t do the whole medieval thing like the Fae did.
“Sure, why not,” she took a final bite out of her apple, and tossed it to the ground. “People here see shit like this every day of the week, and we’re still in friendly territory. Once we cross the lines, we’ll keep a lower profile.”
She hopped down, and Fern followed her around to the back of the center van. The trunk was open, and a pair of imps were fiddling with a radio.
“You limp dicks get this figured out yet?” she asked.
Both young men had a foot on her, but she didn’t back down. She found it hilarious that the two shortest people in the strike force were commanding it.
“No, ma’am. This thing is shit. I don’t know why we’re . . .?”
“Because the Tikals are using older models to keep their communications out of our more advanced nets,” Dani saw where the imp was going and shut him down. “Technology is great, but sometimes it’s just as easy to fool; and just because something doesn’t involve the latest technological doodad doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea,” she whipped out her knife and started picking dirt out from under her fingernails.
The imps scowled but got back to work. Her temper was legendary, and no one wanted to be on the receiving end. She ignored them and kept her eyes on the city’s skyline. “I know you’re out there, Cam. Just give me a sign. Anything.”
She didn’t like the feelings settling in her gut. She didn’t like sitting around helplessly while her friends had to do gods knew what to survive. First, Lilith, probably getting buttfucked in prison, and then Cam in whatever the hell he had going on. Dani had enough, and she was itching to get in on the action.
“Can you feel him?” she asked Fern for the millionth time since they left Vegas.
“I could, but now . . .” the pixie trailed off.
They’d been following Fern’s lead to find Cam until about thirty minutes ago; when, abruptly, the magical bond went dead. Dani really hoped that didn’t mean what she thought it meant.
Occam’s Razor and all that; the simplest answer was usually the most likely.
“If you’re dead, Cam. I swear to the gods, I’ll bring you back to life and then kill you myself,” she was pissed, and it wasn’t at Fern, or even Cam. She just had a lot of built-up anger from the last few months, and she needed a healthy outlet.
Beating the piss out of some Tikal pussies was just what the doctor ordered.
“Keep trying, we need to . . .” the radio wailed behind them, and she turned to shoot the imps a glare. Then, what was unmistakably a Barrett fifty-caliber sniper rifle, echoed in the distance. “Well, tickle my ass and call me Hershey,” she grinned.
“That-a-boy, Cam. It’s clobbering time.”
“Mount up!” she yelled, making a circular motion with her hand. “Shit’s going down. Let’s get there before we miss the party.”
Chapter 12
Aveena stood at the icy precipice, looking down on the aftermath of the battle. A quivering beauty had washed over the tundra’s vista as the moans of the dead and dying echoed up the cliff face. She looked down at the broken bodies, discarded implements of war, and forgotten banners hanging lifeless in the morning stillness.
“At last,” a voice said behind her.
Normally, the crunch of snow and ice underfoot was enough to alert her to someone’s approach, so there was only one person this could be. Winter bowed to Ymira Foxbelle, not the other way around.
“Mother,” Aveena took a step back so she was respectfully behind and to the right of the Lady of Winter.
“Daughter,” she nodded as her own gaze fell over the battlefield. “Come.”
She stepped off the edge, and Aveena followed without hesitation. The wind whipped at the cloak fastened at the neck of her silver, glamour armor; making the blue and silver colors of winter spread like wings around her. They weren’t. She was falling, not flying.
The hundred-foot drop was nothing. The ice and snow gave way as the two frost giants plummeted to the ground. She bent her knees and took the impact throughout her powerful lower body. The shockwave dispersed outward; toppling the forgotten banners of their vanquished enemy. The two giants rose from their crouch, and the ground rebounded and rolled so they didn’t have to walk among the dead. Winter parted the way.
A battalion of troops, with an inner ring of Ymira’s personal guard surrounded a spot at the center of the field. Eight males, and two guardswomen had a stranglehold on a creature laid out on an altar of ice. The creature roared and thrashed, but it was a futile gesture. Two males had each foot secure and spread so the beast’s belly was flush with the ice. One guardswoman controlled the head, and the other the tail. The squad had the creature served up like a mortal Thanksgiving turkey.
Ymira strode forward, the Coldstone throbbing with power in her right hand, while she ran her fingers through the beast’s grimy coat. No armored glamour remained. It had been stripped away by power, blade, and fist. All that was left was blood and ash.
“It was always going to end this way, general,” the Lady of Winter stated, as she walked into view of the beast’s head.
“Fucking cold-hearted bitch,” the enemy general spit a string of blood at her. It crystalized and fell to the snow long before it reached her spotless armor.
“Indeed, among other things,” Ymira’s smile made the tundra’s wind pick up and create mini-cyclones of snow.
Her troops didn’t budge. They waited. Their blood-thirsty eyes eager to see the carnage that always accompanied their Lady.
“Tell me where your liege is. Tell me where I can find the great Cat Sith,” she commanded, her tenor growing, and the winds of winter responding in kind.
“Go sit on that staff and rotate,” the malk general shot back. “That’s all the satisfaction you’re going to get out of me.”
Ymira sniffed in disdain, her shoulders tightening like she was going to lash out; but then she relaxed and exhaled. “Daughter.”
“Yes, mother,” Aveena stepped forward.
With a hand gesture, the Lady of Winter summoned a wicked looking glamour blade. It wasn’t practical. It had a wavy design that looked like it couldn’t make up its mind if it wanted to be good at sawing or slashing. When Ymira handed the blade to Aveena, the young frost giant knew it didn’t really matter. There was power in the blade. Enough power to breach the hide of an elder malk. Enough power to kill.
The general sensed it too, and fought against his captors. It was pointless. He was beaten, broken, and his blood already saturated the ice around him.
“Speak now, and I may show you mercy,” Ymira offered the beast a final chance.
This time, instead of throwing around four-letter words, the malk remained silent. He accepted what was coming his way.
“Aveena,” with a flick of her wrist, Ymira ordered the elder malk’s death.
The general was an ancient one, a son of Cat Sith himself, the liege lord of cats and foxes; and grandson to Queen Maeve. None of that mattered as Aveena straddled the beast and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck to expose his throat.
He started to say something; a death threat, a curse, or maybe he was just going to call her a cunt. Whatever it was, he never got it out. Aveena stabbed hard and deep before twisting with the strength of her core. The blade ripped through hide, jugular, vocal cords, esophagus, and everything else between the beast’s skin and spine. She made sure not to sever his spine. Her mother wanted him to feel pain.
The beast’s curse turned into a death rattle, but he struggled to the end; straining and kicking as his blood fell from his throat like a waterfall. The elder malk was big, bigger than Aveena; and she was a giant. She rode him like a bucking horse to his death. Her legs squeezing his sides to force the last few pumps of his heart to spill the last of his essence at her mother’s feet.
“It’s done,” she hopped off the dead malk and brushed the ash and blood from her armor.
“Good work, daughter. I’m proud of you.”
“Oh shit,” Aveena’s mind finally caught on. “This is all just a dream.”
As if on command, the reality around her shattered, and she felt herself rising toward consciousness. It had been such a good dream. A dream of conquest, dominance, pride, and everything else that she’d once valued in her life; and then her stupid brain had gone one step too far.
It was as much a memory as a dream. Aveena had been barely ten years old when the malks had launched their pathetic counteroffensive against Winter. They had been defeated, and Ymira summoned to kill their leader. She’d handed Aveena the same wavy blade, and Aveena had killed the general as her mother commanded. It was the day the Lady of Winter added the title Mistress of Foxes to her true name. It was a monumental moment in the history of Winter. It shattered the last remnants of the malk resistance, forced them to flee to other realms, and their lord, Cat Sith, had not been seen or heard of since.
Everything was correct up until the last part of the dream. That’s when the wishful thinking started. Nowhere, in all of Aveena’s memories, could she remember her mother saying she was proud of her. Her addled mind was still coming to terms with the emotional whiplash of the dream’s ending when she finally resurfaced into the land of the living.
Pain wracked her head like the worst hangover ever. She smelled shit, death, blood, and wicked witch. “Oh fuck,” everything came flooding back to her.
She opened her eyes to a scene very similar to her dream; except, this time, she was the beast in restraints. Her human glamour was gone, and her true form made the room plummet to freezing as the mantle of winter exerted itself on the malleable mortal realm. Anything damp in the room had frozen over; which meant the cum-covered bedspread was probably easier to ice skate on than sleep. She was tied to a chair with strands of rope, and the size disparity was almost laughable. She looked like Shaquille O’Neil sitting at the kid’s table. She grinned, exerted her strength against the ropes . . . and terrible pain ripped through her.
She gasped, rocked b
ack against the wood, but it didn’t even budge. A luminous golden glow shone forth from the ropes as they resisted her struggle, and only faded when she stopped fighting. Her chest heaved in pain and exertion, and of course her tits jiggled in response since she was naked as the day she was born. Being tied up and naked was never a good start to the morning.
“Does Wonder Woman finally have a bondage fetish and I’m the lucky girl?” she gently tugged at the ropes binding her feet. They started to glow again, and the pain built. She ground her teeth and stopped. Pain was a good motivator.
“Please continue your pointless resistance. It’s fun to watch,” a woman stated as she walked through the door and into the winter wonderland. Despite the chill, she was just as naked as Aveena.
“What the hell, Van Helsing?” Aveena hissed. “Let me go. We’re on the same team.”
“Ha!” the bark was short and humorless. “Is that what you’ve told yourself? That you’re on the side of this realm in the great struggle.”
“Well . . .” Aveena started to respond.
“Delusions and lies,” the witch spat before Aveena could answer. “You Fae, with your self-righteous posturing. You’re in this for Aveena Foxbelle, and no one else,” she said it in a tone that warned Aveena should keep her mouth shut unless she wanted to feel more pain.
She ignored her Fae instincts. “It can be both,” she replied, drawing the witch’s zealous glare, and a backhand across the face.
There was some magical oomph behind it, because it snapped Aveena’s head to one side, and she tasted blood on her lip. Despite that, she didn’t stop. She needed to keep the woman talking so she could find a weakness in the bonds holding her. Without that, she was at the witch’s mercy.
“I can be in it for me and your realm. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of persona non grata back home. If we work together, we can stick it to Maeve, my mother, and whoever else you think needs a foot up the ass. What do you say?” she bargained.
Van Helsing stopped what she was doing, and looked at the young, noble Fae. Aveena smiled in response, and felt a stirring of hope.
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