Metal Mage 8

by Eric Vall

  “My house,” I mumbled. “I need a less crowded location.”

  Haragh snorted. “I knew that was you lot last night. One woman couldn’t possibly climax that many times. But I have to say, I can’t believe you’re up and walkin’ already.”

  I groaned and took his mug from him to drain it myself, and as I dropped the empty glass to the counter, Haragh let out a booming laugh.

  We were heading toward Magehill when Mina and Deli came out of the library with books piled in their arms, and as they waved to us, I carefully gauged their expressions.

  The last thing I wanted was for two young mages I respected a lot to spend their evening listening to me ravage the women they looked up to.

  The two girls bid us a casual good morning, though, and after they made arrangements for Haragh to help them fix a broken step in their house, I swiftly took advantage of the topic.

  “Hey uh … where do you two live anyways?”

  “Magehill,” Mina said, “and in case you’re wondering, we did hear you last night.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell between us as I rifled my hair.

  “Sorry about that,” I mumbled. “I feel like that’s inappropriate, and it won’t happen again.”

  “It’s okay,” Deli said with a shrug. “It led to a very important discussion between the two of us. We decided we’re definitely going to kill Pindor this week.”

  “And we missed having you guys around,” Mina added with a sweet smile. “Can you tell Defender Solana we wanna talk to her, by the way? It’s urgent.”

  I was halfway between “oh” and a blank stare when the two girls waved goodbye and headed for a shop across the way, and Haragh snorted beside me.

  “Pindor’s really in the shit now,” the half-ogre mused. “Those two girls are some of the only mages in the village who practice their magery.”

  “Well, that’s good, at least,” I allowed. “For us, not for Pindor.”

  “What d’you reckon he did?” Haragh asked as he furrowed his brows thoughtfully.

  “No idea,” I sighed, “but I really don’t have time to figure it out. We’re going to the Oculus today, and I’ve gotta track down Wyresus somehow. Then we’re starting training with the mages, and I still have to get Deya using some kind of weapon. Plus, you’ve gotta get up to Orebane. When are you leaving?”

  “Aye,” Haragh said with a nod as we continued down the lane. “Bagneera should be comin’ into the station in the next hour. I’ll have her take me north.”

  The women were lounging naked in the kitchen while they nibbled on the array of delicacies they bought in from Serin, and Stan was nestled on a fresh slice of bread among them. Cayla found him dancing around in the fountain of gold coins this morning, and when he sent me a little salute as I walked in, I realized he must have been tagging along with the princess when we spoke with the king about the army.

  Once the women were dressed, I got them to agree to vacate the place long enough for me to make a few adjustments, and Stan eagerly climbed up my arm to get a front row seat of the action.

  The four women and Ruela filed out to lay in the sun in a clearing near Magehill, and then Haragh and I took our positions on either side of our house while the little metal man clung to a tuft of my hair.

  The half-ogre suggested I just rebuild the house in a different spot, but I honestly didn’t want to destroy it. Now that the five of us had christened every corner, and we finally had a place of our own to stay in, the last thing I wanted to do was tear it down and rebuild another one.

  There were already too many memories in the place I didn’t ever want to forget.

  So, Haragh and I sparked our magic, and as we joined our Terra powers in a circuit, the sensation of combining my own magic with someone else’s caught me off guard a bit.

  It had been quite a while since I’d had another Terra Mage around to work with, but the strength of Haragh’s presence was still familiar to me, and it was just the extra kick I needed to balance the full layout of the house without any of the stonework cracking. I did have to adjust my approach, though, because I kept accidentally breaking the connection every time I gave an extra surge of my magic.

  Eventually, I got the hang of working with another mage again, and we carefully removed the house from the edge of Magehill. I left the lower cellar since the women and I hadn’t made it down there yet anyways, and then I quickly filled in the gap we left behind so none of the upper levels would lose their structural support.

  Haragh and I skirted the edge of the village as we kept the house on an even keel, and several of the more crass mages we passed insisted we could put her down by their huts if we wanted.

  “I think I’ll pass,” I muttered to a young mage with an unmistakable glint of longing in his eyes.

  We took the house to the furthest edge of the village, and then we settled her back to the ground where the western woods began. This way, I could keep my senses trained to the exposed portion of Falmount, but Magehill would hopefully be well out of range. Judging by the less insinuating looks of the mages emerging from the huts on this side of the village, I guessed they hadn’t been able to hear the previous night’s activities.

  I would have to figure out some means of ensuring we didn’t cause as much of a stir over here as we had at Magehill, but for now, I was relieved to have a new neighborhood. Mostly because my ears weren’t nearly so overwhelmed in this quieter quarter of the town. I could still hear everything in the entire scope of Falmount Rift, but I’d begun to get the hang of adjusting how much registered versus how much remained a general hum in the background.

  Plus, it would be a little while before I finished building a proper line of defense for the border of the town and knowing the huts here wouldn’t be unprotected during that time made it more than ideal.

  Once the foundation of the house was fully fused in place, Haragh and I eased back from the magical circuit, and I gave a loud stretch to get my aching muscles working.

  My entire lower half felt like I’d been pushing a stack of steel across concrete all night, and my shoulders ached nearly as bad after each of the women had decided they wanted the same treatment I gave Cayla against the wall.

  When I got my muscles loosened up a bit, I finally glanced over at the half-ogre, and I found him with the strangest look on his face.

  “Are you alright?” I asked after he’d stared at me for nearly a full minute.

  “I’m gonna say something,” he announced, “and if it sounds crazy, then so be it.”

  “Go for it,” I chuckled.

  “I think I just felt my own feet on the ground,” he said as a slightly manic glint came to his eye. “Felt them in my veins … and yours, too. I felt my damn feet on the ground but not from my feet. That sounds crazy, don’t it?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “It’s kind of cool, though. You must have sensed it through the circuit. I didn’t want to walk backwards into anyone and drop the house, so I was keeping track of where the mages were.”

  “That was you doin’ that?” Haragh asked incredulously.

  “Yeah, I’ve been practicing a few different uses of my Terra Magic,” I explained. “If you seep more fully into the soil and send your magic out while you keep a really specific level of focus, you can actually sense whatever interacts with the ground. It comes in handy for scanning an area for any threats and keeping track of any attackers’ movements.”

  Haragh continued to stare for a moment.

  “Where the hell did ye’ learn that?” he finally demanded.

  “Aurora was helping me out with my Metal Magic.” I shrugged. “Then I tried applying the same principal when Shoshanne got all upset about healing Deya’s father. It’s kind of a long story, but it’s pretty fucking cool to play around with. I’ll teach you when you get back from Orebane if you want.”

  Stan abruptly started yanking on my hair the moment I mentioned Orebane, and while Haragh scratched his big green head in bewilderment, I attemp
ted to decipher the miming of the little metal man. Eventually, I realized he wanted to join the half-ogre on his journey north, and I decided to let him tag along since Thrungrig liked Stan so much. The little guy probably missed his buddies as much as I had after being in Nalnora for so long.

  So Stan rode on Haragh’s broad shoulders as we wandered back toward the women, and the half-ogre filled him in on how the mines had been the last time he was through there.

  We got to the others just as Aurora threw a stream of flames at the feet of a couple younger mages, and when they yelped and took off at once, Ruela snapped her approval from the half-elf’s side.

  “What’s going on over here?” I asked uneasily.

  I could hear several people warning one another to avoid this clearing at all costs, and every one of my women looked ready to kill the next mage to walk by.

  “What does the number twenty-three mean?” Aurora demanded in irritation.

  “And why are we being congratulated about it?” Cayla asked icily.

  Haragh loudly cleared his throat when he caught the full effect of the four livid glances looking up at us, and then he gave me a firm clap to the shoulder before he abandoned me there to make his way to the station.

  “It’s probably best if we head to the Oculus now,” I tried, “but rest assured, the issue has been addressed, and we live in the western woods now.”

  I threw in my most charming grin for good measure as I offered a hand to the women, and I carefully shuttled them toward the Mustang before the four men descending Magehill could say anything they’d regret.

  Chapter 9

  It took the women all of two minutes to catch on to what the number twenty-three meant coming from the stream of mages who had congratulated them, and both Deya and Aurora burst out laughing at the realization.

  Shoshanne blushed to her roots, of course, and buried her face in her hands, but Cayla was as shameless as ever about her exploits. From her place in the passenger seat, the princess just smirked at me and gave a careless shrug.

  “Those mages should be taking notes instead of tallies,” Cayla muttered as she returned her gaze out the window of the Mustang.

  I grinned. “They were probably doing both.”

  “I love living in your town,” Deya mused airily. “It’s already so much more fun than House Quyn ever was.”

  “It’s not my town,” I clarified, “just my mine.”

  “Mason, it’s your town,” Aurora chuckled, “and you’ll have to get used to it. They’re naming the pubs after you and everything.”

  I caught the half-elf’s smirk in the rearview mirror and rolled my eyes. “Alright, it might be my town.”

  “As it should be,” Cayla added. “You’ve been knighted, and there are vassals in both Illaria and Cedis with their own fiefs.”

  “I forgot about the knighthood,” I muttered to myself.

  “I know you did,” the princess sighed, “but don’t worry. I’ll keep reminding you.”

  When we reached Serin, the guards Simun and Goreth hopped to and opened the gates for us after only a brief stint of vying for Aurora’s attention, but the half-elf couldn’t be bothered with them today. She only yawned loudly and spared a lazy wave, and judging by the way she had her legs sprawled across the seat while she slouched against Deya, I could tell the half-elf was exhausted from our first night being back in our own house.

  “Still getting your strength back?” I teased as I sent a wink over my shoulder.

  “How are you functioning at all?” Aurora snorted. “I can hardly move my arms.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I chuckled. “Those chains were rattling louder than a damn train.”

  “Hush!” Aurora hissed, and Deya snickered beside her. “If all of the king’s guard knows what I let you do to me, they won’t be afraid of me anymore.”

  “More like what you order me to do to you,” I corrected under my breath as I nodded a greeting to the guards at the gates of the craftsman’s quarters.

  A few golden coins pelted my head from the backseat.

  “Shhh,” Aurora reprimanded once more with a giggle.

  “Don’t worry,” I sighed, “you, me, and Deya are the only ones in the capital with hyper acute hearing, remember?”

  “True,” Cayla allowed with a coy grin, “but all of Magehill definitely knows what you did to her.”

  “Yeah, there’s no chance they didn’t hear that,” I agreed and sent the princess a roguish grin.

  Shoshanne, who had more than enjoyed watching the half-elf and I with the new set of chains, blushed bright red all over again, and as she buried her face in the seat, I could hear her mumbling against the velvet.

  “Can we talk about anything else?” she begged. “I want to imagine no one heard a thing.”

  “You are so cute,” Deya giggled as she eyed the blushing Aer Mage. “Look at how modest you get, but last night you let me--”

  Shoshanne abruptly clamped her hand over Deya’s huge grin.

  “Shoshanne’s our dirty little secret,” Aurora explained to the elf. “She’d never been intimate with anyone before she met us, but after Mason got to her … ”

  Aurora cocked a brow and looked Shoshanne up and down, and when the healer groaned in embarrassment, all of the women fell into a fit of laughter.

  I was still chuckling heartily when we neared the gates of King Temin’s castle, and the guards saluted with amusement as they listened to the giggling women and waved us through.

  I brought Bobbie to the furthest edge of the castle courtyard, and I decided to leave her parked outside the Oculus since I didn’t want every mage in the Order to know what we were up to today.

  After Kurna’s warning and his experience with the three Terra Mages, I wanted to avoid drawing too much attention to us at all costs. This way, we could get a real idea of what was going on in the underground city of the Oculus, and if anyone in there was working for the Master, we might be able to catch them off guard.

  I unsealed the trunk of the Mustang as the women climbed out with Ruela behind them, and then I caught Shoshanne’s hand to help her out of the backseat. The healer deliberately avoided my gaze, and I couldn’t resist gently pinning her to the car just to see her blush even more.

  Shoshanne’s warm brown eyes darted around the courtyard as her cheeks burned, but I tilted her chin toward me to hold her gaze steady.

  “Why are you all determined to make me embarrassed?” she mumbled with a pout.

  “Why are you embarrassed?” I chuckled. “You like everything we do to you, and I have to point out, you’re incredibly good at what you do to us.”

  “I know,” Shoshanne whispered as her eyes flicked to the courtyard once more, “but like Aurora said, I like to keep that a secret, okay? You know I’ve only ever been with you, and I happen to like that no other men know … what I like. It might be old fashioned, but it means a lot to me.”

  Hearing the woman’s explanation only caused heat to build in me as I realized for the hundredth time how fucking lucky I was, and when I considered the way Shoshanne had screeched to the ceiling for me only hours before, I decided her old fashioned notions actually made her sexier.

  If she liked that I was the only guy who knew about her sensual side, I’d gladly oblige her for the rest of my life. So, before I spoke, I leaned closer to her ear, and I could hear the healer’s heartbeat begin to race immediately.

  “Our secret then,” I murmured quietly, and as Shoshanne shivered against the heat building between us, the softest sigh of approval escaped from her lips. I kneaded her plush hips in response, and Shoshanne giggled as she left a light bite on my neck.

  Then the healer playfully shoved me back, and her brown eyes sparkled with arousal.

  “We have work to do,” Shoshanne reminded me firmly, and I chuckled as I followed the blushing woman to the trunk.

  I hadn’t fully realized until Aurora said it, but Shoshanne really did seem to prefer the appearance of modesty, des
pite the sexy little dresses she liked to run around in. It only ever took a single touch or a look from me to get her fully distracted, but overall, she was still the same studious mage who took her work very seriously.

  She’d certainly come far, though, since we’d found her in her drab, gray healer’s robes and the uptight bun she used to always wear. These days, she let her copper curls fall in careless, tousled waves, and she wore whatever the hell she pleased, which I was glad to see was the same purple gauze she’d modeled for me the night before.

  Both Shoshanne and Deya had slipped long silken vests over their shoulders before we left for Serin, and seeing as both of their backends were fully exposed otherwise, I could understand the decision.

  At least this way, Shoshanne might draw only half as many stares while she scouted the Oculus today, but knowing the caramel beauty wanted to keep her beautiful ass for only my viewing pleasure was definitely my favorite perk.

  Cayla was securing a sheath around Deya’s waist when I joined the women near the trunk, and she was dutifully explaining the top three maneuvers the elf could use to inflict some serious damage with the dagger she handed over.

  Deya nodded along to the instructions while she gingerly sheathed the dagger, and I was glad to see the women already taking my request seriously when it came to the elf. Nothing unnerved me more than the thought of having one of my women unprotected, and with Ruela becoming more unpredictable by the day, I needed Deya properly armed as soon as possible.

  “Aurora,” I called as I checked the bullets in my revolver. “I want you to take Deya with you through the Oculus. Keep her invisible so you two don’t draw too much attention, and if you see anything suspicious, use her to get the information you need, but stay close and don’t let her get hurt.”

  Aurora gave a curt nod of agreement and secured her sword to her waist.

  “Where will you be?” the half-elf asked.

  “I’m going to the library,” I told her. “It’s the most likely place for Wyresus to be if he’s still in the Oculus, but I’m gonna take Cayla with me since she doesn’t know her way around.”