“Today we’re having a pop quiz.” Mrs. Holgrim announced as she turned to the classroom, pulling down her glasses and staring hard at the suddenly nervous students, “I hope you’ve all done your reading.”
The world is horrible, Logan groaned inwardly.
Chapter 5
Logan failed the test and got an extra set of reading assigned to him as a result. The rest of his day at school went much as the start. With Ly’Synthia and Jex’Amina drawing stares from men and women alike, while he floundered in his studies.
When evening finally arrived and he stepped out into the witches ancient, over-grown gardens with Ly’Synthia, he felt like his real education was about to start. Becca and Jex’Amina were already waiting just inside the gate, the pair whispering excitedly to one another.
“Logan!” Jex-Amina shouted, “I started an Insta!”
“Oh Jesus,” Logan moaned, “why’d you show her social media?”
“What can it hurt? Look, she’s already got a million followers, ha!” Becca pulled out her phone and showed Logan a post of the tiny elf, her eyes unmasked and ear sticking out of her hair, “I tagged it with cosplay.”
“What is this Insta?” Ly’Synthia demanded, stepping so close, her breasts pressed between Becca and Logan, “If Jex’Amina has gathered minions for you, sire. Then allow me to do the same. I promise to gather far more than any sorceress could.”
Jex’Amina grumbled quietly as Becca helped the warrior set up a profile. Snapping a photo of the dark elf in full regalia with her spear resting across her shoulders. With the twisted branches and ancient vines surrounding her, it turned out to be a stunning portrait.
“There,” Becca said, “You’re online. Now, can we get to practicing?”
Evelyn joined the group as they made their way to the large field out back. The witches had worked a ritual to mask sound and sight within the bounds of their property.
“We’re missing one, aren’t we?’ The witch observed, as she drew a light blue shawl about her shoulders.
A hump of roots and ancient shrubs rose, revealing itself to be the cloaked and hooded figure of Meryl Linn, the ancient Sage.
“Ahh,” Evelyn observed coldly, “and how did you pierce my sisters’ defenses, elf?”
“That will be our first lesson, witch,” the little sage said with her customary acerbity, “Fae wards are powerful but not impossible to breach, unless one is undead. And even then, it can be done by one of sufficient strength.”
“We noticed,” Evelyn said, her voice turning sour as she remembered the ancient vampire that had once driven through their wards as if they were paper.
As Meryl instructed Evelyn, the pair looked like bristling cats, circling one another warily, unwilling to give the other an inch. Jex’Amina led Logan off to another corner of the yard, speaking to him about the fundamentals of Fae magic as she did.
“Should we get started then?” Becca asked, hands falling to the hilts of her twin blades.
“Yes, but our lesson will not be with weapons today. You may set aside the blades, but keep the belt and scabbards, its best to always train, encumbered as you will fight.”
Ly’Synthia took Becca to an occupied corner of the yard, where there was a wide space of open ground. Setting aside her own spear, the dark elf stepped into the opening position of The Sword Dance.
“You will watch. I’ll perform the opening sequence at one quarter speed, then you will follow. The Sword Dance is to be done every day for one who seeks the path of the warrior. Preferably with the dawn, but when isn’t important. Only the how.
“The Sword Dance isn’t about stretching, readiness, or being limber. That’s only the result. The Dance is a place of mind. A meditation on the edge you ride in combat, between instinct and thought, action and reaction, death and life.”
As Syn spoke, her body flowed, arms stretching long and wide in sequences that hinted at attacks to Becca, then swinging in tight to her body as the dark elf twisted, her feet always perfectly placed to keep her balance. From attack to defense and back, the long-limbed body undulated through a series of sequences that set Becca’s heart to thudding in her chest. She found her hands and feet shifting as she unconsciously began mimicking the dark elf.
“Now,” Ly’Synthia said, stepping back into the opening position, “You will follow, yes?”
Becca gave a silent nod and slipped into the stance. Syn stood and inspected the human’s stance, just barely managing to hide her look of approval at how perfectly Becca’s assumed the slightly awkward stance.
“Very good, but as we move, keep your mind empty, your thoughts on the thousand arrows that might seek your hearts. On the sharp edge of your blade, its edge as familiar as your own fingers. Follow.”
Ly’Synthia moved at quarter speed again, ready to correct Becca if she moved out of place. The girl only made two mistakes, in the two dozen move sequence, which shocked Syn, but caused the fledgling knight to berate herself silently and start over from the beginning, never making the same mistake twice.
For the next hour Ly’Synthia moved Becca through The Sword Dance, and when the girl had the whole thing, she had her run through it again and again. Only five minutes long when done at full speed, there were hundreds of movements. The first couple times Becca moved a touch slower than full speed, but brow furrowed, she was locked in and didn’t even notice when Logan finished his magical training with Meryl and Jex-Amina and joined her and Syn.
Every sport Becca had grown up playing was coming together for her in this dance. Ballet movements, gymnastics stretches, and even lacrosse swings of her arms. But none of them could hold her interest and fascination as the blades did.
The few times Becca had been in fights for her life had been the most exhilarating and alive she’d ever felt. As she flowed through The Sword Dance she began to feel the barest hint of the exhilaration she felt when fighting. That little taste only spurred her on, throwing herself into the movements over and over as the sun sank beneath the horizon and the moon rose high overhead.
Ly’Synthia and Logan left the girl, their words either unheard or ignored, as Becca danced through overgrown flowerbeds, her body already stretching farther and sweeping around faster than it had two hours before. When Becca finally ceased the Dance, the moon was high overhead, and her body was drenched in sweat. Most of the lights were off inside and someone had hung a clean white towel on a nail near where her swords rested.
Toweling off her sweaty brow, Becca felt a delicious soreness in every muscle of her body and knew she’d be sore tomorrow. A cry of pleasure from inside drew a crooked grin to her lips, and she slipped through the garden to the single window with a light shining out of it.
Peeking inside, Becca couldn’t help but grin all the wider at the sight she found within. Logan lay upon his back, torso slick with sweat and face tight with strain, while a gorgeous red-headed witch rode him as if her life depended on it. Becca watched Eris’s head fall back, and her cries of pleasure turn guttural as her fingers gripped the sheets bunched around her waist. With a shriek that sets bats flapping into the night, the witch came upon their lord’s manhood, her body shuddering as she slipped down to his side.
Becca could remember that wonderful soreness as Eris pressed a hand against her sex, eyes rolled back into her skull as she bit her bottom lip. The poor man wasn’t done though, as Gwen pulled him up behind her. Aching her back and kissing Logan, the blonde witch slipped his hardness within her as she gripped the bedpost.
Evelyn lay on the bed, Eris crawling up into her arms. From the smear of juices down the woman’s thighs, it was clear she’d already had the pleasure of Logan’s intense lovemaking. She watched it even now. The tiredness faded from the young man’s face as he cupped and caressed one of Gwen’s large breasts, pinching and pulling on the nipple as their kiss heated up. His thrusts growing more insistent and powerful, until Becca watched them both come with silent, shuddering motions, hands clutching at one another.
As the four crawled under the covers together, Becca slipped off into the night, her head filled with the movements of The Sword Dance and the hint of something profound she’d brushed up against.
Chapter 6
Tuesday at school was little better for Logan. Having missed so much studying, he was playing catch-up throughout the day, while attempting to balance the complexities of Earth magic Meryl was teaching him, with the intuitive and intricate Fae magic Jex’Amina was teaching.
He found it hard to focus on his class work, but something he’d read in the tome had him giving it more effort. It spoke of the usefulness of having a breadth of knowledge and viewpoints, that the narrower a monarch’s information stream, the narrower his choices would become.
The book went everywhere with Logan, stuffed in his backpack or sitting on his nightstand. The more he read from it, the more he found himself referencing earlier sections and seeing how they were interrelated. Ly’Synthia remained suspicious of Simon, hovering nearby whenever the two were together, to the point Logan had to warn the dark elf off several times.
Simon never seemed to mind the woman’s glowering stares or probing questions. He ignored most of them and those he chose to answer were given in his usual perfunctory way that often left the guardswoman frustrated. The woman was unfailingly loyal, if over exuberant at times.
She took her oaths to heart, even the final one she’d offered her queen, and took great pains to remind Logan of that fact as she curled between his legs each morning. Her skills were growing, as Logan saw that second morning since his return, but after filling her mouth with a large deposit of his seed, the young man flipped the elf onto her back and tasted of her treasure.
Shocked by the new pleasure, Ly’Synthia struggled at first, begging her liege to not trouble himself. As his talented tongue worked upon her sex, the elf was reminded of that glorious first night and gave herself over to the pleasure, reveling in her king’s touch as her goddess and the young princess had.
Their after morning coitus with the dark elf commander was a regular affair. Even if he spent the night with the witches, who rarely slept much more than an hour or two, Syn would find his morning wood and do her duty and he would pay her back in kind, often taking her one final time before he found his breakfast and the next conquest of his morning.
Tuesday night proved to be far more odd than Logan had been anticipating. He’d been expecting something like the last experiment, turning into a sex-beast, or maybe some cool magical powers like levitation or resistance to fire. Instead, a few seconds after he drank down the elixir Eris handed him, short golden feathers sprouted from his arms, their tip’s hard as actual gold and sharp enough, they sliced his fingers when he touched them.
Snatching his fingers back with a hiss of pain, Logan looked down to realize there hadn’t been any pain, and the cuts healed as quickly as they appeared. The blood remained however, thin lines of red across his rough fingertips.
“Fascinating,” Eris said, moving around him and jotting down notes, “Turn around, please. Do you feel anything other than the external symptoms? Fever? Shakes? The sudden need to urinate?”
“No,” Logan said, “should I?”
“Inconclusive,” the witch said, “but something isn’t right with this batch. Try batch-B.”
“What’s this going to do?” Logan asked, hesitating as he peered at the dimly glowing orange liquid in the vial through his mage sight.
“I think it’s going to give you wings,” Eris said, unable to hide her excitement, “I can’t be certain, but I think we’re on the right track.”
“This is going to be painful isn’t it?” Logan asked, frowning at the witch.
“I hadn’t really thought about that… probably?”
Fuck it, Logan thought, then downed the contents and felt a deep and abiding latitude settle over him as she hunkered down on his haunches. The feathers faded and his skin darkened, shoulder blades cracking and splintering, smooth leathery black wings sprouting from his back as a dark aura filled the room.
Glass shattered and a cloud of white vapors filled the little lab room and a moment later Logan shook his head clear of the strange thinking. Coming back to himself he looked up at Eris with a shiver of revulsion.
“What was that?”
“Something… emerged… just for a moment.” Eris said and Logan saw genuine fear in her eyes and posture. “Let’s try that again, but first tell me everything you remember from it. Your every thought and sensation.”
Logan blinked. The woman was clearly terrified in a way he’d never seen, which was making him even more uneasy, but she pushed on, her pen poised above the notebook, ready to jot down everything he said. Logan tried to explain the experience the best he could, but words didn’t quite capture the odd change to his thoughts and emotions.
He began haltingly, finding it hard to not only find the words, but also to be so open and vulnerable. In the past whenever he’d opened up to someone who should have been a guardian, he’d been met with indifference or anger. Speaking with Eris grew easier as the night wore on, but he could never quite explain the alienness of his thoughts, nor the familiarity and comfort as wings wrapped around his body.
Logan found he missed the feeling, as he drifted off to sleep that night, with the sweaty and sated form of the red headed witch pressed to his back. Wrapping the blanket around them tight, he tried to mimic the womb-like comfort the wings had given him. But peaceful sleep was not to come, as the witch in front wiggled her soft rear against his still slick cock, humping her butt cheeks up and down.
Turning back into Logan, Eris found his lips with a hiss of pleasure as his manhood sank within her depths once more. Evelyn stirred beside them, as Logan rolled the red head beneath him, his hardness pistoning down into her. The dregs of the last, lust awakening potion the witch had given him still coursing through his veins.
The growl of desire emitting from the back of her lord’s throat sent a shiver of pleasure down Eris’s back and she arched into his thrusts, butt thrust upwards like a cat in heat. In the witch’s mind’s eye was the memory of a stifling dark aura and smooth leathery wings, and hovering above them, those blue eyes she knew so well, only instead of the gaze of a young hero, she’d seen a remote and ancient wisdom. An aloof power that hinted and teased.
A power that had deepened the woman’s desire for this young man.
Chapter 7
“My Lord,” Knight-Lieutenant Darien whispered, “Those skulls are a fell omen. Aquabuamelu have been hunting these sands for nigh on ten-thousand of the humans’ years and ever since Mesopotamia fell they’ve been even more of a menace.”
“You think I don’t know that, you simpering piss-ant?” Mordrek growled, wiping sweat from his brow, the dark eyed man took another swig from his waterskin and turned to the restless squad of elves at his side.
“When the Queen ordered us to help you, she didn’t have it in mind, I think, that we’d be stealing an artifact from a nest of Aquabuamelu’s.” the Knight-Lieutenant said in as polite a tone as possible.
This man was their chosen savior, and it wouldn’t do to show him any unkindness or rudeness, no matter how much his abrasive personality and selfish nature grated on the elves. Or how he’d twisted several of the Knights to his side.
“If a few of you die in service of the Darien, then it’s a small price to pay,” Mordrek said, his smile growing even more cruel as he pointed to three of the Knight-Lieutenants knights. “Draw them out, but don’t die in the path or a pack will come to feed on your corpse and the rest of us will have to go around.”
“Sir,” a young knight said, swallowing hard as she drew her longsword and settled the shield into place on her arm. Glancing to her squad mates, her younger sister and her lover, the woman gave one last nod of respect to Knight-Lieutenant Darien and demonstrating the bravery and zeal he knew her to possess, the woman charged out from their position.
Three elven knights raced across th
e broken floor of the desert, their feet skipping from one sun baked rock to the next, light as feathers, until the first Aqrubualmelu rose up from some ruins. Knight-Lieutenant Darien was about to shout a warning, but the scorpion-man moved faster than he had thought it possible for any creature besides a god to move.
He and his knights watched in horror as the ancient creature snatched the young sister from a boulder with one pincher. The pincher flexed as it rose up above the scorpion-man’s muscled torso and snipped the slender elf in half, her blood and viscera raining down on the Aquabuamelu’s head.
It happened so fast the knight could only register shock as another scorpion-man swept the squads leader and her lover into a wall with its barbed tail. Then they watched as it stabbed the corpses over and over again.
“What are you waiting for?” Mordrek asked Darien, “Get out there and keep those things distracted while I enter the tomb.”
“Sire,” the Knight-Lieutenant said, swallowing hard and trying not to look at his son who stood in the ranks, a common knight, “Sure there must be other weapons, that can stop the Black Dragon-.”
“You’re questioning me, Darien?” The human asked in a dark, dangerous tone, his fingers playing along the hilt of his sword. The triplets shifted to the man’s side, their eyes glittering dangerously. “With your feeble little brain, you think to question me?!” The man’s eyes were wild, and Darien relaxed his own hand, keeping it away from his hilt. He’d heard rumors about what Mordrek had done to another squad that failed to do as ordered. “Your Queen gave me the authority, yes? Do you deny it?”
“No, sir,” the Knight-Lieutenant said, snapping a sharp salute his centuries old training and discipline taking over.
“Then get your pissant knights out there and die, so I can retrieve the Shackles of Hell Below. If we don’t stifle that bastard brother of mine’s powers, and trap that pea sized intellect of his, then Fae might fall to the Devil he calls father.”
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