by Reed James
“M'lord,” creaked one of the treemen. He turned, facing us. The ground shook as he strode at us.
“Run!” I shrieked.
Chapter Forty-Six: The Fairy's Pain
Sven Falk
Aingeal's wings fluttered as she concentrated on the Lodestone. Her eyes grew unfocused, her breathing slowing, her large breasts rising and falling. Light played along the gold rings piercing her nipples.
“What do you think she's doing, Master?” Zanyia asked as she crouched beside me in that cat-like manner she was fond of. Her tawny ears twitched and flicked, her tail swishing behind her.
“Breaking the stone,” I answered.
“I know that,” the lamia said. I could hear the eye roll in her words. “But how? She's just staring at it.”
“I'm directing the spirits that neither of you can see,” Aingeal said, her voice strained. “But they are not very cooperative here. We are trespassing.”
She said that last word with such vehemence. I hadn't pried at her loathing for Duke Gallchobhar, but it was clear she detested the faerie lord. He had done something to Aingeal that got her banished from her home to our world.
If he worked with Prince Meinard in something as heinous as this... My gaze swept around the humans in the stocks, drooling, their souls slaved to statues in our world. I could only imagine the crimes Duke Gallchobhar committed against my new faerie-wife.
My hand rested on Zanyia's head, scratching between her ears. They flicked against my flesh. A purr rose in her throat. Her tail swished faster, jutting out against the pale, naked swell of her ass. Her back arched, supple skin almost glowing in the alien moonlight of Faerie.
“The enchantment is strong,” Aingeal added. “A mage of some strength did this.”
“Yes, Ava mentioned her father employs a master mage. This is his work. Magic combined with imbuing to make this... monstrosity.”
Zanyia let out an angry hiss.
“This will take some time,” Aingeal added. Her jaw set. Her big breasts jiggled as she stamped her feet. “Come on, spirits. Stop fighting me. This was my father's land! Don't you remember me?”
Father's land?
Then I saw it. More than strain to disenchant the Lodestone tensed her face. Pain twitched her cheeks and set her jaw. Yes, Duke Gallchobhar had hurt her. Done something terrible to her family. Killed her father? Definitely usurped her family's land. So that made her a duke's daughter. A noble faerie.
Her wings fluttered. Then purple energy flickered around the edges. I saw faint glimmers streaming from her hands towards the lodestone. A nimbus flickered around the stone. An aura just perceptible to my sight.
Zanyia's ears flicked. “Master!”
“What?” I asked, scratching between her ears.
The ground shook. Thud. Thud. Thud. I groaned, throwing a look over my shoulder. Two of the treemen trudged towards us. In the distance, my step-sister's bonfire no longer roared, her illusion snuffed out. My stomach twisted. A sick oil writhed through my guts then through my veins. My heart ached, laboring to pump blood through me.
“Kora!”
“Master!” Zanyia shouted again. Then she threw her slender body into me.
She caught me off-balance. I stumbled to the side, my lamia slave's limbs wrapped about my body, her entire form trembling. I opened my mouth to shout at her and throw her off when something flashed down from the sky striking where I stood.
Purple energy burst, leaving a scorch mark on the ground.
Wings flapped above. A faerie appeared, looking like a young and beautiful man. The type of effeminate perfection that could almost pass for the feminine but has too much masculine in the square of the jaw and the muscles of the chest.
Duke Gallchobhar.
Purple energy swirled in front of him as he aimed at Aingeal.
~ * ~
Aingeal
“Aingeal! Above!”
Sven's shout jerked my head from my task. I stopped directing the blue abjuration spirits at the lodestone when I saw him. Duke Gallchobhar fluttered in the sky above. Evocation spirits rushed in front of him. The red balls of light danced and swirled into a blast of energy, purple light flaring at the edges as he directed the attack at me.
My heart exploded in fright, my stomach sinking.
My wings flapped hard as I redirected the abjuration spirits. They fought my will. They didn't want to obey me in the presence of the duke. But I grit my teeth and ripped them into place as the beam lanced down. The air crackled with energy. The evocation spirits hurtled down at me encased in purple plasma.
The attack slammed into the abjuration spirits.
Violet energy rippled before me. The air crackled. My skin tingled from the released energy. Sven and Zanyia shouted, the pair thrown to the ground by one of the stocks, my husband cradling the lamia in his arms as they hit.
The beam ended. The evocation spirits surged in every direction, bouncing off my shield. They recovered, arcing back towards him for another attack. I leapt into the air, my butterfly wings flapping with frantic need.
A beam knifed at me. It swept beneath my feet as I soared higher and higher. The energy struck my feyhound, shattering its wicker body and releasing the spirits animating it. Then the attack crashed into a stock. Wood pulverized. The insensate human didn't make a sound as the evocation spirit blasted his flesh into torn bits of bloody meat.
“You monster!” I snarled at him, anger at losing Cú Mheá swept up in the horror of the poor human's death. “Have you no propriety! To hurt the innocent.”
“If you hadn't dodged it, Aingeal, he would still live,” the duke said, his voice melodious, even beautiful. Far too beautiful.
How did I ever love this thing? How could I miss his black heart? That damned smile!
“So you would murder a daughter of Cernere?” I demanded. “Murder her where she stands?”
“It's death for you to return to Faerie after what you did, Aingeal.” He grinned. “Covering our beloved queen in iron... She still remembers the pain.”
“Only because you arranged for her to enter the glade! You used me to destroy my father and usurp his land.”
“Does that take away your guilt?” he asked. “You brought iron into Faerie. You plotted to dump it on your father's rival. Is that any better than the Queen herself?”
“Duchess Oona deserved to be covered in iron for what she did! And so do you! My father is dead because of what you did.”
He shook his head. “Always blaming others for your actions, Aingeal. You broke his heart. You sent him to his grave with your treason against our beloved Queen.”
I screeched in rage. My will shot out to the spirits of evocation swirling around him, grabbing those at the edge to fashion my own attack. They fought me. The little balls shuddered and darted back and forth, struggling to escape my will as I fashioned my attack.
Duke Gallchobhar had no such trouble. The spirits of evocation flocked to him. They swirled around him like larks singing to a pair of lovers. I grit my teeth and threw my attack at him with a screech of rage, a pitiful beam of purple energy with only a dozen evocation spirits in the core.
With a negligent wave of his hand, a horde of blue abjuration spirits swirled about him. They formed a vortex, deflecting my attack with ease. The evocation spirits I sent to kill him didn't return to me. They darted to him, gathering in his hand.
“Cernere's black cunt!” I screamed as he aimed his beam.
I dived.
The air crackled above me. The heat of his attack licked at the soles of my feet as I darted for the stocks, glimpsing Sven and Zanyia fighting with the treemen. I pulled out of my descent, my wings flapping hard. Energy built behind me.
I dashed to the right.
A magenta beam hissed by. My right wing ached from the heat of its passage. The attack struck the ground in a violet explosion. Stocks ripped apart. Three more humans killed, unable to defend themselves. Tears stung in my eyes.
I had to do s
omething!
I reached out to the world. I gathered more abjuration spirits. I yanked the unwilling entities to me. I forced them to swirl around me as I climbed. A purple beam struck my new shield. Abjuration spirits flew in all directions, knocked free by the intensity of the attack.
I struggled to draw them back to me. I fought against his will. They recognized his authority. The spirits that once served my father now obeyed his usurper. Such anger boiled through me. I climbed higher and higher, struggling to snatch up every spirit I could that the bastard didn't control.
It wasn't enough.
A beam shot at me.
~ * ~
Kora Falk
I crashed through the brush as the treeman stomped after me. The vegetation parted around him. Trees bent out of the way. Bushes pulled back their branches to let the towering monster follow. The treeman creaked and groaned with every booming step.
I had to think. I needed to think. What could I do?
I dodged around a thick pine tree, its trunk as wide as I was tall. I circled it. The trunk was too big to bend out of the treeman's way. He lumbered around it, struggling to get to me as my mind whirled. What could I do?
I was a radiant of Rithi. I had her blessing. I had mastered the Arts of Painting, Dancing, and Love-Making. I had spells at my disposal. Illusions would not work. Not when the treemen knew I could make them. And that faerie lord might still be around. He could just disrupt them.
Invisibility?
Rithi's spell didn't grant complete invisibility. Moving gave you away.
I could daze it. One of the spells from my mastery of painting. Yes, yes, I could daze it. Nathalie had already escaped. The other two treemen headed back to the lodestone. My step-brother would need my help there.
I needed fresh paint. I shoved my hand between my thighs, my pussy still juicy from my masturbation. A hot shudder ran through me as I stroked myself. I gathered the cream on my fingers and then darted to the right now, putting myself out before the treeman.
He let out a creaking bellow. Something hard thrust from his crotch, a polished shaft of wood. I shuddered. Treemen were sons of Las, an all-male race. They would need dual-sex females, such as a human woman like me, with which to reproduce.
I did not want to be seeded with a treeman's sapling.
I flicked my fingers before me, spraying my pussy juice at the monster and shouted, “Rithi, paint an image of profound beauty for his appreciation.”
Magic flashed in the air before it. An image of a willowy tree appeared, faint and shimmering to me, but to the treeman, it should entrance it. Blossoms appeared, orange and delicate. I shuddered, backing away slowly and—
The treeman's branch-like arm swept through the dazing illusion. For some reason, the treeman wasn't affected by the spell. He saw through it. Perhaps he'd been in Faerie too long and built up an immunity to illusions.
Or perhaps his race had no appreciation of art.
I ducked his branch, my heart racing. I rolled onto my hands and feet, scrambling to dart away. My feet slipped on pine needles and wet earth, soaked by the treemen's futile attempt to put out my illusory fire.
“No!” I gasped as the treeman creaked behind me.
Its hand seized me by the waist. Woody fingers wrapped about my naked torso. I screamed as he hauled me up into the air. My hands beat at its gnarled knuckles. My feet kicked in the air as my hair swept behind me. The treeman lifted me up to face his acorn eyes. They twitched, studying me. The moss-like beard bristled.
A thick tongue appeared from his mouth, licking at my thigh, gathering my juices.
“Rithi, no!” I shouted as my skin crawled. My breasts heaved, the ruby pendant bouncing between my tits. I had to think of another spell. How could I get out of this short of having sex with him?
But if he had sex with me... I could entrance him that way. I could use magic to befuddle his mind to me, make him a slave to my pussy. I shuddered, my pussy growing hotter as his tongue reached my snatch.
And licked across it.
I bucked and moaned out in humiliated pleasure. His gnarled tongue felt good rasping across my shaved pussy lips.
Chapter Forty-Seven: The Lodestone
Sven Falk
The treemen lumbered closer and closer. I stared at the Lodestone. Light flashed above. My hands clenched. We were so close. I wanted to just draw my sword and hit the stone. To break it apart and free all those humans behind them.
“Master,” Zanyia yowled. She bristled at my feet. “They're getting closer.”
“I can hear that,” I snarled. I threw a look over my shoulder at the two approaching treemen towering over the stocks.
An idea popped into my head.
“You take the one on the right,” I snapped.
“Of course, Master.” She paused. “How?”
“I don't know. But you're creative, Zanyia. You'll think of something.”
“And you?”
“I have a dumb idea,” I said, the treemen splitting apart, navigating through the pit traps. “It probably won't work.”
“I hope it does. I would hate to have to find a new master.” Zanyia gave me a toothy grin. “Where would I find one with a cock as amazing as yours?”
I grinned back at her. “You know just what to say, don't you?”
“I'm your slave, Master. Swelling your ego is part of the job!” Then she sprang onto the nearby stocks occupied by a naked woman with gray hair. She leaped to the next one, yowling like an angry bobcat.
I took a deep breath as violent light exploded to the right. I winced as more innocents died. I wished I could do something about the duke, but Aingeal would have to handle him. I had my own problems to deal with.
A big problem.
The treeman lumbered closer, towering over me.
~ * ~
Aingeal
Such anger boiled through me at the spirits. I focused it, ripping at them, whipping them with my will. I cajoled them to lance at Duke Gallchobhar as we danced through the sky. But my attacks were so feeble. He hardly had to think to get the abjuration spirits to disrupt them.
And the evocation spirits...
They were so happy to try and kill me for him.
I swooped to the right, to the left, dodging streams of the spirits. I could feel the delight they took in serving the lord of this land. Tears stung at my eyes. To think even the land would acknowledge Duke Gallchobhar's usurpation. I thought they would remember my father.
Remember me.
The wind whipping by me as I soared over the field swept off the tears from my cheeks. This wasn't my home any longer. He had poisoned it against me. Turned the land, the spirits, to his side. They gave him fealty and tried to murder their rightful ruler.
This should be my land. My father was dead. I was his heir.
I hated Duke Gallchobhar. I screeched in impotent fury as I dodged and dived. I struggled to gather more spirits. While a horde of them danced around him. They were so thick about him, a sea of reds and blues swimming back and forth, I could hardly see him in the middle now. As we flew over the lands, he swept up even more, pulling them to him. They rose from the ground, from the sky, from the forest.
But less and less came for me.
The beams came faster and faster. I clutched to the few abjuration spirits I had, kept them behind me. I couldn't do anything else. I couldn't attack any longer. Not with his defenses. Every attack that struck my shield knocked off an abjuration spirit or two.
He seized them.
My defenses dwindled bit by bit. How long could I fight against him? How long before he killed me?
It wasn't fair. I had returned. I should have been welcomed back. They should have helped me overthrow him. It was the right thing to do. They shouldn't help him with the perversity he committed in Faerie. If the Queen knew about this, she would have him executed.
More tears fell as I dodged another beam. They came so fast. Firing with hardly a heartbeat between them. The sk
y blazed with streaks of purple light arcing in every direction. I zigged, I zagged.
I was dead. I couldn't keep this up.
~ * ~
Sven Falk
I dove forward. The branch-like arm of the treeman slammed into the ground behind me. Clods of earth sprayed in the air. Such force in that blow. But would it be enough? I rolled and came to my feet, hacking with my short sword.
I slammed into the woody bark of the treeman's shin. My sword gouged in an inch. A spray of splinters flew. My weapon rebounded. A jarring ache shook through my hand and into my arm. My elbow creaked.
A short sword was not the right weapon to use here.
The treeman let out a creaking, puffing wheeze. Heezzz-heezzz-heezzz. Laughing at me. “Tickles, little man.”
I sheathed my blade and sprang between his legs, racing behind it. The treeman lumbered to turn around. The ground shook as he followed after me. I raced around the Lodestone as it swung again. I heard the air rushing at me. I ran faster.
I poured my all into it. My legs pumped. My boots thudded on the trampled grass. The air whooshed behind me. A wind swept over me. The ground rumbled beneath my feet. I tripped, sprawling hard and rolling as sprays of dirt flew over me.
Heezzz-heezzz-heezzz. “Did you trip and fall, little man?”
A shadow fell on me.
“Las's putrid cock!” I snarled and rolled to the side, crashing into the base of the stockade.
The branch-like arm slammed into the dirt where I had lain. The force of the blow sent a hard gust of wind sweeping over me, ruffling my blonde hair. The ground shook. More dirt flew in an explosion from that branch.
It hit hard. Now I just had to get it to hit in the right spot.
I stood up as the branch swung laterally across the ground at me. I leaped, pulling my legs up into a ball. The arm surged beneath me, crashing into the stocks. I winced as the young man's body burst free and crashed with a sickening crumple into another stocks.
I landed, anger surging through me. “Hit me, you wooden oaf!”
“Nimble, little man. Like grasshopper.” Heezzz-heezzz-heezzz. “Me smash you good!”
