The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy)

by Krista Gossett

  “Finn will meet you here in a bit; just hang tight! Dahlia and I have to attend to guests, but we’ll check on you,” Miki explained before skipping off.

  Verity was trembling but she picked up a flute of champagne and tried to dampen her nausea. She picked an empty settee and tried to avoid the gazes of the men that wore jackets like Finn’s. Everywhere she looked it was only Reishefolk men and they were all sneaking glances at her. The uniforms lent to the feeling she was just a sideshow at a gentleman’s club. She wondered where all the ‘dolls’ were; sometimes she would see a woman in a themed dress come in and lead a man out. She had seen the same woman lead a different man and she could barely swallow. The flute of champagne she grasped but could not bring herself to drink. She was not so sure it wouldn’t be drugged and she wanted all of her inhibitions if her suspicions were correct.

  When Finn came up behind her and tapped her, she had jumped and dropped her glass, watching it shatter on the floor as the liquid splashed lightly at her feet. She apologized profusely and numbly as a young man cleaned it up but he shrugged it off and left.

  Finn was looking at her concerned now.

  “Are you okay, Verity, you look sick?” Finn asked.

  She tried her best smile and nodded, patting his shoulder.

  “I need to use the ladies’ room, is all,” Verity told him and slipped out. A ‘doll’ she didn’t know stopped her.

  “Can I help you?” the ‘doll’ asked. A flash of anger rippled through her but she reined it in and even managed to force a smile to creep across her lips.

  “Ah, the ladies’ room?” Verity asked. The doll directed her down the hallway that wasn’t red. Verity nodded her thanks and obediently walked towards the restroom, knowing she was being watched the whole time. She would have to work quickly.

  Once she opened the door, she used the Mirage to lock a stall (ceiling to floor to her relief) and turn invisible before the door could close.

  She hurried down the hall, dodging the others and into the red hall. Classical music was piping down the hallway and at the very end of the hall she could see double French doors left wide open. The walk along the hallway felt thick and ominous like swimming through cooling tar. It was a mixture of not really wanting to go and her mind forcing her to know. Her heart caught in her throat as she immediately saw what she had feared to be true.

  On a table to the left, Miki was sitting atop of it, her eyes closed and her face flushed as soft squeaky moans escaped her lips. Her bodice was pulled down revealing tiny aroused breasts and her moans matched the rhythm of the Reishe pumping into her. Ahead of her, Dahlia’s top was also pulled down but the man’s head was between her thighs and she could hear him slurping quietly at her there. Her heavy breasts bounced as she grinded herself against his face. Two dolls were stripped naked and straddling each other’s heads, licking and moaning as a few of the Folk watched, and Verity’s vision clouded as she stepped back unable to take anymore.

  It was all clicking in her head, those things she hadn’t been allowing herself to over think; the isolation, the secrecy, the fact that she never saw Reishefolk women or even children—the whole damn place was a hedonistic colony for Reishefolk men to groom human women as sexual toys. She tried to clear her head and keep her feet as she fought the strong urge to vomit. She ran soundlessly down the hall and went back to the restroom, going inside to unlock the door and she emptied her stomach in the toilet, although there wasn’t much there and much of it was frothy dry heaving. She took great gulps of air and calmed herself. If Finn wouldn’t leave with her, she thought she would be the next to fling herself off of this rock.

  She gathered herself and walked down the hallway with composure she didn’t feel. When she saw Finn by the window, she walked over to him and looped her arm through his but smiled weakly up at him. Her head felt heavy though and she dropped it against his arm and clung to him for comfort.

  “Finn…” she started and she knew he was seeing something she was trying to keep hidden.

  “Verity, I need to take you back to the room so you can rest,” Finn said suddenly, his voice casual but his eyes barely masking his concern, and she was thankful for that at least. Verity smiled weakly up at him and used her illusions to look more physically ill. She did not use her illusions for Finn but she would use them to get the hell out of there.

  Finn was leading her out and that scary-looking guy that had greeted them on arrival was there to stop them this time. Verity fought the urge to drag her nails across that face.

  “What’s wrong? Oh my, she looks really sick,” the man pointed out.

  “We’ll have to leave early tonight, I’m afraid. She doesn’t seem to be used to the altitude just yet,” Finn told him directly and it wasn’t a lie exactly but it wasn’t something Verity thought he had noticed either.

  “Get her to sleep, but you may return on your own, if you like,” the man said and shot a secretive look at Finn. From what she could see though, Finn was more confused by it than anything.

  Finn smiled, but he wasn’t good at faking it and it did not reach his eyes. Finn hurried them to the elevator and caught a glimpse of her and looked worried, but she pulled the illusion away.

  “It’s okay, really, but we can’t stay here a moment longer. Please, Finn, we need to get our things and get ready to go now. I will tell you why when we are packing,” Verity said, and her face was so pale on its own that he did not argue.

  Verity had gone into her room and not bothered to close the door as she tore off every scrap of the clothes, even the flower, and hurried into her own clothing. She grabbed up her things and carried them into the main room to be packed; she couldn’t stand that ultra-feminine ‘doll’ room for another moment.

  She noticed that Finn had done the same and discarded that jacket unceremoniously in the corner of the room. He smirked at her suddenly.

  “You could have kept the underwear at least. I liked it,” Finn admitted and Verity threw one of the couch pillows at him for sneaking a peek at her.

  He laughed but saw that tears were streaming down her face and ran over to hold her. She told him everything; not in so many details at the moment, but enough to get to the point. By the time she was done his face was a hard mask of anger.

  “Verity, if I had known anything about this place, I never would have asked you to bring me, I swear it. I would never deceive you,” Finn swore and she believed him completely; it wasn’t like Finn to deceive anyone.

  “It was my fault anyway; I was the one to tell you about this place. I just had no idea…” Verity started but trailed off since they both had every idea of what was going on. Finn helped Verity strap on her pack and he grabbed for the handle and looked at her to see if she was ready. She nodded and they started off for the elevator.

  They had only gotten a few doors down the hall when they heard a Reishefolk yell out “Hey, where are you going?”

  Without missing a beat, Finn looked at Verity.

  “Run.”

  They ran for the elevator, Verity in the lead, but Verity heard a whooshing sound gaining on her and was being picked up by her pack, past the elevator and right for the glass at the end of the hall. When she twisted her body, she saw it was not Finn as she had hoped but a Reishefolk man with a face grinning in cold malice. She tucked herself into a ball as she went through the glass and was falling looking up where she had just come through. She saw that man she didn’t know looked at her cruelly as he hovered outside the hole they had made and an arrow pierced his heart as Finn dove out of the window and the other man fell while he died.

  Finn dove towards her in free fall and she noticed two others coming out behind him. He caught her but didn’t yet open his wings as she wrapped her limbs around him tightly. As they neared the ground, he quickly opened his wings and they had glided, a mere foot away from hitting the ground on the down swing. He drew out his bow once he got to his feet and he covered her from pursuers as she ran towards the edge of the rock. It
was night so her heart sank as she looked down at the violent winds.

  “Finn, we can’t! The wind is too strong!” Verity yelled over the roar of wind. All the same, she knew they had no choice; they had no place to hide until the winds died down and even Finn would not be able to hold off their pursuers forever.

  He smiled, squinting against the wind, and put away his bow as he neared her.

  “Grab on and trust me!” Finn told her anyway and she did as she was told and he dove off the edge towards the ocean.

  The wind had thrown them about violently as they descended and Verity cried in fear but held on tight. Once past the worst of it, Verity had noticed they had become locked in a deadly barrel roll that had them plummeting towards the ocean at a break-neck speed. She tucked herself against Finn, but noticed he was slashed up pretty bad and bleeding. She cried out in anguish as she noticed he had tried to spread his wings but one was broken and flapping uselessly, the other mostly torn off. He was conscious but barely and smiled at her as brightly as he could. She sobbed and smiled back and one hand at a time, she released the harness to wrap her arms around him. He held her tight and the ocean greeted them with an enormous thundering splash.

  On the shore just south of Uzhuak, two bodies, badly broken but still intertwined wash up on the shoreline, a place that was quiet but for the sound of the gentle surf. The mangled bodies were tangled in a nest of strange ivory roots and the roots wept dewy tears and cradled the torn Reishefolk and the human woman he still held. They were not dead although they were so wrecked from impact that they were not long for death.

  But the Tree glowed fiercely in her forest and the roots that held her Child and the woman he loved started to glow too and a sickening series of crackling sounds ensued, the sound of bones repairing and organs healing and air reinflating lungs filling with blood. Verity started to gasp since she was not drowning in blood and salt water any longer and Finn’s shattered skull mended, no longer awaiting brain death. A deflated, dripping eye that dangled from the right socket of Verity’s head made a swift slurping noise as it refilled like a water balloon on the dew of the ivory branches and reaffixed itself inside its reforming orifice. Finn’s shredded wings started to rapidly mend in a spidery-web of Life essence, the missing one coming back and the feathers returning, even more beautiful than before. Verity’s clothes had fallen off in tatters but his were removed when the magic started and they laid naked in a grotesque ball of limbs bent unnaturally and snapping back into place. Their eyes were open and glassy, not with death, but because the magic numbed them from feeling the horror and pain of the mending.

  The odd noises that escaped their throats were echoes of liquefied organs restoring, windpipes and vocal chords reshaping, the hollow popping of bone fragment fusing back into healthy bone, torn tissues rejoining. The process was sickeningly slow compared to the moments that had rendered them into organic sludge but they became less like macabre marionettes and more like human beings over the minutes that passed.

  Once they were completely healed, their arms and legs grasped for each other blindly and they wiggled and fussed like newborn children; in a way they were newborn because death had been upon them and the Tree had brought them back from the brink. They were reborn in her rooted womb as healthy as the first time they were born.

  Finn was able to open his eyes and see he held Verity naked and curled against him, but the Tree was not finished and she dressed them in her magic; he in his fine armor and her in a beautiful molded set of her own armor much like his. He thought that Verity might appreciate not feeling like a ‘doll’ for a while and he stroked the ivory root near his hand in thanks. The root coiled about his wrist and then withdrew, understanding his love.

  Verity had started to stir and her face crunched up. “So much… pain… Are we… still alive, Finn?” she said, using her voice finally. The Tree had not been able to remove the memory of the pain of their landing, but humans do not retain memories of pain for long.

  Finn smiled and nodded touching her face. The roots slithered about and deposited the two of them onto their feet. When the Mother spoke, it was to both of them.

  “Go now. It was not your time yet or I would not have been able to revive you. Save us from the ones who seek to destroy us all.”

  “Mother, you saved both of us?” Finn asked.

  Verity heard her laugh and it did not cause her unease.

  “I know; the elementals only protect their own. But I am not they, my child, and preserving life is so much more than preserving my own children. Myceum’s is not simply Death; they want the end of everything. They want to wake the old gods and raze the world.”

  Finn was shocked. “But why?”

  “Sometimes your kind become mad, insane, and they simply want to do things because no one else has and they want to be the first. Or last, in this case.”

  Finn and Verity took that in as the roots receded and they stood there, looking at each other and their clothes. Verity’s head was clearing and she managed to lift her head to look at Finn. She took the few steps between them and threw herself around him, kissing his face and his lips and his neck, and weeping, so thankful to be alive and able to see his smiling face again.

  Chapter 8: Grown Woman-Sitting

  The world outside of the stone gate was completely fascinating, apparently; at least to one snow leopard Felisfolk that had never seen it. Kahtya had tried to run off for the Uzhuak Forest but Dinsch had hauled off after the rambunctious girl and tackled her to the ground. She had hissed at him angrily and he had ended up with an angry set of bloody scratches on his chest but he had pinned her down and was able to explain that the Forest would trap her forever if it didn’t want her to leave. She shrunk away from the forest in terror. She may have put on a brave face about having been alone, but it was clear that she had no intention of doing so again. When he had looked back at Krose, he was doubled over in laughter. Glad he could be so amusing to Krose lately; that thought was entirely sarcastic.

  Once they had explained to her that they had to follow the road to return to Mythec, she had been a flurry of questions about the people and the place and what they were doing. Dinsch had started to rue the concept of this busty, sexy girl being around so many men who would be happy to help her continue her kind, or at least the act leading up to it, but then his annoyance with her told him he might just throw her into a pit of them to stop her from talking. He wouldn’t, of course, but the concept of her shutting up was still very appealing.

  Dinsch had tried to seem disinterested, but he was curious as she ran all around, sniffing everything and rubbing on things, climbing trees; she did remind him of a curious kitten and some part of him that wasn’t annoyed was also endeared to that childlike curiosity. She had been a child still when her family had died off and she developed sexual urges and such, but she didn’t know how to behave like a teen or an adult and was completely unschooled in how the world actually worked. Every simple thing was amazing to her and it made him miss when he had been a child, even before the happiest parts of it when he had fallen for Seles.

  They had come upon the desert at some point and her eyes had grown as big as saucers and she had charged after it. Krose shot Dinsch a look, raised eyebrow prominent.

  “You don’t think she’s going to use it as a litter box, do you?” Krose asked, and Dinsch laughed at that and sighed heavily to chase after her. It would be their luck that she stumbled into a sinkhole.

  When Kahtya got to the edge of the sand, she skidded to a stop and Dinsch had nearly collided with her. She sniffed at it and sneezed as it went up her nose. Dinsch laughed but she ignored him and poked at it with her paws. Krose shouted over to them.

  “Hey! I’m going to set up for lunch on the other side of the road; so head over when you’re done!”

  Dinsch nodded and waved him away, still watching the silly girl rolling in the sand and purring. He thought it looked adorable but he noticed her nipples poking through her top and it sud
denly looked more erotic. Her breasts were heavy and round and perky and he was still a man. He always found time to sneak off with a woman or three when he could but it had still been a few days and that was a lot for a young, healthy man to do without.

  Dinsch had noticed his loincloth was growing tight and tried to cover himself but Kahtya was pouncing in front of him, her head at a level with his covered erection and she frowned up at him with her tail flicking.

  “Let me see it,” she ordered him.

  Dinsch sighed. “I’m not hiding anything you need to see,” he explained.

  “You made it happy, didn’t you? I’ve never seen one like that. Show it to me!” Kahtya said, her voice raising and he looked around nervously.

  “Quiet! Don’t attract any unwanted attention,” he commanded back.

  Kahtya drew her claws and placed her hands on his upper thighs, looking up at him unhappily.

  “Show me or it’ll be the least of your worries,” she threatened and he realized it really wasn’t worth any trouble. He moved his hands and she retracted her claws and grabbed for his waistband. He grabbed her wrists.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She was growing impatient and angry.

  “What did you think I meant? I want to SEE it!” she whined, twisting away and going for the band again. She pulled it down, exposing his cock and balls alike and he looked off into the desert to distract himself from how weird the situation actually was.

  He sucked in air as she touched his balls, savoring the weight and feel of them as she cupped them in her hand. She used a finger to feel the texture of the soft, white hair and he was finding it extremely hard to keep his cool when she started purring. She started to wrap her hand around his cock and he jumped back and glared down at her.