“Good man,” said Campbell.
It was too much to hope that the airfield was unprotected, but as we hit more minions I was still filled with excited optimism. The guys had overcome impossible odds already and I had helped them do it. We were going to make it.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Tight fingers closed like steel about my arm, dragging me back. It was Knox. His Panama hat had been lost somewhere in the fight, exposing a bald head that gleamed in the airfield lights. Back on the island and back on my vacation, Knox had been a terrifying figure, but compared to what I had faced since then, the man was nothing. I wasn’t scared of him anymore. I stamped on his foot, making him let go of my arm and then, with every bit of strength I could summon, punched him in the face.
“I’m going home. What about you?”
Knox lashed back at me, but I was in the zone and too quick for him. Maybe I had learned something by watching the guys, maybe that one krav maga class I took in college had stuck with me more than I had thought, or maybe I was just done taking shit. I caught his swinging fist and twisted it up behind his back, making him cry out with pain, then kicked out his legs from under him, sending him tumbling to the ground.
Snarling with anger, Knox reached into his jacket and pulled out a small handgun. His fury at me was clearly ruling him now because killing me was definitely against his master’s wishes – which was not my immediate concern. I rushed at him, grabbing the gun arm and twisting, trying to make him drop the weapon. We fought for control and a gunshot sounded.
“Jane!” yelled Campbell.
I wondered what being shot felt like. Maybe it felt like nothing. Maybe the nothing I was feeling now was what it felt like to be shot. But then I saw the trickle of blood flow from Knox’s lips. He crumpled to the ground.
Drake was at my side. “You okay?”
Was I? I wasn’t used to killing people, even by accident.
“I’ll be fine.” And I thought I would be. It wasn’t something I was in a hurry to do again, but it had been him or me, him or the world. I had done what I had to.
Drake and I ran for the plane as the other guys mopped up the remaining minions.
Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound passing by us and the plane exploded in an eruption of flame.
“Oh come on!” cried an exasperated Red. “How many times can this happen in one night?”
We turned around again to find LeSoeur, his eyes flaring with manic rage, standing with a rocket launcher on his shoulder, a wisp of smoke snaking from the barrel.
“Get them.”
Minions poured onto the airfield and the guys dived to defend me. But it became swiftly apparent that the minions – mostly unarmed now since we had blown up their ammunition tent – were not trying to get me, they were getting the guys out of the way.
“Get out of here!” Campbell yelled.
I paused for a moment, the idea of leaving the guys, my guys, in trouble did not sit well with me. But I knew they could look after themselves, and the most important thing was to keep the jewel, and myself, out of the hands of LeSoeur. I took off as fast as my legs would carry me, but found my way blocked by minions. I tried to get past, but they boxed me in, forcing me back. I tried another way, ducking and weaving to get round and past them. Still no joy. I spun around.
“I’ll take that.”
LeSoeur had suddenly appeared behind me and now snatched the jewel from my hand. I seemed to see everything in slow motion as his arm went back and then swept forwards, the dagger in his hand. Automatically, I raised my arms to protect my face and felt the blade slice through my flesh, hot blood coursing down my forearm to drip from my elbow.
“Thank you so much.”
LeSoeur held out the jewel so my blood splashed across its red, faceted surface. He turned away, striding back the way he had come, in the direction of the volcano, as the sun was beginning to peer above its smoking peak.
“Kill them all!”
I launched myself after LeSoeur but the minions had been given an instruction and were bound to obey. Hands and arms closed around me, holding me fast. Fingers closed about my throat. One good thing about the minions was that they had no concept of working together; the instruction to kill had been given so they all felt the need to follow it. For a while, they got in each other’s way as they all tried to strangle me at once, but all too soon one set of hands got a good hold and squeezed. I gulped and gasped as the grip tightened, my own arms and legs held so strongly that I could not fight back. The world turned to red and then started to fade into black as life ebbed from my body.
Suddenly, just as I was about to lose consciousness, the hands were ripped from my throat, the minions hurled aside and beaten back.
“Are you okay?” asked Drake.
“You guys seem to be asking me that a lot today.”
“Well, stop almost getting yourself killed.”
It would have been nice to stop and savor the fact that we were all alive and the minions were all but gone, but the larger problem still remained. I felt no pain in my bleeding arm as we raced back through the jungle, back towards the volcano, desperate to stop LeSoeur before he placed the jewel in the shrine to complete the ritual. Reaching the base of the volcano, we ran up as fast as our tired legs would allow, exhaustion clawing at our muscles, slowing our steps even as we fought against it.
“LeSoeur!” roared Campbell as we reached the shrine.
The self-styled witch doctor had donned appropriate robes for his moment of triumph but Campbell, with ice in his veins, didn’t stop to take in the scene. His gun was leveled before he reached the door and the bullet took LeSoeur right between the eyes. The supernatural supervillain would not get to rule this world.
And yet we had still arrived too late.
“Dammit,” breathed Campbell, his face a distraught mask of anger and anguish.
There on the altar was the jewel, spattered with my blood. The volcano rumbled ominously.
“Now what?” I asked.
Drake snatched the jewel off the altar. “Might make a difference.”
The volcano rumbled again, louder this time.
“I’m thinking not,” said Red.
As we left the shrine, our eyes all turned inevitably up towards the summit. Figures were already starting to appear, silhouetted against the molten flames that spat from the volcano’s angry maw.
“They’re coming,” breathed Campbell.
The figures moved like the dead – or at least as you would expect the dead to move if they did move. Their movements were jerky and uncertain, but seemed to get stronger with each step they took. At the volcano’s lip, they crawled forth, dragging their long dead bodies out of that fiery hell, barely able to move, but as they started down the slope they were soon on their feet, striding on in an inexorable tide. And they just kept coming.
“Maybe they’ll stay on the island,” I said, hopefully.
But Campbell shook his head. “Without LeSoeur to command them, they will just be an unfocussed horde in search of human flesh. They’ll walk along the seabed till they find land and they will ravage everywhere they go. Can’t be killed. Can’t be stopped.”
We probably should have run, but there seemed little point – nowhere to run to and no way off the island. Besides, there was a sensation that we all shared, that this was our fight. Maybe it was a fight we could not possibly win, but we had to try. There was no one else who stood between them and the rest of the world.
“Come on,” growled Campbell.
The bright side was that the zombies went down easily. A punch from one of the guys was enough to take down anything, up to and including a charging bull. But even I could knock one of these undead on its ass. The bad news was that they didn’t stay down long. They couldn’t be stunned because they hadn’t enough brain to stun. They just got up again, took another punch, got up again and so on. They were unstoppable. They were also clearly hungry, and what they wanted to eat
was us.
And yet, not all of us.
“They’re not attacking you,” said Red, in surprise. “I mean, I’m not complaining but… do you think it’s a girl thing or what?”
There was no doubt about it, the zombies flowed past me in a wave, not ignoring me, but deferential. Even after I punched them in the face they still wouldn’t hurt me.
“You’re the descendant of their high priestess,” said Campbell, his brain working quickly. “I think they recognize you.”
So LeSoeur had been wrong; I would never have been eaten by his precious zombies. They probably would have liked me more than they liked him. It seemed like a faint glimmer of hope.
I addressed the zombies. “Stop! Cease! Desist! Get back in the fucking volcano!” No use. “Does anyone know the south sea island word for ‘stop’?”
Campbell looked at me. “You have to go in.”
“What?”
“You have to jump into the volcano.”
I had been willing to die the night before to save the world – at least, I thought I was willing. But being told to do this now by Campbell…
I looked back at him and our eyes met. I saw in them nothing but love, I saw in them a man who would never hurt me, who would rather die than hurt me, who might even rather the whole world died than see harm come to me.
“Trust me, Jane.”
And I did.
I ran up the mountain, not thinking as I went, feeling the heat pressing against me like a real physical thing. As I climbed higher, I could feel it burning my skin, singing my hair, so I had to close my eyes against it, but on I went. I would not stop. I would do as Campbell said, because he was Campbell, one of my guys. One of the men I loved and whom I knew loved me.
At the summit, I didn’t even pause. I couldn’t, the heat was too great. Whatever I was going to do I had to do it now. I leapt.
But I did not fall.
Suddenly, the unbearable heat was gone and the burns on my skin smoothed away. I felt a tightness along my arm and saw the wound that LeSoeur had inflicted pucker and heal before my eyes. Below me, a cushion of smoke rose and I floated into it like a feather bed. Was this real? Was this the final dream that came before death? Or was I dead already, and heaven for me was being suspended on a cloud above an active volcano.
A wash of sensation flowed over me. I didn’t learn anything and yet I knew that the volcano recognized me. It knew my ancestry and knew that I was a friend. I had only to wish for what I wanted.
Looking down from my cloud, I saw the dead, the zombies, crawling back into the volcano, back to their grave, moving at my unspoken demand. Their deaths had been horribly unfair, but the dead do not get a second chance – that’s life. As the last of them vanished back into the crater, the smoke cloud bore me down and deposited me gently on the slopes.
Up ahead of me, I saw the three guys running towards me. It was kind of nice that, for once, I was the one who had the unbelievable story to tell.
Chapter 20
Waking to a blue sky overhead and a sandy beach underneath is something that everyone should try once in their lives. I sat up and looked about me. Some days it was good to be alive, and there had been more than a few of those days lately.
I stood up and looked back down at the men who had slept beside me. We had all slept naked, partly because of the heat and partly because clothes seemed kind of pointless when it was just the four of us. Being naked together felt natural and normal. It also had other plus points and I took the advantage of their sleeping to let my eyes rove across their fabulous naked bodies. From the ripped abs of Red, to Drake’s broad pecs, to the rippling biceps of Campbell, the guys were each in his own way a different version of perfection. There were still more than a few lingering bruises and cuts, a few more scars added to bodies that wore their mileage proudly, but they just told a story.
I let my gaze trespass lower. Their cocks, too, slumbered for now, as appealing to me in this state as at full mast. I knew that, if I wanted, there would be no problem with me diving down to lick, suck, stroke or bite anything I wanted. And that as their sleeping arousal grew, there would be no problem with me taking them into my pussy and riding them awake. I knew that if I woke one of them and we stole off to the sea for some early morning sex in the shallows, the waves crashing around us, the other two would not mind at all. All was fair and equal between us. The four of us together had found a way to live as one big, very happy, ‘couple’.
I headed down the beach by myself – I had been very well-satisfied sexually last night and would no doubt be again today. Not every moment had to be about sex. I washed in the clear blue waters and wandered back up the beach, letting the sun dry my body, to find the guys waking up. We kissed and cuddled our good mornings and I was struck again by how unimaginably lucky I was.
“How long do you think they’ll be?” I asked, as we breakfasted together.
Campbell shrugged. “Soon, I guess.”
We all knew that our island paradise could not last forever. The explosion at LeSoeur’s camp had taken out all their communication equipment, so we were left with no way of contacting the outside world. Presumably they would eventually guess what had happened simply because the world hadn’t been overrun by ravening zombies, and at that point our time alone in this peaceful haven would come to an end. We had saved the world and soon someone would be along to ‘rescue’ us from the island, say thank you, and ask why we couldn’t have done it the easy way. And then… And then the guys had decided to quit.
What their boss had asked them to do where I was concerned had been one step too far. They understood that a single life cannot be more important than the world, but to have imprisoned me on the off-chance that LeSoeur might get his hands on the jewel and dagger again; that was a betrayal of what they believed. Perhaps it’s easy, if you get to view these decisions academically from behind a desk, to forget that the world is all individuals. One life is not more important than the world, but when you save the world you are saving one individual life, many times over. There are no easy answers, and perhaps the guys had had enough of difficult ones. Even when you are acting for the right reasons, sooner or later you start to lose your soul.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
“I’d have thought our skill-set was pretty easily transferable to another field,” said Campbell. “And we’re not in any immediate need of money, so we can afford to take our time and find something that fits.”
“I’ve heard good things about teaching,” said Drake. I tried to imagine Mr. Drake, the homeroom teacher. He would be the most popular teacher ever. Especially with the girls in his class.
“You really can walk away from it all?”
Campbell shrugged ruefully. “I’m not saying there won’t be aspects of it we miss. And if the call ever comes – the world is in danger and needs you – I’m sure we’d all answer that call. But how many times can you kayak off a waterfall pursued by sea monsters? How many Egyptian Mummies’ curses can you shrug off? How many beautiful women can you seduce without feeling anything for them?” He looked at me. “When you’ve had the real thing, it just gets boring.”
I blushed in pride. I was the real thing. For Campbell, for Red and for Drake. That wasn’t bad. That was a pretty ringing endorsement. But how far did it go?
“Where will you live?” We hadn’t talked about it yet. Which may seem odd, but our near death experiences had left us all more determined to live life than to plan it. Why burst the bubble of our island idyll when we didn’t have to?
“I’ve always wondered about the U.S.,” said Red. “They like a Scottish accent there. Especially if you want to be an engineer. Walk into a garage with a Scottish accent and they won’t even bother to interview you; ‘of course you can have the job’.”
“I was thinking maybe the U.S.,” agreed Drake. “Nice country. Haven’t spent a lot of time there lately – they’re all too busy to spend time invoking dark forces that man is not supposed t
o touch. I like that in a nation.”
“There’s definitely something to be said for the people,” nodded Campbell, looking directly at me as he spoke. “I’d like to get to know them better.”
I smiled. “The people would like that, too.”
We all shared in the moment, knowing that, though nothing explicit had been said, we had all just agreed to take this strange thing we had, and move it off the fantasy world of the island and into the real world. Would it work? Only time would tell. But I had a hunch it would. We loved each other, and when you really boil it all down; what else matters?
“So have you got three spare rooms we could crash in?” asked Red.
I raised my eyebrows. “Do I need three?”
They all grinned.
“Probably not,” said Campbell.
“Besides,” I went on, “I figured you guys would be buying me a new place. A nice house in the suburbs where we all could live.”
“Hey, we’re about to be unemployed,” Campbell pointed out. “We should be living on a budget.”
“Jane’s apartment could probably fit inside your second yacht,” pointed out Drake.
“You have a second yacht?”
“Yes,” Campbell acknowledged. “But it’s my last one.”
“Down to your last yacht?” I shook my head. “The terrible stories of poverty you hear in this day and age. It’s like the Depression.”
“You know, if you’re going to make fun of me,” said Campbell, his eyes glittering with good humor, “I might not want to live with you.”
I kissed him.
“Okay. You talked me into it.”
“Who’s up for a swim?” I bounced to my feet and ran towards the ocean with the guys following me.
I dived into the water, striking out for the horizon, and heard the three splashes behind me to tell me that the guys were on my tail. I wheeled about, treading water. Red reached me first and I looped my arms about his neck, letting him support me with his strong body as we kissed. Campbell and Drake soon joined us and I felt the hands of my three men reaching about my body, touching me beneath the water and awaking those pleasure centers that had been well catered for of late, and yet were always up for more. I moaned into Campbell’s mouth as we kissed and his hand dived down between my legs, his experienced fingers always knowing just where to touch me for maximum effect. At the same time, I reached out in the direction of Drake, finding his cock swollen to its impressive full size. I squeezed it and stroked my fist up and down its throbbing length. Red’s hands slipped beneath me, gathering me up to lift me to the surface of the water, and I gasped as the guys descended on my floating body, eager lips kissing at my salty skin, tongues lapping between my thighs, teeth nibbling at my nipples.
Her Shadow Harem: A Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance Page 15
