by Jan Stryvant
"Grab her you moron," Peg whispered.
Sean didn't know if Cali heard her or not, but he did as Peg suggested and pulled her in close and tucked her up against his right side. Cali looked surprised for a moment, then her facial skin darkened a bit, Sean guessed she was blushing, but she looked a lot happier suddenly.
All he knew was that she felt good there.
Also that there were several long stiff objects under the back of her leather vest, which he found to be rather curious.
Peg obviously knew the mall fairly well, as she led them through several women's clothing stores, and Sean had the pleasure of watching both Cali and Peg try on several outfits. While Peg was definitely more of a tight jeans kind of a girl, Sean was surprised to see that Cali obviously had a thing for short skirts.
Which was when he discovered that she wasn't wearing any underwear, and apparently had no problems at all with flashing him accidentally, though he had to wonder just how much of an 'accident' it really was.
However once that discovery was made by Peg, the next stop was to get underwear.
At Victoria's Secrets, where Sean found himself nearly blushing as they dragged him inside, and then he had the rather wonderful experience of seeing both Peg and Cali model some fairly revealing outfits, until the store manager came over and had a few words.
Apparently they were starting to draw attention.
Which was probably just as well, because Sean noticed that they needed to be going soon, or they'd be late to the meeting.
"That was fun," Peg said, as Sean followed the girls back to the car, loaded down with their bags.
"Well, maybe a little," Cali said and glanced back at Sean with a shy smile.
"Hey man, how bout you let us take your women, and we let you live!" A guy yelled from behind Sean, and before he could drop the bags and turn, Cali's her eyes hardened and narrowed a bit and a rather large knife suddenly appeared in her hand and flashed by Sean, followed quickly by several more. Sean heard it smack into flesh, following by the sound of at least one body hitting the ground and more than one cry of pain.
By the time Sean turned around, there was one man with their hands up, one lying on the ground, quite dead with a dagger buried in his right eye socket to the hilt, and a third one on the ground bent over in pain with one blade sticking out of his shoulder and another in his arm.
On the ground around the two bodies Sean saw a pistol by the dead one and one of those spring loaded expanding batons by the wounded one.
"Who the hell are you with?" Sean growled.
"We ain't with nobody, man!" the guy holding his hands up said starting to back off slowly. "We just wanted the girls is all! That's it! We saw them putting on that little show for you and we figured we'd take 'em is all!"
Sean swore softly, of all the things to happen, he had to get attacked by some common thugs.
"Grab your friend on the ground here, and get him to the hospital. Before he dies like your other friend."
"That's okay, man..." he said, still backing away.
"If you don't do it, I'll shoot you in the back of the head," Sean growled. "It's not like killing one more is gonna make that much of a difference, now is it?"
Shaking, the guy stopped retreating and came back and got his friend.
"Leave the knives," Sean told him.
"But if I pull them out, he'll bleed to death!"
"Like I give a damn, leave the knives!"
Sean watched at the guy pulled the two knives out of his friend, who gasped, and then helping him to his feet, they both stumbled off together, leaving a nice trail of blood spots behind them.
"Cali, put the bags in the back of the car, Peg, take the keys and open the trunk, then get in the car.
"What about the body?"
"We're taking it with us," Sean sighed, and bending over, he picked up the two knives and wiped them off on the dead guy's shirt, then removed the one from his head and wiped that off as well.
Grabbing the body by the belt, he picked him up and turning he handed Cali her knives back, amazed at just how quickly she made them disappear. She'd already tossed the bags in the back of the car and had come back to help him with the body he guessed.
"Anyone see this?" Sean asked as he tossed the dead body in the back of the car and closed the trunk.
"They all ran off when the bodies started to drop," Peg said.
"Good, let's get out of here."
Getting in the car, Sean quickly started it up and left the area, making sure they weren't followed. It was getting late, and hopefully no one got a good description on the car.
"I smeared the plates," Peg said when he mentioned that.
"Smeared the plates?" Sean said, blinking.
"I put a temporary illusion on them after I opened the trunk. They may get a description of the car, but no one could read those plates."
"Well that's good at least."
Peg turned to Cali, "Where did you learn to throw knives like that? That was awesome!"
Cali blushed a little, "All dark elves are taught how to fight. It's our way, everybody fights, men, women, even the older children. Our wars can be very vicious."
"I bet," Peg said and turned to Sean, "What are you planning on doing with the body?"
"A couple of heavy duty fire spells, and there won't be anything left of it," Sean sighed and looked back at Cali, "I appreciate you stopping them, but next time maybe try not to kill any mundanes in public?"
"But, Master Sean," Cali said a little nervously, "he had a gun! He might have shot you!"
"A few bullets won't kill me, Cali. They won't kill Peg either. We're lycans."
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Cali said and looked so distressed that Sean started to worry that she might cry.
"It's okay," Sean sighed again, thinking about just how fast Cali had pulled those knives out and thrown them. "Just try to be a little more discreet next time. I really don't want to have to deal with the police, if I can avoid it."
"Yes, Master Sean."
The ride up to Claudia's was uneventful. Peg was being unusually subdued and Cali looked like she wasn't sure if she was in trouble or not.
When they got to Claudia's, Sean parked a good distance away from the other cars, then getting out of the car he went and opened up the trunk. Sean didn't have a lot of experience in dealing with dead bodies after they'd been dead a while, and this one stunk quite a bit already. At least the wound that had killed him hadn't caused him to bleed out all over the inside of the trunk.
"Ugh," Peg said as Sean heaved the body out of the car. "With all of the people after us, and we end up tangling with a couple of common thugs."
"They were rapists, Peg," Sean sighed, "and if we weren't already in so much shit, I would have killed the other two as well. Now, go tell Claudia what I'm doing over here, before she worries."
"What are you doing?"
"Destroying evidence," Sean grumbled.
"Stay with me, Cali," Sean added when he saw her start to follow Peg.
"Yes, Master Sean."
Sean grumbled a little more, when Deidre said it, she was being tantalizing and sexy. Right now Cali was starting to sound like a whipped dog.
Dragging the body a good hundred feet away, Sean backed away from him and calling up his offensive framework, he checked which way the wind was blowing, and then lit the body up with a fire spell.
With no magical defenses, and no life force left in the body, it burned brightly and quickly, but it still took three more shots until it was only a pile of embers. Checking his mana levels, he'd consumed more than half. Thankfully he wasn't going into combat anytime soon, he really needed to see about making himself some of those multipliers that Peg had 'found.'
"I'm sorry, Master Sean," Cali said again.
"Do you like me, Cali?" Sean asked in a soft voice.
Cali nodded, "Of course, Master Sean!"
Smiling Sean put an arm around her and pulling that lovely body of hers against his,
he lowered his head and kissed her, taking his time and enjoying it. Cali tasted even better than Deidre did.
For her part, Cali looked surprised but quickly put her arms around him and closing her eyes just held on to him and returned the kiss.
"Two things, umm, make that three things," Sean said when he finally came up for air. Cali was still clinging to him and was looking up into his eyes, a little uncertain, but definitely much happier looking than before.
"First, call me Sean. Deidre calls me master to tease me, you're not my slave or my servant, though to be totally honest," Sean slid one of his hands down and gave that tight leather clad butt of hers a squeeze. "I can think of some other roles I wouldn't mind having you in."
Sean was surprised at the embarrassed look on Cali's face, but couldn't help but notice that she was grinding against him, if only slightly.
"Second, I'm not mad at you, not at all. I happen to like it when one of my girls isn't afraid to watch my back and keep me from being blindsided."
"And third," Sean ran his hands up her back, where he could now feel the several large daggers concealed there. "You're going to tell me about these daggers, why you are carrying them, and why you're so good with them."
Sean noticed the momentary look of panic on her face, but it passed so quickly that he almost would have wondered if he imagined it. But only almost.
"You don't have to tell me now, you can tell me later," Sean pulled her in and kissed her again, a second time and once again he ran one hand down to squeeze her ass as he braced her shoulders with the other one, holding her close.
"I won't think any less of you, as long as you tell me the truth," he whispered in her ear when he broke the kiss.
"Now, I have to go deal with the others. Let's go."
Taking her hand he led Cali off towards the door.
"Gee," Peg teased when he got there, "don't I get a kiss too?"
Smiling, Sean pushed her up against the wall and gave her a nice long one, long enough that Peg was starting to pant when he finally stopped.
"Mmm, better," Peg grinned, and rubbed his chest with a hand.
"We better go inside, before they start complaining," Sean said with a smile and going inside took a few moments to greet everyone, and then sat down.
'I like her,' his lion said as Sean let Chad fill the other members in on what they knew about the attack on Sean's building, and what had taken place at Sapientia with Stewart.
'She just might be crazier than Dae,' Sean thought with a smile.
'She's definitely a killer, didn't think twice.'
'Makes you wonder just how she ended up a sex slave, doesn't it?'
'At least now you know why they had a magical collar on her,' his lion acknowledged.
'I need to find out just what her story is.'
'What you need to do,' his lion chuckled, 'is make her ours.'
'You just might have a point there,' Sean agreed.
Chad had by then moved onto their concerns with outsiders showing up, and how they were hoping to at least focus them on getting revenge against the Vestibulum, rather than Sean's group. Chad then mentioned in passing that he was working on a little something for the people in Sacramento, at Sean's request.
"We can't afford to have this conflict spreading outside of town!" Jeffery of the Bear clans said.
"It's too late for that," Chad frowned at him, "it already has. However, despite the initial anger of a few people," Chad grinned at Sean, "I was able to convince them on making a non-lethal response. The kind of thing that sends a message without upsetting them too much and which leaves them much less likely of doing it again."
"Non-lethal is good," Boris of the tiger clans said nodding his head, "the last thing we want is them to embark on another purge out of fear for their own lives."
Jorge of the boar families spoke up then.
"My youngest told me that the Vestibulum attacked Sawyers just a couple of days ago, Sean. Would you care to tell the council about that?"
Sean shrugged, "They sent one of their best teams out to kill me. Apparently they'd been watching our home for some time now, looking for an opportunity to get me alone, so they could kill me."
"What happened?" Boris asked.
"We captured them, and as far as the Vesti's are concerned, they've vanished and Sawyer's place looks like nothing happened to it."
"So where are they really?"
"Up at my place. Along with all of their gear and vehicles."
"My daughter mentioned the new place you've moved into," Bill Channing spoke up. "From what she's told me, you've been fortifying it?"
Sean nodded, "Sawyer sold me a large amount of gear. He even sent over a howitzer last night!" Sean chuckled and shook his head, "I have no idea what to do with something like that, however some of the others appear to. I think he's unloading onto me everything he hasn't been able to sell."
Bill nodded, "So, with all that out of the way, and now that everyone has been warned to watch out for strange faces, what's our next step?"
"The Vesti's," Sean said. "We need to go after them, and free our people. Before they have the chance to get more of their backers here, and before the Ascendants go to war with them and we find our people getting caught in the middle."
"Is it wise launching another major attack so soon?" Claudia asked. "We just took out the Ascendants only a week ago."
Chad spoke up, "As long as the Vesti's have our people, there will be others who will take them as slaves too. Until we stop all of the major councils, we can't secure our edict. Once they've lost their lycan slaves, all of the minor councils in the area, the independents, they'll be forced to do as we say, or they're just so much easy pickings."
"Still, they know we're coming for them, and they're a lot stronger than the Ascendants were."
"Claudia," Sean said, "I want to do this sooner rather than later because the longer we wait, the bolder they'll become. Also I don't want another council coming in after we're done and performing the same kind of slaughter that happened last week."
"Surely you can't be expecting somebody to take advantage of the Vestibulum once we are done?"
Sean snorted, "Hardly. I think that Arthur Troy is going to quickly move to reassert Sapientia as the dominate council in Reno, and honestly? As long as he continues to play fair by us and continues his campaign to free all of the lycans in the other Sapientia councils, I'm going to back him."
"Do you think you can trust him?"
Sean shrugged, "Trust him? I don't know. But as long as we're not after the same thing, I don't see why we can't work together. Let the magicians play their games, as long as we're not slaves to them, I don't see why it matters to us."
"Perhaps you should speak to Joseph Harrison over at the Council of Eruditio," Bill said. "They've always been friendly to us, even when they kept lycans as slaves; they treated them far better than the others did. He may enlighten you as to just what Arthur's game is."
Sean nodded, yet another thing to consider.
Turning back to Chad, Sean asked, "Just how soon can we launch our raid on the Vesti's?"
Chad took a deep breath and then sighed, "Tomorrow night would be the absolute soonest, but I'd rather wait until at least Sunday, so we have more time to train."
Sean nodded, "Okay, we'll hit them on Sunday, unless someone has a good reason not to?"
Sean looked around and no one was shaking their heads no.
"Alright then, anything else?"
"Yes," Bill said from the head of the table. "Once we do this, then what?"
Sean leaned back in his chair and shrugged, "I don't know. There's so much going on and so much we need to do. My first goal is to make Reno a free city, same for as much of the state as we can manage. What that's going to take?" Sean shook his head. "I don't know. But I suspect you're all going to tell me."
Bill nodded, "You got that much right. Gradatim's main powerbase is in Los Angeles, but they're strong up the coast all the way to P
ortland. We're close enough to them, that I suspect we'll have to deal with them eventually."
"What about the Ascendants?"
"They're based out of New Jersey in this country. Reno was their biggest stronghold in the west, followed by Sacramento and Phoenix. That may be why they're moving to try and attack us here. Losing Reno is going to hurt their status with the other councils."
"And the Vesti's?"
"They've got people everywhere; their main powerbase is in Boston and the surrounding area. But they even have a group in Los Angeles, which the Grad's can't force out. They're just too powerful."
"What about Sapientia?" Chad asked.
"Everywhere you find the Vestibulum; you'll find Sapientia, and maybe even Eruditio. Those three are the oldest of the five main councils, and Sapientia was once the leading council, a role which we all suspect they would love to recapture."
Bill looked around the room, "But that brings us back to this: What are we going to do to keep the others from bringing more slaves in, and causing us to have to fight these battles all over again?"
Sean shook his head, "I don't know, yet."
"Well I have a pretty good idea," Bill said, looking at Sean. "We're going to have to establish our own powerbase, our own police force, if you will. I don't think for one moment that the Vestibulum or the Gradatim are going to let us hold on to our power here without a fight. We're going to have to be ready for them."
Sean nodded slowly as he sat back up, "You're right of course. I guess it's something we all need to think about, and start discussing once we've won this next fight."
"I have one more thing for everyone to think about," Ted, one of the leopard family heads said looking down at his hands. "When do we go after the enslaved lycans in rest of the country?"
Sean didn't have an answer for that, but from the looks on everyone's faces, they weren't shying away from the idea.
Ted was right, sooner or later, it would have to be done.
Sacramento
Jace looked around the farmer's market; it didn't take him long to spot who he was looking for. Lady Sarah always shopped the market, and she always brought a couple of wolves from the compound along with her, mainly to carry things. Overall, Lady Sarah was one of the nicer people in the council of Ascendance. She ran the kitchens and actually did a fair amount of cooking herself, while training the lycans working under her how to cook as well.
