by Eddie Patin
The rifle boomed and the rock he was aiming at broke in half and fell off of the log.
The moment Jason lowered the muzzle, Riley clapped him on the back. Jason flicked the safety back on.
"Good shooting, Earth man," he said. "I'm gonna go fly around some. Will you two love lizards be alright here without me?"
Love lizards? Jason thought with a smile. His shook his head and chuckled.
Looking around for Gliath, Jason saw that the leopardwere was gone. Maybe the Krulax went off hunting or something. Maybe he was back in the cave for some reason.
"Sure," Jason said. "Don't crash."
Riley scoffed and scratched his beard. He unslung the disc from around his body and lowered it to the ground. Jason hadn't even noticed that the disc was there. It had been resting around Riley's neck and one shoulder by an extremely thin cord or some kind. Riley did something with the thing's controls and it quickly unfolded into a much larger disc like a huge fan unfurling all around. Seeing the sleek metal parts glide against each other reminded Jason of some piece of alien tech from the Predator movies.
"Wow!" Morgana remarked. "I wonder where that bastard got that thing...?"
She was talking about the necromancer, of course.
"Who knows?" Jason said. "Your home world is a weird world. It's a lot like mine, but it's full of monsters and entities that invaded at some point. There's probably a full gamut of tech and magic shit from all over; from many universes."
"Wherever it came from," Riley said, stepping onto two dark ovals on its metal surface. Jason could hear the cleats lock in when the magnets activated. "It's mine, now."
With that, Riley rose into the air on the flying disc, his knees bent a little, both arms out for balance. As soon as he was over their heads, Jason saw the glowing blue bottom of the device. It was quiet, but it did emit a faint hum like an electric car. When Riley started hovering forward, the long tails of his hellhound-hide duster jacket flowed behind him like a cape.
Jason felt Morgana grasp onto his side. He moved the rifle to his left hand and turned to face her. She was smiling at him.
"Wanna practice some more?" he asked.
"In a little while," she replied. "Let's go for a walk."
"Okay."
Picking up some of their gun stuff—enough to take what they needed to defend themselves if they were attacked by carnivores or cannibals—Jason slung his AK and Morgana slung her AR, then they started walking to the north. Now, with her earmuffs off, Morgana let her hair fly loose around her shoulders. She took off the clear glasses and squinted up at the sun. As they left the stripped carcasses of the T-Rex and wyvern behind, Jason encouraged their path toward the tree line on the western side of the valley. They hadn't seen the cannibals yet that day, but it would be better to avoid having to fight them off if possible. He had no idea if the primitive reptile-people were still in their old camp across the valley or not.
As the two of them walked together, Jason's eyes flicked back and forth from Morgana's pretty face and body to the surrounding woods. Every once and a while, he looked back to the south, watching for the Albertosaurs.
"You lived here by yourself for two weeks?" she asked, looking around at the untamed wilderness surrounding them. The valley was thick with waist-high grasses and copses of cattails. Jason could recall running the other way through there with the Tyrannosaurus Rex hot on his heels, shaking the earth with each crashing step...
"Yeah," he said. "It wasn't fun."
"But you survived," she replied, poking him in one side. Jason wasn't wearing his Merc armor, so he felt the jab clearly. He was still wearing his minotaur-hide jacket—even though it was hot as hell—but he didn't want to spend all day during R&R wearing that tough bodysuit. It was pretty funny that they considered the Wilderlands as a safe place. Well—relatively safe, anyway.
"Yes, I did," Jason replied with a smile. "And I guess it was a good experience for me, looking back. It sure sucked at the time, though."
"Just like my past," she replied, looking down at the grasses and ferns that they were pushing through.
"Not really," Jason said. "Yeah, you became strong because you had to, but that whole thing about your family being killed in a coup like that? And the whole town turning against you? That was really fucked up. No one should have to go through that."
Morgana contemplated the words for a few steps then smiled up at Jason, taking his hand.
"Thanks, Jason," she said. "I wanted to talk to you about last night."
"Okay. Is something wrong?" Jason felt a sudden chill fly through his heart. He was suddenly terrified that she was pulling back away from him—that she might have thought that making love was a mistake—but Morgana wasn't acting cold. Her hand was soft. She felt warm and inviting.
"No," she replied, looking into the underbrush for a moment. "It's just that ... I respect you, and I wanted to make sure that you didn't feel anything ... less about me."
"Why would I?"
Morgana stared up at him, and her green eyes were suddenly fierce. Jason felt a strange sense that she was afraid but trying to cover it up with strength.
"I didn't sleep with you because you rescued me," she said, "or because I feel like I owe you."
Jason almost scoffed and forced himself not to laugh. He didn't want to fuck this up.
"I ... I don't feel that way," he said, squeezing her hand. They stopped.
"It's just that ... I feel like we have a strong connection and ... I'm a woman who ... I know what I want. I wasn't rewarding you for saving me. I didn't owe you. I wanted to do it."
Jason smiled and touched her cheek.
"I didn't think any of that," he said. "I wanted to do it, too. I've wanted you ever since I first saw you."
Morgana pulled away from his hand, her eyebrows knitted into concern.
"Since you first saw me? Hanging naked from the cross?!"
Jason felt a stab of cold.
Shit. Stupid. Way to be a freaking weirdo...
"Well—I mean ... you know ... since ... well, you weren't totally naked..."
Morgana's glared at him for a moment. Her green eyes danced. Then, her face relaxed. She laughed and drew in close again.
"Okay," she said. "I just wanted you to know."
Jason smiled at her again then leaned in for a kiss. They embraced for a moment then continued walking through the forest, holding hands.
"Hey, I've been wondering," Jason said. "What was that connection between Zayden Skinner and the demon you dealt with? I don't understand it. How did you know Skinner as the demon from before we came?"
Morgana sighed, then looked up at three small dino-birds that were scampering around in a tree next to them. They were glossy-black like crows and appeared to have four wings. Jason knew from scanning them before that they were Microraptors. What looked like a second pair of wings were actually feathers sticking out of their hind legs.
"One of my resistance fighters—a good man named Dominic—had found some ancient texts highlighting a ritual for summoning the demon Xarzeth the Black to do the bidding of the summoner."
"Shit," Jason said. "What could go wrong?" he added sarcastically.
Morgana didn't meet his smile and Jason immediately felt bad. "We were desperate," she said. "Dominic summoned the demon. That demon was the same as the Zayden Skinner you showed me in the Market. I don't understand how..." She trailed off then went on after stepping over a fallen tree. "Skinner—if that was Skinner—wanted fifteen ounces of gold and Dominic to sacrifice himself in exchange for the necromancer's head."
"Sacrifice himself?!"
"Yes," Morgana said, then she forced a smile. Jason saw what he thought might have been a tear appear in her left eye, but she clenched her eyes so quickly that it disappeared. "Let's talk about something else."
Did Skinner offer himself as a demon to her people then use the gold to pay planeswalkers to do the job? Did that have something to do with how he found his clients?
"Sure, sorry," he said, then stopped Morgana. "I'm sorry that it was so terrible, getting you where you are now and what you've been through, but ... I'm glad you're here now; here with me."
Morgana stared at Jason's chest for a moment then looked up at him.
"Me too," she said. Then, she kissed him.
Holding each other, the two of them staggered back into the shade of the jungle until Jason's back hit the trunk of a tall pine tree. They kissed and ran their hands over each other's bodies.
They kissed for a while then settled into a smoldering embrace. Jason breathed deeply, hot and sweaty with his clothes muggy against him but burning with desire under his skin. He breathed Morgana in, sliding his hands along the length of her back and tank-top around the hanging rifle. He noticed her bra straps under his fingers, then slid his hands down past her belt and hips and squeezed the bottoms of her buttocks. Jason's manhood strived against Morgana. He wanted to free himself of all of his restraining clothes—to feel himself raging and out in the open—then tear Morgana's clothes off and bend her over and fuck her right there in the jungle...
But Jason also felt something strange. It was almost like sensing the presence of Riley and Gliath nearby.
As the two of them held each other, each burning with need, Jason scanned the forest behind him on the west side of the valley. This definitely wasn't a safe place to rut like animals, naked and exposed. There were raptors and cannibals. Hell—there were giant spiders and who knows what else. Then, as he stared across the valley as Morgana writhed and breathed heavily against him, clutching at his back and arms, he saw a large and wide black shape in the shadows of the woods on the other side.
The black shape was larger than a man, but it wasn't long and horizontal like an Albertosaurus; like a mini-rex. It was broad. Jason could make out the trapezoidal shape of a huge, muscular torso with wide shoulders and ... the long, sweeping lines of a large rack of horns.
"What's wrong?" Morgana whispered. She breathed into Jason's ear and lightly bit his earlobe.
"It's ... ah..." Jason trailed off, feeling desire pulsate in him, taking over his brain. He wanted to make hot jungle love to Morgana so badly. He chuckled at the thought then gently urged Morgana off of him. "I think it's Nargog," he said.
"What's a Nargog?" she asked, turning to see what Jason was looking at.
He pointed at the dark shape inside the distant tree line. When the big shadow moved and withdrew deeper into the forest, Morgana noticed it too and gasped, pulling away from Jason.
"There," he said. "Nargog is a minotaur. An alpha minotaur. Do you know what a minotaur is?"
"I've heard of the term," she said. "In stories."
For an instant, Jason wondered how Morgana could possibly know what a minotaur was, growing up in a dark-ages post-apocalyptic version of Earth nine-hundred years in the future of his own time. Maybe stories of pop-culture could survive centuries of lost data through lore and tribal story-telling. Perhaps one of Morgana's ancestors or people around them still related the tale of the Greek Minotaur over two thousand years after its origin. Hell—maybe pop culture lingered on from modern times; movies and books and games living on in campfire tales years and years after the collapse.
"Before we came to your world," Jason said, "We went on a job to hunt wild minotaurs. Nargog was one of them. He's an alpha; bigger and stronger and smarter than the others, who came through to my world during a battle. He almost killed Riley. I ended up sparing Nargog's life and sending him here to live."
"You sent a huge bull monster that almost killed Riley here to this place where you heal your wounds and relax?!" Morgana asked, looking at him with a half-shocked, half-incredulous face. "Why on Primoria would you do that?"
Jason felt his neck turn red. He smirked, trying to laugh it off. Shit—everybody thought that it was a stupid move; even Morgana. He scoffed.
"Well," he said, suddenly struggling at the concept, "when we were hunting them, I thought that they were just dumb beasts. Not sentient. I learned later that Nargog was sentient and was upset that we'd killed his mate and ... her brother...? I think that it was her brother. Nargog was just defending himself ... kind of."
"So, you let him live here...?"
"Yeah."
"Is ... is he dangerous?"
Jason smiled and took a deep breath. He adjusted his pants now that his erection was subsiding. "Yeah," he said. "Oh yeah, I'd say so. Really freaking dangerous. But I don't know if he'll attack us or not. I hope not."
Morgana stared at the distant woods where the minotaur had melted into the shadows. Eventually, she looked back at Jason and smiled.
"Let's head back," she said. "I should practice with this rifle some more. And you still need to show me that small gun you got for me. What was it called?"
"A Glock 19."
"So many numbers," she said.
Jason leaned toward her and gave her a short kiss. After one last look at where Nargog had been watching them, they started off to the south again. It was hot and humid. Jason was really looking forward to a shower when they returned home.
"This place is so hot," he said. "I'm definitely taking a shower when we get back."
Morgana looked back at him over her shoulder with a smirk.
"Me too," she said. "Maybe we can take one together."
Jason stopped in his tracks for a moment, grinning like a fool with his blood rushing. He watched Morgana's hips and ass sway from side to side as she playfully walked on. When Morgana chuckled back at him, Jason finally stirred into motion again and hustled to catch up.
As they approached the wyvern's cave—watching the flying form of Riley swoop through the sky above them—Jason was startled when Morgana suddenly pulled at his arm, pointing ahead to the south with alarm.
Far south of the cave, Jason saw the three mini-rexes on the western side of the valley. The huge carnivores were all crouched around the body of a duckbill. The three Albertosaurus Sarcophagus looked like huge ground hawks with their deep brown feathers and lighter brown markings here and there. Jason could acutely remember that those things were easily ten feet tall or more at the shoulder and perhaps thirty feet long. He'd been uncomfortably close to them several times. Jason had experienced close-up views of their huge jaws that were big enough to bite a man in half. Now, even from this far away, Jason could see that all three Albertosaurs' snouts were covered in bright red blood as they fed.
"Do we keep practicing?" Morgana asked.
"It should be okay," Jason said. "Even as big as they are, they'll probably run away when we start shooting, and I'd bet we can kill them with our rifles if we have to."
"Are you sure?"
"Um ... we probably can."
Movement in the sky caught Jason's attention. He looked up to see Riley swooping and arcing through the air high above the ground, riding his disc flyer like he was the freaking Green Goblin from Spiderman. The tails of Riley's duster jacket fluttered behind him like a cape. Jason tapped Morgana's side, pointed it out, and she looked too.
Heading down to their shooting area again, Jason cast a wary eye at the Albertosaurs to the south. When he looked at Morgana, he saw that she was watching them, too. Then, she smiled, took a deep breath, and scanned all around. She looked at the ceratopsians in the distance, and a handful of the Edmontosaurs barely standing in the sunshine to graze. The rest of the massive herd of duckbills were probably hiding in the woods a good distance away from the mini-rexes. Jason pointed out a trio of f
eathered raptors that appeared in the western tree-line south of the wyvern's cave. The waist-high predators looked around for a moment, then disappeared into the shadows again.
The two of them watched dinosaurs for a while then got back to shooting.
Chapter 6
Jason woke to a 10 A.M. alarm on his phone.
The sound started softly, rising in intensity over time; a 'smart' alarm designed to rouse him slowly. As he stirred, he felt the warmth of Morgana's skin against him under his blanket. The room was warm and smelled like sex. She woke next to him, stretching against Jason under the covers. As she did, he couldn't help running one hand along her naked side and stomach, sliding up her ribs until he cupped one breast.
Both of them sighed and Morgana let out a small laugh as she pulled away so that she could prop herself up a little on one arm.
Jason reached over to his dresser and grabbed his phone, turning the alarm off. He saw that he had multiple notifications. He hadn't really been paying attention to them in the last couple of days back home; not with Morgana and the others to hang out with.
He'd have to be careful to balance his new planeswalking life with maintaining whatever semblance of a life he still had remaining in the real world. Amanda and Tom would probably try to contact him sometimes—well, maybe not Tom. And Ben ... well, Jason was frankly surprised that Ben hadn't tried to contact him again since their beer before the golem hearts job.
"Good morning," Morgana said, sitting up in bed and gathering her hair to sit behind her shoulders. She smiled.
Jason lay back to his pillow and laced his hands behind his head. After yesterday in the Wilderlands, he was fully healed. Back to normal. In fact, he felt so good that he really wanted to go for a walk. It had been a while now that he was off of his normal morning routine of walking along the hiking path out back or through the neighborhood.
He looked up at Morgana's naked upper torso, grinning as he took in all of her curves, swells, and feminine lines. Her skin was so smooth. Her neck, sweeping collarbones, and breasts beckoned for his lips. Morgana had spent the same amount of time as he did in the Wilderlands. Whatever injuries and ailments she'd suffered during the end of her fight with the Golden Lady's Communion and the necromancer's army of gargoyles must have been healed by now as well. She probably felt great, too. She sure looked great.
