by D. R. Rosier
“You’re gonna die bitch, but first you’re going to suffer,” he said in a harsh voice as he punched her in the side and she heard two ribs crack.
She was terrified and had gotten two of the four down, if not dead, they were at least out of the fight, but she couldn’t recover. She fell toward him on purpose, a sad change from her usual fierce jumps, and head butted his face. That caused her to cry out, as her broken jaw screamed in pain, it would heal in a half hour or so, but she didn’t have nearly that much time.
She looked up in satisfaction though, at the wolf’s broken nose. She recovered enough now from the kidney punch that she could gasp in a breath, and she snap kicked the threatening one in the family’ jewels. She was going to follow it up, but she felt a sting in her stomach. Shit, she’d given the other guy too much time to recover from her kick to his temple. She tried to pull the dart out, but she felt woozy.
The wolf punched her and she fell on the ground. They beat her for a while, as she lay there helpless and barely conscious, until the wood stabbed and broken neck guy recovered, and then pulled out silver chains. She whimpered when they chained her up.
“STOP!”
Her mind froze, there’d been magic in that command. She sensed the four wolf shifters around her freeze as well, and she looked over to the entrance of the alley. She shivered at the look of anger and contempt on the man’s face. Then she heard her four tormenters start screaming. Who or what was he? Mages couldn’t command obedience with magic, and they surely wouldn’t help her. Was he helping her?
She stayed awake long enough to see the man stalk forward toward her, but eventually lost her battle with the combination of her severe injuries and the tranquilizers, and she passed out…
Chapter Eleven
The four wolf shifters collapsed to the ground, their chests, where their hearts used to beat, were smoking.
I knew in theory she was a dangerous shifter, but all I could see when we arrived at the alley entrance was four very large men torturing and beating a young woman who was obviously already unconscious, or so close it barely mattered. It had filled me with rage, and I didn’t even consciously decide to use my command ability, which was part of my affinity with the infernal.
I’d yelled stop, and my magic had risen with the words, and went out like a wave of power before me. They’d all frozen, but that hadn’t been good enough. All the spells I’d memorized had blurred under my intense protective anger, so I’d done the only thing I could think of. Balefire had shot from my hand in a thin line, even in my anger I knew I couldn’t immolate them, the woman I’d come here to make a deal with would’ve gone up in flames as well.
A situation which would completely undo my heroism.
Regardless, the small thin flame had split, into four lines and dug into their chests as they were frozen by my magical command. Balefire burns flesh very well, and all four of them lay on the ground around her, big smoking holes in their chests, with empty glassy eyes. Apparently, shifters couldn’t live without, or regrow hearts.
Good to know.
My anger faded as my concern rose to the forefront, and I examined the bloody and pulped young woman I wanted as my guardian. The healing spell came to mind, and I intoned it under my breath as quickly as I could, while being careful not to run words together, and I enunciated every syllable perfectly.
She healed before me, but still looked like hell. Her shorts and shirt were ripped up, and she was covered in blood. Yet, it was easy to make out the incredible beauty of her face despite all that, and her long blue-black hair was stunning in the sunlight, even if horribly mussed. She looked like a model, at least her face did. She had the body of a porn star, just five foot two, which made her large D cup breasts looked almost ridiculously big on her frame, and despite my previous thoughts on breasts that large, they were quite perky and firm as she laid on her back. A supernatural thing?
She had dark amber eyes, I’d seen that much before she’d passed out, and naturally pouty and full lips, which I couldn’t help but wonder how they’d feel like wrapped around me. Her gorgeous dark tanned creamy skin made my fingers itch to touch her.
I was also confused, I was concerned about her, she hadn’t woken up from the healing I’d given her, was lying in a pool of her own blood, and here I was checking her out like some pervert. She was… seductive even passed out.
Lilith caressed my head from above and behind, “Exactly. It’s her cat shifter pheromones, and I have to agree, even for a cat shifter, she’s… incredibly beautiful, and sinfully sexy. Right now, those pheromones are on low, she can turn them up if she wants, when awake of course. So don’t worry so much, you haven’t turned into an asshole lusting after the beat up passed out person, I promise.”
I laughed, but it cut off abruptly when my worry came back, “Why hasn’t she woken up?”
Lilith said, “You’ve healed her body, but the fight and damage her body took, still took a toll, and the healing spell used some more of her resources as well. Not to mention she was tranquilized, she’ll be out for a long while.”
I sighed and looked around. We were in an alley, that stunk of rotted garbage, we were also next to four corpses, which meant we shouldn’t stick around here. I carefully picked her up in my arms, she was surprisingly light. She was a petite curvy sexy woman, and I felt protective of her, which should make things interesting, since she was supposed to be my protector, if she agreed, not the other way around.
Lilith laughed, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea taking her home until she accepts the pact, if she accepts it.”
I frowned, and thought of a compromise, there was no way I was going to let her sleep this off in an alley, “I’ll keep my spells on, even in the house, until she accepts. She needs to be cleaned up, and in a bed.”
Lilith nodded dubiously, “You going to take care of that?”
I blushed at the thought of doing so, but shook my head. I don’t take liberties with unconscious strange women, only what’s offered.
“You are.”
Lilith teasingly snickered, and we walked back to the car. With an act of will, I used balefire to incinerate the corpses once we were a safe distance away. Then I wondered if killing four shifters would come back to bite me in the ass, although looking down at Julia, I wasn’t sure if I cared just then…
I sat behind my desk in my study, deep in thought as I sipped my coffee.
When we’d gotten back, Lilith had at my request, cleaned her up with that power of hers, and dressed her in fresh clothes. I hadn’t been there, but took her at her word. Call it respect, or whatever, but with her unconscious I wouldn’t make any assumptions about what she’d think improper. Right then, Julia was in the second bedroom, sleeping and recovering from her ordeal. Lilith wasn’t happy about that, which I supposed was fair, I was a warlock for less than a full day and I was already putting aside her strong advice relating to pacts and people in our home. Still, I had the partition spell going, and all my protections were still active in my partitions.
I’d offered to help Lilith with dinner, but she’d sent me to the study, to study. I still had so much to learn, and a lot of it would be necessary in the short term.
I considered learning more about divination, and locating people that were open to soul or heir pacts, but I didn’t think I’d be doing that anytime soon, so it was better to focus elsewhere. I had the basics for spellcasting down, even if I was still an infant in that area, at least I could do it.
I decided at the very least, I needed that much of a basic grounding for wards, just in case I was attacked in my home. I wasn’t sure how likely that was, but I couldn’t rule it out, so much to learn, and not just about magic.
I used the ledger to find a basic book about the subject, and got to reading.
Wards were basically spells that didn’t depend on a thought to keep them running, and could also judge the intent of others. A simple example of this is a ward spell made of the spell protection from physical
. If placed around a building, with the intent to keep out anyone meaning harm, a person would quite literally be barred from physically entering the building.
Since there were no thoughts to keep the spell active, everything had to be defined in the physical runes, and when activating the ward. Some wards were more flexible than others, but those were much more difficult to make. The four types of wards were protection, containment, concealment, and traps or offensive wards.
Protection wards were just like the protection spells, and were probably the simplest to use. There wasn’t much to them, a protection from fire ward on an area, would protect that area from fire until the energy in the ward was expended. Fairly straight forward and simple.
Containment wards were similar, except a containment ward for fire wouldn’t block the fire, it would actively absorb it, and part of the fire’s energy would be recycled to power the ward. The bad part was a lot of the fire’s energy would be turned into waste heat as well. Which is why there were no containment spells, only protective spells. The cement foundation of a building could take waste heat a lot better than a human body could. Those lasted until the ward’s strength either overloaded and broke, or if carefully drained of all magic by a counter spell from a mage, which was incredibly dangerous but possible.
Concealment wards were wards that hid other wards, or even could hide a vehicle, or make a building unnoticeable. Not just from normal sight, but also from mage sight, and divinations from a distance. Mage sight was a lot like the detect magic I had, except I didn’t have to be looking in any direction, mine was more a sixth sense than an enhancement of one of the five major one’s humans have.
The final wards were traps, or offensive. The latter type was straightforward, it could be setup to trigger for a certain intent or action. For example, I could make an offensive ward with balefire, that would roast anyone trying to break into my home. Probably a bad idea, but it gets the point across. It can also be used directly, if I interface with the wards I can activate the spell to attack any enemies while safely inside the wards and my home.
The trap version could also be set on a ward, like in the earlier example, if a mage tried to drain the power of a containment ward, that could trigger a trap ward, which would defend the containment ward by trying to kill the mage.
The book said no ward setup was perfect, if a mage had enough time to read them, they could be taken down, which is why it was best to interface and control the wards during a defensive action. Not only would I be able to transfer power around, but also direct the wards in new directions.
Curious, I learned the spell in the back of the book, and cast it to interface with the wards here. They already recognized me as the owner of the house, if I wasn’t, the spell would have gone very wrong. Trying to control an enemy’s wards would be a very large mistake.
The first thing I did was pull harder on my connection to Lilith to the infernal, and charge the wards with fresh power. They weren’t in danger of dying anytime soon, but refueling the magic of the wards was something that should be done daily if I could. At first, it was very confusing, the warding of the top floor on this building was very elaborate, and I wondered briefly just who’d set it up.
Probably the last warlock to set up shop in Seattle, and got killed. Which was a sobering thought.
All four types of wards were present, a lot of them having to do with hiding this place, and keeping it undetectable. Most of the people that worked in this building probably had no idea what was up here, and may not have even noticed the top floor existed. There were a lot of traps, protective, and containment wards as well, one for every type. With six magical types, that was eighteen wards. It was… complicated, but I thought I could do reasonably well keeping an eye on it if we were attacked.
Still, I just had the very bare basics now, I’d have to dig into more advanced strategies using wards some other time.
I needed a change of pace, Julia still hadn’t stirred, I could feel her through the detect magic, as well as Lilith in the kitchen. It was getting a little late, but I was hoping she’d wake soon, and we could eat and discuss the possibility of the pact with her. After a little thought, I decided to try and learn more spells that could come in handy in a fight.
It was just a half-hour and two spells learned later, telekinesis, and paralyze, when I felt Julia stirring.
I was hungry, and tomorrow was another day for studying, I’d learned an insane amount of information my first day, even if it was all basic stuff. I could focus on more spells tomorrow, but for tonight I was done, my brain felt a bit fried, and I was famished.
Still, my mind didn’t shut down that easily, and I couldn’t switch gears until I decided what I’d be studying tomorrow. I had enough spells to be getting along with in a fight, so I thought tomorrow I’d work on summoning and binding lesser demons. It couldn’t hurt to have more allies in a fight, even bound ones. I moved over to the bookshelf and pulled out a book on the subject, and left it on my desk on the way out. Now that I had a plan, I could relax, sort of.
There was no doubt the last few days had been stressful, and I felt like I was at a breaking point. I needed food, and rest. But first, I started back to the bedrooms, to invite Julia to dinner. The scent of Lilith’s cooking as I passed the kitchen made my stomach growl…
Chapter Twelve
Joseph was just outside the pride house when his cell phone rang. Always something, he deserved to take out some frustration, and get some relaxation from the sluts within. Always something. He grunted when he saw the caller ID, and accepted the call, and although he had the impulse to throw the damned thing against a wall, he put it to his ear.
He growled, “Where are they Carmine, they should’ve been back hours ago.”
Carmine replied, “Yes head alpha, but there’s a problem. I sent a second two-man team to check on them, I thought maybe they were… entertaining themselves. But, they found a scent trail from the alley she was located in that led across the street into another alley. There was a fight, and they found scent traces of blood, Julia’s and two of my team, and they also believe the four were killed in the alley.”
He barked, “Believe?”
Carmine answered, “The scents are very disturbed. Apparently, the alley is behind a restaurant, and the rotting food and dumpsters obscured things. They aren’t sure, but there are no scent trails of the four leaving that alley, but they did pick up Julia’s along with two other scents they didn’t recognize. I think those two must have either captured or helped Julia, and killed my team. Thing is, the scents were human, not vampire.”
He shook his head in thought, and kept a tight grip on his anger, he’d warned Carmine not to fuck it up, and it looks like the jackass fucked it up. He tried to convince himself killing the wolf alpha was more trouble than it was worth, but he was having trouble making himself believe it. The idiot was damned lucky they were talking on the phone.
“That means a mage, no human could possibly kill four shifters.”
Carmine said, “I agree, but that doesn’t make sense, they wouldn’t risk their neutrality.”
He grunted, he hated to admit it, but Carmine had a good point. The mages stayed out of the trouble between the vampires and shifters, and wouldn’t get involved in an internal fight between shifters. Except, someone clearly did, and it wasn’t a vampire.
“Go back to the mage, have him trace Julia again, get her new location, and then deal with it. Understood?”
Carmine swallowed nervously, “Yes alpha.”
“And this time don’t fuck it up.”
He growled as he hung up the phone. It was a miracle anything went right around here. He was surrounded by idiots, and they wondered why he was so bad tempered? He marched into the cat pride house, and saw Gina was waiting for him, patiently, and wouldn’t quite meet his eyes.
His cock stirred at the site of her, the scent of fear as well as her usually seductive scent turned him on like nothing else. His mind reveled
in the power he had over her. She’d done what he ordered, she was ready for him and he could scent that she hadn’t had sex yet today, but he thought he might punish her anyway. He had some frustration to get out after all. It was the least the little slut could do, and all she was good for…
Julia startled awake, not recognizing any of the scents of the room she was in. The soft bed beneath her was luxuriously comfortable, and she didn’t scent anyone nearby. She slowly stretched out and closed her eyes, a soft sigh left her lips.
That’s when she realized she was fully healed as well, how long had she been out? She touched her jaw, and face, and felt nothing but her silky smooth complexion, no bruises or sensitivity. How was that possible?
The silk fabric against her skin felt good as well, and that thought made her freeze again. Silk?
She lifted the blanket and sheet, and saw she was wearing a semi-sheer light blue nightgown, and blushed at the memory of the man she’d seen in the alley came to mind. Her hands ran through her blue-black hair, which was straight, untangled, and silky smooth clean. Had he bathed her too? Who was he?
She recalled his handsome face, strong jaw, large build for a human, he’d been almost six foot three. He had short light brown hair, and hazel eyes that had been burning with anger the last time she’d seen them. She thought he’d been in good shape for a human as well. She bit her lip in thought, what was she doing here?
She slid out of bed, and moved over to her backpack, and opened it up. All her stuff was still there, her jewelry, the little bit of money she’d had left over after her large meal earlier today, and some shirts and shorts. She picked up the backpack and moved into the bathroom, fully intending to change. She ran the water, brushed her teeth, and rinsed her mouth. Then she examined herself in the mirror.
