by VK Fox
NEON REDEMPTION
©2021 VK FOX
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Thank you for reading Neon Redemption
More In Urban Fantasy
About the Author
Prologue
“Let’s get out of here,” Olive Baum jammed her slender practice blade in the rack and glanced casually over her shoulder. Her tank top was stained with sweat. Dirt and grass stuck to her dark, muscular arms. A long patch of turf burn on the back of her thigh was inflamed at the edge of her cut-offs. She’d yelled at him to go harder. Nice to see she wasn’t pouting over it now.
A few remaining pledges were wrapping up their field drills in the chilly late afternoon sunshine. Dahl was a similar mess; however hard he’d pushed, she’d come right back. She fought like a wolverine, not bothering to pull her blows. Olive was a dozen years his senior, but she didn’t seem older, just better.
“You don’t want an encore?” She’d better not. Dahl hurt from shins to shoulders: only half of his smarting welts were on generally accepted targets for this kind of informal workout. It was his turn to cook tonight, and his new medication regime made him jittery and distracted. A sublime, perfect evening was a hot shower, a quick dinner, and a good book. His lovely commanding officer was going through a rough patch, but he didn’t want to physically absorb it.
Her body language as she turned was more primal, more physically deliberate. “Do you have plans tonight?”
Dahl shrugged, “Maybe.” He finished putting up his equipment and grabbed a towel from the bin, rubbing the sweat out of his short blond hair. “What did you have in mind?”
“Motorcycle or Mustang?” She owned the bike. He owned the car. They were going out.
“You drive.”
Olive’s grin widened, contrasting bright teeth against impetuously plum lips. She grabbed her keys from the pegboard and strode towards the lot.
Assuming things about a social outing with an intensely impulsive divorcee was a fool’s game. Time for a shower, clean clothing, and a helmet was not included. Dahl held her waist as they sped along the highway, out of the city, towards the mountains. She smelled like sweat and felt like part of the machine, allotting only an easy, non-concentration to propel them forward at 110 mph. Freezing wind whipped by as Dahl held her, warm and solid. It was like flying. Off the highway she easily doubled the limit on twisting country roads in the foothills. Thank God they were paved.
They pulled into a small lot near a trailhead. She kicked her leg over the parked bike, turned, and kissed him. No discussion, no nerves, and no preamble; unless the hour of clinging to her in transit counted. It was right. Everything was harmonizing, and their song might be in time with the minute waltz, but the moment was now and they both knew it.
Olive pressed against him with the same ferocity he’d felt on the practice field—this moment infinitely preferable to getting beaten with a blunted sword. It was their first kiss, and it lasted longer than every other kiss in his life combined, stealing the breath from his lungs and pushing the blood through his veins. She pulled away, jogging up the trail: breathless and inviting pursuit, an ineffable hook in his heart. This was life, all five-feet, six-inches of it in Doc Martens and wide, dark eyes. Dahl couldn’t recover the lost breath. It belonged to her now, rightfully stolen. He was after her in an instant.
After half a mile, Olive stopped running. She was so fast that even with the promise of what might transpire when he caught up, it took him ten full seconds to close the distance. Dahl pulled up a few feet short and watched her search the edge of the trail, glancing briefly at trees and rocks. The run had returned both of them to a sweat-drenched state. It was twilight, and markers would be hard to see.
“Are you looking for something?” He patted his pockets for cigarettes... which were in his coat at the practice field.
“There’s an off-trail waterfall. I wanted to swim.” She looked at him with meaning.
Dahl summoned all the self-control in his body and shook his head, “This is a place you know, yes?”
“Of course.”
“You’ve had boys there before.”
“Well, yes.”
“I’m not like them.” If he could roll this into something more than a wild night, he would. He needed to. It put him in a terrible position, but she didn’t know.
Olive’s eyebrows went way up, “Well, aren’t you special. Gentleman’s choice, then: where are we going?”
Now he had her attention. He contrasted the scenery a little.
“Fly or ride?” She could fly. He could carry her. They were going off the beaten trail.
A slow, delicious smile covered her features, “Ride.”
Dahl stood tall, stripping off his clothing: sneakers, socks, shirt. He wasn’t used to people watching. It was getting dark, but her glittering eyes roamed over him, assessing, appreciating. He angled his lower arms to hide the scars. With any luck she’d be distracted by prettier things: the freckles over his shoulders, his hard-won muscle definition, or his runic bicep tattoo. Better do the pants before he got too excited. It wouldn’t look confident to turn away.
He didn’t manage the timing, and Olive got a decent preview of what he had to offer. He wasn’t ashamed, exactly. Nudit
y was a fact of shapeshifting, but other agents didn’t generally ogle him with parted lips. Pushing the self-consciousness aside, Dahl focused on how she’d run breathless and teasing. He was going to catch her.
The twisting, heated sensation of shifting took over and blocked out her delighted giggles. In a few seconds he was at home in the forest, an enormous stag. He was closer in size to a caribou, but you couldn’t beat white-tailed deer for running through underbrush.
Olive gasped and approached, adopting a cautious, reverent tread even though she knew full well he was still himself and not a wild animal. Her shivering hand ran down his face, along his neck, over his shoulder. Utter bliss closed her eyes. Stooping slightly made it easy for her to swing onto his back. Dahl was intensely conscious of Olive straddling him, warm and smelling like hormones and desire. Her strong arms circled his neck, and they took off into the woods.
Running as a deer was beautiful. He could manage almost forty miles an hour through the sparse trees, easily jumping fallen trunks as high as six feet. The laughter bubbling from Olive’s soul was the kind everyone loses around age ten when the world becomes heavier and life takes on the more serious tone of growing up. Despite her age, her rank, or her failed relationships, she’d kept it—pure and unrestrained.
The spot he came out of the forest was perfect. Any spot would have been. They stopped on a smooth, grassy overlook dropping away to a tree-filled valley below. The stars winked to life as Olive slid off his back and Dahl shifted back to himself. Again, the time was right.
He pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her slowly. Blood trickled from a hundred superficial cuts across his body: the annoying side effect of a modest amount of magic. If it bothered her, or if she even noticed, she gave no indication. Unbuttoning her shorts, he found red lace panties underneath.
“This is the underwear you put on for sparring?”
She tossed her shirt and bra at the base of a nearby tree. “Only when I put any on.”
Cool composure slipped as he chuckled. He was never going to be able to concentrate again. Olive was stroking his chest, his abdomen as she knelt and took him in her mouth. Dahl inhaled sharply. He ran his fingers through her short, black hair as her tongue and bright purple lips worked. After some indeterminate amount of time where he desperately wanted her to continue and also desperately needed to hold it together, she pulled him to the ground and mounted him again. She was so wet he slipped in up to the hilt on the first thrust. Braced on his chest, she rocked back and forth, silently and then with a tiny yelp at the height of each connection. He grasped her shoulders, her waist, her hips, grabbing hold and pushing into her farther, forcing squeals from between her lips while she ground against him. When he felt her muscles shudder and she no longer attempted to manage her volume he let himself go, deep within her body.
She lay on top of him as the temperature dropped and the sky filled with stars. Wrapping his arms around her torso, he warmed her as best he could.
Before she rolled off, she bent to kiss him and whisper, “Boy, I think we should start seeing each other. You know how to have fun.” Dahl grinned and tried to ignore the voice in his mind that called him a slut, a rebound, and said she would throw him away when his novelty was gone.
Don’t you wonder how you stack up against a hundred other men? Mordred sneered inside his skull. I guess time will tell.
Chapter One
Sin City was the rendezvous point for Jane and a holy sniper. Warm May sun highlighted a palm-studded cityscape as her flight touched down in McCarran. Navigating the airport was no big deal, and Jane grinned as she breezed through the brightly lit, crowded corridors, past an array of slot machines, and out to a cab on the passenger access road. The budget hotel she’d booked off the Strip was utterly unexciting, so she dropped her bags and got ready for a night out by slipping into a gauzy sundress and flannel. All of her pants were so baggy she couldn’t keep them up. Dresses and avoiding mirrors were a quick fix. Jane laced her boots, grabbed her bag, and headed for Fremont Street. Sister Mary wasn’t getting in until tomorrow, so tonight was her chance for carefree, alcohol-infused rollicking prior to having a gun-toting nun at her side.
Staring out the cab window, Jane’s mind wandered to a cave, small and dark, with a tiny fissure of light connecting her to the outside world. No one could find her— well no one except Ian and Dahl. Just like St. Barbara... She shook her head. Why did St. Barbara always wander in on her thoughts uninvited? Of all the saints in Jane’s head, why was Barbara the one who gave her regular visions? It kind of sucked, since Barbara had spent her short life hiding, being tortured, and then martyred. Jane pushed the images aside, paid the driver, and stepped out into the neon evening.
A big gulp-sized margarita in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Jane strolled under the dazzlingly lighted arched roof that covered a quarter-mile stretch of party madness. The screens of the overhead space frame bathed the street below in fluctuating color, while musicians banged out tunes on used bottles and plastic buckets. Veterans of all ages begged from wheelchairs with their requisite dog and cardboard sign. Pot and tobacco smoke hung like a fog over the gritty, sparkling pavement.
Jane stopped to watch an artist speed paint a waterfall scene with two dozen spray colors and again to gawk at a couple of showgirls with Victoria’s Secret level bodies pose for photos wearing feathers and four square inches of adhesive fabric. Next to several drool-worthy Chip N Dales, a particularly jovial, potbellied gentleman dressed as a thong-clad Tinkerbell was standing on a raised dais and throwing glitter over the crowd. Jane managed to avoid his little showers of pixie dust. A cover band blasted out a decent version of Hey Jealousy while the flow of the crowd slowed in front of the side stage, dancing and singing along.
A woman caught Jane’s eye. She was gorgeous. Her tousled, raven black hair framed deep sienna skin and pouty fuchsia lips. Her luscious curves were moving to The Gin Blossoms’ famous hit, and she was waving a large drink in the air, only the lid keeping most of the contents in. Recognition dawned and Jane’s pulse ramped to pre-cardiac-event levels. Olive Baum, Dahl’s longtime girlfriend and ex-commanding officer, was dancing like there was no tomorrow against a couple of tipsy young men.
August Michael Dahl—Sana Baba magical agent, holder of the King Arthur link, and almost twenty-year-old adopted son of Jane’s boyfriend—wasn’t exactly her pal. Their mentor/mentee relationship was more bickering and gaps in training than anything else, but Jane remembered the soft voice Dahl had used to speak about Olive and the rare, genuine smile her picture brought to his face. He said they’d been dating a year, and Jane would have bet cash on him being in love. Watching her grin and sing while a couple of eager tourists copped every feel they could manage didn’t seem right.
“Friend of yours?” A voice at her elbow made Jane jump, nearly dropping her drink. She turned to see a smiling face with gelled hair, hazel eyes, and freckles. The man was in his mid-twenties, about Jane’s age, and stood with an easy, relaxed posture, right at home on Fremont.
“No.” Jane was a terrible liar. Brevity was her best friend here.
“Oh?” Freckles raised his eyebrows, “Are you wandering around this crazy place alone?”
“Oh, no.” Jane was getting more uncomfortable, “My boyfriend’s refilling his drink.”
“Yeah, my girlfriend is, too.”
Jane grinned—he wasn’t trying to pick her up. Her new pal continued, his eyes locked on Olive. “I wish I could move like that. Damn, she’s slammin.”
Jane laughed, “I always opt for slow dances. Swaying is more my speed. I consider myself an expert.”
“I’m in the struggling amateur bracket even there.”
“What, slow dancing? All you have to do is not trip.” The band struck up Wonderwall, and Jane’s new friend cocked a perfect eyebrow.
“Want to risk it?”
Jane smiled politely, ready to decline when Freckles took her hand and swept her among
the dancers. Jane bit her lip as she gave in and draped her drink over his glitter-dusted shoulders. Alcohol allowed a tenuous grip on her social situation, but after a few beats Jane was managing to comfortably sway to the music while venomously staring at Olive. Seriously, if the woman was any closer to her dance partner, they’d be physically melded.
A wave of cigar smoke washed over them, rich and heavy.
“So what’s your name?” Jane asked the question absently, the swirling lights and smoke enhancing her substantial buzz.
“Owen. You?”
Huh… a name starting with a vowel. She paused a beat before responding, “Jane.”
Owen heaved a single deep “ha” noise in his chest, “Really. Like Jane Doe? Hmmm…”
“Oh, come on, I get that all the time. Seriously. The only thing worse would be if my last name was Smith or Johnson or whatever.”
“Ok, Jane, I’m sorry for doubting you during your four second pause.” Owen chuckled at his own jibe, “So it’s not Johnson?”
“No, of course not. My parents weren’t cruel.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense.”
“Sendak.” Shit. Why did she say her boyfriend’s name?
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jane Sendak.” They were still dancing. Owen was keeping up fine despite his earlier skill assessment, “I’m Owen London.”
Jane tried not to go rigid. London, like Jack London? Not good. It fit a specific pattern: first name vowel, last name author. Ian Sendak, August Dahl, Olive Baum, Everest Lovecraft. Dollars to donuts he was a Sana Baba field agent linked to some fictional character and wielding their storybook powers. Was he using his magic? Maybe reading her mind? Exerting some influence over her? Jane searched for signs of magic at work, light or blood or something out of place. Her palms prickled with sweat.
