by Amy Sumida
I loosened my grip on my new sword, the same one I'd taken off Varcan's minion. I didn't have my iron sword with me at Daxon's, so I hadn't brought it to St. Louis, but I figured this one would be better to use against Varcan anyway. It wasn't iron, so it wasn't made to hurt fairies, but the metal was strange—a glistening black that gave more credence to Killian's alien theory. I had a feeling that the metal used to make that sword hadn't been mined on Earth. I'd hand it over to my Uncle Dylan to take a look at after the mission was done, but for now, I was gonna use it. Carefully. I had a glamour over the blade, just in case a security guard was watching us through the camera in the corner of the elevator.
The elevator dinged, and we stepped out into a gray corridor where the rest of our group waited. Apartment 1616 was at the end to the left. I held my sword down at my side, focusing on sensing those warm tingles. We reached the door, and I crept up to lay my hand against the wood. I shook my head and stepped back.
“No aliens in there,” I announced.
Drostan used his key and cautiously opened the door. We followed him into a luxurious apartment with a great view of the city and a packed living room—as in packed with people. The crowd wasn't the reason that the first of us into the room had to be nudged further in by those behind; there was still plenty of space in the apartment. Instead, it was the shock that froze us in place. Luckily, it was a large living room but still, no one wanted to get close to its occupants. We gathered around the edges, clearing our throats, trying to get their attention.
“Conri is going to be so pissed that he isn't here,” Ainsley whispered.
Daxon, the only one among us who wasn't embarrassed by the scene, stepped forward into the middle of the orgy and started inspecting the participants. Men and women writhed mindlessly on the floor and furniture, the slap of flesh loud enough to heat my cheeks. Several more people were passed out in heaps amid it all, as if they had fallen and been pushed to the side. Empty pizza boxes and bottles of water littered the perimeter of the area rug.
“Shut the door!” I hissed at Lance, who was just standing beside it, gaping at the display of flesh and cocking his head at the fantastic positions.
Lance blinked and shoved the door shut. It didn't slam, but the click was loud enough that one of the apartment's occupants should have heard it. They didn't. Something flashed and clicked on my left. I spun my head just in time to see Rick Murdock lower his cellphone.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I hissed at him.
He shrugged. “No one's going to believe this without proof.”
“Delete that right now!”
He grimaced but deleted the picture.
A woman began to moan and then scream as she reached her climax. The Gancanagh pounding into her—I recognized him from the photos in his missing person report—grinned as if he'd won a prize, his hand rubbing her clit furiously.
“Oh, yeah, scream for daddy,” he urged.
She screamed for daddy and then moaned her way past the finish line. But the Gancanagh wasn't done. Far from it. He pulled out and flopped her onto the couch, bending her over the seat on her belly. Getting between her knees on the floor, the Gancanagh spread her ass cheeks and buried his face between them.
The woman moaned, “Fuck me. Hurry, please.”
“Just getting you wet, baby,” the Gancanagh declared as he slipped into her. “Oh, fuck, you've got a tight asshole.”
“So do you,” a man growled as he slipped into the Gancanagh from behind.
The Gancanagh groaned and angled his head back to kiss the man as he slammed back and forth between him and the woman. To their right, just a few inches down the couch, another of the missing Gancanaghs had a woman on his lap, riding him, facing out so that another woman, on her hands and knees between their legs, could lick both of him and his rider, going upward from balls to clit. A man pumped into that woman vigorously, moving her against the private parts she was licking. This man reached for the man fucking the Gancanagh next to him. That man stopped kissing the Gancanagh to lean over and kiss the guy in the other threesome.
On the floor to the left of the two threesomes, a third Gancanagh was loudly licking a woman's pussy while another woman lay beneath him, sucking his cock, and a third woman rode the first woman's face. The last missing Gancanagh was at the bottom of a pile of people—at least, I assumed he was down there somewhere; it was hard to tell with all the tangled limbs and wild movements.
“They're under some kind of spell,” Daxon concluded as he waved his hand in front of the Gancanagh sandwiched between a woman and a man.
I scowled and stepped forward, searching their auras for any indication of magic. There was nothing, but that didn't mean anything. Some magic doesn't show up in an aura, and I was betting a magical drug was one of them.
“Let me try to uncross them,” I offered.
Daxon nodded and stepped back.
I looked around, trying to decide on a target. I went with the Gancanagh who was going down on a woman while another went down—or up, rather—on him. He'd be less likely to hurt someone if he snapped out of it violently. I crouched and touched the back of his shoulder, but he didn't even glance at me. A violet glow seeped from my hand into him. I felt my magic hesitate; he wasn't fairy-struck. But my uncrossing ability worked on minor enchantments too, so I kept searching, kept pushing. I felt a slight burn in my fingertips and pushed harder. Suddenly, the Gancanagh pushed up on his forearms, gave a wordless cry, then rolled away from the woman below him. He stumbled to his feet, rapidly losing his erection. Clearly shocked, he stared around himself as the women he'd been having sex with moaned in protest and reached for him.
“What the fuck?!” the Gancanagh shouted as he stared at the orgy. “Randy!” He ran to another of the Gancanaghs—the one in between a man and a woman—and shook his shoulder. “Randy, snap out of it!”
“Hey!” Daxon leaned into the lucid Gancanagh's view, and the guy flinched. “Hi there. I'm Daxon, my wife just broke the enchantment you were under. You need to step aside so she can help your friends.”
The Gancanagh turned to look at me with wide eyes. “Holy fucking dildos! You're the fucking Twilight Star!”
“Hello,” I waved at him and smiled brightly. “And you are?”
“I'm, uh, Jake.” He bowed awkwardly. “Uh, you mind if I get dressed, Your Majesty?”
“Please do.”
“Thanks.” Jake ran toward the hallway as he called back, “Do Randy next!”
“I don't think I approve of his wording,” Raza muttered.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I broke the enchantments on all the Gancanaghs first, then the humans who, without the Gancanaghs, were a little lost, and just waited impatiently to be screwed. Once the humans who were awake were freed, I helped the ones who were passed out. It was a long, arduous and awkward process that I hope I'll never have to endure again. The Gancanaghs recovered well, but the humans were so distraught that the fairies in our group had to wipe their memories. After the first few shrieks, we were prepared and one of my husbands or guards would instantly catch the human's mind and calm them. It was technically illegal, but we all agreed it was necessary to keep the humans sane. Better memory loss than years spent in a psychiatric facility.
We found a pile of clothes and personal items in one of the bedrooms and, after getting the humans dressed and returning their belongings, Lance had a couple of the extinguishers drive them home. That left us with four Gancanaghs, sitting in a row on the couch, huddled under blankets as they gulped bottled water. I had Ainsley and Felix go out to get them something to eat while I spoke with them.
“Can you tell us how you got here?” I asked them gently.
The men looked at each other, a little shell-shocked but doing well, all things considered. They were beautiful, as all Love-Talkers (AKA Gancanagh) are—three brunettes and a blond. The blond was Sasha, then there was Jake, Peter, and Randy. I had a feeling they had chosen the names for themse
lves. I mean, Gancanaghs named Peter and Randy? Come on, that was a step away from being a joke. But they weren't laughing now. The men shuddered as they tried to recall how they had ended up in that apartment.
“This guy hired us for a private show,” it was Sasha who finally spoke. “He said it was for his best friend's bachelorette party.”
“The same man met us downstairs and brought us up here,” Peter said.
“What did this man look like?” Tiernan asked.
“Blond. Curls like a cherub. He looked . . . I don't know, mischievous. Not dangerous.” Peter looked at the others, and they nodded. “Naughty definitely, but he didn't set off alarm bells.”
“Is this the man?” Drostan held his phone up to the Gancanaghs. On the screen was a picture of the sketch of Varcan.
“That's him,” Jake said, and they all cringed away from the phone.
Drostan and I shared a grim look.
“I guess we don't need to bother with the security footage,” Lance muttered.
“What happened when you got here?” Daxon prompted the Gancanaghs.
“We walked in and there were all these humans sitting in the living room, on the couches and floor, just staring ahead of themselves as if they were in a trance,” Jake said. “And then there were these other guys, sort of standing off to the side, watching the humans. It was fucking weird.”
“Yeah, but then the blond guy said something like, 'It's time for the fun to begin.' Something like that.” Randy frowned as he tried to remember.
“No, he asked if they were ready for the fun to begin,” Sasha corrected him.
“That's it!” Randy said. “As soon as he said that, the humans focused on us and smiled. It started to look more normal.”
“Yeah, so we set up our music and started dancing,” Jake added. “They were loving it, but those other guys just stood to the side with these bland expressions on their faces. I figured they were security or something.”
“Then the whispering started,” Peter said in a grave tone.
The Gancanaghs shuddered again.
“Whispering?” Raza asked. “Can you be more specific?”
“We were dancing, doing our thing. But in my head, I heard whispers,” Randy explained. “I couldn't understand them at first. Almost like they were far away or in another language. But then they became clear.”
“What were the whispers saying?” I asked.
“They were sort of egging me on?” Jake said it as a question and looked at the others for confirmation.
“Yeah, it was like a buddy encouraging me.” Peter nodded.
“Encouraging you to do what?” I asked.
“To have sex,” Jake said simply.
“Did you need encouragement?” Extinguisher John Teagan asked with a bit of shock.
“I wouldn't normally,” Sasha answered. “But these whispers wanted me to use my magic on the humans. To bind them to me and make them love me. We don't do that sort of thing anymore.” He looked from the extinguishers to Tiernan and me—his King and Queen. “You have to believe us, Your Majesties, we never break the truce.”
“We believe you,” Tiernan said. “You were enchanted. We're just trying to figure out how you were enchanted and why.”
The Gancanaghs relaxed but shared an intense look.
“It's hard to explain, Your Majesty,” Sasha said. “The whispers sank into my mind and they became too hard to resist. It wasn't fairy magic, I'm sure of that.”
“No, those guys weren't fairies,” Jake agreed. “But I have no fucking idea what they were.”
“Fucking aliens,” Extinguisher Brad Murdock whispered.
It was becoming our motto.
“The humans were touching us as if they wanted to be enchanted,” Peter went on. “It was impossible to resist them. Then my magic rose and the next thing I knew, I was having sex with several of them.”
“And it didn't stop.” Jake swallowed roughly before continuing. “I don't know how long we've been here, but we've been fucking until we pass out, only stopping when we had to use the bathroom.”
“Or when they brought us food,” Sasha added. “Every day, they bring us pizza and water.” He waved a hand at the discarded boxes. “And they'd . . .” Sasha blinked. “They did something else.”
“They wiped our balls,” Jake whispered.
“They what?” Daxon asked as the rest of us gaped at the Gancanagh.
“Yes, that's it!” Sasha declared. “I'd be fucking someone, and I'd feel something rub me, cleaning me from balls to asshole.”
A memory of Varcan surfaced, of him telling me about the preputial gland of male Gancanagh—located right below the testicles. “It was your musk,” I said in revelation. “They were harvesting your musk.”
The Gancanaghs gaped at me and then each other.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Sasha murmured. “We produce musk when we're aroused and even more during sex.”
“And it's excreted just behind our balls,” Jake added. “Fuck! They were stealing our musk?”
“How did you know that?” Raza lifted a brow at me.
“Varcan told me about it, that Gancanagh musk is the main ingredient in Dark Kiss and how it's harvested from the genitals.”
“What?” Jake gaped at me.
“These men, the ones who did this to you, have been using your musk to make a magical drug called Dark Kiss,” I explained. “It's an aphrodisiac with a kick of obsessive love.”
“This was a fucking, musk farm,” Daxon declared.
“Literally,” Extinguisher Rick Murdock muttered.
“They were stealing our juju?” Peter asked with wide eyes. “Our love juice?”
“I'm afraid so,” I said gently.
“Who wants burgers?” Ainsley asked brightly as he walked into the apartment with Felix.
Peter jumped to his feet and ran into the bathroom to throw up.
“Okay. Ainsley drawled in confusion. “I can get Chinese if you prefer.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“I don't like this,” Daxon muttered.
We were sitting in the living room of the apartment, finishing up the hamburgers I'd sent Ainsley to fetch more of. The Gancanaghs had been driven home, and Killian was back with us. He hadn't found any promising images from the Gancanaghs' homes but hopefully, that wouldn't matter.
Conri, Gradh, and the hunters had come back with Killian and were helping with the stakeout. Raza and Tiernan had called in their guards as well. We had people circling the apartment building, posted in the lobby (the security guard was sleeping in his break room), and waiting in the apartment with us. Why the overkill? Because we knew Varcan would be visiting the apartment, and we even knew when.
The pizza boxes littering the living room had all come from the same place, Garibaldi's Pizza, about a five-minute walk from the apartment. And they were all purchased at the same time every day—six o'clock. Same type of pizza even. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Varcan had a standing order. He had to come by every day to feed his studs and harvest their musk, and it looked as if he preferred to do it in the evening, after they'd worked up a good secretion. Gross but true.
“We've covered all our bases,” Killian said. “We'll be fine.”
“I'd feel better about this if we could have warded the apartment,” Daxon muttered.
“I would too,” I agreed. “But a ward to prevent them from popping away would also prevent them from entering.”
“Maybe you should wait downstairs, Seren.”
“Daxon, I'm going to be fine.” I stuck a fry in my mouth and glanced at my cellphone. “We've got ten minutes before he picks up the pizza. Why don't we go over the plan?”
“We wait for them to come in, subdue them with non-fire magic, and kill them,” Daxon grumbled.
“Well, there's more to it than that, but yes.”
We weren't messing around with Varcan. At this point, we didn't care about answers as much as stopping him. We wanted him d
ead; we could figure everything out later, through an autopsy of his corpse if we had to. Sure, we're the good guys, and we usually follow the rules, but as far as the Councils were concerned, these guys weren't part of the truce and were hurting our people. That made them fair game. Maybe we'd keep one of them alive for torturing—I mean, questioning—but it wouldn't be Varcan.
We spent the next ten minutes clearing the trash and preparing for our fight. Gradh, Felix, Nightblade, two of his hunters, Lance Sloane, and two of his extinguishers were with us. The rest were outside at their posts. The apartment wasn't crowded, but the fighting would be in close quarters, especially if Varcan brought his minions.
