Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (35 page)

upper-right hand had been. Cerise took advantage of the distraction to leap

lightly onto its back, planting both of her daggers into its heavily muscled neck.

They didn’t penetrate very far, but there was a spray of black ichor from the

cuts.

I lunged forward, and brought Grinder down on its knee. The demon’s

flesh was tough as stone and its bones were even harder, but the blow

penetrated halfway through before my blade stuck.

A flailing paw backhanded me across the enclosure, and I bounced off

the containment dome. Lighting seared my back, and my cloak caught fire. But I

was only stunned for a moment.

A snatch of chanted Greek and a flash of golden light announced

Avilla’s entry into the fray. The oppressive pressure of the temple wards

vanished.

“Odin’s merciless gaze,” Holger breathed. “Quickly brothers, bring

the fifth vessel!”

I sprang back to my feet, reaching with force magic, and Grinder’s hilt

smacked into my palm. Cerise was back on the ground, frantically dodging

around the demon as it stumbled awkwardly in circles trying to get a grip on

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her. She dived over its tail and rolled gracefully under a clawed hand, her

knives leaving thin trails of blood on the monster’s hide as she moved.

I raised my weapon, and sent a jet of violet plasma into its face.

It roared. Two misshapen hands rose to cover its eyes, too late to

save them from the flames. I rushed in and brought Grinder down on its

damaged knee again, and this time the blade sheered clear through.

The demon toppled forward, nearly crushing Cerise as it crashed to

the ground. She darted out from under it and jumped onto its back as it fell. Her

gleaming daggers plunged into its hide where a man would have kept his

kidneys.

I brought Grinder down again, this time on the demon’s neck. Bone,

flesh and the stone floor beneath were all gouged away in an instant. The

demon’s head rolled across the floor, and its body gave one final convulsion

and went still.

But the priests had been busy, carrying a heavy iron vessel across the

room and raising it to press the mouth of the container against the side of the

dome. As the first demon fell the vessel’s lead stopper fell off, and a foul-

smelling black mist poured into the space where we were trapped.

Cerise’s eyes narrowed. “No body? Fuck. Corruption demon. How

kill?”

I frowned. “Fire, maybe?”

Avilla stepped up beside me. “A dirt monster?” She asked, amused.

“I think I can handle this one. Με την ευλογία της Εστίας, θα σας καθαρίσω!”

A golden glow lit the room, and the demon disintegrated with a shriek

like an overheated tea kettle.

Cerise gazed at her admiringly. “Mine!”

“Yeah, good job Avilla,” I said with a smile. But if the demon could

get in that way…

I put a blast of plasma into the mouth of the iron vessel. It burned

through the last remnants of the demon and filled the metal container, heating it

cherry-red in seconds. The priests holding it screamed and stumbled back,

dropping it in the process. Sadly the vessel rolled away, and the opening in the

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containment field closed almost instantly.

Holger was staring at us, all traces of his former blasé demeanor

gone.

“Who are you people?” He demanded. “No mortal wizard has such

strength, but no familiar or bound spirit could enter the circle. Where are you

getting all this power?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seriously think I’m going to explain,

do you? Step back, girls, this is going to be messy.”

I strode to the edge of the barrier, and brought Grinder down on the

floor.

The enchanted stone offered no more resistance than the body of the

demon I’d just hacked apart. Grinder had no point, but it could cut anything.

Down, across and around in a wide arc, coming up under the carved symbols

of the circle.

I could hear Holger chanting something, but I ignored it. This was

working. My blade came up through the floor, chewing the complex symbols of

the diagram to bits in a storm of broken stone. The magic of the circle

wavered, and collapsed in a shower of sparks. Excellent. I looked up

triumphantly just as Holger leveled his spear, and a bolt of lightning leaped

from the tip to slam into my chest.

Being electrocuted was really starting to get old.

A second bolt struck me before I could recover, and then a third.

There was shouting and screaming, and a smell of bacon and burnt hair filled

the room. Wait, was that me? Faces loomed over me, spears frantically

stabbing, but physical blows couldn’t reach me.

Enough awareness returned for me to sit up.

A confused melee filled the basement. Cerise dodged through the

crowd of priests and soldiers, stabbing with her knives while her tail and hair

tripped and strangled her opponents. Avilla was hiding in a corner, behind a

dazed-looking soldier who was clumsily trying to defend her from a pair of

priests. Two more priests were chanting over their spears and trying to stab

me, and not having much luck. Their blows damaged the fabric of my shield

spell, draining off huge gouts of magic with every hit, but even together they

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were barely outpacing my amulet’s recharge rate. If they’d had a few hours to

work at it they might have gotten through, but that wasn’t going to happen.

I’d lost Grinder again, but a simple force blade cut them both in half.

“The wizard lives!” Someone shouted. “Run for your lives!”

“No!” Holger called. “Have faith, broth-urk!”

Cerise carved his throat out. The men around her all stepped back in

shock, and she paused to lick the blood off the blade.

“Murdered by my hand, darkness claim your soul,” she crooned.

“Tasty priest. Next?”

They ran.

Cerise cut down one more fleeing priest, and then pulled back and

turned towards Avilla just in time to see her behead her former guardian with

her enchanted butcher knife. I threw a couple of force blades into the remaining

priests, but let the soldiers go.

Avilla released her spell, and the wards pressed down on us again.

But they were noticeably weaker than before. Maybe the deaths of most of the

priests had eroded them?

Avilla was weaker too. She’d burned through a lot of the power I’d

given her, but a glance reassured me she wasn’t in any danger. I was a bit beat

up, but I’d be healed in an hour. Cerise, however…

She tangled her hand in Avilla’s hair, and kissed her thoroughly.

Avilla sagged bonelessly into her arms, surrendering instantly to the moment.

They were both so beautiful I couldn’t help but stare.

Cerise was draining Avilla’s energy.

I shook my head, and brushed away the strands of glamor that were

trying to enthrall me. Cerise was more demon than human now, and they’d both

been worried about her self-control even before this happened. She might not

be able to stop.

Avilla certainly wasn’t going to muster the will to stop her. The

curvaceous blonde moaned raggedly into the kiss when Cerise’s tail probed up

under her skirt. A moment later I heard cloth ripping, and a scrap of fabric

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fluttered to the floor.

I stepped closer, and put my hands on their shoulders.

“Cerise?” I said. “I hate to interrupt, but there’s an army of frost

giants we have to escape from.”

She broke the kiss, and looked up at me dazedly.

“Daniel?”

Her eyes found mine, hugely dilated and full of hunger. I lost myself in

their depths. She pressed her sleek curves against me, her firm breasts pressed

against my chest. The scent of her desire made my head spin. What was I

doing?

“Daniel,” she purred. Her arms rose to twine about my neck, and she

pulled me down to meet her lips.

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Chapter 15

I was lost in an embrace I had no desire to escape. Thrusting

endlessly into her slick heat. Trapped by the inhuman strength of the smooth,

sleek limbs wrapped around me. My life force poured out of me like a river,

an endless banquet that my lover eagerly devoured.

I vaguely remembered being on the bottom at first. A helpless victim,

unable to do anything but thrust and give and explode in one climax after

another. But that had been a long time ago. As she’d drained me her hunger had

gradually become less frantic, her control dissolving into rapturous bliss. At

some point her ruthless plundering of my energy had become my equally

ruthless conquest of her eager young body.

There was a hand on my back. A female voice, chanting words I

couldn’t understand. I wiped the sweat from my brow, and slowed.

“Avilla?”

“Daniel! Goodness, I was starting to wonder if you were coming

back. My counterspell is working, then?”

Cerise ground herself against me. Her hot core milked at me, what felt

like a dozen silken fingers stroking and squeezing my length. I groaned, and

found myself thrusting harder again. Fuck, I was about to…

I erupted inside her, for what felt like the hundredth time. She matched

me with a delighted wail, and I nearly lost myself again. She was so beautiful.

Her dizzying scent, her breathy moans, the play of smooth muscle under silken

skin as she writhed against me. Her face, so expressive and so utterly lost in

the ecstasy of our shared pleasure. She was intoxicating.

“Bind her quickly, Daniel,” Avilla breathed in my ear. Her

magnificent breasts pressed into my back, and only the fact that she was still

clothed let me resist the fantasy that immediately presented itself.

Bind Cerise?

The fog cleared a little, and I really looked at my lover. Yes, she was

beautiful, but there was precious little humanity left in her. The cute little horns

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that had sprouted from her forehead were much bigger now, curling around her

temples before rising into vertical points. Her eyes were pools of absolute

darkness, windows into a soul overflowing with demonic power. Her skin was

a flawless expanse of ivory that glowed with a hypnotic inner light, and her

parted lips revealed prominent fangs amid a mouth full of disturbingly sharp

teeth.

I had vague memories of her biting me, drinking my blood, ripping a

chunk of flesh from my shoulder and devouring it while she held me down and

savagely fucked me. No, she had long since lost any semblance of self-control.

Was there even anything left of Cerise in there? Or was this beauty

just a mindless amalgamation of the demons she’d drained?

Her eyes drifted open, and she looked up at me adoringly.

“Fuck me more, Daniel,” she purred. “Fuck me forever.”

Something shifted inside her, and then what felt like dozens of slick

tongues were slithering around my organ. I tried to pull away, but her strong

legs drew me easily back in.

“Focus, Daniel!” Avilla insisted.

Cerise’s gaze drifted past me, and her eyes lit up with delight.

“Honeydew!”

Cerise reached up to grasp her arms, trapping her in her position

pressed against my back, and Avilla squeaked in surprise. Then she moaned

raggedly into my ear.

“Oh, goddess! Her tail! I can’t… no, not there! Hurry, Daniel! She…

she knows all my spots…”

Avilla shuddered, and bit my shoulder. Cerise gave me a smug look.

“My Honeydew.”

I nodded. “Your Honeydew.”

I thrust, and lit up every pleasure sensor in her finely tuned body with

my flesh magic.

Her whole body clenched convulsively. Her eyes rolled back, and I

could feel the instant orgasm that shattered her thoughts.

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But the way Avilla writhed against my back made it clear that her tail

was running on autopilot, and I wasn’t getting any more help from that quarter.

The buxom witch was so easy Cerise could reduce her to dazed incoherence

with her fingers in moments, and that was without seductive demonic sex

powers. I was on my own now.

Only one option, then. I spun a binding around her, my meta-magical

sorcery easily translating the theory I’d read into practice.

“My Cerise,” I growled in her ear.

“Yes!” She agreed instantly, any thought of resistance long since

dissolved by the pleasures we’d shared. She was more lost than I’d been. Was

it even possible to bring her back?

“My brave, clever, loyal Cerise,” I murmured in her ear, punctuating

each statement with a thrust of my hips and another flash of blinding pleasure.

“Yes, yes, yes!” She wailed, climaxing again with each thrust. Her

magic embraced mine eagerly, happily accepting the compulsion. The huge

mass of stolen power she’d absorbed from me churned and shifted in response,