Chapter 48
48
So this was what it was to be a cog in an army, a mere soldier. Willow had taken to ordering people about like a mermaid took to water. A mermaid with pretty blue hair and blue, swirly patterned arms. Cyn had been told to stay at the back, so here she stayed.
It had taken a day to get up here in relays, with the wing-soldiers flying people up in stages through the bigger stairwells. Half this force was winged, half foot. Mads was with them this time purely because Willow needed his wings. Rutger had been left behind because he was too heavy. He’d told her of his theory that Willow was not letting both her and Mads be with her if there was too much danger. That made sense because those two were the people from Worshipper Quarter who were already thought of as the bosses.
Not really democratic, but few in this beaster horde seemed willing to lead.
She wasn’t even sure Mads wanted to do much more than follow Willow about.
They’d spent a few hours to get organized here, in what must have been a childcare facility.
The chair she sat on was orange plastic and made for a ten-year-old, but it’d taken her weight. It amused her to sit on a silly chair.
Thank whoever was above, there were no kids lying dead in here. Little skeletons would’ve slain her, unhinged her sanity, cracked to pieces what was left of her niceness. She was already in love with death too much—the death of her enemies.
While they ascended, the falling people had stopped going over the edge. The drone was still going to be sent up. Seeing what happened up Top—that idea had sucked them in. Nothing was stopping this.
The beaster drone operator, a male foot-soldier, was up at the front, testing the flight of the dark blue drone. The bright moonlight outlining the silhouette of the beaster made her squint; she was that accustomed to seeing in the dark.
She held her hand up to shadow her eyes, and found Vargr sauntering back, his wing tips trailing through the leftover toys and the white sheets of paper with crayon drawings that lay on the floor. Part of the left wall still held six or seven more of those drawings thumbtacked to a corkboard.
A mobile of cute plastic animals spun idly over a cot, stirred by the breeze coming in the window, and Lego was scattered over a rug nearby. Not even tough beasters dared to walk there.
Maura had really wanted to come, and Cyn had overheard her pleading with Willow. When she’d been refused, she’d told Willow she was going to inject herself with nanites. That was a startling idea, if obvious in hindsight.
Why not? If a human could say yes, why not? It would give them the beaster ability to resist the Lure, and strength, and whatever else those nanites could give.
She’d thought Willow would say yes.
But she hadn’t. Maura wasn’t even sure which nanites she would choose.
“You think about this some more. We don’t yet know what we are. Wait until we’ve at least checked through the papers in Big Daddy before you decide. You should know what you’re heading for.”
As always, what Willow had said was sensible. For now, Maura was safe with being bondmated.
“Ready?” Vargr said, waking her from her thoughts. “Happy with how you can do whatever it is you do with the Lure?”
“I’m good. Practiced and practiced, yeah.” Cyn cracked her knuckles then let her hand rest on the gun where it was holstered beside her leg. She had her golden nemesis gun back again. She really wanted to give it a name, but nothing had come to her that seemed right. Yet.
Ghoul fucker-upper just wasn’t that catchy. A pretty gun needed a pretty name.
She was very good with the Lure, maybe better at weaving it than before, now she was whole. Whole apart from that limp. Willow had completed a check and no fragments remained. Neurological, Vincent had suggested.
Memory pain even.
She’d never heard of those.
“You?” she asked Vargr.
“Anything comes for you. It’s dead.” He clicked his tongue and winked.
“Thank you, Mister Bodyguard.”
He ruffled her hair then turned to look outward, the same as she was doing, standing at ease by her side. Her bodyguard, Willow had named him. She smiled, curious at her own reactions, amused even. Just a touch from one of her guys brought that happy glow.
It didn’t last long.
She leaned forward, her hands clasped between her knees, glowering at that long window section, agitated because she wanted everything to happen, now . Violence might be coming. She’d swear she could sense it. If any stinkers leaped through those windows, she wanted to shoot them before Vargr, before anyone.
The buck of her gun in her hand, the crackle as the bolt electrocuted the air, the spray as it hit bad things…
Yes.
She was the official Slayer of the Lure also. If need be. Not that it was likely a Ghoul Lord would pay a visit. The last time it had been because she’d provoked one, she figured. She was fairly sure it’d been the same one she’d cut. It’d felt the same, inside its head. If offered a second chance at one, she’d cut off another damn tentacle.
“You know you’re in need of fucking? It’s been too long.” Vargr broke her vicious reverie.
“What? No, I didn’t know, but this is not the time. How can you tell?”
As if she had a clock on her forehead.
He spread his legs in that arrogant male way, sucked on his cheek, thinking.
“Scent? Pheromones, I don’t really know but I’m right. Swallowed come may not last as long as proper fucking.” He looked down at her, and she definitely detected a smug expression. “Of all the things that could go wrong, you succumbing to the Lure is one of the worst. I spoke to her. Willow is delaying until we do this.”
Cyn buried her face in her hands, swept them up and flipped back her hair, exasperated. “I’m okay, I swear.”
“You’re not. Come on.”
“They’ll all be watching, listening, and it’s nighttime when I’m most resistant. No.” She folded her arms and prepared to sit this out. “I’m fine.” She was expert enough with the Lure to be able to fend it off, if, if something happened.
Vargr sighed, swiveled to stare her down. He took one stride and scooped her up and flung her over his shoulder, then he marched for the exit.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Given a choice of screaming, beating his brains in with her pistol butt, or doing nothing… she chose nothing. Apart from muttering, “Asshole.”
That only made him chuckle and smack her butt, hard.
His wings opened, fluttered down, covering her head. She blew a feather off her face and thought about plucking a few. He probably wouldn’t like that.
They went out the rear door into a hallway and down to the next door, which Vargr kicked open. An office, from what she could tell upside down. “This won’t take long.”
She chortled, recognizing the implied self-insult in a second. “Yeah?” Then she kicked her legs, reminding him to put her down.
“Brat.” He deposited her on her feet, spun her and bent her over a desk, yanking down the panties and leggings in one go. She’d worn those instead of jeans, since black was good camo at night. All it’d done was make it easier for Vargr to strip her.
“Fuck! Hey.”
She inhaled to yell another word or two, and that breath seized in her throat, because…
Already, he was probing her slit, sliding his fingers up her, to her clit, circling it, returning to her entrance, slip, slide. Two went inside without so much as an excuse me . Her attempt to stand made him shove her back down with a palm on the small of her back.
Oh, force. It blanked her brain, made her sink into the dominance. Made her squirm on his fingers, and her wetness leak.
Liking it so much made it hard to resist, even when she should, just because she had a thing for making her males work for it before they got to fuck her.
He fingered her, penetrated her with them, screwed his wet thumb into her other hole, and she found she’d collapsed on the desk and was wriggling her butt like a filthy whore who loved sex. And who wouldn’t? She was spreading her legs, wide, even as he removed his hand.
His cock arrived there next, and he thrust into her almost full length, anchoring her to the desk as if he’d nailed her there.
She puffed out a long “Ffffff…” Not quite finishing the obscenity as that’d felt so damn good.
Oh god, nailing. More. Of the nailing. She groaned, felt her pussy clamp in, pulsing where it surrounded his cock.
“You called me an asshole.” He bit her upper back in a few places, hauled her head back by grasping her hair. “Next time, it will be your asshole. That octopus on your butt insists I fuck you there. I’d do it now…” He groaned. “But I’d never get in, would I? You’re so fucking tight.”
No time or she’d welcome him, well, after she ran around and teased him.
“’Cause you’re too fucking big,” she protested to the desk, her eyes closing because she needed to feel him, all of this rather large cock as it squeezed into her, shoving aside her flesh. He rammed into her, rocking the flimsy desk, shifting the papers left on it beneath her body and arms as she sought a handhold. Another five or ten slams into her that seesawed her between pain and pleasure because he’d done this so suddenly.
Gasping, she found the edge of the desk to hold onto.
Because she needed that. Something to hold, as he fucked her, and she cursed him as the force of it drummed into her that he was the one taking, making her, making her fucking enjoy it, despite her protests. And she might’ve struggled more and escaped to be pinned against the wall, gagged with a belt, or her wrists tied, and that would be the best.
But, no time, no fucking time, she thought, as he jammed himself in, rammed into her cunt, deep, screwed her, until she could hear the sounds of her arousal, feel it on her thighs.
The desk tilted onto its edge, his fingers dug in and bruised, then he grabbed both hips, opened her legs wider with his thighs, and drove himself in as if she wasn’t made of flesh. The last ten or so spears up inside she took, moaning, hanging on to the desk as if it was the last thing keeping her afloat.
So close to coming, so close, with her clit sliding, rubbing, that magical ride of cock, the tunneling, the expanding pressure . The obliteration of an orgasm swelled, and he was opening her even more, kicking her feet apart until she thought she might split. He stuck his thumb back into her asshole and used it to hold her in place for the last few huge, desk-jarring… fucks.
When he came, he almost launched her into that beautiful mindless state, but she hung there, not quite climaxing as he pumped inside her what she needed.
By the time she’d settled in her panting, though her heartbeat still bashed at her chest, she was smiling to herself. He and Rutger were her cures, the Holders of the Sacred Cum, to prevent the Lure taking her.
Luckily, there were paper towels and a cloth in here. They cleaned up, Vargr even kneeling to wipe between her legs… and bite her thighs until she tried to drag his mouth to her.
“No.” He stood and helped pull up her underwear and leggings then kissed her once, slowly, passionately. “Let’s go.”
She gave an exasperated sigh then followed, hand in his hand, feeling like a naughty pupil returning to the classroom.