Chapter 3 #2
I can’t fucking move. Every one of my muscles is locked in place. It’s like being turned to stone. I can breathe, I think, but it’s not doing anything for me. Around me, there’s a rough animal panic.
I just wanted to fuck her. Over and over and over again. The moment my cock was inside her I felt compelled to rut. There was no thought inside my head, no shred of real being. I was like a…
“It’s not his fault,” I hear her saying. “He was possessed. Not everything dead out here has a body to itself. We’ll have to get it out before he regains the ability to move.”
“How do we do that?”
“You don’t do that. I do that.”
I can feel something inside me vibrating with rage.
It wants to keep itself in me. It liked the way my body felt.
I can feel it extending into me, running through my blood.
I can feel it putting out thorns that will make it stick inside me.
There’s nothing I can do about this. I am paralyzed like an insect caught by a wasp. Something has been laid inside me.
She felt so good at first. I thought I was making love so well. She was sore, but she wanted it, didn’t she? The way she shuddered and moaned when I told her she was a good girl for taking my cock even though she had already been mated…
I am getting distracted from my possession by the memories of the first sex I ever had. It felt so fucking good to have her wrapped around me. She was tight and hot and somehow she was wetter than I thought she’d ever be.
“Boy gets his first sex and also has to have his first exorcism on the same night,” Skor says.
“It’s going to hurt,” Tabby replies. “We’re going to need some herbs that aren’t within the protective circle. We’ll have to go out and get them.”
“You’re not going out,” Krall says.
“I have to go out. I’m the only one capable of protecting myself. If I don’t go out now, it will be harder to get the thing out of him.”
“You’re not going out. I don’t care if he dies. You’re more important.”
“He won’t die,” she says. “He’ll just be very possessed. Just let me go. I think I can see some Henswort over there. All I need to do is just dart out and grab a little, and then I can solve this problem…”
“Move outside this fire, and I will whip you so painfully you never consider disobeying me ever again,” he says.
He is ready to sacrifice me for her, and I am in full agreement.
This pretty redheaded female is worth more than any of us, and her freshly ovulated eggs will be marinating in my seed.
I could die right now and have achieved my life’s aims.
Tabby
I’m sore. I’m exhausted. I need a nap. And I have to save this idiot boy who got himself possessed and then fucked me to the point of madness. Then there’s the other two who won’t let me nip out for a bit to get some materials to look after their brother.
I need a distraction, that’s all.
Fortunately the unholy night has distractions in abundance.
“Hey, boys.”
A female rises from the dark with voluptuous breasts. It would be more appealing, or perhaps less if there were not four sets of them running from her breastbone all the way down her torso.
She stands eight feet tall. Her hair is writhing snakes that hiss as they orient themselves toward the fire and my mates. She is a wraith of pure vengeance and of desire.
I figure she’s going to keep them busy.
I back away slowly as the two able to do so stare transfixed. If they do it long enough, they’ll turn to stone. But I figure a few minutes won’t hurt.
I slip back out of the circle and make for the bushes. If I had known I’d have any interest in saving my mates, I would have collected these earlier. I have a whole pouch of remedies and such back at the fire, but I didn’t count on possession.
I snip a few florets off the bush and turn around to go back to camp.
Unfortunately camp has disappeared. I’d panic, but I’ve seen the world swim before my eyes more than once.
This is a trick of shades and shadows who hope I will become disoriented and wander into the jaws of one of their terrible ilk.
I extend my hand and summon a little ball of light in the very center.
It throws a pleasant glow in all directions, warming the palm of my hand and illuminating the ground around me.
With this light, I find my way back to the sigils that are flaming in the night, working with all their might to keep the darkness back.
Skor and Krall have not looked away from the being all this time.
They’re not able to. They’re locked. Transfixed.
If I left them there for the rest of the night, in the morning they wouldn’t be men at all.
They’d be two stone statues ripe for erosion.
Before that can happen, I grab both Skor and Krall by the shoulders and turn them away from the Medusa.
“Thanks for looking after them,” I say. “But I can’t let you do that. They’re my mates.”
She lets out a cry of rage. “I almost had them!” she hisses. “You should have left them to me. They deserve to be rock like the mountain. They are made of the same stuff.”
“Have a day off,” I suggest to her. “These men, silly as they are, are under my protection.”
“Waste of life,” she hisses, her tongue forked and flickering with impotent rage.
“Very possibly,” I agree, dropping the leaves into a pot over the fire. “But I’d like to see what happens with them.”
“Give them up to me. Free yourself. Do not let their seeds take root in your belly. You were made for more than this, Tabitha.”
She speaks my name, and something sparks inside me. I am confused for a brief second as to how she knows my name, but a slow horror soon creeps over me as the most likely answer occurs to me.
I do not want to look at her too keenly. I do not want to see confirmation of my worst nightmare. The things that come from the shadows are manifestations of all who have been lost to the dark over the years. They are not just our tormentors, they are our loved ones as well.
“Leave me be,” I say, lowering my eyes. “This night is haunted enough.”
“You’ll regret not giving them over,” she hisses. “They’ll breed you until there’s nothing left.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I quip back, focusing my attention on the pot. The liquid is starting to leach the important elements from the leaves. I add a little something from my pouch, and murmur a few words. As I do my work, the storm of horrors seems to settle outside the circle.
I hear Krall and Skor start to stir as their limited paralysis slides away.
“I saw something I’ll never be able to explain,” Krall says. “I knew there were vampires here. I did not suspect that there were so many other horrors. What was she, Tabby? What was that creature with all her… and the…”
I look over at him. His eyes are wide, and the expression changes his features in quite an interesting way. He doesn’t seem quite as intimidating at the moment.
“Oh, the dark Medusa? Yes. We’ve all seen the dark Medusa. She tends to appear when a female is suffering in some way,” I say, letting my tone be pointed. “It’s best to treat ladies well when she walks the land.”
In the distance, we all hear a hissing rattle. She has retreated to the deep shadows, but that does not mean she is entirely gone. She could surge back in an instant and strike if the conditions were right.
“What are you doing?” Skor asks the question, coming to stand by my shoulder. He seems interested in what I am doing, and entirely unconcerned about what just almost happened to him. Perhaps he is brave. Maybe he’s stupid.
“Making a little potion,” I say. “For the boy.”
I like calling him the boy. It makes me feel more powerful, even though I am the youngest here, and of course the weakest female. They can take me physically, but my knowledge and expertise makes me strong.
“I thought you needed ingredients outside the circle to make that,” he says.
I don’t reply. I can feel his eyes boring into the back of my head. He might not be pleased with my disobedience, but it is going to ensure that his brother does not end his days in a possessed state.
When the potion is ready, I decant it into a tin cup they brought with them, and swirl it so it cools as swiftly as possible.
I go to the youngest of my mates, tip his head up, and pour it between his lips. “Drink this,” I say as I do. “It will set you free.”
“What are you doing?” Krall snaps the question, as if he suddenly remembered that he thinks he is supposed to be in charge and therefore has to impose himself on every situation.
“The same thing I was doing when Skor asked,” I reply, more than a little snark in my voice. “Let me do this. You three are out of your depth and in more danger than you understand.”
While I am answering silly questions, the potion is doing its work. Thorn shakes, shudders, and bursts into tears as the demon leaves him. A dark cloud funnels out of his mouth and makes its way up into the sky above.
“I’m so sorry!” he says to me, his eyes immediately wet with remorse. “I was so cruel to you. I was…”
“Hold him down!” I shout to the other two. “He’s going to run!”
Sure enough, Thorn was scrambling to his feet while making apology after apology. He remembers all he did, and he cannot reconcile it with what he needs to believe about himself. This is the way true madness lies, and the truly mad flee into the dark night in the attempt to cleanse themselves.
“Get a grip on yourself,” Krall says, demonstrating all the sympathy of a rock as Thorn thrashes around with the urge to sacrifice himself to the wilds.
“You were taken over,” I explain. “It happens when people come out here unshielded thinking that the worst thing that can happen to them is a vampire sinking its fangs in. We would be lucky to encounter vampires out here.”
“This place is haunted,” Krall says. “It’s cursed. It’s the worst place I have ever been.”
“And yet I call it home.” I smile sweetly, trying not to giggle.
“Tomorrow, we will leave,” Krall says. “I am taking you from these wilds, these hills, these places where shades and shadows come alive with malevolent force. You are going to come with us to a place where civilized people live. You are going to leave all this darkness behind.”
“I can’t,” I say.
“Of course you can. You are our mate, and you will do as we say. As I say,” he corrects himself.
He’s extra gruff and dominant when he’s scared. I thought he might be learning some respect for me, but all that is really happening is he is thinking he has the right to boss me about and tell me how to behave. Nothing changes the base, brute nature of a man, I realize.
“Drop the sigils and let me consume them.” The rattle comes from the darkness.
Medusa is still out there, ready to do her dark work.
She would claim their souls and turn their bodies to rock and there would be peace in these hills for a time until my father’s lure of pure shifter flesh to breed bought in new foolhardy brave wolves ready to sacrifice themselves for so much as a chance to breed.
“No,” I whisper to the evil.
“Foolish girl,” the voice returns, thin and harsh and full of warning. “You will suffer for your tenderness.”