Asher: Dragon's Savior (12 page)

“How much merchandise did she take?” Asher was too busy calculating the amount of money that was left behind when Gideon asked his question. “I mean, you’re well stocked, and I’m assuming since the woman had no sense of money, Mystic or whatever her name is would have taken advantage of that.”

“She wrote it all down.” The sales page was handed to Gideon, and he handed it to Asher. There were things on the page she’d need for a spell, he supposed, but there were things on the list that he knew had nothing at all to do with whatever she was planning.

“She bought some candles. Six of them. Do they have any special properties?” The woman shook her head and told him they were just smelly ones. “And this…what is an ackron?”

Her cackle of a laugh had Asher smile. “Had to figure that one out myself. She never was any good at writing. Maybe if she took enough diamonds with her, she can find someone to teach her a thing or two. It’s apron. It’s the only thing on the list that is not accounted for. I had me four of them and now I only have three.” Asher asked her what was special about it. “Had a spell written on it. Not a real one, but a joke of a one. I had me a good laugh at it when I read it the first time. Asked you to gather this stuff up that would summon someone to you. Won’t work, but it’s got a lot to things on it that I sell. And yeah, before you ask, she got a few of them on it. I’m thinking she’s wanting herself a man and she thinks to lure him to her bed.”

“What did it say to have?” Asher was laughing with Gobi when she was still giggling. “It must be really good.”

“Oh it is. But only if you can read Latin.” Asher told her that he could. “Good.
Amphora vini Lorem gens naris lucernis et equis satis fune ligabis eum lamina si necesse sit.
”

Asher did laugh then. He turned to Gideon when he asked what it said. “Bottle of wine, sexy nighty, scented candles, pretty plate to serve on, and a rope to tie him up if need be. I’m thinking she’ll need a good strong rope to keep this person with her.”

When they finished the business with Helena, he purchased a few things for Caroline. Gobi even provided them with a picture she’d captured from the cameras, and also gave Asher one of the diamonds. He told her he’d return it, but he thought that Essie, with her new powers, could use it as a scribe.

As it turned out, Gobi knew who she was and had told him that she’d had her eye on a few things for a while now. He got the list of things that Caroline wanted as a gift to the witch, and told Gobi that if Caroline ever needed anything to send him the bill.

“That’s mighty generous of you.” Asher told Gobi that Caroline was a good friend and she nodded. “I might be able to…let me make a call for a minute. I want to check something.”

“Where do you suppose she got the gems?” Gideon told him he had no idea, and Asher thought of the chamber he’d visited with Essie. “I think she robbed the dead. I mean, the king and a few of his court were in the dining area when I was there with Essie. She might have went there when she needed the cash.”

“If that’s the case then she’s just broken her own spell.” Asher asked his brother what he meant. “There is a golden rule about keeping things the same. I don’t have a clue where it originated from, but I think people in sports sort of run with that one. You know, the same socks, the same bat, or whatever. Like you when you have a meeting with some clients…you wear the same tie.” Asher nodded.

“I think we all do it to some point.” Gideon nodded. “Okay, so she’s robbed from the dead and used it to purchase things for the ritual to kill a dragon. How is that breaking her spell?”

“Ah, but she didn’t just buy things for the ritual, now did she? She used it for her own personal gain. And that, my dear brother, is going to get us into the chamber easier than I thought.”

They looked up when Gobi laughed.

“You got yourself a right smart brother there, Mr. Asher.” Asher nodded, but before he could thank her, she continued. “I just summoned me a few answers for you. There’s been a rash of bodies turning up at the morgue, and a few of them have come up missing. I’m thinking that your witch is getting her coven back up. And if she’s looking for dragons, she’ll need thirteen of them.”

Asher knew that in the back of his mind, and it wasn’t until she asked him what the thirteen meant to him that he remembered Essie telling him that there had been thirteen tombs, but the body in one of them was actually crushed. He started to tell Gobi that when something else occurred to him.

“I was born thirteen months, thirteen days, thirteen hours, and thirteen minutes before my brother. And we were all the same down the line.” She nodded and started writing things down. Asking him what else. “There are twelve of us, so that—”

“Thirteen of us. Essie makes us thirteen.” Asher nodded when Gideon corrected him. When Gobi laughed, he looked at her. She handed him a sheet of paper with some words written on it.

“Go tell Caroline that you need her to put this together for you. She’ll know what it is. By damn, I wish I could be there when this happens. Thirteen of you. Damn, what a fine coven you have of your own. Do you…? No, I can see that you have no idea. That’s fine. She’ll know.” She laughed again, and he could see that she was really enjoying this. “I’m going to give you what you need to take to her.”

After about another hour of Gobi laughing and joking about how Caroline was the luckiest woman in the world and so on, Asher and Gideon left the Palace. He didn’t have a clue what was going on, but he was excited to know that someone thought they could win. Asher didn’t exactly have his doubts, but he was really worried. Every time he thought of the dream, he’d get chills. Because in his mind, he still saw Essie there.

Chapter 11

Screaming would get her nowhere, but she was thinking it might release some of the pressure that was building up. Helena watched the man she’d brought to replace Robarts and wanted to kill him again. It had exhausted her, bringing back two men in the same week, and this one was proving to be a total waste of her previous energy.

“You have to say it right or it’s not going to work.” He nodded at her and smiled. He’d been doing that since she’d woken him. “Say it again. This time make the words work for you, not against you.”

The grin was what she hated the most. What she wanted to know was how the hell was someone supposed to know a simpleton was going to wake when you rose the dead? Then there was the added fact that no matter how many times she’d told him to wear his robe in the chamber, he wanted to show up naked. Naked of all things.

His dick was hard all the time too. She’d been tempted on more than on occasion to walk up to him and have him fuck her. But she was afraid that she’d have to walk him through each step, and that wouldn’t be fun.

As he mumbled through the words again, she looked at him. Christ, she’d done well to pick a nice, healthy member. His body looked as if it had been sculpted from stone, and his bare chest, even of any hair, made her want to lick him. When he stood up and pressed his cock to her, she lay back on the table she was sitting on.

She wore nothing beneath her robe, and he had her exposed before she could think to tell him to be careful with it. His cock slammed deep inside of her, and she cried out with the pleasure of a dick so deep. He was thick, she’d known that, but he filled her like she’d never been filled before. Cupping her own breasts, she offered him one, and he sucked it hard enough that she was sure he was looking for something more. When he bit her, drawing blood, she cried out her release even as he pounded her harder.

A dick at her mouth made her open for it. She looked up to see one of the other men at her head, and took his cock into her. He wasn’t nearly as thick or long as the man between her thighs, but he was fucking her mouth like her pussy was being pounded.

Her breasts were exposed more, her robe pulled away. There were so many hands on her that she came three times before she realized that there were four more touching her. The men at her breasts, one at each of them, were holding their stiff cocks while they suckled. The dick in her mouth filled her throat even as the cock in her pussy released as well. Cum spread over her; hands were smoothing it over her skin like a lotion, a hot sticky cream.

They moved around her, each of them taking turns where the other had been. She felt glorious; her body felt worshiped as they fucked and sucked at her. Helena moaned when she was lifted up, then turned and bent over the table. The cock there, the one that had fucked her first, looked like a feast for her, and she took him into her mouth even as someone spread her legs and ate her from beneath. Then a cock entered her ass and she screamed out with the pain even as she was coming again and again.

The men changed, and her position on the table did as well. She was fucked hard sometimes and then gently the next. Her pussy was sore but felt good; her breasts were bruised but well loved. She lay there when they’d all come on her and inside of her, basking in the pure joy of so many releases. Looking up when a cock slowly entered her, she watched the first man fuck her again, his body swaying to the motion of the man at his ass.

She knew that they’d been pleasuring each other as they did her. Helena didn’t care so long as they never left her without a partner. The man at his ass lifted her legs up to the shoulders of the man in front of her, and she felt him go deeper still. It was a slow easy fuck that made her come twice, a soft climax that made her want more.

The cum on her breasts gave her hands something to slide with. She pinched her nipples hard as she enjoyed the men. When he grunted and leaned over her, he took her breast into his mouth as the second man fucked him hard enough to have her moved across the table. When he came, shouting out his release, both she and the man fucking her did as well. They both dropped on her, and Helena closed her eyes.

Helena had a great deal to do. But the soft afterglow of coming was making her so relaxed that she let sleep take her. She’d get up in a few minutes, she’d told herself, even as her body fell slowly into the abyss that was sleep. Yawning once, a man curled his body around hers, and she snuggled into it thinking that she might keep him if he did this every night. Maybe all of them.

It was dark in the chamber when she woke. Helena knew it was late because the fire had burned down to just a few embers…enough to keep the room tolerable but not warm. She was glad that someone had put her robe over her. Sitting up, she realized two things almost at once. She was alone in the big room, and someone was in the dining area.

“I told you to keep out of there.” Pulling her robe around her body, she moved across the room. “Just because it was a good fuck, it does not leave you to do as you—”

“Hello, Helena the Black.” She stared at the man standing there and staggered back a step. “Oh, you don’t want to leave me now. We’ve only just started talking again. Have you enjoyed…? Well, I guess you have been enjoying yourself. Those men, they fucked you over well?”

Ruben was standing there as if he’d not been dead these thousands of years. Swallowing three times before she could answer him, she looked at his body still lying in the chair. As he moved to it, she started to leave, but he snapped his fingers and she was bound to the wall.

“You’re dead.” He nodded and smiled at her. She saw the bug come from his mouth to his ear, and she shivered. Nothing about this was good; she knew this deep in her bones. “What are you doing here? I…I have been keeping you safe.”

“But not from Manchester. Oh, I know that he fucked you while I lay in here dying. I saw him coming deep within that pussy of yours while I tried to fight for life. Did you not care, Helena the Black, that your lover in here was being murdered?”

“He tried to blame me, but I had nothing to do with it.” Ruben moved toward her, and she could see that he wasn’t nearly as well-kempt as he’d looked when she’d first seen him. There were bones showing on his hands. His legs were bare from the holes in his pants that showed raw muscle where there should have been nothing but bones. “How are you here? I thought you long dead.”

“I’m well aware that I should be dust. But the mountain has kept me like this.” He turned right, then left, for her, and she remembered that he would preen whenever he could. “Do you not find me to be as sexy as I was? I assure you, if you keep fucking those men, I will be.”

“What do you mean?” But she knew. It was magic. The dead were fucking her, and she only just realized it. It mattered little that they were whole, unlike the man in front of her. They were using her up, her magic, by fucking the queen of their coven. “You’re making them do this.”

“Of course I am. And why not? I should like to be around for a long time. And you’re going to help me.” Another snap of his fingers brought her simpleton to her. He was hard again, his cock dripping at the tip like he’d been waiting and thinking of her. “He’s going to bring you over and over, and by the time you are drained, I will be whole.”

Her robe was opened, and no matter how hard she tried to keep her legs together, she couldn’t. Even as she shoved at the man with her feet, knocking him to the floor, two more men came in and held her legs open while he fucked her.

Ruben came to stand next to her and watch. “Do you not love the sight of a dick all wet with a woman’s cream? It makes the fucking easier. You’re going to come soon, and when you do, someone else will hold you while you are fucked again and again.”

“Please, don’t do this. I worshiped you. Did all your bidding.” He laughed at her and ran his fingers over the dick going in and out of her. “Ruben, please.”

The slap at her face had her screaming out her release. She came twice more before she could ask why he’d hit her. As her binding kept her to the wall, the men’s hands at her legs widened her more. Then Ruben was there; his dick, nearly rotted off, was at her entrance.

“My turn. And you will not call me Ruben again. I am King to you.” His cock slammed into her and she screamed.

Helena sat up on the dais and screamed again. A dream. It had been a dream. Just to be sure, she stood up and checked her body. There was still the cum on her, but none of it was fresh. The fire had died down but the room was cold now, her breath showing as she panted. Running to the dining chamber, she was relieved to see that nothing was out of place here. But as she moved toward the head, where Ruben was, she slowed her steps. Staring at him, she couldn’t figure out what it was until the bug went from his ear to near his mouth, and Ruben’s tongue came out and captured it, taking it into his mouth.

Trying to escape the horrific nightmare, she turned and ran. The wall seemed to come out of nowhere and she slammed against it, hitting her head and knocking herself out. She fell to the floor thinking that she’d made a terrible mistake, but had not a clue what it was.

~~~

Essie lay back on the grass. Magic was exhausting, she’d come to realize. Glancing over at Caroline, who had a huge smile on her face, she wondered how she felt. When she looked at her, Essie could see the line of exhaustion on her face.

“You’ll get stronger as you get more practice. Today was different because we had to make things so real.” She nodded, not sure what to say to what they’d done to Helena. “It was good that you knew so much. It helped us make her believe us.”

“You’re welcome, but I still don’t know how making her think Ruben is alive is going to help us. I mean, it’s fun and all, but to what end?” Caroline sat up, and so did Essie. The others were there, all six of the men and the dragons that belonged to them. They had formed a circle around them, her mostly, to add to their magic. When she realized that Caroline had not answered her, she looked at her again. “Are you okay?”

“Oh yes. I’ve not had this much fun in a very long time. But at the same time, I’m old, and it takes a lot out of a witch to do what will come naturally to you.” Before she could say anything, not even sure what to say, Caroline continued. “In answer to your question, having her think that someone is watching over her, even a dead man, is going to keep her energy level low. I mean, if you thought that every time you closed your eyes some man, a long dead man, was going to come to you and threaten you, what would you do? Not sleep. And she’s going to need her energy levels to be high to try and take you on.”

“Everyone has this confidence in me that I don’t feel. It’s kind of scary how…I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.” Caroline nodded and said nothing. “And you do that a lot. Like you think if you wait long enough I’ll get it. But I don’t. I’m just a person who just happens to have all this extra shit that I don’t have any idea how to use.”

“No, but you’re learning.” Asher came to sit behind her, and she leaned into his big body. It was both comforting and rejuvenating at the same time. She looked at Caroline when she laughed.

“You drive me nutty, did you know that?” Caroline laughed and lay back on the grass. All of them were a little on the nutty side, but she was getting used to it. Except for the witch. She thought…well, Essie wasn’t sure what she thought most of the time, but she did scare her a little.

“She’s just as afraid of you.” Looking over her shoulder at Asher when he spoke, she asked him how that was even possible. “Let me show you. No. It would be easier if you showed me. Think of the day you grew the tree in the yard. Do you remember it?”

“Yes. The ground told me to do it. They said that if I hadn’t helped it, it would have died the next time the man came to mow the yard. He hates trimming around the trees and such.” He laughed, and she glared at him. “Are you going to explain this or make fun of me?”

“Both. But for now, I’m going to explain. Okay, the tree would have died. Did the grounds tell you that the man hated trimming, or did something else?” She started to ask him where else she would have known that from when he told her to think. “You know where you got the information; just tell me.”

She looked at the tree in question. It was swaying back and forth, and she felt it calm her, the movement comforting like when Asher put his arms around her. Closing her eyes, she thought about the ground and the woman who had spoken to her. Suddenly, there she was, only this time she could actually see her.

“She’s here.” She felt Asher hold her tighter and knew that he was entering her mind to look too. “She’s…wow, she’s beautiful.”

The woman bowed and then smiled at her. Essie felt herself leave her body somehow, and found herself standing next to the woman. Asher was there as well, but he was sitting on the grass away from them.

“He’ll hear us but not be able to engage.” Essie nodded. “You have summoned me at a perfect time, Lady Esmerelda. I have a lesson for you.”

“I have enough to keep straight now, thanks. But I would like to know the answer to Asher’s question. How did I know?” The woman nodded and looked behind her. Essie did as well. The grass was there, then the trees. As the house came into view, so did a man on a lawn mower with a truck in the background. She watched as he mowed the lawn, running over some small flowers and a few saplings.

“You felt their loss, did you not?” Essie nodded. She had. When she’s put her feet into the dirt, the sorrow of their death had touched her. “You know because he tells the plants and such here that he does not want them in the yard. The same way that the mountain spoke to you about his pain, and the way the lakes will tell you of their problems, their concerns. You are an elemental faerie, Lady Esmerelda, a queen in your own right.”