Part Six: Knocking Them Over

Chapter Seventeen

ELENA

The sound of morning birds chirping roused me. Destiny curled up closer to me in her sleep, murmuring softly. I relaxed in my position, savoring the feeling of her lying partially atop of me, her thigh pressed against my morning wood. A familiar hand caressed my cheek. I looked up to see two burning orange irises staring down at me.

“Hi Elena.” Yavara giggled, “I see you made a new friend.”

“Yavara!” I exclaimed.

“Shh,” Yavara whispered, putting a finger to my lips, “I don’t want to wake the sleeping beauty in your arms. Where did you find her?”

“You don’t recognize her?” I smiled slyly.

“I think I would remember a woman who looked like that.”

“Destiny,” I cooed into the sparkled woman’s ear, “it’s time to wake up.”

Destiny’s eyes fluttered open, and glanced up at Yavara. She gave me a tired smile. “I told you she’d come back. Hi Yavara.”

“Destiny,” Yavara smiled, extending a hand to the woman, “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Zander said something telepathically, and Yavara jolted in surprise. Then she broke into laughter.

“Zander, you whore! You transformed into a woman just to fuck my girlfriend?”

“And she was fantastic.” I said, squeezing Destiny’s ass, “Best fuck I’ve ever had.”

“Are you trying to make me jealous?” Yavara crinkled her nose at me.

“Is it working?”

“A little. You cheating cunt.” Yavara sniggered.

“I’m sure you and Prestira were paradigms of virtue while we were gone.” Destiny yawned, “Speaking of which, where is my ex-wife?”

Yavara’s face slackened, the mirth dwindling from her.

“Yavara?” Destiny pressed, her voice edging slightly.

“She’s with Titus, helping unload the ships.” Yavara bit her lip, her orange eyes glimmering, “Zander, there’s something you need to know. We were attacked by the Sea Serpents on our way here. They captured her.” Yavara swallowed, “It took me a day to get to her, and by the time I did… it’s… it’s not something I can talk to you about. Prestira’s putting on a brave face for me, but she needs you.”

Destiny transformed in an aura of golden light, becoming Zander Fredeon once again. With a grim air, the naked wizard pulled on his robe, hopped off the hut’s roof, and made his way through the village. Piles of naked revelers were strewn between the huts, their snores sounding from every corner of the village. In the distance, I saw the black sails of the vampire fleet snaking their way up the Knife River, the trailing vessels barely more than dots in the immense fjord of the Gorge.

“Looks like you guys had one hell of a party.” Yavara chuckled.

“It hasn’t been all fun and games.”

“I know. I heard about Sherok.”

I looked up at her, confused. “How?”

Yavara recounted everything that had happened to her and Prestira since that day we’d been separated. I’d already heard much of it from Zander, and noted how Yavara sugarcoated the part about framing her rescue party. When she got to the part where Prestira and her joined Titus, I held up a hand.

“Pause.” I said, “Now repeat what you just said, but slowly.”

“I’m a vampire now.” Yavara said plainly.

I glanced up at the morning sun, shining without filter in its six-o-clock position. “Cool.” I said.

“You bitch!” Yavara laughed, punching me in the shoulder (ow). “I would’ve thought a ranger would know what a day-walker is.”

“A fairy tale.”

“Kind of like the Dark Queen?” Yavara batted her eyes mischievously. Then her smile broadened, her eyes alighting with excitement. “Come on, there’s someone you have to meet!”

ZANDER

“…I’ve been through worse, Zander.” Prestira sighed, sitting on a box, “I’ve done worse to myself.”

“You’re not made of stone.” I said, taking her shoulders in my hands. The black-robed vampires unloaded their vessels before the watchful eyes of the orcs, who congregated a safe distance back. The sooner the vampires got back on their ships, the better. We sat beneath a tent used for keeping the hay dry, secluded in the shadows that Prestira now found comfort in. I could sense the vampirism in her, as I could for Yavara, but Prestira’s nocturnal alter-ego was not what compelled her to seek the dark.

“No,” Prestira dropped her head onto my lap, her white eyes puffy with exhaustion, “but I chose to live endlessly, and when I made that pact with myself and stripped my flesh, I knew the kind of life eternity would bring me. It was just pain.” She smiled wearily, “And the pain is over.”

“Some pain leaves scars.” I said softly, running a thumb down her cheek, “Scars no one but you can see.”

Prestira leaned into my touch, resting her cheek against my hand. “They’re but grazes to the wounds you’ve dealt me, Zander.”

“Don’t guilt me.”

“I’m not.” Prestira smiled sadly, “I’m just telling the truth. You ruined me long ago.” Her fingers trailed to her bosom, “There’s a hole here. I feel its ache every day you’re not with me, and its excruciating when you are. But the agony is sweet, and the misery is bitter, so I will choose the former again and again until one of us parts from this world.”

I took her head in both hands, framing her face, my fingers tangling with her black ringlets. “Why is love so cruel to you?”

“I guess I’m just a masochist.” Prestira chuckled softly.

“Will you be OK?”

“If you’re with me.” She whispered. There was a hint of desperation in Prestira’s voice, a touch of pure anguish in her eyes.

I smiled into those eyes. “I guess I’m your sadist then.”

She broke into something that was halfway between a sob and a laugh, and I leaned to press my kiss to her lips. She was fierce with her lips and tongue, but not with the gleeful avarice of lust, but with a mania that seemed to be in defiance of all that had been done to her. I knew before I asked that she wasn’t OK. I hadn’t known until I tasted her pain that she’d been shattered. Oh, Prestira. Why do you always make yourself the martyr? None of us are worth it.

You are. She whispered in my mind. I hadn’t even felt her intrusion, but I noticed it now. Her thoughts probed into my mind, curious and playful. Destiny? I haven’t seen her in ages.

You never cared much for her, try as I might to get you two acquainted. If only Yavara had been around back then.

If I’m being honest, Zander, I could use a woman’s touch right now. Prestira parted from the kiss, her white eyes half-lidded, “I think I’ve had enough male company for quite some time.”

ELENA

If there was one thing that kept a ranger on her toes, it was the knowledge that a vampire was in her patrol sector. It was the very reason rangers never patrolled at night. There’d been times where I’d skirted the dusk hours a little too closely, and saw a pair of red eyes gleaming through the thicket. They followed me as I traversed the sun-lit forest paths, the light narrowing as the sun drifted lower. They followed me all the way to the walls of Castle Thorum, waiting for me to set just one foot in the shadows. So when I saw Patricia leering at me from her black veil, I felt a chill crawl up my spine. She stood over six and a half feet tall, her porcelain flesh cast in an ethereal glow, her crimson irises like rubies in her dramatically-featured face.

“So, you’re Elena.” Patricia extended a gloved hand, “Mom has told me so much about you.”

“You call her ‘Mom?’” I said incredulously, shaking the proffered hand.

She kept her hand locked with mine. “I can call you ‘Daddy’ if you want.”

“Isn’t she wonderful?” Yavara exclaimed dotingly, embracing her blood-daughter. The short dark-elf looked like a midget next to her statuesque ‘daughter,’ the top of her head barely meeting Patricia’s bosom.

I tried to pull my hand away from Patricia. “She definitely takes after you, though I fail to see the resemblance.”

“Oh?” Yavara grinned, then suddenly became pale as death, her orange eyes darkening to red. In a second, she was seven inches taller, her body keeping its perfect proportions, but moving with a deadly grace beneath her now too-short dress. “How about now?” She asked, baring two sparkling fangs.

I gawked at her. “Holy shit.”

“Do you like it?”

My eyes drank her in. “The things you’ll do just to be taller than me.”

Yavara laughed, the sound husky and alluring in her new vocal registers. “Patricia, Elena likes to think she has a sharp tongue, but it’s blunted by her dull wit.”

I grinned back. “I think you’ll find that I use it to great effect, sharp or dull. I’ve been practicing.”

Yavara moistened her blood-red lips. “I’d love to see what you’ve learned. Will you spar with me?”

“I’m a bit handicapped at the moment.” I said, proffering the hand held in Patricia’s iron grip. I couldn’t help but notice the way she extended her index finger to rest it on my ulnar artery. She noticed that I noticed, and her grin broadened beneath her veil, her finger stroking the pulsing vein. “Let me go, Patricia.” I said.

Her red eyes glimmered with amusement, like a cat who’d cornered a mouse and sought to torment it before the end. “Why?” She tittered, lifting her veil, “You don’t need your hand in a duel of tongues.” She licked one fang as she closed the distance between us, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to join in.”

“Patricia…” I said cautiously. I turned to Yavara, but she was gone. No, she was behind me, her cold breath on my neck, her hands on my waist, pulling me into her arms with gentle strength. “I’m sorry Elena, but I do so hate a fair fight.”

“You always did cheat on the practice grounds.” I said, my heart thundering in my ears as Patricia pressed me between herself and her blood-mother, their breasts consuming my face. They lifted me with effortless strength, pinning me between the succulent squish of their bodies.

“It’s called ‘gamesmanship’ when royalty cheats, and it’s poor form to accuse your monarch of it.” Yavara’s soft lips caressed my throat.

“I never bowed to you.”

“Ah, so you’re still a ranger then.” Yavara tongue traced my pulmonary artery, “A spy in my own court, captured and confessed. I’ll show you how I deal with spies, Miss Straltaira.”

“Yavara…” I whispered, my cracking voice betraying my fear.

Yavara paused. “I could tell you that I’m in control of myself, but that would remove the danger from it.” Yavara’s hand sneaked to my front, gently grasping the part of me that was throbbing against Patricia’s belly. “Something tells me you like the danger. Truth be told, my dearest love,” I felt the points of her fangs against my throat, “you drive me so wild, I don’t what I’ll do.”

They moved on opposite sides of my neck, puncturing the flesh, sucking from tender lips. I whimpered, feeling the weakness travel down by spine, accompanying a lassitude that left me numb and accepting. A stupid smile creased my face, and my head became light with intoxication and blood loss. Only one part of me remained tense, and that part curved backward with engorgement as the women eating me began to disrobe, their nudity pressing against me, flesh on flesh, fingers moving together between my cheeks. They parted from my throat in a duet of gasps, their red eyes mostly pupil, their expressions wrought with desire.

“There is something very sweet in your blood, Elena.” Patricia whispered on my lips, her hand joining her mother’s around my cock.

“You’re quite the delicacy.” Yavara whispered affectionately, her fingertips threatening to penetrate me in both holes as she held me aloft by my ass. She smiled into my half-lidded eyes, “I can’t believe you thought I’d actually eat you.”

“You’re not going to? Don’t disappoint me.”

Yavara grinned against my lips, her index finger circling my puckered anus. I whimpered, and her smile curved wickedly. “Why don’t you beg me, Elena? Isn’t that what you said you’d make me do when we got here? Make me beg for you to put it in my ass?” She forked her index and ring finger about my rim, stretching it so that she could tease the opening with her prodding middle finger.