Chapter 48: The True Prize

Note: Thanks to B0b and WRC 264 for beta reading this!

Aingeal

My wings flapped frantically as I dodged a burning piece of the Lodestone. I swept around it, felt the heat of the blazing stone. I didn’t know how Sven did it. But he found away. I grinned as I straightened up my flight.

If he could find a way to destroy the lodestone, then I could find a way to defeat Duke Gallchobhar. I just had to wound him and...

Iron.

Spirits made poor defense against iron and my husband was covered in throwing knives. He had his hand crossbow. He could inflict real damage on the bastard. I cast my gaze around and spotted him struggling to stand up near the smoking ruin of the Lodestone and a burning treeman.

I smiled and turned, diving for him.

A purple beam soared over my head. I shuddered. The duke had recovered from the explosion and hunted me. I flapped faster and faster, streaking for the ground and for Sven. I shouted his name, needing to get his attention and—

Energy surged behind me. I twisted my body, diving harder for the ground. The evocation spirits encased in the beam of purple magic slammed into my wings. Pain burned. My wings dissolved in the attack of the spirits. I shoved them away as the world tumbled, fighting to keep them from finding my flesh.

From killing me.

“Sven!” I screamed in fear, the ground and sky whirling past me as I plummeted towards the ground.

Arms caught me. Sven grunted, stumbling to his knees as he cradled me in his arms. I whimpered in pain, my butterfly wings burned down to numbing wounds on my back. My head swirled as I stared up at his blue eyes.

Such loving blue eyes. He caught me. He saved my life. Kora was right to trick me into agreeing to be his husband. She knew this man. Behind his cavalier attitude and mocking grin, he had such a loving heart.

The pain swallowed my thoughts and plunged me into soothing darkness.

Zanyia

The treeman staggered as the light flooded around him. I clutched to his back as a great roaring surged through the air. I gripped on tight and laughed even louder as chunks of the Lodestone rained down from the sky.

“That’s what a real man does with a real cock!” I yowled. “Not some wooden mockery, but real flesh and blood!”

The treeman roared in maddened rage. My tail swished. I ripped out another chunk of his bark and there it was. I could see the softer wood beneath, that pulpy flesh oozing a clear liquid. The scent of sweet sap filled my nostrils.

I had him.

I dug my claws into his flesh. His maddened roar became one of creaking pain. He twisted and swayed his back, trying to jerk me off with violence of his body. My claws gripped his wood, fighting against the force wanting to throw me off of him.

I wouldn’t be thrown off so easily. When he tired, I tore out another chunk, my fingers grown sticky with sap. It ran thick down my fingers. I purred so loudly, my ears twitching. I would find his gnarled tree heart and rip it to pieces.

With a mighty bellow, the treeman threw himself backward.

The air rushed past me. The ground soared up at us. My eyes widened in realization. With a yowl, I leaped to the right moments before he made booming impact with the earth. I landed on nimble hands and feet, my tail swishing to keep my balance.

“That’s not fair!” I hissed. “Cheater!”

He let out a rumbling laughter as he pushed himself to his feet. Now how was I supposed to kill him?

Sven Falk

Aingeal went limp in my arms. Fear clutched at my heart, banishing the pain in my back. I struggled to breathe until I saw my faerie-wife’s breasts rise and fall. She breathed. She lived. But she was in so much pain. I could feel the charred skin on her back.

Anger boiled through me. Wings flapped above. The faerie lord descended, that beautiful face gloating at the pain he inflicted on my Aingeal. My heart pumped anger through my veins as I stared at Duke Gallchobhar. He settled on the ground before me.

“Well, human, you have cost me greatly tonight,” he said, purple energy dancing around him.

With care, I set Aingeal on the grass beside me. She let out a soft whimper of pain. Her face contorted for a moment. Her eyes fluttered open, but they were unfocused, not seeing anything. They closed a moment later with a sigh, her head lolling to the right.

“This will be a mess,” the duke sighed, shaking his head. “Already, they are waking up.”

Around me I could see blinking faces trapped in the stocks. Men and women groaning, shuddering. Some coughed. Others cried. Shouts rose. Wood rattled. They fought to break free, their feet digging into the ground.

“I’m glad I could be a pain in your ass,” I said.

“How droll,” he said. “I see Aingeal still maintains the same quality of companionship as before.”

My hand drifted down to my short sword.

Energy hummed in his hand. A beam of purple energy shot forward, a sword of light. He drew it up before him, his feet shifting, his wings folding back behind him. My hand reached the handle of my short sword, gripped it. My heart beat faster and faster.

His muscles tensed.

He sprang at me.

The light blade hissed through the air. I dodged to the right. IT flashed past my face, leaving a streak of green light blazing across my vision. My sword rattled from my sheath, swung through the air. Smoke flared.

The duke screamed in pain.

His right butterfly wing spun through the air, fire burning at it. On his back was the seared stump of the wing oozing blood. He staggered to his feet. His head threw back as he plunged the light sword into the grass. Stalks sizzled.

His blood boiled on my blade.

“That’s right. Faeries can’t tolerate iron?” I drew a throwing knife in my off-hand. “And I have plenty of it.”

He whirled around, face twisted in maddened pain, no longer beautiful. Shadows made deep crags, his eyes almost glowing in the darkness cast by his eyebrows. He brandished his blade as I flicked my knife.

Zanyia

I scampered from the treeman. He bellowed in fury, his wood cock thrusting out hard before him. I darted past one of the pit traps then dashed between the next stocks. The inhabits yelled at me, struggling to break free.

“Just hold on!” I said, the treeman lumbering after me.

“Bad pussy!” it snarled.

“Yep, I’m bad pussy,” I said.

The air whooshed. I jumped. His arm smashed the ground hard, splashing a naked woman struggling to break out of her stockade in mud and grass. I landed with a purring laugh, throwing a mocking grin at the treeman.

“You have to try harder than that to squash this naughty pussy!” I wiggled my ass at him, flashing my tight slit between my thighs. “You’ll never get in this snatch. So you have to kill me. So pathetic! No wonder every woman prefers flesh and blood cock to limp, wooden dicks!”

He roared again and punched.

I dodged. The impact jarred open the nearby pit trap I avoided. I landed beside it, peering down into the depths. I shuddered at the sight of the spikes down there. At least a fifty-foot droop and then impalement.

It was such overkill. Nobles had to much time on their hands.

“Bad pussy!”

I darted away, the treeman following. Even made of plants, men were so easily offended by mocking their dicks.

Kora Falk

I was dead. I closed my eyes, ready to embrace my afterlife in the Adamant Palace. An eternity of practicing my art beneath the Goddess Rithi’s tutelage. Finding new ways to create something beautiful. Something stirring. I would miss my brother. Ava and Zanyia and Aingeal and Nathalie would help him grieve me.