Blood and Madness Read online

  How had she gotten so close to me?

  I felt her… soft… breasts pushing against my chest.

  And, her hand caressing my hard length.

  Where were the shreds of my clothing?

  When had I taken them off?

  “So big,” The Bride murmured.

  “Last chance,” Azlin observed.

  The Bride slid her hand around my waist and ran her soft fingers over my ass as her lips kissed my length.

  She was kneeling.

  When had that happened?

  My mind wobbled.

  Her mouth pulled me in, well, at least the tip of me.

  Unless she deep throated my length, she wasn’t getting anymore more than...

  Oh…

  How was she…

  Azlin kissed me.

  - 11 -

  The taste of Elf filled my mouth.

  Freshly baked apple pie.

  My mother used to make an apple pie for me on my birthday. It was my favorite.

  That thought snapped my mind awake.

  A long, split tongue wrapped around my length, pulling it in farther.

  Holy fuck. I felt her lips around the base of my shaft. She had pulled it all in.

  But, it didn’t feel good anymore.

  My dick was inside of a monster’s fang-filled mouth.

  Freaking out, I raised my hands to my ears, forming two tight knife blades of flesh. Then, I twisted them in a tight arc, slamming them downwards on either side of the Bride’s throat.

  She spit me out in shock, as Azlin pulled me backward.

  The Bride gasped and coughed, as the other Goblins began to yell in anger.

  Grasping my hand, Azlin yanked me toward the locomotive.

  Then, I tripped on the remnants of my pants, that were around my ankles. I fell on top of Azlin, knocking us both to the ground.

  “Dammit,” she cursed. “You fucking idiot!”

  The Malignant rolled, throwing me off of her.

  But, for that split second, I had felt just how good her new body felt.

  Pulling herself to her feet, Azlin yanked me after her, as the Bride collapsed to the ground, choking and spitting. It looked like she couldn’t catch her breath.

  And… the bone was lying on the dirt next to me.

  Without thinking, I grabbed it and ran after Azlin.

  My pants were impossible to get on, so I stumbled out of them, letting them fall to the wayside.

  Javelins fell all around me, as the male Goblins began to scream in anger.

  Luck was with me, I stumbled into the darkness, came around the locomotive, and started off running. Azlin was gracefully sprinting ahead of me. At least now that we had left the firelight, my vision was returning to gray and black. And… the colors of heat. I could see the Elf running ahead of me, so I followed as fast as I could.

  For some reason, the Goblins weren’t following us.

  Thanking the Dark Lady, I ran into Columbia… without any pants on.

  --M--

  We stopped running at the banks of a deep, broad river. The remains of some sort of park with a marble fountain jutted out to my left. It was in the shape of an enormous arrowhead with the shaft running into the darkness.

  Azlin sat down, shaking, and sweating. She had ditched her long jacket a few miles back when it had almost tripped her. The dark black shirt was clinging to her skin. The sweat was pulling it tight, and emphasizing her new, large breasts.

  I looked away.

  Not wearing any pants made hiding how I felt about her breasts, awful hard.

  “I think you killed her,” she said.

  I looked at Azlin in surprise.

  “You hit her throat really hard. I think you might have crushed it.”

  That would explain the choking collapse.

  “The Goblins will be pissed if you killed their shaman… while your dick was in her mouth,” she said with a cackle of delight.

  It was too much.

  I sat down and placed the fountain to my back. Then, I started to laugh, as well.

  “Why did you help me?” I asked.

  Azlin glanced at me and then looked down at my manhood. She ignored me, studying it.

  Dammit.

  This must be how women felt when I stared at their chests.

  “You are hung like a horse,” she murmured. “Can you make it all hard, or is it a big, limp mess?”

  Part of me wanted to show her, the other half was mortified.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I pointed out, trying to change the subject.

  “I don’t like it when people are raped in front of me,” she replied.

  That surprised me. All the stories about Malignant never mentioned morals or doing good deeds. In all the myths, they were always villains.

  She never stopped staring at my pecker.

  Feeling annoyed, I leaned back further and spread my legs, giving her a good, long look.

  “See anything that you like?” I asked, deciding that if she would not look away, then I would force the issue.

  Finally, Azlin blushed and looked away.

  “I gave sex up centuries ago,” she admitted.

  That shocked me.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “It gave my lovers… power over me.”

  I closed my legs.

  “What now?” I asked.

  Azlin shrugged. “My life has just fallen apart. Yesterday, I was one of the most powerful Malignant Sorcerors in existence. Today, I would have problems lighting a fire with a simple spell.”

  “But, that’s the body of an Elf,” I pointed out. Everyone knew that Elves could cast spells, at least, that was what the legends said.

  “She was a magic… user, not a Mage,” Azlin replied. “There’s a difference.”

  Dammit.

  Her explanation hit home hard.

  I didn’t want anyone to say the same thing about me.

  Wondering if she was lying, I peered at her quickly with my mage sight. It was rude, but I wanted to know the truth.

  Not a single sigil floated in her mind.

  “Damn,” I said. “You’re a slug.”

  - 12 -

  Azlin scowled. “That’s rude.”

  “You just stared at my junk without caring how I felt,” I countered. “Get over it.”

  Still pissed, she looked away.

  Needing to distract myself, I looked at the arm bone. It was an old bone that felt dry and hard, like fossilized steel. Here and there, dark black mold had infected the bone, seeping into it. Evil, wicked runes were carved up and down its length. I could read most of them, and they appeared to do what The Bride said they would do.

  The problem was the dozen or so spells that she hadn’t mentioned. They were all curses that would have warped and changed my mind and body, making me the Bride’s slave.

  Disgusted with my greed--and her treachery--I threw it away from me.

  “You carried that thing for miles, and now you just tossed it aside?”

  “It doesn’t do what she said it would.”

  “Did you really believe her?”

  I looked away, sullen, and angry with myself. I had wanted the spells and power that she was offering bad enough to even trust her, which would have been a mistake.

  “I needed it to be true,” I whispered. “How am I going to save them?”

  “Your women?”

  I nodded.

  “What happened to the one who ran away?”

  I shut my eyes and thought about Taesa. I could see her bubble in my mind.

  Suddenly, I noticed that one rune in her Taming spell tilted to the side instead of entirely vertical. If it kept moving in that direction, it would eventually remove my ability to control her with just a word.

  Constant upkeep.

  Earlier, Azlin mentioned that keeping a fuck-buddy meant constant upkeep. This must have been what she was talking about. If I wanted to keep Taesa, my slave, I had to invest energy to keep the
rune pointed upwards.

  Fuck that.

  I wouldn’t do it.

  It was time to see how she would react if she had free will.

  I tried to access her mind and found that I still could.

  Her mind was a whirlwind of anger.

  “How could he want to fuck her?” she thought. “He is mine alone!”

  Sharing had never been her strong suit.

  “And, now he is flaunting himself in front of that… Elf!”

  Peering through her eyes, I jumped, startled I lost my connection to her.

  Taesa was right above.

  “Taesa,” I murmured, trying to catch my breath.

  Looking up, I saw her sitting in a tree in her own body. She had abandoned the doctor’s corpse and now looked like a naked dream. Taesa’s skin and hair were milk-white. The only splotches of color were the light shade of pink that accented her nipples and flared in her eyes. The Pale Witch’s hair floated around her in the breeze, reaching down to her waist.

  When I had first met her, Taesa had tried to eat my soul by yanking me up into the sky. I still remembered the first time that we kissed. It had been magical. Shutting my eyes, I remembered the feeling of her lips on mine, and when we had made love.

  “Please come down here,” I asked her, sending my memories of our time together through our mental bond to her.

  The Pale witch made a humph sound and floated away.

  “Problems in Paradise?” Azlin asked.

  “My Taming spell is changing to a Bonding spell alone,” I replied. “Free will is a bitch.”

  Azlin shrugged. “Pump magic into the spell, reinforce it.”

  “I don’t want to,” I replied. “I would prefer that my wives love me, and not because I tell them they have too.”

  “That is foolish. Love is a myth.”

  “You’ve never been in love?” I asked.

  Azlin looked away, as the little grove grew quiet.

  “My lover drained my magic and threw me in front of a charging locomotive,” she snapped. “Love is a lie.”

  That had to hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be,” she growled. “I was a fool. She took everything from me with a smile in her eyes and a kiss on her lips.”

  She.

  That word surprised me. Especially since Azlin had told me she had given up sex, years ago. It made me wonder which truth she had told me was a lie.

  “What are you going to do now?” Azlin asked, trying to change the subject.

  That was a good question.

  Standing up, I took off my shirt and wrapped it around my hips. The cold of the Dark wasn’t bothering me anymore. I could see that most of my skin had taken on a lite gray tint, courtesy of my father’s lineage.

  And, I could feel hard bonelike protrusions growing on my inner shoulder blades. If I sucked up any more arcane radiation, I’d look like a half-goblin again, instead of a pure human. It would take weeks in the sunlight to remove the outer appearance of a goblin from my body.

  “Somehow,” I mused, “I will save the women I am bonded too…”

  “Why?” Azlin asked. “They don’t care about you. Why don’t you just walk away and find new ones?”

  Hana’s bite burned on my neck.

  I knew the answer, but it was hard admitting it.

  “I really like them,” I finally said, skirting the truth.

  Sitting down on the edge of the fountain, I opened my bond to Hana.

  Pain.

  She was in some forced dream, but even asleep, her body ached. I could feel that several of her ribs were shattered, and at least one leg bone was broken.

  I had to pull away from her before I fell too deeply into her agony.

  Dammit.

  She was hurting bad. Somehow I needed to get this arm bone infused into my body. Then, I would have enough power to sneak in and rescue her. If I still had my Disguise spell, then I might break in, but without it, I was sunk.

  “Hana has a broken leg,” I said out loud, hating to hear the words. Somehow, it made it more real.

  “And, Mary was shot,” Taesa grumbled from behind me.

  I turned around quickly. This was the first time that I had seen Taesa in her own flesh in a long time. Taesa was even more beautiful closeup. The Pale Witch floated about ten feet away from me, riding a branch like the proverbial witch's broom. The front of the branch curved up like a prow of a ship, giving the woman something to grasp easily.

  “The Cailleach are beautiful and deadly,” Azlin murmured, “like a dangerous serpent given the power of flight.”

  Taesa stuck her pink, forked tongue out at her mouth. It slithered down and out like a snake’s, twice, if not three times as long as it should be.

  “And, the Malignant are vicious and amoral, like dragons,” Taesa snapped back.

  “You have free will again,” I mentioned.

  Taesa smiled at me, exposing fangs that I had never noticed before. Her mouth looked like a wolf’s mouth; all sharp points and edges.

  “Do I have to kill you, to keep it?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t want women in my life who are my puppets.”

  Taesa stared at me and floated.

  Finally, she said, “Why am I not enough for you?”

  That was the eternal question.

  “I want to be a powerful Mage,” I admitted. “That means that I need a source of magic and an easy way to raise it. Bonding with women… and having sex with them is easier than tying myself to a Ley Line, or a specific Desmese or artifact.”

  Taesa glared at me, not liking my answer.

  “You haven’t harvested my magic yet,” she finally hissed at me.

  “I just learned how,” I replied.

  “Why did you harvest… Hana… first?”

  Taesa said Hana’s name like I would say… cockroach or leper.

  “She has the smallest amount to harvest,” I told her. “I thought it was the best place to start.”

  “It means that you’re keeping her,” Taesa wailed, turning and zooming around in agitation.

  I just sat quietly until she came back.

  “I just wanted it to be you and me,” she sobbed. I could see tears floating down her face.

  I stood up and spread my arms out wide, encouraging her to come closer for a hug.

  She looked at me like a scared cat, afraid that I would hurt her.

  “Taesa,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you. Please come here.”

  The Pale Witch slowly closed the distance, turning her branch so she wouldn’t impale me with it.

  Then, her arms were around my waist as she sobbed into my shoulder.

  I pulled her close and just held her, happy that she wanted me to hug her, even though my mind control was gone. I could feel that her control rune was completely turned over. She was hugging me because she wanted to.

  “Keep me too,” she whispered into my ear. “I want you to keep me too.”

  - 13 -

  Taesa’s comment surprised me.

  But, then I remembered Taesa’s deep loneliness and heartache. My lover was tired of being alone, all the time. She wanted a family that she could depend on. We had formed a bond that allowed me to connect to her mind, but I hadn’t tried my new spell on her yet. It would allow me to harvest her unused, ambient energy so I could cast spells with it.

  Reaching out with my mind, I connected with Taesa’s thoughts. Unlike Hana, Taesa was stronger. She had six ivory sigils floating in her mind around a mana vault that spewed golden fumes up into her soul. The fumes flowed up and around the sigils, as they slowly rotated in a circle.

  One of the sigils was punctured with a tether that connected her to me.