Courts and Cabals 2 Read online

  Courts and Cabals 2

  By G.S. D’Moore

  Copyright © 2021 by G.S. D’Moore

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For permission, contact [email protected].

  Cover art by Mykel Ferguson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN 13: 978-0-9981286-7-2

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Recap

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  Recap

  My name is Cameron Dupree, and I’m one hundred percent certain my life is royally fucked.

  Up until a month ago, I’d been your average red-blooded American male. Well . . . maybe a little above average if you know what I mean. I was a poor townie from Vincent’s Hollow that attended St. Vincent’s Academy; a school that molded the minds of future world leaders. I was a mortal among mages, shifters, vampires, succubae, Fae, kami, banshees, and all other types of supernatural creatures that made up sixty percent of the student body.

  Yeah . . . all the myths and legends about what goes bump in the night are true, and they’d been out of the closet since the eighties. I’d planned to join the agency that enforced the laws that contained the supernatural –The Worldwide Registration Act’s Response Division – and tried to get a little power back in a world where I was powerless, but that plan got fucked up too.

  As I said, I’d been a pretty normal teenager. I ran a small black-market scheme to get students the answers to coming tests and quizzes for a quick buck. I did it with my best friend, a constantly-stoned werewolf. A hacker mage who could control air with his mind, and a vegetarian vampire who went through social justice causes faster than the Kardashians went through shoes. Other than that, my life was jerking off to Littlekittycat69 on Pornhub, and trying to get any girl to notice me.

  When one finally did pay attention, my life took a very unexpected turn. Lilith Venitas, princess of the Venetian Succubus Cabal; one of the most powerful quasi-criminal organizations in the world, came a-knocking for quiz answers one day. In payment, she sucked my dick, and everything changed.

  I may or may not have been hit by a bolt of lightning. The jury was still out on what the hell happened on my walk home. My ensuing stay in the school’s infirmary made me miss a delivery to the one person at the supernatural high school you really didn’t want to piss off. Aveena Foxbelle was a noble Fae, the highest class of a humanoid race from the adjacent Faerie Realm, and the daughter of one of their ruling court’s leaders: The Lady of Winter. I’d failed to get her a magical item of some importance, and didn’t learn until later it was used in a Fae mating ceremony to help Aveena get knocked up by some equally-highbred douche. The resulting dishonor and shame started a blood feud with the Unseelie Fae, and she contracted out to have me assassinated.

  Enter Chloe, a sadistic water nymph who tried to fuck me and drown me at the same time. Lilith saved my ass again, and offered me a place in her harem. Apparently, that’s how modern-day succubae get their sustenance. I gave peace a shot with Aveena, but her price was literal slavery through a magical blood bond. That was a big fucking no, so I signed up with Lilith. I’d already proven that I had some type of super spunk, and she was going to pay me a shit-ton of money to fuck her a couple times a month. Despite being several months later, I still hadn’t actually inserted my penis into her vagina, but that had to happen eventually . . . right?

  After I managed to kill Chloe – Lilith had a major assist in that battle – Aveena invoked some Fae bullshit through the covenants that governed the interactions of the Fae and cabal. An old shifter friend of mine, Joe, got to play arbiter, but Aveena tricked me into agreeing to a trial by combat. Threatening everyone and everything I cared about had a lot to do with my decision, and it ended up with me dueling a Fae knight with a big, swinging dick on Yule; right before Christmas.

  I trained hard with Dani, Lilith’s longtime dwarf bodyguard, and Xamira; a half-human, half-succubus imp who was distantly related to Lilith. I’d had the distinct pleasure of being inside both women. One with Lilith’s approval, and one without. I knew now not to fuck another supernatural in the cabal without Lilith’s permission. The way she casually broke Xamira’s spine when she rode me like a bucking bronco still made me cringe. Healing shattered vertebrae was child’s play to supernaturals, so there was no harm, no foul, and lessons learned.

  Surprisingly, I went up against the Fae knight and won. Despite all their words of encouragement, none of the women thought I’d pull it off. Even more impressive, the troll knight’s mojo basically gave me a power-facial that should have killed me. I survived that as well, and after seeing me prevail, Aveena totally lost her shit. She glamoured herself into a dozen-foot-tall crusader knight and did battle with Lilith’s succubus combat form: an equally tall, red-skinned hottie with white, bone, hoplite armor, a barbed tail, horns, claws, fangs, the whole shebang.

  They kicked the shit out of each other before something tore its way into the interdimensional pocket Fae were able to create. Yeah . . . it’s pretty fucking wild. Lilith teleported us away just in time, but now it looks like every cop in the county, backed up by the United Nations agency I wanted to join in the first place, was hunting me. I don’t know why, but after nearly dying half a dozen times, I didn’t stop to ask. It might have something to do with the weird abilities I’d displayed recently.

  We nearly got away clean, but a mountain-lion chick with an assault rifle tried to gun us down. Instead, Xamira ran her over with a car. That’s where my crazy, fucked-up townie harem adventurous life is at this point. I can say with complete sincerity, without mental reservation, or purpose of evasion, I was close to shitting myself in terror at everything that had happened in the last few hours; much less the last few months.

  Chapter 1

  I jumped as the door slammed open next to me. I ignored the rush of blood to my cheeks because it was pretty hard to concentrate on anything but the rush of blood to my crotch. Lilith stood in the door looking like battered shit; if battered shit could be breathtakingly beautiful.

  This wasn’t the type of Hollywood-celebrity beauty that took hours and a full team of stylists to achieve. Lilith had the raw, natural beauty of her supernatural race. She was a succubus, an immortal creature with preternatural gorgeousness, strength, and speed that fed off the sexual energy of humans like me. She was built by the gods to be a man’s wet dream: perky double D’s, a flat, taut belly that wasn’t too athletic or overly muscular, flawless sun-kissed flesh, raven-black hair, emerald eyes, and a small tuft of pubic hair I’d never noticed before. Most likely because this was the first time I was getting a full-frontal show.

  “The carpet matches the drapes,” I barely stopped myself from staring.

  Behind that beauty was a look of pure exhaustion, and I couldn’t blame her. The nudity wasn’t a choice, she’d ripped out
of her clothes and exploded into her twelve-foot-tall combat form to save all our asses from a deranged Fae. She took a blade through her shoulder early in the fight, and gave double penetration a whole new meaning when the Fae had rammed a pair of swords through her gut. Because she was so much more than human, she’d already healed those wounds, but rebuilding that much mass had a cost I didn’t understand.

  “Dani, take the wheel,” she ordered as she hefted her blood-stained body through the door and collapsed into the seat next to me.

  By Dani, she meant the five-foot, blademaster, dwarf who’d just returned to the car. While Lilith was the perfect balance of femininity and strength; Dani wasn’t. The best words to describe her were bodacious babe. She was short and stocky; powerfully built, but not chubby, with curves to die for. The smallest woman in the car was all tits, ass, and a long, single-braid of thick hair that fell nearly all the way to her ass. I had no problem with that. I’d smacked that ass and it was good.

  She was also relatively unscathed. She was in a black pants suit with a Kevlar ballistic vest underneath her blouse. Aside from blood splatter, the only sign of physical trauma was a slash in her pants. A dagger thrown by the homicidal Fae had scored a hit on the dwarf, but like Lilith, she was already healed. Since it was nothing more than a deep scratch, Dani wasn’t looking nearly as rundown.

  She’d also just returned from dealing with their most immediate problem.

  “Did we just kill that cop?” I gulped, feeling like I was going to throw up.

  Fighting, and killing, a Fae knight in a trial by combat was one thing. Hell, killing a sociopathic water nymph that had tried to assassinate me in the shower was fine. Running over a cop and then killing her while she was down was a whole new level of fucked up.

  “No,” Lilith replied from where she’d reclined and closed her eyes.

  “Silver tranquilizer,” Dani explained as she slammed the driver’s side door closed and buckled her seat belt.

  I doubted getting ejected out the empty hole that used to be the windshield would hurt the dwarf much. Imagining the scenario made me laugh despite myself. I was getting to the point where hysterically laughing at my own misfortune wouldn’t be weird at all.

  The passenger side opened and Xamira jumped in. The mocha-skinned imp was half-human, half-succubus, and full badass. She’d taught me how to fight, she’d been the one who hit the cop with the car, and most importantly, she was the one holding the cop’s military-issued assault rifle.

  “I hurt her with the hit, but she was going to get back up and call for reinforcements. The silver will put her down for a bit, but not kill her. It isn’t silverbane, so it isn’t fatal.”

  I remembered the cop shooting at us, and she didn’t seem to have the same no-kill attitude Lilith had showed her in return. The cop, whoever the hell she was, was a shifter; one of the most populous supernatural species in the United States. They came in all shapes and sizes from cats to bears. I’d seen the cop go from a normal, somewhat-tall woman in jeans and a Sheriff’s jacket, to an eight-foot lion chick that emptied her entire thirty-round magazine into the front of our van. Lilith had taken several direct hits from the assault rifle, which only added to her shitty day.

  “Okay, good,” I comforted myself in the fact we hadn’t committed cold-blooded murder.

  “Head for the highway,” Xamira instructed, and Dani floored the ancient minivan.

  I was beyond out of the loop on the escape plan. The girls hadn’t expected me to make it past the Fae knight. Then, they’d been positive my soul had been barbequed when the Fae’s power was transferred to me in some ancient ritual of the bleeding ground’s “you keep what you kill” mentality.

  The whole scenario was one giant mindfuck, and I hadn’t tried to make sense of it yet. “There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense,” I put on my seatbelt and sat next to Lilith to try and digest it all.

  First off, I wasn’t even entirely sure I was human anymore. The doubt crept in long before the fight, back when I started displaying unusual abilities. I’d felt a spark in my mind one day during training, and suddenly, I could see what was about to happen. It wasn’t much. I couldn’t see tomorrow’s lottery numbers, but I had a half-second warning if I was in the zone; totally focused on the combat in front of me. That had allowed me to go toe to toe with Dani and Xamira in training, and ultimately allowed me to take down the Fae knight.

  However, I’d also learned it wasn’t infallible. If people knew I had the ability, they could counter it with strategy. Afterall, I couldn’t fight physics, and the Knight had proven that to me the hard way by fucking me up pretty good. He’d nearly killed me with a single strike.

  “Then . . .” I tried to remember how the fight ended, but it was all blurry. My sword had been sticking out of the big troll’s chest, and since it was made of cold iron, the weakness of the Fae race, that had killed him good and quick. “But . . .” I couldn’t remember how I got from getting knocked on my ass with a broken shoulder, and several not-so-small puncture wounds, to killing the Fae.

  No matter how hard I tried, it was like trying to hold water in my hands. The truth of the memory just slipped through my fingers. I shook the excess adrenaline out of my arms, and concentrated on what I did know. Amanda Springfield, one of St. Vincent’s two Anima mages – the branch of human magic that dealt with the human mind – had called me a precog. I guess that was technically right, but my power seemed to come and go. She called what she saw an aftertaste of the combat-induced sight.

  Then there was the healing. I thought Lilith had worked her sex magic on me all along. As the First of her harem, an important role in the cabal, I had lots of responsibilities to my succubus boss. She needed me to perform my duties, and I couldn’t do that if I was constantly fucked up. Apparently, she hadn’t been healing me of the various injuries I’d sustained over the course of my involvement with supernaturals. The healing wasn’t anything special. I healed way faster than the average human, but much slower than supernatural standards.

  So, to wrap it up; I was precognitive, but only when I hit my stride in a fight. I could heal, but not fast, and somehow, I’d found the strength, speed, and skill to kill a Fae knight.

  “And then,” I remembered another aspect of my new self that I didn’t understand.

  The same daggers the noble Fae bitch, Aveena Foxbelle, had injured Dani with, had come for me too. I’d thrown up my hands instinctually to protect my body – like it was actually going to save me or something – and it surprisingly did. A mostly-translucent shield appeared between me and the blade. The blade shattered on impact with the shield, but it felt like someone roundhouse kicked me in the temple. My head still throbbed.

  Thinking about the pain brought it back, and I groaned. Both women sitting in front turned to glare at me.

  “Suck it up, Cam. We aren’t out of this yet,” Dani shot back.

  I was glad dwarf senses and reflexes were far superior to humans because Dani was driving at about a hundred miles an hour, down a country road, in the dark. I tried not to hyperventilate, or imagine t-boning a cow that wandered off from the herd. All it took was one stupid animal to step into the road and we were dead. Well . . . I was dead. Everyone else would survive the crash.

  It was about two miles to the highway, which was our primary escape route from the police and fucking government helicopter that were circling the town of Vincent’s Hollow. It took us less than a minute to get there and find more flashing lights blocking the entry ramp. Dani slammed on the breaks, leaving fifty feet of burned rubber on the asphalt. A pair of troopers in the blue and yellow squad cars of the NYS police looked at the bullet-ridden minivan in surprise. Both groups just sat there for a moment, watching each other, before we all moved at once.

  Dani hit the accelerator, and the cops went for their guns. Xamira flowed smoothly out of the passenger side window, hooked her legs around the seat for stability, and opened fire. The much more powerful M4 rifle barked, and the cops hi
t the ground. The imp had aimed far over their heads. She wasn’t actually going to shoot them, but she needed them down and out of the way.

  The van lurched as Dani took it into the grass, around the barricade, and down the ramp. Xamira swiveled outside the van, took careful aim, and put two rounds into the grills of each cop car. I didn’t know if that would stop them. This wasn’t a Hollywood action movie, but I trusted the imp. She’d trained for shit like this.

  “That bought us a second,” she informed.

  It was more literal than she intended. I could already hear more sirens in the distance coming for us. Despite the decrepit, soccer mom vehicle, we were hitting one-twenty on the highway. Still, there was no way in hell we were outrunning the Dodge Chargers the cops used, or the military chopper.

  “Lilith, where is the safe house?” Xamira asked. Her head swiveled as she tried to pinpoint the chopper’s direction of approach. That was the biggest threat. “Lilith?”

  I looked over at the succubus sitting beside me and saw her face slack and paler than I’d ever seen it. “Shit!” I yelled, and felt for a pulse.

  “Please don’t be dead . . . please don’t be dead.” She was my best chance of not spending the next twenty years in a fuck-me-in-the-butt federal prison.

  I found her carotid artery and breathed a sigh of relief when a strong thump vibrated through my fingers. Still, that didn’t explain why she looked half-dead.

  “Lilith!” Xamira reached behind her and jostled the unconscious woman. It didn’t change anything.

  “She’s drained,” Dani explained, sneaking a quick glance, but quickly returning her eyes to the dark highway. “She needs to recharge.”

  “How?” I asked, looking around for a protein bar. When I looked up, Xamira was staring intently at me.

  It took me a moment to catch her drift. “Me . . . what . . . you can’t be serious?” I gaped, as I glanced back and forth between my dick and Lilith. “I’m not going to fuck her.”