Courts and Cabals 3 Read online

  Courts and Cabals 3

  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: 978-0-9981286-9-6

  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

  About the Author

  Recap

  Whoa! Hey there, you really shouldn’t sneak up on a guy like that; especially me. Who am I, you ask? My name is Cameron Dupree, and I’m surprised you’re here at all. I didn’t expect anyone to be. Honestly . . . my life is a clusterfuck wrapped up in a shit sandwich, and not the delicious pink taco variety. You don’t believe me? You think I’m bullshitting you? How about we recap?”

  Up until a few months ago, I was 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 the 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 supernaturals –The Worldwide Registration Act’s Response Division – and try to get a little power back in a world where I was powerless, but that plan got fucked up too.

  As I said, I was 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 the air with his mind, and a vegetarian vampire who went through enlightened 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 was definitely hit by a bolt of lightning; that I know for a fact. 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 Realms, 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 got 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. I still haven’t actually inserted my penis into her vagina, but she isn’t a cocktease. Shit just keeps happening, and it’ll happen eventually . . . right?

  After I managed to kill Chloe – Lilith had a major assist in that battle – Aveena evoked some Fae bullshit through the covenants that governed the interactions of the Fae and cabal. An old shifter friend of mine, Joe the pizza aficionado, 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 is distantly related to Lilith. I’ve had the distinct pleasure of being inside both women. One with Lilith’s approval, and one without. I now knew 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 vertebra 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 Knight Fae’s mojo basically gave me a power-facial that should have killed me. I’d survived that as well, and after seeing me prevail, Aveena truly 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 looked 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 recently displayed. 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 pretty fucking crazy . . . right . . . but that’s only the beginning. We barely got away from the cops, and let me tell you, trying to jerk it to give a succubus a power boost in the middle of a gunfight isn’t as easy as it sounds; and it sounds impossible. We made it to a safe house where an honest-to-gods dragon contemplated eating Dani for dinner. I would have stayed far away from the heavyweight supernatural, but she knew what I was; not that she told me. She did tell me to be wary around Lilith’s mom, because the ancient leader of a succubus cabal definitely had her own agenda. I learned that the hard way within twenty-four hours.

  The dragon made a portal for us runaways and dropped us right in the middle of a high-class Reno spa run by vampires. One of the vampires had orders to take me for a spin and see what I was made of. Marcella took that to mean she could bespell me, suck my dick, and try to fuck me with a strap on. If not for Fern, the pixie I inherited from the troll I told you I killed, I wouldn’t have been able to sit down for a week. Lilith wasn’t happy about Marcella’s behavior, and we got the hell out of dodge; only to head for Sin City. Of course, the cabal was located in the hedonistic capital of the western hemisphere.

  We spent time with Lilith’s mother, Venus – the same Venus that you’re thinking of from Greek mythology, who
humans named a planet after – as well as some of the other members of the cabal board of directors. At the top of the batting order was a satyr named Lark who was the inspiration for Lucifer, the fallen angel, and the Morgan Le Fay. The same Morgan Le Fay, who kept King Arthur and his knights of the roundtable around as reanimated ghouls to do her bidding. Can anyone say necromancer?

  If you’re scared, you should be. The cabal doesn’t fuck around. Lark, and I shit you not, the Pegasus himself, trained me to use my gifts; but everyone was still hush-hush about what I really was. Things were tense between me and Lilith. Not only because she was home for the holidays, but because her mother liked to collect shiny things, and I was the pretty new toy. I might be an asshole, but I’m a loyal asshole. One succubus was enough for me, and I’d already made my choice. Although, Venus did make a killer meat and potatoes dinner.

  Things seemed to be going great until after New Year’s. Lilith and Dani got me a VIP pass to a legit porn convention, and Dani set it up so I actually got to fuck Littlekittycat69. Unfortunately, you should never meet your heroes. Even worse, some Fae tracked me down and nearly burned the whole place to the ground. I made it out by the hair on my chinny chin chin, but I had to drop my glamour to do it. Yeah, I can do a glamour now; thank you very much.

  The slip led the UN right to my door, and even though I did the whole hands up don’t shoot bit, I still took a lightning round to the chest. I woke up in New York getting poked and prodded as they tried to figure out what I really was. Let me tell you, you do not want a prostate exam from some big dude named Frank.

  My lawyers were able to work out a deal, and it surprised me more than anyone that my lead defender was Marcella. Yeah, the same Marcella that tried to butt fuck me. She’s a complicated vampire. Anyway, she got me a sweet deal. All I had to do was cooperate for a few days and I was home free. Too bad I fucked it up. I still don’t know how it happened, but I ended up rending a whole in the top half of the UN HQ. I don’t know how many people died, but Vernon Duds was pissed. Yeah, good old Vernon is still around. The UN Special Agent was the one who caught me in Vegas, but in this case, he tried to get me to safety; so, I can’t rag on him that much. We didn’t make it far before some hot Gandalf chick stopped us. She dealt with Vernon scarily fast, and used me for batting practice. She was definitely going to kill me, but a fucking sharktopus showed up and tossed me like a ragdoll around Manhattan. For a second there, I thought I was going to get away, but then Aveena showed up and knocked me the fuck out.

  I woke up in the Faerie realm, and saw Aveena’s true form. She was a crazy, sexy, surprisingly feminine, blue frost giant. If I wasn’t too busy worrying about dying, I would have been sporting a hard-on the whole time. Instead, I had to face her mom; the Lady of Winter herself. I’m not ashamed to admit I both pissed and shit myself during the course of that meeting, but the Lady of Winter underestimated me. People tended to do that.

  Apparently, I’m half Aesir; whatever the hell that means. Whatever they are, they have a bit of a boogeyman reputation, which I saw firsthand when one saved my ass. The Trickster, who proclaimed we were bros, and quoted Jack Nicholson from the Shinning, before going on a rampage that killed the better part of a hundred Fae. Since a lot of them were frost giants, I was left wondering how powerful were these creatures I was purportedly related to. The Lady of Winter seemed properly afraid, but she wasn’t one to back down. She beat us both back, and would have killed me if my big bro hadn’t ripped a hole in reality and tossed me in. I don’t know where he went, but I ended up in the middle of somewhere between bumfuck nowhere and where Jesus lost his sandal.

  The last thing I remembered was a car honking and brakes screeching. After all I’d survived, I was going to be taken down by a car? Well . . . I guess we’ll find out.

  Chapter 1

  “OMG, is he dead? He’s dead. We fucking killed him! No . . .” the voice stopped itself before it reached a full-on panic, “. . . I didn’t kill him. You were driving, Night. You killed him!”

  “He’s not dead,” another voice answered.

  “No, he’s fucking dead. Just look at him.”

  I couldn’t look at myself, but I was lying on my back, and I was lying on something soft. “Maybe it’s a cloud. Maybe I’m in heaven.” That was wishful thinking.

  Like most times when I came back from the deep black of unconsciousness, I felt like hammered shit. A dull pain radiated from the top of my head, down through my balls, and into my toenails. It took my addled brain a moment to remember why.

  “The tumble dry cycle from hell,” I stopped myself before I could groan.

  Like with Godric, the Fae who looked like his mother had fucked a wild boar, I was playing possum. There was no use advertising that I was conscious again until I had more information on what the hell was going on. Whoever was huddled around me, they weren’t as observant as the Fae.

  “Did anyone check for a wallet?”

  “For the love of the gods, Night, you’re going to rob him too. Hitting him with the car wasn’t enough?”

  “A wallet would have ID, Skella. By the Dark Lady you’re dumb,” the last part was muttered, but I was close enough to pick it up. Apparently, so was Stella. It had to be Stella, because no one I’d ever met was named Skella.

  “Fuck you, Night. You just killed a guy . . . in a foreign country . . . I hope you like getting fucked in the ass. I hear they don’t do separate-sex prisons here.”

  “Night, Skella, both of you shut up. He’s not dead,” the third person repeated.

  I felt something being held close to my face, and I had to keep myself breathing normally. Nothing happened for several seconds.

  “See,” the voice stated. “The mirror fogged up, that means he’s breathing. If he’s breathing, he’s not dead; so, everyone can calm down now.”

  “OMG, thank the gods,” the one named Skella, or Stella, I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure I was hearing things correctly.

  In my head, Skella-Stella was wearing something pink and fluffy. Her voice was high-pitched, bordered on annoying, and her affinity for acronyms made me think of every stereotypical teen girl of my generation. I could also tell she was ruled by her emotions, quick to panic, and not much of a friend to the other people in the room. It didn’t take a genius to deduce she was thinking about throwing this Night person under the bus if I was dead.

  “If he’s alive then let’s just leave him. Someone will find him. We’ll leave money on the nightstand for the room, and head home. We’re already late for reporting back to campus,” Night’s humanitarian compassion really showed through.

  Night’s voice was bored, nearly monotone despite the high-stress situation. Either she was a sociopath, she really didn’t give a fuck about me, or she really wanted to get back to campus. Either way, that wasn’t good for me. I needed to keep an eye on her.

  “We’re not leaving him,” the third and final voice laid down the law.

  This voice was deeper, filled with calm strength, and had a protective feel to it. It could be male or female. I just couldn’t tell, but whoever they were, I’d need them on my side if I was going to make it out of this. They were the key. The other two listened to the mystery leader.

  “Fine, Butters, we’ll do it your way. But I’m not staying here one more second after he gets back on his feet. I’m serious. This place is starting to give me the creeps,” Skella-Stella replied with a bare hint of defiance. It was a token attempt, just enough to say she reserved the right to bail.

  “Butters, Skella-Stella, and Night,” it sounded like a reject 90’s girl pop group, or the worst super hero team in existence.

  Whoever they were, I didn’t know how to feel about them. They’d definitely been the ones that hit me with the car. I could chalk that up to an accident. I remembered lying half-dead in the middle of the road. I remembered the feeling of complete helplessness when I couldn’t move my legs and escape. Hell, I was pretty sure I’d broken my spine on the trip through the
rift between realms. A shiver worked its way up said spine that I couldn’t stop. Along with a jolt of pain from the sudden movement.

  “Seems to be working now,” I grimaced, as I pushed the feelings of helplessness to the back of my mind. I needed to be strong. For all I knew, this was all an act and these people were going to harvest my organs and sell them on the black market.

  “If I pass back out and wake up in a bathtub full of ice, I’m going to be so pissed.”

  I didn’t know if my Fae healing powers would regrow valuable bits of me, so I wanted to avoid that at all costs.

  “He’s coming to. Give him some space,” Butters told the other two, and I felt the bed shift as she got up. Whoever Butters was, they weren’t a small person.

  “Shit,” I chided myself for letting on that I was conscious.

  I gathered my power; ready to defend myself if needed. The result was like trying to start a car when its battery was dead. My power gave a weak stutter. It felt like something sucker punched me in the nuts, and I got zilch for my effort.

  This time, I couldn’t stop the groan that escaped my lips. I slowly opened my eyes. On the bright side, I could see. My retinas hadn’t been knocked loose by my arrival back in this realm. I’d had that happen before, and it sucked. On the down side, what I saw lent a lot more credence to my people-going-to-harvest-my-organs theory.

  The place smelled damp. No inside living space should smell like that. I counted no less than three bullet holes in the walls. The furniture looked like any number of canine creatures had chewed on the legs and pissed on the carpet. The off-white paint was chipped, pealing, and had several water stains running down the walls like ugly, gushing wounds; and those were the five-star amenities.

  I tried to ignore the claw marks on the headboard behind me. Those definitely weren’t made by any dog I could think of. If my captors had turned on all the lights, then at least half the bulbs were out. I didn’t even want to think about the weird smell coming from the bathroom.