Endangered Ch. 12

Lillian was already gone for the day when Chris reluctantly extracted himself to attend to it. Therefore he was free to pour the robust, hot brew into two mugs and doctor it up without fear of vampiric molestation.

She had been busy for a week of mornings, away attending strategy and logistics meetings. Word was out, there was a demon on the loose. The rumour seemed to drive the Being populace for shelter in a way the threat of the Revelation never had. Or perhaps, Chris considered, it was a case of camels and straw. The Synod's limp response hadn't helped.

The Being community was finally awakening to their tremulous situation, contracting, turning inward for support.

On every continent save the coldest, where only a lonely vampire ruled, Beings flooded back to the safety of their territorial overlords and officials. It was quite the turn-around from the disgruntled and surly complaints about the Revelation of weeks before.

Coffee in hand, Chris slipped quietly into Susan's dark bedroom.

She was asleep, but by the dim light seeping around the curtains, it was clear that she'd had a restless night. The bedding was tangled around her legs, a pillow on the floor, and her hair a complete disaster. None of these signs were the most obvious, nor the most ominous. Dark tendrils branched across the sheets around her, twitching as if alert to his intrusion.

The things emerged from the sleeves of her flannel nightwear, jutting out at her wrists, throat, and waist. It was an instinctively unsettling sight, those gnarled, twisting roots emerging seamlessly from creamy skin. Chris couldn't help the shudder that rose up in him as something in his magical senses was lightly revolted in its proximity. Looking at the sueth-azoah was like staring into pieces of yawning darkness to his magic, and more unnerving by the second. They seemed to sink hooks into his eyes, enticing him down toward a bed of soft loam despite his impulse to flee.

This was the woman who had loved and cared for him for years, but he couldn't bring himself to see past the thing that now cohabited her body. Dragon instinct wouldn't allow it. In fact, his reaction was very similar to the instinctive unease of watching a spider scurry nearby, only on an intangible magical level. He wasn't alone in that feeling either. Others raised their energistic hackles around her too, Lillian, his dragonesses, even Reyla. Immi seemed pretty unphased, but sprites were old, with racial memories or tales reaching back to times when sueth-azoah weren't long-forgotten oddities.

Chris' heart jumped painfully in his chest to see the set of her sleeping lips, the pained frown locked on her brow. It wasn't a peaceful expression at all, she looked scared.

"Susan," he spoke softly, placing the steaming mugs down on the bedside table. "Susan."

He stepped closer, careful to avoid one of the tendrils that had spilled onto the carpeted floor during the night. She murmured something inaudible, so he reached for her shoulder. His hand never made it, mere inches before contact, it was intercepted by a coiling, springlike shoot.

The thing wrapped cooly around his wrist in a moment, imparting a sense of delicate, yet somehow undeniable strength. Dragon instinct kicked in. For an adrenaline-infused second, he felt himself drawing breath and magic, preparing to lash out.

Susan's eyes flew open as the touch registered. With a gasp, the tendril was suddenly falling away.

Chris was left struggling to hold still, ghosting sensations of the cool, alien touch of the sueth-azoah replaying up and down his nerves. His hand was clenching slowly open and closed, almost as if recovering from a mild case of pins and needles.

"I'm sorry, I ... oh, Chris!" Susan burst into tears as she saw his expression of shocked revulsion, the beginnings of a snarl on his lips. She yanked back all the unintended extensions of herself, feeling them slither quickly across the bedding and back into her as if they'd never existed.

The slow awareness at the back of her mind seemed puzzled by the stab of anger she shot at it. It had only been searching out their surroundings for places to put down roots after all. It had even found a vibrant, living source of energy from which to sup. What was so repulsive about that?

It must have been trying to drink from his warmth and magic. Susan could see it written on his face, though he tried to hide it a moment later. She couldn't face him after seeing it. Couldn't face the sympathy, the pity, and sorrow she saw kindling in his eyes. They used to be so wonderfully full of genuine love, even lust. Now, this?

She rolled away from him, curling into a ball, trying to swallow down wretched sobs that wanted to rip their way up out of her. It was going to be a bad day.

"Just please, Chris, just leave me be."

Everyone looked at her like that now, even old Eddard.

He didn't, of course. Susan found herself both relieved, and a little annoyed as she felt his weight shift the bed behind her. Soon his arm wrapped around her, pulling himself against her.

"I love you, Susan," Chris breathed against the back of her head. "I don't understand why you chose to implant that thing, but I love you. We will be okay."

They didn't say anything else, just held each other in tentative closeness as the room filled with the scent of their forgotten coffee. Beyond the bedroom door, the sounds of the household grew louder as Annabel and Immi set about breakfast.

***

"It is regretful, but after this attack, I must take measures to ensure both my sovereignty and my subject's safety," Reyla spoke to the camera rig, projecting her little performance thousands of miles around the world.

More than a hundred stared back, leaders all, the most influential of the magical underworld. These were Lords and Ladies their own territories, clan chiefs, or top representatives of prominent organisations. The preeminent of the magical world were gathered for their monthly congress. Now for a moment, nearing the end of an already lengthy session sharing important inter-territorial business, the stage was hers.

The dark elf held her lips pursed tight, lest they betray her with a treacherous smirk.

"Syndicate members burglarise my citizens in broad daylight under the pretence of trade negotiations? My hand is forced, I hereby bar the free export of magical crystal or such ready currency from my territory. All future interdomain trade of this kind will come directly to my desk."

Reyla could see the representative of House Lefayd agitating in his seat already as she throttled any ambition of trading through their network of intermediaries. The replacement for the disgraced Lord Eramir was a bit of a hothead, a comically unforgivable trait for any leader of their kind. Their former Lord was currently imprisoned somewhere deep under the Atlantic. She baited a pause, and to her delighted astonishment the fool actually bit.

"Speak plainly, by all means, Lady Narlakis. You seek to hoard and tax your newfound wealth of crystal. Riches purchased, I might add, by your willingness to protect an unhinged and dangerous beast."

Hidden under her skirts, Reyla frigged herself a little harder as the fool said almost exactly what she'd known he would. Taut muscles in her thighs and rump balanced on a delicious knife-edge of pleasure as she fantasised on the wickedness of having the young dragon in question devour her needy foo-foo at a time like this.

"Oh please, tell us again of your noble house's innocence," Reyla spat back, portraying a picture of disdain to the camera. Practised venom dripped off every syllable she spoke. She could still play her part even with the great-big, thrumming dragon-crystal pressing against her sex. "My ears have yet to drop off, but not for lack of effort by your questionably qualified tongue. Tell us, would you please? No doubt your predecessor had only the most selfless interests at heart when he tried to have the dragon's pregnant mate murdered under my own roof, correct?"

"He all but destroyed our ancestral keep!" The elf hissed back, goaded and unmindful of their digital audience. "Thousands of years of heritage gon -"

"Order!" John Guthrie barked from his cozy office, halfway across the globe in Scotland. "There is serious business yet to address. Time is precious, I will not allow this meeting to devolve any further toward bickering. House Lefayd has already waived their right for Synod arbitration on the matter in question, quite wisely I might add, so let us move on. Reyla?"

Reyla struggled to withhold laughter as the old dragon slowly chewed the Lefayd upstart, politically speaking, and spat him back out like a troublesome, gristly morsel.

She might be overindulging a little, almost giddy with the thrill of politicking from a newfound position of economic might. What was happening between her thighs was delicious and scandalous, adding to the thrill. Chris' gift felt hot stuffed against her nethers as she slowly rocked her slender hips around and around on top of it. The large, egg-sized diamond was just absurd, formed so impossibly from a fallen conifer. Reyla almost lost her composure as she remembered his huge hand, so passionately gripping her throat.

However, the force that had her so intoxicated that she diddled herself in front of her peers, the real exceptional power, was his magic. It did unspeakable things to her and her elfin libido. To feel his basic essence throb close against her sex, pressing, opening her, but never entirely slipping inside...

Reyla shuddered visibly, snapping her awareness back to the screens before some of the noises that wanted to escape her bubbled up past her lips. She'd nearly missed Lord Guthrie's cue for her to continue. This was simply wicked.

"Ahem, yes. I did express my concerns to you all some months ago about the need for this dragon to be left in peace to start a family. The temptation has clearly proven too much for some of you to resist. Almost daily, I receive reports of the attempted coercion of my citizens by foreign parties. In short, if you want any part of what little crystal is available, you'd best come through official channels. My patience for thievery and espionage has officially expired."

"That is well, Lady Reyla," spoke a powerful leader from the coast of Eastern Africa. "But I am yet to hear a satisfactory explanation for the purported abilities of this young dragon of yours. Surely you do not begrudge our curiosity? The rumours regarding the young man are, how do I put this, sensational? There are precedents for the management of individuals of such extraordinary power, precedents designed to prevent the establishment of tyrants, warmongers, and dangerous monopolies. Your warning has only served to pique my interest and concern, as I'm sure many of our esteemed colleagues will agree."

"I would respect the young dragon's wishes to be left alone if I were you. The last thing I want on my conscience is a repetition of the events my dear cousin was just snivelling about," Reyla cautioned sweetly. However, her tone and silken smile left ample opportunity for the implicit threat.

She couldn't fault the man's logic, he was perilously close to the truth of the matter. Chris was extraordinary, wonderfully so, if the gemstone thrumming against her slippery, midnight-dark labia had any say in the matter. His link to the Old Gods couldn't be uncovered, not before he was firmly and undeniably hers.

They would undoubtedly try to take him from her then. Disconcerting as that thought was, she smiled. Let them try, she doubted very much the dragon would put up with such political interference in his life ever again. It would be fun to watch him dismantle a few other self-important busybodies. House Lefayd had not fared well at all. That was an overindulgent fantasy though, she really was trying to steer them down a more temperate, long-term path after all.

"Peace, Lords and Ladies, peace," the old Scott rumbled, getting his say before anyone else decided to add their opinion and things devolved any further. "I would point out that enacting such measures has almost always ended poorly for the Being in question, and regret amongst the disputing parties. For the sake of my species, I urge us all not to repeat the mistakes of the past, especially in light of the larger challenges we face with the Revelation."

"I agree with Lord Guthrie," Queen Magdalen finally spoke, soft and high-pitched with her saccharine tone. For such a tiny creature, the powerful fairy had inherited the most significant part of Lord Eramir's support block amongst the Synod. She effectively held the reins of this runaway chariot now, though her grip was not nearly as secure as the disgraced elf house had once enjoyed. "There will be time to squabble over our prize subjects if we are still around next year. In the meantime, I have no doubt those who support Lady Reyla will be afforded a taste of her newfound prosperity."

"Yes, of course, Queen Magdalen, thank you," Reyla allowed herself a simpering chuckle at that, transmitted to her fellows around the globe. She would have to find an appropriate bribe to send the crafty fairy, nothing too impressive though.

"Excellent," continued the fairy. "If that is the end of the territorial business, let us move quickly on to other concerns. The humans are still dithering about proposals regarding our judicial authorities, and defensive powers. They're saying it's just a matter of finding an acceptable vocabulary, but it boils down to this. They want us to police ourselves, and help them police their own, whilst retaining almost all judicial and executive authority for themselves within the existing institutions of their lands, even expanding their reach into the magical. Let me assure you we will not agree to such terms. This is probably a negotiation tactic designed to..."

"What about the demon!" interrupted a young leader from South America. "Will no one else speak? My city is bursting at the seams with Beings scared in from the wild. More and more come out of the woodwork every day, Beings we have never seen before, or thought long dead. They stir trouble and demand action, and I have to say that I agree with their sentiment. What good are we if all we do is sit around and talk? I urge you all to take action. You have told us that this demon is largely responsible for the mess with the humans? I say the memory charm is still on the table! Every one of us, every human that falls prey to ... have none of you read the histories? There are billions of them now, all fuel for that twisted sorcery."

Magdalen, queen of all fairy-kind glared silently, watching their transmitted faces. She ignored the uncomfortable looks, the sideways glances off-screen to peers or underlings. The youngster spoke out of turn, but she waited until he ran out of wind, then a little more for dramatic poise.

"It is already done," she finally spoke. "Do you not see that? Truly it was too late from the beginning for such action. I thought much like you when I first heard of Radek, that is on record. Now heed this, I was wrong. Whatever the demon does now, the humans must be with us. Without them on our side, we will tear each other apart just as surely. The monster has tied our fates most cunningly. It is more pressing to secure peace first, to gird ourselves for whatever may come. Then we can devote all our resources to dealing with the loathsome creature."

"A comforting sentiment, when the fiend isn't lurking unchecked in your own backyard."

Reyla's thoughts, now occupied rather more entertainingly in keeping expressions of pleasure off her face, were roused to full attention by the reedy, unfamiliar voice. It was the old Peruvian blood-mage, lending support to the young dissenter. He rarely spoke at all during such meetings, this was a noteworthy development.

"Striking hastily will doom us just the same," Magdalen snapped back, her composure fracturing slightly out of frustration. "Don't you see that? The Synod has voted, must we make more examples? You are all duty-bound, by your oaths, by your lives-forfeit! Dissent, among us at a time like this? We do the demon's work for it."

"We aren't asking you to sit idly," Lord Guthrie came to her aid, ever the soother of such situations. "In fact we encourage you to marshall your forces, prepare defences for your people and infrastructure. The demon has been amongst us a long while now, with any luck a little longer won't prove our undoing. However, another incident like what happened in Argentina will almost certainly do the trick."

"I understand your concern, I do," Magdalen took up the baton, her composure restored. She looked directly at the camera, speaking to each one of them, not their faces on her own screen. "It eluded Stemari, one of our most skilled hunters, if nothing else, proving the severity of the situation. That is why we must make the next strike count, committing every resource and magic we have. It will be impossible to do so with our hands tied, magically speaking, so the Revelation must come first. Now, let us please move on. Lord Harcot?"

"Yes, your eminence?" The vampire lord's smile contained perhaps a little too much honest humour at the entire incident. It earned him a furrow of her tiny, regal brow and an annoyed twitch of a shimmering dragonfly wing.

"Your report on the situation in Indonesia? Perhaps that will keep the hounds off my heels for a few moments."

The youngster looked a bit abashed, but the old blood-mage just nodded solemnly. He understood. This was bigger than he or his people, the Synod would not jeopardise the safety of Beings as a whole for the peace of mind of a few underpopulated territories.

Reyla's attention was drifting again. These meetings could get so dreadfully tedious sometimes, and there was plenty else to occupy her thoughts these days.

"Well ... yes, of course," Lord Harcot broke the pause. "To get to the thick of the matter, I tasked a few useful chaps, humans mind, to get to the islands and infiltrate at the edges of the magical community. Yesterday, I got a message that at least two of them made it out. They think they know what we're dealing with."

"My wayward children again?" Vlad, asked mockingly, expecting another round of blame and accusation. There had been more and more pointed his way as vampire youngsters around the globe continued to cause friction under the new restrictions.

"Not this time, my good man. It's gargoyles."

"Gargoyles?" The ancient vampire started up in his velvet-lined reclining chair. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I thought so too," Harcot nodded. "But from what my man managed to tease out of the locals, they just waltzed out the high jungle in their thousands. Also, there's some connection to an ancient cannibalism cult, so that's just peachy."

"I thought we got rid of that abhorrence."

"I'm not aware of any gargoyles amongst us," Queen Magdalen tsked thoughtfully. "They don't tend to seek positions of responsibility after the conflicts. Do any of you have someone we might consult on this development?"

Reyla let the meeting drone out, the diamond had worked its way perilously, deliciously close to...

"Ahhaaa," the elf burbled quietly, clawing at the armrests of her ornate throne. It had finally slipped inside, warm and hard and thick. Her vagina tensed, squeezing harshly at the smooth intruder, unsure if it wanted him in or out.

"Lady Narlakis?"

Shit.

"I ... ah, I will ask one of my subjects, but I am not hopeful."

"Most unhelpful," Queen Magdalen sounded annoyed at the frivolous interruption, and the elf had been wielding her political rapier so skillfully until now.

In. Reyla decided she definitely wanted it inside her. Tingles of lust ran up her back and to the tips of her breasts and across her scalp . Little beads of sweat broke out instantly on her upper lip, her neck, even her forehead. His magic was inside, and it felt like she was unravelling at the seams. What a delightfully torturous sensation, she mused, flexing her inner muscles experimentally. The rest of her tedious bureaucratic morning was looking up as the flow of the council meeting moved thankfully on around her blunder.