A portal opened on the horizon, the red slash a gaping maw in the night sky. Ashlynn swore under her breath. “Do they scry for the perfect time to interrupt us?” She asked Dior sourly. “The amount of times a portal opens when we are f-king our brains out, I would swear they have a spy camera in our bedroom.”
“We have tried plotting the portal openings to determine a pattern but have not been able to create enough of a pattern to predict when and where,” Dior replied changing his direction to lead them towards it. “What does Cael say?”
“He doesn’t know,” Ashlynn replied. “The games are organized by high up the food chain amongst his people. All he knows is that if your family cannot pay the fine, they must submit a participant. The players gather at a particular point, a portal opens, and they go through. No one in his family had fought in the games for centuries, so what happens once they pass through the portal, he was not sure, other than they must find the exit that opens exactly twenty-four hours after the opening, and if they do not exit, they are not permitted to return until the next games and are called prisoners of war.”
They were drawing close enough to see the spill of armoured wing people through the opening. There was an armed force on the ground to meet them, bullets, arrows, and spells arcing through the sky. The first of the winged ones struck a barrier, a dome that arched over the defense force, and that person shrieked as they became lodged in the surface.
There was something in the energy field that caused the trapped winged one to burn, as if the surface of the dome was acidic, smoke rising as flesh charred, cloth peeling back, and hair dusting away.
The winged woman’s screams were agonized and prolonged, her death horrible.
Those that saw her demise caught themselves, doing everything within the power of their wings to change their direction in order to avoid that hideously painful death.
“That,” Ashlynn said with admiration. “Is awesome.”
“Here,” Blaise collected the clothing from Etienne and Dior and thrust them into Charon’s arms along with his own. “You stay with Ashlynn and hold our clothes.”
Other armed men and women spilled out of the buildings onto the street and engaged the winged attackers in furious battle. Dior tucked his wings tight to his body and barrel-rolled into the continued flow of winged hellions that spilled from the portal, knocking them screaming from the sky, their bones breaking beneath the blow of his stone body.
He saw Blaise strike from above, his sharp horns impaling one man before he tossed him off with a shake of his head, whilst his hooves sprayed blood through a scalp-tearing blow on another. Etienne dove, his claws sinking into the shoulders of a woman, and she screamed in terror, caught between the griffin and the horrifying shield.
“Be wary of the shield,” Dior roared to Etienne when the griffin rose again. “We do not want to find out if we are resilient to it the hard way.”
“Agreed.”
Ashlynn had remained with Charon, casting spells into the foray, a wise move, Dior thought. The female hybrid was not a physical fighter like her mate, Cael, and he did not want to have to tell Elior that Ashlynn had been lost in a battle under his command.
The portal overhead closed abruptly, and the remaining winged hellions in the air scattered, abandoning the battle on the ground.
“Do we pursue?” Etienne wondered.
“No,” Dior decided. “We need to find Verity.”
On the ground, a man and woman stood out amongst the humans and Others who fought around them, their midnight hair, and the fluttering edges of the robes they wore lifting as if they moved in their own personal flow of air, and their joined hands shining with the power they used for the shield.
“Succubus,” Etienne leered. “And an incubus.”
“You stay above,” Dior told him.
“Of course,” Etienne agreed. “Have fun.”
Dior gestured to Blaise, and they circled down towards the ground to land a respectful distance from the arc of the shield. They saw it flicker and fall, glittering dust shimmering to the ground, an odd curtain over the violence as the armed force moved amongst the fallen winged people, deciding who would live and who would die by the extent of injury.
The succubus and incubus moved towards the gargoyles. They were stunningly gorgeous, Dior observed, ethereally so as was typical of their ilk, and impossibly graceful, seeming to float rather than walk. Their skin was like the finest porcelain, the paleness of it against the ink of their waist length hair, and their eyes possessed no distinguishable white or iris, but were entirely black.
The man’s lips curled in a smile of breath-taking beauty until his lips parted to reveal steely, pointed teeth. “Gargoyles,” he said, his voice like a song.
“Incubus,” Dior replied. “It has been a long time since I have seen your type.”
“A long time since you have seen us,” the woman trailed clawed fingertips along his collarbone as she moved around him, the steely nails scraping across Dior’s stone skin. “But we have always been there on the shadows of your darkest dreams.”
“You are a long way from your city,” the male commented. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence,” he stroked his hand along Blaise’s upper arm and leaned into him, inhaling. “Mmm, someone’s on heat. Delicious. I could lick every inch of your stone skin,” he whispered, the magic in his voice causing Dior to harden and his balls to tighten painfully, the ache of release a demand. “Every single inch. And drink in your lust for days.”
“Ahem,” Blaise swallowed hard. “I think I am going to make a mess.”
Dior chuckled. “An interesting combination,” he observed. “A randy goat gargoyle and an incubus. I wonder who will come off better?”
“Davien, the lion is correct. You would grow fat off that one, without exhausting his appetite,” the woman agreed, amused. “Best to leave him alone. There is a reason that gargoyles form triads,” she added wisely.
“Very true,” Dior agreed.
Davien paused in front of Blaise and ran his tongue from between the goat’s pectoral muscles to the hollow of his collar bone. Blaise moaned. “Tastes sweet,” Davien breathed. Blaise sobbed in a breath as Davien’s hands closed over him. “Gargoyles are well proportioned,” the incubus approved. “Do you retain these dimensions as men, I wonder?”
Dior heard the wet strike of come against the ground and saw the succubus before him close her eyes and inhale deeply, feeding off his mates’ lust. She released her breath.
“Mmm,” she sighed. “An interesting flavor, but delicious, nonetheless,” her eyes were heavy in her satiation. “We were not expecting a meal when we came to greet you,” she smiled seductively. “Lucky us.”
“Your shielding ability is impressive,” Dior commented. “I have not seen a magic quite like it.”
“We are not bred to be weapons or laborers,” she replied. “Our makers’ purpose was more carnal in nature. But we are not without defences.”
“Indeed. We came when we saw the portal open, intending to offer aid, but we were not needed.”
“Your intentions were appreciated,” Davien moved back to the woman and took her hand. “But we are well capable of protecting our food supply, aren’t we Sabrine?” He looked to the succubus, who inclined her head in elegant agreement.
Dior wondered if the humans that fought at their side knew that the incubus and succubus saw them as food rather than allies or equals. “Of course. We will continue on our way.”
“What brings a triad of gargoyles, and the vampire Elior’s mates to our skies?” Sabrine wondered.
Dior decided not to correct her assumption that the winged man with Ashlynn was Cael, rather than Charon. “We are on our way to the werewolf run,” he explained.
“Ah,” she nodded. “Their runs are well warded and glamoured, but there are those of us who remember their locations from the time before this war, when their wards were less effective. You are not far from where you seek to be, continue to fly east of the sun. We trade with the werewolves,” she added. “In a way. They send our town food, in return for our aid in keeping the local population of winged hellions under control.”
“That is generous in a time when food is scarce,” Dior was surprised.
“It is not scarce to the werewolves,” Davien licked his lips, his eyes on Blaise. The goat gargoyle shifted uncomfortably, his hooves crunching the small rocks in the soil and his wings pulled tight to his body; embarrassed, Dior thought. “They have turned their runs to farming, with their witches and warlocks using their magic to accelerate growth.”
“Is that so?” Dior could see how that could be useful in the goal to feed his city. “We will leave you then,” he decided. “The day grows old.”
“Indeed, and we have a mess and new prisoners to accommodate,” Davien replied.
“You do not kill them all.”
“No,” Sabrine shook her head. “We are lovers, not killers,” she blew him a kiss. “If they are not injured beyond our ability to treat, we keep them alive. They become docile quickly with the right motivations and work hard.”
Dior wondered what motivated Winged Hellions into docility but decided not to ask. He returned to the sky, Blaise at his heels.
“Sorry Dior,” the goat gargoyle was sheepish.
“Don’t be,” he as amused. “When an incubus decides he wants to taste you, there is not much you can do but enjoy it.”
“I feel it was unfaithful,” Blaise admitted.
Dior laughed. “No, my mate,” he assured him. “Do not worry about that.”