"Oh, Puppy, I'm so sorry. We'll deal with it, though. It'll be alright." She consoled him like he was as broken as he felt inside.
Merrick looked at Max like his world hadn't shifted within the past few hours.
I killed people and became a slaver, his mind said to him, over and over. I'm a murderer now. I don't feel like I've changed, so maybe I always was one?
Max patted his arm. When that wasn't enough, she wrapped her arms around his torso and squeezed him until his back popped. She kept squeezing until he squeezed her back. They just stood in the clearing that smelled of blood and sex and hugged like the world was the same as it ever was.
"It doesn't change anything, you know. You're still a good person. An excellent brother. A wonderful beta for me and Miles. If you felt that they needed to die, then they needed to die. Don't second-guess yourself. I'll take the collars off and all will be well." Max was saying these things and patting his back, but he didn't feel them. Not really. Maybe he would later, but not now.
"The slavers said they were going to give me to their master and all the slaves had bites all over them. So, another vampire is probably going to follow them back here. Should I let Hugo and Ines know, or..?"
The vampire's eyes exploded into a red hue and his face got thinner and sharper. His fangs dropped and his containment -- the wrist he was bound to the tree root with -- proved to be for show. He grabbed Merrick away from Max by the shoulders and spun him around to face him. They were of a similar height.
"Did they say their master's name, bride?" He was holding Merrick in place with surprising strength.
Merrick looked into the red eyes and shook his head numbly. "No. But I can smell her on the bites she left all over the children. She fed from them today."
The vampire still held his shoulders. "If you want to keep them alive, you will bring them all the way inside your mound so they don't get snatched or called out. If a sanguina has fed from them repeatedly, they will be susceptible to her mental commands."
"Ah, shit. Okay," Max nodded her head and handed a standing Green his discarded shirt. "I guess playtime is over, then. Let's get that thing we were going to do done so we can get you back into your room, princess, and I'll go free some vampire's blood slaves."
The pretty vampire said more, letting go of Merrick, but still facing him, looking at him. Reading his face for something Merrick couldn't guess at. He was talking to Max, though. Wasn’t talking to him. Probably. “I get bored in here by myself. Would you visit me more? Bring me more books?"
Max hummed. "I was here yesterday. And three days before that. I share an apartment with Puppy and sometimes don't see him for a week if I get wrapped up in crafting or planning. It happens. I can't make promises I know I won't be able to keep." She shot a side-eye behind them. "Since Green will have a door from his demesne to in here, maybe you can talk him into visiting you, too."
Merrick looked over at Max. "Green is putting a door to his demesne in here?"
"Yeah." She didn't sound thrilled about it.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I can keep a [Bargain]." Max said definitively. Then she backtracked and said in a lower tone, "And it's kinda like a marriage proposal, but I don't immediately have to say yes. We can just see where it goes. It's the next step of courtship, so he says. It'll also give him a little bit of my mana, which is fine because I rarely use a fraction of the mana I have." Max nodded as if to pacify herself and crossed her arms over her chest, like a self-hug. "He seems to think I can do what I do because of my massive mana well, and I didn't correct his assumption. I get stuff in exchange and it costs me little in the scheme of things, so it's a good [Bargain]."
Their lower talking was interrupted by a sad sound. A muttered, "He's not my bride, though. You and the dog are. I would like to get to know my brides." The vampire's eyes were normal again, if downcast. "I already know the fairy, and wish I knew him less." He was walking a few steps behind both Max and Merrick, shoulders low and feet kicking rocks off the path, and Green was bringing up the rear.
The tower wasn't far.
Merrick answered over his shoulder, "I'll come and visit you. I didn't think you were lonely down here. Just thought you were plotting how to eat all of my packmates." His face got a smirk on it, "And I guess I need to talk to both of you about giving me a vampire bride without my knowledge and then not saying anything about it until I had a massive erection. Not cool." He bumped his shoulder to Max's.
Max had set the pace and it was slow, as if she were subconsciously procrastinating what was coming.
She shrugged and had an embarrassed blush on her pale face. "Sorry. And I'm sorry you had to see that earlier. Must have been super awkward."
Merrick laughed. "No, the whole scene was excellent and I'd not mind seeing it again on a day that I hadn't committed my first murder spree and then became the proud owner of twenty fang-fucked slaves." Merrick's throat got tight. He cleared it and then continued. "It was the finding out I was affianced after the fact. That was the not-cool part." He looked over at his savior, the person who saved his little Pack and then drug them into her family. Into a life of magic and wildness and being able to stay with Thom and Em. "You gotta tell me stuff, Max. We [Bargain]ed for it."
Now, the vampire wasn't the only one with downcast eyes and slumped shoulders. "Sorry," she said. "It was a mistake and I was kinda embarrassed I dragged you into it."
When they finally got to the tower, he saw that Max had made some changes. A spiral staircase wound around the outside, covered in ivy, up to a small balcony that he guessed was a doorway to the vampire's room. A flower pot was sitting in the sun on the door stoop, small green shoots breaking through the dirt inside.
"Let's drop your anchor and then we can get to it," Max said, breathing deep, and all her muscles clenched.
She's nervous. Why?
"Wait," Merrick started to say.
Green had already begun casting his anchor and it looked like a massive spell someone shouldn't interrupt. Merrick kept his mouth closed. Surely, they knew what they were doing, right? Rocks flew out of the immaterium and began forming a door. It was beautiful and magical. Very forest fae. Insubstantial vines and birds were carved around the outsides into the light wood of the door frame, decorating it to look a bit whimsical. Fading into reality with a fizz-pop of magic. It was all very above his understanding and level. He just stood there and watched like he had an idea of what was going on.
The vampire looked at Max and then Merrick, and reached over quickly to slash Merrick's arm with his newly self-blooded claws. Then he slammed his bloody hand with their mixed blood onto the forming door. It made magic prickle down Merrick's back, over his face, down his throat; it wormed into his chest, stopped his heart, wrapped a fist around his spine, and cupped his balls.
He choked and sputtered. He gagged like he hadn't gagged since the first day he walked into Max's mound without permission, only this was so much worse on all levels. The magic was crawling around in his brain, running through his thoughts, touching a piece of him that should never be touched, and then flowing down his mana channels to spin around in his mana well. It rended and rebuilt something inside of him. It tore and tore at him, killing him. It healed and healed him, making him live. It was around his neck, sucking and licking. It whispered the word 'MINE' directly into his brain with four different voices. It was in his veins, burning and changing him. It was in his soul, calming him and loving him. It was a soft hand that ran through his fur. It was a hard claw that ripped his flesh away. Scouring his insides and making his heart clench and relax, clench and relax.
It was like a bomb went off in his brain and soul and mind and heart, all were blown to bits and all were reformed anew.
When he floated back down or crawled back up into his skin, his body-- he opened his eyes, he saw nothing but the sky. It was pretty. The sun was shining down. It was peaceful. Tranquil. He felt like it was his sky. Like a small piece of him was up there, shining down on the land, feeding the grass and trees that fed the deer. A piece of him was the deer, eating the grass and trees and roaming free of worry. He was part of the roots that would absorb the deer when they finally decayed on the forest floor. Like he was a part of the ecosystem of this world that Max had made. Like that small piece of him that held up the tranquil sky was the best piece that was in him.
"What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck. Dude." Max gasped from the ground next to him.
"Why would you do something so dangerous, you old goat fucker?" Green groaned from the other side of Max.
"You were tricking her. Trapping her. So I trapped you back. I trapped all of us. I out-tricked the trickster! You can't get rid of me now, you fucking asshole fairy." He chuckled low, lying prone. "Now they, and you, are my brides in truth, held together by the might of all of our own magics, no less." The vampire was babbling from the ground on Merrick's other side.
"I think I may have pissed myself," Merrick whimpered. He reached up for his face with a numb hand and wiped tears away. He was weeping.
"Are you okay, Puppy? That was some thick magic. Did you melt?" Max grabbed for his hand. She held it.
No one had gotten up yet. They all were laid low by the fucked up magic.
"I feel compelled to tell you that most of the time when I gag in the mound isn't because of magic but because everyone is so damn horny all the time and I can smell it. All of the elves constantly fuck. Constantly. I have a wolf nose. It smells pungent. I can't escape it. They wear each other's juices more than they wear their own. Pretty sure all the women are pregnant, too, but they just keep at each other like bunnies." Oh, gods. Shut up shut up shut up shut up. "I think that whatever you assholes just did, it made it so I have the fae inability to lie, now. I didn't want to say that. It just came out."
"Poor puppy. Today is just not going well for you." She squeezed his hand, hard, and sighed.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
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In her long and storied existence, every single goddamned time she tried to get married or something close to it, something bad happened. Every. Single. Time.
Apparently, getting a guy to shove a piece of him into a piece of her counted.
This is fine. It's all fine. At least no one died. She thought for a moment. It just felt like we did. That's all.
Max looked up from the ground at the anchor that was placed at the foot of the tower. It was several sizes bigger than what she had expected. What started out as a testament of Faedom, vines and birds and trees engraved in the wooden door, was now a breathtaking amalgamation of several different types of magics. The forest was still there, but the wood that the doorway was made of was black, making the entire scene into a forest at night. There were wolves stalking behind the trees, hunting the deer that were at the forefront. Bats and night birds were in the sky. Spider webs were across some of the branches. The vines had moonflowers and night jasmine in full bloom, dripping their poisons on the ground.
"Oh. Pretty." She stood up. The world spun for a minute, but she breathed through it and then it was fine.
"That is not how it's supposed to look!" Green was affronted. He was sitting up, but still not standing yet. He looked as if a giant had stepped on him.
"Well, shit happens. It's fine." She looked over at the Pup and started walking away. "Let's go save your dudes, Puppy. Maybe I can get it done before I'm late to Thom's training tonight." Puppy moaned and rolled over to lift himself up on all fours.
"How can you... he bastardized something that should be sacred to us! How are you not angry?" Green started looking like he was going to tear the still-downed, smugly smiling vampire apart.
"Because... shit happens? And it's fine?" She shrugged. "Once I tried to get married to a baker and the ground cracked open and a higher hell spilled out. Everyone died in a bad way. Or another time, I was going to propose to a princess to steal her dad's kingdom, and her guard showed up, mistook me for a bandit, and gutted me crotch to sternum like a rainbow trout. That's a bad way to go, by the way. Takes longer than you'd think and you're conscious for most of it. Or, I was going to marry this shit-hot wizard and live in his decrepit tower with him and spend the rest of my days looking at the fabrics of reality while tripping balls on mushrooms, and a dragon showed up and ate the whole thing, us inside, in one gulp. And it was a rainbow dragon. They don't usually do that. 'Peaceful, loving' dragons, my fuckin' ass. This," she waved her hand at the door, "was letting us off easy. I had expected us all to die, to be real."
He sputtered. His words exploded from him like a firebomb spell, making the nearest birds take off from a tree. "You have a marriage curse and didn't say anything? You're as bad as the old fucker over there!" Green stood up and threw his hands in the air.
"It's not a curse. It's just a thing that's followed me through a lot, and I mean a lot of lives. At least, I don't think it's a curse, curse. I just have... bad... luck?" Her brows furrowed and her face scrunched up."Wait, it's obviously a curse. Is my inability to see it for what it is a flag? Where's Miles? I have to talk to him!"
"He's taking care of the slaves, Max. Which we should also do, too." Puppy said, voice full of reason. He stumbled to his feet and breathed deeply. He wiped his eyes and mouth off on a sleeve of his shirt that he never put back on. Why am I just noticing that the Pup is ripped?
"Let's go, then." She turned to the vampire, still lying on the ground, who was smiling at the sky in a smug way. "Get back in your tower, princess bride. If you're gone too long from inside the ward, some curses get activated. Since the cuff doesn't work anymore, or maybe never did-- you're kind of a sneaky one, so I dunno-- I also have to warn you that you aren't welcome in my outer demesne and the doors will absolutely give you a bad trip. Bad as in, bloody and awful. Please don't test it." Max looked inside herself. "I'd like you to stay alive?" Max questioned things. She looked at his hand. "You're still bound by the [Bitter Bargain] sigil, so... yeah. Still my prisoner." She nodded and started walking to her anchor.
It's fine and everything can be ignored for now. It's all fine, really.
"Wait up! I'll come with you!" Puppy called. She left the vampire and the Sidhe behind. She fulfilled her [Bargain], which means he had to do his part and send over dark mages. He also had other stuff he needed to do, but she expected him to take time on those things.
The two meandered up the path that only they could see. "Did we... did we just get married to those two? And, um. Each other?"
"I think so? I'm not sure. I'm sorry you got trapped into all this shit because I ran my fucking mouth to the vamp. I thought it was so funny at the time. Hubris. It was hubris." She hung her head and kept walking.
Puppy said, "Uh, he said it wasn't in truth until he did the thing with the door."
"I put the idea in his head. I'm still sorry." Max rebutted.
He waved his hand like she did sometimes. Especially when she was downplaying things. "Nah, it's fine. Surprise marriages happen sometimes."
"Really?" She perked up.
He snorted and shoved his shoulder into hers. "No, never. But I was trying to make you feel better. I lied, though, so that's good that the forced honesty passed."
She cleared her throat. "Sometimes, if you're joking, the compulsion doesn't register."
"Oh," His face crumpled.
"Yeah. It sucks. But the ability to [Bargain] is cool. You probably have that now." Max felt the evil grin grow across her face. "And I'm gonna delegate so much work to you because of it."
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He wasn't ever going to leave.
Aldred lay on the ground in a land made just for him, in front of the tower his bride, now in reality, had also made for him. It was full of books containing esoteric, arcane, and hidden knowledge, art supplies, magic, and sunshine that didn't burn his skin. Later, he would sup from his chest provided by his other bride that was full of a hundred different flavors of human blood. Truly it was a heaven for a timeless monster who had thought he had seen the ends of the earth.
"You shit-sucking fucker." Green, the bloodiest forest animal ever to become a king, kicked Alred on the side of his torso and then fell down on the ground to sit next to where he was lying. "You could have killed us all, you stupid asshole."
After he was done groaning from the kick, he asked, "Do you not know what they are? We were in no danger, you jumped up insect."
"You could have ruined everything. I had a plan."
"Of course, you did. You were going to lead the two of them around by their hearts, toy with them a little too much, and then be shocked when they torch or eat the entire world because you couldn't help yourself." Aldred's eyes narrowed but continued looking at the sky. "I know what happened to your Myreath, you fucking dipshit. You were setting them up for it to all happen again. Only, this time, imperiling a world and not just a court. You wouldn't have been able to swoop in and claim it like you claimed your tattered throne after it was ash and cinders. No heroic story to tell the masses if the masses are too dead to hear."
"You've heard bits and pieces and came to the wrong conclusion, you bloody fuck." Green looked angrily over at him. "If I had the energy and hadn't been fried from the inside out by your mangling of my magic, I'd eat your fucking intestines."
"I'd like to see you try, bride." Aldred grinned at the sky. Cackled. "Oh, this is like falling into a pit and landing on an abandoned dragon's hoard. Just, priceless."
"Fuck." Green spat. "Fuck. You really did it. I'm your fucking bride. This is a nightmare!"
"It's not that bad, surely."
Green's hands went into his hair. "You don't know what I know. You never have. You never had to carry the weight the others of us did. You flounce around the world eating people and causing messes, and the rest of us have to clean up after you and apologize to the monkeys who have harnessed the power of the sun and can kill as quickly as... well, you." He sighed and dropped his hands. Laid in the dirt next to Aldred and was silent for a moment.
When he finally decided to continue, his tone was defeated. His words came out with a sigh. "I'll tell you what I told Max. Since we are brides, now, I suppose there's no harm in letting you in on a truth." He swallowed. "There are only three, maybe four, Sidhe Kings left in this world, not counting Max. Two of which are either missing or are powerless. All the rest have fallen, anchors shattered, or have gone into the long sleep." He swallowed again, thickly. "Of the regular kin, our numbers have dwindled to less than a million. Soon it will be half that number. The remaining two active courts can't sustain the free folk, and the spell that hides us makes them forget after a while that they were even kin if they stray too far away or too long from a mound." His voice hardened, "The shifters and humans have made a big production of killing white stags and boars for centuries, or domesticating pretty and unique songbirds, or eradicating monstrous rats in sewers, all the while knowing they are just lost kinfolk who could have been saved if they were just returned to a mound. My people are fading and being slaughtered, and I've had to watch it happen, our decay slowly crawling and spreading over the past millennia."
Aldred was shocked. "Why didn't you bring this to the conclave? That's what it was set up to do. Help those who needed it."
"Could you honestly, truly, say that the others, or even yourself, would have taken that knowledge and not used it to try to gain leverage? The mages would have sworn to help if they got a tithe of lives to fuel their research. The coven would have taken in some of our numbers, only if they bleed into ritual circles and did not raise a fuss when their throats get slit. The shifters would have bred my people out of existence within a century. The humans have always wanted us gone and have been actively shattering anchors when and where they can." He continued, "Your people like to drink our magic down and would have drained us dry and devoured us." Green looked at Aldred's face. "It was never safe for us, and it gets less safe by the day. Our magic is greater than all of yours and that makes us weaker than all of you. We are forever the world's targets."
"So, you planned to use Max to shelter the last of your people?"
"I [Bargain]ed for her help and she told me she wasn't going to save anyone not in her court. She then yelled at me for planting flags? Or something like that. So, I did the next best thing and am going to use her mana to grow my court for now, and hopefully join two of our courts together eventually, and while I'm waiting for her to have to step in because it'll be her court too, I can save as many as I'm able before we figure out how to break the stupid fucking world-wide forgetting curse that Myreath cast on the world. All the kin alive will remember what we are and can come home." He grinned. "Your peaceful forest will be lousy with sprites before the year is done."
Aldred thought Green was being very foolhardy. "You know you're playing with fire, right? This world hasn't seen a well-fed devourer since before the cataclysm. We haven't had aliens visit and stay since the Voice of the World was shattered. We don't know anything, except that this alien wants peace and quiet, wants to live in her court with her pet elves and war golem, and almost sheds tears when she has to raise a hand in violence-- after almost tipping into an obvious Berserker rage." Aldred finally sat up and looked at Green with a serious look. "You can't play with her. Them. Neither of them." He conceded, "I have a plan, too. I will coddle and love them both, be their adorable pet, drink their blood, and let them drink mine, while away their time and mine in this glorious heaven they created, and destroy anyone or anything that rouses them to action. Their 'action' is our next cataclysm."
"So, you're going to play hero with them and nobly sacrifice yourself by shoving your cock and fangs in them. Who's playing with their emotions, now?"
"It helps that their blood sings to mine and that they have given betrothal gifts that mithrans generations from now will tell stories about," Aldred's eyes and voice trailed off. "She made a world for me, absent of other people's stench, and a tower that kings of old would command armies from. He collected blood solely for me from a hundred humans --and tore down a rogue sanguina's stable to do it-- before we even met face to face." Aldred cleared his throat, lowered his lashes, and his cheeks pinked. "That's a romance tale for the ages. My progeny will be sick with jealousy when I tell them. The brief time I was 'playing' was over quickly."
Green laughed. "If you ever get to tell them. You're locked up in here pretty tight."
Aldred grinned back at him. "When they captured me, they left my phone in my pocket. They left everything in my pockets. The brownie brought me a charger the day before yesterday and has been cleaning my room since she found me down here. She likes me because I ignore her and leave candies out." He grinned even wider. "Did you know that this whole demesne has excellent wireless service? I suspect it's the golem's influence." His grin cracked his face almost in two. "I've been in contact with Othis since the first day of my capture, once I figured out that the alien wasn't here to enslave or kill us all. He knows I've claimed our brides and to give this court a wide berth. He will also get an order to hunt down the sanguina who dared let her bloodslaves threaten what is mine." Aldred added, "He will be less than thrilled you are involved now, too. But alas," Aldred sighed and laid back down to stare at the perfect sky, "having perfection like those two as brides should come with a steep cost."