Blood Servant Pt. 02

Katrina nodded sharply, "Agreed, and good catch, Reg. It counters our outrunning the mages quite nicely, and it gives their vampires a shield against Gregory's incineration spells. Things are getting a little too exciting around here."

I couldn't agree more, it was more fun when we were the clever ones. Granted, they were totally stealing our ideas.

We ran right into two sets of them, as we rounded a hill. Katrina and Cassidy angled for one pair, while Alexa and Regina angled for the other. No doubt they were the rear part of the circle that was supposed to close in on us all at once, but the other mage and vampire pairs were way out of position at that point.

Unfortunately, the carrying vampires immediately went into retreat, to give the mages time to cast verbal spells. Freaking cheats, can't come up with their own tactics?

My shields ate their two spells, while one pair's shield ate my incinerate spell. I changed tactics immediately and cast a spell at the ground under their feet instead of them, just like the earth affinity mage I'd faced but with a spell.

The retreating vampire and mage went flying up into the air, stalling their flight, and Katrina and Cassidy caught up to them before they landed. Cassidy's sharp claws went crazy on the mage, beating through his shields, while the mage was hitting her shield with something and draining it as well. Probably a psionic, death, or life affinity, those attacks were invisible. I only knew about it because my magic was pumping out of me to keep the shield spell up and running around my shifter.

At the same time, Katrina was tearing the vampire apart.

I repeated the trick on the other pair, and then two seconds later the separated vampire went up in a pyre of flames and was incinerated in seconds. They were only using one shield, but when they'd gotten blown in different directions the vampire had gotten thrown out of mage's extended shield area.

Idiots. Sure, it'd save a little magic in the long run doing it that way, but was nowhere near as secure.

That let Alexa and Regina focus on taking down the mage. They overwhelmed his shields fast with physical attacks.

Then we were moving again. Sixteen mages and nine vampires left in play.

"Magic?" Katrina asked.

I said, "That cost about a fifth of it, thanks to you beating down their shields with physical attacks, the exchange in magic cost wasn't nearly equal."

Katrina nodded, "Good."

"If there are seven mages, it's likely to blow all my magic."

Katrina replied, "That's fine, we'll avoid the last nine pairs for an hour in the wilderness if we have to. Then go hunting."

Right, as long as our luck held out, and we could take out seven mages before the other nine pairs caught up with us. It's not like we had a choice, and risks were a part of life. It's just in the supernatural world those risks were many and all deadly.

There were seven mages, and they were in the vehicles as we rounded the house. I'd timed the longer incineration spell, and I released it into one of the SUVs gas tanks, in one of two SUVs that were parked bumper to bumper.

I was absolutely dumbfounded as it actually worked. They'd bet their lives on the fact the eleven pairs could find, surround us, and take us down. It'd been a bad bet.

Boom! Then just two seconds later, Boom!

The first explosion caused the second SUV to go up in flames, and I was already two seconds into the eight second spell to blow up a third.

The mages started opening doors, but my three vampire goddesses hit the doors like battering rams with kicks, and they slammed closed. In one case, taking off several fingers of one of the mages.

Then I released the spell.

Boom!

Three SUVs down, two to go, each with one mage inside. The other three had held five mages, as I'd targeted the two doubled up ones first. That was about all the gas my plan had however, and I stopped casting the spell as I felt shields go up around the last two SUVs

"Shields!"

My ladies split up into the usual pairs and started to pound the SUVs with powerful punches and kicks. It was awesome, because the idiots were stuck inside the SUVs, which meant they couldn't use their affinities offensively. They could cast spells, but spells through things took time, six to ten seconds for most spells like that.

Both mages managed to get off one spell, and hit the shields on my vampires, then their magic was exhausted, and their shields fell. My ladies smashed in the windows, and ripped the mages out, then snapped their necks.

Then my sexy dark brunette goddess kicked the SUV into the other one, smashing them together, and gave me a significant look.

We started to run as I cast that last spell, and turned around to deliver it, and the last two SUVs went up in a mini-mushroom cloud in two distinct explosions less than a second apart. The hunters were down to nine pairs, one less than a third of their entire hunting party. We'd ended twenty-one mages, and twenty-one vampires at that point.

One more than half the entire mage clan, and forty two percent of the vampire clan. Equal losses at that point, but the Song vampire clan had started with forty-six, not the forty the Miyashita mage clan had.

But... our luck had run out.

That fight had taken just a little too long despite how easy it was. A full thirty seconds at least. We saw three pairs of mage and vampire appear in a semicircle in front of us, and a quick twist of our necks showed the other six pairs behind and to the sides. We were hemmed in by a nine-pointed circle, and there was nowhere to go.

"Magic?" Katrina asked with a hint of tension in her voice as we stopped running.

I said softly, "The mages went down easier than expected, due to their stupidity and not taking precautions, but I'm at a third of my power. It won't be enough, not outnumbered eighteen to one. Our only chance is to break out and run."

Katrina shook her head, "They'll run with us, all at the same time in the same direction, moving the circle with us as the epicenter. While the mages beat down your shields with spells. It's what I would do."

There was surety on the enemies faces, as they slowly and confidently closed the circle. It wouldn't be long before they were all in range, and the spells would fly until we all burned.

Fucking hell no. I refused to accept it. My rage, love, fierce protective possessiveness wouldn't allow it.

But... I had nothing, no ideas, no brilliant insights. I was powerful, and in conjunction with my ladies, we were deadly as hell. But, I was still just one man, one magi, with the power of a leader but still just one.

We were fucked.

Katrina said, "They wish to steal our hope, see us crushed and afraid before they end it, but that has given me time to say goodbye."

Katrina kissed me poignantly, and then caressed my cheek as she looked into my eyes from inches away. Her voice was sweet and sincere.

"Mate, my beloved, I wouldn't trade a single minute of the last six weeks with you for an eternity of life. Better death here, than to have ended you back then and never known love, trust, and freedom once more. My only regret is that we'll never see our beautiful baby, and my only wish was that we had more time."

"Me too, I love you, mistress."

Katrina's voice was thick with grief as she turned her head from me, "Cassidy, Alexa, Regina, listen to me and do not argue. Me and Greg are going to run one way, and you're going to run the opposite way. They can't keep us hemmed inside a moving circle if we go in two directions. I command you to live. They will chase us, I am the head of the clan, and he is the main target. You will escape and live. I love you all dearly, sisters."

They all looked mutinous, but they also had tears, fear, and love in their eyes.

I felt a spark of bittersweet hope in that moment, and I wondered why I hadn't thought of that plan to save who we could save. I should have. My mistress was wise. There was a chance my three other partners and our children could survive, assuming of course that Regina and Alexa were pregnant.

"Let me make that sacrifice alone, you might still live," I begged in a thick voice.

Katrina shook her head stubbornly, and said, "On three my loves, one, two..." and the three was interrupted by loudest roar I'd ever heard, as it rolled over me and vibrated my bones to the center of my being.

Chapter Eleven

Everyone froze, the five of us, as well as the nine pairs of one enemy vampire and mage. We all looked in the direction of the roar, and a pride of seven lions came out of the trees. Then tons of foxes, wolves, grizzly and brown bears, while eagles and hawks swooped down from the sky and soared overhead with loud cries. Then came the wolverines, tigers, and smaller great cats like bobcats, mountain lions, lynxes, and last but not least, four damned polar bears.

There must've been over fifty of them, and I stood totally transfixed, until I saw the look of fear and awe on Regina's face, and she wasn't facing the same way I was facing. I spun around, and I upped my estimated number from fifty to way over two hundred, maybe over three hundred, as the shifters surrounded the vamps and mages that surrounded us.

It absolutely had to be the Becenti clan of shifters. We were west of the Mississippi, and no wild and unaligned pack could ever grow so large. More than that, this was just a small part of their clan, the Native American clans of shifters were huge.

My eyes returned to the pride of lions, and I wondered if it was Dakota herself, the current clan leader, as the lions weaved past our enemies and came toward us. From what I understood she was a lioness. The entire damned pride of lions came right for us, and they started to sniff as they circled us closely.

Very closely. Close enough to trigger my protectiveness and fear on my goddesses' behalf, but not enough to override common sense. Any aggressive action and we'd be torn apart.

"Katrina?"

She said, "Stay calm, and don't do anything... startling."

The lioness in the lead roared at that, and then went up on her back paws as she flowed and shifted back human. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, with dark brown hair and golden tanned skin very similar to my Katrina, and brown eyes so dark they looked black. She was extremely attractive, exotically so to me, and quite athletic and curvaceous.

Also, stark naked. The woman had to be at least thirty-five, but there wasn't a bit of sag on her heart shaped C cups or a wrinkle on her face, and her whole body was toned and supple. She looked a decade younger, except her eyes. Her eyes had weight, wisdom, and revealed her years.

She was silent at first, studying us and our body language, and no doubt our scents.

"Katrina, ruler of Clan Chevalier. You are welcome on my land... provisionally," she said not unkindly, but not kindly either, "You will come with us, and spend some time among my people, while I evaluate you and who you rule. Agreed?"

Katrina bowed her head slightly, "I will consent peacefully, so long as you and your people remain so."

Three of the lionesses roared loudly, but Dakota smiled widely as she laughed, "Of course, no one should ever bow their head when death approaches. That is not my hope, so be at ease."

Not her hope, which implied it may be a duty or necessity? I could scent curiosity in her, I also got the idea she knew exactly what I was. For all of her dealing with Katrina, all her lions were paying extremely close attention to me, not to my shifter mate or mistresses. I wasn't the only one to notice that detail, but I supposed the whole supernatural world knew I was a freak of some kind, with unusual magic. Thanks to the insanity of clans Song and Miyashita.

Dakota's face transformed to stern regret, and not a little bit of anger as she turned and looked at those that hunted us.

"You all however, are most certainly not welcome on my land. The Becenti warned Clan Miyashita long ago to never step on my territory again for past trespasses. I see your current mistress, Kaori, has forgotten how to fear," she looked at me slyly, then turned back with a shake of her head, "Or perhaps she is so obsessed with this one she failed to head that fear.

"All but two of your lives are forfeit for not only invading my territory without welcome, but for daring to hunt in it."

I'd never heard that Miyashita was confined to east of the Mississippi, and my guess was that the Song clan was about to be too.

It wasn't a fight. It was an execution at such impossible odds. A few of the vampires managed to claw a shifter or two before being torn apart, and the mages' affinities managed to damage a few of them before dying as well, but none of the Becenti Clan shifters died. They all healed quickly, regenerated from their wounds. Save one vampire and one mage they were all slaughtered by overwhelming numbers.

The last two looked resigned, and frightened.

Dakota waved her hand, "You two will deliver a message. To the Miyashita. Kaori is to present herself to me within one month for execution. If she complies, I will have mercy on the last ten mages that makes up such a previously proud mage clan and allow you to live. If she fails to show, you will all die. That is my promise. She has broken the covenant and contract made with my ancestors.

"As for Jia and the Song clan, here is my message. She is from this day forward banished from my land, including all her vampires. All seventeen that are left, anyway. She is no longer welcome here, nor are her vampire children. Why Calian puts up with your mistresses at all, is beyond me. Leave, now, and do not fail to report my judgements for this ill-considered intrusion into my territory."

Calian was the head of the Native American Azure shifter clan, whose territory was east of the Mississippi. It was also a terrifying speech. Dakota didn't fuck around. I certainly didn't want to get on her bad side.

She turned to Katrina, "I can smell your surprise. It pleases me that you did not know of the prohibition against the Miyashita clan on my clan's territory. That bodes well for our future relationship, as being ill-used would not have settled well. Please, come with me and take your ease among my people. Relax, get to know us, and only then will we talk of business."

Somehow, as always, my mistress looked regal and totally poised, as if we weren't at the mercy of Dakota and whatever her designs in this were.

It became clear in that moment that she'd been paying attention. Also, the excellent timing of saving our asses at the last second was just too unbelievable otherwise. She also knew the Song's and Miyashita's clan losses, exactly. Which was further proof she'd had eyes on us the whole time. She'd spelled it out in her speech to the last two survivors, but I suspected it was also a subtle message to us.

A message that nothing happened in her territory, that she didn't know about.

Perhaps the eagles had watched from a few thousand feet.

Whatever the reason, we were at her mercy.

Katrina said, "I'd be truly pleased to get to know your people. I also thank you for your timely assistance."

Dakota nodded her head, "I am truly pleased you and yours are well. But understand I didn't save you for you. I was enjoying watching you five slaughter them all in truth, and had hoped you'd have handled it, but I understand that you could not. You did very well, considering the odds. Anyway, the real reason I stopped them was because I couldn't allow their hunt on my land to succeed. That would've sent the wrong message, and Kaori may have been arrogant enough to think she could act with impunity here, when she knows damned well her and her people are barred from my lands."

Katrina asked, "May I ask?"

Dakota tilted her head, "Why they are banned? That is central to everything, including your young blood servant and your current plight against the eastern vampire and mage clans, and as such that answer will have to wait for business. First, you will get to know us. Come, let us move somewhere more civilized."

She shifted then, and then led the Lions away and toward the north.

The shifter clan of over three hundred shifters surrounded us, and as they followed the lions so did we. We all exchanged glances, there was no doubt it was a guard of sorts. We may have been guests, who'd been offered an olive branch, but we were also prisoners for the moment.

Who knew where this would lead?

I had my ladies, all four of them may have been pregnant. We still had our lives, and our vampire clan back home was intact. We had plans for the future. Family, a clan that could find love, which was unheard for vampires. So much promise.

In the moment, it all hinged on one woman, who I suspected would decide our fate once she got to know us. Sure, we'd be getting to know her people too, but it was the reverse that would decide our fates.

And we had no idea what criteria she'd be using to make that judgement. All we could do was be ourselves and see what happened.

Despite all that, I was excited about one thing. I was sure whatever secrets that the Miyashita clan held about me, was also held by the lioness leading us north. Perhaps we'd live, and perhaps we'd even find our answers.

I knew one thing. We were still alive despite the odds.

Where there was life, there was hope, and our future was far from decided...