Heather Jenkins-Sagemueller

"Shit," I muttered.

"Kimberly Pulanski?" Morena asked. "Professor Pulanski?"

"That's her," I nodded.

"One of my teachers," Morena admitted.

"In which lifetime?" Janine poked.

"Why are you two bickering?" I asked. "Aren't you working together?"

"Yes, we are," Janine said. "Even though I know you're not my type, I'd still like a roll in the hay with you. Eventually."

"This is unreal!"

"You're attractiveness to both women and men comes from your contact with an ancient artifact we loosely refer to as 'The Sphere,' Janine said. "That energy makes it hard for you to escape notice."

"Or to prevent two beautiful women from fighting over me?"

"Thank you," Janine and Morena said together.

"Janine, you were going to say something before the claws came out?" I joked.

"Beverly Hills, Los Angeles in general, is a nice place to live. I was asking if you would want staff for the house; maid, cook, groundskeeper?"

"Yes, I would. I assume the bodyguards are staying?"

"A woman of your stature should have a bodyguard and driver," Morena replied.

"How about this? Since you two are both so eager to get your own personnel into my house, Gaia knows why, you split the difference: Janine hires the staff, Morena the bodyguards slash drivers?"

"That's not really fair," Morena said. "You would have your assistants slash surrogates from Janine's side."

I burst out laughing. "Well, shit. Fine, even it out. I'll cover the expenses whenever Arthur gets my trusts set up. I am covering the expenses, you got it?"

"Yes, ma'am," Janine said.

"You're funny," Morena wagged a finger at Janine.

Unreal.

"There is one room you really need to look at," Janine said.

Morena latched her arm through mine and we followed Janine into the basement. It was a big, white space that resembled my auditing sanctum back in Columbus. It was about half the size, but the tell-tale sheen of the whiteboards told me that they were computer screens rather than simple boards. "Wow."

"Declan had this made for you," Janine said. "The checks on the serial numbers of the monitors say that they were purchased about a week ago."

"Damnit," I felt a tear run down my cheek. "Why did he do this?"

"There's only one way to find out," Janine said. "You'd have to ask him."

"I need to talk to the girls," I sighed. "Excuse me for a minute."

Janine and Morena left the room, closing the door behind them. I sat down on one of the sturdy tables and called Shania. They had went back to their condo in Pittsburgh when they couldn't find me or Declan at the hotel. I asked her if they wanted to come out to Los Angeles and live with me. Shania told me that she did, and maybe the others might want to as well.

I went back upstairs, finding everybody talking outside. A man and a woman had arrived, obviously a couple in their matching clothes and red stripes in their hair. Janine introduced them as Starr and Pete, and they were going to be my bodyguards when I went to see Declan.

"Janine, you're fibbing to me," I accused.

"Why do you say that?" Janine asked.

"Starr and Pete, you're not just bodyguards, you're enforcers. I can sense that on you," I said. "The blades you are wearing say the same."

"You're very right," Starr said. "Most people can't see the swords, not even the wicca. That makes you a Child of the Sphere."

"I'd be interested as to where I came across one of your spheres," I chuckled. "Please, come inside."

When we were inside the doorway, Celina put her hand up to stop me. She pointed to the edge of the frame, two distinct sets of symbols written on the concrete. "This is your warding, the whole house, even up to the air vents is protected from magicians now, even wizards, but not Revengers. On the other side of the frame is the human protection warding. It's not a shield like it is for magicians, but it makes people not invited feel very unwelcome."

"The longer they stay, the more frightened they get," Starr chuckled. "The only place that they aren't really scared is the path to the door."

"Hmm," I smiled. "That will do right nicely."

"To make it permanent you have to etch it into the framing. A simple tool like an awl will do the trick."

"Awl," Starr snorted. "That's good."

"Inside joke?" I asked Janine.

"Something like that. Your staff is on the way, but you'll need a trustee now," Janine said.

"Celina?" I asked.

"I'll take the job. I warned you about the screaming toddlers, don't say I didn't."

"Do I need to say anything to make it official?" I asked Celina.

"Nope, you're good," Celina smiled.

"You two," I pointed to Starr and Pete. "You're staying for dinner?"

Starr shrugged. "Sure."

"Good. There's a gym here and I need to spar with someone," I said. They looked at me dubiously. "I am in charge here, right?"

"Yes ma'am you are," Morena said.

Starr helped me figure out some of the things I had lost when I had become Heather. My tits were wonderful to look at and fondle, but they threw off my balance on even the simplest things. My clothing didn't hide much of the bruising on my torso, making Starr wince when I told her to attack. We finished our bout an hour later, doing our cool-downs on the mats closest the bathrooms. The gym did have individual showers, but Starr came into mine fully aware of my cock.

"You're really very beautiful," she said. "Your transformation, done by magic?"

"Declan, my husband, his wife had been giving him estrogen. He was actually in bad shape when I first saw him. We made a deal, and I took all of his feminine attributes for myself. I was thinking I got the better part of the deal, but it turned him into a sex fiend."

"Like what?" Starr turned me around so she could wash my hair.

"Well, it started out with him wanting me to be the top. I almost always have been the bottom, and that's pretty much the way I am."

"You could have fooled me," Starr giggled. She finished on my hair and started gently washing my body. "You're very bossy when you have your clothes on. So what happened then?"

"Well, basically he turned into a cum dumpster. He started having his male employees bang him one at a time, then it was a thirty-person gang bang. He would kneel over and have them bang him from behind and jack off and shoot their cum on him. Gaia clued me in on exactly what he was doing."

"Gaia? Hmm. What was he doing?"

"Declan was stealing the manliness from the men who fucked him as a form of revenge. I didn't know what that meant at the time, but I found out when he beat me to within an inch of my life."

"Do my hair," Starr turned around.

My cock had gotten hard while she had been washing me and feeling me up. "I don't think that's a good idea. Your husband..."

"Pete understands the sensual feeling of women together," Starr said.

"He knows I'm not a total woman, right?" I asked.

"Of course. It shows in your aura, the difference between who you are and who you want to be. You love being a woman, but you like having the cock too. Morena and Janine and even Celina would be happy to feel you on top of them. Pete would be happy to feel you underneath him."

"Interesting," I mused.

"Now will you wash me?" Starr asked.

"Sure." I pulled her back by her hair and wet it. The shampooing was long and intimate, my cock poking her ass the whole time. After I rinsed her hair, I went for the soap. I turned around and lathered her legs up to her knees, making her lift up her feet so that she would be off-balance for a second. Then came the area between her legs and her thighs. I made a show of rinsing her off, sticking a finger into her pussy. I worked it in and out as I stood up, kissing her on the lips and forcing my tongue into her mouth.

Starr moved her hand down and started pushing on my hand so there would be more pressure on her clit. I rubbed her furiously until she finally let out her moan into my mouth, biting on my tongue then immediately releasing it. She stepped away from me, freeing her pussy from my finger assault. "Oh, goddess you are fine, Heather."

"Thank you." I moved closer to her, pinning her against the wall, our tits slipping together. "What do you want now, Starr?"

"I want you in me, Heather." She led me backward into the corner, lifting her right leg so her pussy was open for me. I bent my knees a little so I could slip into her. When I was fully in, she dropped her leg, tightening around my cock. "I'm yours, Heather. Bang me with that cock of yours."

My hands went to her hands and pulled them up above her head. As I pumped in and out of her, our tits sloshed together and the look on her face just spurred me on. When I felt that twitch in my groin telling me my orgasm was imminent, I released her arms and was dropping them down to get under her ass when the pain came back to my ribs with a vengeance. I pulled out of Starr as I fell to the tiled floor of the shower, my cock shooting cum as I writhed in pain.

Starr fell to her knees beside me. "Heather?"

"I'm okay," I said. "Maybe a little too much too soon."

"Baby, I'm sorry," she said.

I sat up, looking her in the eyes. "I'll be okay, Starr. I'll be okay."

Starr dried me off, not letting me return the favor. She poked and prodded at my ribs and finally pronounced me alive. There was a look of concern from Celina when we entered my bedroom, and I had to assure her that I was okay. I pulled on some panties and a cami and laid on the bed that Celina had turned down for me. The pain had been immense, and it repeated when I moved my arm again.

A healer appeared an hour later to do some prodding of her own. She applied a salve and Starr helped her bandage my ribs because she hadn't done anything like that for a long time. Dinner chat was about everything but my injuries and Declan.

Janine joined me on the observation deck to watch the sunset. It was the first sunset I had ever seen over water like that. I told her I was going to bed, I had to get up early to confront Declan, Vienna was local plus nine hours.

Morena crawled into bed shortly after I turned my lights out. She seemed to know that I didn't want sex, I just needed a chest to cry on. I hadn't thought about Carla while I had been laid up in Columbus, but my dreams reminded me that I had unfinished business with her and Ai Ming.

Breakfast was early and just with Starr and Pete. Starr helped me choose my clothes, giving me a variety of weapons to hide in them. The three of us folded to the driveway outside the Vienna house, startling the guards that hadn't seen us approach. I strode up to the house like I owned it, which I technically did, Starr and Pete following me inside.

Charles didn't even welcome us. Pete stayed behind in the foyer as Starr and I followed Charles up the stairs. Declan's appearance shocked me. He was wasted away to a shriveled body, laying in a bed surrounded by medical machines. I waved Charles and Starr out of the room and pushed the door closed.

"What happened to you?"

"Me happened to me. The doctors can't diagnose what I have, but I know what it is. I professed my love for you and then tried to kill you, so your goddess took her revenge on me. I would have, you know. I was in that red tunnel where I wanted to beat you into a bloody bag of skin."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was all the anger I absorbed? That power, that raw power I got from them? It was like a drug. I wanted every milliliter of cum from them, and I got it." When I got into that suite, I was pissed, super pissed. When you came in there and yelled at me, that was it."

"We could have had our marriage the way you wanted it, Declan. I just had to do my part and not look," I cried.

"Maybe it was that transexual that tipped me over the edge. Kasey? She came right up to me and told me that her dick could make you scream more than I ever could because I wasn't man enough to be the top."

"She had no right to do that," I said.

"I realized, after, that I had encouraged you to find your own dick to satisfy the itch you had."

"After?"

"When you vanished, I went for her. I...I did to her what I couldn't do to you, I killed her. That's when the red went away, probably the moment that the wasting started. I was glad you came, I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry before I died. It's all yours now, Heather."

"I forgive you, Declan." I crossed the room, and stood by his bed. I didn't want to kiss him, so I did the next best thing and kissed my fingers and put them on his lips. "I forgive you."

"Goodbye, my wife," Declan gasped.

"Goodbye, husband."

An hour after the three of us folded back to Los Angeles, I got the call telling me Declan was dead. His corporate lawyer was going to fly in from New York and brief me as to what Declan had meant when he said 'It's all yours.'

***

Even before our marriage, Declan had been selling off his companies or gifting them to the people that were running particular divisions. He had consolidated everything into a cash account on the order of nine and a half billion dollars. I was floored when the lawyer gave me that news. Another tidbit was that the will superseded the prenup because the divorce wasn't finalized by the court, so I could change my name back if I wanted to.

Declan was buried in his family plot in Austria, not five miles from the house. I had the supreme satisfaction of firing Charles' sorry ass, even if he did get a big severance from Declan before he passed. Some of my issues had evidently died with Declan because the morning after the funeral the bruises on my torso and my aching ribs had healed. The marks still on my face were another matter.

My mourning didn't last four days because Carla McCauley was on my phone asking for help. Though the FBI had foiled the first and fake auction in Las Vegas, the second auction was still going down in Shannonburg, North Carolina. Agent Sumika politely asked me to come along and see if I could get inside as an undercover. She really didn't know that I had the money to buy everyone and leave the bad guys without any slaves at all. I agreed to make an appearance, just to see if I could make a difference.

Nadia and Shehzadi were part of Special Agent Sumika's team. Janne assigned them as my drivers and backup security in case things went 'tits-up' as she called it. Nobody asked about the bruises still on my face, and I didn't want them to. I was still trying to figure out what my issues were and I didn't want anyone clouding my thoughts.

The guards at the entrance to the town didn't even think about letting us in for the auction, even though they did know my name and who my husband was. Their reasoning was that 'tits weren't allowed.'

When my limo returned to the staging area, I gave Janne the bad news. She went to mull about it and Nadia proceeded to quiz me about why I still had my bruises if I was a natural immortal. Janne walked in on the questioning and asked Nadia what the hell she was talking about.

I decided that a little linear fold couldn't hurt, so I folded out to my home in Columbus. After a few minutes there, I folded back to the staging area. I appeared a few steps behind Janne and announced my presence. She was faster than I thought, whirling around and drawing down on me. She sighed and holstered her gun while warning me not to do that shit again.

Janne decided to send a set of agents from her special weapons team into the town to get a lay of the land. The four donned some equipment including some night-vision gear and tactical cameras and slipped into the woods. They didn't reach the town until almost twenty-three hours, passing along layout and possible numbers. Janne fielded drones to provide overwatch, some of them with night vision, others with infrared to track the people.

Shannonburg had a lot of people in it, almost all of them women. The men were identified, most known criminals and involved in human trafficking. The women brought in to be auctioned off were in the school auditorium and the field behind the school. There were a lot of guards, the agents reported, all of them with multiple and automatic weapons. The refugees were spread around the town, some hiding in houses and barns on the periphery, wanting to make a run for it but unable to do so.

Janne was torn. She didn't want to break her special weapons team down any further to lead the women out, so she ordered the agents to tell the women to shelter in place to stay out of the lines of fire.

Nadia and Shehzadi volunteered to sneak in and lead the women out. Janne thought long and hard before she agreed to let them go, giving them night vision and Berettas. I left the truck and made a call to Janine, explaining the situation and asking for her help. When I finished my call, I turned to find Janne standing behind me. She was pissed and was ranting about putting me in cuffs when I pointed out that she didn't have anything on site to help deal with the women that Nadia and Shehzadi were going to sneak out.

After demanding that I run everything through her, Janine settled down and asked me to get into the surveillance truck. The technicians didn't know what to think of me, as I wasn't an agent and was seeing stuff that most civilians didn't get to see. One of the drones was in hover over the school, keeping track of the people there and marking them as a 'duck' or a 'goose.' The other drone was tracking the refugees grouping in the town and a third was showing Nadia and Shehzadi moving through the woods.

The scene played out over hours, Nadia and Shehzadi leading out two women each. On the second trip two of the four agents led out two women of their own. At this rate, it would take hours, and Janne voiced that sentiment just a minute later. "Where is my fucking backup?" She muttered.

"We still haven't been advised that any backup is coming," one woman said.

"Don't they realize what's going on here?"

"Agent Sumika, could I have a word?" I asked.

"Sure. I need a smoke, anyway," Janne sighed.

We went outside the van, Janne sighing in disgust. "I quit smoking years ago. I wish I had one right now. What's on your mind, Heather?"

"Does that mean I get to call you 'Janne' now?" I asked. She nodded her head. "I can call some people to help us out."

"Forget it. I don't need extra civilians or mercenaries running around here shooting my agents or getting shot by them. I don't know why there isn't any backup even spun up to help."

"Here's a thought..."

"Maybe some of my bosses are involved," Janne finished. "I had to fight tooth and nail to even get one squad of special weapons to help me, even more teeth to select a female team. The general feeling was that the fake raid was a real one and the boys will pat themselves on the back for weeks."

"Did you call it a 'fake raid?'" I asked.

"Only to my boss. He figured rescuing one hundred fifty trafficked women was a big enough score. When I pointed out the trail leading to Shannonburg, he waved it off. Evidently the local badges think the town is abandoned, so he doesn't believe me."

"I guess we'll see," I said.

"Heather, I meant what I said about inviting people to help raid the town. I will lose my badge if outsiders get involved."

"Janne, your techs in there counted a hundred plus on the goose side. I have special weapons training, and I know the weapons your opposition are using. There is no way you can clear that opposition without losing your people. At least let me get my people in motion." I said.

"Fine, tell them to mask their approach and make it from the opposite side of the town. God help us."

"Goddess help us," I corrected her.

"Huh?"

I gave her the line that Shehzadi had given me what seemed like ages ago: "God is a woman."

"Uh-huh."

I called Janine and explained the problem. She said that she knew people, some were even former agents that could help us. I asked her if she could get them close by in case we needed to invade, and she agreed. The teams she had dispatched to help Janne with the evacuation were four hours out, but any paramilitary people would take six. I gave her my thanks and hung up.