The Interloper Bk. 01

Fever grunted as she turned and punched me in the gut. I was propelled backwards into a bush of weeping bells. The flowers cried out in their mournful melody as I landed ass first, back second.

I covered my ears and screamed at Fever. "You couldn't have thrown me in the dirt?"

She rotated her shoulder and neck until they popped. "Get up or quit. Pick one. Now."

Fever was all teeth and blood when we trained, egging me on to quit, giving me the chance to decide when our breaks were and when we ended for the day. I fell for it the first time and Duke had come to me beaming, ecstatic that I changed my mind.

Fever shrugged when I approached her about it. "Thought you wanted to quit. You weren't working like you wanted to stay." Her eyes pierced me, golden suns, too damned hot and too damned bright. "This isn't Earth, Tilly, and I'm not a human. You want to work like one of us, well I'm going to train you to fight, think, and act like one of us."

"But you're a demon," I'd argued.

"And the Magistrate's a vampire, Cherry's a ladon, and Tessa's a dragon." She clicked her tongue. "We're all different species but we work together because we live in a society and abides by its dictates. If that society crumbles, it's back to the dark ages. It's why envoys are so important; we're pillars."

I let the memory fade away as I struggled from the bush. Putting my fists up, I widened my stance and tried not to wince when my broken ribs made their presence known and I nearly passed out. That'd happened a time or two, and I didn't want to repeat it.

Fever smiled wide and then zig-zagged to me in a series of steps I still couldn't see. She was a blur of brown limbs as I tried to dodge and protect my sore parts.

"Stop!" a voice called out sharply.

The demoness diverted her attention from me for a split second, but it gave me enough time to swipe her leg out and pin her to the ground with one arm tight around her throat and the other wrapped tightly around her hair. Squeezing her throat stopped the fire that I knew she would spit at me from previous experience, but it only worked for a few minutes. Still, made it a helluva lot easier to deal with her when I had her pinned.

Footsteps reverberated off the steps as someone descended to our arena. The cultured tone let me know who that someone was, "Very good, Tilly. Seems you're improving."

I pinned Fever a second longer, watching her cheeks turn a bright blue. At first I thought that meant she was suffocating, trial and error told me it was her blood heating.

I unclenched my hand and jumped back at the same moment Fever jumped up. "Playing dirty, girl," she rasped.

I shrugged, and bit back a cry as pain shot through my body. "Learned from the best," I wheezed, gripping my sides so I didn't keel over and die.

Fever's eyes skipped to the side and she nodded to Duke. "Hiya, Magistrate. That you yelling, Caster? Lost my concentration because of you."

I followed her gaze to Duke and the dude beside him. I was almost bowled over by the other guy. Six feet-something of muscle covered with midnight skin. Tattoos like stars only enhanced the effect.

My jaw went lax, eyes half-lidded, breasts became heavy, nipples hard, and I was so wet that Niagara Falls looked dry in comparison. I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn't form words just moans.

"Ugh," Fever groaned. "When was the last time you fucked someone, Caster? You smell like a Centaurian male at the Gathering."

"Watch your tongue, Fever. If your parents heard you talking like that, they'd put your head under water," he growled in a voice that reminded me of a cat purring, vibrations went right to my soft spot. I moaned low, totally against my will.

Midnight guy whipped his head to me and looked me up and down. His eyes were bright silver, pupils piercing black. He really did remind me of night, vast and unending. I wondered if he was cool. If I touched his skin would I be transported to a world without light, one where touch was dominant and all those senses I took for granted were paramount?

"You smell like a witch on Samhain," he spat angrily. "Fix it."

I didn't even know what that meant, but from the way he said it, I doubted it was a compliment. I half-moaned, half-gasped, "You f-fix it!"

"Seriously, Caster," Fever forced out through clenched teeth, skin cracking as lava ran down her to drip on the floor with a sizzle. "It's affecting me. You need to get that—that shit under control. You're an incubus. Be. A. Fucking. Incubus."

"I'm not the problem," Midnight guy growled before he spun on his heel and stalked toward the opposite side of the garden. I watched him catch a female satyr around the waist, then spin them into the shade of a tree and behind its trunk.

It was an uncomfortable couple of moments while Fever and I pulled ourselves back together. Then it was a tense, blush-inducing few minutes while Caster pulled himself together behind a tree. If the gasps, moans, and keening cries of ecstasy weren't picture-painting enough, the commentary to go along with it sure helped.

"Thank you, Goddess. The pleasure—my Goddess the pleasure. He's so big, I don't think I can. Sweeeeeeet...horned...mother...Goddesssssss!"

I looked at Duke, forcing the pain I felt aside, and spoke over the sex sounds. "What can I do for you, Duke?"

Fever moved around, unaffected by the porno behind us, and grabbed the bottle of revitalizing tea. She tossed it to me and I gagged down the horrible liquid, wincing as my bones, teeth, and tissue fixed. I was itchy for a few seconds, desperately wanting to scratch a layer of my skin off, before I healed completely.

"Five more have gone missing in the week you've been training Tilly." His face was a blank pale slate as he addressed Fever, "You are to report to Blue and resume your regular schedule. Starting now."

"Duty calls," Fever drawled as she moved past Duke, up the winding brickwork, and into the mansion. She waved a hand over her shoulder. "See ya later, dirty girl."

"Tilly." Duke drew my attention back. "You have proven yourself these past weeks. And even though I do not think you are ready to step into the field, certain events have forced my hand. You will be assisting my envoy, Caster. When he is finished with his meal I will introduce you."

"His meal?"

Duke nodded to the tree, still eliciting sounds of ecstasy. "Sex is food to incubi. Remember that well."

I frowned, both from the dampness of my panties and confusion. "Incubi as in sex demons? As in demons that go into dreams and fuck people to death?"

He tilted his head in affirmation. "Not to death. Not if they don't want to. There are subtle differences to Earth's incarnation of us and the facts."

"Come to think of it, why do we even know about you?"

"There used to be open portals between the words." He frowned. "I think they're referred to as faery mounds in Europe but they were on every continent, multiple per global region? However, there were some... incidents."

"Few apples ruining the bunch scenario?"

"I'm not sure what that means."

"You know," I waved my arm, "One or two demons killed humans."

"No," his smile was humorless. "Humans hunted us. Bathed in the blood of demons because they thought they could gain our powers, cut the flesh off still-living mermaids to gain supposed immortality, skinned shifters for their pelts and donned them to try and shift themselves, and pulled the fangs from vampires to remove their nonexistent sins.

"With the spread of Abrahamic religions and the loss of the old ways, we were outcasts, dangerous, to be hunted and killed."

I paled, not exactly surprised at the information but extremely sickened.

"Why didn't you hunt them back? Eradicate humans?"

His eyes narrowed, gaze piercing me to my soul. "There is never justification for genocide."

Too true. "So you stopped visiting Earth."

"For a time. Until we felt it could be somewhat safe. It's recently that we've begun making the journey again. But there are plenty of other planets still to explore."

And wasn't that just the understatement of the year? "So, getting back on topic, that incubus is gonna be my partner. Think that's wise?"

He cocked an eyebrow. "Worried? Caster is blood relation. I trust him with my life."

There was a keening cry from the tree before a soft thud. My new partner stepped around the truck and started toward me. If anything, the man looked hotter. Sexy with a razor sharp edge.

Who was worried? Dude looked like a fluffy teddy bear. It was gonna be great!

He stopped in front of me. "I would shake your hand—"

"But I'd have to burn it afterwards," I finished with a tight smile. "Tilly."

"Caster."

Duke clapped his hands and we turned to the vampire. "As I told Tilly, you will be in charge, Caster, and she will assist you. The second she makes a mistake—"

"I do not know that it is wise," Caster interrupted, attention firmly on Duke. "Tilly is... human."

"As I told you before."

Caster nodded slowly. "I did not realize how..." he searched for the word for a long moment, "different she would be."

"I did not greet you in the way of your kind," I cut in silkily, blood fucking raging because this asshat wanted me gone not because of any real problem but because I wasn't like him.

Stepping forward, I tilted my head back in the greeting of demons. There were other greetings depending on the tribe, but as Fever had explained this was the easiest across the board. "I am Tilly."

He returned the gesture, but only slightly. "You have not given your lineage."

I smirked. "You haven't earned it."

If looks could kill... "As you can see, Caster, she is versed as an envoy. Fever taught her well," Duke interjected. "There should be no problems, yes?"

Caster looked like her wanted to disagree, whatever sex demon magic leaking out to make my panties yet again damp. I didn't break my expression, didn't let him see the change even when he could probably smell it. Damn demon noses.

"I will handle it," Caster gritted, turning away from me. "There will be no problems."

Duke nodded once before turning his attention toward me. "Get cleaned up. You and Caster leave for the centaurian village in an hour."

CHAPTER SIX

An hour later I stood with Caster in a wide courtyard off the back entrance of Duke's mansion. From experience, I knew the front entrance led into Apricot City, while the back led to a giant field that stretched farther than the eye could see with nothing that the eye really wanted to see. Two silver motorcycle-looking bikes were between Caster and me, total crotch rockets that looked uncomfortable as hell.

He threw a cell phone sized, silver bar at me. "That's the battery pack for the bike. I doubt we'll need to recharge, but it's always good to have an extra. Place it in the compartment under the seat."

I looked at the bike suspiciously. My mother called them death traps, and I was hard-pressed to disagree. "Is it safe?"

"Safer than training with Fever."

No argument there. "I've never been on a bike."

"And I've never met a human," he announced, settling on the bike's seat with a squeak of leather and a flex of muscles. "New experiences make up life."

This was my second time meeting Caster, and we'd been together barely five minutes, cumulative. It seemed the pattern in this world to just throw people to the dogs. A very sink or swim mentality. If I didn't know for a fact Fever left with her partner Blue—a chipper Dryad that was completely opposite her name—I would swear I heard her voice in my ear saying, "Join him or quit. Your choice. Be quick."

The silver brick in my hand had warmed by the time I figured out how to open the seat of my bike. A brown, frayed satchel sat in the compartment and I tugged it out, grunting at the weight. What the hell was in it? Lead?

"That's the book you will take documentation in. You are expected to record notes for every meeting we have along with documenting anything I feel is unusual or amiss. Understood?"

I stuffed the satchel back into the seat with the silver bar right after it and slammed it shut. "Yup." In the next instant, I threw my leg over the bike and settled on it. The cool metal went straight through my black leggings and made me wish I'd worn something warmer.

"Try leather next time," Caster said as he leaned over and quickly showed me how to work the controls and gave me the code to turn on, turn off, and lock my bike. "It's the unofficial uniform of the envoys. Warmer, easier to get stains out of, and you'd look better in it."

"My job isn't to give you a show," I snapped with more anger than I intended.

Thirty minutes in the shower and while I was physically clean, I still felt dirty. I'd been trying to rub one out and assuage the throbbing mess that was my clit. Nothing worked, and I assumed it had something to do with Caster. No doubt just like Fever's fiery burns, the magic Caster threw off stayed much longer than he did.

"We're not going to have sex," he said smoothly, surprising me.

"Of course we're not. Did I do something to make you think we were."

He started his bike and cracked a smile. "You got wet."

I sputtered, mentally cursing sexy incubi everywhere. He maneuvered in front of me, leaving a brief trail of dust in his wake. Caster stopped when he hit the arch of poisonous vines that were used to let citizens in and out and keep everyone else far away.

"You coming, human?"

I slapped on the helmet he hadn't bothered to put on, and wiggled as it conformed to my head. The bike wasn't hard to work, and in a second it was moving and I was in front of him. I pushed down harder on the rounded control on my left handle and the engine purred loudly beneath me, sending vibrations to places that didn't need vibrations.

Caster was quick to catch up and pass me, his bike roaring like a distant cousin of a Harley. "It's a half day's ride," he called over the purr of electric engines.

I groaned and rolled my eyes. I'd gotten good with the numbers, but the distances were still a mystery to me. "Then why are we taking bikes? Don't you all have cars or something like it?

"These are more compact, more easy to hide or maneuver. Besides, I'm not sure you could last in small confines with me."

I rolled my eyes. "Stop flirting, it's not cute. Plus, you know, it's workplace harassment."

"Workplace harassment?"

"This is a job and you are harassing me."

He barked out a laugh. "No, this is my job. Duke hired me to be an envoy and you to assist me."

I rolled my eyes and ignored his tone in his words. "You call him Duke. No one calls him Duke."

He turned back to the road, leaning into the bike as we approached a thick forest with trees that kissed the sky. "I'm not under his rule. He is blood."

"So you got this job with nepotism."

"No, I'm actually qualified, and there's a difference between employment and fealty."

I mentally sighed as the road thinned and I was forced to ride behind him for about half an hour. Sometimes it was so easy to get caught up in this world, forget everything I came from. No adventure could amount to any adventure here, and no parallels could be drawn.

Even something as simple as going to the library was amazing. It was like something out of Tim Burton's twisted fantasy, with creatures that the Greeks would have marveled at. Everyone was a cross with something, and things that I hadn't even heard of walked the halls and called out, "Hey, Tilly the human."

I was the oddity.

Caster cast a glance over his shoulder. "We're coming up to it. Keep your eyes open and don't run over any foals."

That was going on my mental list of things I never expected to hear. Number three thousand and four.

The trail expanded until it birthed a wide meadow with rolling hills and streams like veins through it. A few more minutes and we came to a series of spread out cottages, arranged in an open square. Centaurs trotted together through the little town, stopping in some of the cottages and coming out of others.

Caster held up a hand and slowed his bike. "Stop. We're here."

Gawking was an inbred trait when I saw half-horse, half-human people walking around, but I stifled it and climbed off the bike. For a few seconds I fumbled with the controls to turn it off and input the lock code. By the time I did that successfully, Caster was a good thirty paces away. I unlocked the seat, grabbed the satchel bag containing my recorder book, and scrambled to catch up. The bag pulled taut between my breasts when I slung it across my body and slapped my hip every time my foot hit the ground.

Caster walked toward the big, main house with me hot on his heels. He didn't knock on the wood siding of the house or rustle the thick tarp working as a door but strode right through. It's not that I was cautious by nature, but being in another world had opened me up to a-whole-nother set of cultural and gender expectations. Duke and Fever had both been to Earth, but his staff hadn't, and I was still learning what was considered rude and what was considered polite.

My entrance into the house was that of a mouse peeking its head out of its hole. I watched Caster place the back of his hand to his head and bend to a centaur who reminded me of an Idris Elba lookalike lounging across from him. I guessed he was the owner of the house.

"Rain," my partner greeted. "The Magistrate sent us to see how the new chief fares."

Rain—who I was guessing was the chief—smiled and placed the back of his hand to his head. He did that weird bow thing and gestured to a pillow formation in front of him. "Please. Sit."

While Caster took a seat, I stood and tried my hardest not to fidget. Fever had told me women in Centurion culture were subservient to men, having to be addressed first by a man instead of the other way around.

"I've brought my new partner," Caster said, drawing Rain's attention to me. "Her name is Tilly."

I didn't mimic the men's gesture, but instead cupped my hand over my mouth then placed it over my heart, kneeling before Rain. It was a bit extra, but given that Rain was a new chief and this was our first time meeting I wanted to be as formal as possible. "Hello, Chief."

He blinked in surprise at me before a wide smile crossed his face, tail shifting in pleasure. "Well met, Tilly. I've never met a human before. You are quite exotic."

"Well met," I returned softly, gathering myself and going to sit next to Caster.

Rain made a clicking sound. "Come now. Sit next to me."

"Tilly is my assistant," Caster interjected smoothly. "She must remain by my side."

Rain hummed. "Drinks? You must try our newest ale."

Caster placed a hand over his stomach. "I couldn't."

"You must."

"Only if you let me pour."

Rain smiled brightly and snapped his fingers. A centaurian woman around thirty emerged from behind the kitchen flap instantly and set down a tray with two cups directly between the men. I noticed there wasn't a cup for me. As the woman went back and the flap closed I could hear whispers, light and feminine.

Deciding that I'd rather be careful than disrespectful, I lowered my gaze away from the men and concentrated on the book in my lap.

Caster passed one of the filled cups to Rain and took one for himself. The men carefully touched rims, no drink higher than the other, before Rain tossed his back. Caster handed me the cup. "Take a sip."

I sipped at the liquid and coughed as it burned down my throat. Ugh, it was like choking down crude oil. "Thank you," I croaked. "It's delicious."

Caster finished it off, careful not to touch the part of the rim I had. "The Magistrate was saddened to hear of your father's passing. He was an excellent chief."