Chapter 94

Icould feel every death, every cut and break, every slice and sliver. They hit me with more force than the magic which bombarded me or the swords which swung my way. I couldn't cut myself off from it and they drove into my skulls like nails hammered harder with every sharp jolt.

"Brian," Elaine gasped, shielding the two of us within a dome of earth magic while we were besieged from every angle.

"It's getting deeper. Too deep," I gasped. "I never thought it could get too deep."

Elaine slapped me, jolting my emotions back into focus, the bite of pain making me think of only my own body for a moment and I offered her a weak smile of apology. This was the woman I had fallen in love with. The strict principal who was as rough with me as I needed her to be.

"We're surrounded," she hissed, her dark hair hanging in choppy lengths on the left side of her face where it had been set alight then doused by my flames. It seemed so long ago and yet we were still fighting that same fight.

"They're going to take us from all sides." I nodded woefully.

"We can't make it back to our soldiers. I don't have enough power left to tunnel beneath them." Her shield cracked overhead as if to confirm that truth and I nodded.

"No going back," I agreed. "But we can plunge on."

"What do you-"

I raised a hand, casting a dome of ice over us beneath her shield then told her to drop hers. She did so and through the perfectly smooth dome of my magic, I pointed to the war machine which had just killed all the soldiers we'd been fighting alongside. Only dumb luck had left us and a few others standing, and now they were all gone too. Just two of us left with enemies all around, trying to thrust us deep with their swords.

"I think…we might have a teeny weeny chance of making it there," I breathed. "Just an itty bitty sliver of a chance. But I always did like it teeny weeny…"

Elaine's eyes widened as she looked at the tower, her head turning as she gazed back at the distant ranks of our army with longing, the flare of Phoenix fire marking the position of our dear queen Darcy who had flown down from the clouds to clash with a tangle of enemy Elementals, her youthful body no doubt wrung out and heaving with exhaustion, but still she drove on towards the climax she yearned for, her stamina knowing no bounds.

The war machine was turning towards our fair queen's position, a deep blue glow from within it warning of the magic they were priming to fire.

"Sometimes, you just have to take the plunge and do what your body wants," I told Elaine, an echo of our first night of passion together in those words. She smiled at me, remembering that moment too. When she'd let me in so deep in every way.

"On three," she agreed, handing me her sword as she prepared to shift.

"Three," I replied and she shifted, clothes and armour falling off of her as her body reformed into that of the regal Manticore she was beneath it all.

I leapt onto her back and let my shield shatter, the shards of jagged ice flying out in every direction, slicing deep into the bodies of those loathsome traitors to the True Queens.

Elaine let out a roar as she soared across the battlefield, flying hard and fast, just the way I liked it, straight towards the bowels of the powerful machine which was priming to blast its magical brew all over us.

We flew just above the heads of the enemy, my weight too much for Elaine to gain any more height. I helped by throwing my own order gifts at our enemies, making their fear rise and rise until they shrieked in terror at our approach.

A Nymph shifted suddenly before us, and Elaine roared in agony as its sharp horns pierced her belly. I was flung from her back, hurtling through the air like a wasp in a windmill and I crashed straight through the wall of the war machine with a solid thump.

Elaine screamed as the Nymph drove its probes into her heart and I screamed too, wailing at the stars for her sacrifice and the end of all I had loved in this world. She had suffered so much in the months before this fight, caught in the web of the False King's penetrating mind, and now she was gone.

I forced myself to stand, my teeny weeny chance fading by the moment as a pack of Lionel's Wolves all turned their savage gaze my way and I was forced to take flight.

A ladder stood at the rear of the small space I was in and I took it two rungs at a time, three, four; I had always been able to take more than seemed natural, and this was no exception. My body was as lithe and nimble as a noonday goose.

Up and up I climbed, making it to the centre of the war machine and hurling a trapdoor shut behind me, sealing it with ice.

A shout nearly had me tinkling my trousers as I found myself in the room with the cannon, ten Fae all turned my way with death in their eyes and a ball of potent magic at the ready to fire. But I had a way with balls that they wouldn't be prepared for.

One look out of the opening where the cannon was pointed showed me my queen Darcy fighting valiantly on in its line of sight, my horror at that truth almost costing me my life as the Fae within this foul contraption lunged for me.

But I was well adept in timing my lunges and I shifted my hips, wriggling this way and that, making it impossible for them to strike me. As I moved between them like a wet and wily waterlily, I did the thing which came most naturally and shifted. Blue scales erupted across my flesh and with a thrust of my hips I took hold of the minds around me, finding their violent intentions and turning them towards the next most base emotion instead.

Lust tore from me in a wave, making them tremble, then groan, breaths catching and cries of need escaping them. One by one, their weapons fell from their hands, and I kept pumping lust at them, using their distraction to lunge for the cannon.

The fuse was burning down and even as I slapped it with the full force of my water magic, it refused to go out. I tried shoving the rod-like contraption, ignoring the Fae who ripped at my armour, peeling my clothing off bit by bit in their desperation to dance with my dongle stick.

I pushed hard, clenching my pert buttocks and driving my hips into the movement as my pants were ripped off, and even then the cannon didn't move an inch.

I didn't know how to alter its course and I was utterly out of time.

The enemy Fae had me down to my lucky leopard print speedo now, their hands rubbing and cupping, mouths kissing and licking but I simply waded through them, moving to the gaping cavity where the ball of glowing magic was just waiting to shoot its load all over my army and my queen.

A hum of energy filled the air, the glow brightening, and I did the only thing I could.

I thrust myself against the cannon, ice pouring from me and filling that hole, filling it deep and hard and all the way to the brim. I filled that hole like no other could and slapped my leopard print speedo-covered hiney over the top of it for good measure, half a second before the whole world went boom around me.

Death came so quick and sudden that I barely felt the hand that snatched me into its grasp, but I smiled as I sensed those waters sucking me down. I smiled because I might have been dead, but the river I looked out upon was full of the bastards I'd taken with me in that explosion and that meant my sacrifice had counted. At least a teeny weeny bit.