Warlock's Fate: An Andrew Moore Novel 03 Read online

  Samantha smirked, “I see, that’s kind of cool. Mages can’t do anything like that, though we can transcribe books into blank books with a spell. So… she’ll be lurking naked in the study then?” she asked doubtfully.

  I didn’t get a chance to answer.

  Alma turned, “No, he’ll only let me out if he gets more books for me to read. Most of the time I’ll literally be inside the book, until the master calls me forth again.”

  I cleared my throat, “I also granted you access to ask questions, which is why she just answered you, and will answer you when she’s in the book as well.”

  Samantha crossed her sexy and very long dancer’s legs, and smiled, her green eyes seemed more mesmerizing to me every day. “Thanks Andrew. Shall we get started?”

  I nodded, and opened the book where I’d left off yesterday.

  Over the last couple of weeks, we had all developed a schedule of sorts.

  In general, I studied infernal magic when I woke up, elemental magic from breakfast to lunch, and then we did a mock duel, followed by a critique, and advice on how to avoid repeating any mistakes. I no longer studied after dinner now that I had a clue and some small competency with magic, but instead I spent my late afternoon through late evening time with my four ladies, together or separately. It seemed to be working well as a schedule of sorts so far. I also wasn’t in control of who and when, I let the ladies work that out to avoid giving the impression of favorites, and the others also spent time with each other when I was with one of them, so they wouldn’t feel left out. They seemed to like it, women loved to negotiate, and apparently that included splitting up my time between them…

  Chapter Two

  Samuel had a nasty headache, and released a healing and then a muscle relaxing spell. What possessed him to want to rule the council, he wasn’t sure. Oh right, so he didn’t die in some new jackass plan of attack they didn’t even need. He’d laid out all he knew a couple of times throughout the day and had urged the rest of the council to just take a deep breath, and get back to their lives and running mage society.

  Sally Jenner was one of the other seven new councilors, and like him, she was just in her early forties. They both looked to be in their mid-twenties compared to humans. She had shoulder length blonde hair, big brown eyes, and a killer body. He found her extremely attractive, the most beautiful woman on the council. She was also a major pain in his ass, and a fire mage.

  He was a water mage. They say opposites attract, but water and fire would never get along. At least, that’s what he told himself whenever he caught himself staring.

  Sally said, “We can’t possibly trust the warlock. They all go bad eventually.”

  Jaime Sanders was an air mage, and was an older man of sixty, one of the old council’s two survivors. He thought the man was a little whiny, but that could be because he was the other pain in his ass on the council.

  Jaime said, “Sally makes sense, we can’t just bury our heads in the sand and hope for the best, simply because we’ve been thwarted thus far.”

  They were both a total pain in his ass, luckily, he didn’t need to convince the whole council, just half of the eight would do.

  He replied, “You’re both ignoring all the evidence to show that Moore is the exception that proves the rule. There is always an exception to any truth. His father’s been stable in Chicago for over twenty years, his grandfather was stable for over a hundred years. He hasn’t attacked us at all, and only responded with the force necessary to stop our attacks instead of going for scorched ground. I’ve already cited you plenty of reasons and examples, that isn’t burying my head in the sand, it’s opening my eyes to the truth instead of fear.

  “If you recall, I’m not the only past investigator who came to these conclusions and took precipitous action to stop the violence when we realized the truth. Samantha Antonin found the same things I found, and she’s been staying with him. I doubt he has her fooled, or me.”

  He paused a second, “I think we should vote on this, put it behind us, and offer Andrew Moore a real truce. Then we can catch up on all the business we’ve fallen behind on. Does anyone have anything to add before we vote?”

  Sally interjected, “Allowing him to grow in power…” she continued on, listing the dangers.

  He sighed, this was going to be a long day. If he could ever convince them to vote on it, and back off, then he’d have to make plans for a ceasefire of some kind.

  Annaliese was pensive as she entered Seattle. She hadn’t seen her direct turn, Arthur, in about four hundred years now. She didn’t like to be tied down, and had travelled the world as she willed. She’d done her time as a young vampire, and had risen the ranks over centuries to rule a city. After a thousand years of ruling, she’d realized the truth, power and control were just an illusion. The only control she had was over herself, and she also came to see if she was to survive, she needed to embrace change.

  Then she’d turned her city over to her turns at the time, and had started to just travel the world, to live in it. Most vampires her age did it that way, as far as she knew there were only a handful as old as she, most didn’t make it much over a thousand years before they self-destructed, much less to her over three-thousand-year life span. Humans weren’t meant to live that long, and there was a trick to it that most didn’t, or were possibly emotionally incapable of learning.

  She’d met Arthur in England of all places, in the year twelve fourteen. He was handsome, sexy, and she’d taken great delight in seducing him. She’d eventually fallen for and turned him, her first turn since abandoning the city life of most vampire covens for her current vagabond and carefree existence. Well, extremely rich vagabond existence. They’d spent four hundred years touring the world together, but slowly they’d grown apart, mostly because he had ambition for more. She saw in him, what she had been over two millennia past, and had let him go to find his fortune with her blessing.

  She’d lost touch with him around a hundred years later, when he took his two turns to America, to start and establish his own coven. She’d only recently run across him again, about ninety years ago when she visited the west coast of America, and they’d stayed in sporadic touch since. Any fire between them had long been extinguished, but she was at least fond of Arthur. She’d also been surprised he’d asked for her help. He was an eight-hundred-year-old vampire master, she was a big believer in independence at this point in her life, and wasn’t sure what to make of it yet.

  Or at least, she didn’t want to consider all the possibilities, it would just worry her.

  She approached the coven, and the vampire on watch moved into her path. She didn’t recognize him, and he smelled very young.

  “Good evening,” she smiled politely, “I’m here to see Arthur. Just tell Jason that Annaliese is here.”

  The guard tried to intimidate her with his gaze and stance, and she was polite enough not to laugh in his face. She knew what the man saw, she was just five foot one, and very petite. Her C cup breasts looked just a little too big for her short curvy frame. She had an aristocratic beauty to her delicate face, with high cheek bones and a clear complexion. Her extremely light blonde and silky hair was straight, and long enough that if she arched her back the ends would tickle her ass. She had fair skin, and bright blue eyes. She also looked to be about eighteen, had looked that way, for thousands of years. She was wearing the right type of clothes for a woman of her apparent age, she’d always kept up with that sort of thing, and who didn’t love clothes? She was in a pair of jean shorts, and clingy dark blue t-shirt. Giving up wearing a dress all the time had been a difficult change for her, but at least she could still wear them out to restaurants, shows, and dance clubs. She’d also grown to enjoy the way tight shorts affected the opposite sex, so it was all good.

  The guard should have known better than to take her at face value, but she knew appearances still had an effect, and she was suppressing her powerful aura right now anyway. She looked like a pretty young woman
out on the town for the first time, naive and foolishly alone. It didn’t bother her in the least as she waited for him to contact Jason, who appeared moments later. He must have run from wherever he’d been.

  Jason said cheekily, “Looking good grams.”

  She didn’t mind his teasing greeting, she was past that sort of thing, control. It really was the secret of living a long life, or a part of it, to stop trying to control everything. The other half of it was to enthusiastically embrace the change of the times, which wasn’t human nature and took effort. She dove into them, sometimes with fake enthusiasm at first, but eventually that would become real. Fake it till you make it was a psychological truism. At least, that’s how it worked for her, and why she was still sane at her true age. She acted her apparent age, and had been for a very long time. Of course, that didn’t mean she’d accept disrespect, but she’d long given up the need for formality and kowtowing in younger vampires, even from those of her direct line, who she had a right to command.

  She lifted her arms girlishly and spun for him with a laugh, “Like what you see young man?”

  The guard moved off, and looked confused. She chuckled.

  Jason said, “It is good to see you, when’s the last time?”

  She said, “Twelve years? I dropped by for a week, and we exchanged cell phone numbers. Marvelous devices. How is he doing?”

  Jason replied carefully, “My sire is well, but angry with this new warlock, and the abomination he’s created.”

  She sighed in mock annoyance, “Alright, straight to business it is, take me to him. I also want to see everything you have on the warlock, what he’s done, and what we’ve done. Understood?”

  Jason shrugged sheepishly, “I’ll make it up to you, and I already have all that information ready and waiting for you on a tablet in anticipation of your request. I’m just… concerned,” he finished carefully.

  An hour later she frowned down at the reports. This… young woman could teleport, which meant their age estimation was off. Julia’s demon was at least two thousand years old, the warlock had managed to pull a very powerful one from hell. If Arthur knew how powerful the young shifter vampire truly was, he’d have a cow. She wasn’t sure, but suspected the young woman hadn’t figured out how to tap into her true abilities yet, not fully at any rate. If she had, she wouldn’t have had any trouble at all taking out the head shifter she fought.

  She also wouldn’t tell them, because it was a secret that the oldest of her kind kept, the new powers gained when their animal demon reached two millennia of age. They really didn’t want their true abilities to get out, it would make others nervous. Right then, they seemed to think it was a special thing because Julia was originally a shifter, and she was more than okay with them making that incorrect assessment. The only thing that was truly different with this Julia, was that she didn’t drink blood, she ate raw flesh instead.

  She said, “In short, you spied on and tried to assassinate him and his guardian, and he struck back with a… practical joke, and a warning to stay away. The mages have also failed to take down the nascent warlock, because he suborned a witch. Interesting.”

  She felt her conscience twinge, and reminded herself both males and females were called mages in this age. Not a witch.

  Arthur said, “Yes, the warlock is nothing special, but the shifter abomination tilts the scales. Will you…” Arthur trailed off as she held up a hand.

  She was disturbed by the abomination talk, and knew it came from his frustration, and fear of losing control. The woman wasn’t an abomination, unless all of them were. They were all possessed by animal demons.

  “I will investigate and look into this. If he’s a true threat to your coven, I will kill them all. To be clear, the decision will be mine and you will have to accept it.”

  Arthur looked frustrated, and she sighed. She’d tried to convince him in the past to let go of his illusions of control, but if anything, he was even worse now. She knew he wouldn’t learn that lesson. She glanced at Jason, who stood stiffly at attention, and every other word out of his mouth tonight had been sire this, and sire that. She knew Jason was a fun and relaxed man underneath all of that, but he didn’t dare show it before his sire. She’d lost turns before from old age, and tried not to wonder just how long Arthur had left, before his mind broke.

  As far as the warlock went, she imagined she’d be killing him soon, they all went bad after all. But… she’d phrased her words earlier to test Arthur, and he’d failed in her eyes. Still, it wouldn’t do to assume, she needed to figure out a way to get more information. She was a powerful ancient being, but she no longer took life unless it was necessary. It was far too easy to kill for her now, and she had no wish to become a monster. Even an evil warlock deserved the benefit of the doubt, she’d find the truth, and then handle it, humanely and cleanly.

  He wouldn’t feel a thing, or even see it coming…

  Chapter Three

  Julia stretched out, placing her front paws silently on the forest ground, and then moved her back claws forward one at a time to bunch up her body. The deer had no idea she was just fifteen feet away, and wouldn’t have been fast enough to get away even if it had. In truth, she was so fast now she didn’t even have to hunt silently, but her instincts demanded it.

  The last two weeks had been wonderfully peaceful, and she’d settled into her new life with Andrew, and her co-mates and new sisters of her heart, with a contented happiness. Andrew, Lilith, Katia, and Samantha were her new pride so to speak. She’d also stopped trying to understand her joy at serving Andrew, and just accepted it. It was impossible to deny that she’d never been happier.

  She was a stubborn strong woman, who wouldn’t take shit from anyone, but submitting herself to Andrew’s authority in every way had transformed her life. She’d never felt more valued, strong, safe, or accepted. It helped that he was worthy of it, he’d saved her, given her a place where she was valued for who she was as a whole person, instead of just as a vessel of pleasure. He’d asked for her loyalty and obedience as a guardian, and as a protector of his line. He’d left where and with who she sated her strong sexual nature under her control, as a result of that, she’d given him all of who she was. She loved him with all she was, and she knew he loved her, even if he hadn’t said it yet.

  Scents don’t lie.

  As a result of all that, she was contented, loved, and she had found a place she could prosper emotionally. He also respected her, listened to her, and sought her advice. The only thing that stopped it from being perfect was that she missed her alpha and the rest of her old pride on occasion, but even that wasn’t so bad because she and Andrew visited their allied pride often.

  She lunged forward and whipped out a paw, slapping the deer’s head. She’d held back this time, a lot, and was a much better judge of her strength in her large cat form. She’d merely snapped its neck, as opposed to ripping its head off like she had the first-time hunting in this form. She used to be a white tiger, about eleven hundred pounds of pure muscled predator, which was about three hundred pounds more than a normal tiger. Since becoming a vampire as well, one who subsisted on the raw meat of her hunting instead of blood, her tiger form had changed, including her color of her primary fur which was now the same blue-black as her lustrous wavy human hair, and she was quite a bit heavier and larger. She was about sixteen hundred pounds now, about twice the mass of a normal full grown tiger.

  She was happy enough about her demon being different from other vampires, since the hunt and eating her kill satisfied her tiger instincts as well. She clawed open the deer, and feasted.

  After she finished her meal, she shifted back to her human form, covered in blood, and teleported straight to their shower. She turned the water on, and sighed in contentment as the water turned hot, and she started to clean herself off. Her inner tiger, and her animal demon, were sated after that meal. She felt full and warm.

  She smiled, as she took in Andrew’s scent moments before he opened
the shower door and stepped in to join her. It was their night for privacy, but she figured he would have waited. She turned and pulled him under the hot spray, and into a warm lingering kiss. His hands caressed her waist and hips as she conformed her body to his. She moaned into his mouth, he made her so wet. Her libido as a cat shifter was normally off the charts, but the added love, respect, and admiration she had for him raised that bar even higher.

  “Good hunt kitten?” he asked, once the kiss was broken.

  She tingled in pleasure, if anyone else called her kitten, she’d tear their face off, figuratively speaking, but when he said it, it just made her weak in the knees. That was okay, she knew what to say to get him going as well.

  She nodded, kept her head down and looked deeply into his warm hazel eyes through her eyelashes, and said sultrily, “Yes master,” and then took him in hand, and started to stroke him with a come fuck me look on her face. It was a very blunt seduction, but as a cat shifter she was very good at all forms of seduction, and seducing Andrew was one of her very favorite things.

  She giggled losing the seductive look, as her plan came to fruition. He grabbed her ass, picked her up, and pushed her against the tiles as he kissed her demandingly. She wrapped her legs around him eager to be taken, lifted up slightly, and then impaled herself on his gloriously long and thick cock. He stretched her out and filled her perfectly, and she ground her body against his as he started to fuck up into her hard and fast. She was pinned, and loving it, but she could still squeeze his cock tightly, and swivel and grind her pelvis to increase both their pleasure.