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Story Codes: Fantasy, Magic, Violence

For a list of all The Rogue’s Harem, other World of Erasthay stories, maps, and glossaryclick here

Comments are very welcome. I would like all criticism, positive and negative, so long as it’s
constructive, and feedback is very appreciated.

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Click here for Chapter 23.

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Note: Thanks to WRC 264 for beta reading this!

Aingeal

Princess Ava collapsed nearby. She gasped, shaking her rosy head. Quartz glittered across her pink skin, breaking me out of my stupor. The sight of the darkness had arrested me. Spirits of transformation bobbed in and out of the shadows, visible only to me. The inky thing attacking my family was a human witch. It had lashed the local spirits to its will through magical incantations. The spirits modified the shadows, inhabiting them, using them to make a fusion, combining the two different arts to form a lethal attack.

Sven retreated back. His sword blurred, but how much longer could my husband defend himself. I couldn’t sit here useless. I had to act. My back muscles flexed and…

Right, no wings.

I stood on my legs and reached out with my senses. Human witches had to bend and force the spirits, chaining them with knowledge. But the primal forces of the universe loved faeries and those with our blood. They surged towards me. Bright orange evocation spirits danced around my hand as I pointed at the shadows.

A lance of purple energy fired from me, a conduit through which the evocation spirits hurtled towards the shadowy form. The inky darkness rippled. Abjuration spirits surged to the forefront of the shadows, forming a shield of night.

“You think that paltry defense will save you?” I asked, advancing on him. I passed Zanyia rolling on the ground with the other catgirl. “You think I can’t batter down that little shield. I am faerie, mortal. You play with my powers.”

More and more evocation spirits surged down at me, powering my attack. They hammered into the inky shield. Abjuration spirits bust out of the darkness, sent spinning away by the blows of my attacks. Its shield shrank a little more. Sven recovered, charging in to attack.

I grinned my triumph. Sven’s sword would take the mortal in the body and—

A spitting yowl screeched to my right. Movement flashed. The black-haired lamia crashed into me. I gasped, her claws digging into my flesh. Pain burned up my collar bone to my throat. I spun around, her impact sending me off-balanced.

“No!” she hissed as we crashed onto my back.

Air wheezed out of my mouth. Her weight crushed my chest. My head cracked into the hard-packed ground and… My brain rattled. Fog spilled over my thought as… As…

Claws touched my throat.

Fear banished the fog as sharp pain tore into my throat. The lamia’s golden eyes filled my vision as she purred in pleasure. Blood spurted around her finger. My life spilled out of me.

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Princess Ava

I gained my feet, shaking my head. I whirled around to see Sven charging in at the darkness. A beam of purple light slammed into it from Aingeal only to cut off as the faerie screamed out in alarm. The enemy lamia landed on her, dropping her to the ground.

The shadows rippled. Fear clutched at my real heart. I felt it so distantly, fluttering in my chest. Terror crystallized realization in my mind. The enemy would bring to bear all its deadly might on my betrothed. Sven closed the distance. He would be cut down.

I didn’t think.

I charged forward. The shadow lances stabbed at Sven. His boots dug into the pine-needle strewn ground. He slashed and swiped his sword, driving back the first attacks, but more hurtled at him, seeking to find his flesh. To kill him.

“No!” I screeched in fight and threw myself forward.

I flew between them. The thrusting shadows slammed into my stony body. The sharp points slammed into the rose quartz. Cracks snapped through my nonliving form. Bursts of sparkling chips exploded from where the attacks landed. I felt a shock through my soul, a tearing of the power animating the statue.

“Ava!” Sven shouted.

I hit the ground. The cracks spread. The impact twisted my body. The damaged crystals tried to move like a real body, twisting and bending like flexible skin. But where the statue was hit had reverted to hard unyielding quartz.

The cracks spread. I screamed as my body shattered and—

My eyes snapped open. I threw back my head, my entire body thrashing in my saddle. My mare neighed in fright. A thousand crystals stabbed into my mind. I clutched my head, my thoughts slashed to bloody ribbons. I leaned over my horse.

My stomach rebelled.

Bile burned down my throat. My breakfast spilled from my mouth in a vile stream that splattered the skirt of my dress. My bedmaid, Greta, screeched in alarm. She called my name as my stomach heaved again and again.

I hoped it was enough. I hoped I saved Sven. The attack destroyed my proxy. It thrust my soul violently back into my body. I clutched my pounding head, tears streaming down my face as I shook.

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Sven Falk

Ava shattered at my feet. Her crystalline arm stuck me in the shin. I grunted, stumbling. A shadowed lance, half deflected by her quartz body, struck my sword. As I struggled to keep my balance, my grip had loosened. My short sword flew from my hand, tumbling through the air.

“Las’s putrid and disgusting cum!” I howled, jarring pain flaring up my leg. I collapsed amid the ruin of Ava’s proxy. Half her face came to rest before me, capturing the fierce love that compelled her to thrust herself in front of me.

Shadows stabbed.

I twisted to the side and—

Pain exploded in my left shoulder. My collarbone snapped as the lance penetrated my flesh and drove me back onto the ground. I screamed out in agony. It overwhelmed my senses. I thrashed on the ground as it twisted inside of me, an icicle shoved through my body, grinding against my shattered collarbone. Fire burned through my veins, attacking my mind.

Darkness washed across my vision.

The shadowy form loomed over me.

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Zanyia

I lay on the ground, panting. Hithina had abandoned me. My left arm beat with agony. I wanted to gnaw it off. Tears burned my eyes as convulsions wracked my body. The poison rotted away my flesh. It smelled worse and worse.

Master’s scream of agony cut through the pain. My senses came alive again. He needed me. My Master needed his slave. I could hear it in the pain. In the suffering. Keythivak had injured him. That damn assassin would kill my Master.

Sven freed me from Therek. He rescued me from pain and suffering. That memory of Sven fighting Therek in his tent burned in my memory. I would be forever grateful to him. Even if I didn’t love him—and I loved him with all my being—I would die for him.

I sprang at the sound of screaming. I hurtled through the air, my tail adjusting my balance in flight, twisting my body, angling me at the sound of pain. I couldn’t see, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t give my life for my Master and—

I crashed into something. A form. Out of instinct, my limbs wrapped around the figure. Too thin to be Sven. I smelled a mix of acrid and alkaline wreathing this new man. Poison. “Keythivak! That’s my Master!”

The assassin grunted and growled. He twisted as my teeth bit into the meat of his shoulder. I tasted his blood. Sven screamed again. The pain drove my jaw to clamp harder, to dig my fangs deeper and deeper into the assassin’s flesh.

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Sven Falk

The lance ripped out of my shoulder. The pain retreated, but I kept screaming. Just moving my body shot agony through me. I shook my head, trying to think through it. The shadows retracted back to the form. It writhed.

Something had changed.

Sucking breaths against the torture wracking my body, I drew a dagger. The broken finger didn’t even hurt. How could I ever feel another ounce of agony against my gored shoulder? Blood soaked the front of my clothing as I sat up. Dizziness beset me as I raised my dagger.

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Kora Falk

I groaned as my eyes flicked open onto madness. Sven screamed in agony. Aingeal thrashed on the ground, a black-haired woman clawing at her throat. Ealaín moaned near me, her armor crushed in. I struggled to think, to understand.

We were fleeing Queen Sidhe’s palace and Aingeal screamed we weren’t heading to the right place and..

Pain in my chest…

The world shaking…

“Brother mine?” I called out, sitting up, my robe sticking to my chest, matted down with blood. I spotted him writhing on the ground, something dark embedded in his arms. Then Zanyia leaped into the shadows looming over him, screeching in rage.

“Kora,” Ealaín groaned. She reached towards me, her yellow eyes glossy. “Light… Need light… Radiance. Banish… darkness…”

My muse spoke. Inspiration struck me. My hand jabbed between my thighs. Fingers plunged into my pussy. “Rithi, I call upon a light of such radiance to reveal the beauty around me!”

The power surged through my body. My Goddess answered my prayers. I pulled my fingers out of my twat. Light blazed on them. My pussy juices glowed with the brilliance of the sun. I thrust it up as daylight crashed through the clearing and struck the figure.

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Aingeal

Blood filled my mouth. I couldn’t die. I wouldn’t die. Sven screamed in agony. I couldn’t let this catgirl bitch kill me. Anger reached out as the darkness sought to strangle me. I fought to stay conscious as my will screamed out for aid.

The spirits responded.

Evocation spirits crashed into the catgirl. She yowled, thrown off of me in an explosion of purple energy. Her form rag-dolled through the air and struck the ground in a whimpering pile as bright light exploded from Kora.

Daylight bathed the clearing as I shuddered on the ground, prompting an owl’s hoot of surprise. Every beat of my heart spilled more of my blood from my throat. I clamped a hand over my wound, my eyes fluttering closed. As unconsciousness dragged me down, I reached out with my will one last time.

Spirits of enhancement responded.

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Sven Falk

The daylight washed over the darkness. The powerful light allowed for no shadows to be shed. They melted away revealing a whip-thin and tall man, his skin the swarthy brown of a Shizhuthian human. He wore black leather, like me, a quiver of throwing darts at his hip. Wrapped about his torso was a strange chain wrap connected to a sickle sheathed at his waist. His head threw back. He screamed in agony because…

Zanyia bit him. She savaged the flesh at the nape of his neck, his blood spurting around her clenched teeth. Her golden eyes fixed on me. My broken fingers of my right hand clutched a throwing dagger, raised and ready to throw. I snapped my wrist forward. The knife flashed at the man as he twisted his body and flung my catgirl over his shoulder.

Her body smacked the throwing dagger out of the air on her way to slam into the ground. She hit hard, her back arching. She howled in agony, clutching at her swollen, left arm. Pus oozed out of raw, ragged scratches.

The assassin glanced around the glade. Purple light burned around Aingeal. Her legs kicked and shuddered. Kora stood up, her eyes fixed, her fingers moving as she readied to use her divine magic. I reached out and grabbed my short sword with my right hand. I sucked in such deep breaths, fighting against the agony pounding in my shoulder. Blood ran down my arm and my chest as I stood up.

The assassin clamped a hand over his bleeding neck. He gave me a slight nod before springing back and darting away. He scooped up a stunned lamia in his arm. The chain around his torso unwrapped. He flung it upward. It wrapped around a tree branch. He hauled himself up into the pine trees with speed and skill.

“Gods,” I groaned, staggering amid the shattered pieces of Ava’s proxy. I wanted to follow but a sudden surge of dizziness washed over me.

I collapsed.

“Brother mine!” Kora shouted as I stared up at the darkness. Her face appeared over mine.

“So beautiful, sister dear,” I whispered as her haggard, blue eyes stared down at me. Her mouth moved. I didn’t hear the words of her healing spell, but I welcomed the numbing, soothing caress driving back the torture grinding in my shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Keythivak

Hithina’s eyes fluttered open. She let out a whimper of pain as I cradled her on my lap as we sat in the crook of a tree. “Master? Did you… retrieve it…?”

“They live,” I answered. The herbs had numbed the throbbing in my neck to a minor annoyance. “They had an aoi si with them. It… upset things. The priestess recovered and banished my shadows, while the faerie…”

“I thought I killed her,” Hithina mumbled. “Then she… And it…” She frowned. “I’m sorry for failing you, Master.”

“We didn’t fail. I hit the priestess with a poisoned dart. The distillation of styrchnos beans pumps through her veins.”

“It lingers,” she whispered and shuddered.

I nodded my head. The faerie may have thought she healed Kora, but she only suppressed the symptoms. Lurking in the priestess’s system was another chemical. One which would slowly kill her. And it would spread to those she had sexual contact with.

“We just have to track them now,” I said. “And wait.”

“So smart,” Hithina murmured as her eyes squeezed shut again. In moments, her injures pulled her down into unconsciousness.

I held her in my lap as I closed my eyes and rested. I would need it. This Sven had gathered quite the harem of powerful women around him. The next steps must be taken with care. But with the styrchnos in Kora’s system, distractions would come.

Opportunities to punish Zizthithana’s enemies and retrieve the pendant would soon open.

To be continued…

Click here for Chapter 25.

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I have released a part 43 of the revamped Devil’s Pact on Smashwords. Read this post for more information if you’re interested!