Chapter 36
The dark, looming figure followed the sounds of debauchery down the corridor and, as always, found himself at the gilded doors of his colleague's sex dungeon. The man sighed, dark smoke pluming around him and creeping along the double doors until something within them clicked and they swung open.
The man curled his lips in quiet disgust as he scoped out the half-dozen women, all human, writhing and groping on one masculine figure in the middle of them twirling a pipe between his hands expertly as the other was curled into the hair of one woman between his legs servicing him.
"You'd think after all these centuries ye could learn to knock before enterin'." The figure sighed as he spotted the cloaked figure leaning against the door-frame to his room. He gave a tug on the brunette's hair as he signaled for her to stop her ministrations.
"Just thought I'd inform you that your offspring is showing herself to be a pain in my side. I thought your geis would hinder them more than this, Aengus." the figure informed and chided.
The golden-haired Fae scowled. "You're not one t' boss me around. Ye may be the Dark King but I don't bow to ye." Aengus wordlessly commanded the women to exit the room as he adjusted his sleep-wear. "As for Brynna, she'll damn well do as she pleases and feck with your plans, but then again ye weren't very specific in what you wanted when I went to her to impose the geis. Ye should really learn to organize your thoughts a wee bit better. If you wish, when all the smoke clears, you may still take her as I promised years ago." He picked up a goblet and took a swig. He made a show of smacking his lips at the sweet taste of the ale as he stared down the man in front of him. Where Aengus was every bit the perfect model of a Celtic Adonis with gold hair tinged the slightest with light auburn strands, a perfect five o'clock shadow gracing his defined jaw, and a set of abs you could nibble on for eternity, the man before him bore the more darker qualities of the later Milesians who came to his people's lands millennia ago.
"She's too much trouble and more unwilling than I like my women; though, to have her blood would probably be more beneficial to me if Bo doesn't reach my expectations. I've heard rumors of her being able to wield Moralltach and Beagalltach even better than you ever could." The dark-haired Fae smirked when he saw the muscle in Aengus's jaw twitch in irritation.
"What of your daughter, hmm, Donn?" Aengus chuckled when the smirk dropped from his face, "Bo's as stubborn and tenacious as my Brynna. It must be something they acquired from their bitch of a mother. Maybe she would be more...fruitful to me." Aengus used Donn's own twisted love for his daughter against him as he had just done.
Donn growled low in his throat before flicking a hand out, thin wisps of smoke flinging from his fingers and heading straight for Aengus. The blonde Fae chuckled and merely flicked his wrist, one of the girls from the adjacent room came running and flung herself into the line of fire. The black smoke easily made its way through the flesh of the girl's chest, thin points of blood trickling from the small wound as she limply fell to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut.
"Pity. She had an amazing rack." Aengus sighed as he lightly tugged on a golden chain that ran to a small room behind him. It wasn't long until a short blonde wrapped in a gauzy dress appeared with the other end of the chain connected by a thinner chain to a golden torc around her neck. "Be a sweet little thing and rid this beautiful place of her corpse." Though his voice sounded pleasant and flirty, Aengus' eyes said otherwise. They were the color of cold malachite and they clearly told the young woman that he would brook no disobedience. The woman bowed slightly and began to drag the body back into the room she had came from.
"Do not talk of Bo like she will be your spoils, Fabio." Donn sneered, some dark smoke flowing around his feet and hands as he tried to reel in his anger. "She will not be used as your concubine."
"Well, I offered you mine. Why can't I have yours?" Aengus asked pretending to look innocent in his questioning. "If I remember, Donny-boy, ye took Aife from me because she'd found out about our little arrangement during the Wars. She made me pay for that, if you can't see." Aengus turned to reveal his back where the perfect skin had been marred. Two scars the length of his forearm were stretched across the skin where his shoulder blades were located.
"You lived, didn't you?" Donn saw the blood rush to Aengus's face as the veins around his forehead bulged from his rising blood pressure.
"She ripped off me damn wings!" he roared as his fists connected with the small table beside his chair making it crack and splinter; Donn waited for his little outburst to pass. He could clearly tell where Brynna got her temper from.
The blonde ran a hand through his golden locks as he took a deep breath. "I swear to break the geis if you don't let me have Bo, and when Brynna feels the spell lift she'll hunt ye down just like she did your sons. Ah, I've never seen a woman with such a passion for destruction. Even through all the bullshit I've had to put up with from her, I'm proud of the way she puts people in their places. She was most certainly adequate to be the first Morrigan." Aengus's eyes were glazed from his maddened state. Aife had done a number on him, physically and mentally, when she had confronted him about the secret arrangement he had with Donn and his sons to assassinate Ysabeau.
Donn's deep chocolate eyes began blazing white-hot as the smoke began swirling up his legs and torso. "You dare to dishonor my sons by praising your bitch of a daughter who sleighed them in cold blood."
"Can't blame her when they were braggin' and fightin' about how this or that one beat her grandmother and then killed her, and also boastin' about takin' her as the spoils when they started marchin' on the Blood King's castle." Aengus snarled, stepping up to challenge the other man.
"My love, Lord Gwynn and the others are here to see you and Lord Donn." the silky lilt came from the blonde from before as she stepped into the room to stand by the open door. This seemed to distract both men enough for their tempers to fade somewhat.
"Thank you, Cáer. Now please go and fix us somethin' to eat. I'm sure our guests are famished from their travelin'." The petite blonde bowed and left through another door, the ridiculously long chain rattling softly one the stone floors. Aengus turned and picked up his discarded shirt from earlier and walked into his master bath.
Donn said nothing but made his way to the antechamber to take up his spot next to their business partners. He tried to hide his disdain when he saw the ruffled-shirt man sipping on a glass of wine and more than likely talking about himself to the serving girl next to him.
"Ah, Donn," Gwynn acted like he hadn't sensed or seen the other Fae walk in, "what did you and the Golden Boy chat about, hmm?"
Donn tried hard not to sneer at the man. "That is business between us, you Ann Rice reject."
"You say the loveliest things to me, Donn. How's your little spit-fire of a daughter? Still sticking her pretty little head into where it doesn't belong?"
Whisps of dark smoke coiled around the Welsh Fae's throat and Gwynn's chocolate eyes flickered green as he growled lowly in his throat at the darkly-dressed Fae. Donn lifted him to his feet then to a couple of inches off the floor.
"Enough. Both of you quit this pissing contest and put it back in your pants." The heavily accented voice of a statuesque blonde sounded from the door. She brushed the snow from her shoulders as her two, giant, black and gray cats wandered in, eyes slitting and purring pleasurably at the warmth that the fireplace was emitting.
"My cats took care of your corpse problem." She informed Aengus, the cats still licking the blood from their muzzles by the fire.
"Thank you, Freya." Aengus bowed towards the blonde.
s "Hel will be arriving soon; she had to look over an outbreak in some country or other." Freya said in an off-handed manner, taking a seat beside her cats. They purred at her in greeting and went back to their cat naps.
"Noted. Now, progress reports."
"My lynxes have managed to cut down their numbers, but the Lewis man was not forthcoming with his information and managed to escape through his sorcery. We lost his scent in the city, but I have my hand-maidens on the hunt within." Freya informed, annoyance evident in the tightening of her jaw and the malevolent sparkle within her glacial eyes.
"And my Maenads are creating quite the frenzy within our nightclub. Soon, they should be drawing the Succubi in like moths to a flame." A smooth, rich voice sound. A Greek man – rather tall with slicked back, coal hair – stood delicately swirling a glass of wine in his paw of a hand while leaning against the frame of a window.
"Really full of yourself, eh, Dion?" Another tall blonde, this one dressed in a cream cocktail dress with pearls gracing her neckline and ears, questioned as she rolled her eyes at Dionysus's cocky statement.
"If I remember correctly, 'Dite, the plan to drive the Chimera insane with her love for the blonde was your idea. I just had to add my prowess for insanity."
Before Aphrodite could scratch his eyes out, Aengus took her hand, calming her with her persuasive powers. "My dear, beautiful Aphrodite, don't bother messin' up your divine manicure on his whino arse."
"Father should have made you stay in AA permanently." She pouted, petulantly sipping her martini while glaring at the brunet.
"Continue, please, Dionysus. And do keep your boastfulness in check." Aengus warned lightly.
"As I've mentioned, the Maenads will have them enthralled within themselves and they'll turn on their beloved humans and Druids and suck them dry. And then, when they come to their senses, they will agonize over what they've done and, voila! Surrender is assured." He smiled widely as he downed the last of her wine, expectantly holding his glass out for the serving girl to fill up once more.
"Though your plan does sound rather reassuring, I have to say, you don't give Brynna and the others much respect when bringing up their ability to control their inner Succubi." He knew just how crafty his daughter and her little clan were.
"True," Dionysus conceded to Aengus's point briefly, "but you forget her younger sisters. We may not sway Bo due to her early Dawning, but she is still young, and Ceili's fluid nature allows her appetite to sway. None of their sisters would harm them significantly enough to stop their frenzied attacks."
Angus only nodded, taking Dionysus's advancement in his plan as a good sign and for him to continue his work.
"I do not want Bo harmed in any way." Donn spoke, glaring at the drunken man sleazily smiling.
"And she won't be. She'll be the one doing the harming."
"She'll be harming her followers; that is harming her." Donn barely contained his snarl as he crossed his arms and glared menacingly at the god of wine.
"Maybe don't kill them, just a good beating." Aengus spoke to the Greek Fae after he knew Donn's anger was simmering down to where he could listen to reason.
"Very well." Dionysus conceded, nonchalantly putting his wine down on the coffee table as glass began heating up to a very uncomfortable temperature in his hand. Donn smirked when he saw the twitches of pain making the man's jaw and eye muscles to constrict. "I shall just frenzy them into following my Maenads into a trap of some sort?" Dionysus hoped it was the right way to placate the Dark King's constantly fluctuating temper for the time being until the heat was on someone else.
"That's a better plan." Donn reined in his powers and readjusted his suit jacket around his shoulders, shrugging off the tension somewhat.
The sense of dread that suddenly veiled itself over the group of Dark Fae Elders announced the coming presence of the Princess of Darkness, Hel.
"I've noticed an odd elevation in berserkirs in Eljudnir lately. I see Miss Daisy Sunshine's been at it again?" Hel's good side, the one not a ghastly greenish black and decaying, shone in the light so that her slick black eyebrow was visible and arched above her cold, gray eye.
"Of course my lovely sister's been doing jigs around your shit-for-brain minions." The baritone voice was accompanied by six foot four of brunet hotness in a Versace suit coming through the open doors to the elegant hall; he looked just as annoyed as the rest of them. "You would think after centuries of this whole fox and hound chase, you'd just say fuck it and leave it to me. I know her ins and outs and I'm the only one thus far to really give her a low blow and make her feel it."
Aengus rolled his eyes and sighed in annoyance. "Nice to see you've taken the time to breathe and reconnect with the world before sticking your head back up your ass, Bran." But Aengus had to admit his step-son's selfish, treacherous actions did lead to the rise of his ex-lover and daughter's notorious reputations.
"Maybe if you drink a Red Bull, you'll get your wings back." Bran bit back, plastering a fuck you smile on his face. He saw the blond Fae's countenance become crimson for a moment before returning to its original pigmentation. Bran's chocolate eyes withheld an egotistical gleam as he watched the man's hands curl around the arms of the chair he was seated in; he knew full well about the geis his mother placed upon Aengus when he had first tried to dispatch the Incubus after his betrayal of Brynna.
"So what's this great, master plan of yours, Momma's Boy?" Aengus snarled.
"You've tried going at her directly on several occasions and, of course, the outcome is always the same: you go limping back to your hiding places cupping your hurt pride. You've tried going after the humans and Fae helping them and that's actually worked in flushing her out into the open, but what you all lack is the common sense to manipulate the shit out of their Fae protectors." Bran gloated as he produced two piece of paper, a plain ruled paper and an official-looking document, from his coat pocket and held it out.
Aengus arched a brow but took the offered papers and read the names. He smiled and a sadistic chuckle escape his throat. "Well, looks like we've got some new players and positions in this game. How did you manage this?"
"Oh, it was easy. You just have to know how to watch and listen and create mass memory loss within the Light Fae Council.." The brunet smirked and took another item from his pocket. It was a small, green class jar that was corked and contained a slightly phosphoresce, purple liquid. The rest of the cork sticking outside of the top had an undefinable green wax with inky, black feathers stuck within it. He gently swirled the liquid, agitating the glowing substance and the screaming face of a woman formed for a split second in the flow of liquid before disappearing. "And this little beauty will help us with any unwanted Succubi advances. It's wonderful what you can make happen if you know the right witch."
Aengus smiled as he caught on to what his step-son was planning. "I believe the new Ash has something up his finely tailored sleeve."
Amongst their dark selves, they talked of bettering their plans and finally bringing down the one group of rebels standing in their way of conquering the human realms once more.
Sorry for the wait...again, but holiday shopping, colds, and decorating are officially over for me now and I can get back to what I love to do: sitting in a chair and puking up my imagination gland to see of it still functions properly. LOL HO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF SCHNAPPS
P. S: After this chapter, it kind of picks up after Hale's Ash screw-up and Tamsin's arrival, so our other sexy blonde will be joining in on the crazy in this story.
~ The Blotness