It was only at the last second that I realized she wasn’t planning on stopping. She obviously hoped to bowl me over, have her shield cancel my protections, and run me through. I of course, immediately started to backpedal, and then parried her sword as I dodged to the left.

  She spun right and violently changed direction, where Janice exchanged a quick flurry of blows with her, but that left her back open, and Hali slashed her back and then kicked her in the upper back. The bitch stumbled forward, and Janice moved to the side and brought her sword around for the bitch’s head, as if they’d practiced that move a hundred times.

  But both of them had to abort, and I had to abort my charge in as the ground started to rumble. At least, until it was covered in shadows. We all grinned and lunged back in, both Hali and me scoring another hit, her in the back and me on her leg, while Janice parried a couple of attacks.

  By then she’d been standing still far too long, and another deluge dropped on her head as well as a charge of lightning. Also, a spear slammed into the back of her head, flipping her onto her face and the bitch rolled to her feet with a scream of frustration as her exploding earth kept missing us.

  I wasn’t sure how long Shannon’s power would hold out. She had a lot of power, her mother Nox was at least as powerful as my, Levi’s, and Jack’s fathers making her easily a match that way. But she was covering a lot of ground, and every time the bitch moved her shield it was eating away at the edges of Shannon’s shadows.

  Regardless, we pressed our advantage and this time I faced her sword and shield, and I kept her occupied long enough for Janice and Hali to take a shot at her flanks. That time only Hali hit, as Janice’s weapon was shield blocked while the bitch parried my attack.

  Then a spear missed my head by about two inches, and it hit the bitch right in the throat sending her flying back onto her ass. Scared the shit out of me, Jack and I were going to talk about that over a beer or two later.

  More water and another shot of lightning, but most of it just grounded out as she rolled away and up to her feet. She screamed, obviously really pissed off, and the earth exploded and blasted through the shadows. Just about… everywhere. Perhaps her first mistake in battle since I’d met her. It didn’t even hit my shields around me and Hali very hard, the attack was far too diffuse, and she’d blown a lot of power on it.

  The follow up attacks were focused however, before Shannon could reestablish her shadows. The ground under me trembled, and I dove to the side as did Janice and Hali.

  Simultaneous to that the bitch charged me and lunged with her shield. It blasted right through my shields and slammed into my chest, sending me flying back. I caught a look of her premature victory in her eyes as she lunged forward, and her sword came for my chest… right before I was ripped out from under her by a wave of water from Elena.

  I rolled up to my feet and reestablished my own shield ward, just in time to see two spears hit her at once, chest and back, a split second before Hali and Janice slammed their swords against her torso. She’d overextended in her attempt to kill me, and she’d been too off balance from that and the spear strikes, to block either of theirs. Unfortunately, her shields held, but I could tell she was low. I’d used some power, but between all of us working together I was probably at about eighty percent, while our quarry was closer to twenty.

  She looked around with rage in her eyes, no doubt seeing her other two targets far up in the sky, where they could hit her with impunity with lightning and spears. She charged me again, and at that point switched tactics. She didn’t even try to blow up the ground, nor was she really attacking me, that was just a feint. Instead, she used her power as she leapt into the sky and used the shield to launch into the sky like a rocket, it pulled her along with it being attached to her arm.

  It took Levi completely by surprise, as well as the rest of us. Except, the dead guy who was his shield wasn’t surprised at all only having one job, and he ripped Levi out of the way of the swinging sword. Our quarry screamed again in frustration as she landed, I think she was losing it, and she’d blown a good five more percent of her power on that.

  She glared, then shook her head.

  Janice, Hali, and I were running her way full speed, but she just smirked, and then disappeared into the ground like a stick into mud.

  I moved a bit randomly as I tried to feel where she was, and what she was up to. But after a good twenty seconds it was more than obvious that she’d taken off, retreated. Well, fuck.

  Everyone landed near the three of us.

  “Well, what now?”

  The plan had worked, really well as far as it went. We’d totally kicked her ass. Of course, she’d run which made the whole exercise pointless. More than that she’d come after us separately again.

  Jack sighed, “We figure out a way to counter her ground travel before the bitch attacks again. It seems she’s no more prideful than we are, when it comes to running for it to preserve her life and to fight again another day.”

  I nodded, “Can’t blame her for that. And…” I waved at the merrily burning house, “we’re just as petty about destroying houses.”

  Levi snickered, but didn’t disagree, as we looked over at the gleefully burning mansion.

  “Any ideas on that?”

  Shannon could protect us from the ground under us, but her shadows couldn’t get under her, because of the blasted shield. So she’d always have an avenue of escape.

  Elena sighed, “We may be able to freeze the ground solid, after saturating it about twenty feet down, but she could still break through it if she has enough power. Today she fled at fifteen percent or so, that’d be more than enough to break through anything we could set up.”

  “Okay, what about her masters. Should we try to get Jack’s father or the blacksmith to back off, maybe they’ll just call her off, since we’re apparently in a deadlock.”

  Jack snorted, “I don’t know what that could be. it’s not like he gives a shit about his daughter, or me. He has no reason not to let it ride and gamble on her eventually winning out.”

  Yeah, I didn’t see a real way to get Hades or Hephaestus to back off either, but I’d hoped someone else would.

  Levi shook his head, “Not sure how to stop her from running. We’ll all think about it, and let our other mates think about it, then we’ll discuss any ideas tomorrow. Worse come to worst we’ll try Elena’s idea.”

  Jack nodded in agreement, and so did I.

  We headed back to Levi’s house.

  The rest of the afternoon not much happened. I did manage to look into those houses a little further, but it seemed like a good idea to wait on checking them out in person until our enemy was taken care of. I’d also called and gotten an appointment to see an architect the middle of next week, both to plan out our new house and the building for Abigail’s business since the sale of the land should go through by then. I couldn’t imagine this wouldn’t be over one way or another in that time.

  Hali and Maris had also given me some relaxation time, apparently they’d scented stress, and of course manipulated me into ordering them to their knees.

  The biggest subject over dinner was keeping our enemy from fleeing next time, but outside of Elena’s suggestion which seemed to be more wish than plan, we didn’t come up with anything better. Some kind of tracing spell had been mentioned, but we couldn’t set it on her through her shields. If that would work, we could just kill her the same way, with magic. It was a non-starter.

  It was that shield, it made her virtually impossible to handle, which left her free to escape.

  Still, the frozen ground idea was better than nothing, and if Elena and Maris focused on soaking the ground and freezing it over, it would take a lot of earth power to move that earth, crack the ice, and sink down. Maybe it would slow her down enough, but it really was a toss-up and gamble. Without any of us being able to control earth we couldn’t stop her directly, and even if we did her shield would cancel the power as she used her own to sink down. So maybe Elena’s idea was the only workable one, bad plan or not.

  After dinner and spending an hour or two with our hosts, we retired to bed. At first we just snuggled up and got comfortable in bed, all exchanging kisses and soft caresses.

  “I’ve been thinking about the water and electrocution thing. Any water with power gets redirected around her, but not normal water. I wonder if it’d be possible to do something similar with my wind power. Shoot the pressure spheres at her, but then release them before they get in range of her shield’s aura. The explosive compression wave should be unaffected, if it’s not controlled by my power.”

  Hali shook her head, “That means it’d be hitting us and Janice too.”

  I frowned, “What if I released it one direction though. The release could be controlled outside of her shield’s aura, in a single direction of pure wind and shockwave. In that slightly weakened state due to even the short distance crossed it would take her less power to counter it than I’d spent on it, but not by a lot, and with all of us working her down it would still help. Maybe more than the spells we’ve been hitting her with. At the very least, it might knock her off balance to get our weapons through her guard.”

  Hali nodded, “It wouldn’t hurt to try it, since those attacks take hardly any of your power. Conversely, it’d only take her a tiny amount to block it.”

  I shrugged, then moaned deeply as Katerina took me in hand and started to stroke.

  “Yes, but every tiny bit helps, I think. Each of Levi’s lightning strikes weren’t taking more than one or two percent of her power to stop either. Earth power can easily ground electricity, after all.”

  She was right, it was far from a game changer, but this fight was made up of little things.

  Katerina said sultrily, “Plan later, satisfy your wicked wench now.”

  I chuckled which turned into a moan, “Excellent argument, love,” I noted as she straddled my middle…

  The attack came almost two hours later, mid-coitus as I was pounding Lynn’s tight delicious ass from behind while she ate out Abigail. Her tongue working rhythmically between the panting cries each time I slammed home and shoved her face into Abigail’s sex mightily.

  My male brain gave a split-second consideration that perhaps I should finish first, but it was immediately rejected at Janice’s yelling announcement that the enemy had breached the wards. It was ridiculous of course, but I even felt a surge of guilt at not properly taking care of my precious Lynn, along with the annoyance that my fun time had been interrupted.

  Still, given the insane amount of sex we had, I was surprised being cockblocked didn’t happen far more often.

  I pulled out and used magic to clean us up even as we got dressed in seconds. The wards went up as we filed out of the room and split up. Hali and Maris followed me toward the front of the house, while the twins herded both Abigail and Katerina to the back where they’d retreat with the babies and other non-combatants.

  Janice was already outside with her sword out, and Levi filed in right behind us as we ran out of the house. I decided then it could be worse because Levi absolutely reeked of sex, at least I had my magic to make us presentable.

  We made her out almost forty yards away as I heard the house start to shake. The bitch had obviously planned this surprise attack in the hopes of catching us all sleeping. It was a surprise, because after just seven and a half hours since the attack she couldn’t have more than fifty percent of her power regenerated.

  It was also a mistake, because if she had any clue about our lives, then she’d have known Levi and I were still far too busy sating our mates to be sleeping, at just eleven at night.

  I sent a double powered sphere of air her way as I heard windows break behind me, and I released the part of the sphere facing her direction just six feet away from her. The shockwave expanded of course wasting a lot of its power, even from a directed blast, but it still hit her hard enough to send the bitch flying. It’d been why I made it twice as strong as usual, the strength it’d been when it’d torn apart one of Athena’s kids. The house stopped creaking and shaking, and I laughed as I charged, glad that’d worked. Too bad I couldn’t save my own house.

  The three of us had barely crossed half the distance when she rolled to her feet just in time to get water and lightning dumped on her. She growled and charged, no doubt to make it harder for Maris to target her again. It was really bugging the shit out of me that I didn’t know her name, for some reason, but I supposed I’d have to live with that lack. She clearly had no intention of talking, perhaps she’d even been told not to engage us in conversation. Maybe her father had given her orders, in the fear we might actually talk her into switching sides.

  Who knows what lies and manipulations the gods had put in her pretty little head? For all we knew she thought we tortured babies, kittens, and puppies, and jaywalked, or something. Okay, probably not. But it was possible she was an innocent victim in this too, not that it would stop me from protecting myself, my mates, and what was mine.

  It also meant I’d have to keep referring to her as the bitch in my head. Which felt a little wrong even for an enemy, but it was what it was.

  At twenty yards I fired an air burst of sorts, six feet of over her head. She faceplanted as it blasted her back, bounced, and then rolled to her feet further enraged. It was kind of visually funny, but I was far too deep in my fighting focus to truly enjoy it and chuckle. It had also allowed Maris and Levi another opening to shock the bitch.

  She scowled as she parried my fierce flurry of attacks, while trying to circle me as Hali and Janice ran around the sides of us to pen her between us. That didn’t work since I just kept side stepping and exchanging blows on our weapons, which is when the ground started to shake. Without Shannon there yet, I had no choice but to disengage and go on the defensive, as I dove to avoid the explosion and rolled back to my feet.

  I lifted my left hand and sent out a blast of air that hit her torso and face, then lunged back in as Hali scored a hit on her back and the bitch just barely avoided Janice’s blade with a desperate shield sweep.

  Janice and Hali dove away, but instead of an explosion a shield wall rose up behind our enemy and she lunged for me shield leading. The wall wouldn’t give her more than two or three seconds reprieve from our three on one attack, but the look of hate and murder in her cold brown eyes was disturbing. Not that I let it get to me.

  I stepped left then dodged right as I formed a sphere and immediately released it in her direction. She was blasted back again but looked unhurt as she rolled to her feet. She was also around thirty percent power, and I was still close to full, just using a few percent of it so far in this fight.

  We continued our dance for about another minute, until she saw shadows appear under my, Janice’s, and Hali’s feet. I saw it in her hateful eyes, the decision for a tactical retreat, just a moment before she sunk into the earth. The ground cracked in sharp retort as she escaped once again.

  Hali sighed, “I tried, but she had too much power left and easily broke the frozen ground.”

  I nodded, “It was a good try.”

  We all moved over to the door, Levi, Shannon, Elena, and Bonnie included.

  Janice noted, “Thanks for that, the house seems sound enough to my wards and magic.”

  “You’re welcome, it occurred to me I could use the same trick Maris was, but with air instead of water. Doesn’t do a lot of damage, but it does knock her a bit to give us openings.”

  Levi asked, “I don’t suppose any of you came up with a better way to trap her.”

  I shook my head, “Not us.”

  Levi said, “Nope, and we ran it into the ground tonight in circles.”

  Jack sighed, and nodded, “Alright. Next time I’ll bring my other mates, even though I hate the idea. Maggie tells me she can come up with a spell that will do the trick. An earth and water spell, and the coven will be backing her from a distance. It’ll blow almost half the well of power to pull it off.”

  “Earth and water?”

  Levi looked at Bonnie.

  Bonnie said, “Totally. With earth we can separate it instead of just seeping water and creating lone crystals freezing the ground. Ice is extremely strong in thick sheets, if we work in several six-inch layers of pure ice it’ll take her a lot of power to break through it. Still possible, but at the very least it will slow her down a great deal, and we can beat her down. Even better, because it’s magic, we can make those layers extremely close to the surface. She’s also not a magic sensitive, which means she won’t even feel it happen if she doesn’t have her mental hooks in the earth.”

  Jack nodded, “We played what if, trying to figure out what she might do if we cut off that route of escape. The bitch can fly using power to drive her weapon and shield, similar to a levitation spell, her stuff drags her along with it.”

  I interjected, “I might be able to counter that with air bursts, similar to Maris’s water. A shockwave from above should break her momentum and send her back down. She could power through if she dumps all of her power into it, but then as long as I have more power left than she does I can power through her.”

  Janice said, “The three of us can also keep her from running on ground to escape.”

  Jack grunted, “That’s better than I thought. I’d planned to have a succession of spears ready to knock her ass back to the ground. I’d have done it last time, when she tried to attack Levi, but I hadn’t been ready for it and my dead didn’t have orders for it. They do now. Point is, we’ll both handle her so she can’t escape that way. I think we’ll get her next time, unless she pulls another surprise tactic out of her ass.”

  Levi agreed confidently, “She dies next time.”

  I felt the same way. I just hoped he was right.

  Hades’ daughter had been a major pain the ass, but between the four fights so far, the first one against Jack alone, I was fairly sure we’d learned enough and developed our tactics enough to take her down. Jack wasn’t happy his witch mates were getting involved, but clearly it was needed to cut off her escape. Hopefully, that would pay off, because blocking her retreat through the ground was really the only thing we didn’t have an alternate plan for.