I wasn’t so fussed about it though, since I had a job that was perfect to build my relationships with my new allies and growing friendships, as well as to pursue Katerina. It was… more than enough, for now. In a way I was in the same boat myself, outside of building a warm home and my mates, I wasn’t sure what I’d be passionate about outside the home yet. It’d take time for my family and myself to figure all that out, and I wasn’t in a rush. Life was pretty damned fine at the moment, and chasing my Katerina was exciting, as was making true friends and ally bonds.

  Life was complicated, and besides that my family wasn’t complete yet.

  I looked up as I felt Maris approaching cautiously. She looked a little wary of the new arrivals, and still a little wary of us, and it probably didn’t help that my sexy twins looked a bit overprotective of me in that moment.

  I said, “Hello, Maris. I was wondering when you’d stop by again,” Lynn and Zarya immediately relaxed at my calm, coaxing, and confident tone, “This is Lynn and Zarya, my new mates.”

  Maris smiled, “Hello,” she said shyly.

  Lynn replied, “Nice to meet you. River nymph?”

  Maris nodded, “I saw you all and got curious.”

  I cracked my empathy for a moment, and she did feel more curious than last time. She was also lovely, her soft and exotic eastern beauty with midnight silken hair and bright blue eyes was stunning. Not to mention her petite sexpot body at five foot one, just a little out of proportion with those generous and proudly gravity defying heart shaped C cups. Top heavy, but in a totally hot way. Her delicate pink nipples were lovely, a few shades darker than my twins but still very delicate in appearance and delicious in variance of her fair silky skin.

  “You’re welcome to join us anytime.”

  Maris nodded, “I must keep myself hidden.”

  I said, “So do we, but we hide in plain sight. The humans merely think us other humans. If you were to throw on some clothes the humans wouldn’t look at you twice, except perhaps in interest.”

  She giggled, her voice bubbly, “I see. I don’t know enough to blend in I don’t think. And my kind can be shy.”

  I nodded, “I’d be happy to show you around sometime. As long as you didn’t do magic where humans can see, it’d be fine I think.”

  She asked, “Would you like to swim with me?”

  I smiled, “Why not.”

  Lynn said nervously, “Swim?” and Zarya added, “Master?”

  Maris giggled in her cute bubbly voice, “I will ensure all your safety.”

  That statement removed even the last of my concerns.

  Hali had a wide grin on her face, as we all got up and followed Maris into the water. She let out a soft sigh of contentment, as she shifted and swum around. It’d been a long time since I’d just relaxed and had fun. We basically played water tag and outside of cheating outrageously while giggling, Maris didn’t do anything dangerous to us while playing. She was a monster after all, and while not bloodthirsty like land monsters her definition of playful fun could include things not so fun for others.

  Of course, we were hardly helpless in water. The twins took to swimming easily enough, but I think they only did it for my sake. They loved being by me, spending time with me, and obviously found Maris a curiosity, but I think they’d have rather been on dry land or in the air.

  Maris on the other hand was a joy. It got me thinking maybe my house needed four monsters and only one demigoddess in it, and I wondered how I could get Ginny or Levi to come around and see if Maris was compatible. That way if she wasn’t then I wouldn’t get my hopes up. She was playful, coy, and ridiculously fast in the water, and impossibly fast when she became water.

  Don’t get me wrong, I was sure my new friends and allies would drop by. The difficulty there would be in getting Maris to show up to be read by their blessing.

  Regardless, it was about an hour later when we were all laying in the grass by the shore and we continued to chat. Maris was a sweet and bubbly sexpot though shy at the same time. Not all that much different than my twins as far as being sweet, but wildly different in temperament of that sweetness as my twins were truly exuberant and the complete opposite of shy or coy. Hali really was the only one that teased and pushed me at times with her playful wickedness, but I loved that about her.

  Only one of my monsters anyway, Katerina was a whole other ball of wax.

  They were all strong in their own way though.

  Everything changed though, in a moment, when Maris got a worried look on her face. She darted in and startled me with a warm and somewhat lingering kiss. A surprising but quite welcome stolen moment of playful intimacy, that also told me the fascination and attraction was far from one way. The river nymph was more than just a little tempting, and the sweet sound of her sigh into my mouth stirred me below.

  Her blue eyes were wide with worry when it broke, then she was gone and in the water.

  I frowned at her sudden absence in confusion, but then I felt the wards’ warning at the road and grimaced. She’d somehow knew they were coming, moments before I did. My lips were still tingling with her soft playful kiss, but the wistful attraction was gone.

  “Dressed, weapons, now.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  We were clothed and had weapons on. My Hali once more in her leather vest and skirt, while my twins were in their leather armor and already shifted. It was the first time I’d seen them like that, their faces hawkish with a silver beak, and their feathers were the same gorgeous dark reddish brown of their hair, save the tips of the feathers which were steel. They looked fierce, and still quite beautiful if in an alien way. The two of them flanked me and Hali, the two of us wearing our swords and weapons.

  I was glad I’d insisted in having all of that nearby, relaxed vigilance.

  There were two SUVs pulling up with five people each as we rounded to the front of the house. I sighed in annoyance as I recognized both Steven and Greg, not to mention the black explorer. It seemed they’d come for revenge, and had brought eight others with them, though I tried my best not to jump to conclusions I couldn’t imagine they had another purpose in being here.

  It was apparent as they piled out that there were two more demigods in the mix, and the other six felt like monsters to me.

  My power flowed, and the sky darkened with the sudden and billowing cloud cover. I’d promised this asshole if he came after me that I wouldn’t grant mercy a second time, and I was stuck with needing to deliver that threat now despite feeling a certain amount of conflicted feelings about the idea of killing. Of course, self-defense was the right of all, and he was forcing the issue. No different than a human protecting themselves during a home invasion.

  The monsters transformed as soon as they were out of the vehicle. Two of them had lower bodies of snakes and grew venomous fangs. Two of them shifted and had the head of cougars and wicked claws on their hands, though they were still bipedal and mostly human. The last two were full shifts, and they looked like wolves the size of ponies, save their tails which were thin and whip long and wickedly barbed for the last foot or so.

  “So, do these two know what you did, or did you lie and make yourself out to be the aggrieved?”

  I was guessing the second, because instead of trading insults or words, Greg growled, “Kill them!”

  Yeah, so not fighting fair this time, I’d had enough of this dick.

  My power surged potently. Try to imagine gale force winds from a storm a half a mile wide, and then imagine all that air pressure wave force compacted into a wind just twenty feet wide. The six monsters, four demigods, and the SUVs went flying. The windows of the vehicles were shattered, and metal protested as the vehicles rolled and flipped away from me. The monsters and demigods arrayed against us didn’t do much better, though surprisingly the wolf monsters with the whip tails did better than the SUVs.

  At the same time, the clouds opened up with a driving rain, that quickly became a hail of sharp razors of ice as I aimed it all at the six forms being blown back and fighting against the wind. The one thing in a storm I couldn’t use was lightning, apparently that was the domain of Zeus, despite my father being the god of storms.

  The hail destroyed the SUVs even further, the razor-sharp ice and the winds pockmarked and dented, and in some places, they were outright ripped through the body of the SUVs.

  One of the demigods managed to get off an arrow, but the wind deflected it away from us before it’d gone even two feet, so I didn’t even have to bother with a shield. The razor hail and sharp winds cut and pulverized the snake and half cougar monsters. The wolves were quite a bit tougher than an SUV apparently, but they couldn’t reach us through the wind speed and force equal to a twister if in a straight line.

  My twins got involved though, and they sent steel tipped feathers shooting at the two wolves, and the heavy winds just made the darting weapons pick up speed. The sharp steel tips broke through where the razor-sharp hail failed, and the two wolves howled their deaths.

  The four demigods looked like shit, with many bleeding lacerations and broken bones, but I hadn’t focused specifically on them like I had the dead monsters. Still, they’d taken their fair share of hail, and they were at least forty yards away and holding on to trees for dear life.

  Hali said, “Damn. I’d forgotten how scary you are, master,” but her tone of voice was anything but scared, she’d sounded damned breathy and more than a little aroused.

  I winked her way, like it was no big deal, but I was far from turned on from it, like my Hali and twins seemed to be. They were wonderful women, submissive mates, but they were also monsters.

  I’d blown maybe forty percent of my power on that little display, which would take about six hours to recover, and I considered the idea of telling them off, but decided it would be wasted on them. If I was going to be forced to kill than I needed to do it cleanly and quickly and not cause suffering. That wasn’t about them, or what they deserved, it was about keeping my own soul and principles intact, lest I become what I despised.

  I focused the wind even tighter above my hands. A swirling ball of air so thick and powerful that looking through it blurred and hazed my vision and was actually visible to the naked eye. It launched at Steven and as it reached his head, I released my power’s hold over it. The shock wave of that air pressure expanding was powerful enough to snap his neck, and it half ripped the head from his body. I repeated it three more times while the gale force winds continued to not just keep them at bay, but also forced them to do nothing but hold onto those trees and fight it.

  It wasn’t a battle, so much as it was an extermination.

  It was also a damned mess.

  The twins said in stereo, “Master,” in a sweet and needy voice that made me shudder, because it was so damned alluring despite the fact that my heart was full of regret and disgust in that moment. It’d been five years since I’d taken a life, and this was the first time I’d done so on purpose.

  I still had close to fifty eight percent power as I cut it off. The gale force wind and razor hail had taken a whole lot more power than the simple and small compacted swirling balls of air that were so deadly. I felt a little shame, I think I’d done it that way just to scare the shit out of them. To let them know for a good ten seconds or so they were helpless, and that they were going to die.

  I didn’t feel good about that, but they’d pissed me off. It was still a clean kill, but it’d been a waste of power. I could’ve taken out ten times the number of monsters with the same effort. Next time, I’d do it right. On the other hand, it meant not having to risk my mates, which had also been in my mind. To protect them, because they were mine.

  Without the powerful wind keeping them at bay, the spherical wind and tight pressure balls would’ve taken them down fast, but not without giving them the opportunity to take a swipe or swing or two. Close range wouldn’t have mattered all that much, I could safely release that pressure in one direction to avoid hurting myself or one of my mates, similar to a shaped charge explosion.

  Hali teased, “Did you have to destroy the SUVs like that, they’d have been handy for the cleanup.”

  I chuckled, “True.”

  We got started on the grizzly task of gathering up body parts, not to mention all the leaves and weak branches I’d broken off the trees…

  The bed was warm, and I was beyond sated. Hali was above me, my cock still buried in her paradise as her fast breaths against my neck slowly recovered, and the twins were cuddled into my sides and caressing the both of us. It’d been a hell of a time cleaning up, and I still felt guilty about taking life and the way I’d done it, but my mates were gorgeous, and they’d seduced me pretty hard after dinner.

  I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. I hoped the problem with Athena’s children had ended with their deaths, and I hadn’t pissed off the goddess by defending myself against her people. It was what it was though, and I’d only done what I’d had to in order to protect my family and my own life.

  There was also the matter of starting my new job the next morning. I’d already set the alarm to go off an hour earlier, so we’d be done with sparring, breakfast, and my workout at the fitness place before my first class started. There was also the idea of seeing Katerina, and my second happy ending massage with her. Then there were my nascent friendships with the rest of them to work on, including Allison who I knew would be a challenge to a certain extent given her nature.

  We could be friends of course, but it would take effort. She’d want to fuck me even more than she already did if we grew a close and tight allied friendship, and of course I’d be tempted to give her what she needed, but it’d be worth it if we could stave off that temptation. She’d be a great friend, and if we did have sex it would all blow up.

  Granted, that would be a lot of fun too, but better avoided given the transient nature of it.

  I was looking forward to my night with the goddess as well. Able to think clearly, I planned to discuss my thoughts on the insights that I’d had about last night earlier this morning.

  Hali asked dreamily in her naturally sultry seductive voice, “Can I just sleep like this.”

  I caressed her back, “You’d better, baby,” in a firm voice that made it an order.

  She giggled and then nuzzled my neck as she took a deep dreamy sniff and let out a contented sigh.

  I felt pretty complete in that moment, both touching and caressing Hali while my other mates were snuggling and touching me. It was like all my temptations with the blessing and them were being taken care of at once, and I felt warm and content in the satiated feeling of post-bliss.

  Lastly, was the thing with Maris, another monster that definitely had my attention. She’d been on my thoughts a few times that late afternoon and evening, especially her warm and lingering sweet kiss. They were all wildly different flavors of submissive, and Maris delighted me in a completely distinctive way. Though I needed to figure out how to judge her compatibility before I tried to claim her. She might be miserable outside the water for instance, despite Hali’s assurances that I was worth it, which would make her not a good fit for anything more than casual friendship.

  In short, there was a hell of a lot going on, and despite having three mates and my eye on two more I’d just gotten started putting my life on the land together. No doubt there’d be obstacles in all aspects of my life to overcome, but that just made it worth living in my opinion.

  Still, the last four days had been a hell of a start…

  Afterword:

  I hope you enjoyed the story. This was the first book of a trilogy. The second book will be out soon.

  If you can, please take the time to leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors, and they have a bigger impact than you’d believe.

  About the Author: If you have any comments or suggestions you can send me an email at magicwrtr@gmail.com. I started out posting short stories online and at readers’ requests started to publish them. If you like my work, or even if you don’t, please consider leaving a review of this book.

  Other erotic fantasies by D. R. Rosier:

  Cirenthian Chronicles – Book one is Out of Darkness.

  Marcus, an ancient vampire, finds himself moved to another world where suddenly he is alive again, and magic is a known and powerful danger. No longer a vampire and dealing with emotions he hasn’t felt in over a millennium, will he be able to start a new life? This series is now complete.

  Necromancer Chronicles – Book one is The Necromancer.

  Vincent is a necromancer and has an even darker secret. Feared by the rest of the supernatural community he lives on his own, often struggling with his powers, and how to use them. But change is coming, and he will soon find himself dragged into the middle of a suspicious and untrusting community.

  Anise is a sorceress, but she has secrets of her own. She is an ancient being, who has walked the earth for time immemorial. She lives in a never ending cycle of life, forever watching those she dares to care about age and die. But she is about to find something new that will offer her hope, if she can live long enough to find it.

  Cytherean Chronicles – Book one is Flame of Cytherea.

  This two book series follows the chosen champion of a goddess, brought to her world and healed after he was mortally wounded on Earth. At first Justin is a little lost, not knowing anything about the world he finds himself in or even why he is there.

  Ashley’s Tale – This two book series follows the tale of a woman with unique parentage in a world greatly different from our own Earth. It is twenty-five years in the future, and the supernatural have long since been exposed. Ashley must struggle with her conflicting nature to find a balance, and her hidden power, as she is taken unwillingly into an extraordinary destiny.