“In this state?” Void had spoken up, standing behind me, watching as the others guided the monsters in. “Not yet, I think.”

  “You came,” I said, intrigued.

  “I’d like to meet this other one you spoke of. Vaper.”

  “He’s not exactly around,” I said, giving her an apologetic shrug.

  She eyed me, considering, then said, “I’ll stay, ask more after you’ve rested, then go search him out. If it’s who I think it is, he and I were once good friends.”

  I nodded, then let Kinara guide me back to the living room where Arturo was preparing food. Greg had been napping on the couch, but now popped up, bassinet with the sleeping baby in front of him. To his relief, the baby was still asleep.

  “Shit, what’s all the noise?” he asked. “More injured?”

  I showed him my hands, then said, “We’re expanding, apparently. We have company.”

  He turned back to Arturo and said, “Maybe we should order in. Pizza?”

  “Damn good idea,” Arturo said, then came over, wiping his hands on his pants. He gave me a look-over and shook his head. “Bro, you look fucking destroyed. Can I get you a beer? Clothes?”

  I’d completely forgotten that I was naked but chuckled and shook my head. “Soon. Actually, I just need to take a piss, but…”

  Kinara looked at my hands again and got the message. She took me by the arm, leading me to the bathroom. I glanced back to see a worried look exchanged between the guys, where I’d expected to see humored smiles. Damn, they really were worried.

  On our way, Suiko floated out and said, “I’ll see if I can help with the others. Make sure they know the rules.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  In the bathroom, Kinara took hold of my cock and aimed it, but I stood there, no piss coming out.

  “I don’t really have to pee.”

  “Then…?”

  “You can let go.” I waited until she had, then said, “I’m not going to risk anyone else. This was a major fuckup—but I’m also not about to let Jalee go like that. We won’t abandon her.”

  Kinara put her hand to her mouth. “You… you said her name.”

  I shrugged. “Does it really fucking matter? Around you, I mean.”

  She shook her head, then smelled her hand and grinned. It was the same hand she’d been holding me with. But as she lowered it, the smile faded.

  “Wait, you’re saying you want to go back?” She shook her head. “Now?”

  “Alone. But I need you to wrap up my hands. I can’t wait for them to heal.”

  “No.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Back there, I thought I was fucking hunter food. I thought I’d never see you again, and it was terrifying. If you think for one second that I’m okay with letting you go back there alone, you’re a damned idiot.”

  “Kinara, I have to. This is J—Thunderbird we’re talking about.”

  Her bat ears twitched, eyes looking at me wildly. “Your hands are injured, you’re exhausted… The way I see it, you have two options here. I take the satchel, let the others know what you have planned…”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Or, option number two—you take me with you.”

  “I just went over this. It’s too dangerous.”

  She scowled. “Your choice. Option one we hold you down, option two, you take me with. Personally, I don’t like either, but I like the idea of her out there, possibly in danger, even less. So, decide.”

  I sighed and said, “Fine, fine, number two. But… I think I really have to piss now. Do you mind?”

  She grinned, held it for me, and I let the stream flow.

  “This is exciting,” she whispered.

  “Just as long as you stay close. I’d die if I knew I let you get captured again.”

  “Oh, that too. I meant this,” she said, shaking my penis and making the stream miss.

  “You’re cleaning that up, not me,” I scolded her.

  “Hey, with all these new monsters… why should we do the cleaning?”

  “Good point. Now you can shake.”

  She shook it clean for me, then gave it a playful pinch before saying, “Anything else?”

  I glanced at the door, feeling horrible for leaving the others behind, then shook my head. “We gotta go before they try to stop us.”

  “Agreed.”

  She quickly found a first-aid kit in the cabinet, wrapped my hands, then helped me get out the sun disk halves. Handing one to me, she paused and took a piece of toilet paper to pat at my dick.

  “Wha…?” I started, caught off guard.

  “Sorry, saw a little drip coming. Okay, ready.”

  I ignored my embarrassment, and we combined the two pieces again. The portal formed behind us, and we were about to step through when Basty slid under the door, took shape, and glared.

  “No good,” he muttered.

  “Get up here,” I said, glad to see the little guy. In fact, I wouldn’t have minded if we could have brought Suiko, or maybe Void, but figured they’d sound the alarm and stop us. Jalee needed me, so I wasn’t about to take that risk.

  Without further discussion, we stepped through.

  20

  My first thought as we stepped through was that I had made a major mistake. What the fuck had I been thinking? At least I hadn’t come by myself, or I’d have really felt stupid.

  I was starting to learn that entering in one place meant coming out in another on the other side. There was a connection from entry to exit points. What I couldn’t tell, however, was how far that movement took me. Kinara and I had emerged into a garden and all around us, the blue plants rose. But the ground was rumbling, and an orange glow showed to the right; when I took a step that way to see, the ground there started to crumble away.

  “Back,” I said, pulling Kinara with me.

  None too soon, either, because that whole section fell into the same volcanic action we had left behind, that Devasla had started. Apparently, we weren’t as far off as we’d figured.

  We started to run the other way, and it was only then that I remembered I hadn’t brought my new armor with me. I yelped and jumped back, but Kinara fell into me. We both toppled forward, my arms flailing, and I fell right into it. To my surprise, it didn’t hurt—in fact, my eyes were closed and when I opened them, I was flying. Oh, not flying, but gliding, with Kinara’s legs wrapped around me to hold me as she brought us down.

  “Nice moves!” I said, and she grinned wide, meeting my gaze, but not paying attention to the tree she was about to fly into.

  I opened my mouth to shout a warning, but we hit and fell. There we were on the ground, intertwined, groaning in pain.

  “Damn, that would’ve been so cool if I hadn’t messed up that last part,” Kinara said.

  I held my head, pushing myself up, then helped her up as well. “We’ll just have to go on foot.”

  More rumbling sounded behind us, and she turned back to stare, wide-eyed with the orange glow highlighting her face.

  “It ain’t great, but it’s home.” She glanced around. “Or once was.”

  “We’ll get out of here as soon as we find her,” I said, wrapping my arm in Kinara’s and starting down the hill; once I had a direction to go, we started moving faster. At least my energy had returned, and my hands were already feeling better again.

  “You don’t know exactly where we’re going, do you?”

  I shook my head. “Unfortunately, no. But my spirit vision helps me see. It’s how I found you.”

  “So, you’re like… them.”

  “The hunters?” I shrugged. “Only in that one way, I hope. Speaking of, if they can spot you like that, should we be worried?”

  “Maybe, but no more so than we were before.”

  I frowned, considering I had been quite worried before. We needed to stop delaying, to get there as quickly as possible. Starting to run again, we were soon maneuvering between curved and spiraling trees, dodging blue plants, and jumping to glide—thanks to Kinara’s wings—over precipices.

  Near the bottom, I saw that we were heading into a mass of entangled trees. My vision was showing at least one monster girl, and even without it, I saw the blue spark of electricity.

  “That’s her!” Kinara said.

  As we got closer, I could see even more of them. More monsters, gathered, with one rising above the rest—Jalee—but the others preparing for a fight.

  We stood at a large rock, hands up, and I said, “It’s us. The others are already back home.”

  Jalee crackled, lightning shooting around her. She seemed to hesitate, and I couldn’t understand why. Another monster rose beside her, and at first, I thought this was a lizard woman; but when her wings shot out and her throat started to glow orange, I understood. This was a dragon monster girl! With small horns curving out from her head, key parts of her body covered in golden scales, others revealing dark flesh similar to Jalee’s, I understood her to be half-sister, half-golden dragon.

  “They’re with me,” Jalee said, and the two approached, coming to land on the rock beside us. Others from below started to emerge, and I was amazed to see fairies, rock people, and more hybrids like the ones I knew.

  “Ferris, Chirop, I’d like you to meet my sister,” Jalee said. She hesitated, then threw herself at me, arms wrapped around my neck, her tongue soon in my mouth, finding mine in response. Kinara received the same treatment next while I met Jalee’s sister’s gaze.

  The woman was a bit younger than her, looking to be about nineteen, I guessed. Although, it wasn’t like I was the best guess when it came to their ages—not by a longshot. Her eyes were bright blue, in stark contrast to her gold and black body. They were similar to Jalee’s, a reminder of their connection.

  Considering we’d just met, I made sure to not let my eyes wander down. She, however, had no issues doing so to me.

  “It’s a pleasure,” the sister said. “I’ve heard so much about you. Come to save my sister?”

  “I came to find her,” I replied. As Jalee moved back to her sister, I asked, “What do we call you?”

  “He knows your name?” the sister asked.

  Jalee nodded, then told me, “Call her Fiare, for now. A nickname from our youth.”

  The sister, Fiare, cringed. Clearly, there was some story behind that name.

  My attention went to two centaur types who had stepped forward from the crowd, one male, one female. They both carried massive assault weapons.

  “Is there a problem here?” one asked.

  The mountain behind us rumbled, reminding me of the danger threatening to unleash at any moment. When more of the monsters emerged, revealing that they had to have at least fifty down there, I had to know more.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “A revolution,” Jalee replied.

  “We’ve been planning her rescue for years,” Fiare said. “Turns out, some human man took her before we were able to make our move. From one captivity to another.”

  “I told you, it’s not like that.” Jalee put a hand on her sister’s arm and offered me an apologetic look.

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Something funny?” Fiare asked.

  “We came back here expecting to risk our lives in an attempt to find Jalee, and here you all are. If we’d waited a bit longer, we might have been able to storm the hunters together.”

  “Still can,” Fiare countered.

  “The others are really back home?” Jalee asked.

  “Waiting for us. Shit, they’ll probably kick my ass when we get back, the way I left without telling anyone.”

  “I’d be pissed,” Jalee admitted.

  Damn, she looked hot, standing there all safe like that.

  “I was completely pissed he tried to leave without me, even,” Kinara added. “Me!”

  Grinning and giving her lower back a caress, I held out my free hand as if to signal moving, and said, “Let’s not delay.”

  “Er…” Jalee glanced over to her sister.

  Fiare growled, looking at the rumbling mountain. “One step forward. The war is hardly won, however.”

  I took a deep breath, clutching my satchel, and eyed the army. “We have other monsters with us—houses, where you all could stay.”

  “Ferris…” Jalee shook her head.

  “You’d have us abandon our land?” Fiare asked with a scoff. “Abandon our people?”

  I frowned, unsure how to handle this. “You… you misunderstand. We would have a base of operations, a place where you could lie low, train, do whatever you need to do between attacks.”

  Fiare had turned to her followers and seemed to be considering.

  “So, you’d take in all of these?” she asked.

  “Ferris,” Kinara put a hand on my chest. “These are hardened warriors. For all we know, they’re not in the least bit trustworthy, even if they’re willing to go against the hunters.”

  “They can’t be controlled,” Jalee agreed.

  “And why should they?” Fiare asked. “They are free monsters, each their own entity. But they’ll fight, and that’s what matters.”

  Lava shot into the air with smoke galore, and I knew it was time to get the hell out.

  “We can discuss this back at the mansion,” I said, about to take out the sun disk. Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  Shouting from below was my first warning sign. Some of the monsters started running, a couple of them right toward the mountain we needed to escape.

  “Not that way,” I said, looking to Fiare for help. “Are you coming, or not?”

  She didn’t get an answer, because Jalee was the one who said, “We can’t. Not yet.”

  I shook my head, confused, until a section of trees vanished, screams sounding over the rumbling. What rose out of the empty spot in the woods was some sort of robotic beast, blades whirring and a line of red as if forming a cyclops eye.

  “We’ll go back, regroup, and plan a counterattack,” I said, desperate to not have to face that thing.

  Another sound came from the right, and I turned to see tall trappers on fire moving our way. One was melting, dripping molten metal to ignite the trees.

  “It really might be the best move,” Jalee said.

  “And if they get to the base before we come back?” Fiare asked. “If we lose more of this fight, because we were cowards?”

  It was getting damn hot, and a glance back up the mountain showed lava moving down its side. I felt like a hobbit on his way to destroy the one ring.

  Holding Kinara close, I said, “If you don’t come with me, you all are going to die here.”

  Finally, Jalee saw reason and came over to join us. She clung to my other side and reached out to her sister.

  “You know he’s right.”

  “I…” Fiare cursed, glancing around, and said, “Do it!” Turning to her troops, she added, “Everyone, on me,” then gestured for me to do my thing.

  But as I started reaching for the satchel, the ground gave out. One second we were standing there in agreement, about to go through a portal, and the next half the mountain had exploded, the ground crumbling away, leaving us to fall! It was a sliding fall, at least, though I hit a rock and rolled to see a bed of lava beneath us.

  “Shit!” I shouted, feeling nothing around me but hot, empty air as I tumbled. A hand reached out and caught me by the wrist, swinging me over to one of the platforms that they used as transportation. When I came to a stop, it was Devasla who held me, staring into my eyes.

  “Ferris, Ferris!” she shouted, and when she saw that I was with her, she held me tight—too much so, considering the burning sensation. I yelped and she let me go, then said, “Sorry, you were gone, others freaking out. Dammit, if I hadn’t arrived when I did…”

  “I’d be melting like the one ring,” I replied, then suddenly shot up. “Where are…?”

  “Thank the stars!” Kinara said, gliding in for a landing next to me, with Jalee flying past nearby on her wings of electricity.

  “Is he okay?” Jalee asked.

  “I… think so.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I had help.”

  Devasla beamed, then motioned for Kinara to help me, as she ran over to the lookout over the ledge.

  “Some others are stuck, too,” Jalee said. “I’m going to help get them out of here to a good spot for the portal, but the enemy’s still incoming.”

  “Do what you can to save the others,” I said, then turned to Devasla. “Can you buy us some time? Try to hold them off?”

  “You know I can.”

  “Why her?” Jalee asked.

  “She’s the only one who can come through without a portal,” I replied, already up with Kinara, looking for the best way out.

  Jalee blasted something out of my line of sight, then flew down and said, “Let’s get you out of here!” She reached as if to pull me up, but an explosion of lava shot up, nearly striking her; she had to dodge out of the way. Then a shot from above—like a fucking laser pistol—singed a line into her shoulder.

  Her shout of pain tore at my heart, and I shouted, “Get back to your sister! We’ll find you.”

  She was about to protest when a barrage of laser attacks came, and I had to pull back with Kinara.

  “On me,” Devasla said, and charged up, glowing bright and breaking through earth. Her glow was so bright then that it was like watching lava itself. To my relief, the ground hardened quickly behind her, and when she was out in the open, the glow vanished.

  “They’re gathering over there,” she said, indicating a spot where it looked like an opening in the ground, but was likely only a depression. As we started for it, Fiare rose, spotted us, and darted over.

  “Where is she?” Fiare asked.

  “I turned and pointed, and saw Devasla already moving back down to help Jalee. As she flew off, I knew our team couldn’t avoid the fight. Kinara cursed as I ran back, pulling her along, but she knew it, too.

  A burst of lava shot out from the ground to our left, followed by Devasla shouting up, “I told you to get out of here!”

  But I had spotted a hunter, flying up and out of the opening into the ground on his platform. Three drones circled him, shooting down.