"You got it, Chad!" Roxy called.

  "Yes, sir!" Hunter replied.

  "The helicopters are going to be coming in soon. Anyone that looks like they're going to cast any kind of spell up the hill, I want you to drop 'em. Last thing we need is to have to tell Sean he has to pony up another half million for a new one. Got it?"

  "Got it!" they both replied.

  William watched, dazed as others started to come down the hillside, first just a few, then dozens of them, along with a couple of dead bodies that bounced down the hillside to end up lying flat at the bottom in a tangle of arms and legs. He stayed there, arms wrapped around his legs as he sat by the boulder and waited. The firing had stopped, and people were milling around, unsure of what to do.

  William knew what to do. He was going to sit here and wait until morning. Every time he closed his eyes, he kept seeing his father's head explode, blood, brains, and bone fragments flying everywhere.

  Everywhere. All over the concrete barrier they'd been hiding behind. All over the others who were already dead. Even all over him.

  William shuddered again as he saw the whole thing all over again. The expression on Kurt Reese's face just before he, too, had lost his head had almost been comical. That sudden realization that he was next and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Well, William had done something to stop it; he'd run.

  Now here he was, along with everyone else. But no one knew what to do. As he watched, John Session, whom William had known all his life, sat down on the ground and literally bled to death in front of everybody from a serious leg wound.

  No one noticed. They were all too scared, too afraid, or too wrapped up in their own misery like William was.

  Then there was a loud explosion and the ground shook, followed by another, and another, and another. And they were getting closer.

  It was time to run again.

  Getting to his feet, William stumbled in the direction away from the explosions.

  "Where are you going?" somebody yelled at him.

  "That way. Go that way," William said, and with no one else to lead them, suddenly William found himself with the remaining members of the Council of the Ascendance following him.

  "What about the wounded?" someone else asked.

  "What about them?"

  "What should we do with them?"

  "I…" William almost said 'I don't care', but he thought about John. That hadn't been right.

  "Carry them," he said and continued on away from the danger, away from the dead, and hopefully to someplace safe.

  "So how many did we lose?" Sean asked Chad as the last vehicle left, and they started to climb back up the hillside to wait for pickup.

  "Three," Chad said. "Two of yours, one of mine. You know, it's tempting to say 'we did great', or 'we got off easy', but I knew the guy. Pete, his name was Pete, and I'd only just met him tonight before all this started."

  Sean ducked his head in a nod. "I think I'm still trying to live in denial half the time. The better you know them, the worse it is. I keep telling myself that, when all of this is finally done, I'll deal with it then, because I sure as hell don't know how to deal with it now."

  "I wonder how the professionals deal with it?"

  "The professionals?" Sean asked, glancing over at Chad.

  "Yeah, the real generals, the military."

  Sean snorted. "Hate to tell you this, Bud, but you're a professional. You've planned and led how many battles now? This ain't the amateur hour anymore, and you ain't no amateur."

  "I was afraid you might say that."

  "Now the question I'm really gonna regret," Sean said, glancing back as a car went by on the road below them. "How many of them did we kill?"

  "Over a hundred."

  Sean winced. "How many over a hundred?"

  "Thirty. And that doesn't account for how many more bodies are down in the gorge."

  "Do we know how many there were to start with?"

  "Best guess was over five hundred."

  "So we killed a fifth of them?"

  Chad nodded.

  "And they've got wounded, plus an eighty-mile walk back home. I wonder how many more are going to die?"

  "That's up to them now, isn't it?" Chad said.

  "Maybe, I don't know. I'm not going to tell Sten or Hunter to take it easy on them. Maybe I'll change my mind in a day or two, but for now I'm going to stick to the plan and sow dissention in their ranks."

  "Think Steve will be pissed at us for letting Terri fly tonight?"

  "Terri flew with us tonight?" Sean said, giving his best 'surprised' look. "I had no idea!"

  "Dude, you're still a lousy liar. Plus I saw you get out of her helicopter."

  "Well, she wasn't here for any of the fighting, so I don't think he'll be upset."

  "You hope!" Chad grinned.

  "Yeah, I hope. But hey, it was your wife or your mother-in-law who talked her into it, so I think you're the one who needs to be worried."

  "We're not married yet, you know."

  "Dude, you're not that great a liar yourself!" Sean laughed.

  "My folks want us to have a real wedding," Chad sighed, "and I didn't want to rain on Steve's parade. So after his wedding, we're announcing ours for August."

  Sean nodded and they both shut up as they came up to the group waiting on top of the hill. Arthur and half of his magic users were there, the other half being on the other side of the pass. His mother, Jolene, Roberta, Sarah, Phil, and Sarah's son Stewart were all there as well, plus a small squad of Chad's soldiers to provide security.

  Roxy and Cali were still on the other side of the pass with the mortar team. Daelyn and Peg had gone back with Oak, Maitland, and Ruth, as they were riding herd on all the magical weapons that had been found in the cars. Sean figured they'd probably sell most of those to Sawyer after he and Peg had sorted through them.

  "Thank you for coming out tonight," Sean said to Arthur as he walked over to him. "Even though I'm sure you're not at all happy to have had to see this."

  "No, we're not happy," Arthur agreed, "but I don't know that any of us tonight had much of a choice."

  "They had a choice," Chad said and jerked a thumb back behind him, "at least this time they weren't spending the lives of others, just their own. Maybe that'll make them stop and think, before we have a real war on our hands."

  "There was a time when I would have told you that my fellow magic users could never be so short-sighted and stupid."

  "Oh? When was that?"

  "I believe it was yesterday," Arthur said, shaking his head as he turned to Sean. "With your permission, I'm going to be making a lot of phone calls in the morning. This was about as unexpected as it comes. I think we may need to start exercising our leadership role a little more rigorously at Sapientia."

  'Offer him our support in those exercises, should he need it,' the First said.

  "Well, if it comes to it, you can call on us for any military support you might need," Sean told a very surprised-looking Arthur.

  "Seriously?"

  "If it prevents this from happening again, yes," Sean nodded, "seriously. We lions don't want a war, and we don't want any more bloodbaths." Sean looked up as one of their helicopters came back, Terri's from the look of it.

  "Looks like your ride is here," Sean said. "Let's get your people on the other side and take you all back home."

  To The Victor

  Sean was sitting at a table with Peg, Maitland, Roberta, and his mother as they sorted through all the magical items they'd recovered. Considering the number of rings, bracelets, and amulets that were there, Sean had a suspicion that Peg had looted all the dead bodies somewhere along the line.

  He wanted to feel bad about that, but too many years of gaming had taught him that you always looted the dead; they didn't need it anymore, after all. Besides, they weren't running on handouts; the gas bill for tonight's helicopters was easily going to be in the tens of thousands of dollars, he was sure.

  "They sure did bring a lot of weapons," Roberta observed as she made note of another wand. Roxy then took the wand, looked at the list Oak was compiling, and either put it into their own stores, or in one of the boxes marked to go to Sawyer's in the morning.

  "That's a good thing," Maitland said. "It means they cleaned out their armory. That'll help keep any future endeavors to a minimum."

  "Any idea how many bodies were at the bottom of the hill?" Sean asked.

  "Chad sent Ryan over a half hour ago," Oak told him. "There were twenty-four more that were dead. He said it looked like several of them had been left there to die by the others."

  "Well, that's not too bad, I guess." Sean sighed.

  "Then he gave me a count on the ones they'd hit with the mortar fire," Oak continued.

  "How bad?"

  "Forty-six. All of them were Vestis, too."

  Sean shook his head. "So two hundred dead. Do we have a count on the survivors?"

  "Over three hundred, but not much over three hundred. Chad figures they'll have a better count after the sun comes up."

  Sean looked at his watch, it was after four. That wouldn't be long from now.

  "Any word from Art?"

  "They just finished up an hour ago. He lost two of his own people, and one of the magic users managed to trigger the pellets on thirteen of the lycans there before he was killed. Otherwise, they were successful, only losing another three in the process."

  "How many did they free?"

  "Fifty-two. The Grads didn't have a lot of lycans, and they'd already sold a lot of the domestics to the Ascendance members at inflated prices."

  "What about them?"

  "He got them back as well. Part of why they only finished up an hour ago. He said they spent a lot of time going door to door. As they were dealing mostly with women and children, they ran into no real opposition."

  "They hook up with any of their old girlfriends yet?" Roberta asked.

  Oak grinned. "Let's just say that there are going to be several happy widows."

  "I told Sarah she doesn't have to worry about Kurt anymore," Roxy said with a grin.

  "What did Stewart think about that?"

  "Last I saw, Stewart got dragged off by Rachel and that fox gal. They were saying something about 'naughty slaves who needed to be punished by their master'. I guess that boy is into some kinky shit," Roxy said and laughed.

  "I told April she should drain him dry, then make a fox out of him," Peg snickered as she checked another wand. "Then he could stay here and get trained by Sean instead of going to Gus Hampton up in the hills."

  "You didn't!" Sean said, looking shocked.

  "Hey, he should have been born a wolf, 'cause that's what his dad is, his real dad, right?" Peg shrugged. "He's picked his side. I told her she should at least give him the option, see if he wanted it. Anyone ever figures out what he did, they'll kill him for sure. He'd be safer with us."

  "Maybe, maybe not," Sean said. "But from this moment on, no one speaks of what he did again. Oak, make sure everyone involved knows to keep their mouths shut, okay?"

  Oak nodded. "Sure thing, Sean."

  Sean looked at the pile on the desk. "Is that the last of it?"

  "Nope," Roxy said, looking into the hallway. "You still have three more boxes to do."

  "At this rate we won't be getting any sleep tonight," he grumbled.

  "Oh, you weren't going to be getting any sleep anyway!" Roberta snickered, and Sean found himself blushing as the others laughed.

  Sean yawned, it was almost ten. Roxy had gone off three hours ago to take a nap, having declared that, unless they found anything special, it would all go to Sawyer at this point. Roberta had also fallen asleep, Sean carrying her to the bedroom and putting her in bed with the others. By the time he'd gotten back, his mother had gone to bed as well.

  So it was down to him, Peg, and Maitland. At least they were done now.

  "Hon?" Peg asked, drawing his complete attention. Peg wasn't one for 'hon' very often.

  "Yes?"

  "How come you haven't gotten me pregnant yet?"

  Sean blinked, it took a moment to register.

  "You've gotten all the others pregnant, why not me?"

  "You're eighteen, I thought maybe you might want to wait; the others are all twenty or older."

  "Cali's eighteen," Peg said.

  "Yeah, but Cali made it very clear she wanted my children, and she wanted them then and there."

  "Oh, I see," Peg said, and nodded.

  "You know, if I wasn't so tired, and if we weren't going to head out to Sawyer's..." Sean said and smiled slowly at her.

  "But I haven't asked yet!" Peg said, grinning back at him.

  "Uh huh. Sure you haven't," Sean said, grinning back, then standing up, he stretched.

  "Well, I need a shower, then I guess we'll wake the others up and see who wants to take a ride."

  "Ooh! A shower sounds like just what I need as well!" Peg said, smirking at him.

  Smiling, Sean went over and, picking up Peg, he gave her a very long kiss, then sweeping her up into a bridal carry, he headed off for the shower.

  Carrying Peg into the bathroom, Sean pushed the door closed with a foot, then shifting her around, he pressed her up against the wall and kissed her, while he reached into the shower with his right hand and turned the water on.

  While he waited for the water to heat up, he pushed Peg's shirt up and kissed and licked her belly, slowly moving up towards her lovely breasts. When he got to her nipples, Peg's legs wrapped around his chest and her hands grabbed at his hair while she softly gasped with each nibble and lick as he took his time teasing her.

  After a few minutes, she let go of his hair and pulled off her top.

  "I think the water's warm enough," Peg whispered.

  "I think you're right," Sean agreed and let her slip to the floor as he pulled his own shirt off and tossed it in a corner, then kicked off his shoes.

  Peg undid his pants then, as she dropped to her knees before him and ran her tongue up and down his erection.

  "Yum," Peg whispered as Sean put his hands on the wall behind her to steady himself. She caressed his sack with one hand as she worked her tongue and lips slowly back up his length.

  Sean sighed happily and spread his legs slightly as Peg's hands, lips, and tongue continued to tease him, until she elicited a loud gasp of pleasure from him as she took him into her mouth and moved her head back and forth on him, getting his length nice and slick with her saliva.

  Sean closed his eyes and savored her attentions until she suddenly stopped.

  "Shower?" she asked, looking up at him.

  "Shower," Sean agreed, and reaching down, he picked her up. Stepping into the shower, he grabbed the bar of soap and worked his hands slowly over her body, starting at her neck and slowly working his way down, making sure to get every square inch of her body soapy and slippery.

  When he ended up on his knees before her, he washed down her left leg first, then carefully scrubbed the right. Then he smiled at her sex, which was now right before his face.

  "I think this calls for a tongue bath, don't you?" Sean whispered, and setting the bar of soap down, he reached around her to grab her nice firm butt with both hands as he pulled her closer, planting a kiss on her sex as he used his lips and tongue.

  Peg's hands went to his hair again as she grabbed on for balance, and Sean went to work on her, his tongue and lips as talented as ever. He slowly parted her folds and worked his tongue up inside her as the warm water of the shower sprayed across her chest. When she found her back pressed against the back of the shower, she hadn't even realized he was moving her backwards.

  Moving his hands, Sean put first one, then her other leg over his shoulders, sliding his hands under her butt, using his fingers on her in conjunction with his lips and tongue.

  Sean took his time with Peg, he loved going down on his wives, the intimacy of the act and the taste of their excitement, combined with their sheer beauty, always made it a joy for him. He carefully teased Peg with his tongue, his teeth, his lips and his fingers, making sure to hit all of her zones and taking the time to tease each one to distraction, until she stiffened and gasped above him as the warm water rained down on them.

  Standing up slowly, Sean carefully let Peg slide down the wall, her legs pressed against his chest and her own as she found herself bent in half. Reaching down with one hand while she placed the other behind his neck, Peg bent her head down to kiss Sean as she found his erection and guided him inside her, as her body continued to move down and his moved up.

  Moaning softly in delight as Sean filled her, Peg put her hands to either side of his head and continued to kiss him as he began to slowly move back and forth inside her, his arms grabbing her tightly now as he picked up speed.

  Peg shivered and moaned louder as Sean's thrusts became harder, more demanding. She realized once again how lucky she was, how the fates had smiled on her, after punishing her for so many of her past transgressions. All the bad things she had done, and yet she had still been so amply rewarded in the end.

  Hitting her peak again, she grabbed at him tightly.

  "I love you, Sean. I love you so much," Peg confessed.

  "I love you too," Sean growled as he joined her, pumping his essence deep into her body as they ground against each other, and satisfying their love and lust for one another.

  When they finally wound down, Sean let Peg carefully put her feet back on the floor as he held her.

  "I want to have a child with you, Peg," Sean whispered in her ear as she leaned into him, regaining her balance.

  Peg almost purred and hugged him tight. "I'd like that, Hon. I'd like that very much."

  "But not tonight." Sean chuckled.

  "Not tonight," Peg agreed and yawned, "or is it this morning? But soon."

  "Very soon," Sean agreed.

  Bad Penny

  "Over two hundred of our best, and you mean to tell me they're all dead?" Robert Spencer yelled at the others as he paced back and forth in his office. "What the hell happened up there? And why the hell were they running around with the Vestibulum, of all people, leading them!"