Red Moon Rising
Chapter 15: Rubescens
Yana’s mind wasn’t too tough for Sarah to fix. Lida taught her a lot more about using her powers than she got to teach me, for one, and besides, she’s right. She was the better witch far before I even knew I was a witch. Lida must be very, very proud of her.
I open my eyes and pull my hand away from my back. There’s no blood, but it still feels like I should be bleeding. Being stabbed in the back is not a fun sensation.
“Any luck waking up Silhouette?” I know it’s only been a couple of moments tops, but it feels like an eternity knowing my wife and my mother are going to be the first ones to see the witch-queen, herself. We can use all the help we can get; abandoning Silhouette sounds horrible anyway, even though a part of me wants to just leave her here to find Olivia faster. Yanuka still has Mourning Frost, Yonva, and Yunru. The odds still won’t be even, but they’ll be better.
“Yeah . . . She’ll be awake in just a second. She would already be awake if you hadn’t overloaded her mind. I’m just glad she’s all right.” Sarah’s voice is understanding even though I can tell she’s the slightest bit upset with me. She probably would have beaten me had I not given her everything I had.
Valerie looks up to me from Silhouette with an encouraging glance. “We’ll find Olivia soon. You know where they’d summon Red, right Yana?” Apparently her mist can help with waking up a mind as well as putting it to sleep – but I should already know that from my own experiences. All of this constant hammering on my brain might be leaving me with short term memory loss. It might be a kind of issue that no one has ever had diagnosed before, because one generally has to have their mind fried on a daily basis for it to crop up.
Rubbing where Quillspawn smacked her earlier, Yana lets out a faint groan. “Of course. I did plot revenge on all of the Nesatealia after all – and I anticipated Red might become an issue. I don’t remember my idea for how to deal with her in that situation, but I know they would perform any ritual like that in the inner sanctum. It’s the room with the strongest connection to the realm Red dwells in. Unless they were all a bunch of idiots and decided to hold it in another room . . . that would explain why she’s not here yet.”
The inner sanctum . . . isn’t that where Quillspawn sent Mourning Frost? She used her real name, but she was the only other woman in the room. What was it? Something that started with an ‘M’ I think . . .
Olivia told me a little about her, but mostly just enough for me to realize there was more history between them than playing vigilante and villainess. She never volunteered any more than a slipped word or two on the subject, and it never felt important enough to push the issue. Not knowing how she’s doing or what will happen next, I really wish I’d asked her the questions that I always wanted to ask instead of savoring so many moments of peace in silence.
Yacawa said that Lida would have a connection with Susan if she really cared about her at all. I love Olivia with all of my heart. Why can’t I feel her . . . ?
“Lucia . . .” Valerie’s voice tears me out of my self-deprecating inner dialogue. “This is going to be okay. We’ll find her, and you’ve even stopped Quillspawn. It’s already a victory no matter what happens next . . . and none of us are giving up until we’re all back home. Right?”
“So far I’ve just embarrassed myself, but I’m not giving up.” Yana looks down over herself, still quite naked, and sighs distastefully. “This is only fitting punishment for all the times I enjoyed stripping down an inked woman. Oh well. Still, I’ve not given up by a long shot. Silhouette should wake up right when I’m done talking so fate can show us just how amusing she finds us, and then I’ll lead you to the inner sanctum. If they’ve botched the summoning spell enough to make it last this long we may have been overestimating them.”
I nod, forcing a hopeful smile to shut them up. Nothing is going to really make me feel better until I have Olivia in my arms again. The look in Valerie’s eyes tells me just how well she understands.
Red glitter falls over Yana as she slowly twirls, and once again she’s clothed. It’s simple, a black t-shirt and matching jeans, but it looks good on her and accomplishes the primary purpose I’m sure she was aiming for: being clothing. I may need to learn that trick sooner or later. It can’t be that easy, but it seems to be. Magic should not have seemed more understandable to me when I only knew people who worked it out of books. I guess that was a different kind of magic, because it always seemed fiercely complex.
“Nnn . . . Silver . . .? Is that . . . No . . . That’s not you, your hair is different than it looked when you were fighting off Qui-. . . The Domina Argenti, I take it . . .?” Silhouette’s voice mutters groggily as she slowly rises up to her knees, looking more than a little disoriented. “And . . . Silver. Valerie. Yana. I would ask for explanations, but my mental bunkmate left me knowing plenty. We need to hurry.”
Sarah helps Silhouette to her feet with a smile that screams how much she’s missed her. “Aniela . . . Shadow . . .” Silver arms move faster than I’ve ever felt them move as the me across the room hugs her long lost friend tightly as she can. “I know there’s no time, but . . . I missed you, and I had to say I’m sorry . . .”
“You woke me up after . . . the other you . . . got rid of said bunkmate. We’re even, and more so.” It’s strange seeing her smile, and it makes me feel a little better that I would have eventually asked Silhouette what her name was. Aniela really is such a gorgeous name. If Olivia and I ever find a way to knock me up for the sake of turnabout, I might have to suggest that name. “But we really, really do not have time to discuss it. The ceremony should be finishing up close to about five seconds ago.”
Almost with the same flourish that Yana pulled her clothing over herself, Silhouette pulls her shadow close. I force myself to stand and smile a little bit more. Silhouette is as safe as any of us are right now, and that is more than I’d honestly expected.
Without another word, Silhouette starts to stumble out of the room and I follow right along without looking back. She had Quillspawn in her head for who knows how long, so if anyone knows the layout of this temple, it’s her. She was leading me about fairly well, and I loved each and every moment. It makes me feel proud that being able to acknowledge how it felt doesn’t make me miss the experience, especially so soon after it’s over.
That makes today a first.
It feels strange having some of Silhouette’s memories in my mind. It feels stranger to know that some of them included me. She was thinking of me when Quillspawn attacked her. Yana’s once-slave had been emptied of ink. She was just bait, but more than adequate bait to snare Silhouette.
She actually thought of me during her last few moments of free thought. The thoughts are blurrier now than they were then, but I think she worried that she was letting me down. She didn’t . . .
Exactly like the first time through, the hallway is an uneventful walk. Hearing the other three’s footsteps behind me is strange in a very self-conscious way, especially with one of those sets being mine if I hadn’t had her to come back in time and show me that evil is bad. That’s not really being fair to her, but I’m not feeling screwed on quite tightly enough for this today, if I ever would be.
I want my Olivia back . . .
We turn the corner and enter the chamber where that red portal dropped us off. Yana picks up some speed and overtakes me to stand right beside Aniela. “I wish there were some back way in, but there’s really just the front door, isn’t there?”
“Quillspawn wanted to know about a back door, too. There wasn’t one, but something . . . I don’t know. I’m not even sure if she remembered the whole of what she had in mind, because I know that I don’t. There are these gaps in her thoughts, as if she hadn’t thought them or someone pulled them out of time. It could be a result of all of that silver running through my head, or something else. I don’t have enough experience to know.” Aniela glances back towards the rest of us with an apologetic smile. “So, it’s just down this hallway. The only door. Inside is bound to be Red, and even Quillspawn was in awe of her. I really, really, hope that new light that the two of you . . . silver girls . . . managed to grab up is that potent.”
Potent? Does she think that it’s a weapon? I guess that word works as a defense too, but it feels wrong. Was that what Sarah was using when she linked our minds and took control of my headspace?
I simply nod, hoping that Sarah does too. I don’t want to look back because I feel so close to screaming or twitching or worse. It’s bad enough that Aniela and Yana can see my expression clearly. I have the worst feeling I’ve ever had and we’re just standing here. I want to scream that we should hurry, but I worry that my voice might crack, and tears would spoil my meaning.
Olivia needs me to be strong right now. I close my hands into fists and close my eyes tightly before making a faint nod. I need to be strong for Olivia and Aurora.
“It’s worked so far . . . Let’s see if this Red is worth her reputation!” The most intensely weird feeling is hearing yourself speak when that voice sounds massively more confident than you feel. Why does Sarah feel so much stronger, so much more centered and on track? She has Valerie’s hand in hers – I know that without even looking – but if we fail here then she looses Valerie and Sylvia all over again. I don’t think there’s anywhere she could escape to this time if all of this goes south, anyway, but it still confuses me.
Then again, if she were beside me, and not ahead of me . . . I shake my head to clear it before nodding, grinning as crookedly as I can. “I’ve taken down two witches before today, one as an assist . . . and today I’ve already taken down a third. No more talking. Olivia needs us now, and I need her.”
Damn it. That was definitely one of those “focusing too hard on not doing something so you end up doing it” moments. At least it didn’t go that badly.
No one says anything else, and our more magically inclined friends lead the way. I consider taking the time to explain that we’re calling the woman who was The Domina Sarah, and we’re calling me Lucia, but it feels like wasted breath. I should be thinking of new angles to fire a spark from. Maybe the best approach would be to tackle this Red and give her every spark I’ve got. It’s an approach I really haven’t used in a while, but it worked last time.
My sense of foreboding pulses almost as solidly as my heartbeat the closer we get to the end of the hall. Either I can feel some massive power radiating from that room, or I am losing my mind with fright. Both could be true, but for some reason the latter seems less likely.
No one tries to stop us. That might be what scares me the most. All of this trouble to get this far, and nobody even lifts a finger to try to and make this last stretch difficult. Maybe that was Quillspawn’s department. I guess if she really wanted a showdown with me then she could have had it anywhere. She wanted me to come to her.
Slowly, Aniela and Yana push open the door. “Ah!” I cover my eyes in shock, and shudder at the hard feeling that hits my knees. The red light shining from inside of that room is bright enough that it’s enough to even make my eyes hurt. That hasn’t happened since I got my silver back. I’ve felt a little like Sarah should have been nicer with her sparks, but the light never really did anything all on it’s own.
“Welcome, Lucia . . . I’ve been so eager to meet you both. The rest of you are welcome too, but admittedly uninvited.” It has to be Red’s voice. It’s a voice that is filled with so much passion, so much power, so much raw sensuality that simply the sound makes my body shake. Something in her voice calls to something primal in me, something that I know so well but have never been given a name for. “Apologies for the light, I had a little problem with a daughter of mine.”
A voice I never thought that I would hear sounding so helpless cries out in pleasure. That couldn’t be her. There is no way that would be her. If some of my suspicions are right, then she’s had too much planned . . .
Silhouette and Yana moan in such perfect unison that it sounds almost as if their voices are being tied together. I struggle to flutter open my eyes, but as soon as I half open my eyes they slam shut on their own. There’s too much light. It’s the same reflex as trying to uncurl your body and then curling back up if you’re punched in the stomach. I want to see why my friends are groaning again and again as if the very center of their souls are being hit with small waves of passion and desire again and again, but I can’t.
That voice cries out again, but I still can’t believe it. Yanuka sounding like a bitch in heat getting just what she needs is unnatural in a way that makes me clench in all of the wrong places to clench with Red so close. I can’t even be sure how close she is until she speaks again, because I can’t open my eyes.
A heel clicks closer, just one, and my knees feel like they could give out at any moment. It’s indescribable. The closest comparison is a cartoon character when a translucent scent wraps around them and grabs their nose to tug them through the air. The only difference is that this isn’t only a scent, this is every sense that I have quivering at once trying to pull me down to the floor. It’s as if all of my senses were being kissed by Yunru at once, that’s what this feels like . . .
The heel clicks closer again, or its twin, and I cry out louder than I can ever remember doing in my life. My nipples ache like twin volcanoes threatening to burst through my top if she gets much closer, and she’s still so far away. I can see the red in my mind and I can feel it in every pore, melting into me like molten lust.
Maybe I shouldn’t open my eyes. If I were to open them, that would just be another sense for Red to assault. I need to fight it, I need to pull away from it . . . something . . . goddess it’s so . . .
“So everything you could ever want, because it makes you want it more. The very feeling of lust as sweat drips over your body, and your lower lips salivate the same as the upper set. The very feeling of dominance, rewriting your will to service a much greater force than yourself. Beauty. Perfection.” Her heel clicks closer and I hear Sarah and Valerie scream in the same unison that Yana and Aniela shared. My clit throbs so loudly and my panties feel a thousand times too tight against my throbbing lips. “There is no greater desire than to surrender to these things. Yet here you are, daring to challenge them.”
Click, click, click . . . Her heels don’t hammer away at my mind like Yanta’s, instead they just pry it open like prying apart my legs. They’re not trying to destroy me, they’re trying to reveal me. I feel more naked than I’ve ever felt. I don’t know how I’m standing, when even with my panties still on my thighs feel so slick . . .
Another click echoes out, and with a helpless cry my legs finally do give out. I fall to my knees and try so hard not to fall onto my hands. It’s futile, but I still try. I make my body spark to try to fight away the red invading me with a little bit of silver, but it seems to invite the red deeper through those secret places where my body and mind form and guide my sparks. “O-oo-uuhgn . . .! Sarah . . . Sarah don’t . . . don’t try to s-s-sssspark, it just . . . Ooooh fuck!”
She sounds less than a foot away as another click tugs my mind open wider. I need to do something, to use my light, but my light only quivers in my head and feels almost like a shadow next to the red that pounds in between those spread legs behind my eyes. Goddess, I’ve felt so much, but never like this!
“Spark, or don’t. Resist, or succumb. They’re all different flavors, and each of those flavors is being spiced with red. Spiced, with me. Lucia . . . I could have you tearing your clothes off and begging for release with just a word, or a motion . . . but this isn’t about fulfillment. Not yet. Now, this is about craving. This is about showing you the craving that my daughters have failed to uphold. This, is about the true purpose of the Nesatealia. Found wanting, they will now succumb just as you will in time.” She clicks closer, and I believe every word she says. Not because her words are being thrust into my mind like a craved finger, but because it’s . . . true.
Another click sounds, but it’s nothing compared to the feeling of her hand grasping my chin. Her fingers are like newly shaped metal heated in the flames of lust. All of my skin writhes at once, and I can feel how easily she could make my whole body and mind orgasm in ways I’ve never dreamed, but more than that I can feel the ache for it.
My body can’t resist, and neither can my mind. It’s pure need that she’s pounding into me, and my light isn’t bright enough to fight against hers. I’m not strong enough, and I don’t want to be. I spread my legs wider and try to raise my ass higher into the air by melting further down.
I need release, so badly. All my clothes do is stimulate me more every cruel moment as her fingers stroke my cheek, and then along my neck. She’s playing me like an instrument, and I want to hear the crescendo.
Fuck that – I want to be the crescendo.
“Silver slut . . . That’s all you are when I hold you in my hand. A slave to your own desire. A slave to your own need. I didn’t come here just to claim you . . . that, is just an added benefit.” Her hand holds me tighter, and somehow it doesn’t hurt as she lifts my whole body off of the floor with only one hand tenderly cradling my neck. She sets me onto my feet, which still feel like jelly, but her flames are keeping me standing in such a perfect way. “My sights are so much bigger . . . which is why it took a little longer for me to arrive . . .”
Desperately my body arches towards her, but all I can feel is the warmth of her presence. Her body is far away enough that I can’t arch into it, but I can feel it. A red heat, that’s what she is, a perfect red heat. Simply touching any part of her with my body would be enough to set me off, and I might never be able to stop.
I want to ask her so many questions, but they don’t feel important enough to struggle with the words – not when every word I speak would stop one of hers. Every word from her perfect red voice is like a tongue in my ear, teasing but never fulfilling.
I feel like she’s been fucking me for hours, and I’m still dressed.
“You are special though . . . There hasn’t been a woman like you in over a thousand years, and believe me, I’ve looked. There are two of you . . . but little Yanuka thought she could keep that a secret. She was planning on using your other self to take control of me . . . but I think now you can feel just how amazingly futile that would be. Even if her plan hadn’t been too far stretching, over twenty seven years in the planning . . . some things cannot be done. Can they, Lucia?” She pronounces my name in the same cadence Lida does, the same perfect over-emphasizing way that is so refined and self-important.
There’s no other way to describe it. I don’t want another way. This way is perfect. This way is so hot and amazing. Her voice is fucking me as much as her smell is fucking me. I feel so faint . . .
“N-n-noooooo!” My voice comes out more of a moan than I imagined it, and that makes it better. It shouldn’t, but oh goddess it does. I can’t even control how I react to her. All I can do is writhe like a helpless silver slut caught forever by her power. Oh fuck I hope it’s forever . . .
But no I . . . I have to pull away from her, I need to fight her off . . . I need to stop. I need to close my legs, but thinking that makes them spread wider.
She laughs, and it’s at once like Yanta’s laugh and completely dissimilar. It’s so much more powerful. It makes every part of my body sweat as my pussy drips. It makes every part of my being pulse and throb feeling her satisfaction making me reel. I’m so helpless against it. “That’s right . . . Mmm . . . but before we go any further . . . I want you to see a little of the work I’ve done. I so love sharing such sights . . .”
Her hand on my neck slowly turns me around, and I can open my eyes again. No longer aimed at the red my eyes work. Everything directly in front of me is unaffected, but that doesn’t weaken the effect it has on me. In a very real way, that only makes it worse as everything else shines with that perfect hue of red.
She turns me around slowly, making me face the inner sanctum. In the very center, Yanuka is held spread like an ‘X’ in midair by four chains made of solid ice links. Her clothes look like they melted off of her body, and I’ve never seen a woman so slick that she literally seems to be . . . flowing . . . so much. Her nipples look painfully hard, and her head is thrown back, moving constantly as she simply groans. Red is even all the way over here, and she’s still . . .
“Olivia!” Standing to the side of the main view, Olivia, clad in only her gold covering, is holding up Lida under her arms. Lida’s eyes look half awake, and she seems to be struggling pitifully. “Olivia . . .” She’s not even looking at me, she’s looking through me. She shines with an almost red glow, but she doesn’t quiver like Yanuka does. Lida is squirming, but it doesn’t look . . .
“Mmm . . . Yes, say hello to your dear wife . . . Olivia Whitner LaSilvas . . . I would never have supposed she could make this moment even better, but seeing her hold Lida like this so helplessly, oh it is more satisfying than I could hope to describe. She may not writhe the way that you, or even my daughter, do . . . but a part of that is because she is still waking up from the magic Quillspawn’s ice pet worked on her. My dear daughter, if you would come out and say hello . . .?” Oh, her voice is so . . . hearing it whispered into my ear from behind makes me shudder and my lips clench in a way I couldn’t hope to describe.
Mourning Frost steps out from behind a pillar that didn’t even seem all that important, but . . . it’s not Mourning Frost. The icy white of her lips is stained as much as her hair, as much as the luminance of her skin is enhanced. “N-no . . . I . . . I just . . .”
“As long as I have a woman with my ink inside of her . . . I can never be snuffed out. Just in case all of my plans were to fail, I’ve kept a few normal, every day women living their lives in case I ever have need to move my essence there. It’s quite simple, really . . .” Quillspawn’s voice speaks from her lips, and I can feel the truth in her words as much as I can feel the pure arousal and need that feeling Red’s breath against the back of my neck floods into me.
I’m so weak, and I haven’t accomplished anything at all, not really . . . I’ve been a pawn, played with, plans made without even knowing who was making them. It has nothing to do with Yacawa or Yanuka or Lida . . . maybe not even Red . . . it’s just been . . .
Red laughs again, and her lips almost brush my ear as she speaks. My arousal feels like an entire ocean in the form of a wave growing closer and closer to a single island. It needs to be pushed that slightest bit forward or . . . fuck, that’s a horrible metaphor, but I feel so good that it’s hard to think of one that fits. “Good, Lucia . . . I can feel the resistance flooding out of your body and mind, replaced by the desire to succumb . . . Look at your wife, mindless, holding your mother . . . she has her dignity for now, but wouldn’t you love to see my red heat, my red light, shining in her eyes and making her just as needy as you?”
“Y-y-yesssss!” It’s true, oh goddess I wish it weren’t, but it is. Memories of her silver nipples standing out so perfectly on her milky breasts make me crave to wrap my lips around them and suck for dear life. Oh, I could spark her to make her want it now, and she couldn’t ever hope to fight back. I could make her fulfill my fetish. Her magic is no match for my sparks, for my light, for . . . oh goddess it’s so wrong!
Olivia shudders enough for me to see, but not enough for me to know why. I want to embrace her, to kiss her, to tell her it’s all okay, but it feels like such a lie. The type of okay I would want to mean would be a lie. It would have to be, it . . . ooh it’s so much . . .
There’s nothing I can do, nothing anyone can do, with so much . . . she drops me to the ground, and I kneel. I actually manage not to fall forward onto my hands this time, but part of that may be arching my back to feel my nipples sing against the tight fabric of my top. They might really tear through it if this keeps up. They feel so hard, harder than Olivia’s nipples would feel right now, metal and firm and perfect.
“It’s time that you see me, don’t you think little Lucia . . .? Everyone else already has, that’s why they haven’t interrupted us . . .” Oh goddess yes! I want to see her, I want to stare, I want to feel her appearance burn into my pussy and burn me away!
“N-no! Lucia . . . you can fight it . . . don’t try to just use your light to push past it . . . redirect it, you have to . . . you have to get round it, to get through it . . . nnnn . . . It feels good, I know, I . . . oh you’re stronger than me, you’re only falling because she’s focusing everything on you . . . you need to push it away . . . please!” Sarah’s voice is a moan split into different words instead of words broken apart by moans. It’s hot, and she’s right, I am stronger than her . . . and I am falling . . . but I have no clue how to do what she’s describing.
Don’t know what to do . . . I do want to fight it, like she says, but I don’t . . . it’s so primal, it’s so perfect, it’s so . . . “Keep those beautiful silver eyes open wide, Lucia . . . This sight will change your life forever . . .” I feel her heat moving from behind me to in front of me, and . . . she’s perfect . . .
A body so curvy and full while still being slender, so tall and regal with long, perfectly shaped legs, a perfect pair of pouting lips between her thighs . . . breasts that look to defy gravity while being so real and full, large but proportioned, just seeming perfect on her, nipples that look just the right size and shape to suck.
Her lips are so pouty without being too much, and her eyes are so piercing. Her hair is such a rich shade of red, so long and perfect. Every finger looks so perfectly shaped as if designed individually for a million years. The wings at her back are like a demon’s, but not leathery as people always describe them. They look like a perfect extension of her skin. Hot, sexy skin that looks so good. She even has a tail, with the most sexy triangular tip I could ever imagine . . .
The most radiant detail is that every inch of eternally shining and glistening skin, glowing red like I can glow silver . . . all of her skin, her eyes, her lips, every part of her, is perfectly . . . red.
Nesatealia, Herself . . . a succubus queen . . . the mother of all of these witches; Quillspawn’s grandmother, but her mother all the same . . . Just the sight of her . . . My body shakes and I scream so loudly I go momentarily deaf as I don’t pass out from the bliss . . . I just glaze with her pure, perfect crimson lust.
“Good . . . There are still a few preparations for my big move . . . because when the red moon rises . . . your world will be mine. I think I’m going to like visiting that plane of existence again . . . but it will be even better to claim it.” Her words fuck more searing releases out of me, and it hurts so much with how exhausted and overwhelmed I feel, but I love it.
The whole world will love seeing that red moon rise, if I understand even half of what she means . . . but if I don’t, and with so much lust swarming in my mind I wouldn’t be surprised, then it must be something they’ll crave even more.