The Heartstone Saga Read online

  The Heartstone Saga

  Book 5: Light of the Aegis

  By

  Archibald Bradford

  Copyright © 2020

  Cover Art by Erik Von Lehmann

  http://erikvonlehmann.deviantart.com/

  Introduction

  Nameless and his bond-mates are making a new life for themselves in the city of Garland, but they can’t forget what brought them there, the final showdown is coming and once it arrives things will never be the same.

  WARNING: This is a work of erotic fantasy, there is nudity, some swearing, a fair bit of violence, and plenty of naughty sex between men (and women) and monster girl/girls. If that isn’t your cup of tea please give this book a pass!

  Otherwise please enjoy!

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Table of Contents

  Legal Notes

  Prologue: Armstrong

  Chapter 1: Incognito

  Chapter 2: Sunrise

  Chapter 3: Roll in the Hay

  Chapter 4: Thunder and Light

  Chapter 5: Trappings of Home

  Chapter 6: Stolen Moments

  Chapter 7: Reconnaissance

  Chapter 8:Sneaking, Flirting, Killing

  Chapter 9: Klael

  Chapter 10: Dismembered

  Chapter 11: Heated Emotions

  Chapter 12: Hope:Hope

  Chapter 13: Invitations

  Chapter 14: Hearty Parties

  Chapter 15: Duty and a Weirdo

  Chapter 16: Telling Tales

  Chapter 17: Moonlit Bonds

  Chapter 18: Reunions and Reconciliations

  Chapter 19: At Auction

  Chapter 20: Longinus

  Chapter 21: In the Dark

  Chapter 22: History Repeats

  Chapter 23: Fallen Monarch

  Chapter 24: That Which Sustains

  Chapter 25: The Baking Queen

  Chapter 26: This is Me Flirting

  Chapter 27: Pierced

  Chapter 28: A Secret is Born

  Chapter 29: Royal Welcome

  Chapter 30: Bunch of Goofs

  Chapter 31: Home Sweet Home

  Chapter 32: Feeling Blue

  Chapter 33: Dressing Down

  Chapter 34: Touching Off

  Chapter 35: Exposed

  Chapter 36: Run Bunny Run

  Chapter 37: Stand Together

  Chapter 38: Chaos, Above and Below

  Chapter 39: Triage

  Chapter 40: The Matriarch

  Chapter 41: Tainted Pair

  Chapter 42: Enduring Hope

  Chapter 43: Grace and Creed

  Chapter 44: Ham amidst Crisis

  Chapter 45: Avalanche

  Chapter 46: Full Circle

  Chapter 47: Wily Witch’s Wiles

  Chapter 48: Drowning

  Chapter 49: The Folly of Yana Brael

  Chapter 50: Reckoning

  Chapter 51: Embracing the Light

  Chapter 52: Titanic Threesome

  Chapter 53: Despair

  Chapter 54: The Ripple Effect

  Chapter 55: Colonial Ambitions

  Chapter 56: Beginning Again

  Epilogue: Legend

  About The Author

  Other Books By The Lieutenant

  Legal Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you want someone else to read it please purchase them a copy.

  All of the characters in sexual situations are 18 years of age or older and any resemblance to persons living or dead is both coincidental and unintentional.

  This one is for my patrons, thanks for having my back.

  Prologue:

  Armstrong

  Before he was a husband and a father, William Armstrong was a career criminal.

  He’d never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it, and he never messed with monster girls. But he was still guilty of a litany of crimes.

  Assault, robbery, fraudulent representation, extortion, the list went on.

  If there was an angle to be found, he was the one looking for it.

  In his youth he and his parents had a falling out, mostly over the kinds of people he was spending his time with and the activities they were getting up to together. He never did reconcile with them, which would later be his biggest regret in life.

  He and his associates carried on like idiots for the better part of his twenties, pulling off a number of capers that would solidify their reputation in the criminal underworld.

  Then he met a girl and everything changed.

  Kendra Wilburn was unlike anyone he had ever known: she was joyous and kind, loving and selfless, and though she had a bit of a temper, it was rarely seen.

  From the moment she first fractured his wrist for trying to steal her bag, Will was done. He bid farewell to his friends and ‘co-workers’ and got an honest job for honest pay, all in striving to become an honest man.

  The only obstacle to his love?

  A Troglodyte named Cass who also loved Kendra.

  For good reason the lizard girl didn’t trust him, even when he and Kendra married two years after they first met she was still frosty towards him.

  But Kendra was in love, and as her best friend Cass respected that, even if it wasn’t with her.

  It took the lizard girl and the reformed criminal years to become something close to friends; it wasn’t until his son was born that she finally acknowledged that, as much of a rascal as he could be at times, he was a decent man.

  Then Kendra was murdered, and they had to become more than friends to survive.

  Even though she was still recovering from childbirth, the selfless mother had blocked the door and bought Cass and her husband the precious few seconds necessary for them to escape the burning house and the dark monster that ruined their lives.

  Neither would ever forget her final words: a simple plea for them to save her baby.

  After that night William became a criminal once more, stealing anything and everything he and Cass needed to keep his son warm and fed, healthy and safe.

  Meanwhile the Troglodyte pushed a stud of iron through one of her ears and pledged a life-debt.

  Neither to her deceased best friend nor the man who had loved her, but to the nameless infant, who had done nothing to earn it.

  Her reasoning was that if he grew up to become an Empath like his mother was he could more than earn it then.

  She was so smitten with her for a reason.

  While on the run the unlikely pair worried for the child constantly, given how small he was. But time passed and he began to gain weight; becoming a healthy, if small, baby under their almost fanatical care.

  And they never forgot the threat the dark monster posed to the boy.

  Both the Troglodyte warrior and the career criminal used every trick they knew, and a few they invented on the fly, to deceive and otherwise throw off their pursuers.

  But still they were hunted.

  Months past, months where they ate, slept and lived together, constantly looking over their shoulders.

  Inevitably, they grew to lean on each other; shared grief for Kendra and shared enmity for the creature that took her away had united them as comrades, as did their shared love for the precious infant.

  One fateful autumn night they sat around a little fire, far away from the big cities where danger always seemed to lurk in every shadow and around every corner.

  Not far, actually, from a small farming town called Kettering.

  “I am carrying your child.” Cass said bluntly.

  Will’s jaw dropped and he paused in the act of burping his son.

  “You, you’re- b
ut, how?” He sputtered.

  She met his shocked gaze, her bearing unflinching.

  “The usual way. It was my choice. I wanted something of Kendra’s and so I took it, the night we... well, you were there.”

  He swallowed and began to pat at his son’s back again when he squirmed against his shoulder.

  “Yes, I was. We were both hurting with her gone, and that thing after us. But I never thought that-”

  “It is done.” Cass said with finality.

  He looked at her for a long time, a slight frown on his face.

  Living on the run with one child was bad enough, but two?

  Finally he sighed and brought his son down off of his shoulder.

  “Reckless and stupid, but then you always say the same of me.”

  The corner of Cass’s mouth twitched, a hint of a smile, her tongue slipping out to habitually taste the night air.

  But what she tasted filled her heart with dread.

  Her eyes widened and she shot to her feet, her massive blade all but materializing in her hand as she looked to the trees, the shadows between them suddenly turning menacing.

  They had been together long enough for William to trust her instincts, so he quickly edged around the fire, setting his baby down and taking up his blaster.

  When he was a criminal he had never drawn the ire of the Aegis, and he absolutely despised lost-tech weaponry. Sure he may have been a crook but he had some standards at least.

  But ever since the murder of his wife he had discovered that there were no lines he would not cross for the sake of his son.

  Cass let out another hiss and spoke in a low voice, her words resigned.

  “It is almost here, along with the human. I can taste them both.”

  William cursed.

  “How? We’ve been so careful!”

  Another voice broke into their conversation from outside the circle of firelight.

  “Not careful enough. Even your oldest friends will give you up if persuaded to.” The words came like whispered death as the bat-winged creature emerged into the light, a cold look on her face.

  At her side stood the same dark-haired man that had knocked on their door that one fateful night before, the stolen Aegis uniform he wore had been all it took to dissuade William and Cass from seeking out the aid of the peace-keeping organization.

  His eyes flicked down to the child bundled up and beginning to fuss with no one holding him.

  “Eve, it’s just a baby, like I said we can wait and see-”

  “It is a threat to my plans.”

  He shifted his weight onto his other leg impatiently.

  “Our plans Evadne, and he might not even be an Empath.”

  “I take no chances.” She said with a menacing hiss; “You of all people should know that.”

  William had finished loading the blaster, a look of stalwart determination on his face as he leveled it at the dark monster.

  “Yer not getting me boy, not ever ya dozy bint.”

  In the heat of the moment his accent slipped back into that of his childhood, even after all the effort he spent with Kendra working to sound respectable.

  “I am. I am going to kill him, keep pointing that toy at me and I’ll eat him too. You don’t have to die. It is not your bloodline that I care about.”

  Abruptly she wheeled in place, bringing up both arms as Cass darted forwards with her massive blade leading the way.

  The weapon stopped cold against the black claws of their pursuer.

  Evadne’s dark eyes narrowed as she felt a ridge of pain along her hardened fingers from the impact.

  “Alright fine, everybody dies.”

  Cass was a Troglodyte warrior, and she fought with all of the ferocity of her kind.

  But the Chimera that had hounded their every step for months had killed many in her time, Troglodytes and otherwise, and so was more than a match for the weaker monster.

  Barely a minute later Cass picked herself up from the dirt, blood trailing from the numerous puncture wounds in her body; all she could think about was that the baby was crying, a good sign in her mind, as it meant that at least he was still alive.

  The injuries were slowing her down, but Troglodytes had a natural resistance to poison, even the venom of a Chimera’s snake tail, and she wasn’t about to let Kendra’s son be taken.

  Like his father, she would die first.

  Except the boy’s sire had other ideas.

  “Cass, take the bairn an’ go.”

  He’d been trying to line up a shot on the shadowy figure, but was naturally leery about hitting Cass by mistake.

  “Never. I will-”

  “Yer preggers.” He said simply, cutting off any protest she might have.

  Cass hissed at him as the Chimera paced before them, her taunting laugh cutting through the night.

  “Little children, there is no escape, not tonight.”

  Part of her enjoyed toying with them.

  But Will was undaunted.

  “Ye soun’ like one of them villains in the storybooks.” He snapped; “Kendra on her moon-time was scarier.”

  The Trog looked to him, desperation in her eyes.

  “I won’t-”

  “On yer life-debt Cass! Ye don’t owe it to me. Ye’ll carry both me bairns away this night, tis what Kendra would want and ye know it!”

  On that point, the Troglodyte couldn’t argue anymore, though she had to state the obvious in a harsh whisper, her blade held up to ward off the Chimera.

  “How am I supposed to get away from her?”

  But Will believed he had found the chink in the other monster’s armour.

  Earlier in the fight, he had not missed the moment when the dark-eyed bitch had thrown her human pet to the ground when he had gotten too close to the Trog’s blade.

  Evadne coiled herself up, bored of listening to their desperate plotting and ready to finish the troublesome pair once and for all. But then her quarry suddenly turned the blaster against Jonathan, and for once her features showed some emotion.

  Fear.

  “Now Cass! Save me son!”

  He pulled the trigger.

  The weapon bucked against the desperate father’s shoulder, while the uniformed Jonathan looked more than a little fearful himself.

  Will wasn’t overly familiar with firearms, so he only managed to wing his target with the first shot, but it proved enough of a distraction for Cass to take up her blade and his baby and book it into the woods while the Chimera was lunging to intercept the second.

  She took the blast with one outstretched wing, saving her bond-mate’s life, though she hissed at the pain of it.

  “You little shit.” She cursed as she stalked towards her prey.

  He levelled the gun at her and tried to shoot her again, but it wasn’t firing and he didn’t have the skill to figure out why before she reached him.

  So he threw it at her with a curse.

  It hardly slowed her down as she swatted it aside, but it bought him enough time to pull a pair of broad fighting blades from their sheaths on the small of his back.

  Cass had taught him a great deal over the last several months, building on his own skill with the weapons to the point that he could hold his own against her in their practice bouts.

  And the cold certainty of his end made all of his fear melt away, so he took up a ready stance while grinning like a madman.

  “Come on then, lets you and me be done with this.”

  Her eyes narrowed at his bold mockery as she hissed between her teeth, her tail mimicking the sibilant noise from over her shoulder.

  She lunged.

  It was the finest fight of William Armstrong’s life, or so he would boast if he had survived it.

  Everything Cass had taught him, every brawl he ever had growing up with his brother Davie, every dirty trick he knew from his criminal past, all of it came together in one epic blade dance with a singular goal: to play for time.

  Even Evadne would later
admit she had never been held up so much by a human before.

  Inevitably he ended up in a broken heap on the ground, his lifeblood pouring out from the work her claws had done on his chest and abdomen.

  But a smile was on his face as he looked to the pair of little cuts he had managed to open on her cheek; Cass would be proud of him for bleeding the dark bitch, though he earnestly hoped that the Trog was long gone by now.

  He sat up as best he could, blood pouring from his wounds as he fought to speak.

  “Looks like ye lost a-again, droopy-tits. You killed me w-wife, but our boy lives! I dinnae ken m-much about Empaths, but tis plain to see that yer’ afeared of him! So you best be knowin’ that he is g-going to grow up and kick your sagging arse with feelin’, just like his pater did t-tonight.”

  With one last bit of effort he spat blood at her before slumping against the ground, laughing and coughing in equal measure.

  The Chimera’s snake tail darted out, its fangs ending his troublesome resistance for good.

  With a petulant frown she took a moment to cup her breasts and flex the muscles of her bottom.

  Neither droopy nor saggy.

  Shaking off the ridiculous bout of vanity, the demon-touched monster looked back to her bond-mate, on the ground and pressing a strip of his torn shirt against his own injury with trembling fingers.

  Their eyes met and it became crystal clear that the dead man at her feet had earned his laughter: if she pursued the Trog now, Jonathan would bleed to death.

  William Armstrong had indeed won the day.

  Chapter 1:

  Incognito

  “Yay! I won again!”

  The Katje hopped up and down in her seat and clapped her hands together gleefully.

  “That’s forty five –no! The ante was ten! So, fifty seeds!”

  She counted them out under the light of the lantern hanging from the beam above them. Her nimble hands then scrabbled across the surface of the table, gathering the little pile of sunflower seeds to join her much larger pile.

  The short man across from her smiled at her exuberance, his own pile now almost gone, only a few sad seeds remained. She had nearly cleaned him out.