Death, Be Not Proud 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Matthias

“You like how that feels, babe? Huh? Nice and tight?”

“Shut the hell up! I’m paying you to fuck, not to run your trap!”

An indignant whore slid clumsily down my cock, hitting all the wrong spots.

~This is the last time I have sex with a human.~

They just didn’t have the animal fire that werewolf women did.

Humans are way too hinged on feelings and connections to have raw sex.

But werewolves can turn off the mushy stuff and just fuck like animals in the wild. No annoying attachments, no complex feelings, no stupid fucking hang-ups. Just good sex.

The exact opposite of what this dumb slut was doing.

But after days and days of just sitting around like some bum, a guy gets bored and lonely.

And when you’re out in the middle of the desert, you take what you can get.

The baggy-titted bimbo’s shrill, melodramatic moans sent the roaches running from every corner and crevice of my shitty motel room.

“Alpha M! This is Darrow. Alpha M, do you copy?” A deep distorted voice called over the radio.

“Ahh!” my two-hundred-bucks-an-hour lover shrieked, “Who the hell was that? Cops?!”

I groaned, and shoved her off my dick, sending her squealing to the floor.

I rushed over to the radio and grabbed the receiver.

“10-4, Darrow, this is Alpha M. Proceed, over.”

“Luhrman has been sprung. I repeat, Luhrman has been sprung. En route to Vienna. Over.”

“Darrow, what the hell are you telling me this for? This is Devi—er… uh… Beelzebub’s business. Over.”

“I tried getting in touch with Beelzebub. Too much atmospheric interference. Please pass along as soon as you can. Over.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything else, Darrow?”

“That is all, Alpha M. Will advise on Luhrman’s arrival, over.”

“Good. Now leave me alone, Darrow. I’m busy!”

I slammed down the receiver and turned around, ready to try and eke out at least one orgasm from this.

But when I turned, I saw that my salty service provider was fully dressed and on her way out the door.

“What the fuck?” I yelled. “I didn’t even cum!”

“You’ve got another fucking thing coming if you think I’m staying here to sit on your sorry excuse for a dick another minute longer!” she spat back at me.

“You scamming ho! I paid you for this!”

Her puffy, Botox-filled lips pursed angrily as she pulled out a hundred dollar bill and threw it on the bed.

“Hey! I paid two hundred!” I yelled.

“I’m keeping the rest. For occupational damages!”

I growled and charged at her, but she slipped out the door and slammed it in my face.

The force sent me flying back onto the bed.

RRRRRIIIIP!

~Oh shit.~

I rolled over to see poor old Benjamin Franklin torn in two.

I groaned in frustration and buried my face in the mattress.

~Fucking bitch!~

Holly

“What do you know about necromancy, Holly?” Professor Zillana asked as I industriously polished one of the many dusty black cauldrons populating the university’s subterranean laboratory.

“I’m not sure what you mean, Professor. It’s like… bringing things back from the dead, talking to spirits, stuff like that.”

“Yes. That’s what it is. But have you ever… experimented with it at all?”

“I can’t say I have, Prof,” I said, glancing at my reflection in the polished cauldron. “I always thought that kind of stuff was kind of frowned upon.”

“Oh… maybe if you’re one of those stuffy old academics who thinks witchcraft is best practiced in the form of long essays and dissertations. But we’re innovators, Holly. You and I are here to push the boundaries of our art! Like Beethoven did to music! Like Picasso did to art!”

I smiled at my professor. Her enthusiasm was infectious. And I must admit, it felt good to practice in such a non-judgmental environment.

The witching world has always been guided by the stark divisions of light and dark magic. It has always been said that light is good and dark is bad.

But who’s to say that some dark spells can’t be used for beneficial purposes and that some light spells can’t be used for evil?

“Life is often considered the most important thing we have in this world, Holly. This, by its very nature, renders it one of the most powerful. And those who can control the power of life and death make themselves worthy of the highest reverence in the eyes of the world.”

I set my pot down and rose to my feet. “Can… can you do this?”

Professor Zillana smirked mischievously and put her hand up a cobweb, where a tiny spider prepared to lunch on a trapped fly.

The spider traveled down her hand and into her palm. She closed her hand around the hapless arachnid, crushing the life in its deft, delicate body.

She opened her hand to reveal the spider’s mangled legs closing around its corpse.

Then she closed her hand once more and whispered some strange incantation that I couldn’t identify.

She reopened her hand. To my utter amazement, the spider had returned to normal and was scurrying around her fingers. With a chuckle, Professor Zillana raised her arm and let the spider return to his web.

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed. “Does it work on more than just bugs?”

Professor Zillana laughed at my ignorance. “Well… personally, I’ve tried it on bugs, squirrels, cats, birds, and even a panther once.”

I hesitated to ask my next question, but my curiosity was rampant. I had to know, “W… What about people?”

“Ah! You are the ambitious one,” Professor Zillana laughed. “Alas, there is only one witch that has ever successfully brought people back from the dead.”

“Who?”

“Have you ever heard of Joan Cabot?”

I nodded. Of course, I’d heard about her. She was one of the most feared witches in history, founder of the Entrapment Coven.

She and her posse of dark magic practitioners were the scourge of Christendom about eight hundred years ago, wreaking havoc on medieval Europe.

“It’s said that Joan’s only daughter died of plague during her first year of life. Devastated by the loss, the powerful witch began studying the ancient necromantic rituals. But it was only by creating her own rituals with her magical abilities that she was able to bring her daughter to life.”

I was in awe. The power of bringing people back to life had always seemed to me like some far-off fantasy. But to know that someone had actually done it—it was inspiring!

Even if Joan Cabot ~did~ do some terrible things, no one could blame her for wanting to save her daughter. And to think of all the potential it had!

Especially as the Jedrek pack witch! We’d have the most resilient pack of all! To think, if I’d had this ability after our battle with Matthias’s Rogues, I could’ve erased all of the destruction.

“Where do we begin?” I asked excitedly.

Bambi

My heart was full of joy as I saw Alpha Vladimir’s private jet set down on the Vienna tarmac.

I didn’t like letting Ekon fly off into the Bermuda Triangle by himself.

Naturally, I knew that all the ghost stories were all just a bunch of propaganda to keep the human world’s prying eyes away from Grandma’s Penitentiary. But still, the idea made me uneasy.

I’d even tried to force myself to go along, but he and the rest of the group convinced me that my new-found talent for negotiation would be of better service here.

There was so much I wanted to share with Ekon about Tyler, and so much I wanted to learn from him.

As he stepped off the airplane, I cried out to him and ran with my arms wide open.

We shared a fond embrace and a long, tender kiss.

It felt good to have him in my arms again.

“Ekon, I-”

“Alpha Jedrek, sir.” Before I could get in a word, a uniformed guard shouldering some heavy-duty artillery poked his head out of the plane. “The prisoner is secure and ready to be unloaded.”

Ekon kissed me on the cheek and motioned for me to step back.

“Proceed, Captain,” he shouted back up.

Seconds later, a detail of four guards escorted a slouching, lanky-limbed prisoner down the steps. Her scrawny wrists were bound with heavy iron shackles meant to obstruct her magical powers.

~This was Tyler?~

If not for the striking dark hair, I would never have guessed that this sad-looking sack of bones was once one of the world’s most powerful witches.

“Ah! Well done, Alpha Ekon! I knew that you had it in you!” Alpha Leonardo walked up to Ekon with a hearty handshake.

He was followed shortly by Alpha Vladimir, who said, “I must admit Alpha, you certainly have redeemed yourself. Excellent work.” The gracious diplomat bowed deferentially.

“Where’s Alpha Hunter?” Ekon asked.

“He stayed back at the estate,” I said. “He’s still not too happy that we went through with this.”

Ekon sighed, “In due time, I might be similarly inclined.”

“Excuse me, Alpha,” the sentry again interrupted, “where are we to escort the prisoner for temporary hold?”

We all looked at one another.

In all the chaos, nobody had thought about where we would keep the potentially dangerous witch.

In keeping with our agreement to keep this whole ordeal as off-the-record as possible, the jail was out of the question, as was the antique dungeon in the Leopold House.

While several of the parliamentary leaders resided in old castle homes with prison cells, Alpha Vladimir’s lavish Bauhaus home was better suited for comfort than incarceration. However, it didn’t look like there was much choice.

After a few minutes of silent staring at one another, the reluctant MP finally caved.

“I have an old coat closet in the den I don’t use,” he sighed. “I suppose we could keep her there.”

We were all uncomfortable with the idea.

But with circumstances as they were, there wasn’t much alternative.

However, it did present an opportunity.

It meant I could pry into the past and figure out the true story of her involvement with Devina.

Was she as innocent as Alpha Leonardo’s book made her out to be?

Did she still have ties to her old master?

And why would Chair Fakari want anything to do with her?

The chance to get to the bottom of her story was alluring.

I only hoped that having her here wouldn’t make us all more of a target for Devina...