Cam's Coterie

Hey Guys! So, this is a fantasy, for those that asked for one, here it is. Since I've done two sci-fi's last. Right, so same basic layout as usual. There's a small bit of incest in this one, at the beginning, but that's it. Just a warning, for those that hate that sort of thing, you can skim through it. It's a plot point, not a thing I wrote to stroke off by. Right. Anyway, enjoy. Cam's a little more... assertive? That works. He's more assertive than my usual protagonist, though just as annoyingly moralistic.

This is also my longest post yet, full book one. Hope you enjoy!

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Cam's Coterie

Cambion Chronicles: Book One

Copyright 2019. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

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Chapter One

The hissing whisper of steel leaving its sheath was the only warning, and it started my heart pounding as I desperately dove to the side into a half front roll and then into a half twisting summersault as I pushed off with my hands.

Crack!

The enemy's sword struck wood, but as I pulled my own saber and landed on my feet, the early morning sun blinded my eyes. I cursed myself for not diving the other way, and moved to the left away from the building, but the blurry opponent moved that way as well with a low and dark chuckle.

The sun glinted off their sword, and I barely got mine up in time to parry, and then retreated to the right, and dove into the barn's doorway. My would be assassin cackled as she attacked, but I knew better than to dismiss the threat, and jumped back slightly as I both parried her stabbing sword and twisted my body to avoid the follow up kick to my chest.

I stepped back forward and drove the hilt of the blade into her forearm, and then hooked her leg with mine and bowled her over.

Her sword went flying and so did she with a low cry, and then she froze as my sword whipped around and stopped a hair's breadth from her neck.

I sighed, and I shook my head in mock disgust.

"Mom, do you have to ambush me when I'm working the farm? On my eighteenth birthday no less. I need to get these stalls mucked out."

My sword whispered as I put it in the sheath without even looking. I'd been trained to use it since I could hold the damn thing off the ground.

She snorted, "You should always be prepared, our world isn't a safe place. That was sloppy, you didn't even hear me sneak up on you."

That was a good point, but I didn't want to admit it. I sighed and held my hand down, and I pulled my mother back up to her feet. She'd been doing that for as long as I could remember, yet I can't recall ever being in a real fight before. She always said the family had enemies, but this was Rolling Hills, just a bunch of farms and a blacksmith, nothing ever happened in this town.

She whispered some arcane words, and the black and blue that had started to form on her forearm faded away, as a little patch of wild grass nearby wilted. She was a witch, a witch's magic was all about balance, and leveraging a shift with their minds and words. Healing was possible, but only if something else suffered the loss of hearty life. The grass would recover though, in a week or so.

She added, "But you did well, your fast reflexes saved you, but I'm an old woman, you might not be able to depend on that in a real fight."

I snorted, "Right."

She looked to be about twenty-nine, of course I knew she was closer to forty, but the supernatural races tended to age slower than normal humans. If she hadn't had my exact light blonde hair and blue eyes, and similar noses, I would've doubted she was my mother, I had no skills as a witch. She told me that was because of my father, who wasn't a witch, it was also at the root of why we had family enemies, and she wouldn't tell me much more than that.

She smiled, "Well, that's sweet to say, but it shouldn't have been so close. Finish up out here, and then join me for lunch. We need to have a talk now that you're of age, there are things I've been loath to tell you about our past, but it's time."

I nodded, a little surprised and at a loss for words. She'd always shut me down hard in the past when I asked about my father, and our enemies, and then had trounced me in training. Of course, it'd been a couple of years since she'd been able to do that last. I was fast, a lot faster, witches were powerful with the ways of nature and magic, but other races had other gifts. It was why she'd ambushed me, the last two years that was pretty much our training, because she couldn't take me head on in a straight fight anymore.

She also swears it's the best kind of training, because our enemies won't play by the rules, and neither should we.

"Alright," I finally got out, as I pushed the dread and excitement down. I knew she wouldn't be impressed with me revealing my feelings on my face. Taciturn was best, it made it harder for others to manipulate or con, plus women enjoyed a confident man, I'd been told.

Still, it was hard to credit, we'd lived there all my life, and we'd never been attacked. We hadn't even ever been attacked on the way to Mythfall when we had harvests to deliver, the large city just twenty miles away where we sold our crops. I didn't doubt her exactly, just...

I pushed all that out of my head, I didn't usually think about it, but the promise of learning the truth about my family and our past had dredged it all up in my mind. Reason being, I had no idea what I was. I wasn't human, but I also wasn't an elf, drow, half-elf, sorcerer, or any of the many types of shifter races.

Humans didn't much care for the other races, but they tended to leave us alone unless there was mischief about, but then the laws came down on non-humans a lot harder than they did humans. A human who stole might face a few days in jail and fines, a nonhuman was usually enslaved and put to free labor for a lot longer of a time, just for one example. Despite the supernatural races being stronger, humans were rather profligate and in charge of the Cyrene kingdom and everything in it. Even a grown man could be taken down by rats, if there were enough in the swarm.

She scowled, "Aren't you going to get back to work, son?"

I laughed in her face, with derision, "With you at my back? I wasn't born yesterday, mother."

She cackled, "Finally learning, are you?"

She put the sword away, and she turned back toward the house. It wasn't until she had crossed the large field, and had walked up the steps to the back porch before I felt safe turning my back and getting back to mucking the stalls and feeding the animals...

Reah was a goddess, or at least that's what most of the men my age thought around these parts, both single and married, to the probable despair of the wives. She lived several farms over, a much nicer place, and she caught my eye as she walked by on the road, and then she smiled and started to head over my way with a sway in her hips that had caused more than one dream in my past.

I grimaced, I smelled like horse shit, and wasn't all that much cleaner than that as I fed the chickens in the coop, which was a lot closer to the road being on the side of the farm house. It wasn't unusual for her to stop and talk with me, but it never went any farther than that.

I wiped my face with my sleeve, and then gave up. I was covered in sweat and stunk to high heaven, but I gave her a wide welcoming smile which put an excited glint in her eyes.

Reah pretended not to notice the pigs smelled better than me, or maybe she was just used to such things, since we all lived on farms after all. Regardless, she was in a white sundress with flowers, which clung to her body in mouthwatering ways in the light late morning breeze, and the late morning sun shone on her glistening, wavy, and full-bodied wheat blonde hair.

In fact, I'd never seen her looking more than perfect, her father had a lot of farmhands and spoiled her outrageously, but I couldn't find it in my heart to call her spoiled, not the way she looked.

Reah smiled alluringly in a way that made my middle stir, but given how she'd kept me at a distance in the past, I knew that was about as far as she'd allow things to go. She was friendly, but aloof, mysterious and sexy, and had half the men in town twisted around her little finger.

"Happy Birthday, Cam."

I nodded, "Thanks Reah, looking good this morning."

She blushed and gave me an innocent look, but I didn't fail to notice she also arched her back and tossed her hair either. Gods, she was a hell of a sight. She walked forward a bit, and I froze, as she leaned in and kissed my cheek rather innocently, or at least that's what it seemed like she was going for.

I froze, as my vision seemed to double when her lips touched my cheek. I could still see her, and smell her alluring feminine fragrance, as she backed off with a coquettish smile and a soft voice telling me every man should get a kiss on his eighteenth birthday, or some such bullshit like that.

But I also saw Reah, naked, on her knees and mauling her tits with one hand, while getting herself off with the other down below, while I jerked my cock off and blew my load into her innocent pretty face. Then the scene seemed to zoom out, and I saw all the men in the village, jerking off a little farther away, and sending huge shots of seed across the distance, to completely cover her young and innocent nubile body in cum as she screamed in ecstasy.

I shut my eyes tightly, and I shook my head hard to cast the insane vision out of my head. Why the fuck would I even dream that up? If it was really my dream, my cock would be in her, and the other men in the town would not be present. Plus, it was far too vivid and real to be a daydream about the spoiled and sexy farm girl down the street.

It was more than just the vision too, I could... sense things. Emotions, sexual desires, and lust settled on me at the same time, but my mind struggled to find a reason for it, rather than overanalyze what all of that was, and I felt a little dizzy.

Suddenly it hit me like a runaway horse. The vision had been Reah's fantasy, and it also wasn't literal. She didn't actually want all the men in town covering her with cum in some sick circle jerk off.

Our Reah was apparently a dick tease, and she got off on the idea and probably did Jill herself at night, while fantasizing about half the men in town jerking it to her, or in fucking their wives while imagining it was her. That was her real kink, not the literal reality in the vision, but the idea that they were doing that at night with her in mind, as their jerkoff material. It was apparently her kink to flirt and tease her way into every spank bank in town.

It was a shock, because Reah acted so innocent and pure all the time, it was probably more than half of her allure to be honest, that and her huge and firm tits, and her tiny little waist.

No wonder she was always going on walks, and even talked to all the farm workers along the road, and here I'd thought she was just a little lonely and bored. But nope, she'd been feeding her kink, and enjoying how the men lusted after her but couldn't have her.

There was also the small matter of how the fuck did I know any of that, and what the hell was I? Could I have imagined the whole thing? I kind of doubted that, it really wasn't my kink, and it hadn't happened until she'd touched me.

Reah asked in true concern, "Are you okay?"

The concern was obviously real, she was still Reah, I just happened to know her sexual fantasy, which was kinky as hell, and kind of a tease, but that was fine too.

I gave her a light smile, "Fine, Reah, thanks for the kiss. I'll never forget it."

I winked saucily, which made her blush again, and I wondered if those blushes were real, or just her naughty mind flushing with pleasure at the thought of what she believed I'd be doing later on that day with her in my thoughts. It all felt a little surreal to me, she looked so... pure in that dress, naïve and... well, not like what I'd seen.

Still, it did kind of turn me on a little to slightly imply that with my wink, as if her fingerfucking herself to imagining me jerking off to her, was kind of hot. Even if I wasn't about to do it anymore, she'd just totally lost her allure for me.

I said, "I'd love to chat longer, but I have a lot left to do, and my mother has plans for this afternoon."

It was true enough, lunch was closing in, and I still needed to clean up and fix a fence post, not to mention the divot in the barn wall her sword had caused.

She smiled sweetly, and widely. Holy shit, she was probably thinking I wanted to go straight to the barn and jerk it for her. What a dick tease, whoever won her as a wife would be... both lucky and screwed.

She said softly, "I understand, until next time."

I tilted my head as Reah turned and walked away. My vision had had a secondary effect, it'd ripped off the illusions. I also knew that was just her kink, it didn't make her bad, evil, or even wrong in any way, it just put her in an entirely new light for me. The faux virtuous innocent act was just so obviously fake to me at that point, even as I continued to be confused on what I was, and how I'd seen it.

The soap root felt like I was scraping my skin off, but it'd get me mostly clean. I stood behind the barn, by the water barrels with a scoop to pour water over my head. It wasn't as good as a bath, but it would do the job until later that night. The sun was directly overhead, and I moved as quickly as I could. Working a farm was hard, and the work never ended.

My hair and body were dripping with water, and I shook off as the sun warmed me. I felt mostly clean, and had just pulled on a change of pants and strapped on the sabre when I heard the first scream. I grabbed my shirt, and I pulled it on in a hurry and pushed my hair back.

I was still rounding the end the barn when my mother's voice rang out.

"Cam! Run!"

I growled, and I ran, towards the house, as I pulled my sword. What the hell good was all the training, if I was going to turn tail and run when our enemies showed up. I wouldn't abandon my mother either, she was family, and all I had.

My heart pounded, and the steel in my hand felt like an extension of my body as I ran like the wind toward the back porch. Another scream and a crash met my ears, and I heard cackling laughter, but not my mother's teasing laugh, that laugh had been more... unhinged.

A young woman in a black dress, and coiffed blonde hair walked out the back door while I was still only about halfway to the house. She looked startlingly familiar, and when she saw me racing across the back field with a sword in my hand her eyes widened.

Then she laughed in dismissive derision that pissed me off, but I controlled the emotion. I knew better than to lose my cool in a fight, and hadn't done so since I'd been twelve.

When I saw her lips start to move, I dug deep inside and ran even faster, I felt like the wind itself as I crossed fifty yards in less than a handful of seconds. I grimaced as the witch raised her finger and pointed at me, and I dodged and weaved to the side in a sudden lunge.

Just... not fast enough.

When the spell hit me, my whole body flushed with heat, and I felt something I'd never felt before. In the past, my mother had spelled me a number of times, so I'd know what it felt like, and it hadn't felt anything like what I felt in that moment. Either it was a different kind of magic spell, or I had changed even more than I'd thought on the day I became a man.

My skin burned, but when I looked at my arm it wasn't really on fire, and my clothes weren't on fire. It also felt like a million ants were crawling on my skin with needles for feet. My jaw ground my teeth together tightly, as I tried to fight it off and move past the pain, whatever it was, but suddenly and all at once the burning disappeared, I felt weak, and then my mind and vision turned cloudy.

What the fuck was that? That was my last thought, before I heard my mother's third agonizing scream, and I collapsed into the field unconscious.

Chapter Two

I woke to the corded muscles on my arms straining against something. I dug deep down for strength in my panic, as I came to unaware, but it was no use. I was tied down, and by how the evening breeze felt across my body, I was also naked as the day I'd been born. My heart started to pound, and I was disgusted with myself, for being caught so easily, even as I panicked. What the hell was going on?

I squinted my eyes open a little, and saw that it was nighttime, the stars burned above me, while I noted I was tied down to a huge stone with thick ropes around my wrists and ankles. The square stone was alarmingly shaped like an altar, and it had a spear sized pole with torches on top surrounding the altar on each of the four corners, lighting up that part of the meadow.

A meadow I recognized, from the nearby Ironwood forest. I'd never been allowed in it, the elves ruled there, but they lived at the center. They generally ignored people at the edges, the loggers, hunters, and especially children playing, as long as the trespassers didn't go too deep. The elves were a stuck-up haughty lot, but they put a lot more value on life than the humans did.

I strained to listen to the thirteen women talking nearby, as I worked my wrists in circles and tried to escape. The ropes were tight and coarse, I could already feel a burn on my wrists. Still, I didn't stop, rope burn was much better than... well, whatever the fuck these crazy bitches had planned.

A hauntingly familiar voice rang out, "He's awake."

"Who are you," I demanded in a stern tone, that I didn't feel at all. Honestly, I shook like a leaf on the inside, but there was also a steadying rage burning in my blood to counteract it.

She moved forward into the light, and I almost gasped at the resemblance.

She laughed, "You don't recognize your auntie? I suppose I haven't seen you since you were three, but that's no excuse. Your mother was a fool, we knew where you were the whole time, we just didn't need you until now. Now you'll serve the function you were born to."

My family enemy was... family? Shit, I regretted a lot of things in that moment, but mostly fixing that damned fence and being late to lunch. I still had no idea what was going on.

She must've sensed my confusion, and her voice grew haughty.

"Your mother was stupid enough to fall in love with an abomination. Let me be clear, dear nephew, your only purpose in this life is to empower us, as a sacrifice. You don't belong in this world, Cam."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

She cackled, "My little sister didn't tell you anything? How delicious. You don't even know your name is a joke of sorts. I suppose you were old enough that it wouldn't be easy for sis to change after she ran."

The ladies moved forward, and started to circle the altar, and they were all young, and beautiful, around my mother's age actually. I noticed a few more young women on the edge of the glade, but it looked like their task was to keep watch.

No weapon in sight, tied down to an altar, and apparently I was going to be a sacrifice of some kind, this was definitely off to a bad start, my mother hadn't covered this in training. The burning rage and pounding heart at my mother's death and my situation kept the fear at bay, and my aunt looked totally unaffected by my glare, outside of perhaps a sick amusement.

She said viciously, as she grandly waved to her sisters, "Meet the Eternal Rose coven. Eternal, because we are ancient. Every twenty years we do this, trade life for life, to extend ours. When you lie dead, we'll all be twenty years younger again, with the blush of youth on our cheeks. Oh, when you get to hell, tell your father we beat him, again. He hates that."