Cam's Coterie

We had a lot to do, not least of which was get to my home and get clothes and my sword before the witches regrouped and came back. We'd also need to find a safe place to both learn my Cambion abilities and witch magic, and also start to recruit more ladies. Still, we enjoyed each other's bodies for a few hours that night in the woods, on a blanket of grass. I lost count of the number of times I felt her go over for me, and it wasn't too hard to suppress the soul feeding magic.

She was radiantly enthralling, and spellbindingly beautiful, in the throes of ecstasy.

Her tight and talented nubile body also coaxed five orgasms out of me before we were done, once with her hot mouth, talented lips, and agile tongue, not to mention her vibrating throat which was a hell of a new experience of pleasure for me. She loved it too, acted like her mouth had finally found its life's work, and had moaned more than I had in both approval and pleasure as she fucked my cock with her face. She was one hell of a sexy woman, and she had quite an appetite. I was sure that it helped, that I had to be hands down the best fuck she ever met, thanks to my power.

Another power apparently, I knew I could get hard again, even after five, if I wished it. I was a Cambion, half sex demon, and running out of stamina would just... never happen. Which was good, because from what she'd told me I'd have to have a number of women in my coterie, and keep them all well fucked, every day, if I was going to defeat my dead mother's and aunt's old coven, before they trapped me again and took my life for theirs.

Yeah, I wasn't seeing a downside in the requirements either, but then having a bunch of women in my coterie without binding and enslaving them would be a challenge. Jealousy, and all that other drama, could and probably would come up. Finding woman willing to barter sex and power for what they wanted, and then seducing them would be easy enough, with my pheromones and my very toned body and attractive face, and my magic.

It would be keeping them happy that could prove, interesting.

Last, but not least, when we finished our sex romp, I held her closely and tightly as she snuggled with me, for quite a while before we moved on. I knew women needed intimacy after sex, and part business or not she was more than willing to snuggle up. I also found the whole cuddling thing a lot more appealing than I'd expected, which was a little worrying. I'd have to be careful, or I'd find myself the one wrapped around Cassia's ambitious little finger...

Chapter Four

She looked up at me through sated and slightly confused warm brown eyes, as she took the dagger I'd retrieved and offered, and then slipped it back into her dress's belt sheath.

"What is it, Cassia?"

She blushed, "I didn't really believe you. I'm trying to get over the fact I'm still a free woman."

I laughed, "Then why the hell did you do it?"

She bit her lip, "Two reasons. No, three. One, I thought I'd get a dagger in the back if I walked away. Two... I really wanted to fuck you, that seemed far better than death, and I figured your plan might even work with my help and there'd be hope of escape later. Three, I may not have believed, but I had hoped, and I really wanted to believe that sweet look in your blue eyes, I just figured I was being hopelessly naïve."

I laughed, "Okay, and now?"

She grinned, one she obviously couldn't help, "I'm yours, until it's done... and maybe after, if you keep treating me like your partner."

I nodded, "Good," and then I stole a kiss.

She looked surprised at the random affection, and very pleased.

"We need to go," I said, then I muttered, "That's going to be a problem."

She laughed, "What is?"

"Keeping my hands to myself, I want you again already. It's got to be my demon side, I'll master it."

She giggled.

"Where to?" she asked throatily, then blushed.

I cleared my throat, and got my bearings, it'd been a while since I played in the forest as a kid, and of course back then it had been in the day, it looked different at night. The stars helped though, at least they were familiar to me, and I knew we needed to go south.

"This way," we started walking, "I know it's dangerous, but I need my sword, some coin, and we should get cleaned up. Maybe rest. I'll sell the farm in the morning. I also need to bury my mother, that's not up for debate."

Cassia nodded, "I understand."

I sighed, "Might as well get started, how do I access the power of a witch."

Cassia looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Holding the power in your mind should be as easy and automatic as evoking the hellfire, or calling forth your other aspect, or..." she trailed off, "Once you have a hold of it let me know, that's when the hard part starts."

I nodded, "I think I'd like to stick to defense at first. I have my sword and throwing daggers as an alternate means of offense to my Cambion powers. That'll save me some of the energy I harvest from my coterie for other things, and I'm thinking that witch shields can fend off other witch spells, so my automatic demon shield won't need to waste my Cambion power. At least, to start."

She tilted her head, "Well, it's a good thing that's what you want, because that's how you have to start. Nature is always moving, it takes understanding to harness and shift things around, and that takes a long time of study and meditation."

I frowned, "How so?"

She turned to me, and then pulled her dagger halfway out of her sheath.

I stopped too, and then turned to her in question.

She asked, "Imagine this is a frozen moment in time, what am I doing with the dagger?"

I shrugged, "Drawing it?"

She tilted her head, "Or?"

I frowned, "I suppose if you were frozen, and stuck, you could have been re-sheathing it."

She nodded, "Exactly. You can't know the nature of my action from a split-second moment in time. That's what nature is, constantly in motion. You can't send out your magic, get a single glimpse of things, and expect to understand anything. You need to watch the ebbs and flows around you at all times, all while you take in both the subtle and blatant movements of nature. Do you have a hold of your power yet?"

"I get what you're saying, and the more I watch and learn, the more I'll understand, the more effective the spells will get? I am holding it, yes."

She nodded in agreement, "Of course, you also need the knowledge of the words and keys to nature, study of nature isn't enough. For now, in the beginning, I just want you to focus on yourself. The rhythms of your body, the muscle and tendon movements, and the beat of your heart and flow of your blood. The heat of your skin, and the way I make you hard with a single heated glance."

She giggled at that last, and I couldn't really disagree with her. Her voice was sweet, honey-toned, and extremely alluring alongside the soft innocent beauty of her face.

She continued, "The first thing a witch must learn is their own body. Knowledge of your body and its natural rhythms will open up the ability to shield, and to heal yourself. Once I think you're ready, I'll teach you a simple shield and healing spell. If the shield spell is overwhelmed by a stronger witch, your other shield should kick in."

I questioned, "Isn't a shield just a shield? Why does understanding of my body matter to that?"

She tilted her head, "A witch doesn't just shift the natural order, give and take while maintaining a balance, they can also protect the natural order. If you're shielded with a witch shield, and I cast a spell to put you to sleep, the spells will fight. All the shield really is, is an enforcement of what is natural. My spell says you should sleep, while your spell tells your body to maintain its natural rhythm and movement. The better you understand your body, the stronger your shield will be. It can't maintain what it doesn't understand, and your magic can't understand anything you can't."

"Oh, that... makes sense, I was picturing a shield that would keep magic out, not fight with it."

She said, "It can do that too, because the spell will see that magic as foreign and not natural to your body, but only if..." she trailed off.

"Only if I understand my body, and the magic already in it."

She smirked, "So yes, most witches constantly monitor themselves and the world around them. After a while the mind just automatically updates the spells that can be used wherever you are by what you feel. Even during normal conversation you can learn new things with a little focus, though it can help to meditate for a set time every day, you can still learn without doing that in a pinch. Point is, you should get in the habit of doing it, anytime you're not controlling one of your other powers as a sexy half-demon."

I corrected, "Half sex-demon."

She winked up at me, "Nope. I said it right."

I laughed, that was a good shot to the ego. It also made me like her more, which stirred up my suspicions again, was she manipulating me, or just flirting? I decided that kind of thinking would give me a headache, so I'd just trust her until she did something untrustworthy, give her the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe it was arrogant, but I thought if she betrayed me, I'd be able to deal with it. I honestly didn't think she would though.

She reminded me, "But for now focus on your body, don't send your magic out at all, or you'll be overwhelmed by tons of unfamiliar information. Baby steps, once you know your body, and can cast the spells I teach you for healing and shielding, then and only then should you add in the outside."

I focused the magic internally, and it was already insanely complicated, just taking a step changed so many things inside my body, not to mention the body's systems which were never at rest, or the five senses. It should be easy enough to keep a little focus on it, though I'd have to stop if I wanted to wield one of my other powers.

Well, the shields, feeding, speed, pheromones, pleasure reading and knowledge, and greatest fantasy reading all seemed rather automatic, if I touched a woman, I knew her greatest fantasy, if I moved to take her, I'd just know everything she liked, and how hard and soft she liked it. Point was, I'd be able to do all that while still monitoring my body with my witch power, and learning about it at rest, in a fight, and everything else.

It was the aspect shift with claws, horns, and wings, along with shadowy hellfire, and compelling others that I'd need to stop wielding witch magic to use. Any spells that I'd cast and had active, like shields, would still run, I just couldn't taste the nature in me or around me while using those three abilities.

Also, feeding and binding during sex, which meant I couldn't be monitoring my body during my partner's orgasm, I'd have to focus on not feeding. Of course, I could monitor it for the one daily feeding, because feeding was a default thing.

There was a lot going on in my head by that point, and the idea I'd lost my mother earlier that day finally started to sink in. The rage slightly cooled to make way for the grief, and my heart hammered in my chest. The farming life was definitely not for me, it'd been a hiding spot, and a good place to grow up, but my destiny was bigger than that. Not that I believed in fate, I made my own destiny, and after I had my own coterie and my childhood enemies were dead... well, I'd make my place in the world, and help my ladies stake theirs. Together.

Huh, the body was a pretty freaky thing, especially the glands which were going haywire as the grief settled in, but I was learning about my body, and only slightly focusing on it, trying to absorb the rhythm of it rather than any specific thing, because it was constantly changing and flowing as Cassie had said.

"So, Cassie, tell me a little about yourself, if you feel up to sharing? Outside of ambitious, stunningly sexy, a goddess in bed, and unhappy with what your coven made you do, I don't know much."

Cassie bit her lip and looked up at me with a teasing but grateful smile for my somewhat flirty description of her, then faced forward again.

"I'm as ambitious as you think I am. I grew up in the city, with my mother and father, who were both witches. They were simple healers, and would make decent coin curing diseases, healing wounded, and they even hired out to help farms determine what was causing a bad crop season. I learned from them, and am a pretty good witch, at least for the basics, even at nineteen.

"Of course, some human noble asshole took offense one day at my father's assertion that he screwed up his own garden with mismanagement, and that its wilting wasn't some insult against him from the gardener, or an attack from an enemy. He had his guards attack my parents at that insult, stupid bastard.

"My parents never learned the deeper secrets, or spells of harm. Sure, they knew what magic could do to a body, but they only ever learned basic spells of healing and growth, not harm. Some of the more advanced and damaging stuff is in the hands of strongest covens only, and witch knowledge is hoarded and never shared freely. For a witch, knowledge is quite literally, power. As I said earlier, understanding isn't enough, spells also need words, along with keys of knowledge."

She paused and stared off in the distance for a minute, perhaps lost in the past, and I left her to her own pace and just waited for her to continue. She eventually did.

"So, I watched helplessly as my parents were cut down by the asshole's guards. They were simple loving people, good people, and healers and growers of life. The only reason I survived, and wasn't killed with them, is because I'd caught the noble's eye, or perhaps I should say my huge tits did. So, he decided to rape me and discard me, instead of slitting my throat. I... swore I would do whatever I had to in order to make sure that would never happen to me again. To make sure my children, when I have them, would be protected, and my daughter would never have to depend on rape for survival."

I looked at her guiltily.

She smirked, "I agreed to a deal, Cam, and it was damned fun, don't even try to compare yourself to that asshole."

I nodded in acceptance, "I'm sorry you had to go through that, and trust me when I say it was my pleasure. There's not much to me, I didn't even know what I was before earlier this night. I grew up a farm boy. My mother was about to tell me the truth, where I came from, and what I was. My powers were released this very day, on my eighteenth birthday. I supposed she figured it was time, but my crazy ass aunt killed her."

I tilted my head, "You're training me to be a witch, would you like me to train you how to fight with that long-dagger on your side?"

She bit her lip, "I probably should?"

I snorted, "If you had, Cassia, you'd have had it out and in my gut with your training reflexes, while I was too busy slamming you into that tree to notice."

She laughed, "Alright, I can buy that, and see you're point. Witchcraft won't always protect me either, though I'd argue I'll grow far more powerful in time. No sword?"

I shook my head, "The sword is harder to learn, we can try if you want, but I started when I was just a toddler. It'd take you five years to be decent, and twenty to be a master like me."

She smirked, "Dagger it is."

"So, is that when you joined the witches?"

She bit her lip, "Yes. They weren't the first coven I tried to join, but they were the first one to accept me as an apprentice. I got to learn a few attack spells, a few minor things, but all the really powerful stuff and deeper understanding of the witch language of nature is reserved for the major circle of the coven, and a few other full sisters."

That was a hell of a story, it also explained her greatest sexual fantasy. She wanted what her parents had. She wanted that life, with a man and partner to support and love her, cherish her, and take her as his, and her and him to live a good decent life. With one exception of course, she was power hungry and ambitious out of tragedy, and she wanted what her parents had been, plus the ability and deeper knowledge to protect it from the whims of fate and evil men.

I nodded, "So you just want the knowledge? Or do you want the coven too?"

"The first one."

Huh, that's what I thought. I was also inordinately pleased at hearing that, but I decided not to try and figure out why.

I took her hand, and we stopped for a second, as I tilted my head. We were close to the edge of the forest, which was right by the farm. It was literally across the fields, and then the undeveloped fields where the barn, horses, and other animals were put up.

"No more talking, until we establish the farm is empty."

She nodded, "I'll follow your lead."

I moved out of the forest, and then gave her a look of approval as her footfalls became as quiet as mine, but she just winked and mouthed the word magic at me. I felt a pull at my gut, as my heart beat picked up once again with anxiety and the promise of violence. I wasn't sure if there was anyone there yet, but there very well could be.

I continued to hold the magic, and I examined my body with it, but most of my focus was outward, on my ears, eyes, and other not so definable senses. We skulked across the fields, staying in the rows between the crops, which wasn't bad for hiding behind. I didn't hear or sense a thing as we came up to the end of the field of crops, and we moved quickly and silently to the barn.

We waited there a minute, once again listening for signs, and then moved around the barn and slipped inside. I studied the house from the small window near the barn door.

"The lantern is lit in the kitchen, someone has been here since nightfall."

She frowned, and whispered back, "My guess is mercenaries."

I tilted my head in question.

She said, "They'll fear you now, they'll want help subduing you, and guards to guard you while they cast even more suppression spells on you to keep your power in check. So next time you can't call on your powers unrelated to sex, and you won't be able to fight back. They screwed up, by only binding your soul consuming and soul related powers, and they won't make that mistake again. The coven is rich, and perhaps even worse, they're influential in the city. They hire mercenaries for a lot less important things than claiming back twenty years of life after an eighteen year investment."

She scowled, "In hindsight it's obvious they thought I had no chance, there's no way they'd have risked ordering me to kill you if they thought I'd live to see it done. Damnit."

I sighed, she had a good point, she was also pissed. I couldn't blame her, it was obvious in hindsight now that she wasn't blinded by her ambition. Hell, if she had succeeded, the coven probably would have killed her in a pique, at losing the life I could provide, and not rewarded her at all.

"What can you do? I should've asked earlier."

She sighed, "I can put someone to sleep, freeze their muscles, or I can stop a heart. I can also shield against magic, but not physical weapons. I don't have that spell knowledge yet even if I have the flow of nature for it. I also know everything my parents did, I can diagnose, grow, and heal all day long, but offensively not very much, and defensively only against magic."

Huh, she must've tried to stop my heart, that spell I'd burned away. I pushed that thought down, she was my ally now, my woman, and I'd trust her.

"Alright, gorgeous, I'm going to take back my farm. Follow at a distance, don't attract attention, and don't cast any spells unless I'm in deep shit."

She smirked, and she nodded with a pleased look on her face.

I crept out of the barn and started up the small hill toward the house.

Chapter Five

The house was pitch black on the sides, with just a small light on the back porch through the window that seemed to make those shadows deeper. I moved low to the ground in the direction of the house, and a little to the left. If my sword was still out here, that's where I'd find it. Anyone inside the house would never see me, not with light in their eyes, but if they'd posted a guard in the hope I'd come back, I needed to move silently.