Page 23 of Ghoul Huntress (Maelstrom Duology #2)

23

The three of them sat, butt naked, on the edge of the infinity pool on the roof of Maelstrom Towers , with the cool water flowing past them over the edge into the shallower pool below. They’d used the large reservoir tanks to refill it, after restarting the generators. It wouldn’t last forever, and this might be the last time anyone swam in a pool like this for centuries to come, but hey, they were going out with a bang.

Cyn nudged Rutger. She pointed across at the line of bottles he had balanced in the shallow water beside his ass. “One of those.”

“Tequila, rum, whisky,” he began. “Oh fuck it. Here.” He grabbed a random bottle and handed it to her.

“Mine not good enough?” Vargr indicated his own groupie collection of spirits, clinked a fingernail on the nearest rectangular bottle. “Fifty-year-old Lapfrog or whatever this is called?”

“ Laphroaig ,” Rutger said.

She raised the bottle Rutger had given her and took a few sips. Vodka?

An IV line, with red liquid in the tubing, ran from Vargr’s arm up to a bag hooked to the top of a metal stand. The stand rested on the bottom of the pool behind him. His dose of demon nanites had almost run through.

Both of them relied on Maura to supply the nanites. If his levels fell too low, his wounds reopened. If hers went too high, she needed more angel ones.

And if Maura vanished? Cyn ran her hands through her pink-streaked black hair. They’d find another fae with the capability and the right nanites. The Ghoul Lords had been eradicated from this Earth but the nanites remained, as well as a few beasters like her and Vargr who relied on a supply of them to live, sanely.

In an hour or so it would be dawn, but in the meantime, she could admire the campfire lights that dotted the land before them. They spread from left to right. Big Mo and Maura were down there along with many other beasters, aiding the remaining humans, helping them sort out how to live off the land. A few had chosen to remain in the scrapers here. Not many. She guessed their memories held too many terrifying experiences to feel safe inside the buildings. One day those would collapse too.

In the days after the great battle against the Ghoul Lords, she’d been told people had begun descending, going down the stairs and the roadways until one morning the first of them staggered out into the sunshine. Beasters had watched from shadows.

Some humans were afraid of the beasters who came to them in the night, but the majority were grateful.

It would not be easy to live out there, in the wilds. Animals were multiplying, and not all of them were food for humans. Some were predators.

The circle of life, she supposed. “I wonder if the humans can have babies now?”

“That’s a very good question. If not, we’ll get all the fae to find a way. Maybe for us too?” Rutger said. “Hey, are we the new gods? It’s been bugging me.”

“Do there have to be some?” she mused. “I mean, do there?”

“I have a need to find a reason to all this.” He swept his arm out wide, covering much of that land before them. “Look at them. Maybe it is us? We are the gods? How else will humans survive without divine aid, and you have to admit we are no longer human.”

She nodded. “We do have powers beyond the comprehension of humanity, pre-apocalypse.”

“Flying for starters. Yeah.” Vargr unplugged his IV line and dropped the end into the pool, then unscrewed the lid on his bottle and swallowed some of the laphroaig . “We are the beginnings of a new line of gods!”

“Ahhh, not convinced. You know…” Rutger reached out and pretended to pluck something from the air and drag it back to him then study it. “I always thought gods should be able to create life. Whereas all we can do is be strong and destroy shit.”

“The Greek gods did a bit of everything.” Vargr gargled some whisky and spat it out, then dug at his teeth with a finger. “I need some floss. That meat had bones.”

Cyn screwed up an eyebrow at him. Ugh. Males.

She imagined how this would look to any stranger who walked up behind them and saw them sitting here.

The apocalypse was newly averted. A tiny fraction of the human population had survived, and here they were carousing. They’d be silhouetted against that sky with a line of bottles to either side. Vargr with his IV drip and with his wingtips swishing into the pool, her too with a port in her arm for drugs she was addicted to. And they were all of them getting drunk, while naked, on top of a luxury penthouse while the world essentially teetered on the verge of destruction.

The world burned, and they were having a bacchanalian party.

Yes, they were truly wholesome heroes.

At least she’d steered them clear of eating the baby zebras. So many foals were toddling about in the vicinity, if that was what you called baby zebras.

“I saw a bunch of koalas today,” she added quietly. “In the eucalypts down near that river we flew over, V.”

“Really? Weren’t they extinct?”

“Apparently not.”

With fewer humans, many nearly extinct species might repopulate this planet. They’d already had a five-year head start. Pluses and minuses. Not that humans ever ate koalas. These ones had been rather odd. “Didn’t they used to be plain grey in the fur color?”

“Koalas?” Rutger looked down at her. The motes generated by his horns floated past between her eyes and the brightening sky. His blue eyes seemed to brighten as she studied his face. “Yes, they were plain gray, furry, cute.”

He reached down and slid his hand under her breast, cupping it.

That was enough to stir her and Cyn inhaled sharply then looked at where he held her. His big hand there, his thumb brushing over her skin and the edge of her areola.

“Ummm. These ones had zebra-type stripes.” That had been strange, but really with Rutger leaning over to kiss her nipple then draw it into his hot mouth and lick her there… koalas were fading as an issue. She wrapped her hand over his horn and held on for dear life as he slid his mouth lower… lower. She opened her thighs and felt her clit swelling.

The surge of pleasure made her lean back a little and sigh.

The water ran merrily past her thighs, tinkling as it cascaded, and she moaned as Rutger became more dedicated to his task.

“I remembered the big dildo this time,” she heard Vargr declare joyfully, as she arched toward Rutger.

Oh, that tongue of his, down there, licking and licking.