Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (detective books to read txt) 📕

the plain canvas was darkening, dots of light appearing in it. For a second, I thought that holes were being poked in the canvas above, but then I realized that more and more lights were appearing. One was far bigger than all the rest, although it was still only the size of my thumbnail: the moon.

Leah noticed my transfixed stare.

“Enchanted ceiling,” she said. “Standard camping spell for Chaosbanes.”

“Big star-gazers, are you?” I asked.

“Big medicament enthusiasts,” Leah said.

“Ah.”

“Now, if you put a vector to my pretty, muddled head and forced me to hypothesize on how I can work a bit of Fire Magic, though…” Leah continued. “I would probably say there’s a certain amount of potential Chaos in Fire, isn’t there? Even now, a teeny-weeny part of my brain was thinking what an adorbs spectacle this little tent would make were we to just fucking set it on fire!”

The fire, burning merrily in the stone hearth, seemed to lick a little higher up the chimney at her words. Almost like a dog raising its head from its basket, unsure if someone said ‘walk’ or simply a word that sounded a lot like it.

Without looking, Leah flicked the butt of her black cigarette at the fireplace, and it vanished into the hot incandescent heart of the flames.

“Still, it’s a little nippy out there,” the female Chaosbane said, stretching like one sexy-ass cat and snuggling closer into me, “and I don’t much fancy walking up to the house in nothing but my skin. That’d make it four Yuletides in a row.”

“Another pro for this blustery snowy weather, huh?” I said. “Keeping you in here with me and Enwyn.”

Leah made a little sighing sound that sent shivers through me. It boggled my mind that the airy-fairy enigmatic woman could even sigh sexily.

“Snow… rain… sleet, it’s all just another kind of good weather, honey bunny,” she said. “People just forget to see that, I think.”

We lay in silence for a few moments, the crackle and pop of the slowly dying fire and the deep, even breathing of Enwyn lulling the two of us closer and closer to sleep.

“I’m still a little disappointed that I couldn’t provide that sweet little tuchus of yours with a sexy little smidgen of Chaos Magic,” Leah said.

I shrugged very slowly, so as not to wake Enwyn. “Yeah, I mean it would have been nice, don’t get me wrong,” I said, “but this Inscriber up at the Castle of Ascendance, the one who was apparently in cahoots with my old man, should be able to help me open up some new spell slots.”

Leah rolled onto her side to face me. She smelled beguilingly of sweat, sex, and orange blossoms. In the fuzzy, post-coital glow, I thought that ‘Sweat, Sex, and Orange Blossoms’ would make a great title for a punk album. Maybe I could pitch it to NOFX or something.

“And if this mysterious Inscriber ally of ours is able to help you open up your slots,” she purred innocently in my ear, “I guess that means we get to do this again, and I’ll open up my very special slot for you, honey bunny.” Her voice dropped an octave lower. “And then, I’ll show you what I can really do.”

“That,” I said, “sounds extremely enticing. And I suppose that this was only day one of the Yuletide festivities.”

“That’s right,” Leah said, running a finger around my nipple and then pinching it hard. “So, it’s only right that we ease into things.”

If the first day on Chaosbane Ranch was anything to go by, our time here would see me and the rest of the gang as busy as moths in a mitten.

“Care to tell me what tomorrow might have in store for us?” I asked Leah, draping my arm around her and squeezing her nipple in return. It hardened under my touch, and the pink-haired beauty next to me gave a little moan.

“Do you need to prepare yourself, you delicate bloom, is that it?” Leah teased gently.

“With you fucking wackos? Absolutely,” I said.

Leah leaned forward and casually bit me on my pectoral muscle, leaving a perfect ring of teeth marks. Then she licked me.

“Oh, tomorrow!” she whispered enthusiastically. “Tomorrow, you’ll get to experience a real treat! You’ll be taking part in a genuine Chaosbane family tradition; the Hunting of the Eggnog Gnomes!”

The fire spat, the logs crumbling and settling down for the evening. I had no doubt  snow was falling outside, but inside the tent, all was calm, all was peaceful.

“Right,” I said, staring up at the enchanted night sky above me. “Eggnog Gnomes. Right. Just another day on the ranch, then.”

Chapter 6

The next morning we were up at a time that would have been offensive on any normal day, had it not been for a trifecta of key components that took the edge off the extremely early hour.

The first integrant was that the one doing the stirring was a half-naked Leah Chaosbane.

The leggy Chaos Mage stood next to the bed, peering down at me, her pink hair tumbling over her shoulders in waves that were at once both messy and, somehow, stylish. She was wearing her usual blue woollen sweater that rode up her navel, with its usual assortment of small rips and burn holes. From the hem of that sweater down, she was buck ass naked.

My sleep encrusted eyes opened a little wider. The contrast that the sexy young woman presented, with the top half of her looking like she had been dressed by a doddering grandmother while the bottom half revealed a tight ass and a perfectly shaved love-box, was one that even my drowsy libido could get behind—and in front of, for that matter.

Leah grinned down at me, looking as bright-eyed as if she had gone to bed with a mug of cocoa