Something had gone really wrong in my life for me to be rushing a demon ass-naked with an antique magic whip in hand that I didn't even know how to use. And in the snow, too, with my tits bouncing all over the place at supersonic frequency as I sprinted in subzero temperatures, which really fucking hurt and reminded me why women don't go free-boobing their cardio sessions unless they want to give themselves a black eye. It was even worse because despite the heat pouring out of my contract mark and flushing the cold out of my body with surging pulses, my still-stiff nipples could probably chisel a perfect replica of Michelangelo's David out of the ice.
That was right — ice. So much heat had emanated from both Princes as they fought that it had melted away the powdery upper layers of snow and revealed the packed, rigid level underneath. The chill of the winter storm and the mountain altitude whipped around in numbing winds, refreezing any melted liquid or steam in bursts. The droplets that had condensed over my bare body were also frosting again, little by little. Every step I sprinted, the cold battled the heat inside me, trying to slow me down.
No time for that. I was coming for Mammon with the weapon Sarina had left me, and all I had to do was swing it like she had when she caught and reeled me up from the collapsed underground chamber. It couldn't be that hard. Just grasp tight, hold up, jerk the shoulder, elbow, and wrist hard, like they did in the movies. That was right. I was taking control now. I had a plan and I was crazy enough to go for it, and no one would stop me, not death or taxes or all the damn presidents and their mothers —
Lust stopped me. Immediately. He simply appeared in front of Mammon and caught my wrists, holding my arms up like I was a five year old child he needed to dress. A naked five year old child he needed to dress. All of a sudden, I became acutely aware of the last traces of his come that had literally frozen between my thighs and then thawed again. This wasn't a good look for me. Or a comfortable one. He didn't squeeze the whip handle out of my grip, at least, but it took everything I had simply to hold onto it as he pulled me up onto the tips of my toes.
The brief lull didn't last. Mammon took advantage of it and lunged, the Shard on his tongue flashing as it disappeared back into his maw. Long fangs stabbed down toward the back of Lust's neck, happening faster than my eyes could track but in slow motion at the same time, mushing together in my head.
Lust's arrowed tail whipped out in a blur, stabbing into Mammon's throat and lodging there. The blow aborted the lunge, stopping the monster's head short before his jaws could snap around the exposed nape, but that didn't stop Mammon's lower body from colliding with Lust. Momentum carried him straight into Lust's back with a heavy thump. In the next instant, I was flying backward, tangled in a pair of heated, muscular arms that snaked around and crushed me.
It was too fast for me to brace for impact. I didn't even realize what had happened until I was already horizontal, my senses swallowed by the the dull thud of something heavy hitting solid ice. A crunching noise followed, and the world log-rolled simultaneously. No, wait, it was me rolling over, hard. Huh? What was going on?
Something else smashed into the clumped, melted-and-refrozen ice right next to me, another solid, painful noise that would have made me wince if I weren't so dazed. Only then did I realize what had happened. Mammon had bashed into Lust, sending us both to the ground, but Lust had wrapped himself around me and twisted halfway to absorb the fall. The momentum had sent us rolling over, but I was now on top, straddling him as steam swirled around me. The frost layer that had begun gathering on my naked body melted again, vaporizing against the heat he radiated. I tried to push myself off of him, wobbling, wavering — Mammon had fallen with us! And he had rolled too, half on top of us with his thick black wolf tail and rear legs brushing my leg and hip on that side. One swipe and those claws could take off my head, or Lust's head, or whatever it damn well wanted. Get up! Get away!
But what about my plan —!
Lust's hands captured my hips, keeping my lower body pressed hard against his with a vise grip. Horror flew up from my stomach straight into my throat, a ball of heavy panic choking me mid-breath. No way. It couldn't be. Right now! Seriously! But he wouldn't! He might be a slave to his impulses, but this was life and death, and even he had to respect that. There was another Prince of Demons shifting in the snow and about to claw one or both of us to shreds. There was no way Lust was going to —
"Ah."
The guttural, carnal noise that curled out of Lust's throat sent a shiver of joint terror and familiar mindless desire through me. The heat intensified, unbearably warm between my legs that straddled his large frame so tightly, and his fingers dug into my hips. Clawed fingers. The sharpened tips didn't pierce the skin, but they sank deep enough to be just shy of it, threatening to draw blood. It hurt! But the pain sent electric jolts whizzing through me, surging to my head, my chest, down to my toes, but most of all, right between my thighs.
He was already doing it. In the middle of a bloody, gruesome fight, Lust had already forgotten what he was doing. True to his name, now he indulged without a thought, the telltale hardness pushing up into the cleft of my ass rising hot and fast.
He dragged me up and down against it, reminding me just how easy it would be to penetrate. Again. The underside of my wrist tingled and sparked, answering the call of his power that flooded me and asserted control. A ragged gasp tore out of me, helpless need infecting the genuine panic that I tried so hard to sustain, and oh my God this couldn't be happening, we were both going to die because Lust couldn't fucking keep his dick in his pants —
My gaze fell to the wayside in my thickening stupor and landed on Mammon. Another wave of dark, heavy horror pulsed through me when he dragged his head off of the melting snow. His crimson eye caught mine. Oh, no. But it didn't matter, did it, whether I saw my death coming or not? In the next instant, the Prince of Greed's giant fangs and bloody muzzle would be the last things I ever saw, and I'd be dead, dead, dead. I'd tried. I'd tried so hard, but in the end...
... He shuddered.
A low, pulsing glow shone dully through the very top of his bloody throat, weak and muffled behind the muscle and skin but unmistakable anyway. That was an arcane glow, not a trick of the sunlight refracting in the wintry storm. It pulsed again, sending another twitching shiver through his entire body...
And it coincided with the wave of Lust's aura that passed through me at the exact same time.
His rear legs twitched, and his shaggy black fur rippled. Small, smooth patches of it melted away, sliding out of existence as muscle and bone changed shape to become more — human? Was he transforming back? Yet he seemed to resist, not well but enough to slow his shape-changing. Wait, that wasn't it. It was the pulses of Lust's aura disrupting him. He couldn't control his transformation. His body jerked, great jaws snapping as he writhed in the snow, unable to rise.
Lust rocked me up and down his hips again with another filthy groan. He was already gone. His robe was following too, slowly vanishing inch by inch as it shimmered out of existence from his shoulders down. Soon, there would be nothing separating us, skin to skin, his cock pressing up into me as I moaned because there was no resisting his aura.
Yet —
Sharp awareness stabbed me with a million needles, keeping just enough of the mindlessness back to save my senses. I could still think. I could still move, at least the parts of me Lust didn't control with his superior physical strength. And most importantly, I could see.
That is, I could see that Lust's arrowed tail remained lodged high up Mammon's throat, right below his jaw, and was sunk so deep that it must be blocking his airway... Just like how it blocked the Shard from being swallowed back down into the Prince's stomach. That was the source of the glow. The Shard was trapped in Mammon's mouth, right at the back of it.
Then it was possible! I could still —
A burst of light illuminated the sky. The brilliance was a thousand times more intense than the soft, faded daylight that had bleached the mountains through the snowstorm, and it jolted me out of the hold of Lust's aura. Or rather, it had jolted him out of it, bringing him back to reality as a humming crackle filled the air. It was like the sound of a thousand generators powering up all at once, endless energy amassing, building to a crescendo that would rock the mountain from the summit down to the base. It reverberated through me, making my bones vibrate like harp strings, and a ball of nausea coiled at the bottom of my chest as the sensation only grew stronger.
Then I saw it. In the sky, through the near-blinding brilliance. I might not have seen it in time had both Princes not frozen and turned their stares upward, gazes raking and darting all over. Only then did my jarred eyes catch something through the fuzzy double vision, the irregular movement of something flying through the sky.
No. Not flying. Spreading... upward?
... A dome. The edges of a rising dome racing inward high over our heads, specifically, and about to enclose us. East, west, north, south, there wasn't a single gap between the curved, translucent walls of energy about to meet at the apex of the hemisphere. Color finally filled the walls as well, turning them a brilliant silvery-blue hue that thickened more and more the higher they rose.
The hole at the top shrank at breakneck speed. In seconds, that would disappear, too.
The prison seal. The trap Sarina had warned me about. It was already done. All that remained was for the magic to finish channeling, and the spell would be complete.
Fear colder than any ice storm plunged me into action. There was no time to think anymore. No time to hesitate or be weak. I had only one chance now, and I had to move faster than I ever had before.
I leaned to the side, hooked my fingers under Mammon's upper lip, and yanked upward. If he wanted to, he could swallow me whole, but for reasons I couldn't understand, he allowed me to open his massive jaws. Not only that, but to stick my arm all the way inside, followed by my shoulder as I strained to reach the back of his throat, searching frantically.
It was my only hope. Lust had said he couldn't teleport us away until we acquired the Shard. If I could reach it now...
My fingers closed around a smooth, cool object. The edges were dangerously sharp, yet it didn't pierce me as I squeezed it in my grip. I pulled — to no avail. Stuck? Yes, it was! Shit! Shit!
I looked skyward again. The hole was still open, but only barely. This was the end. My gamble had failed. I couldn't retrieve the Shard, and we were as good as imprisoned. And as for me, probably executed within hours.
Or maybe not?
The Shard! It was a part of Lust, a split portion of his very body and magic, wasn't it? He could reclaim something like that simply by connecting with it, couldn't he?
And the contract, the mark of which had branded itself on my wrist — bound Lust and me together inextricably. This very second, Lust's magic coursed through my body, filling every inch of me until there was no corner of it left untouched.
And I was touching the Shard.
Lust's hands were still on my hips. I grabbed his wrist with my free hand, the one not buried in Mammon's throat, and screamed:
"GET US OUT!"
He must have already sensed what I had done. Of course, he did, since he would have felt the power of the Shard returning to him through me. Before I'd finished screaming the last word, his power had already swollen, enveloping us both.
Then we vanished, a swirling mirage dissipating in the storm.