Wives Tales

  Estrella & Other Tales

  Published by Jan Stryvant

  Copyright 2019 Jan Stryvant

  Copyright Jan Stryvant 2019

  Cover Credits: eBook Launch (http://ebooklaunch.com/)

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form without expressed, written consent from the author. The material in this story may feature graphic depictions of a sexual or adult nature and is intended for a mature audience only. All characters in this story are fictional and of the legal age of consent for any activities they engage in. Any resemblance between characters, places, or things in this story, and people living or dead, actual places, or events, is purely coincidental. It's fiction; I made it up.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be copied and given away, or copied and sold, to other people. Got that? No copying, please! If you would like to share this book with another person, it would be really nice if you purchased an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, please consider purchasing your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  #9598

  Jan Stryvant Books:

  The Valens Legacy:

  Black Friday Book 1

  Perfect Strangers Book 2

  Over Our Heads Book 3

  Head Down Book 4

  When It Falls Book 5

  Stand On It Book 6

  Vegas Rules Book 7

  Desperate Measures Book 8

  Secret Treaties Book 9

  It Ain't Easy Book 10

  Red Skies Book 11

  Demon Days Book 12

  Simple Things Book 13

  Trying Times Book 14

  Firestarter Book 15

  Times Like These Book 16

  No Regrets Book 17

  Wives Tales Books 1, 2, 3, & 4 (Assorted Short Stories)

  Shadow

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Estrella

  Son of Dolitt

  What Happens in Brussels...

  Afterword

  Introduction

  The previous three Wives Tales books each incorporated a couple of stories from each of Sean's wives. This one will continue that trend in that there is a tale from Estrella, who has since joined the family.

  Be warned, there are spoilers in this book if you haven't read up past book 13 (Simple Things) or so in the series.

  Next is a story about Henry Dolitt. You may remember that his father owned a casino in Las Vegas, that Sean burned to the ground. Several folks have wondered, did the others forgive him? Just what happened to him, afterwards.

  Then of course there's that little excursion in Brussels, to deal with Jeremy and the other heads of the Vestibulum.

  Estrella

  Estrella was out shopping with Roxy, Daelyn, Roberta, Cali, Peg, and Jolene as they continued to teach her about all of the things she'd missed living off in the Onderwereld. At the moment, Estrella was trying on some blouses while they all watched and offered suggestions.

  "So, just how did you end up there?" Daelyn asked her.

  "I told you I was trying to scout out the Onderwereld for my father. Being one of the First's daughters isn't easy. Everyone always expects so much more from you."

  "What I don't know is how you expected to get away with it in the first place," Roxy said. "Hell, I can run circles around you and I wouldn't even think to try it!"

  "Well, I had this necklace that was supposed to make me invisible."

  "What, didn't it work?" Peg asked.

  "Oh, it worked. It worked fine going in, it's just what happened after I got there!"

  "Ah! I hear a story!" Daelyn chuckled.

  "Well how about we wait until I pay for these blouses for Stell, then we can go to the food court and get something to drink?" Jolene said.

  "How about we go into yon restaurant and get a few beers?" Daelyn said motioning out the front door to the establishment across the hall.

  "Better still! Give me a moment."

  "Go pay, Jo. We'll go stake out some seats while you take care of that."

  "Okay!"

  "Why do we have to go to a restaurant to get beer?" Estrella asked, confused.

  "Alcohol is controlled these days. Only places with licenses can sell it."

  Estrella frowned. "Why is that?"

  "To keep the 'children'" Daelyn made air quotes with her fingers while she said that, "from drinking it."

  "Why would children want to drink beer?" She stopped and grinned at Daelyn, "Unless they were dwarves of course."

  "Humans like to make laws," Cali said with shrug, "it's one of their shortcomings."

  "Oh."

  When they got to the restaurant across from the clothing store it only took a few minutes to get seated. Jolene joined them as the waitress took their orders.

  "Okay," Daelyn said as the waitress left, "now, tell us what happened!"

  Estrella shrugged, if they wanted to know, well, she was okay with that. Wives were supposed to share after all.

  "Well it all started when I decided to try and live up to my heritage..."

  % % %

  Estrella watched the small gateway as she crouched behind the rocks. She knew it had opened a few hours ago, she'd been close enough to feel it. None of the demons had come out of it, however. They were very much concentrating on the main gateway, which was starting to enter its final phase before closing.

  No one had ever gone through a gateway, no lion that is. Humans were dragged through often enough, and of course none of them had ever come back.

  So no one knew what went on, on the other side. No one knew anything about the other side.

  And she intended to change that.

  She'd saved up enough favors, enough precious gems, enough gold, that she'd finally been able to bribe that faerie smith and enchanter to make her a collar that would render her invisible. It didn't last long, for every half-hour you were invisible, it needed two hours to recharge.

  But that would be fine, for today. She would go through that gateway, spend some time looking around, then come back when she was done. With the lack of activity around the small gates, she figured there wouldn't be much trouble, besides which she was armed with a faerie sword that her mother had spent hundreds of years teaching her how to use. She even had a faerie breastplate.

  Taking a deep breath, she rose up on her feet, checked her equipment one last time, and then triggering the necklace, she jogged over to the gateway and without hesitating she stepped through to the other side.

  And came face to face with a ridder.

  It attacked her almost immediately, which told her it could see her. Apparently the transit through the gateway had canceled the spell!

  She dodged and drawing her sword she parried its next thrust and quickly killed it. She'd fought enough demons that she wasn't concerned with a ridder, or the gnashers that tried to swarm her as it died.

  Though she had to be careful that she didn't let them overwhelm her. When the biskop that had been paired with the ridder finally came out to join the fight two things had happened. The first was that she'd killed almost all of the gnashers. The second was that she was no longer by the gate. In fact the biskop was now between her and the gateway.

  But she still wasn't worried. A biskop was a challenge, but she was rested and she was experienced.

  Twenty or so minutes later and she still hadn't managed to kill the bastard! But at least she'd gotten rid of the last few gnashers that had been sniping at her back as she fought. She was getting tired now; she'd been cut a number of times, mainly by those gnashers, but a couple of times by the biskop as well. At least he wasn't looking any better than she was. In fact he was looking a fair deal worse.

  When she finally did manage to kill him, she was surprised by the rush of power that she got from it! She'd never really noticed that before, though she'd been told that killing a lord did have some sort of effects associated with it. Not that she had any intentions of killing a lord, she might be good, but she wasn't that good.

  As she caught her breath she looked around and noticed they'd moved a good distance from the gateway as they fought. It was dark here, and everything was gray. Her best guess was that it was nighttime. The gateway itself was open at the top of a ramp with a stone ring around it.

  Obviously they had some control over it.

  Wait, that wasn't right. The gates opened at the helliges, which one it opened at, was random...

  She stopped and wondered how she knew that? Looking around her eyes fell onto the corpse of the biskop which had started to dissolve into that tarry sludge and she realized that when she'd killed Haconde, that she absorbed some of his knowledge, along with whatever that energy was which she'd gotten from him as well.

  Which explained how she knew his name now as well.

  She was debating if she should go back through the ring or go exploring when suddenly that decision was wrested from her hands as a force of demons on those demonic steeds or theirs came charging from the far side of the gateway. Touching her collar with a hand, she tried to turn it on, but apparently it was still recharging, as she didn't disappear. So rather than face a force that she had no chance to win against, she fled, hoping to leave the area before they saw her and gave chase.

  Several hours later, she was back at the gateway, well actually she was looking at it from a fair distance away. It was being guarded now by two biskops, three ridders, and a force of bonde with their associated råge. Estrella wasn't sure just how much time she had left but she wasn't about to waste any of it. Putting her hand to her collar she tried to activate it and nothing happened!

  Unfastening the clasp she took it off to examine it, and quickly saw the problem. During the fight, one of the blows that she thought she'd taken on her breastplate had instead caught the collar and severed it almost all the way through. It was barely hanging together as it was.

  Swearing, she put it back on so she wouldn't lose it, and started to weigh her options, which were looking to be less and less as time went on. She had to get through before the gate closed, but with all those guards there, she wasn't sure she could. So she watched.

  As she watched she realized that the guards were actually quite sloppy, they were just sitting around; none of the biskops were even by the gate. Yes, there were a lot of them, but if she could get close enough before they saw her, she could make a break for it, and fight her way through.

  Checking her gear and making sure everything was secure so it wouldn't give her away, she began to work her way closer to the gateway. She'd hunted a thousand times, she new patience, she knew how to remain unseen, she knew a hundred little tricks and she used each and every one of them as she made her way closer, and closer...

  It was a bonde that spied her and raised the alarm. She hadn't gotten as close as she'd wanted, but she'd gotten as close as she'd hoped for, and springing from cover she ran, hard, for the gateway. One of the ridders immediately moved to intercept her and whipping out her blade, she took its head off without even breaking stride, realizing suddenly that its name was Kiff as she dodged a råge and killed a bonde. They were trying to get between her and the gateway; they knew that was where she was headed, obviously.

  She dodged the next ridder, seeing the trap they were trying to set for her, to slow her down as the biskops both moved to get their before she could. One of them, she could tell, wouldn't be able to, he was too far away.

  But the other one, the other one would.

  There was nothing for it, she'd have to just try to bowl him over and bull on past, it was her only option!

  When she hit him, she was surprised that he didn't give an inch. Instead she bounced off of him, and his sword came around and opened a long gash along her right arm, forcing her to switch her sword to her left in order to be able to fight.

  She tried parrying, she feinted at his head, she even scored two hits to his body!

  But he wasn't moving.

  She could hear the sounds of the other biskop that was closing on her, along with a ridder and who knew how many råge and bonde. Making one last desperate attempt to get around him, she failed as he blocked her once more. She was out of options, if she stayed her, she would die. So she did the only thing she could.

  She ran.

  Running turned out harder than she'd thought it would be. She engaged a ridder and ran it though as she was struck from behind. Thankfully the back portion of her breastplate took most of it. But it still hurt and pushing the ridder off of her blade, she stumbled forward and ran.

  She dodged a dozen bonde, but still had to swing her blade at a dozen more as she forced her way by, as both biskops and the remaining ridder all gave chase.

  The wound on her arm was healing quickly; she'd have its use back any moment. Looking behind her, she was shocked to see just how close they were, and they were gaining! Sheathing her sword, her hands flew to the latches on the breastplate, as she popped it open and then pushed it over her head, dropping it after a momentary stumble. Shifting while wearing that would be painful, and there was no way she'd be able to run. Ripping the sheathed sword off of her belt, she stuck it in her mouth and shifted into her full lioness form so she could put on some real speed and leave her pursuers behind.

  She lost her pants when she shifted, but she didn't care, survival trumped modesty every time. Stretching her legs she started to put some real distance between her and her pursuers when there was suddenly a loud bell-like note. Turning her head, she saw that the gateway was quickly shrinking. In a moment it would be gone!

  Her sword clipped a tree then due to her inattention and she tumbled across the ground, dropping it. As she rolled to her feet she saw that the collar had broken through the rest of the way and fallen off as well. It was a choice and she made it in a moment, grabbing the collar in her mouth, she abandoned the sword and ran on. She'd paid a fortune for that collar, and maybe she could fix it. She could always kill somebody and take their sword.

  Paying more attention to the trees and the brush in front of her she ran hard until she'd lost all pursuit, and then for a while longer after that, just to be sure. When she finally stopped and started to pace to catch her breath, she noticed that it was still dark. Actually, it was now darker!

  But, but where was the light coming from?

  Looking around she saw no sun in the sky, just darkness, but still, there seemed to be a 'glow' to everything. But how could something that was black glow?

  And what did people eat here? And why wasn't she hungry? Shaking her head she looked around for a place to rest. She was tired. She'd get some sleep and think about what to do next after that.

  #

  She was stuck. No doubt about it, she was stuck. If she had just told someone what she was going to do, maybe they could have helped her get out. But she'd been too cocky, too sure of herself, and now she was paying the price. It was over a year since she'd come through, and she'd tried, oh how she'd tried! To get through a gate, any gate.

  The problem was, finding them. The demons had a system worked out. A system that alerted the leaders where the new gate had opened so they could send troops there. Once the main gateway had closed, they went back to using the other gates to attack and raid and gather food.

  So by the time she got there, there were just too many demons to try and go through. What sucked the most was her lion powers had dried up. It got worse and worse after the main gateway closed, and now? Now all she had were her normal lycan abilities. All those little extra things were gone.

  Not that she'd had much use for them here. But it was another reminder of her failure. She was stuck in the Onderwereld until the next gateway opened, and fortunately as well as unfortunately, she knew just how long away that was.

  Of course she'd been making good use of her time, she'd killed half a dozen biskops, over a dozen ridders and raseri, as well as some of the other demons like mindre. She'd lost count of the råge, bonde, and gnashers she'd killed. But she'd learned a lot of very important things from all of this and the most important was that when she killed a demon, she absorbed their being. Just as they ate the souls of the humans they killed she ate the souls of the demons.

  And she learned from them because of it. Most of what she learned she couldn't hold onto, but enough of it she could. So she learned that she didn't have to eat real food, because there wasn't any, there was only the souls of the devils and surprisingly that was more than enough to live on. She learned who the local king was and who the local lords were. She learned how the helliges that the gateways opened at worked.

  Best of all, she learned that they didn't know she was a lioness, because demons were asexual and all lions had manes. She didn't have a mane; therefore, she wasn't a lion. She was just some new type of demon that they didn't recognize.

  What she needed now, was a place to live. She had no intention of spending the next fifteen hundred years running around and sleeping in the forests! She wanted a bed. And a warm place to relax.

  Looking down the hill she saw a group of gnashers with a råge riding herd over them. Some gnashers grew into bigger things, like bonde or other demons. Some did not. The ones that didn't, sooner or later became food to the others, because that was how it worked. Only the gnashers ate food from the ground, and she wasn't a hundred percent sure on just what that food was.

 

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