Fire After Dark - Chapter One

She stood to the left and a foot back from the throne, her red wings like massive butterflies were still, as she was at rest. Bored, but at rest. The lesser faeries where squabbling among themselves. The throne was currently empty, and had been for some time. To pass the time she called a fire ball into being in her left palm. She watched the fire in her hand with a detached fascination. She started it spinning faster and faster, the colours in the fireball swirling and forming new patterns with each spin.

A throat cleared behind her, causing her to lose her grip on the fire. It shot out of her hand, skimming some of the underlings atop their heads before crashing into the far wall, at the other end of the throne room. She grimaced internally, and would have apologised except it was above her station to do so, and she would get reprimanded for doing so.

She slowly, in a controlled manner, brought both of her hands down to her hips and her swords that where there, in the on guard resting position. She refused to give him the satisfaction of looking at him. He may be the right hand, and the masters childhood friend, but he was still an ass, well both of the males were.

She stayed in that position, as first the right hand Lord, took his place of pride to the right and behind the throne, and took a stance similar to hers. Then the Master took his place first in front of his throne, before taking an elegant seat on his throne.

While all of this played out the underlings quietened and then rose when they realised the Master was with Lord. They remained standing even after Master had taken a seat. And they would stay that way until Master gave them permission to be at ease. After a while he gave that permission and normal activity resumed.

She cringed internally when she saw one of the pleasure faeries slink herself this way. She did not have a problem with pleasure faeries, but this one in particular just was not a pleasant faerie to be around. But it was common knowledge that she was favoured by Master for her services. But in the short time she had been Commander he had not bedded any but those he had to for power reasons.

The change in power was one of the reasons she was the left hand and called Commander, and the first female to ever hold this position. When the previous left hand had been slain, of which the details where still unclear, she had been promoted. Her full skill set had not been fully used and explored yet. And the promotion was still new enough that people still treated her how they used to. And she was still learning what she could and could not do, authority wise.

By this stage Carling the pleasure faerie had slithered her way up to the throne and was about to perch herself on the Masters knee. When the Lord stopped her abruptly with his sword in front of Master. Unsure of the situation, Commander mirrored Lord's actions.

"What is the meaning of this?" Carling demanded, as she took a step back.

"You forget yourself," Commander was prompt to answer, finally having an inking as to what was going on.

"I forget myself, you are the one that thinks she is better than she really is, standing there, behind the throne," Carling spat the words, seemingly to have forgotten that she stood before Master.

That is, until he straightened in his throne, his Lord and Commander stepping up, to be directly by his sides. There sword still forming an x guarding Master. Their postures on full alert. Unintentionally their movements where in sync.

"Be gone," Masters voice was firm and commanding. At first Carling smirked, because she thought he was talking to Commander. That is until the three of them stared at her, then her expression turned to shock, and then fake tears.

"You can't send me away, you want me," and she truly believed that.

The Lord snapped his fingers and a couple of the Masters Personal Guard came and took Carling away. Commander had a good idea where she was bound for, and in her opinion, even that place was too good for the female.

"At ease you two," Master said softly to the two of them, for they were still in guard position. After she sheathed her sword she did as she was instructed. Easing back into rest position she started scanning the crowd. She noticed her escaped fireball had scorched the back wall.

"I suppose it was inevitable," Master mused. It wasn't her place to ask questions, as much as she wondered what was inevitable.

"What's that?" Lord asked.

"Sending the sucker away, she had become... clingy of late," at these words, Commander let out an undignified snort, and could have kicked herself for it. "Something you find amusing?"

"Just that she is going to find life harder now that she can't use the position as your favoured fuck to get her what she wants, Master," she spoke without thinking and then bit the inside of her mouth to stop herself saying more.

"Explain!" this from Lord.

"Surely you know that since everyone knows that she is favoured, she get's special treatment. Not quite of guard status, but still special none the less," she scoffed.

“Well, this should have been brought to my attention sooner, as she is of no importance to Master and she should not have been receiving special treatment. Master I told you to stop using the same one repeatedly,” Lord rebuffed Master in a very informal sort of way.

“Yes, yes Lord, now stop before you scare the poor Commander, for your familiar behaviour,” Master said, and it sounded like he had a smile on his face. Her eyes would have boggled if she were not on duty.

“If she scares that easily, how is it that she got the job in the first place?” Lord scoffed.

"By skill?" Master suggested.

"Are you asking me?" Lord shot back.

"Plus she was the youngest Major in the last 1000 years," Master pointed out.

"She doesn't say much though does she?" Lord observed.

"That's because you are too busy talking for anyone else to get a word in," Commander drawled, before promptly closing her mouth again. And raised an eyebrow at a small commotion that was playing out in the room.

"Ouch, she bites," Lord drawled, Commander could hear the amusement in his voice.

"Only to bruise not draw blood," she said this with such a dry tone of voice that the two males would have to guess at her meaning, or if she was even joking. She thought she heard then inhale sharply at this. Which made her wonder if they were as unaffected by her as they projected?

"Master, do you want the Guards to deal with that?" Lord indicated the ruckus out in the room.

"Leave it for now," Master instructed.

"Give them long enough and they will knock each other out," Commander observed.

"For someone new, you sure do seem confident," Lord said.

"I may be new to the position of Commander, but I am not new to the Darklands, and those two are always fighting the other," she bit her lip after that, and swore to herself that she would not let this ingrate get to her.

As she had predicted the two that had been arguing knocked each other out, and they were dragged off by their friends. After that the rest of the night was uneventful. She did not have the easy banter with Master and Lord that they had with each other. So she remained mostly quiet, and Lord nor Master seemed inclined to make conversation with her.

She stood to attention when Master rose, and turned on her feet, leading the way out of the throne room. Master was in the middle, with Lord bringing up the rear. She let her wings flutter peacefully as they pleased, observing the going on's around them. She thought, but was not certain, that Master and Lord both checked her out as she walked.

The skirt of her uniform was loose panels that where only sewn at the waist, and they went to just below her buttocks. So there was plenty for the two males to look at, and maybe she did not use her magick to modestly keep her skirt in place. And they may wonder about if she had on any underwear.

Without being given instructions, she led the way to Masters suite of rooms, that Lord shared for the most part. Although Lord did have his own rooms, to the right of Masters, and she to the left. Masters personal guards where lined up three on either side of his doorway.

"All quiet?" she asked, as was required of her.

"All quiet Commander," the first guard on the left, directly by the doorway responded. She gave one nod of her head, before entering the room to give it a sweep before Master could enter. After a thorough inspection she made her way back to the door, holding it open she nodded to let Master know that it was safe to enter.

Once Master and Lord where in the main room, she closed the door behind her, bolting it locked as well as charming it. She took up her normal position leaning against the wall, with Master in sight. Then she remembered that she would be training with her brothers after she was dismissed for the night, well morning. So she got her sharpening stone out, and started sharpening her knives one at a time.

Once she was done with the knives and her two swords, she snapped her fingers to clean up her mess. Once she was done with that she started to juggle three balls of fire, a contented smile on her face, fire made her happy. Then she combined them to make one ball, this one she held in her hand and watched the different patterns form and swirl.

While she was playing with her fire, she felt the male’s eyes on her. She ignored them, because really, she was here to protect Master, not to worry whether they wanted her or not. But all the same, since becoming the Commander she had done an extra workout a day. Not including the training she did with her brothers when she caught up with them. She wanted to look the best that she could, plus guarding Master was a very important job.

With a twirl of her hand she retracted her fire. Once again she leaned back against the wall. She may look as if she was not doing much, but she was actively listening for any possible danger or problems.

“Where you expecting company?” she asked, when she felt a disturbance at the front door.

“Send them away, deal with it if it is urgent,” Master waved her off. With a nod she strolled out of the room to answer the door before one of the guards knocked on it. She arched a brow at the faerie that was there.

“How did you get here?” she demanded.

“What do you mean how did I get here?” Carling challenged back.

Commander snapped her fingers. “Remove her, bar her admittance in future. Master has already given this order, if this happens again punishment will be dealt out.”

With that said she shut the door and headed back to Masters main room. The males had been deep in discussion, but when they saw her they stopped talking. This was not unusual. She did notice that they had changed to their faerie forms, this was the first time that they had since she had become Commander. She had of course seen them from a distance in their natural forms, but up close. Well they were simply magnificent.

Master had beautiful blue, aqua and white wings, like hers they were similar to a butterfly's. The colours of his wings were also present in his hair, which made her wonder about his other hair, that she had not seen, for all that faeries where not modest. She noted that he had a hint of fang when he smiled at Lord.

Lord on the other hand was dark, his predominated colour was black, with streaks of red and orange, and hints of white. What surprised her, and not necessary in a bad way, was that he had a tail. His skin was black too, and more like hide than human skin, it was thicker, his veins where red and orange. He too had fangs, and his eyes where black instead of white, with red pupils and orange irises.

She would not mind at all if these two fine looking faeries happened to accidently lose their clothing. Even if Lord was an arse, it came with his position as Masters right hand and immediate protection. She got wet every time they flexed their muscles, and now that they were in their true forms, she had to use a spell so the moisture would not run down her legs. Since she was in a skirt with no underwear, well she never wore a bra because of her wings, and her bodice was like a corset, but breathable.

“Commander,” Master said after a while and the males having another quiet conversation.

“Yes Master?” she straightened from the wall.

“You may go off duty now, Lord and the guards will be with me,” Master commanded.

“As you like Master,” she bowed before departing. She nodded to the few guards that she knew from her previous position in the Guardians Force.

Rather than going to her quarters, she decided that she would go and see one of her regular bed mates, since the males had made her all wet. Once she had taken care of her needs, she would prepare for the next day.